The fallout from comments made by Hollywood mogul David Geffen, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, that appeared in Wednesday's Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times dominates the political news today, with two broadcast networks and several major newspapers reporting on the back-and-forth between the Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigns. The story eclipsed coverage of a forum for Democratic candidates in Nevada that was attended by eight candidates, with only Obama absent. ABC World News said that though "there are more than 10 months to go until we even get to the presidential election year," Clinton and Obama "were sniping at one another, as if the campaign were in midstream." ABC News said that in the Dowd column, Geffen "lashed out at both Clintons, saying, 'Everybody in politics lies. But they do it with such ease, it's troubling.' Geffen also alluded to the former 'president's personal life, calling him 'a reckless guy,' and insinuating he has not changed since the Monica Lewinsky days. ... Geffen has no official role with the Obama campaign. But almost immediately the Clinton campaign went after Obama, saying he was hypocritical for tolerating Geffen's comments, given Obama's pitch against negative campaigning." The CBS Evening News said that Clinton and Obama "are trading jabs in their first public spat" and added that, despite the early date, "the campaigns of the two most famous Democrats were already hissing at each other."
The Washington Post headlines its front-page report "Clinton, Obama Camps' Feud Is Out In The Open," and leads by saying "an increasingly acrimonious competition" between Clinton and Obama "to enlist the Democratic Party's leading fundraisers and operatives burst into the open yesterday, overshadowing what was billed as the presidential campaign's first gathering of candidates in Nevada." On its front page, the New York Times calls it a "remarkably caustic exchange between the Clinton and Obama campaigns that highlighted the sensitivity in the Clinton camp to Mr. Obama's rapid rise as a rival and his positioning as a fresh face unburdened by the baggage borne by Mrs. Clinton." The AP said the Clinton and Obama camps "traded accusations of nasty politics" over the Geffen comments. While the Clinton campaign "demanded that Obama denounce comments made by the DreamWorks movie studio founder," Obama, campaigning in Iowa, refused, saying, "It's not clear to me why I'd be apologizing for someone else's remark." The Clinton camp "seemed also to be sending a warning to mudslinging critics that they would be dealt with fiercely." The Wall Street Journal writes that an "email fusillade" yesterday "left many Democrats shaking their heads that party infighting -- like everything else about the 2008 presidential campaign -- is starting so soon, nearly a year before the first nominating votes." The Chicago Tribune notes that the Clinton camp was "perhaps stung by Obama's successful incursion into Hollywood, which at one time was unchallenged Clinton country," and "hit back hard, saying Geffen's comments contrasted poorly with the Illinois senator's self-promotion as a new breed of politician, unifying and optimistic."
Clinton campaign communications director Howard Wolfson took the gloves off last night on MSNBC's Hardball, saying, "Our expectation was that Sen. Obama, who was running a campaign premised on changing our politics, who has decried the politics of slash and burn, would denounce the comments, say that these comments don't represent his thinking or his campaign. We were, frankly, surprised that he didn't do that. It makes you wonder whether or not he agrees with them. It's a little ironic that the candidate on one day would say, 'I want to change America. I want to change politics. I want to lift us up. I want to stop the politics of slash and burn,' while at the same time his leading supporter in California is attacking [President Clinton] and Sen. Clinton in very personal terms."
While there is little analysis out this morning on who got the best of the exchange, two different interpretations are emerging. Lee Miringoff , director of the nonpartisan Marist Institute for Public Opinion, told the Boston Globe, "If you're the Clintons, people know there's controversy. Obama so far has not been in that place. To get him to have to throw a few punches makes him look like a politician. Now they've got him more where they want him. They don't want him above the fray; they want him duking it out." In contrast, in her column for Bloomberg, Margaret Carlson writes, "There's a lot of time left in campaign '08 for a list of worst moments, but it may be hard to beat" Sen. Clinton's "decision to engage" Obama "in a fierce battle over who's a better friend of" Geffen, whose "comments would be lining the kitty-litter box by now if the Clinton campaign hadn't decided to make a federal case out of them."
