Obama apologises for 'monster' gibe against Clinton

Barack Obama’s campaign apologised to Hillary Clinton today after one of his key foreign policy aides branded the former first lady a desperate “monster”.

Samantha Power said the 60-year-old New York senator was a “monster” who would stop at nothing to seize power.

Mr Obama has promised voters he would not engage in the politics of personal destruction and a campaign spokesman said he “decries such characterisations, which have no place in this campaign”.

Ms Power, an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign, made the comments during an interview with The Scotsman in London.

“She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,” she told the newspaper.

“Here, it looks like desperation. I hope it looks like desperation there, too.”

In a statement issued later, Ms Power said her comments “do not reflect my feelings about Senator Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired” as she apologised to both Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama.

“I should not have made these comments, and I deeply regret them,” she said.

“It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms.”

The remarks come after Mr Obama, whose defeats in Texas and Ohio on Tuesday were largely put down to a series of negative attacks, has said he plans to increase his criticism of the former first lady in the coming days over what constitutes her experience and her failure to release her tax returns.

Yesterday, Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Mr Obama’s statement was reminiscent of the attacks the Clintons endured during the investigations by prosecutor Kenneth Starr in the 1990s, which many saw as politically motivated.

Mr Wolfson’s introduction of Mr Starr’s name again portrays Mrs Clinton as a victim, while her attacks over Mr Obama’s “preparedness to be commander in chief and steward of the economy” continue at the same time.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said the comparison to Mr Starr was “absurd” when the former first lady has been calling for more scrutiny of the young Illinois senator’s record.

On the campaign trail, the recriminations continued, with the Clinton campaign accusing the 46-year-old of criticising Mrs Clinton’s foreign policy credentials even though his “time would be better spent making the case for why he can do the most important job in the world”.

The two Democratic rivals were preparing for tomorrow’s contest in Wyoming, where 12 delegates will be on offer.

The Wyoming caucuses will be followed next week by a primary election in Mississippi, a state with 33 delegates at stake, and which Mr Obama is favoured to win with the help of the African American vote.

The two Democrats then move on to their next major battleground, the state of Pennsylvania, which will have 158 delegates up for grabs on April 22.

Today, Mr Obama has 1,569 delegates to Mrs Clinton’s 1,462, in the race to the magic number of 2,025 needed to secure the party’s presidential nomination, according to AP figures.

A total of 12 more delegates are to be awarded from Tuesday’s contests, but full results from the Texas caucuses are still not available.

With neither candidate likely to reach the finish line with pledged delegates alone, the result is likely to be decided by nearly 800 so-called superdelegates - influential party officials, including members of the Democratic National Committee as well as elected officials such as members of Congress and governors, whose votes are not tied to the primary season results.

The outcome of the debate over whether the states of Florida and Michigan should come up with plans to repeat their presidential nominating contests so that their delegates can be counted will also be significant.

The two states, which offer 366 delegates between them, were disqualified after breaking party rules by holding their contests too early.

So far, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee chairman, has not been able to agree on terms for a new vote with the state officials, and the cost of holding further contests is a major concern.

“All they have to do is come before us with rules that fit into what they agreed to a year and a half ago, and then they’ll be seated,” Mr Dean said.

But former DNC head Don Fowler, who sits on the Democratic Party’s rule-making committee, said the party would be “fools” not to seat delegates from the two states, which the Democrats would want to win in November’s general election.

Meanwhile, John McCain, the 71-year-old Republican nominee-to-be, stressed his foreign policy and national security credentials on the campaign trail as the former Vietnam prisoner of war told voters his immediate concern was finding someone capable of serving as vice president.