Obama, Cultivating California Spirit, Eases Clinton’s Grip on State

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Obama, Cultivating California Spirit, Eases Clinton’s Grip on State
By JOHN HARWOOD
Published: February 4, 2008


(Monica Almeida/NYT)
Supporters at a rally on Sunday for Senator Barack Obama in Los Angeles. Mr. Obama has been making inroads in California.

LOS ANGELES — In the iconography of American politics, California more than anyplace is where candidates, in Mario M. Cuomo’s words, “campaign in poetry.” Odes to the state’s embrace of youth, change and possibility linger in Democratic presidential lore.

Like Robert F. Kennedy, George McGovern and Gary Hart in races past, Senator Barack Obama has embraced that imagery in his effort to upset Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary here Tuesday, a prize that polls over the weekend suggested was suddenly within his reach. “California has always represented the future in this country,” Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said here. “I’ve got a little piece of California in me.”

Yet something more prosaic — the reality of today’s California, with its sagging economy and complex political process — may determine whether he can win the biggest battle of Tuesday’s showdown between the two remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Aides to Mrs. Clinton, of New York, acknowledged that her lead was narrowing, but said their grip on the state’s present-day mood and machinery would prevent it from vanishing altogether. That is partly a function of economic anxieties reminiscent of the early 1990s, which helped Bill Clinton break the Republicans’ general election hold on the nation’s largest state. The prosperity that accompanied his presidency has helped Mrs. Clinton make the economy a signature issue here at a time of rising joblessness and falling real estate values.

At the same time, the Clinton administration’s assiduous cultivation of California created an enduring web of political alliances. In a campaign lasting just an eye-blink compared with the protracted prelude to last month’s contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton is drawing upon those allies to help withstand Mr. Obama’s momentum.

“He’s a better cultural fit for the state,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist in Los Angeles who supports Mr. Obama but is not active in the campaign. “Can the cultural dynamic overcome the political relationships? I think it’s probably tough.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/us/politics/04calif.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1202140899-qbiG8qVUf9DdisE2Bl5u3g&pagewanted=all