Samantha Power

The Clinton campaign thinks there are more points to score against Barack Obama with the resignation of top policy adviser Samantha Power earlier today.

In an (ongoing) Clinton campaign conference call, Jamie Rubin, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs and then chief spokesman for the State Department under Bill Clinton, described Power as the "most influential of his advisers" with "unlimited access" to the candidate.  read more »

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski seems to think that departed Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power got a raw deal.

In response to a request for reaction to her resignation earlier today, the office of Brzezinski—another of Obama's foreign policy advisers—relayed the following statement: "I think an expression of regret for using an inappropriate description of Senator Clinton should have sufficed. And I don't think she should have resigned."  read more »

On a conference call that just ended, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sought to raise questions about Hillary Clinton's unreleased tax returns, but instead ended up fielding questions about controversies involving advisers to his own campaign.

"This point about vetting and electablility does raise some questions about Senator Clinton," said Plouffe, responding to the Clinton campaign's assertion that Obama had not been sufficiently vetted. He added, "Hillary Clinton is one of the most secretive politicians in America today."  read more »

In the wake of Samantha Power's resignation from the Obama campaign today for calling Hillary Clinton a "monster," it's worth noting that, in an appearance on Charlie Rose on October 16, 2007, Power addressed what she said was the "unfair" but irrefutable fact that a lot of people harbored "bitterness" towards the former first lady and her husband.

Here's a partial transcript :

SAMANTHA POWER: What I'm saying is, that I think Hillary Clinton would be a great president. I think Obama would be a better president, or I wouldn`t be working for Obama. The second thing I'm saying, is her negatives are obvious. The same polls that have her streaks ahead in the national polls also have something like 47 percent of unfavorable rating.  read more »

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The Clinton campaign gathered Congress members Nita Lowey, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Gregory Meeks on a conference call this morning to demand that Barack Obama sever his campaign's ties to senior adviser and Pulitzer-prize-winning academic Samantha Power after she called Hillary Clinton a “monster” in an interview with a Scottish newspaper.

Congresswoman Lowey of New York opened by saying, “We feel so strongly that this is a long way that we have to go in this campaign, and it's likely to go all the way to Denver. Personal attacks are not the way to go.” She went on, “We’re calling on Senator Obama to make it clear that Samantha Power should not be part of this campaign.”

Lowey later said, “This is an important test for Senator Obama….it’s really a test of character. This comment set a tone.” She then added, “I think Senator Obama has to make a public statement and separate himself from Samantha Power.”  read more »

Samantha Power has a new book out this week: Chasing the Flame is a posthumous valentine to Sergio Vieira de Mello, the charismatic United Nations envoy who was killed four and a half years ago by the massive truck bomb that destroyed the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. A handsome Brazilian who worked for the U.N. for 34 years, posted to hot spots like Lebanon, Cambodia, Bosnia, Congo, Kosovo and East Timor—an atlas of humanitarian disaster—Vieira de Mello was described to Ms. Power before they met as “a cross between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy.” According to Ms. Power, “He brought a gritty pragmatism to negotiations, yet no amount of exposure to brutality seemed to dislodge his ideals.”  read more »

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama weren’t in New York today, but their supporters were.

A rally for Obama at Columbus Circle this afternoon was billed as a show of strength among women, but the theme, judging from at least one speaker, was a changing of the guard in New York politics.

“County leaders don’t run me—other elected officials don’t run me," City Council member Helen Diane Foster of the Bronx told the crowd of about 500 people. "The people run me.”

Foster went on to say, “I say we get rid of Bushes. I say we get rid of the name we won't mention [because] this isn't her state."  read more »