Clinton Camp Throws Kitchen Sink, Chairs, and Table at Obama

Earlier this week an aide to the Hillary Clinton campaign publicly predicted that a "kitchen sink" barrage of attacks would be launched at rival Barack Obama -- and the sound you hear today is precisely that of the sink, the flooring and perhaps the plumbing getting thrown around the room.

The first bang this morning was a Clinton campaign ad featuring images of children sleeping and a red phone beeping. A voice asks: "Who do you want answering the phone in the White House when it's 3 a.m. and something has happened in the world?" A studious-looking Clinton is seen diligently answering the call.

The new ad was just one of several attack strategies at the center of a lengthy conference call with reporters later in the day, in which Clinton aides took Obama to task on issues ranging from national security and NAFTA to his ties to indicted Chicago political insider Antoin Rezko.

The campaign operatives also engaged in some standard fiddling with expectations, arguing that if Obama failed to win all four states that vote on Tuesday it would send troubling signals about "dissatisfaction with [his] campaign." The smaller states of Vermont and Rhode Island also vote March 4th.

Speaking for well more than an hour, top Clinton aides Howard Wolfson, Mark Penn, and Phil Singer sounded a markedly aggressive tone. Wolfson lamented what he charged was media unwillingness, up to this point, to dig deeper into Obama's relationship to Rezko, whose federal corruption trial is scheduled to start on Monday.