Bill Clinton Accuses Press Of Helping Create Obama “Fantasy”

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: when the history of Senator Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign is written, it will be said that the biggest mistake was letting her husband Bill retake center stage. Now he’s seemingly fanning the flames of growing tensions between the Clinton camp and the press.

This is not the sign of a campaign that is on the ascent or of a campaign that has thought-through statements made on its behalf:

On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, former President Bill Clinton criticized the media for not pressing Barack Obama more fully on Iraq, and accused the Illinois senator of shifting his position to reflect changing attitudes on the war.

“It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, ‘Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war,” Clinton said at a campaign stop in Hanover, New Hampshire.

“And you took that speech you’re now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since.”

He added, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

Some campaigns switch into crisis mode.

Some campaigns slip into offensive mode.

The Clinton campaign has seemed to slip into victim mode.

The press has indeed piled-on Hillary Clinton — but they will usually do that when a candidate stumbles. Each news outlet looks at what the other is doing and tries to match it or do a better job with a new twist. It’s nothing insidious; it’s the way the news business works.

It’s a shocking development, but the Clinton campaign is increasingly resembling a Dr. Phil program with a little Jerry Springer mixed in. It’s shocking because, for politicos of both parties, the Clinton camp has remained the gold standard for political campaigns in terms of professionalism, organization and effectiveness.

Now what do you see?

Hillary Clinton finds it so hard — and tears up (an event greatly exaggerated by the mainstream and new media). And Bill Clinton sucking up most of the oxygen and media attention that his wife DESPERATELY needs, to turn the campaign into centering on how his wife is being treated and how much he clearly dislikes Barack Obama. It is now literally not a matter of Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama but Hillary and Bill Clinton against Barack Obama.

The New York Times:

It’s been a tough few weeks for the Clinton campaign, as the realization sunk in that her lead had slipped away around here. It feels like the tightly spun machine has come a bit unwound.

We’re not sure which episode from yesterday to highlight first, but we’ll start with one that we haven’t posted yet on The Caucus. And that’s the outpouring of anger and insults by former President Bill Clinton in talking about his wife’s chief rival, Senator Barack Obama, while at Dartmouth in the late afternoon.

He literally shocked his audience, by criticizing Mr. Obama and his campaign, pointing his finger and raising his already hoarse voice. In response to a question about the Clinton camp’s pollster Mark Penn wrongly insisting initially that Mr. Obama had gotten no “bounce’’ out of Iowa, Mr. Clinton began by acknowledging that Mr. Penn had been wrong. Then he fired away, in a mocking tone:

“But since you raised the judgment issue let’s go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. It doesn’t matter that ‘I’ started running for president less than a year after ‘I’ got to the senate after the Illinois senate. ‘I’ am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and ‘I’ am the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning – always always always.”

How do the Clintons expect Obama voters, who love the guy, to eventually come over to their camp if they beat back the challenge? Their war is now being waged on the personal front.

Seemingly not to be outdone by her husband in undercutting the image of The Clintons, Hillary Clinton chimed in, too:

It feels like part of the thematic message the campaign was putting out. Mrs. Clinton saying there were talkers and doers, to her having to walk back comments she made about Martin Luther King Jr.’s impact on civil rights legislation that literally diminished his historic role– (oh yeah, he was a great speaker but it actually takes a president to get things done). Then of course, her getting all misty-eyed much earlier yesterday as she talked about how committed she was to the campaign and to events.

The problem with these kinds of statements is it turns the campaign away from substantive issues and into a personal soap opera. And the personalization of American politics has not always reaped dividends for voters.

Mr. Obama was asked about this outburst by Mr. Clinton earlier today. Courtesy of Jeff Zeleny, here’s the reply: “I understand they’re frustrated right now. I suspect that they’ll both try to get back on track in terms of the strategy for them to do better than they feel they’re doing right now.”

But, in fact, it could get WORSE. The Huffington Post’s Thomas B. Edsall reports that the Clinton campaign is pondering going negative and doing it in the traditional political deniability mode by using Swift-Boat-like groups:

A panicked and cash-short Clinton campaign is seriously considering giving up on the Nevada caucuses and on the South Carolina primary in order to regroup and to save resources for the massive 19-state mega-primary on February 5.

At the same time, some top independent expenditure groups supporting Clinton have been exploring the creation of an anti-Obama “527 committee” that would take unlimited contributions from a few of Clinton’s super-rich backers and from a handful of unions to finance television ads and direct mail designed to tarnish the Illinois Senator’s image.

The Clinton campaign has raised over $100 million, but has “only” $15 to $20 million left. It faces donor reluctance to give more in the face of the Iowa defeat and the prospect of a second loss in New Hampshire today. Even worse, the campaign fears defections among those fundraisers who want to be with a winner and who might be easily persuaded to support Barack Obama.

While the amount of money Clinton has would seem to be more than enough by past standards, the cost of competing in the February 5 states — including New York, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Arizona – is unprecedented in the history of American primaries. She will face, in turn, an extremely well-funded Obama campaign, whose cash register right now doesn’t stop ringing as donations are coming in over the Internet, by mail and in checks handed over in person.

Not signs of a campaign on the ascent — or a campaign that will have an easy time getting its party together if it triumphs.

FOOTNOTE: Since the issue keeps coming up in angry emails, I defended Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings. But we call them here as we see them — and this is how we see it. And, I suspect, a lot of other independent voters are reacting the same way.