Once glossy, Clinton bid losing luster

WASHINGTON — She was a disciplined candidate atop a polished campaign, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is mired in the most serious crisis of her 11-month bid for the White House, as a rolling series of missteps threatens to topple her as the Democratic front-runner.

The large crowds that once came to see her have thinned. Trusted campaign surrogates have veered wildly off message. And a campaign operation that had built seemingly impregnable leads over the summer appears to be faltering, prompting former President Clinton to amp up his role as a public spokesman and campaign adviser.

Hillary Clinton's chief rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, has wiped out her lead in the crucial early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, according to some polls. Should she lose those states, gone would be the notion that she is the party's inevitable nominee, one basis of her appeal as a candidate.

Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey plans to publicly endorse Clinton this week. But he said the momentum might belong to Obama. Kerrey spoke about the "phenomenal pride" black voters felt when Obama made joint appearances last weekend with Oprah Winfrey.

Obama, Kerrey said, has "either peaked, or he is on a trend line that is going to make him the nominee of the party."

In Hillaryland, as her team calls itself, the message is that there is no cause for worry.

"Politics now is a 24/7 cycle. You go up, you go down," Clinton said in Iowa on Friday. "I think that's all part of a vigorous, dynamic election cycle."

Her campaign Friday began airing a 30-second television ad in Iowa and New Hampshire that showcases Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, and her 88-year-old mother, Dorothy Rodham, in an effort to strengthen her connection to female voters. A Des Moines Register poll published this month showed that Obama had topped Clinton among women likely to vote in the Jan. 3 caucus.

Also Friday, Clinton's husband sent out a fundraising letter that sought to debunk perceptions that the New York senator would not be a catalyst for change if she were to win the White House.

More and more, her message is being overwhelmed by unforeseen events. On Thursday morning, she was forced to apologize to Obama on the tarmac of Reagan National Airport as they were leaving for a Democratic debate in Iowa. At issue were the remarks of a New Hampshire campaign adviser, Bill Shaheen, who made public his concerns about Obama's admitted drug use as a young man. Shaheen quit the campaign later in the day.

The episode followed two instances of volunteer aides to the Clinton campaign forwarding e-mails falsely claiming Obama to be a Muslim. Both aides resigned.

Just as confounding to some was Clinton's attack on Obama's character. As recently as November, she had said at a dinner for Democratic activists in Des Moines that she was "not interested in attacking my opponents." But Dec. 2, in Cedar Rapids, she accused Obama of hypocrisy by preaching ethics and then "skirting" campaign-finance rules in the way he doles out funds.

The same day, her campaign — eager to rebut Obama's assertion that the presidency had not been a consuming ambition in his life — cited, among other things, an essay he had written in kindergarten titled, "I Want to Become President."

The ploy boomeranged. Embarrassed by pointing to an opponent's childhood writing, the Clinton campaign said it had been joking. But the news release remains on her Web site.

At the same time, after months of sometimes struggling, Obama is showing a new confidence. "A month ago, I was an idiot. This month, I'm a genius," Obama said on Friday, addressing the shift in sentiment about his prospects of beating Clinton in Iowa and holding her off in New Hampshire and other states.

His campaign is brimming with new confidence: His speeches are crisper, his poise is more consistent and many supporters said they no longer have to rely upon a leap of faith to envision him winning the nomination.

For much of the campaign, Clinton delivered a positive message that seemed to be resonating. Trouble began with her performance at an Oct. 30 debate in Philadelphia, when she waffled on several questions, among them whether she favored driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

Her rivals, sensing an opening, became more aggressive. Clinton soon felt she needed to strike back but has struggled to find the right tone.

Not only has Obama weathered the attacks, he is using them to raise money. In a solicitation letter Thursday, his campaign manager asked for $25 donations, writing: "The only way to stop these kinds of tired, desperate attacks is to demonstrate very clearly that they have a real cost to Senator Clinton's campaign."

Robert Reich, a Cabinet member in Bill Clinton's administration who has not endorsed a candidate, said it is a mistake for Hillary Clinton to swipe at rivals.

"It's a very risky strategy for her," Reich said. "I wish it weren't the case that in addition to everything else, women candidates — like women in society generally — are judged more harshly than men when they go on the attack. "

With the race tightening, Bill Clinton re-entered the picture last week, determined to address an issue that seems to have dogged his wife from the beginning.

Surveys confirm voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction, a call for change that plays to Obama's strength. Hillary Clinton rates higher when it comes to "experience," but polling has shown more voters in Iowa would prefer a candidate who can set the country on a new path.

Bill Clinton's mission in a series of campaign stops in Iowa on Monday was nothing short of redefining his wife. Seven times in the course of a speech at Iowa State University, he called Hillary Clinton a "change agent."

But Friday night, a red-faced Bill Clinton sparked a new feud in an interview on Charlie Rose's show, calling Obama little more than a TV "commentator" and saying reporters covering Obama were so starry-eyed they behaved like stenographers and didn't probe his history.

"I am old-fashioned. I think a president ought to have done something" before being elected, he said. At one point, Rose said Clinton staffers were in the control booth trying to cut off the interview.

On Saturday, Obama pulled out a piece of paper and began reading aloud after he was asked about the former president's broadside.

" 'The same, old experience is irrelevant, you've got the right kind of experience or the wrong kind of experience,' " he read. " 'And mine is rooted in the real lives of real people.' That was Bill Clinton in 1992."

Popular as he is among Democrats, the former president has created a separate problem. On the campaign trail, he likes talking about himself. The Iowa State stop was no exception. He touted his wife but also gushed about his plans to help create "thousands of new jobs" in New York by retrofitting public housing.

He is a magnet for crowds, though, something the campaign can use.

At a Des Moines high-school visit Dec. 7, Clinton introduced an important woman in her own life: her mother. But the crowd was thin. Before the event began, Clinton aides were seen removing metal folding chairs from the school cafeteria so the cameras would not pan a row of empty seats.

Material from The New York Times and Newsday is included in this report.