'Monster' row exposes intense rivalry

By Kevin Connolly
BBC News, Washington

The words "off the record" have a kind of magical power in the overlapping world of journalism and politics.

Samantha Power's unguarded moment has cost her dear

They allow politicians to talk freely to journalists without having their words publicly attributed to them.

And the phrase enables ideas to be floated, insults to be traded and rumours to be circulated with more freedom than would be possible if every word that passed your lips was formally identified as yours.

But there is a limit to the magical powers of the expression, as the strange case of Samantha Power and the Scotsman newspaper demonstrates.

You cannot just blurt out something sensational and then use the words retrospectively like a kind of cloak of invisibility to escape responsibility if you are having second thoughts.

It is an odd lapse - Samantha Power is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and a Harvard academic who knows the rules of the game, and how the game is played.

So when she was discussing Hillary Clinton with the Scotsman and said "she is a monster... she is stooping to anything", it was not enough hastily to add "that's off the record".

The damage - at least to Ms Power's future in the campaign - had been done.

In the fast-moving and unforgiving world of American politics, Ms Power - who advised Barack Obama on foreign policy issues - has already "decided" to resign, issuing, as she went, a not entirely convincing statement in which she spoke of her admiration for Senator Clinton's leadership and public service.

Indiscretion

It would be easy to dismiss the incident as a slip of the tongue, magnified out of all proportion because it came in the context of an intensely competitive race for the Democratic nomination that is being followed with intense interest around the world.

Mr Obama's campaign was meant to rise above name-calling politics

To some extent, that is precisely what it is.

But the truth is, we live in an age where the internet and 24-hour television can be relied on to transmit this kind of indiscretion to every corner of the globe within seconds.

This is a campaign in which the amount of money spent by each campaign on doughnuts and other bakery goods has been published and discussed.

If you cannot treat yourself to a Dunkin' Donut without exciting comment, you are hardly going to get away with calling the rival candidate "a monster".

And, of course, this is precisely the kind of name-calling Washington politics that Barack Obama was meant to be rising above.

Going negative?

But there are one or two interesting questions in the whole issue too.

DEMOCRATIC DELEGATE RACE BARACK OBAMA: 1,569 Delegates won on 4 March: 183 States won: 24 HILLARY CLINTON: 1,462 Delegates won on 4 March: 186 States won: 16 Delegates needed to secure nomination: 2,025. Source: AP Delegates: Who's ahead Q: What next? Dirty dogfight

First, and most obvious, is the issue of whether that unguarded remark gives us a clue as to the view of Mrs Clinton held inside the Obama camp, and perhaps even by the Illinois senator himself.

The second is the extent to which the strong language is an indication that the Democrats are going to find it impossible to keep up the generally mannerly tone of their race as it goes right down to the wire.

There are plenty of signs that both camps are going to give in to the temptation to "go negative" - you get a sense of that more from what the aides around the candidates are saying than from the candidates themselves.

The Clinton camp says it wants to know more about Mr Obama's links with a Chicago political fixer who is currently being tried on corruption charges - the charges do not relate to Mr Obama in any way, it must be said.

Team Obama, in return, after ignoring the issue for weeks, is now starting to ask why Mrs Clinton has not published her tax returns - which would allow Americans to find out how much money she and her husband make, and where they make it from.

Expect much more on the same tone, and at the same level.

High stakes

The main argument against mud-slinging in the primary campaign - that it gives ammunition to the other party's candidate in the general election later in the year - will be conveniently forgotten if the Democratic race goes all the way to the convention in August.

Mrs Clinton's campaign has been questioning Mr Obama's record

So - was the Power remark a deliberate change of strategy from Team Obama?

No it was not - when either of the campaigns makes a strategic decision to change their tone you will hear it first from the candidate's own lips.

But was it entirely irrelevant? I don't think it was.

It was unwise and unguarded, but it was a clue as to the strength of feelings within the rival camps that we sense, but seldom see expressed.

And it was a reminder that when you are playing for these kinds of stakes, under this kind of pressure, even the smartest advisers can stumble.