Republican and conservative activists are behind a vigorous campaign to promote a controversial new biography about Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, with some even suggesting that the book will help dash any presidential aspirations she might have.
The prospect that Clinton, who is up for re-election next year, may run for the presidency in 2008, has re-energized her opponents, who are seizing on the book, The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President, as it approaches its release date next week.
Gopusa.com, a Republican Web site and news service, sent 500,000 e-mail messages with a line saying, "Publishing insiders say the book and its revelations could destroy her bid to run for the presidency in 2008."
The publisher, Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) that focuses on conservative views, has added to the atmosphere surrounding the publication. In a catalog sent to bookstores, the publisher compared the book with the campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked the Vietnam record of Democratic Senator John Kerry in last year's presidential race.
In addition, the financing for a conservative Web site that is promoting the book comes partly from Richard Mellon Scaife, a long-time foe of the Clintons who tapped his fortune in the 1990s to finance a project at the American Spectator magazine to dig up damaging information about the couple.
The publicity surrounding the book, which reportedly includes sensational assertions about Clinton's personal life, has stirred a fierce reaction among some of her staunchest supporters and others, who, legitimately or not, see a coordinated campaign to undermine Clinton at a time when she is taking more of a hand in national politics.
"It has all the feel of a ginned-up, right-wing effort to smear anybody who is seen by the right as politically threatening," said David Brock, a former right-wing journalist who has become a critic of conservatives.
A spokesman for Sentinel strenuously denied that the book was politically motivated or that Sentinel was coordinating publicity with conservative and Republican groups, a contention Clinton's backers doubt.
"They are treating it like a right-wing hit job," a spokesman for Sentinel, Will Weisser, said in referring to Clinton's supporters. "It's absolutely not a right-wing hit job."
Nevertheless, the book has captured the attention of conservatives, including the Web site of the Conservative Book Club.
The club is owned by Eagle Publishing, parent of Regnery Publishing, which issued Unfit for Command, a book about Kerry's military service that was written by one of the primary leaders of Swift Vets.
The Conservative Book Club Web site has placed the book, by Edward Klein, a former editor of the New York Times Magazine, at the top of a page devoted to books critical of the Clintons.
The book also has a patron in NewsMax.com, a Web site operated by a company that Scaife has a stake in.
The site has been offering the book free with subscriptions or renewals to NewsMax magazine.
"Hillary has good reason to be worried about this book," the Web site says.
"Publishing insiders say the book and its revelations could destroy her bid to run for the presidency in 2008," it says.
Promoting the book has less to do with ideology and more to do with generating business, said Christopher Ruddy, president and chief executive of NewsMax Media.
Ruddy said Scaife was not involved in its day-to-day decisions.
He noted that the company made money from book sales generated on the site and predicted that the book would be popular not just among Clinton's opponents, but also readers of sensational publications who are fascinated by her celebrity.
"The people who buy tabloids with Hillary on the cover are buying it because they are intrigued by her, not necessarily because of the politics," Ruddy said.
Clinton's advisers have struck back forcefully, apparently mindful that the Kerry campaign's failure to respond quickly to the attacks last year took a major toll on his campaign.
Her advisers have dismissed the book as one "full of blatant and vicious fabrications."
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