US Elections: Infighting Doomed Clinton's Campaign, Biographer Reports

A fuller reckoning of the extent of the infighting in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign began to emerge today -- just as Democrats were stepping up their efforts to unite around Barack Obama as the party's presidential candidate.

In the August edition of Vanity Fair, Gail Sheehy, a Clinton biographer, describes a candidate who deliberately neglected to set up clear lines of authority, opting instead for an organization which was a "team of rivals".

The picture of discord emerges a day after Bill Clinton held his first extensive telephone conversation with Obama since his wife's defeat a month ago.

The discussion seen as an important and much-needed symbol of healing between the two camps. The Obama campaign is anxious to win over Hillary Clinton's supporters -- women, working-class white men, and Latinos -- especially in the swing states where she won the primaries and to unite the party before the coming contest against Republican John McCain.

A Clinton insider said the former president was committed to helping Obama win the election against McCain. The insider dismissed media reports of continued rancor between the former president and Obama.

However, bitterness remained about the extent of the Obama campaign's efforts to help Hillary Clinton with her campaign debt. She was also continuing to negotiate with Obama about the timing of her speaking slot at the Democratic convention.

Meanwhile, Patti Solis-Doyle, who as Clinton's campaign manager was among the "team of rivals" started her first day of work at the Obama campaign today.

Other Clinton aides have joined the Obama campaign in recent days, including her former policy adviser, Neera Tanden.

But Doyle is likely to remain the only member of the Big Five -- as Sheehy describes it -- to join the Obama campaign. She will be in charge of the vice-president's campaign, a move seen as a slap to Clinton, who had sacked Doyle earlier this year.

The rivalry between Doyle, strategists Mark Penn and Harold Ickes, and media specialists Mandy Grunwald and Howard Wolfson crippled the campaign, Sheehy writes.

It faced further confusion over the role of Bill Clinton, who tried -- but failed -- to set up his own office within her headquarters in suburban Washington.

Some of the former president's advice was productive. It took Bill Clinton to convince his reluctant wife to put $5m of their own money into the campaign in March -- a move that enabled her to keep running until the last primary.

Sheehy goes on to write that Clinton was torn about how to end her campaign, with advisers offering conflicting advice about whether she should make a graceful exit or fight on until the party's convention in late August.