NYT: Clinton Solidifies Edge as Rivals Take a Tougher Line
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
Published: September 23, 2007
....“I think they’ve run a great campaign,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said of Mrs. Clinton, of New York. “She’s been a very disciplined candidate. They’ve been deft in trying to get ahead of this tidal wave of people out there who really want change. They are doing the best they can with it.” But Mr. Axelrod, pointing to what he saw as Mrs. Clinton’s foremost vulnerability, said: “The question is ultimately, Is she credible — whether people buy her as an agent of change in Washington. If they do, she’ll do well.”
A senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, Joe Trippi, said: “You used to be able to say the front-runners — her and Obama — but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. It’s pretty clear that she has sort of pulled away.”
Mr. Obama is moving to deal directly with what his advisers said continued to be his weaker flank — concerns about his experience — with a burst of television advertisements that began this week in Iowa and will continue next week in New Hampshire. Mr. Edwards, trying to shake things up in a race where most of the attention has been focused on Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, has started what aides say will be an escalating series of attacks on Mrs. Clinton.
Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards face tough decisions in the weeks ahead. They see the same path to victory — which includes turning the contest into a two-person race with Mrs. Clinton — but are concerned that attacks on one another would only end up helping her. Mr. Obama’s decision to address the experience issue so directly came despite the concern of some associates about inviting new attention to a weakness. And Mr. Edwards’s decision to tackle Mrs. Clinton could have the unintended effect of helping Mr. Obama in states like Iowa, where caucus voters often recoil at the sight of two-candidate spats....
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Mr. Axelrod said that Mr. Obama’s campaign had made a deliberate decision to hold off the bulk of its advertising money until now, when more people are paying attention, and that he was not concerned about polls or perceptions. Mr. Obama spent $1.5 million on television advertisements in Iowa, a substantial amount that Iowa Democrats said has not appeared to improve his standing significantly. And some of Mr. Obama’s advisers said Mrs. Clinton had done a far better job in dealing with one of her biggest tasks — trying to present herself as a candidate of change, notwithstanding her 15 years in Washington — than Mr. Obama had with the experience question. In the final week of August, Mr. Obama expressed frustration to some of his close associates at the course of his campaign, saying he felt his message was adrift, and personally took to rewriting some of the basic themes....
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Reflecting his successful fund-raising, Mr. Obama has spent millions to build a field operation in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and has enough money to build organizations in other states....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/us/politics/23dems.html?hp
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