Blue Spot

Hillary Clinton's slur unearthed to hurt Obama | World news | The Guardian

The Democrats' acrimonious primary battle came back to haunt Hillary Clinton yesterday, a day before she sets off on her first solo campaign swing for Barack Obama, with John McCain using footage of her attacking the Democratic candidate in a new campaign ad.

The ad, which was released on the internet, features a number of Democratic leaders - including Obama - offering praise for McCain. But only Clinton, who is the closing speaker, goes so far as to take a jab at Obama, in footage culled from one of her primary rallies.

The ad surfaced a day before Clinton is to step in as Obama's chief cheerleader with a campaign appearance in Nevada today. She is to travel to the pivotal state of Florida next week.

The appearances are intended to keep up the momentum while Obama is on holiday in Hawaii.

In the new ad released by the Republicans, Clinton is shown saying: "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House and Senator Obama has a speech that he gave in 2002."

The damaging footage is the realisation of Democratic fears at the height of the contest that Clinton's no-holds-barred attacks on Obama, with repeated questioning of his experience and readiness to serve in the White House, would provide ammunition to the Republicans during the presidential contest.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign said yesterday: "Hillary Clinton was making a strong and valid argument for why John McCain will be the next president."

"In this case, we couldn't have said it better ourselves," Tucker Bounds said in an email to the Guardian. Bounds said the ad would not be released on television, allowing the McCain campaign to capitalise on Clinton's now embarrassing comments at relatively little expense.

I think McCain should tread very lightly here. After all, it shouldn't be very hard for anybody to "unearth" videos of Republicans dissing him. Oh, here's one below, and from a potential running mate. How embarrassing:

Labels: Hillary, McCain, Romney