Obama, Clinton negotiate key issues before joint appearance

NEW YORK: Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton are negotiating a range of issues including how to repay the latter's campaign debt and her role at the party convention, with help from one of Washington's best-connected lawyers, a media report said on Thursday.
    
At Clinton's request, the lawyer, Robert B Barnett, who has brokered multimillion-dollar book deals for clients including Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton is working to hash out questions, large and small, as the two camps work towards a political merger, the New York Times said.
    
One of the thorniest issues ex-President Bill Clinton's continued "refighting" of the bitter primary battle is yet to be raised by either side, advisers were quoted as saying.
    
On some levels, the melding of the two operations is moving ahead relatively smoothly, the paper said, adding that Clinton will introduce some of her top donors to Obama this night in Washington, and tomorrow the two of them will appear together at a rally in Unity in New Hampshie.
    
Obama is in talks to hire one of Clinton's most prominent advisers Neera Tanden, her policy director and has hired and dispatched a few of Clinton's field operatives to work in Missouri and Ohio, it added.
    
But nearly three weeks after Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama as President, some loyalists, especially on the Clinton side, are having trouble moving on, the Times reported.
    
Some Clinton supporters, it said, are grousing that Obama is yet to make the symbolic gesture of writing a check for $2,300, the maximum allowable campaign donation, to help retire her debt of over $12 million.
    
At her headquarters two weeks ago, a potluck dinner for women who had volunteered for Clinton turned into a forum in which many of her most loyal supporters expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the contest and with Obama, attendees were quoted as saying.
    
And some of Clinton's aides said Obama's campaign had made only a perfunctory effort to hire Clinton staff members, the Clinton campaign payroll is ending for most employees in less than a week.
    
Obama's aides were quoted as saying that while he was prepared to help her pay off the debt, there was only so far he would go, given his campaign's own desire to raise record sums for the general election.
    
In addition to the $12 million that Clinton owes to outside suppliers, she pumped more than $10 million of her own money into her campaign.
    
Obama was quoted as saying yesterday that he would not send out e-mail to his small-dollar donors asking them to send money to Clinton.
    
"Their budgets are tighter," he said. "They know that I'm going to be working with Senator Clinton, and if they want to make contributions, there's nothing wrong with their doing so, and I encourage them."
    
Beyond that, the two sides are negotiating precisely what kind of role she will have at the convention, including what night she will make a prime-time speech and whether her name will be placed symbolically into nomination.
    
They are also discussing whether Obama's campaign will provide a plane and staff for Clinton as she travels on his behalf. The talks were described by aides on both sides as complicated, but not hostile, the paper said.