The Washington Post reports: On the eve of the presidential primary in Pennsylvania, an online prankster leveraged a security vulnerability on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Web site to redirect visitors to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign site. According to Symantec, someone embedded computer code into a posting on the Obama blog. The content in this case targeted cross-site scripting flaw (XSS), an exceedingly common type of vulnerability that can be used to automatically redirect Web browsers viewing the affecte... lire la suite
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On the eve of the presidential primary in Pennsylvania, an online prankster leveraged a security vulnerability on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Web site to redirect visitors to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign site. According to Symantec, someone embedded computer code into a posting on the Obama blog. The content in this case targeted cross-site scripting flaw (XSS), an exceedingly common type of vulnerability that can be used to automatically redirect Web browsers viewing the affected page to another site. The redirect was posted shortly after the Obama site was listed at xssed.com, a collaborative online archive of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities present in thousands of Web sites.
Updated WOODBURN, Ore. - Senator Barack Obama said today that he would not rule out the possibility of helping Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton retire her campaign debt to bring her into the fold and unify Democrats. But he said no discussions have taken place yet. “Obviously, I'd want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,” Mr. Obama said. “But as I said, it's premature right now. She's still actively running and we've still got business to do right here in Oregon and in other states.” Mr. Obama stressed that it was premature to talk about lending aid to his rival, declaring: “That's not a conversation that we've had because our working assumption right now is that we're still in the middle of a race.” To keep her campaign afloat, Mrs. Clinton has lent herself money several times in recent weeks, amounting to about $6 million within a month or so. The debt that her campaign has accumulated has become a focal point of questions surrounding the future of her candidacy. Speculation has spread - by supporters of both candidates - about whether Mr. Obama throwing a financial lifeline would help bridge the divide between the partisans and offer Mrs. Clinton an exit strategy. Mr. Obama suggested today that there would be some precedent for helping erase her debt. “I think historically after a campaign is done and you want to unify the party - particularly when you've had a strong opponent,” Mr. Obama said, “you want to make sure that you're putting that opponent in a strong position so that they can work to win an election in November.” Update on Debt: If Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton would happen to broker a deal to help pay off her campaign debts - this remains a big if, aides said, because nothing has been formally discussed - the money would not be taken from Mr. Obama's campaign account. Instead, he would have to make a fund-raising appeal on her behalf, asking people to contribute. The remarks by Mr. Obama earlier today stirred alarm among several contributors. They said they did not give money to him simply so he could turn it over to Mrs. Clinton. Advisers to Mr. Obama sought to tamp down concern over the discussion. On one hand, they are trying to extend an olive branch to Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, whom they will need if Mr. Obama becomes the nominee. On the other hand, they do not want to alienate loyal contributors who were responsible for Mr. Obama's fund-raising prowess. As Mr. Obama dropped by Luis's Taqueria on North Front Street here for lunch - and a photo opportunity - reporters stopped Mr. Obama to ask about the string of superdelegates who came aboard his team today. He formally crossed the threshold today of having more of the Democratic officials than Mrs. Clinton. “I'm gratified that we've got some superdelegates that are coming our way,” Mr. Obama said. “I think we've got a strong case to make that I will be a nominee that can pull the party together and take on John McCain in the fall.”
The Obama campaign is about to make its first big hire out of the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign manager until she was ousted in a staff shake up in February, will join Mr. Obama's campaign as the chief of staff to the vice presidential candidate - whoever he (or she) will be, campaign officials said. Ms. Doyle will take the position before Mr. Obama announces his choice for a running-mate - he has not said when that will be. Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Doyle have a long friendship, and Ms. Doyle has long been one of her closest aides, until she was forced out. Could that mean - tea-leaf reading time - that Mr. Obama is really considering Mrs. Clinton for the No. 2 position, and wants to have an ally of her in place to ease the way? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. More likely, the Obama campaign was looking for a high-profile spot to put Ms. Doyle, given her previous position, and most of the major roles in Mr. Obama's campaign are filled. Ms. Doyle's hire is the latest sign of the two fields in the Democratic Party attempting to come together. She is also - not incidentally - a Hispanic woman, making her a member of two demographics that Mr. Obama has been making a particular effort to appeal to. The Obama campaign also is strengthening the team working for Michelle Obama. Later today, the campaign is set to announce the hiring of Stephanie Cutter, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked as Senator John Kerry’s communications director in 2004, as chief of staff to Mrs. Obama. Ms. Cutter is scheduled to begin soon, with the first task of re-crafting the image of Mrs. Obama, who has come under intense criticism by Republicans and even some Democratic rivals. She also will lead a war room to fight attacks against Mrs. Obama.
It does not surprise me that Harold Ickes believes this to be the case, but it frankly stuns me that he would say it so baldly. He has openly stated that he believes the superdelegates will decide the nominee and that their choice will be Hillary Clinton. What is truly ironic here is that Ickes is the one who set up this whole scenario back in 1988 when he negotiated the current proportional allocation rules. A top Hillary Clinton adviser on Saturday boldly predicted his candidate would lock down the nomination before the August convention by definitively winning over party insiders and officials known as superdelegates, claiming the number of state elections won by rival Barack Obama would be “irrelevant” to their decision. The claims no doubt will escalate the war of words between the campaigns, as Obama continues to argue superdelegates should vote the way of their districts. But the special class of delegates, which make up about 20 percent of the total delegate haul, are not bound to vote the way of their states and districts, as pledged delegates are. Obama leads handily in the pledged delegate count and has won more states but trails Clinton in superdelegates, making them potential and controversial deadlock-breakers if the race ends up a dead heat come convention time. Harold Ickes, a 40-year party operative charged with winning over superdelegates for the Clinton campaign, made no apologies on Saturday for the campaign’s convention strategy. Ickes predicted Clinton and Obama would run “neck and neck” in the remaining states and that there would be a “minuscule amount of difference” between the two in pledged delegates. But he said superdelegates would determine the outcome and side in larger numbers for Clinton, as they “have a sense of what it takes to get elected.” Even though averages of head-to-head polls on RealClearPolitics.com show Obama beating presumptive GOP nominee John McCain in a general election and Clinton losing, the Clinton camp is stressing the electability argument.
In another sign of just how bedeviled the Clinton campaign continues to be, it spent this morning frantically trying to keep news organizations from following an Associated Press report that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede tonight that Barack Obama has enough delegates to claim the nomination. The Associated Press posted its report at around 11 a.m., prompting an immediate round of blog posts and “breaking news” banners on cable focused on the report's lead that “Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation’s first female president.” Within 20 minutes, the Clinton campaign had responded with this statement: “The AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening.” Minutes later, the senior campaign adviser, Harold Ickes, called MSNBC to say the report was “inaccurate and wrong.'' “Mr. Obama does not have the nomination, will not have the nomination, in my view, he won't have it tonight. Nor will Mrs. Clinton, and they're going to continue to make their case to the uncommitted superdelegates.”' While the campaign's defense came through loud and clear, the Associated Press stuck by its report - which, in fact, did not say Mrs. Clinton would concede the election; rather, it reported that she would concede Mr. Obama had secured enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination but would stop short of suspending her campaign tonight. Asked what Mrs. Clinton would say if tonight “the numbers are on the side of” Obama, Mr. Ickes said, “When you hear it you'll hear it.”
Updated If all we did were to cull through our readers’ comments, we’d walk away sensing that the upset and bitterness between the Obama and the Clinton supporters amounted to a deep, vicious divide — especially after the D.N.C.’s decisions this past weekend in dealing with Florida and Michigan. Beyond that, the remarks today of Senator Barack Obama and chief surrogate for his rival, former President Bill Clinton, underscore what many in the Democratic Party have described as a need for a hands-on healing. All day long, and all weekend, people have been trying to read signals (staff changes, expenses called in, or travel plans beyond this week) as to whether Senator Clinton will bow out, despite the fact that she and her top aides have been appearing over and over with a will to keep on. But as for the day’s events, Mr. Obama spoke to reporters in Michigan today during his campaign stop in a state whose voters were twisted and turned by their state’s decision to violate party rules by holding a primary in mid-January. From the reporters’ pool report, Mr. Obama was asked at a campaign stop in Michigan about his conversation with Senator Clinton last night, when he called to congratulate her on winning Puerto Rico. Mr. Obama: The only conversation I’ve had with Senator Clinton was yesterday to congratulate her on her victory in Puerto Rico Mr. Obama: It was a very general conversation at this point and as I said, we’ve got two more contests I think she’s focused on those as am I. The apology for comments made by the Rev. Michael Pfleger two Sundays ago at Senator Obama’s church, (until a few days ago when he quit it), Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, apparently has not assuaged the wistful first-spouse, who is on what he conceded today could be one of his last campaign appearances for his wife. Mr. Clinton apparently grew agitated once again — in general over a Vanity Fair article by former Times journalist Todd Purdum — but in the midst of name-calling, the former president also railed about Mr. Pfleger’s YouTube-whipped performance. His remarks were recorded by Mayhill Fowler, the same “OfftheBus” blogger for the HuffPost who wrote about Mr. Obama’s “cling to guns and religion” comments at a San Francisco fundraiser. Mr. Clinton, who according to Ms. Fowler’s description, gripped her hand tightly and said: It’s part of the national media’s attempt to nail Hillary for Obama. It’s the most biased press coverage in history. It’s another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn’t do anything about it. The first day he said ‘Ah, ah, ah well.’ Because that’s what they do- he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie, they thought this is a great ad for John McCain — maybe I better quit the church. It’s all politics. It’s all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don’t think anything about it. Since we’ve now linked to Mr. Clinton’s blast at the Vanity Fair article and its author, we also feel obligated to send you to Mr. Purdum’s interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer today for his response to a lengthy criticism put out by the Clinton campaign. Update: 9 p.m. Jay Carson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said tonight: “President Clinton was understandably upset about an outrageously unfair article, but the language today was inappropriate and he wishes he had not used it.”
Hillary Clinton's race for the presidency is OVER. It's DONE. The primaries are finished! The Associated Press has just crowned Barack Obama the official Democratic nominee for President. The wire story is an amusing 'fuck you' to the Clinton campaign, which spent the morning crowing about how the AP got their earlier story wrong. Also it's long and they've clearly been saving it for when they could finalize the math. Like an obituary. Which it effectively is. [AP]
If you just can’t wait until Tuesday, when Joshua Green’s article in The Atlantic lands with a few hundred leaked emails among Clinton campaign staff who seemed to be constantly at war with one another, you can instead look at portions of the article itself that have been leaked. The notion that advisers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton fought furiously among themselves at times is, in and of itself, not new news. Nor is it particularly new that top strategist Mark Penn wanted her to go on the offensive against her rival Barack Obama, and paint him as different, somehow un-American. The Times’s James Rutenberg and Peter Baker disclosed Mr. Penn’s urgings to Mrs. Clinton and her campaign that she fly the flag and brand all her strategies as “American” this or that, in an article published in June. But the level of infighting detail and strategy fallout over how to defeat Mr. Obama in Mr. Green’s anticipated article, excerpts of which were published by The Politico’s Mike Allen today, will be released against the current maelstrom surrounding Senator Clinton’s role at the convention and whether the Obama campaign will abide by her wish to let her supporters — her 1,600 or so delegates — vent. And exposing all those fault lines as her campaign battled Mr. Obama’s candidacy probably won’t make it any easier for party leaders to portray a unified Democratic front at the convention, given the fractious divide during the protracted primary season. The article will also be published after weeks in which Senator John McCain’s campaign has touted his “Country First” symbols in advertisements, and while the Republican candidate himself has taken Mr. Obama to task for his positions on Iraq, accusing the Democrat of caring more about winning the campaign than winning the war. Penn, the presidential campaign's chief strategist, wrote in a memo to Clinton excerpted in the article: “I cannot imagine American electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.” A key take-away from the article is that Clinton received a lot of accurate advice, including from Penn. He wrote a remarkably prescient memo in March 2007 about the importance of appealing to what he called “the Invisible Americans,” and specifically “WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS”—exactly the groups that helped Clinton beat Obama in key states nearly a year later. “The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men,” Green writes. “[H]er advisers couldn't execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution. ... [S]he never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles' heel. Another Penn strategy, leaked from Mr. Green’s article (and portions of which we had published in June), said of Mr. Obama: “All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. In the arc of this year, from the primary season through this summer, there remains no question that Mr. Obama and his campaign responded to some of the attacks and undercurrents that created perceptions that he wasn’t “American enough.” He began emphasizing more heavily his biography, his upbringing and began sporting that flag lapel pin whose absence on his suit jackets had caused troubled perceptions. The Atlantic’s article hits the stands on Tuesday, and not only details infighting among Clinton staff but also exposes more of the role played by former President Bill Clinton in the campaign as well as Senator Clinton’s seeming inability to strike a coherent, harmonious managerial style for her campaign.
Senator Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton plan to meet for lunch on Thursday at Mr. Clinton's offices in Harlem, their first extended face-to-face encounter after more than a year of tense relations, aides said Sunday. The current plan is for Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton to have lunch at the Clinton Foundation headquarters on West 125th Street in Harlem with one close aide each. There have been discussions about the men possibly then doing a walking tour of the neighborhood, but that has not been settled. Thursday is the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Mr. Obama will be in New York for a memorial ceremony at Ground Zero that morning with his Republican presidential rival, Senator John McCain, an event that both candidates say is intended to be non-political. When Mr. Clinton learned that Mr. Obama would be in New York on Thursday for two appearances, he invited him to lunch at the foundation offices, aides said. The terms of the Clinton-Obama meeting have been negotiated warily for weeks through a veil of mutual suspicion. Mr. Clinton has felt for months that Mr. Obama has not paid him the proper respect as a former president and many close to Mr. Obama believe that Mr. Clinton dealt dismissively with him during the campaign. The icebreaker may well have been Mr. Clinton's effusive speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which he - for the first time - declared Mr. Obama fit to be president. During the long primary season, Mr. Clinton, speaking on behalf of his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, repeatedly questioned Mr. Obama's experience and qualifications for the presidency. In his convention speech, however, Mr. Clinton heaped praise on Mr. Obama, the new leader of the Democratic Party, and promised to do everything he could to get him elected. He acknowledged with a smile, however, that he would have preferred that Mrs. Clinton were preparing to accept the nomination. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama have spoken several times on the telephone since Mr. Obama nailed down the nomination in early June, but aides described those conversations as generally businesslike, even at times frosty. The two men spoke the Friday before the Democratic convention about Mr. Clinton's speech and the campaign ahead, but there was no resolution of several issues, including the Obama campaign's desire to see a copy of Mr. Clinton's speech well in advance of its delivery the following Wednesday. Mr. Clinton did not share a draft of his speech until a couple hours of before taking to the podium in Denver. Mr. Clinton has privately complained that Mr. Obama has courted major figures in the Democratic Party, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, while making little effort to seek Mr. Clinton's support or guidance. The lunch will be private and it is not known whether Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama will have any statement afterward. But Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have agreed to suspend all negative advertising aimed at each other on Sept. 11 and it seemed unlikely that Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton would use their meeting for overtly partisan purposes that day.