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(Bill) Clinton-Obama feud gets nasty

Leading Democrats are complaining that it's time for both men to rein things in.

WASHINGTON - It started with dismissive talk of a fairy tale, then deteriorated into more of a nightmare.

As he campaigns for his wife, Bill Clinton has been taking aim at her rival, Barack Obama, and the media with increasing rancor, trading the roles of elder statesman and supportive spouse for that of attack dog.

Obama is scrapping, too, going after the former president with increasingly heated criticism and getting testy with reporters himself at times.

Bill Clinton, campaigning in South Carolina on Wednesday, complained that Obama had put out a "hit job" on him. He didn't explain what that meant.

"Shame on you!" he scolded a reporter who asked about the racial dynamics of the campaign in South Carolina. Clinton himself has repeatedly discussed the racial issue.

Leading Democrats supporting both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama have complained that things have gotten out of hand. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who endorsed Clinton, made a plea for "less acrimony" among the rivals.

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who backs Obama, called for an end to the "backbiting" and said Clinton's conduct was "not presidential."

By Thursday, it was left to an ordinary voter to call for a time out. At a morning campaign stop by Bill Clinton just outside Columbia, S.C., a Clinton supporter urged her campaign to "stop taking the bait from Obama" and stick to the issues.

The former president allowed that it was "pretty good advice. It's probably good advice for me, too," he said.

Hillary Clinton found herself defending her husband when she would rather have been talking about her plans for U.S. financial markets.

"We're in a very heated campaign, and people are coming out and saying all kinds of things," she said in an interview with the AP late Wednesday. "I'm out there every day making a positive case for my candidacy. I have a lot of wonderful people, including my husband, who are out there making the case for me."

Obama's wife, Michelle, got her licks in Thursday.

In an e-mail to supporters, she wrote that "another candidate's spouse has been getting an awful lot of attention," and she urged people to make online donations. "We've seen disingenuous attacks and smear tactics turn people off from the political process for too long, and enough is enough," she wrote.

Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton seemed to cool their rhetoric a bit, if not entirely.

Obama told voters in Kingstree, S.C., that criticism directed at him should be taken as "a source of pride. It means I might win this thing."

Clinton, for his part, said that after "all the mean things" the Obama campaign has said about him, "I should be the last person to defend him. (But) if he wins this nomination, I'm going to do what I can to help him win."

Bill Clinton's full-throated participation in the campaign seems at odds with earlier statements by his wife that, while she is proud of his record and values his advice, this is her show. "I'm going to the people on my own," she said in a September debate.

Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at the City University of New York who has written a book about Bill Clinton, said that while the former president's campaign efforts might have some helpful effects for his wife in the short term, "long term, he's a minus."

[Last modified January 24, 2008, 23:20:31]