Clinton gets ugly (well, moreso, than usual)

So the second prettiest woman in the Democrat field of presidential candidates has begun to fall behind a bit, and out come the ugly sticks (Washington Post, Anne Komblut);

With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character, challenging his integrity and forecasting a sharp debate over those subjects in the days ahead.

Clinton has hammered Obama recently over his health-care proposal, arguing that he is misleading voters because it omits millions of people and would not lower costs. But Sunday, in a dramatic shift, she made it clear that her goal is to challenge Obama not just on policy but also on one of his strongest selling points: his reputation for honesty.

“There’s a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we’re willing to fight for,” Clinton told reporters here. She said voters in Iowa will have a choice “between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who’s walked the walk.”

Asked directly whether she intended to raise questions about Obama’s character, she replied: “It’s beginning to look a lot like that.”

So, it looks like Robert Novak’s predictions back in mid-November are coming to pass, despite Clinton denials to the contrary;

Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s now discarded plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

But Clinton’s cohorts denied it;

Clinton’s camp swung back, denying they were spreading rumors about Obama or that they planted information with Novak, wondering why Obama would want to fall into a “Republican trap” to “pit Democrats against Democrats.”

So it looks like Novak does know what he’s talking about – let’s see what surfaces from non-Clinton sources in the next few weeks, since the Clinton campaign dosen’t want to get any splash back on their candidate.

Category: Politics