US:A FULLER reckoning of the extent of the infighting in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign began to emerge yesterday - 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 failed to set up clear lines of authority, opting instead for an organisation which was a "team of rivals". The picture of discord emerges a day after Bill Clinton held his first extensive phone conversation with Mr Obama since his wife's defeat a month ago.
The discussion was seen as an important symbol of healing between the camps. Mr Obama's campaign is anxious to win over Mrs 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 forthcoming contest against John McCain.
A Clinton insider said the former president was committed to helping Mr Obama win the election against Mr McCain. The source dismissed reports of rancour between Mr Clinton and Mr Obama.
Meanwhile, Patti Solis Doyle, who as Mrs Clinton's campaign manager was among the "team of rivals", started working for Mr Obama's campaign yesterday.
Other Clinton aides have joined Mr Obama's campaign in recent days, including her former policy adviser, Neera Tanden.
But Ms Doyle is likely to remain the only member of the Big Five, as Sheehy describes them, to join the Obama campaign. She will be in charge of the vice-president's campaign, a move seen as a slap to Mrs Clinton, who had sacked Ms Doyle earlier this year.
The rivalry between Ms Doyle, strategists Mark Penn and Harold Ickes, and media specialists Mandy Grunwald and Howard Wolfson crippled Mrs Clinton's campaign, Ms Sheehy writes.
It faced further confusion over the role of Mr Clinton, who tried, but failed, to set up his own office within her Washington DC headquarters.
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. - (Guardian service)