Rhode Island: Smallest state is big reward for Clinton

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

PROVIDENCE — Hillary Clinton’s 11-state losing streak ended in Rhode Island as the smallest state became a big battleground in the Democratic presidential contest.

In the last two weeks, the Ocean State took on greater significance as Clinton sought to halt the momentum of Barack Obama toward the nomination. Both campaigns poured resources into the state, and hundreds of volunteers, many from Massachusetts, went door-to-door in heavy rain as part of an all-out organizational struggle to get supporters to the polls.

Rhode Island was supposed to be a lock for Clinton, who had the backing of much of the state’s Democratic establishment, but Obama's campaign heavily outspent Clinton on television and radio ads in the waning days.

Half an hour after the polls closed, the Associated Press declared Clinton the winner. She had a 19-point lead with 82 percent of the precincts reporting. At stake were the Ocean State’s 21 pledged delegates.

In the other New England primary today, Obama trounced Clinton in Vermont, apparently winning at least nine of the 15 delegates.

There was a genuine sense of excitement in Rhode Island, which has not played a significant role in a presidential nominating contest in recent memory, and election officials were predicting turnout could break a record, at least in the Democratic contest, for a primary in the state.

With more resources and attention focused on delegate-heavy primaries in Texas and Ohio today, both campaigns, in a matter of weeks, nevertheless produced sophisticated ground operations in Rhode Island that identified supporters by telephone and then pulled them out today to vote.

The Clinton campaign, fighting for its life after a string of 11 consecutive defeats, pulled out the most stops in Rhode Island on primary day. In the morning, Senator Clinton did a live television interview via satellite with a local TV station; Bill Clinton did an interview on local radio; and daughter, Chelsea Clinton, made a lunchtime stop at a popular Cranston restaurant and then delivered pizza and rallied supporters at the state headquarters near downtown Providence early in the afternoon.

‘‘Thank you for believing in my mom,’’ she said to about 80 cheering volunteers.

Clinton’s primary day ground game was bolstered by at least 70 experienced hands from the political organization of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, whose chief operative, Michael Kineavy, was at Clinton’s headquarters. Those who are city workers took a vacation day, Kineavy said, and about 60 were on the streets around Providence knocking on doors.

Also campaigning on Clinton’s behalf last weekend were several Massachusetts legislators and former Boston mayor Raymond L. Flynn, who was appointed US ambassador to the Vatican by President Clinton in 1993. Senator John F. Kerry campaigned in Rhode Island for Obama over the weekend, Caleb Weaver, spokesman for Obama’s campaign in the state, said.

On primary day, the rival headquarters in Providence reflected the contrasts and the core constituencies of the candidates. The median age of volunteers in Clinton’s headquarters was perhaps 20 years older than those in Obama’s.

At Clinton headquarters, across Interstate 95 from downtown, 90-year-old Thelma Goldstein of Falmouth, Mass., a self-described ‘‘devout Democrat’’ who cast her first presidential vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, sat at a table with her friends Rebecca Moffitt and Norma Rae Wachs, both 69 and also from Falmouth.

Today was Goldstein’s fifth or sixth trip to Rhode Island to help out; it was Moffitt’s third and Wachs’s second. Nearby, a pair of elderly Catholic nuns made phone calls to voters.
Goldstein recalled how she was up at 3:30 a.m. today writing a letter to The Washington Post, extolling the virtues of Clinton.

‘‘I called her a champ,’’ Goldstein said. The Falmouth women are not new to this game: They were part of a group of 50 Cape Cod women who took a bus to New Hampshire to help Clinton before the first primary in January.

At Obama headquarters, in a downtown corner storefront, huge glass windows feature hand-painted versions of the campaign’s logo — a sun rising over the horizon. Inside, most of the 50 or so volunteers appeared to be in their 20s.

Nathan Landers, a senior at Brown University, prepared to leave with Ellen Frith, an interfaith chaplain from Somerville, Mass., more than twice his age, to knock on doors in North Providence. The campaign had provided him with a printout of voters on certain streets identified as Obama supporters.

Landers, from Healdsburg, Calif., north of San Francisco, said he researched the records of Obama and Clinton before volunteering for Obama and came down on the side of Obama’s judgment over Clinton’s experience.

He said he had spent an average of about eight hours a week helping the Obama campaign in the past month.

‘‘It’s not a problem; my grades haven’t suffered,’’ he said.

At the polling station inside the Colony House apartments for the elderly in the Elmwood section of Providence, 16 people were lined up, waiting to vote at 2:30 p.m. as the rain became heavier outside.

‘‘Who’d have thought Little Rhody would be getting involved in such important matters,’’ said Mike Mabray, as he left the poll.

‘‘Usually, Rhode Island is ignored.’’