Clinton’s campaign in disarray as staff squabble over ‘attack adverts’

Hillary Clinton is filling the airwaves with negative ads attacking Barack Obama as the race for the Democratic nomination enters a decisive three-week period.

But her strategy of going on the offensive against a likeable candidate is causing disarray inside her campaign team.

Spats between her senior staff have leaked to the press and are causing embarrassment for Mrs Clinton as she struggles to find a message that resonates with voters and blocks Mr Obama's progress in the crucial states of Ohio and Texas. Mrs Clinton badly needs to come up with a successful advertising strategy if she is to win the 4 March primaries. This week she launched her first negative ad in Wisconsin – which votes on Tuesday – saying that Mr Obama was refusing to debate with her. But as fast as it went on air, the Obama campaign fought back saying there had already been 18 debates.

Mrs Clinton seems to be staking everything on a strategy of launching expensive attack ads in Texas and Ohio, where she still leads in the polls.

In the past month, the Obama campaign has spent $36m (£18.5m) on uplifting ads while Mrs Clinton, who is short of money, spent less than $30m without appearing to break through to the public. Much of the blame is being heaped on her chief strategist, Mark Penn, who caused further embarrassment yesterday when it was revealed that the PR company he heads received hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from a nuclear power company that Mrs Clinton accused Mr Obama of being too close to.

This week, Mr Penn erupted at Mandy Grunwald, a longstanding the aide in charge of advertising, calling her latest effort a complete failure. "Oh, it's always the ad, never the message," a furious Ms Grunwald reportedly replied, causing senior colleagues to flee the room. The bust-up occurred after Mrs Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, quit the campaign in frustration.

Mrs Clinton's bigger problem, is finding a message that reflects the current uneasy mood in American politics under the presidency of George Bush years. This week Mrs Clinton spoke of the need for "Big Challenges, Real Solutions".

A week ago she offered voters the slogan "Ready for Change, Ready to Lead". Throughout the longest campaign in US history, Mr Obama never deviated from his message of: "Change You Can Believe In."

The seeds of the implosion in Mrs Clinton's campaign were sown months ago. From the outset she surrounded herself with a tight group. These were friends and former aides whose loyalty was tested in her days as First Lady.

Running far ahead in the polls, Mrs Clinton's campaign was top-down and media driven. She believed it would all be wrapped up by 5 February, Super Tuesday, and didn't bother building an organisation in those states voting later in the primary calendar.

The organisation burned through more than $100m in cash. Most of the money was spent on private polling, advertising and transfers of large amounts of cash to local Democratic Party hacks in the belief that they would get out the Hillary vote.