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WHY OBAMA? #11b
Clinton Campaign Staff: Howard Wolfson

I have the best staff in the country, and I have total and complete confidence in them. -Hillary Clinton, 12 Dec '07

In many ways, Mr. Wolfson's bare-knuckle brand of politics is reminiscent of the tactics of Karl Rove... a man whose skills Mr. Wolfson admits to admiring. While other Democrats tend to run campaigns that largely focus on issues, Mr. Wolfson is more than willing to make an opponent's character the central theme of a race.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Wolfson's style has created bad blood. Robert H. Ryan, a longtime Republican consultant who advised Mr. Spencer, complained in a recent interview that Mr. Wolfson's relentless personal jabs contributed to a climate that made it impossible to debate any issues of substance.

"It was a little over the edge," Mr. Ryan recalled. "Every time we sent out a statement, he would start in. And the press would eat it up. He would just say, 'This is another Spencer rant.' That was his response no matter what the issue was."

Matthews: Hillary Clinton in that debate... Didn't she say that Obama was naive on foreign policy?

Wolfson: She didn't say that during the debate. She said that after the debate.

Matthews: How would you describe [Sen. Clinton's] position in voting to authorize the war in Iraq believing we weren't going to war, that Bush really didn't intend to go to war. Was that naive?

Wolfson: Look, she's taken responsibility for the vote. She's been asked about this...

Mathews: Wouldn't you call that naive to believe...

Wolfson: No...

Matthews: ...that we're not going to war when everybody thought we were going to war? I thought we were going to war.

Wolfson: I guess 80 percent of the country was naive then.

Matthews: They didn't think Bush would take us to war?

Wolfson: I think people were, believed George Bush was going to do what he said he was going to do, which was to try diplomacy. And he didn't.

Matthews: Anybody who didn't think we were going to war, in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, wasn't paying attention.

Dick Morris (former consultant to Bill Clinton):
Hillary and Wolfson are a match made in heaven. After decades of being Bill Clinton's designated attack dog, Hillary needed one of her own. And she picked a natural in Howard Wolfson. She's the good cop to his bad cop. His Darth Vadar, unsmiling countenance sends chills down the spines of the American public. But his glare complements Hillary's grin and makes it unnecessary for the former First Lady to bare her own fangs, except to smile.

Howard Wolfson is a partner at Glover Park Group
NewsCorp's Phony "Grassroots" Org

"The Glover Park Group is admitting for the first time that it created, organized and directed the activities of the Don't Count Us Out organization at the behest of News Corp. Don't Count Us Out has always maintained that it was an independent group of community activists. However, this admission, which is found on Glover Park's own website as a "case study" to attract more clients, clearly shows that it was always acting to advance the corporate interests of News Corp. and its TV stations.

SOURCES:

Creating a Clinton Strategy With an Instinct for the Kill -NY TIMES, 13 Nov 2006.

Unspinning Howard Wolfson -Pollster.com, 27 Jul 07.
Video

Hillary's Strategy in Attacking Obama -Dick Morris, Vote.com, 22 Feb 07.

"Don't Count Us Out" -- NewsCorp's Phony "Grassroots" Org -Newshounds, 28 Apr 2005.


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