Tim Russert ’should be shot’, Hillary supporter declares on conference call with top advisers…
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(link) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) top advisers, doing damage control after the candidate’s debate performance Tuesday, told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that the campaign needed more money to fight back.
Mark Penn, Clinton’s senior strategist and pollster, and Jonathan Mantz, the campaign’s finance director, told the supporters on the call, which The Hill listened to in its entirety, that they expect attacks from Clinton’s rivals to continue, and she will need the financial resources to deflect their attacks.
Clinton came under withering assault in the Philadelphia debate, and some supporters on the call agreed with analysts that she stumbled.
“I wouldn’t say she lost her cool,” one caller said. “But I would say she lost her footing.”
The caller addded that Clinton’s response to questions about records from her time in the White House that have been sealed by the National Archives “made me roll my eyes.”
The criticisms followed Penn’s assertion that Clinton was “unflappable.” He also said criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already “detecting some backlash,” particularly among female voters.
Those female voters are saying, “Sen. Clinton needs our support now more than ever if we’re going to see this six-on-one to try to bring her down,” Penn told those on the campaign call.
He, Mantz and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert, debate moderator and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”
“I hope so,” a female caller responded. “To me, it was the most uncomfortable part of the debate.”
Penn turned again to Russert. “The other candidates were asked questions like, ‘Is there life in outer space?’ ”
The object of the call, and a follow-up breakfast Thursday morning with campaign chairman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Terry McAuliffe, was apparently to stop whatever bleeding the senator might have sustained during a debate in which Clinton wore a bull’s-eye on her back throughout the evening.
Penn and Mantz said “a new phase” in the campaign had begun with about 65 days to go before the Iowa caucuses. They expect Obama and Edwards to go “negative on TV, and we’re going to need the resources to fight that front.”
While one supporter voiced his concern that the Clinton campaign is not devoting enough money and staff to Iowa, lagging behind Obama, most supporters who commented on the call expressed their displeasure with what they saw as the moderators’ focus on Clinton.
One caller from Oklahoma City said that “the questions … were designed to incite a brawl,” and that Russert’s and Brian Williams’s moderating was “an abdication of journalistic responsibility.”
Another said Russert “should be shot,” before quickly adding that she shouldn’t say that on a conference call.
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