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Obama, Clinton In Talks On Campaign Debt, Convention

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The New York Times

Published: June 26, 2008

WASHINGTON - With the help of one of Washington's best-connected lawyers, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are negotiating a thicket of complicated issues, like how to repay Clinton's campaign debt and her role at the Democratic convention.

The talks come as they try to leave behind their intense rivalry and work out a plan to cooperate this fall.

At Clinton's request, the lawyer, Robert B. Barnett, who has brokered multimillion-dollar book deals for clients including Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, is working to hash out questions large and small as the two camps work toward a political merger.

Perhaps the thorniest question - what to do about Bill Clinton, who friends say continues to refight the bitter primary fight - has yet to be raised by either side, advisers said.

On some levels, the melding of the two operations is moving ahead relatively smoothly. Hillary Clinton was scheduled to introduce some of her top donors to Obama tonight in Washington, and on Friday the two of them will appear together at a rally in Unity, N.H.

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.

But some Clinton supporters are grousing that Obama has yet to make the symbolic gesture of writing a check for $2,300, the maximum allowable campaign donation, to help retire her debt of more than $12 million.

A potluck dinner for women who volunteered for Clinton at her headquarters two weeks ago turned into a forum in which many of Clinton's most loyal supporters expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the contest and with Obama, attendees said.

And some of Clinton's aides said that 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.

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