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Even before caucus, Clinton camp explains why she might lose

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor January 18, 2008 07:53 PM

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

LAS VEGAS -- The Nevada caucuses aren't until Saturday, but Hillary Clinton's campaign wants everyone to know why she lost -- just in case she does.

Recent polls show Clinton five to nine percentage points ahead of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and well ahead of former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, which normally would feel like a comfortable position for a candidate the night before a presidential nominating contest.

But Clinton's campaign is nervous about a big turnout from the 60,000 members of the Culinary Workers Union, which endorsed Obama. And now that a judge has upheld the state Democratic Party's plans to locate nine at-large caucus sites on the Las Vegas Strip, those union members will have an easier time making it to a caucus without interrupting their busiest day at work.

The Clinton camp, which campaigned hard for the Culinary union endorsement, is already preparing its explanation for a possible loss, contending that the rules of the caucuses give extra weight to voters going to caucuses on the Strip.

"Nine caucus sites have been set up essentially for members of the Culinary union, who have endorsed Senator Obama. Because of a unique weighting system, these sites will count disproportionately in awarding delegates. This should give Obama a clear 5-point advantage starting out,'' Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn said in a memo this evening.

"Can we make that up? Senator Obama's National Field Director said, 'The Nevada election is going to come down to: Whoever gets the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union, more than likely, is going to win Nevada.' On the other hand, we have a great organization, huge crowds and a great candidate delivering strong message.''

In other words: Clinton will win. Unless she loses, in which case it's not a real loss because the rules were unfair.

The at-large caucus sites will be awarded more delegates, depending on turnout, because the party expects those precincts to draw many more voters.

Several teachers supporting Clinton filed a lawsuit last week to stop the party from running the at-large caucus sites. The Clinton campaign vehemently denied having anything to do with the lawsuit, although it did not denounce the effort.

The union got mad, and its parent union started running Spanish-language radio ads accusing Clinton of betraying Latino voters (the Culinary union is about 40 percent Hispanic) and being "shameless'' in her efforts to squelch their vote.

The Clinton campaign got mad back, and countered that Obama should denounce the ads. And what's more, Obama has no relationship at all with the Latino community here, said Dolores Huerta, a union activist and Clinton supporter.

"I have yet to find one casino worker who is for Obama,'' Huerta on a conference call with reporters. She added that in her many years of traveling and working on labor and human rights matters, "I have never met Obama.

"It is obvious he is trying to establish some relationship with the Latino community in Nevada which he didn't have before,'' Huerta said.

Obama's campaign said it had nothing to do with the radio ads. And anyway, the at-large sites aren't only open to casino union workers, an Obama staffer noted -- management, gas station attendants and anyone else in the area can show up to the caucus sites.

Chris Bohner, a spokesman for Unite Here, which purchased the ads, said the failed lawsuit would galvanize Obama supporters.

"It's indisputable that the Clinton campaign has publicly supported at least the intent of the lawsuit,'' Bohner said. "Telling workers -- some whom have recently become US citizens and are voting for the first time -- that they cannot vote upsets them very much.''

3 comments so far...
  1. "Can we make that up? Senator Obama's National Field Director said, 'The Nevada election is going to come down to: Whoever gets the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union, more than likely, is going to win Nevada.' On the other hand, we have a great organization, huge crowds and a great candidate delivering strong message.''

    Note that Obama National Field Director’s comment was made long before Obama was endorsed by the Culinary Workers’ Union – and that the lawsuit was filed only after he received it.

    I think that the Clinton supporters efforts to suppress voters who chose not to endorse her backfired – and now, to ‘push it all off themselves’ are, once again, trying to push the blame for the backlash off on Obama. Only one more in a long list of errors on the part of the Clinton campaign – making underhanded moves in an effort to eliminate an opponent, in an effort to gain the votes for themselves, then push the blame for it onto the opponent when it backfires…must say it’s been very amusing to watch! This ‘get the nomination at all costs’ by the Clinton campaign is turning off a LOT of voters!

    By the way – found it interesting that Obama has been in public office since 1997 (four years before Clinton), and Clinton’s 35 years of experience, at least from what I see, is mostly her husband’s. So, from that standpoint, to use ‘lack of experience’ as a tool to diminish Obama’s ‘electability’ is rather ridiculous.

    For a lot of us, it boils down to Integrity and Character...and, after what I have been seeing, I do not see how those two words can be applied to Clinton.


    Posted by NanD January 18, 08 09:11 PM
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  1. Americans deserve to have a President that has vision and character and can be trusted when he or she says something rather than be confident only that their president is a crafty politician who when pushed will say whatever he or she thinks best covers all bases at the moment. As people get to know Barack Obama better I believe they will like what the see.

    In his books Barack Obama has told the story of the family into which he was born, about a father from Kenya whom he barely knew and about his young American mother who along with his father were college students in Hawaii.
    By age 6 young Barack was already living in Jakarta with his mother and his Indonesian step father before abruptly moving back to Hawaii at age 10 to be raised by his maternal grandparents when his mother and her second husband divorced.
    Over the years Barack Obama had bonding experiences with white and black relatives and with Asian family members amidst an understandable struggle to find his own identity. Through it all he developed a keen ability to understand and to resonate with people of various ethnic backgrounds.
    Barack Obama worked his way through the racial complexities into which he was born to graduate Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School and become president of the Harvard Law Review. He served in the Illinois State Senate for 8 years and in 2004 won a 70 % landslide election to become a United States Senator. Barack Obama has had 46 years of personal experience in understanding how perceptions of ethnicity and judgments about race can divide people and he is uniquely qualified to bring a sense of unity and common purpose to all Americans.
    In 1963 (when Obama was just 2 years old) on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech that included the familiar phrase of "not being judged by the color of one's skin but by the content of one's character." That speech helped prompt passage of the 1964 US Civil rights Act and the next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If the people of America elect Barack Obama to be their 44th President in November of this year King's dream will have become much more than just a dream.

    Is Barack Obama's war position inconsistent?

    Barack Obama delivered a powerful speech at the Federal Plaza in Chicago October 2, 2002 against the US beginning war in Iraq while later that same month Hillary Clinton voted for the authorization to begin US military action in Iraq. Once US troops were actually in Iraq and fighting a war, of course, it would be irresponsible for Obama to be against funding the troops. The key is that Barack Obama had the judgment to see the dumbness of the war in October 2002 and clearly said so. Hillary Clinton did not.
    Bill and Hillary Clinton's tactic of trying to paint Obama's war position as "a fairy tale" or as "inconsistent" is merely "Clinton politics" and clearly demonstrates why America badly needs the enormous breath of fresh air Barack Obama provides. At one time Senator Kerry from Nebraska referred to the Clinton's as "clever liars" several years before President Bill Clinton told America: "I did not have sex with that woman!" Goodbye Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hello Barack Obama.

    Barack Obama's Stirring 2002 Speech Against the Iraq War

    Senator Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, delivered these remarks October 2, 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.

    "I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

    I Don't Oppose All Wars

    I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army.
    He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.
    I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

    Opposed to Dumb, Rash Wars

    I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
    What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
    That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

    On Saddam Hussein

    Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
    But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
    I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.
    I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
    I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

    You Want a Fight, President Bush?

    You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.
    You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.
    You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.
    You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
    Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

    That is a glimpse of what presidential candidate Barack Obama is all about.

    Posted by Robert Westafer January 18, 08 09:49 PM
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  1. More and more people are tired and turned off by staged polititcians - like the answers given the other night at the deabe--Hillary's greatest weakness is how much she cares for the people. Edwards also gave a phony answer which seemed more about his compassion than a weakness. GIVE ME A BREAK! Politicians who give these contrived and phony answers are more concerned about them and not about you, the people. They are not trying to connect with you in any meaningful way, but trying to manipulate you -- by staged and phony answers, Washingtonian Answers.

    In this era of the Greening of America, people are moving toward a more holistic way of living: organic foods and household items free of pesticides and chemicals, more effecient appliances to aid in the cleaning up of greenhouse gases among other things, solar and wind -- clean energy. However, we also want more Efficient and Cleaner Politicians. Ones we can believe in and ones we know are speaking to us, not at us, who are not trying to control and manipulate the us, the masses, for their own personal gains. That's how we get into wars by politicians who go along to get along for their OWN PERSONAL GAIN and not concerned about the degradation of what will happen to You, the Planet, and -- to the PEOPLE!

    Posted by Bacalove January 19, 08 08:59 AM
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About political intelligence Field reports from Boston Globe reporters and editors covering the 2008 presidential campaign and the national maneuvering of Bay State politicians.

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