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John R. MacArthur On Iraq: "We're Seeing a Lot of Self-Censorship"

2008-03-14T16:35:06Z

As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.

John R. MacArthur: "We're Seeing a Lot of Self-Censorship"
Harper's Publisher Says Media as Timid as Democrats On Iraq

By Marc Cooper

John "Rick" MacArthur, publisher and president of Harper's magazine, was an early critic of the drive to invade Iraq, arguing on the eve of war that the White House was engaging in "Orwellian" manipulation of public opinion. Indeed, MacArthur, back in 1992, had penned a scathing critique of the media's lack of skepticism regarding the first war in Iraq, titled Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War. He's also the author of The Selling of "Free Trade": NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy (2000) and his forthcoming book on the decline of American democracy is titled You Can't Be President.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, MacArthur argued that the truth about the disaster-in-waiting in Iraq was always plain to see, so long as the will existed to search it out.

Are there media heroes and villains in recounting the run-up to the war in Iraq?

The journalistic heroes here are not the journalists. It's people like (former U.N. weapons inspector) Scott Ritter. And Ritter was the easiest source to quote at the time. What I kept saying to people at the time was if there's one Scott Ritter out there screaming his head off on talk radio and cable TV, then there are twenty other Scott Ritters types who are afraid to talk on the record but you can still talk to. If you were a Nervous Nelly sort of reporter and you wanted more official types to back up the sort of things he was saying, all you had to look was for them. I'm thinking of sources like [former U.S. weapons inspector] David Albright who had plenty to say.

The two great reporters for Knight-Ridder, Jonathan Landy and Warren Strobel, were getting it right but nobody was paying attention. I mean, all the editorials in the papers these guys were working for weren't paying any attention to what their own reporters were saying. Whoever wrote the editorials looked like they weren't reading their own newspapers. Everything those two reporters had been publishing up to then was contradicting everything Bush had been saying.

How easy or difficult was it, in your view, for the average interested citizen in 2002 to find out what was going on in Iraq by reading the press?

It was easy to follow if you paid attention to what people like those at Knight-Ridder were saying. The stuff I was saying was a little harder to find. I was on some cable TV shows and wrote some opinion pieces early on. A piece I wrote for the Providence Journal was, I think, the first longish piece calling Bush a liar on this issue.

But you also had the Bush family track record of making stuff up about the first Gulf War, which I reported on in my book, The Second Front. You knew there was a history of making things up and the Bushes were not reliable on this and neither was the reporting on what they said. There was a whole history of propaganda with them.

You might then also have looked at what UNCSOM had done officially in Iraq. Or you could have dropped a dime and called (UN Chief Weapons Inspector) Mohamed ElBaradei in Geneva and he could have told you.

Let me tell you how bad this all was. When (former New York Times reporter) Judith Miller was really on her rampage with the (U.S. Army) Special Unit trying to find weapons of mass destruction in May 2003, right after the invasion, I go on a show with former CIA Director James Woolsey. They put me on a show on CNN International, by the way, because they won't let me on CNN domestic. So we're debating what they're going to find and what they're not going to find. And Woolsey says, "Don't worry. The New York Times isn't done reporting yet. There's a lot more stuff coming out." (Laughs). I do chapter and verse on everything they hadn't found, all from the public record and I say The New York Times is not a credible source on this and that Judith Miller is not an honest reporter.

A couple of weeks later I get a letter. This is dated May 26th 2003.

(Reading) "Dear Mr. MacArthur: I had the pleasure to watch CNN's Q&A program on Friday, 23 May, and I wish to thank you sincerely for setting the record straight. Your intervention was courageous and forthright. Yours Sincerely, Mohamed ElBaradei."

This guy's got to be pretty desperate! (Laughs) He happens to catch me on CNN International saying the obvious. And this is May 2003! The case was already falling apart.

The institutional tenor of the conversation was so crazy that maybe it was, in fact, impossible to get the truth. I mean look at Colin Powell. I have great respect for her and now she's dead. But go back and look at (long-time liberal Washington Post) columnist Mary McGrory and after Powell's testimony before the UN she was exclaiming, "I believe! I believe him!"

When you talk about the institutional tenor of the time, I take it you are referring to not just the White House, but also to the echoes in the media. Does the media have that sort of responsibility that you are implying?

The media bears enormous responsibility because they were proactive. The New York Times and The Washington Post were pro-active, they were trying to advance the administration story. Clearly, Judith Miller had an ideological agenda. I think Michael Gordon probably had one too. Now that I have seen his awful reporting on Iran and the IED's which, by the way, has been contradicted again and again and he's not being held accountable. You figure those two guys were trying to advance the arguments of the Bush administration because they wanted to start a war.

But they weren't running the Times. Arthur Sulzberger and Howell Raines were running the paper.

Right. The only good reporting we've seen on Raines tell us his mindset was 'we have to prove to the administration that we're not liberals, that we're not anti-war. That we have to overcompensate for a reputation for being a liberal.' It's probably more complicated than that, but that still gets you pretty close.

How would you compare the level of media skepticism and the caliber of reporting today on Iraq against five years ago? Has there been a shift?

I don't think there's been much of a change. There was a sort of incredulity when the whole story fell apart. And then a kind of a silence. Then some recriminations. But what's the result? The first thing you see is The New York Times sitting on their NSA wiretap story for a year, not publishing it. Why wasn't it published before the 2004 election? The Washington Post not naming the countries where the CIA secret prisons were. Like, we wouldn't really want to know where all this stuff is actually happening? What we're seeing is a lot of self-censorship, not aggressively wrong reporting.

I don't see any big institutional shift. There was Michael Gordon, Judith Miller's partner-in-crime, right out there on the front page recently with those stories about the Iranian government providing roadside bombs in Iraq to kill American soldiers though no one could prove it.

But there's been an enormous political shift in the last five years. The Bush administration and the war itself have declined enormously in popularity since then. Why are you arguing it isn't reflected in the tone of the media?

You'd think it would be safer now to be more aggressive, you're right. What I suspect is that half the Democratic Party is still telling the bigwigs in the media is that we can't pull out of Iraq. And, remember, to pull out of Iraq is to undermine our entire foreign policy since 9/11. I've always followed Walter Karp's dictum that the press does not act, rather it is acted upon. There's always this relationship between the big media and the national political leadership. The first doesn't move much without the latter. And, really, the political shift hasn't been as great as some would think.

You don't consider the midterm elections of 2006 and the taking of Congress by the Democrats to be significant?

If the shift had been as big as I would have liked and in the direction I would have liked, (Pennsylvania Democrat) John Murtha would be House Majority Leader now. Murtha is key and not being named Majority Leader tells you everything about where the party is now. Here's a guy who's got seniority, he's a pork-barrel guy, he knows how to deliver, he's close to the Pentagon, he's got impeccable party credentials and a Marine Corps background, but they wouldn't make him party leader. He's too anti-war. The party, right away, said no-no, we're not getting out of Iraq, we're not going to force the issue with Bush even after the 2006 elections. Rahm Emanuel slated a lot of pro-war candidates for the Democrats and they won.

So the reporters aren't hearing any sort of unified voice of skepticism and opposition from the Democratic leadership. Until that happens, you're not going to see the press shift,

Clinton Campaign Cuts Back Wooing of Superdelegates

2008-03-03T08:00:00Z

With the Democratic presidential race heading toward a possible climax Tuesday as four states including Texas and Ohio conduct their primaries, the lagging Hillary Clinton campaign has cut back its efforts to win over those superdelegates who have pledged to Barack Obama or who remain uncommitted. Instead, the former First Lady's campaign is straining to hold onto those "automatic delegates" who have already pledged their support to her while trying to curb any further defections toward Obama.

Just ask the youngest of Democratic superdelegates, 21 year old Marquette University student Jason Rae, for whom life was a lot more exciting two weeks ago. "The phone calls started after the Iowa caucus," he says of the barrage of enticements to endorse one or another presidential candidate that came his way earlier this year.

Chelsea Clinton even came to his university cafeteria to have breakfast with him and make the pitch for her mother. Bill Clinton called him. So did former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. And from the rival Obama campaign, Rae got a personal telephone plea from no less than John Kerry.

Elected to the Democratic National Committee for a four-year term as a 17 year old in 2004, Jason Rae momentarily loomed as large on the campaign radar screen as perhaps a sitting member of congress.

But all of a sudden the spotlight on Rae was dimmed. "The calls from Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and John Kerry were before Super Tuesday," Rae emphasizes. Once his state of Wisconsin went for Obama, and once he publicly declared his support for the surging Illinois Senator, Rae's phone stopped ringing off the hook.

The Clinton campaign simply gave up on Jason Rae.

And not just on him.

Interviews with numerous superdelegates over the last two weeks from California through the heartland and up into Maine reveal a similar pattern. With momentum running in Obama's favor after 11 straight primary wins, and after the recent high-profile defections of pro-Clinton superdelegates like civil rights icon John Lewis (D-GA), the Clinton campaign has re-focused its work among superdelegates to stem a possible ebb tide rather than to recruit new converts.

The interviews were conducted by scores of citizen journalists working with HuffPost's OffTheBus Superdelegate Investigation who have profiled more than 200 of the superdelegates (click here to view the profiles and/or to join the project).

With neither Obama nor Clinton expected to win an absolute majority of the more than 4,000 Democratic delegates who ultimately elect the party nominee, the votes of the 795 so-called "superdelegates" will be needed this year to push one or the other candidate over the line. Obama currently holds an approximate 125 delegate edge over Clinton.

The greatest fear of the Clinton campaign is that anything less than a stellar performance by the candidate in Tuesday's all-important Ohio and Texas primaries, could cause a stampede of superdelegates in Obama's direction, mortally wounding Clinton. Those fears were heightened Sunday when New Mexico Governor and still uncommitted superdelegate Bill Richardson hinted on CBS' Face The Nation that after the results come in on what he called this Tuesday's "D-Day," it might be the moment to end the race. "We have to have a positive campaign after Tuesday. Whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday, a clear lead, should be, in my judgment, the nominee," he said.

Hence, the Clinton's campaign's efforts to stem the flow and to consolidate whatever superdelegate support it already has. "The Hillary campaign calls frequently and ... and we have weekly conference calls about what's going on," says Mirian Saez, vice-chair of the DNC's gay and lesbian caucus and an early endorser of Clinton.

Various pro-Obama delegates, like Mayor John Rednour of DuQuoin, Illinois; Steve Powell, also of Illinois, and Stephen Fontana, a Connecticut state legislator, confirm that the Clinton campaign no longer calls them seeking support. Debbie K. Marquez, a restaurant owner in Eagle, Colorado, a member of the Democratic National Committee, says once it was clear she was supporting Obama the steady, daily stream of email and phone calls from the Clinton campaign slowed and eventually ceased.

About half the total number of superdelegates remain uncommitted and consequently remain in the middle of an ongoing tug of war between the fiercely contending campaigns. Much of that lobbying is spear-headed by some of the superdelegates themselves. "I have been calling other superdelegates, listening to their concerns, trying to answer their questions, says Washington D.C. delegate Jim Zogby, President of the Arab-American Institute and an associate of his brother John Zogby's well-known polling firm. "I was able to swing about a half-dozen to Obama," he says.

Superdelegates in Tuesday's four battleground states remain in the crossfire. "I very seldom get to rely on someone else to make a decision for me, but I intend to remain neutral until after the primary, to see how my city votes, then I'll follow the vote of my city as a superdelegate," says Rhine McLin who as mayor of Dayton sits at the epicenter Tuesday's war for Ohio. "I've been called by both candidates," she says. "I'm not flattered by them courting me."

Remarkably, there's still some scattered superdelegates who might not shun a little bit more rather than less attention. "Not a one," says Rita Moran, a Maine superdelegate, when asked how many campaigns have contacted her. "I might be off their radar."

Additional reporting from our team of citizen journalists.
Please visit HuffPost's OffTheBus Superdelegate Investigation to learn about the superdelegates from your state.

McCain Lawyer's Long History Of Spin

2008-02-22T00:00:49Z

Beleagured GOP candidate John McCain's choice for personal lawyer in the emerging favors-for-lobbyist scandal, Bob Bennett, has a long record of defending tainted politicians and political figures ultimately found responsible for the transgressions of which they were accused.

Older brother of conservative moralist Bill Bennett, Robert S. Bennett gained wide notoriety by representing a host of beltway clients accused of wrongdoing including Clark Clifford, Paul Wolfowitz, Caspar Weinberger, Judith Miller and, most prominently, former President Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky scandals.

Bennett's services have traditionally ranged far beyond court-room defense as he's been aggressive in becoming the leading public face of his clients by forcefully arguing their innocence in the national media.

Indeed, in scenes eerily similar to those of a decade ago, Bennett was back on national TV Thursday afternoon offering a strong rhetorical defense of Senator McCain who has been under fire since publication Wednesday by The New York Times of a story that has rocked the presidential race. The Times story details McCain's close relationship during his 2000 campaign with a female telecom lobbyist and relates how his staff had to intervene to stop any potential embarrassment.

Despite Bennett's historical efforts at high-level political spin, his long list of famous clients have rarely escaped the taint he struggled so hard to thwart.

Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger escaped prosecution in the Iran-Contra scandal because he was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. Former Democratic official Clark Clifford was spared indictment in the BCCI scandal only because of failing health.

Bennett also represented former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz who was eventually forced to resign following the uproar generated by his granting of favors to his girlfriend. New York Times reporter Judith Miller, also represented by Bennett, spent months in jail after she refused to disclose her sources in the Valerie Plame affair. Miller was also pressured to give up her newspaper post after her reporting on the run-up to the Iraq war was widely discredited.

Bennett's most famous client, Bill Clinton, wound up being impeached on charges that his lawyer had repeatedly and vigorously denied weren't true. After the Supreme Court ruled last decade that President Clinton could be sued for sexual harassment while in office, his hired legal gun, Bob Bennett, publicly telegraphed a thinly-veiled threat against plaintiff Paula Corbin Jones while making one of his myriad appearances on national TV.

Firmly insisting on Clinton's innocence, Bennett went on NBC's Meet The Press in January 1998 saying: "As my mother once said to me, be careful what you ask for -- you may get it." Bennett, who had been tirelessly defending Clinton in the national media added: "I had a dog like that, who just wanted to catch cars. And he successfully caught one one day. And I have a new dog."

Despite Bennett's warnings, Jones won a $850,000 settlement in the case from the then-president. As a result of the case, Clinton also had his license to practice law in Arkansas lifted for a five-year period. And despite Bennett's stewardship of the Jones case, it ballooned into the spectacle of the Monica Lewinsky scandal (during which Bennett continued to insist on his client's innocence.)

Bennett was called into the McCain case late last year when the Arizona senator first learned that The New York Times was developing the bombshell story published on Wednesday. Various reports have suggested that Bennett played a direct role in convincing the Times to at least postpone publication of the piece which by some accounts was ready to appear last Christmas.

When asked today by Chris Matthews of NBC's Hardball if allegations of McCain performing favors for lobbyist Vicki Iseman were true, Bennett responded: "No. I think it's a very bad story. It's like a big piece of cotton candy that looks attractive and when you bite into it, there's nothing there."

Bennett said he didn't know personally if McCain's former staffers met with Iseman during the senator's 2000 presidential campaign to warn her to stay away from the candidate as the Times alleges. " I don't know. Of course I wasn't there," Bennett told Matthews. "All I can tell you is that when I talked to the staff...they said it never happened."

Matthews then pressed Bennett directly, inquiring whether he has asked his client, Senator McCain, if he did or did not grant favors to Ms. Iseman in exchange for sex. Bennett took a dodge. "I never talk about my conversations with my clients," Bennett said. "John McCain has adamantly denied it. The lady has adamantly denied it. The New York Times really reports a lot of suspicion."

But Bennett told Matthews that McCain had no intention of suing the Times for libel.

MSNBC

Watch Obama's and Clinton's Top Latino Supporters Talk Strategy

2008-02-01T06:32:20Z

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are engaged in a fierce battle to capture the crucial emerging Latino vote during next week's set of Super Tuesday primaries - especially in the delegate-rich state of California.

After Thursday night's televised debate in Hollywood, The Huffington Post spoke with the chief Latino surrogates of both campaigns.

Maria Elena Durazo has taken leave from her post as leader of the 800,000 strong L.A. County Federation of Labor to serve as the national co-chair for Barack Obama's campaign.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa leads the Latino outreach effort for Hillary Clinton.

Obama And Clinton Play It Safe In Hollywood Debate

2008-02-01T03:04:00Z

Hollywood, Calif. -- The much-anticipated Tinseltown one-on-one Democratic debate tonight lacked much of the drama that had been widely predicted and proceeded on a relatively cordial tone, with candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama refusing to directly confront each other during much of the near two-hour long showdown.

Some verbal skirmishing briefly flared over the issue of Iraq and health care, but those expecting any sort of knock-down drag-out battle in this final debate before next Tuesday's avalanche of primaries came away disappointed. The candidates often emphasized the differences they have with Republicans over their own disagreements.

"We're having a wonderful time," Clinton said with a smile and laugh toward the end of the first face-to-face debate between the two Democratic challengers.

"The differences between Barack and I pale between the differences we have with Republicans," Clinton said But, she added, "We do have differences." Singling out foreign policy, Clinton argued that America must be "realistic and optimistic but we start with realism" and she said she doesn't think the next president should "put the prestige of the presidency on the line" by meeting with what she called five of the world's worst dictators. The former First Lady was referring to earlier statements by Obama that he would be open to meeting with America's global opponents.

Obama said one of his greatest differences with Clinton was on the issue of the war on Iraq. "I was opposed to Iraq from the start," Obama said. "I say that not to just look backward but also forward," he added, arguing that sound judgment was needed by the next president in order to avoid future, avoidable wars.

At another later point in the debate, Obama said that while he and Clinton are in agreement on many aspects of eventual troop withdrawal from Iraq, he differed with his rival on what he called possible "mission creep" - the long-term stationing of American troops in Iraq to blunt Iranian influence in the area. Obama implied that Clinton had employed poor judgment in voting to authorize the war in Iraq in 2002.

Clinton answered by repeating her oft-used campaign line that "if I knew then what I know now I would have never voted to authorize" the war in Iraq. She also said that her vote was not necessarily one for war but for more aggressive diplomacy.

When asked by CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer why she just didn't concede her original authorization vote was a mistake, Clinton said "no one could have fully appreciated how obsessed this president was with this particular mission" of going to war and that talking to Bush was like "talking to a brick wall."

Blitzer then elicited a round of booing from the audience when he followed up by asking if Clinton was saying she was, therefore, "naïve."

Obama escalated the fray by pointing out that "the legislation, the authorization, had the title, 'An Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq,'" and that he thought "everyone was very clear about it."

"One of the arguments Senator Clinton is making is that you have to have experience on day one," he said. "I'm saying it's important to be right on day one." Obama's remark drew the loudest applause of the evening.

Clinton also received a loud positive audience response earlier in the debate when asked if the American people might not be tiring of alternating Bush/Clinton administrations. She said, "It took a Clinton to clean up after one Bush. It might take another to clean up after a second one."

The candidates cautiously sparred on the potentially explosive issue of immigration with Obama rejecting a moderator's question that assumed that African-Americans were suffering because of illegal immigration. America's working poor were feeling economic uncertainty "before the latest round of immigrants showed up," Obama said. "We should not use immigration as a tactic to divide."

Obama tried to sweep Clinton into an argument over the issue, noting "this is where we have a very real difference." Referring to Clinton's stumble on the issue of drivers' licenses for the undocumented in a debate last fall, he turned to Senator Clinton and said, "Initially in a debate, you said you were for it. Then you said you were against it."

Clinton hesitated to fully engage the controversy but mentioned that she had co-sponsored immigration reform in 2004 "before Barack was in the Senate." "I have been on record on this against the demagoguery and mean-spiritedness" of those who oppose immigration reform, she told the audience.

The two candidates gently tangled on the universal health care issue with Obama criticizing the mandated purchase of insurance policies that are the center of Clinton's plan. "You can mandate it but there still will be people who cannot afford it," Obama said. Obama said he was intent on "bringing all parties together" to get a plan approved and that those negotiations would be "broadcast on C-Span."

Clinton rebutted the argument saying her plan "has been designed to be affordable with health care tax credits." She said was "proud" of her record on the issue.

The debate started on a friendly note with Obama proclaiming, "I was friends with Hillary Clinton before this debate and will be friends with her after." But even in those opening seconds, the Illinois senator took a veiled swipe at his rival: "What's at stake is whether we are looking forward or looking backward, whether we are looking at the future or at the past."

Clinton also opened on a non-antagonistic note, saying she was best qualified to deal with the "stack of problems" that would inevitably be on the next President's desk on his or her first term.

Tonight's CNN/Politico/Los Angeles Times debate was the first Democratic showdown in which the two leading candidates had a clear field to face each other after third-running John Edwards formally dropped out of the race early Wednesday.

Thursday's debate comes against the backdrop of a tightening Democratic nomination race not only in California but nationwide in which some polls shows Clinton leading Obama by a razor-thin four points, compared to a gap of 20 or more just a month ago. And it's still not clear in which camp former supporters of John Edwards will land. It's not only delegate-rich California up for grabs next Tuesday in what is a virtual national primary, but more than 20 other states coast-to-coast.

Obama came into the debate with a certain amount of momentum having won last week's South Carolina primary by a crushing 2 to 1 margin over Hillary Clinton and having reported a record breaking $32 million fund-raising take during the past month of January - as much as previous records set during a three month period.

Obama's take gives him more than enough money to buy national TV advertising through the Super Tuesday of February 5th and beyond if necessary. Hillary Clinton's campaign says it will disclose its latest fund-raising figures sometime Friday.

The powerful 150,000-member California health care division of the Service Employees International Union endorsed Obama just hours before the debate, providing him one more boost in his quest to wrestle the Golden State out of Clinton's camp.

The debate took place in an animated circus-like atmosphere as chanting partisan crowds gathered hours in advance around the Kodak Theater on legendary Hollywood Boulevard. Opposing groups of Clinton and Obama supporters waved signs and posters and strained to chant each other down. By the time doors closed for the debate, ticket-holders were scalping their seats for $1000 a pair.

Both candidates and their surrogates - from Ted Kennedy in the Obama camp and Bill Clinton for his wife--plan to campaign heavily in California in the next few days. Obama kicked off his final offensive early Thursday morning with an upbeat town hall aimed at wooing Latinos at an inner city Los Angeles junior college.

During that rally, Obama strenuously avoided criticizing his opponent by name but instead said voters face a "stark" choice between the past and the future." I look out at you and the future is what I see," he told the racially diverse college-aged crowd.

Now just five days short of the dramatic February Tsunami Tuesday, a growing number of political analysts and campaign professionals are predicting that the Democratic nomination may be far from settled when the votes are totaled next week. "I'd look to see real fireworks down the road, most probably in the March 4th Ohio primary," said a veteran Democratic consultant who is working for neither Obama nor Clinton. "Obama may be very well making his stand there," he said.

Other analysts have raised questions about Obama's strategy of doing numerous campaign events in smaller states like Idaho, New Mexico and Missouri over the next handful of days. They argue that Obama would be better served by concentrating his resources in California.

Both candidates are holding post-debate fundraisers Thursday night. Hillary Clinton supporters have been cited to the posh Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. Obama's camp will be at the trendy Avalon nightclub in Hollywood.

Obama Woos Latino Vote Ahead Of Hollywood Debate

2008-01-31T19:52:14Z

Los Angeles, California -- Just hours before a dramatic one-on-one televised debate with rival Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama led his campaign into Southern California aiming to woo and galvanize the crucial Latino vote.

Assembling a racially diverse, Latino-heavy collection of local elected officials at his side, Obama appeared at a campaign town hall meeting at the inner city Los Angeles Trade Technical College and the first words out of his mouth were the legendary farm workers slogan: "Si se puede, si se puede - yes we can!"

With the California primary and elections in more than 20 other states scheduled for next Tuesday, Obama's ability to peel a significant number of Latino votes away from Sen. Hillary Clinton is considered fundamental to his chances for victory.

"If everyone here made the pledge to take a full day to work the phones and walk door to door, we will win California," Obama national co-chair Maria Elena Durazo told the high energy crowd. Durazo leads the 800,000 member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, one of the most powerful vehicles in mobilizing California's Latino vote.

Durazo was joined on stage by other prominent California Latino leaders including State Senators Gloria Romero and Gil Cedillo, as well as by U.S. Congressman Xavier Becerra, who represents heavily Hispanic East Los Angeles.

Introducing Obama, Rep. Becerra said, "I want you to give it up as if it were forty years ago and as if it was Bobby Kennedy," he said to wild cheers. "The spirit of Bobby Kennedy is here today!"

An upbeat Obama tailored his usual stump speech to appeal to racial unity and to speak directly to a host of domestic issues with high impact on African-Americans and Latinos. He spoke of his experience as a young community organizer aiding families thrown out of work by the shutdown of local steel mills. "Everybody was in the same union, everybody was working together, working together for their children and their families."

Obama focused on bread and butter domestic issues of education, housing and health care. "When I'm President of the United States of America, your health is not going to depend on the color of your skin."

He paid special attention to immigration policy, a hot-button priority in the Latino community, saying he opposed the "politics of fear" which demonizes and scapegoats those coming to America. "We have to stop letting those in power turn us against each other," Obama said. "And nowhere am I more tired of this than on immigration." He reiterated his support for comprehensive reform of the sort proposed in the Kennedy-McCain bill, and said when elected he would sign the Dream Act, recently rejected by Congress.

The Illinois Senator studiously avoided any direct reference to opponent Hillary Clinton with whom he has been locked in an often bitter and personal battle for the Democratic nomination. He limited himself to saying that the coming election was a "stark choice" between "the past and the future."

Recent polls show Obama rapidly narrowing a once double-digit gap behind Hillary Clinton in the race to win delegate-rich California. Some surveys show him only a few points behind, but he continues to seriously lag among Latinos where Clinton has as much as 25 point advantage. Her 2 to 1 advantage among Latinos allowed Clinton to beat Obama in Nevada two weeks ago by a 51 percent to 45 percent edge.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, who endorsed Obama earlier this week, will be appearing on his behalf Saturday morning at a rally at East Los Angeles Community College, the virtual epicenter of Latino Los Angeles.

"Obama needs a few more concentrated days than he currently has to lock up California," says a long-time California Democratic Party consultant. "I'm not sure why he's not spending more time here before February 5th."

Indeed, after tonight's televised debate with Hillary Clinton from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, he's scheduled to campaign in the Bay Area tomorrow and then fly on to Albuquerque, Boise, Minneapolis, Boston and Chicago where he will spend the final day leading into the Feb 5 cascade of primaries.

GOP Debate: Romney And McCain Attack Each Other's Conservative Credentials

2008-01-31T02:40:46Z

Simi Valley, California - During the final Republican presidential debate before next Tuesday's virtual national primary election, frontrunners John McCain and Mitt Romney verbally pummeled each other, repeatedly questioning the rival candidate's conservative credentials and arguing bitterly over the war in Iraq.

Romney said he found it "offensive" that his support for the war in Iraq has been questioned by the McCain campaign. McCain's criticism of Romney's position on the war; alleging that the former Massachusetts Governor supported a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal "sort of falls into the dirty tricks that Ronald Reagan would have found reprehensible," Romney said. McCain's tactics, he said, were "Washington- style old politics; lay a charge out there, put it out there... there isn't a single media source that said that it wasn't reprehensible. It's simply wrong and the Senator knows it." Romney insisted that he would steadfastly support current policy. "Let me make it absolutely clear tonight: I will not pull our troops out until we have success in Iraq," Romney said.

McCain heatedly fired back, saying that Romney "could spend it all" on negative ads but nothing would change the fact that Romney had not vigorously enough supported the war and this past year's surge of troops. McCain lauded himself for supporting the troop surge when it was highly unpopular and when Romney said, as a governor, he would not "weigh in" on some national issues like the war.

"How is that you're the expert on my position when my position is very clear?" a bristling Romney said, interrupting McCain. The Arizona Senator then cut off Romney in mid-sentence saying: "I'm the expert. I know the situation in Iraq and I am proud to have supported the surge."

Earlier in the evening, both leading candidates tangled with each other over who was the better conservative.

"He's a good Republican," said Romney referring to opponent McCain. "But there are a number of pieces of legislation where his views are outside of the mainstream of Republican conservative thought," he said. Romney then slammed McCain for opposing expanded oil drilling in the Alaska wilderness, and for supporting bi-partisan immigration and campaign finance reform. "I'd also note that if you are endorsed by The New York Times you are hardly a conservative," Romney said referring to the paper's recent backing of the Arizona Republican.

McCain answered back that Romney had "gone against the principles of Ronald Reagan" by raising taxes as Governor and that it should be noted that the two major newspapers in Boston had endorsed him over Romney. "I'm proud of my record and I'm proud of reaching across the aisle to get things done, that's what America wants," McCain said. He also cited the support he has garnered from conservative figures including Phil Gramm and Jack Kemp as proof of his own rock-solid Republican credentials.

The verbal punching took place during the CNN/Los Angeles Times/Politico televised national debate held at the Ronald Reagan Library just outside of Los Angeles Wednesday evening. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Texas Congressman Ron Paul also participated in the debate but all eyes were cast on McCain and Romney who are now locked in a two-man battle for the Republican nomination.

The two top candidates also clashed over the hot-button issue of immigration with Romney accusing McCain of supporting amnesty for illegal aliens and emphasizing his own call for massive deportation of the millions of undocumented currently living in America. "For those who are here illegally and have been here illegally, no amnesty," said Romney. There should be "no special pathway," Romney said, for the undocumented wishing to legalize their status. "That's what I found so offensive in the Z visa that I found in the McCain-Kennedy [immigration] bill," he said, taking another swipe at his rival

We have to "do it in a humane and compassionate way," Romney said of his call to deport all illegals. But [we have to say] to those illegally here you must go home and get in line."

McCain brushed off the attack, by briskly trying to cut the debate short on this issue saying, "Look we're all in agreement. The American people want the border secured first...and we will do that." He said he would no longer support the version of his own comprehensive immigration bill that was rejected twice by the U.S. Senate.

While three of the four candidates claimed that they would certainly be the choice of Ronald Reagan whose tomb rests just a few hundred yards from the debate stage, they all took strenuous pains to dodge too close an association with the Bush administration. Huckabee said it would be "incredibly presumptuous" to guess who Reagan would endorse but he emphatically endorsed the ideas of Reagan. When it came to the legacy of the Bush administration, both Romney and McCain dodged and weaved as moderator Anderson Cooper pressed them on whether or not Americans were better off now than they were eight years ago. Romney answered by emphasizing that his former constituents in Massachusetts were, indeed, better off if Americans in general might not be. "I'm not running on George W Bush's record," he said. "I'm running on my record... Washington is broken."

McCain offered up a similarly ambiguous answer saying: "I think you can argue that Americans over all are better off... a lot of good things have happened," McCain said. "But let's have some straight talk: things are tough right now." McCain also said, referring to the current housing and credit crisis, that "there are some greedy people on Wall Street who ought to be punished."

Candidates Huckabee and Paul were more straightforward in answering if Americans are better off now. "I don't think we are," said Huckabee.

"We're worse off," said Paul.

McCain also sided against the Bush administration when he said he supported California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his current dispute with the White House over efforts by the Golden State to enforce more stringent standards on global warming. "With some physical danger," McCain said with a laugh looking at Schwarzenegger who was sitting in the front of the live audience, " I have to agree with the Governor... I'm a federalist and I think states should have the right to decide...I applaud the governor."

The L.A. Times reports that on Thursday Schwarzenegger will endorse McCain.

Defeated Giuliani Endorses McCain

2008-01-30T23:20:07Z

Simi Valley, California - Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani formally ended his presidential candidacy today and threw his endorsement to John McCain -- though political analysts believe the endorsement will be of negligible benefit

Calling McCain "an American hero," Giuliani announced: "I'd said before that if I had not decided to run for president, John McCain is the one man I'd endorse." McCain accepted the endorsement saying he was "deeply honored" by the nod.

As to his own unsuccessful campaign, Giuliani simply said, "Today I'm officially announcing my withdrawal as candidate for President of the United States."

After Giuliani's humiliating third-place finish Tuesday in the Florida GOP primary -- a contest in which he had staked the entirety of his already sputtering campaign -- today's announcement came as little surprise. Giuliani, flanked by McCain, made his announcement at the Ronald Reagan Library just two hours before the start of the latest GOP presidential debate which was to be held in the same venue.

"Giuliani dropping out it is the important story, not his endorsement of McCain," said Allan Hoffenblum, a California Republican strategist. "This was supposed to be the day that McCain drops out and Giuliani moves on to Super Tuesday, but, alas, it's the other way around."

Hoffenblum's view reflects the consensus of other strategists -- both Republican and Democratic -- who believe the Arizona senator will reap few concrete benefits from Giuliani's support.

The unorthodox and ultimately fatal strategy of not aggressively contesting the early-voting states like Iowa and South Carolina prevented Giuliani from consolidating any significant national constituency that could now be re-directed toward McCain in his battle against Mitt Romney. Giuliani only garnered a slim 18 percent of voters in Florida's primary, finishing just a few points ahead of scantly-funded Mike Huckabee.

More significantly, Giuliani's moderate social views and relative positioning in the center of the Republican Party directly overlaps with McCain's own base of support and offers little re-enforcement of the latter's weak right flank. Florida exit polls, as well as numerous national surveys, show a disproportionate amount of McCain's support coming from moderate Republican and independent voters. He is also still encountering significant resistance from the GOP's more conservative base.

Mitt Romney is expected to now escalate his assault on McCain, who he has called a "liberal," in order to galvanize conservative Republicans. "The big question is how far more to the right will Romney go in an attempt to stop McCain, and will the GOP right-wing put together a coordinated effort to stop McCain even though they know it would most likely seal a GOP defeat in November," said consultant Hoffenblum.

The endorsement from Giuliani provides no political cover for McCain in this latest phase of the Republican struggle, one likely to further erupt during Wednesday night's televised debate from the Reagan Library.

"My guess is that if it becomes Clinton, or better said, the Clintons v. McCain, the Republican right-wing will either stay home or vote against McCain," said Hoffenblum, underscoring the Arizona senator's unpopularity to the hard right.
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Giuliani and his supporters entered the '08 campaign with high hopes that "America's Mayor," as the 63-year-old candidate was called, would be able to parlay his high name recognition and his post-9/11 image as a strong defender of national security into the Republican nomination.

In late 2001, Time magazine dubbed him "Person of the Year" and splayed Giuliani across its cover as a sort of political Superman. Depicted atop a skyscraper, he was anointed "Rudy Giuliani -- tower of strength."

But during the campaign, Giuliani's personal integrity was repeatedly dinged, especially his association with former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik who has pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from a company linked to organized crime.

Counting on his name and initial national popularity, Giuliani refused to participate in the early Iowa caucuses and made only a half-hearted stab in new Hampshire. He also balked in South Carolina, repeatedly promising that he would shock the skeptics with a clear victory in delegate-rich Florida, America's fourth most populous state. But Giuliani's absence from the fray cost him dearly as his campaign slowly but surely began to fade and fail.

His disappointing finish in the Sunshine State on Tuesday effectively sealed the destiny of his campaign, which formally folded this afternoon as little more than an asterisk amidst the storm of the presidential cycle.

McCain took advantage of the brief encounter with the press to tout his own candidacy saying that "it will be a clear choice this November and and I believe my life has prepared me" to lead America in a time of a great peril.

McCain cut the press conference off when reporters asked Giuliani to assess what had gone wrong in is own campaign.

Bill Clinton Ignites Ruckus Inside Casino Caucus

2008-01-19T23:05:57Z

Las Vegas, NV - Just minutes before local voters entered one of the controversial casino-based caucus sites at the Mirage resort Saturday morning, former president Bill Clinton made a surprise visit to personally lobby voters on behalf of his wife and to accuse her pro-Barack Obama union opponents of deliberately intimidating and misdirecting potential caucusers

The former president then entered the caucus site ballroom setting off a polarized, passionate exchange of shouts and chants between supporters of his wife Hillary Clinton and those of Obama, bringing forth charges from some voters that it was Clinton himself who was engaged in intimidation.

As caucusers lined up outside the Mirage ballroom, Clinton mingled with the crowd hugging whomever was in reach and avidly urging those present to support Hillary Clinton. He told The HuffPost that his wife's campaign staff had been "flooded" with complaints from hotel workers throughout the city that they have been "rescheduled" and "reassigned [by the union] and told they could not vote until November."

In dialog with the HuffPost, Clinton charged at least three times that the Culinary Workers Union, which endorsed Obama, was deliberately trying to suppress votes of pro-Clinton union members. "We hope there won't be so much of this that she won't be competitive," he said, referring to his wife's chances of winning today's Democratic caucus.

Immediately after he made his charges of voter intimidation, the ex-president then stationed himself inside the door of the caucus room and began to individually lobby voters on behalf of his wife.

Democratic Party officials had taken pains to make sure that no partisan signage or literature would be allowed inside caucus sites and that once the complicated voting process got underway no outsiders could have contact with the caucusers.

Clinton broke none of the ground rules but came up right up to the line as he lingered until the last minute and continued to whip up support for his wife's campaign. A Democratic official on site told the Huffington Post that if Mr. Clinton was still inside when the caucus gets underway, he would be required to be "properly credentialed or he would have to be removed."

Clinton's presence inside the room ignited an noisy ruckus of cheers and counter-cheers that divided the attendees. White T-shirted supporters of Ms. Clinton loudly chanted "Hil-la-ry! Hil-la-ry!" while Obama supporters in red T-shirts, raised their fists in the air and chanted back "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!"

Obama supporters were outraged by Clinton's presence in the caucus room. "This is a dirty trick," Mirage resort cook Maria Cortez told The HuffPost in Spanish. "He's the one who is trying to intimidate us," she said angrily. "No other candidates are in here? What's he doing here ? Just trying to pressure us."

Another Culinary Union member, Amelia Morland, also speaking in Spanish, said: "Everything's changed about Clinton. He's not the man he used to be."

Clinton was accompanied into the caucus room by long-time supporter and fundraiser Terry McAuliffe. "We were told that any of us could come to talk to voters," he told The Huffington Post. "We're encouraging people to vote. There is no intimidation," he said though there was no reference to intimidation in the reporter's question.

On the other side of the room among supporters of Hillary Clinton, several female workers from Circus Circus backed up Bill Clinton's charges and said they had been "pressured" by union reps to caucus for Obama but denied they had been directly threatened or rescheduled. "A union rep came to us on lunch break and said that if we didn't go with Obama we wouldn't be able to get a ride on union the bus to get us here today," said former union steward Judy Mollus. "They pressured us, but there's really nothing they can do. In the end the bus brought about 20 and five or six of us were Hillary supporters."

The Mirage site was among nine casino-based at-large caucuses agreed upon by Democratic officials to service hotel shift workers who would otherwise not be able to participate. Last week a group of plaintiffs associated with the Clinton campaign launched an unsuccessful attempt to scuttle the casino caucuses, accusing them of favoring the pro-Obama union of Culinary workers that staff the hotels.

But once the caucusing got underway this morning inside the Mirage it was immediately evident that those who showed up felt more than free to express their preferences, especially the supporters of Hillary Clinton. As a preliminary first count was concluded 153 Nevadans caucused for Obama and 178 for Clinton.

Bill Clinton Charges Voter Suppression In Nevada

2008-01-19T19:21:25Z

A half-hour before caucus sites opened in Nevada, former president Bill Clinton accused the powerful pro-Barack Obama Culinary Workers Union with deliberately misleading members who wished to caucus for his wife Hillary Clinton.

In an exclusive dialog with The Huffington Post outside the doors of the caucus site at the swank Mirage Hotel on the Vegas strip, Clinton charged at least three times that the union was deliberately trying to suppress votes of pro-Clinton union members.

The former president's charges are consistent with a memo issued last night by Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn which suggested that unfair advantages possessed by the culinary workers union would give Obama a "5 point" advantage.

After Mr. Clinton made his comments to reporters, the former president positioned himself inside the door of the caucus site at The Mirage and individually lobbied voters as they entered, persuading them to stand for his wife.

Clinton made his remarks to The Huffington Post and US correspondent for The Independent of London, Andrew Gumbel.

Nevada: Barack Bets On Record Turnout

2008-01-19T05:05:58Z

Las Vegas, Nevada - Predicting a "record turn-out" for Saturday's presidential caucuses, Barack Obama closed out his Silver State campaign last night by mocking his opponents John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and arguing that he only could deliver profound political change.

"We're glad that we placed our bet on the American people," Obama said referring to the decision he made with his wife, Michelle, more than a year ago to run for the presidency. "We hit the jackpot...the American people understand they are the agents of change.."

Employing a more harder-edged tone than has become customary on the stump, Obama delivered his final Nevada campaign speech before a sizeable outdoor evening rally at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Characterizing the primary fight as a "fierce battle" that will "decide who we are as Democrats," the Illinois Senator derided rivals Clinton and Edwards for engaging in what he called "doublespeak."

Referring to a statement Clinton made about a bankruptcy-related congressional bill during a recent televised presidential debate, Obama adopted a markedly sarcastic tone saying: "Did you hear what Senator Clinton said? 'I voted for it but I hoped it wouldn't pass.'" Pausing for a moment to allow the audience a laugh, Obama added in a jocular tone: "That's a quote! That's what happens when you're in Washington too long. You don't speak English no mo.'"

While not generating as much media coverage as earlier contests this month in Iowa and New Hampshire, the fight to win Saturday's Nevada caucuses has been the most bitterly fought among the top Democratic contenders. Lawsuits, razor-edged radio ads, an escalated trading of accusations, and a veritable guerrilla ground war among competing unions has marked the campaign that ends 11:30 a.m. Saturday when Nevadans walk into 500 caucus sites, including nine located inside Vegas resort casinos.

Most Nevada political insiders agree that Obama, lagging a handful of points behind Clinton in the relatively few polls that have been published, will need precisely the sort of massive turn-out of new voters he is predicting in order to come out on top.

Problem is, virtually nobody feels comfortable guessing who will or will not actually show up. "We're hoping for 60,000," said a key Nevada Democratic Party official. "But even we don't really have a clue."

Less than 9,000 Democrats caucused in the 2004 elections. But with Nevada having been moved up to one of the four early-voting states, all bets are off. At one point earlier this year, rosy predictions of a turn-out of 100,000 or more had been bandied in the press by leading Democrats. That figure has slowly been walked back with some now predicting as few as 30,000. "It's like walking into one of these hotels and spinning the roulette wheel," said the Democratic official. "Some of our rural precincts have like a total of five or six Democrats in them. Who knows whether they're going to take two hours out on Saturday morning to go caucus."

The Obama and Clinton campaigns airlifted as many as 100 paid staffers each precisely to get as many supporters as possible into the caucus sites. The 60,000 member Culinary Workers Union has converted itself into nothing less than a small army tin support of Obama. The smaller AFSCME public employees union has imported 125 organizers from out of state to bolster Clinton. The Steelworkers and Carpenters unions are hitting the streets for Edwards. The final push to get Nevadans into caucus sites will begin with mammoth pre-dawn logistical maneuvers including last-minute door knocking, phone banking and organizing van rides for seniors and anyone else who wants to be carted to a caucus site.

Though holding a five to nine point lead in the various polls released this week, the Clinton campaign Friday afternoon issued an odd public statement from top strategist Mark Penn that attempted to offer a pre-emptive explanation if Senator Clinton fails to win. While citing her top ranking in two different polls, Penn said that Obama will have " a clear 5-point advantage starting out" because of what he claimed was an unfair tilt provided by the nine casino-based caucus sites. 'We have a great organization, huge crowds and a great candidate," Penn said. "But if the polls turn out differently from the result," he added, "there may be an easy explanation for it this time."

Penn's statement, widely circulated to reporters, was viewed as highly unusual by political observers as it seemed to confirm a charge that the Clinton campaign denied earlier this week. When a teachers' union group went into court arguing that the casino-caucuses gave an extra leg-up to the pro-Obama Culinary Union members who staff the resorts, the Clinton campaign declared itself neutral in the matter.

On Thursday afternoon a federal judge threw out the legal challenge and now, a day later and on the eve of the caucuses, one of the most prominent members of the Clinton seemed to be directly endorsing the failed challenge.

Results of the Nevada caucuses are expected in the early afternoon Saturday. The three top Democratic candidates were scheduled to immediately leave Las Vegas and head toward next week's primary battle in South Carolina.

Bill Clinton: Super Surrogate

2008-01-18T03:14:58Z

Boulder City, Nevada-- When it came to crunch time earlier this month during the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton called out and relied upon her most reliable and powerful political ally: her husband Bill Clinton.

And with the Nevada caucuses coming up on Saturday morning, once again the former president has been deployed as the Clinton campaign's heavy artillery. Smoother-talking than a slick diplomat, more charming than a movie star, equal parts statesman, wonk, lounge comic and attack dog, Bill Clinton is nothing less than Hillary Clinton's Super-Surrogate.

Dressed in a finely-cut taupe business suit, a pale blue shirt, bright orange tie and burnished burgundy cowboy boots, Bill Clinton stood on a middle school gym stage here on the outskirts of Las Vegas and -- for well over an hour -- held a standing-room-only audience of hundreds of Hillary supporters nearly mesmerized.

It was only one of more than a half-dozen public events that Bill Clinton had on his go-it-solo campaign schedule today.

Warning that the U.S. is currently in a "heap of trouble" and calling his wife a "world-class change maker that will make a real difference in people's lives," the former president said he'd be up on the stage supporting Hillary Clinton even if he had never married her. "I want you to caucus for her because she'd be a great president, a really great president," he said.

In sharp contrast to his wife, whose public campaign appearances are often curt, awkward and as tightly controlled and choreographed as a ballet performance, Bill Clinton effortlessly soaks up and reflects back the rapt attention he commands from his audiences. Alternating between a twangy folksiness and deliberate wonky-ness, shifting from finger-wagging admonishments to cornpone story-telling, Clinton mixed up his style and approach with the startling skill of a veteran poker dealer cutting up the deck.

If Saturday's caucus would be decided, then, purely on the basis of which surrogate can be produced by each candidate it would be a Hillary Clinton landslide. The most prominent celebrity brought to Nevada by John Edwards is second-tier actress Madeline Stowe. And while no less than Oprah stumped for Barack Obama in Iowa, the best the Illinois senator could produce in terms of celebrity surrogates in Nevada is defeated 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry.

"Not exactly much of a comparison," said a Nevada Democratic Party committeeman as he eyed the school gym brimming with Bill Clinton's admirers. "Earlier today I was at a Kerry event at a local library and let's put it this way: the tea and cookies were OK and the small crowd was polite - at least those who stayed awake."

Bill Clinton's star power also allows him to be used as the "bad cop" of a campaign that has strained to soften and humanize the often brittle public image of its candidate. It's left to him to do the less savory tasks of routine campaigning, precisely because his clout is so enormous, he can usually get away with it. When asked by a questioner in today's audience how big of a role he would play in a Hillary Clinton administration, he cracked a wide smile, offered the audience one of his trademark lowerings of his head and said, "I will do whatever I am asked to do."

Which is exactly what he's been doing.

It was the ex-president who has been deployed during the campaign to warn that nominating Barack Obama would be "roll[ing] the dice" and that Obama's anti-war record was a "fairy tale." It was Bill, not Hillary, who has been snarling and hassling with unfriendly reporters. And while the Clinton campaign at first declared itself neutral in a controversial and unsuccessful lawsuit that would have shifted the rules of this Saturday's Nevada caucus, it was the ex-president who came out publicly to support it.

A similar tact was taken by the ex-president Thursday when twice during his appearance at the middle school he invoked the specter of another 9/11 as a compelling reason to nominate his wife. "The presidency gets real interesting," Clinton said with a slightly didactic tone, "when something happens that you never talked about during the campaign. Like 9/11. Katrina, or the recent horrible events in Pakistan."

It's then, Clinton said, that "the ground moves beneath the feet" of the president and only the steadiest of leaders are up to the job. From there Clinton went on to gently but directly deride, by name, his wife's chief opponent, Barack Obama. "It's not enough for the president just to have vision," Clinton said referring to an Obama statement from a recent debate. "Enough of all this hot air talking," he said. "We've got to start doing again."

There was, however, one moment of unintended mirth in Bill Clinton's performance. After warning of dire potentials for global conflict, Clinton said of his wife: "She is prepared for any of these national security issues. She's got great experience at managing disasters." That last line brought scattered chuckles from the audience but a chorus of audible laughs from a press corps who couldn't escape some of the obvious irony.

Video: Bill Clinton in Boulder City, Nevada:

Nevada: Full Scale Union Ground War

2008-01-17T22:21:32Z

Las Vegas, NV -- Forty-eight hours to go before Saturday's Democratic caucuses and it's strictly battle-station mode at the headquarters of the 60,000 member Culinary Workers Union. By 8:30 a.m., more than 250 union staff and workers -- mostly Latino maids, cooks, and janitors who are the brawn and muscle of Sin City's mega-resorts -- are bunched together in a second story meeting room prepping for one more twelve-hour shift knocking on the doors of fellow members and turning them out to caucus for Barack Obama.

"We've been like this for two solid weeks," says Culinary staffer Chris Bohner. "The union is 100 percent focused on this right now." Widely considered one of this labor-rich state's most powerful political machines, if not its kingmaker, the Culinary threw its weight officially behind Obama last week. So did the 12,000-member Service Employees (SEIU), which represents nurses and government workers.

But this is no run-of-the-mill get-out-the-vote campaign of the sort frequently run by labor in election season. This isn't a ground game, to use the parlance. It's a veritable ground war. Campaign against campaign. Union against union. Unions against the Democratic Party. Even faction against faction inside some unions.

"These folks here are going door-to-door contacting every one of our members," says Culinary Political Director Pilar Weiss, stepping away from one of the marked-up whiteboards in the meeting room. "Our shop stewards, meanwhile, are talking to everybody at their worksites. And of course, we're doing full-on phone banking."

Just a few minutes up the road in northeast Las Vegas, the SEIU has also deployed a battalion of shock troops Thursday morning. Staffers and worker-volunteers have parked an RV in front of the offices of the Department of Juvenile Justice and are systematically going through the facility, trolling for employees who are union members. "We catch them on their lunch break, bring them out here, and tell them everything they need to know on how to caucus and how to caucus for Obama," says SEIU staffer Hillary Haycock.

Those who come out to the union campsite are asked to sign pledges to caucus for Obama, given a purple and yellow t-shirt, a box lunch if they wish, and are asked to volunteer to become an Obama precinct captain for Saturday's caucuses. "Our members know how to organize," says Haycock. "So we want them to know that when they get into those caucuses, it's not just about standing for our guy but also about persuading others to do it."

SEIU has poured in organizers and staff from out of state to aid the pro-Obama blitz, especially from the candidate's home state of Illinois. Activists are phone banking, sending out email blasts and personal text messages, and circulating workplace invitations to participate in the coming caucuses.

When U.S. Senator Harry Reid proposed two years ago that Nevada become an early voting state one reason was to offer labor -- weak in Iowa and New Hampshire -- more participation in the nominating process.

But no one imagined the donnybrook that has ensued. "Traditionally, the Democratic Party in Nevada has taken its endorsement cues from the Culinary," says College of Southern Nevada historian Michael Green. "But this time the party machine, to the degree it exists, has been locked up by Hillary, while Culinary has gone with Obama."

Nor is labor support itself for Obama unanimous. The smaller Carpenters and Steelworkers are pro-Edwards. Government workers affiliated with AFSCME are in the Clinton camp. And while the teachers, organized into the Nevada State Education Association, have not officially endorsed Clinton, they are considered reliable allies.

Indeed, the NSEA roiled the state's political waters and divided the union movement, and itself, when last week it filed an ultimately unsuccessful challenge to nine "at large" caucus sites inside Vegas casinos, arguing they unduly favored the pro-Obama Culinary workers. Culinary activists were quick to characterize the teacher lawsuit -- thrown out today in federal court -- as a thinly-veiled act of voter suppression orchestrated by the Clinton campaign. Tempers also flared as the president of the Vegas-area chapter of the teachers union, Ruben Murrillo Jr., publicly complained that the move to shut down the casino caucuses was out forward without the consent of local teachers. The Las Vegas chapter "was not involved in the initiation of the lawsuit. It was done without our input," Murrillo said.

Indeed, the clumsy last-minute attempt to shutter the casino-based caucus sites, a move publicly endorsed by Bill Clinton, may have opened up rifts within Nevada labor that could persist beyond the election. And, in the short term, may have been a political backfire.

"This was mock outrage from the teacher's union. It stinks," Eric Herzik of the University of Nevada, Reno tells the Huffington Post. "These rules have been in place for the last six months, and they file a suit two days after Culinary endorses [Obama]."

"Filing the suit was ill advised," Herzik said, "because by losing the suit, all you have done is irritate Culinary. So now you've riled up Culinary, they get upset and they go vote for Obama."

But with media attention now so intensely focused on the union role in Nevada's caucuses, especially that of the Culinary, is labor's clout being unrealistically over-estimated? "Definitely a possibility," says Nevada historian Green. "I think this could be very dangerous to Culinary if Obama doesn't win."

The union has an impressive record of carrying local and sometimes statewide elections, Green says. But there's no guarantee that clout is transferable to national contests. "Culinary might have bitten off more than it can chew," he says. "I don't think anyone really knows how much influence the union leadership has over some newly arrived workers who are trying to make up their minds among three candidates with strong national presence."

That's a dilemma faced every hour at ground level by union field activists. "Absolutely, absolutely, I'm coming up against this a lot," says Dale Jackson an Illinois-based SEIU official now working on the Vegas pro-Obama drive. "A lot of our members like Hillary and even more they like John Edwards. I understand that because they're right when they Edwards has been supportive of us. But so has Obama and right from the beginning. I tell them 'Edwards has been great. But right now it's Obama that has America's ear and Edwards doesn't."

Video: Watch Las Vegas SEIU organizer Dale Jackson working to turn out caucus goers for Obama.

Nevada Unions Pump Up For Obama

2008-01-17T22:17:53Z

Throughout Nevada, union activists are mobilized and deployed to support rival Democratic campaigns. In this video, we see Dale Jackson of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) talking to government employees about the importance of Saturday's caucuses.

Video: John Edwards Disses Clinton On Social Security

2008-01-17T16:38:07Z

John Edwards says he's not going anywhere, except straight ahead into this Saturday's Nevada cacuses. After an appearance at the Carpenters Union in Las Vegas Wednesday night, he spoke with a small group of reporters.

The Huffington Post's Senior Editor, Marc Cooper, who was among the reporters, videotaped the session and asked the first question.

Toward the end of the discussion, Edwards rips into rival Hillary Clinton, saying the more he listens to her talk about social security, the less he can discern her real position.