Does RNC Have 2,200 Pages Oppo Research On Clinton And Obama?

How dirty does the upcoming 2008 campaign promise to be? The focus has been on what the GOP might try to do to Democratic Senator Barack Obama if he gets the Democratic presidential nomination. But MSNBC’s David Shuster contends that the Republicans also have a treasure chest of goodies ready to use against Senator Hillary Clinton if she heads the ticket:

Two Republican officials at the Republican National Committee who are involved in “opposition research efforts” in preparation for the general election say the RNC’s oppo research dossier on Sen. Clinton runs more than 1,200 pages in length.

FYI: In some newsrooms two sources (not named in the story but revealed to editors) are enough to confirm a story. Some editors insist on three if it’s a huge development. MORE:

According to these officials, the book includes “previously undisclosed information about Hillary Clinton’s connections to the Whitewater scandal, travel office firings, and Democratic fundraising efforts.” Given that the book has not been shared with us, we’ve been unable to confirm this assertion. Furthermore, the Republican officials would not describe the nature of the “new information.”

However, I was not directed away from a front-page story in today’s Washington Times about memos/documents from the estate of Sam Dash, Ken Starr’s ethics adviser during the early stages of the Whitewater investigation. The Dash Whitewater memos and documents have been turned over to the Library of Congress (where they were presumably available to the Washington Times reporter/researcher). The documents reportedly show that prosecutors concluded that Hillary Clinton concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for the Savings and Loan at the heart of the Whitewater investigation. The allegation that she concealed and misled is not new, and was sourced by reporters who covered the investigation in the 1990s (including me) to “attorneys close to Starr” or “sources in the office of the independent counsel.

The documents from Dash’s estate, however, mark the first available “documentary evidence” that Ken Starr’s office drafted a criminal indictment of Senator Clinton, also known as a “pros memo” and debated verbally and through written memos whether Clinton should actually face charges.

According to Shuster, they decided not to go after Clinton because they had doubts about the strength of their evidence and their ability to convict a first lady.

But such memos, documents, and etc. about the internal debate in the office of the independent counsel could be a gold mine for negative ads, etc.

So this means Obama is pristine and won’t face negative campaigning that will fill hours of air time for Sean and Rush et al? Hardly.

By the way, to put the RNC’s opposition research effort into context, I’m told the dossier on Senator Obama is 1,000 pages in length and that Republican researchers spent a few weeks in Chicago recently collecting information on Obama’s ties to the Weather Underground” and separately to Tony Rezko (who is currently on trial for federal corruption charges).

The difference here is: Clinton’s campaign has been saying she is totally vetted and that there is nothing new that can come out or be used against her. If there are some alleged 1,200 pages to play with, it’s unlikely that she’d face a free issue-oriented path to the White House.

Prediction: The formidable slime/distraction machine will run…no matter who is the Democratic nominee.