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October 16, 2008 12:15:44 AM CDT

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Clinton Camp: How Low Can She Go?

Posted Feb 20, 08 12:43 PM CST in Politics 

(Newser) – With Hillary Clinton’s campaign down to its last moves, her advisers are duking it out over how negative the candidate should go, MSNBC reports. Pollster Mark Penn wants to go ahead full throttle, while communications director Howard Wolfson and ad guru Mandy Grunwald are concerned that Hillary might damage her future—including a potential White House run in 2012. John Heilemann notes in New York that the lopsided defeat in Wisconsin can be interpreted as a rejection of the negative messages she deployed there.

"Another way to see things is that the Clintonites started hammering too late and too soft," he writes. "The latter is the view in Clintonland." The Times of London’s Gerard Baker agrees, saying it's time for Obama's team to get out the hazmat suits. But the extra slime may not matter much anyway, MSNBC’s Domenico Montanaro concludes: “She no longer controls her own destiny, but now has to hope for an unforced error by Obama.”

Sources: MSNBC, Times (UK), New York

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Howard Wolfson   (Getty Images)
Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., speaks during a campaign stop at Hunter College Auditorium in New York, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)   (Associated Press)
INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- Mark Penn, left, chats with Democratic Leadership Conference founder and CEO Al From before Penn's presentation at the 2001 DLC National Conversation in Indianapolis, Indiana on Tu   (KRT Photos)
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Barack Obama  • Hillary Clinton  • Democratic nomination  • negative campaigning  • Wisconsin  • Mark Penn  • Howard Wolfson


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