A Clinton Iowa Precinct Captain Defects To Obama's Team

Johnston, IA (AHN) -- The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) said on Friday that an Iowa precinct captain for rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) had defected to their side because of "personal attacks" that have caused the Clinton camp to make repeated public apologies and force the resignations of at least three campaign workers.

In a post titled "Turning Toward Hope," Susan Klopfer says she was "disappointed lately to see all these attacks [Clinton's] been making on Barack Obama."

"When her campaign went after Barack for saying he wanted to be president in kindergarten, I thought: "Now this is really silly, what is this campaign coming to?" said Kloper, who was shown in an accompanying video replacing a Clnton sign in her front yard with one supporting Obama. "These kinds of negative attacks just isn't what Iowans are interested in. We're interested in what candidates are going to do about the big challenges we face, whether it's universal health care, fighting global climate change, or ending this war in Iraq."

Klopfer's words were ironically similar to the candidate she formerly supported. Clinton said on Friday that her campaign's statements about Obama's claim that he had not been planning to run for president "was silly."

"I told my campaign it was silly. My whole point has been there are legitimate differences," Clinton told reporters in Iowa, where caucuses on January 3 officially begin the presidential nomination contests for this elections.

A day after she personally apologized to her rival, Clinton appeared on the Iowa Public Television show "Iowa Press" and continued to condemn the what she called unauthorized comments by people in her campaign. Two volunteer Iowa coordinators had recently been forced to resign from her campaign after they were found to have forwarded e-mail messages that accused Obama of being a fundamentalist Muslim with plans to violently attack Americans.

"I reject completely the kind of line-crossing that I've stood up against in my campaign consistently. As soon as we find out something happened that we don't authorize, we don't condone, we have no part of, we ask people to please not be a part of our campaign," Clinton said on the program.

Clinton has been the long-time front-runner among Democratic White House hopefuls in polls, but she is currently tied with Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register quotes Obama spokesman Josh Earnest as saying their campaign "rejects gratuitous, personal attacks as a weapon in politics."

Bill Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor, resigned as national co-chairman for the Clinton campaign on Thursday after he was publicly rebuked by Clinton for his comments saying Obama's admitted use of drugs as a teenager would affect the Illinois senator's Democratic presidential nomination.