Clinton camp accuses Obama team of “Ken Starr” tactics
The Obama campaign has called for Hillary Clinton to release her tax records to the public. Hillary Clinton aide Howard Wolfson responded to reporters: “I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president”.
Associated Press article: Clinton aide compares Obama to Ken Starr
Referee whistle: against Howard Wolfson, Offsides, 5 yards.
Comparing Obama to Ken Starr is clearly unfair and totally unjustified. Here we have another example of a campaign mistake that I see as a minor foul. “Minor” because the Clinton campaign has quickly moved away from this line of argument.
Candidates and campaigns must value and demonstrate transparency, openness, full-disclosure. Obama is completely justified to ask Hillary Clinton to make her tax records public. Hillary Clinton has said she will release her tax records “probably in April”.
For those who are too young to know about the Ken Starr investigations (and for anyone who actually wants to revisit this), here are links to background information: Whitewater controversy and Starr Report.
Ken Starr was in charge of the Whitewater investigation which ultimately revealed the Lewinsky scandal, resulting in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The Whitewater controversy led some people to perceive the Clintons as corrupt and dishonest.
I do not want to dwell on the issue of fairness in this ugly chapter in U.S. History, except to point out that it was very divisive and politically motivated. The investigation did NOT find corruption. Nevertheless, this whole, long, unpleasant experience hurt the Clintons politically.
Thankfully, the Obama campaign has never wanted to revisit this. One wonders why any supporter of Senator Clinton would want us to think about Ken Starr.
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Comment by Maria
Posted on March 11, 2008 at 9:08 am
The only issue I have with the Clinton campaign is that they tend to pull away from “fouls” only after they find the attacks to be ineffective. And what about the fact that according to the math Clinton will need to wrestle the nomination out of Barack’s hands (unless he makes a major gaffe) but she isn’t stopping? Pennsylvania will be a swing state in November and Clinton will spend all her time there trashing Obama (who is likely to be our nominee). Is this not grounds for another “foul”?