The comments were linked to the Drudge Report, and the Obama campaign moved to set up the early-afternoon conference call with Axelrod and Schakowsky. Axelrod pulled no punches.
The senior adviser said that the Clinton campaign has engaged in an “insidious pattern” of trotting out surrogates and campaign supporters who make “offensive” comments. He added that her camp doesn’t go far enough in reprimanding the surrogates or condemning the remarks at issue.
“When you wink and nod at offensive statements, you’re really sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes,” Axelrod said.
Burton told The Hill Tuesday that the effort just seems “ramped up by the distortions coming from the Clinton campaign.”
“Our view is that we’re going to tell the truth about Sen. Obama’s record, and if we need to, we’re going to tell the truth about hers,” Burton said.
Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s spokesman, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Obama campaign underwent a similar controversy last week when a senior adviser called Clinton “a monster” in an interview. The adviser, Samantha Power, resigned within hours of the publication of the interview.
“We’ve been very firm in dealing with that,” Axelrod said.
Democratic strategist Steve Murphy, a former adviser to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign, said Tuesday that the Obama campaign has shown in recent days that “they aren’t allowing any of her attacks to go unanswered.”
“The Obama campaign definitely is responding to every Clinton campaign attack now, [and] the question is whether the Obama folks will initiate any counter-attacks on a different subject,” Murphy said in an e-mail.
Campaigns face a difficult decision when deciding whether to respond to an opponent’s attack. Acknowledging the criticism can sometimes backfire, giving a small spark the oxygen to cause a five-alarm media fire.
But the decision not to respond can haunt a losing candidate for days, months or years.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic nominee, repeatedly talks of the mistake his campaign made in not responding immediately to ads run by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
After Ohio and Texas, the Obama campaign has made it clear that nothing from the Clinton campaign will pass without a response and, probably, a conference call.
The Clinton campaign disputed the Obama camp’s characterization of its response in an e-mail from campaign manager Maggie Williams, saying that “we reject these false, personal and politically calculated attacks on the eve of a primary.”
Williams included a quote from Clinton earlier in the day: “I do not agree with that and you know it’s regrettable that any of our supporters on both sides say things that veer off into the personal. We ought to keep this focused on the issues. That’s what this campaign should be about.”
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