Obama to Clinton: Don't 'Swift Boat' Me

Obama has reason to make the accusation, the Clintons are masters of the dirty politics. The problem is that the press doesn't to be interested in exposing the true nature of Slick Billary. So what usually happens is her critics are accused of negative campaigning:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called on his rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, to put to rest a report that agents of her campaign are spreading word of an alleged scandal involving Obama.

"She of all people, having complained so often about 'the politics of personal destruction,' should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics," Obama said in a statement released by his campaign on Saturday.

Obama's comments stem from an item published Saturday in the 'New York Post' by Robert Novak. Novak claimed that surrogates for Clinton have mounted a word of mouth campaign among Democratic circles regarding scandalous information the Clinton campaign has about Obama. Novak said that experienced veterans of Democratic politics believe the Clinton campaign is withholding the release of the information because it wants to avoid a re-play of the 2004 nomination fight, when attacks on each other by Richard Gephardt, and Howard Dean were credited with assisting the rise and eventual nomination of another candidate, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Maybe Hillary is starting to hear Obama's footsteps in Iowa. I think her campaign realizes that a victory in Iowa would be knockout punch:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has nearly doubled the size of her staff in Iowa and has substantially increased her advertising here as her campaign reinforces its effort to prevent Democrats from coalescing around a single alternative to her candidacy.

In the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign has been on the defensive lately because of her own missteps and increasingly aggressive attacks from her rivals, is moving to double or triple the amount of time she has spent here in recent months. Seldom will a day go by, aides said, when either she or former President Bill Clinton will not be on some patch of Iowa soil trying to solidify her support and win over an unusually high number of uncommitted voters.

[...]The maneuvering here is critical, because Mrs. Clinton’s aides, along with many Democrats not associated with her campaign, believe that her momentum will be difficult to slow if she wins here; polls suggest that she is strong in New Hampshire. The Clinton campaign has been flying in operatives from across the country to bolster the effort here.

Complicating the matter even more, the campaigns of Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut also have the potential to sway the race. If candidates do not reach a 15-percent threshold in each of the 1,784 precinct caucuses on Jan. 3, their supporters make a second choice, a procedure that Mrs. Clinton’s aides fear could favor Mr. Edwards or Mr. Obama.