NYT: May 24, 2008
On the Road: Clinton’s Very Bad Day
By Katharine Q. Seelye
Friday might have been one of the worst days of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political career. Her campaign, as everyone knows, was already struggling. But on Friday, she made a reference to Bobby Kennedy’s assassination — a terrible choice of phrase in a presidential campaign that features an African-American candidate. Opponents seized on it, and even if they misconstrued it, she may have reduced further her seemingly slim chances of capturing the nomination. We had a front-row seat to this very strange day, and we want to describe the whole thing for you because it says a lot about the state of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, about the media and about politics in the Internet age....
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Mrs. Clinton arrived from the (Sioux Falls Argus Leader) in the midst of this, and began addressing a couple of hundred people who were seated adjacent to us, in the fresh produce section. Then our cell phones and Blackberries went off. On the other end were editors who had seen a Drudge Report link to a New York Post item online. The Post was not with the traveling press — and apparently had a decent Internet connection. The initial N.Y. Post item read this way: “She is still in the presidential race, she said today, because historically, it makes no sense to quit, and added that, ‘Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June,’ making an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama.”
Mrs. Clinton did not make that comparison. Here’s the video and here’s the transcript from the paper’s Web site, though it is not complete....
(NOTE: Video and transcript at link.)
She was referencing the assassination as a familiar timeline benchmark that might remind listeners that Mr. Kennedy was campaigning in June. (Her references were not quite right, since those campaigns began much later than this one, but that’s another story.) At the same time, she used an eye-popping word in the context of a presidential campaign with a black candidate....
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As the news whipped around the Web and on cable television. furious comments from readers started piling up on Web sites (including our own). Many were appalled that Mrs. Clinton had uttered the word assassination, just a few short days before its anniversary. Some said the furor was unfair because her point was clearly that other campaigns had gone into June....
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The Argus Leader issued a statement saying: “The context of the question and answer with Sen. Clinton was whether her continued candidacy jeopardized party unity this close to the Democratic convention. Her reference to Mr. Kennedy’s assassination appeared to focus on the timeline of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.” And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, told The Times that he did not take offense at the comment, and he soon issued a statement to that effect. But the damage was done. The episode appeared on all the network newscasts and stayed alive in the media. Keith Olbermann, granted no friend of Senator Clinton’s, went on a tirade about everything he considers her mistakes in this campaign. It’s, without further comment, tough beyond measure. (Update: On Saturday morning, the Obama campaign also sent reporters a transcript of this commentary.)...
(NOTE: Video of Olbermann's Special Comment at link.)
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After a day like Friday, it is hard to imagine how she keeps going, not just with her campaign, but emotionally. Even if she wanted to let off steam, she can’t, at least in public. She may have little heart for carrying her race forward, but she has committed many times to doing so, at least through June 3. She told her audiences in South Dakota that she and her husband and daughter would be back before the primary....
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/on-the-road-clintons-very-bad-day/
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