Clinton Team Is Quick to Bat Down Rumors

The Clinton camp unleashed the heavy artillery on Nov. 8. Singer was driving to the Arlington headquarters that morning when he heard part of a National Public Radio report on two women whose lives had been touched by the campaign. At the office, Singer learned that he had missed an interview with a waitress at a Maid-Rite sandwich shop in Toledo, Iowa, who said that "nobody got left a tip" after Clinton ate a loose-meat sandwich at the lunch counter.

As the tale, powered by a link on the Drudge Report, ricocheted across the Internet, Clinton staffers tracked down those who were at the restaurant, including the aide who paid the bill with his credit card.

"The Clinton campaign was upset that we hadn't called them to talk about the tip," said NPR reporter David Greene, who acknowledged that he should have checked further. "We weren't trying to do gotcha journalism."

Singer sent off an e-mail to NPR: "The campaign spent $157 and left a $100 tip at the Maid-Rite Restaurant. Wish you had checked in with us beforehand." As the Republican National Committee began e-mailing the NPR report to the press, Clinton staffers contacted reporters and got their denials onto blogs at the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and the New York Times and other media outlets. An aide was also dispatched to hand the waitress $20.

"The first version of a story is incorrect, it gets pounced on, your opponents jump on it, and trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube is almost impossible," said Jay Carson, Clinton's traveling press secretary. "All of a sudden you have reputable news organizations chasing it." With the tip yarn, he said, "you're in the middle of a full-fledged controversy over something that didn't really happen."

The Clinton campaign isn't reticent about challenging news reports that turn on interpretation, either, and critics have likened its aggressive tactics to those of the Bush White House, which has had tense relations with the press corps.

"Reporters who have covered the hyper-vigilant campaign say that no detail or editorial spin is too minor to draw a rebuke," the New Republic says.

Clinton aides know they run the risk of highlighting small items that might otherwise receive scant attention but have concluded that, most of the time, that is an acceptable risk. "Vigilance is very important," Wolfson said. "I think Democratic voters expect a nominee's campaign to know how to correct the record."