Bill Clinton Ignites Ruckus Inside Casino Caucus

caligirl

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Sun Jan-20-08 01:07 AM
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Bill Clinton Ignites Ruckus Inside Casino Caucus

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/19/bill-clinton-ignites-ruck_n_82327.html#postComment

This incident by a senior statesman and former President of the most powerful nation on earth is for me the final straw. Howard Dean needs to step in and attempt to stop the former President from further disrupting democratic primary campaigning. Kennedy and other top democratic leaders(Rahm Emanuel and others) have already spoken to Bill Clinton about his behavior, he intends to ignore them. Apparently this is going to be more like a bar room brawl than a dignified democratic primary democrats want.

"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 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."