The Arrest of Sidney Blumenthal, Advisor to Hillary: Yet Another Twist in an Odd Election Year

Comstock Images/Jupiterimages This nomination campaign is raising more questions than it has answered. After Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan, neither party has a candidate with close to half of his or her party’s support.

Hillary Clinton leads the Democrats with about 42 percent in recent polls and John McCain leads the Republicans, but with only about 30 percent in recent polls. Three other Republicans have at least 10 percent and Fred Thompson is nearly at 10 percent.

The key questions are who will win specific primaries (So. Carolina, Florida) before the early February onslaught of primaries? Who will drop out, when, and where will their support go? Can Huckabee draw beyond the evangelicals? Can McCaiin win over the conservatives upset with him about his immigration and tax stands? Can Hillary convince voters she is really an agent of change? Can Rudy Giuliani revive his candidacy with a Florida win? Can Fred Thompson’s campaign be revived in South Carolina? Can Obama answer the “where’s the beef?” question for skeptics? Will the truce between Clinton and Obama over conflicts over race hold or reignite?

Adding to the normal questions raised by this abnormal nomination season is the odd occurrence of the arrest of Sidney Blumenthal, a senior unpaid advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Blumenthal was arrested for DWI in New Hampshire on the Monday before the New Hampshire primary. The AP story is that Blumenthal was pulled over in Nashua, NH at 12:30am on Monday after he was estimated to be driving 70mph in a 30mph zone. The officer smelled alcohol. After refusing to take a Breathlyzer test, Blumenthal failed a field sobriety test and, again according to the AP story, was arrested for “aggravated drunken driving.” As of late Sunday, I was still unable to find any Clinton campaign explanation or reaction to this.

This event raised a number of questions. First, why did it take until Saturday, five days after the arrest, for this story to make it into the press? The voters of NH should have been informed about this before their primary. What did Senator Clinton know about this and when did she know it? Are we supposed to believe that she was not informed that a senior advisor was arrrested for drunk driving within hours of it happening?  Who bailed Blumenthal out? Was it someone else from the Clinton campaign?  Was the story suppressed to avoid bad news being released on primary day?  Why didn’t Senator Clinton come forward in the press as soon as she heard about it and, at the very least, suspend Blumenthal’s association with the campaign until the legal case was resolved?

The questions go beyond those for the Clinton campaign.

Why haven’t the national media aggessively questioned Senator Clinton about this? Can anyone begin to imagine the media fireworks if this had been a Huckabee or Giuliani advisor or if it had been Karl Rove?

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