Talk of ugliness is starting up: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/08/clinton-allies-may-dump-m_n_80460.html Clinton Allies May Dump Millions Into Anti-Obama Group Manchester, N.H. -- A panicked and cash-short Clinton campaign is seriously considering giving up on the Nevada caucuses and on the South Carolina primary in order to regroup and to save resources for the massive 19-state mega-primary on February 5. At the same time, some top independent expenditure groups supporting Clinton have been exploring the creation of an anti-Obama "527 committee" that would take unlimited contributions from a few of Clinton's super-rich backers and from a handful of unions to finance television ads and direct mail designed to tarnish the Illinois Senator's image. The Clinton campaign has raised over $100 million, but has "only" $15 to $20 million left. It faces donor reluctance to give more in the face of the Iowa defeat and the prospect of a second loss in New Hampshire today. Even worse, the campaign fears defections among those fundraisers who want to be with a winner and who might be easily persuaded to support Barack Obama. While the amount of money Clinton has would seem to be more than enough by past standards, the cost of competing in the February 5 states -- including New York, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Arizona - is unprecedented in the history of American primaries. She will face, in turn, an extremely well-funded Obama campaign, whose cash register right now doesn't stop ringing as donations are coming in over the Internet, by mail and in checks handed over in person. The decision whether to take on Obama in Nevada and South Carolina will likely be made within the next 12 hours. Both states look like probable defeats for Clinton. South Carolina has a large black electorate that is now likely to back Obama by wide margins, and the Democratic primary is open to all voters, including independents and Republicans, two other groups that in Iowa backed Obama decisively. Clinton had looked fully competitive in Nevada, but Obama's victories have boosted his chances there and now he appears almost certain to get the endorsement of the powerful Culinary Workers Union. Arguing against pulling out of South Carolina and Nevada are Clinton aides who say that bowing out now would guarantee four defeats in a row - Iowa, N.H. lost at the ballot box, and South Carolina. and Nevada given up by default - would be a disastrous precursor to the February 5 contests. "You've got to put some points on the board. You can't just let the other guys run up the score and expect to come back in the fourth quarter," one Clinton aide said. Three groups conducting independent expenditure campaigns in behalf of Clinton - Emily's List, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) - have explored the possibility of trying to put together a multi-million dollar effort privately dubbed the Anybody-But-Obama 527 Committee, but they have run into problems finding any Democratic operative willing to become the director of a campaign against the man who now is the odds-on favorite to become the party's nominee. "You might make some good money in the short term, but your chances of getting any Democratic contracts in the future, especially if Obama wins, would be zilch," said one operative. "I wouldn't go there." The effectiveness of a 527 that goes negative was demonstrated by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked John Kerry's war record in the 2004 campaign. Spokespersons for both Emily's List and the AFT both adamantly denied to the Huffington Post any involvement with plans to create an anti-Obama 527 group. But in fact, the complexities of federal election law have made it illegal for them to be involved. The discussions about the possible creation of such a 527 committee were held among people active in the separate independent expenditure (IE) campaigns conducted by AFT, Emily's List and AFSCME. By law, there can be no communication between those working on an IE campaign and officials of the parent organization putting the cash into the campaign. Officials of AFT and Emily's list acknowledged that they have had no contact with the staff members running their IE drives. AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee declared: "We're not about the business of swift-boating any Democratic candidate. We will not be party to any kind of effort of this type. Our campaign is about promoting Hillary Clinton - not tearing down any other candidate. Our number one priority is having the strongest Democratic candidate to take back the White House in November." Sources familiar with the discussions about the creation of an anti-Obama 527 said that some of the Clinton campaign's major fundraisers have separately been exploring another similar proposal, but have not gotten very far yet. "These things (527s) are not that easy to get rolling. There is a long way between talking and doing," said one source familiar with setting up 527 operations. Federal tax law requires regular disclosure of both the donors to 527 organizations and the expenditures they make, so it is not possible for such committees to keep secret the identity of supporters and staff.
He swears up and down he's staying out of it! Major the AFSCME has come out and disavowed the rumor. We'll see But it does bring up a good point. If Hillary loses NH rumor is she'll give up NV and SC and spend all her money on Feb 5th. But if she loses four in a row I just don't see her coming back. And does she really go negitive to try and catch Obama?
Unfortnately, AFSCME seems to be a bit lost. The VPs wrote a public, angry letter to the President for allowing the union to send some anti-Obama mail to New Hampshire voters. They are a bit of a mess right now. The President (McEntee, target of the letter) is also a personal supporter of Clinton. http://mydd.com/story/2008/1/5/194758/4789 January 4, 2008 Gerald McEntee International President AFSCME 1625 L St. NW Washington, DC 20036 Dear President McEntee: We are writing to protest in the strongest terms the negative campaign that AFSCME is conducting against Barack Obama. We do not believe that such a wholesale assault on one of the great friends of our union was ever contemplated when the International Executive Board (IEB) made its decision to endorse Hillary Clinton. In fact, when the vote to make a primary endorsement was taken by the IEB, there appeared to be widespread agreement that we had a strong field of Democratic candidates all of whom had made a very positive impression on the IEB Screening Committee. The argument for endorsing Hillary Clinton was not that her positions were better than those of the other candidates or that she would be the better president for working families, but rather that she was the clear frontrunner, the most likely primary victor, and the strongest general election candidate. While some of us did not agree with the decision to endorse Sen. Clinton, we all recognized that once the endorsement was made, AFSCME would have to expend a certain amount of resources on her behalf in order to give weight to its action. While the Board was informed at that time that procedures for independent expenditures had been established, there was never any discussion of how those expenditures would be made. None of the information presented to the International Executive Board suggested in any way that AFSCME intended to utilize its resources to attack the other Democratic candidates. In fact, a number of IEB members stressed - either privately or in their comments at the meeting - how much they respected and admired Sen. Obama. And at least one Board member spoke passionately against the Democratic candidates attacking each other, arguing that such negativity would damage Democratic prospects in the General Election. We were therefore shocked and appalled to learn that our union-through "independent expenditures" - is squandering precious resources to wage a costly and deceptive campaign to oppose Barack Obama. As Barack's standing in the polls has soared, according to numerous press reports AFSCME has spent untold dollars in Iowa and New Hampshire to send out mailings and run radio ads whose sole purpose is to undercut his candidacy. And now AFSCME has even registered a website with the explicit purpose of "opposing Barack Obama." While we would not approve of attacks on any of the Democratic candidates in this race, all of whom have good relationships with our union, it is worth noting that AFSCME has chosen to attack only one of those candidates, Barack Obama. It is also worth noting that the campaign that AFSCME is waging against Sen. Obama is fundamentally dishonest and inconsistent with past positions of our union, i.e. attacking him for not forcing individuals to purchase health care even when they can't afford it. The ads are misleading in attempting to give the impression that they are associated with John Edwards rather than Hillary Clinton and in their claims that Sen. Obama's health care plan will exclude 15 million people when in fact every person will have the opportunity to participate. This dishonesty is giving our union a "black eye" among many in the media and the progressive community. But even if the ads were not deceptive, we would object to the use of our union's funds to attack a long-time friend of AFSCME members, a candidate who has stood up strongly in support of workers' rights from his earliest days as an elected official, a candidate who included the importance of the right to form unions in his announcement speech, a candidate who has been a forceful advocate for working families. Supposedly, we are involved in this primary because we're concerned about "access" to the next Democratic president. So why would we want to develop a hostile relationship with the man who could be that next president? And supposedly, our union's fundamental commitment is to electing a Democratic president in November. So why would AFSCME's national political director threaten to dilute AFSCME's efforts in the General Election if Senator Obama is the nominee? We were stunned to see these kind of threats being made in the national media by one of our union's primary spokespersons. It is our understanding that this attack on Sen. Obama is being carried out through independent expenditures which are not under your direction, but that of two members of the International staff. As we understand it, because of the legal "firewall" that exists, those two staff members have essentially undertaken this assault on Sen. Obama entirely on their own initiative without direction from or even consultation with you. Certainly there has not been any direction from the International Executive Board regarding this course of action. And we do not believe that AFSCME members would expect or want their PEOPLE dollars spent in this manner. We are calling on you to take whatever action that is within your legal purview to immediately end AFSCME's attack campaign against Sen. Obama. In the event that you are not able to legally compel these staff members to cease these actions, we are calling on you to immediately take action to discontinue such independent expenditures in order to ensure that no further attacks occur. And we also urge you to ensure that no funds are utilized to wage such "attack campaigns" among our own members. The behavior of these two individuals-so clearly inimical to the interests and allegiances of AFSCME members, as well as to institutional democracy-arguably constitutes chargeable offenses under the International constitution. It also calls into question the role of such "independent expenditures" in our organization. We believe that the IEB needs to carefully review the role that such expenditures play in our activities in this election season and beyond. At the last IEB meeting, when we all gathered for dinner, you raised your glass in a toast to organizational unity, assuring us that we would all come together to defeat the Republican candidate in November. Today the actions of a few unelected union staff are placing that unity in jeopardy and degrading the reputation of our great union. We urge you to take whatever actions are necessary to see that both are restored. In solidarity, Ken Allen, International Vice-President, Oregon Henry Bayer, International Vice-President, Illinois Greg Devereux, International Vice-President, Washington Sal Luciano, International Vice-President, Connecticut Roberta Lynch, International Vice-President, Illinois George Popyack, International Vice-President, California Eliot Seide, International Vice-President, Minnesota cc: Paul Booth Lee Saunders Larry Scanlon International Executive Board
Wow, the Clintons showing their true colors. Hillary is evil and Bill has the character and Integrity of a used car salesman.
WOW!!! Rumors has it that possibly 85% of registered voters showed up today. And Hillary is holding her own with 15% reporting. 39% Hillary 36% Obama CNN calls McCain for republicans
Edwards was up around 40% with Clinton/Obama in 20's in Iowa with about 10-20% of precincts reporting there. It's all about demographics and where the votes are coming from. If Hillary is still up with about 30-40% reporting, then it's time to start getting concerned. Ultimately, it may turn out that independents went to McCain instead of Obama - that would be a disaster, though I'm happy McCain won.
It looks like this might be super-close down to the wire. Fox exit polls showed Obama winning 39-34, I think. Here are the CNN ones: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#NHDEM They don't give the ultimate totals for some reason, but you can multiply out the math with the female/male voters and if I did it right, the totals come to 39% Obama, 38% Clinton. And that's all using the rounded figures in the poll, so this could be a whole lot closer than expected - and very disappointing for Obama, frankly, even if he were to win by 1-3%. Clinton also clearly won the debate according to these numbers - I don't disagree there. She also won all the age groups over 40, Obama won the ones less than 40.
I will still be extremely happy if Obama wins by 1%, but I was really hoping he would blow her out of the water like the early predictions. I want to see Hillary melt down.
Growing worse for Obama right now - down 6% with 24% reporting. He has to hope that all these votes are from one concentrated part of the state or this is going to be an outright disaster for Obama.
I guess the Iowa turnout for Obama brought out all the women and Bill Clinton supporters in NH? I can honestly say that I don't know 1 single person who likes Hillary. I'm shocked at these numbers right now.
I said before that it was still an uphill run for Obama in New Hampshire. The lead just went back to only 5 points now, so you never know, but Obama has to be disappointed if it holds up like this.
