Dems fret over warring words

WASHINGTON  Democrats are increasingly worried about their chances for victory in November after a series of attacks by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on rival Sen. Barack Obama's leadership, credibility, readiness as commander in chief and, now, his ability to win the White House.

The latest twist came Thursday on a conference call with reporters about Pennsylvania, where polls give Clinton a double-digit lead. Chief Clinton strategist and pollster Mark Penn said the April 22 primary will show that "Hillary is ready to win and that Sen. Obama really can't win the general election."

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Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, who was on the call, said later that the context was clear: "If you don't compete in Pennsylvania, you can't win a general election."

Clinton is making the case that she's more electable because she has won primaries in big states. Obama has won twice as many contests, leads in the delegate count and does as well as or better than Clinton against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in most polls.

"It cannot inspire too much confidence in the Clinton campaign when their pollster ignores both polls and math by making comments that are so divorced from reality," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Democratic pollster Peter Hart said Penn's assertion is "factually inaccurate" and underscores the potential for Democrats "to take what is a golden year and to turn it into dust."

Wolfson said the escalation of attacks is not one-sided. He noted that Obama aides in recent days have called Clinton, among other things, "a monster" and "the most secretive politician in America."

Penn's comments about Pennsylvania — a state where the governor, Clinton ally Ed Rendell, has predicted that Obama will have trouble winning the support of white voters — come as the Democrats already are on edge over race and gender politics.

"I think all Democrats are concerned," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "If people aren't careful about how they campaign, there's definitely a danger."

Clinton fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro, the Democrats' 1984 vice presidential nominee and the first woman on a major-party ticket, left her campaign post Wednesday after saying Obama wouldn't be a leading candidate if he were white or a woman.

"There's a pattern of identifying his race," said Ofield Dukes, a public relations consultant who attended a meeting of black newspaper publishers here this week. He said the Clinton campaign is trying to make white voters "see him more as a black candidate than as a person who has a message and a vision."

There's also resentment among Clinton loyalists. Irene Natividad, a past president of the National Women's Political Caucus, said she has "anger boiling over" because Obama's critics take more heat than Clinton's.

Some Democrats suggest Clinton's tactics have already sabotaged one way to reconcile the two camps. "Take it from me, that won't be the ticket," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday about Clinton and Obama in any configuration. Clinton "has fairly ruled that out by proclaiming that Sen. McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama," she told New England Cable Network earlier in the week.

Obama and Clinton have agreed to face off in an ABC debate April 16 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Obama also has agreed to a CBS debate April 19 in North Carolina, which has a May 6 primary, but Clinton has not said whether she'll attend.

Contributing: Mark Memmott

Enlarge By Win McNamee, Getty Images Mark Penn, chief strategist for Hillary Clinton, is seen speaking to reporters in this January file photo in Manchester, N.H. Penn told reporters Tuesday that Barack Obama 'really can't win the general election.'

The rhetoric in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has heated up as the campaign has rolled on without any resolution. Some Democrats worry about the impact of the repeated attacks.



Reuters