Willey Warns Dems as Clinton Sharpens Attacks on Obama

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- After losing a string of ten primaries and caucuses to Senator Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton is looking to regain her footing by competing hard. The NY Times reported today that Senator Clinton did not waste time in signaling that she would now take a tougher line against Senator Obama.

Former White House aide and Democratic fundraiser, Kathleen Willey is concerned not only for Senator Obama, but also for the Democratic Party for which she worked so hard in the past.

"As the Democratic race continues and Hillary seeks to break Obama's momentum," Willey says, "I believe we are going to see a lot more of the same Clinton tactics that I and a number of insiders have experienced."

Indeed, the Clinton camp may have hatched a new strategy. Roger Simon of Politico.com reported that a high-ranking Clinton official said the campaign intends to go after Obama's delegates if they are needed to win the nomination. Simon reported that the Clinton camp sought to get pledged delegates -- not the contested "superdelegates" -- to switch sides, regardless of the states' caucus results.

"Just when the Dems are supposed to be pulling together, the Clintons are doing whatever it takes to get to the top," says Willey. "In their desperation, they are creating another scenario for war within the Democratic party."

In another divisive move, according to the Associated Press, Hillary's advisor Harold Ickes is now contradicting his stance as a member of the Democratic National Committee. In that capacity, Ickes voted to impose sanctions stripping Michigan and Florida of their 313 delegates because they scheduled early primaries without DNC permission. The only candidate to campaign in those states, Hillary won the contests and now needs the delegates so, in a complete about-face, Ickes, a top advisor to Clinton, is now arguing to undo the penalty and allow the delegates to count for,Hillary. According to AP, Ickes' contradictory positions on whether to count the delegates for Hillary "illustrate some of the internal division within the party as Clinton and Obama run neck-in-neck in the Democratic presidential race."

Willey says that when she first started working at the White House as a loyal Democrat, she had the naive belief that the Clintons genuinely cared about the Party above themselves. But, Willey says, it didn't take her long to be disabused of that notion. "When push comes to shove, the Clinton's don't care about the Democratic Party," she adds. "They only care about the Clinton party!"

Willey came to prominence in 1997 after being subpoenaed to testify in the Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton. She is the author of "Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton," by WND Books .

SOURCE Kathleen Willey