The lawsuit filed late yesterday by officers of the Clark County Democratic central committee against the Nevada State Democratic Party has been the talk of the blogs and the press all day as everyone tries to parse the politics of it. I know a bit about this that I'll try to explain here. Its a sordid tale, as I see it that does not reflect well on the state, the Democratic party, or the Clinton campaign.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign, a day after a conference call in which casino executives supporting her denounced Obama in the press for opposing gaming in the Illinois state legislature, her campaign dropped a pretty hard-hitting contrast mail piece against Obama.
The good news is that there was also a lot of actual substance being discussed on doorsteps, at least based on my experience today canvassing for Edwards.
The suit. As has been noted elsewhere, the suit challenges the at-large precincts that are scheduled to be held at 9 sites on the Strip for casino workers who will be on their shift at the time of the caucus (noon Saturday). It was brought by the Nevada State Educators Association, the statewide teachers union, and by several individuals including two officers of the Clark County Democratic party who were elected on a reform slate last summer.
While the plaintiffs have been arguing all day that this is about "fairness" and not intended to benefit any candidate, its hard not to see this as intended to benefit the Clinton campaign. As I noted yesterday, the at-large sites will only be worth between 4 and 8% of the delegates awarded on Saturday (depending on turnout at the t-large sites, delegate allocations to regular precincts being predetermined as roughly 2% of registered Dems in each precinct) -- not a huge amount but enough to make a difference in a close race.
Whatever the merits of the case (which those knowledgeable about such things tell me are very few, but in a Nevada courtroom, anything is possible), whats hard to understand is why the suit was brought now, one week before the caucus. These rules were written by a committee last summer, submitted to the DNC for approval and have been posted on the NDSP website for at least three months.
We'll find out soon enough if the suit will have any legs, but here's what I can tell you about the odd combination of people bringing the suit. The NSEA is neutral but most of its officers and top staff are supporting Clinton. It has widely been reported that three of the plaintiffs, Vicky and John Birkland and Dwayne Chesnut, were active volunteers in Dina Titus's gubernatorial campaign. Its also been reported that Vicky is supporting Clinton and Dwayne is supporting Edwards; this is true on a personal level but these are two of the only Democratic party leaders who have kept to the policy of public neutrality and have been very responsive to concerns about appearances of bias towards Clinton by the state and county parties. I don't know of the level of involvement of any of the Clinton supporters in her campaign, but I do that Dwayne has had no role in the Edwards campaign. I don't even think he's been to the office more than once, for a public event. Both of them were elected to the County party central committee over the summer as reformers and I fear they are sincere in claiming they attached their names to the suit to ensure fairness, but I fear they are being instrumentalized.
Its hard to imagine the impetus for this would come directly from anyone affiliated with the Clinton campaign, and it pains me to see Dina Titus' name linked with this. Speculation of her involvement is based upon two probably unrelated events that took place Thursday evening -- Titus was reported by the Review-Journal gossip page as having had dinner with Senator Clinton and the Birklands hosted a small dinner of activists, including several prominent Clinton backers with close ties to Titus, before a Democratic club meeting. I raise these events not to cast suspicion but because this is what is the basis of some of Jon Ralston's breathless reporting in his subscription-only email newsletter, which is in turn the basis for much of the published reporting that appeared today.
After nearly a year of effort, much of it by volunteers, its really a shame to see this effort start to sink under the weight of internal recriminations and legal challenges right as the natoin's and world's attention turns to Nevada. Its really, in my opinion, a disservice to Democratic activists that our leaders are, intentionally or not, undermining the process in this way.
As if that wasn't enough to generate some commentary, I'll tell you about a mailer that arrived from the Clinton campaign today. It contrasted Clinton's proposed middle-class tax cut with Obama's proposal to raise the cap on social security taxes -- in terms that were, to me, shocking. It referred to her proposal to "let taxpayers keep more of their own money" and Obama's "trillion-dollar tax increase on the middle class." Not only is it, to me, unclear why a Democrat would so closely replicate language used by republicans, but Bill Clinton in 1992 attacked his primary opponent (Paul Tsongas) along the same lines and offered in contrast his middle-class tax cut, then abandoned it once in office when Alan Greenspan came out against it.
The last time I saw a Democrat use an anti-tax message in a primary here, it came from County Commissioner Myrna Williams in 2006 against Chris Guinchigliani, who went on to defeat her and is currently a Clinton campaign state co-chair.
Finally, far from all this action, with the Obama and Clinton campaigns both holding events, there was an impressive turnout for the Edwards canvass. Once again, the Steelworkers did themselves proud, showing up in large numbers, and volunteer turnout and enthusiasm remained very high. Its clear that the campaign is operating on a shoestring (our policy books were left-over from Iowa), but the response remained very good. In a heavily Democratic precinct, one with a large number of Culinary union members, I saw no evidence of canvassers for either Obama or Clinton. Moreover, I was surprised that there did not seem to be a significant movement, in my small and anecdotal sample, to Obama. Clinton continues to hold the loyalty of a lot of older women and Hispanic families, but most continue to express very limited knowledge of her proposals or of the other candidates, and it remains an open question in my mind how many will turn out for the caucus. Many were either unfamiliar with the date/time/location/procedure of the caucus or told me outright they were unlikely to attend. I even offered to drive one neighbor who was solidly for Clinton, but she said no, she would have other things to do next Saturday.
Finally, its worth noting that the Ron Paul office, located on Sahara Avenue in my district, seemed to be sending out canvassers, which was pretty impressive to me.
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