Is the Shine Wearing Off the Obama Apple?
by Josh Gerstein
Thu, 22 Mar 2007 at 1:04 AM
updated Thu, 22 Mar 2007 at 1:08 AM
It turns out tonight that YouTube video painting Senator Clinton as the Big Brother of the Democratic Party was produced by an employee of a technical firm contracted with Senator Obama's campaign. The Huffington Post broke the story. The AP has it here.
The creator, Phil de Vellis, has been fired, though I doubt he'll be unemployed for long. The Obama campaign says they did not authorize the ad, which seems certain to be true. After all, Mr. Obama has vowed to run a different kind of campaign, one which rejects slash-and-burn politics.
The problem for the newcomer from Illinois here is that the attack ad comes just a few weeks after the bruising broadside against the Clintons from another of Mr. Obama's backers, David Geffen. The Obama camp said they didn't put Mr. Geffen up to that either, but they did escalate the fight after Mrs. Clinton's people lashed back.
If a pattern develops where Mr. Obama's supporters do the dirty work, while leaving him plausible deniability, the senator's pledge to reject politics-as-usual will look less and less like a heartfelt commitment and more and more like gimlet-eyed strategy.
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