Clinton camp pulls controversial ad

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign insists its decision to pull a controversial radio ad in South Carolina one day after it launched was not motivated by the tremendous uproar it created.

{mosads}The ad uses Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) comments that the Republican Party was the “party of ideas” in recent years to rhetorically ask if he supports specific GOP ideas like refusing to raise the minimum wage. Obama’s campaign has criticized the ad, as have editorial boards, pundits and other Democrats.

Top Clinton strategists Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson continued to defend the line of attack in a conference call Thursday afternoon. They said the fact that the ad was pulled is part of the normal rotation of ads.

“We are trafficking in our final closing messages for the campaign and that explains the change in traffic,” Wolfson said.

Penn insisted the ad was not misleading. “Those are the actual words he used,” he said.

Penn criticized Obama for not condemning specific GOP policies pushed by former President Reagan during the interview with a Nevada newspaper editorial board in which he described the GOP as a party of ideas.

However, Penn also admitted Obama did not take stances on the ideas, even though Clinton accused him in a recent debate of praising them.

“He did not take a position on those ideas,” said Penn, who defended the ad as not stating that Obama had taken a position on specific policies pushed by Republicans.

Clinton said in a debate on Monday: “The facts are that he has said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years. And we can give you the exact quote. Now, I personally think they had ideas, but they were bad ideas.”

Obama has clarified that he was not praising the opposition party’s ideas, and he never advocated any specific Republican ideas in the context of his comments.

His campaign countered with a radio ad released Thursday which clarifies his remarks about Reagan and says Clinton will “say anything” to get elected and “change nothing.”

Obama’s campaign hailed the pulling of Clinton’s ad.

“This is a victory for the truth, and a victory for all South Carolinians who want to turn the page on the divisive politics of the past,” Obama supporter and former Clinton administration official David Agnew said in a statement. “Obviously the deceptions go beyond this one radio ad. It’s time for the distortions of Senator Obama’s record to stop.”