Clinton Defectors Reveal Fractures in Democratic Party [View All]

[tekisui]

WASHINGTON: Nancy Larson's most difficult conversation was, by far, the one with Chelsea Clinton.

"It was just heartbreaking," said Larson, a Democratic National Committee member from Minnesota and, more to the point, a superdelegate who had initially pledged herself to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. This was last Saturday, after the former first daughter learned that Larson would be shifting her allegiance to Senator Barack Obama.

"She is a delightful young woman who loves her mother very much," Larson said. "She was really pushing me. She kept asking me why I was doing this. She just kept asking, 'Why? Why?' "

It is a question many in the Clinton camp are asking these days, sometimes in conversations far less civil than that one. After nearly two decades building relationships with a generation of Democrats, Clinton has recently suffered a steady erosion of support for her presidential campaign from the party stalwarts who once formed the basis of her perceived juggernaut of "inevitability."

Some of it is just business, practical politicians putting aside ties to the Clintons to follow the will of the voters in their states or making a calculation about who seems best positioned to win.

The immediate fallout is electoral. Clinton has been losing potential endorsers and superdelegate backing from grass-roots activists like Larson as well as elected officials, party luminaries and former Clinton White House aides (the most recent being former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who endorsed Obama on Friday). It is the constituency that provided Clinton with an early lead among superdelegates, one she retains although by a narrowing margin.

(snip)

The decisions by some Democrats to turn away from Clinton have bred plaintiveness or more from the Clintons, according to some of their closest friends, some of whom acknowledge being furious themselves.

They express resentment toward those they deem disloyal and ungrateful or, in the case of Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a sense of outright betrayal.

Richardson moved instantly atop the blacklist after he endorsed Obama and then said people around the Clintons practiced "gutter" politics and that they felt entitled to the presidency. He was famously tarred as "Judas" in The New York Times by James Carville, Bill Clinton's chief campaign strategist.

But one person's "disloyalty" is another's well-deserved "comeuppance." And there is no shortage of powerful Democrats who are quick to accuse the Clintons of defining loyalty as a one-way street.

(snip)

By the same token, "There is clearly a high frustration level among campaign types and from the Clintons themselves," said Leon Panetta, a White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, who is backing Hillary Clinton's campaign.

That frustration is partly reserved for former Clinton administration aides now with Obama: Greg Craig, who served as special counsel to Bill Clinton during his impeachment saga, former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, and Reich, who even before his formal endorsement on Friday had spoken approvingly of Obama and critically of Clinton's campaign.

People within the Clinton orbit say there are varying gradations of perceived disloyalty. The least offensive (if somewhat annoying) group are "likely" Hillary Clinton supporters who have not defected, in part out of recognition of past ties, but who have not made public commitments to her, either.

Then there are those that Clinton worked hard to win over but who have taken the step of actually endorsing Obama. These would include newer senators like Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, or older colleagues, like Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.

There is also a large class of Obama supporters in the Senate for whom the Clintons raised considerable amounts of money. This group includes Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who infuriated Hillary Clinton in a 2006 appearance on "Meet the Press" when she told the host Tim Russert that while Bill Clinton was a great leader, "I don't want my daughter near him."

But the worst offenders, associates say, are former Clintonites who not only endorse Obama but who also publicly criticize Clinton's campaign. Craig, a former law school classmate of Clinton's, joined this group when he wondered aloud (to Jonathan Alter of Newsweek) "if Hillary's campaign can't control Bill, whether Hillary's White House could."


link: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/america/clinton.php?page=1