Just hours after Hillary Clinton adopted a respectful, almost friendly tone with Barack Obama in a Democratic debate, her campaign orchestrated a conference call in which a health-care specialist referred to a Nazi march in denouncing an Obama flyer.
Clinton aides convened pro-Clinton health care analysts on Friday to respond to a new Obama flyer that says: “Hillary’s health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it.” The flyer features a photo of a worried-looking married couple sitting at a kitchen table.
Len Nichols of the New American Foundation, which is based in Washington, called the photo a “Harry and Louise evocation,” a reference to TV ads against Clinton’s failed universal health care plan in 1994.
“I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing,” Nichols told reporters on the conference call. “I just find it disgusting that this kind of imagery is being used to attack the only way to get to universal coverage.”
He added: “It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois.”
It was a reference to a Nazi splinter group, the National Socialist Party of America, that won a court case 30 years ago allowing them to march through a Chicago suburb with a sizeable Jewish population.
The reference set off strong denunciations by Obama supporters, who accused the Clinton campaign of going way beyond the bounds of acceptable political discourse.
Howard Wolfson, communications director for the Clinton campaign, conceded in an interview with The Examiner that Nichols’ remarks were inappropriate. Wolfson said Clinton supporters are “obviously very passionate about this issue, and rightfully so, but that is not a comparison that we would make.”
The Clinton campaign later went even further, saying: “These remarks were made by a health care expert unaffiliated with our campaign. They were totally inappropriate and the campaign rejects them completely.”
The sharp exchange occurred as Obama is gaining national momentum. A new Gallup poll showed him pulling to within three points of Clinton, orwithin the poll’s margin of error, for the first time.
