Obama’s team think their man and Bill Clinton can reunite the party
An assassination remark is the latest twist to sour relations between the two rivals
By Sarah Baxter in Washington
Barack Obama, the probable Democratic presidential nominee, wants Bill Clinton to help him heal the deep party rifts created by his wife Hillary’s divisive campaign – culminating in her dramatic claim this weekend that the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy was a reason not to be pushed out of the race.
The tension between Hillary Clinton and Obama intensified after she told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, which holds the last primary contest in 10 days’ time: “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.”
She quickly apologised, ashen-faced, for a comment which appeared dangerously close to wishful thinking about Obama, but the damage was done.
Senior officials on Obama’s campaign believe Bill Clinton has the unique status and political gifts to reunite the party after such gaffes. They expressed confidence that the former president would rise above the perceived slights and grudges of a hard-fought campaign and work flat out for an Obama victory in November’s presidential election.
“If anybody can put their arms around the party and say we need to be together, it is Bill Clinton,” a senior Obama aide said.
“He’s brilliant, he has got heart and he cares deeply about the country. It’s tricky because of his position as Hillary’s spouse, but his involvement is very important to us.
“Bill Clinton will give permission to Hillary supporters to come into our camp and become one party. He is critical to this effort.”
Hillary, 60, claimed that her remark about the assassination had arisen because the “Kennedys have been much on my mind” after Senator Edward Kennedy, Robert’s younger brother, was diagnosed with a brain tumour last week.
She insisted she was referring to the timing of his assassination in June, when he was still a presidential candidate, rather than his killing, to make the point that there was nothing unusual about her determination to take this year’s race for the nomination into the summer.
However, while she expressed regret for “referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation”, she did not apologise to Obama, who has been receiving secret security protection for the past year after death threats.
“We have seen an x-ray of a very dark soul,” wrote Michael Goodwin, a New York Daily News columnist. “One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?”
The outburst joins “Sniper-gate” – Hillary’s imaginary landing under fire in war-torn Bosnia – as one of the most memorable mistakes of a historic fight to the finish between two remarkably evenly matched candidates.
With just three contests to go – in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota in early June – Obama, 46, is ahead of Clinton by 158 pledged delegates after winning the most states.
His lead is insurmountable unless superdelegates – the party leaders who will determine the outcome of the vote at the Democratic National Convention in August – break in her favour.
After the Kennedy gaffe, however, the implausible has become the unthinkable.
It is a delicate matter to bring Bill Clinton on board. The former president believes that Obama should offer his wife the vice-presidential slot as a mark of respect after she proved her electoral strength in the big must-win states for Democrats, but her latest error is widely perceived to have squandered what little chance she had.
“It would be hard to take the country in a new direction with the Clintons in the White House,” a source in the Obama campaign said. “They bring controversy.”
Discreet merger talks between key campaign staff and leading fundraisers in both camps are already under way. But the process of healing is fraught with friction after accusations of sexism, racism and other insults.
Bill Clinton has been stung by accusations that he played the “race card” by referring to Obama’s story as a “fairy-tale” and comparing his early success in South Carolina with that of the Rev Jesse Jackson, the failed black presidential candidate, in the 1980s.
Nevertheless, friends said they expected the former president to campaign hard for Obama once the nomination is settled.
4 responses so far ↓
jamie // May 25, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Do you know what type of hand sign Obama is doing here? Thanks.
pjwalker911 // May 26, 2008 at 12:23 am
I’m sure it’s the same “hook’em horns” of the Bush family, Bill Clinton, Prince William, Silvio Berlusconi, Prince Abdullah, Anton Lavey, heavy metal bands, Miley Cyrus and Ron Paul.
Otherwise known as il cornuto, diablo sign, devil hand, sign of satan etc.
Anyone in elite circles cannot possibly be ignorant of the real meaning of it, or would risk someone seeing it if they didn’t actually mean it as a bold communication with their fellow satanic friends. It is a declaration of their true loyalty.
Jamie // May 26, 2008 at 4:29 am
Thanks, I’ve just never seen it as so calculated and unnatural (as if the hook em horns is natural) with the three fingers coming to a point. You would think someone in the media would ask him what this gesture, which is obviously a hand signal, means.
pjwalker911 // May 26, 2008 at 6:51 am
The media is controlled by the same elite who controls the elections which is one reason why the people live in a make-believe fantasy world of illusion. The elite are psychopaths. A psychopath has no real conscience, has absolutely no qualms about telling really big whopper lies, gravitates towards power where he can get nice perks and usually has the complusive need to show a sign of his real identity in public. But since the general public is so dumbed down, the elite know they can get away with it and nobody will ever dare question it including and especially the media. These emperors have no clothes, but the people dare not admit it to themselves. They are too corrupt and too scared to face the truth and hate anyone who gets out of line and tells it like it is. That is the way it is, for the time being anyway.