Hillary Clinton's Slur Unearthed to Hurt Obama

The Democrats' acrimonious primary battle came back to haunt Hillary Clinton yesterday, a day before she sets off on her first solo campaign swing for Barack Obama, with John McCain using footage of her attacking the Democratic candidate in a new campaign ad.

The ad, which was released on the internet, features a number of Democratic leaders - including Obama - offering praise for McCain. But only Clinton, who is the closing speaker, goes so far as to take a jab at Obama, in footage culled from one of her primary rallies.

The ad surfaced a day before Clinton is to step in as Obama's chief cheerleader with a campaign appearance in Nevada today. She is to travel to the pivotal state of Florida next week.

The appearances are intended to keep up the momentum while Obama is on holiday in Hawaii.

In the new ad released by the Republicans, Clinton is shown saying: "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House and Senator Obama has a speech that he gave in 2002."

The damaging footage is the realization of Democratic fears at the height of the contest that Clinton's no-holds-barred attacks on Obama, with repeated questioning of his experience and readiness to serve in the White House, would provide ammunition to the Republicans during the presidential contest.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign said yesterday: "Hillary Clinton was making a strong and valid argument for why John McCain will be the next president."

"In this case, we couldn't have said it better ourselves," Tucker Bounds said in an email to the Guardian. Bounds said the ad would not be released on television, allowing the McCain campaign to capitalize on Clinton's now embarrassing comments at relatively little expense.

Aside from the immediate damage, the ad revives questions about Clinton's commitment to unifying the party behind Obama - despite her repeated appeals to her loyalists to come on board.

Some of those loyalists said this week that they had no intention of backing Obama, and are planning to hold a protest march through Denver on the day Clinton is scheduled to address the Democratic convention.

"We are 18 million voices dedicated to seeing Senator Clinton reach the next milestone: the White House," says one of the loyalist websites.

Clinton has kept a low profile since a highly orchestrated unity rally with Obama in June. But she has been working behind the scenes to persuade her loyalists to come on board, and this week issued a joint statement with Obama promising "all voices" would be heard at the convention.

"At the Democratic convention, we will ensure that the voices of everyone who participated in this historic process are respected and our party will be fully unified heading into the November election," the statement said.

Clinton told a fundraiser in California last week that she wanted the convention to be a "cathartic" experience for her supporters. She said it was hard for some of her diehard supporters to acknowledge defeat.

"I mean everybody comes, and they want to yell and scream and have their opportunity, and I think that's all to the good, because then, you know, everybody can go, 'OK great. Now let's go out and win,'" she said, on YouTube footage.

"The best way I think to do that is to have a strategy so that my delegates feel like they've had a role and that their legitimacy has been validated and that kind of ... you know, there is a catharsis," she said.