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

[usregimechange]

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/us/politics/04calif.html


Translation, DU Clintonian suggestion of mamentum is an illusion.

[featherman]

1. Clintons do have an iron grip on the Party machinery out here

at least at the highest levels. Looks like maybe they are gripping less of the DEM electorate than previously thought.

[neutron]

3. Spielberg endorsed HRC

I guess your definition of party machinary is anyone
who thinks independently of the cattle herd?

[featherman]

6. ???? No... I mean Art Torres, party chair, and the party bigwigs out here

There is a California Democratic Party here in this state. It has a massive and effective organization. It has been locked up for Clinton and working with the Clinton campaign for well over a year and a half. Again this is Politics 101. Get the party apparatus on your side and working for you. I thought this was all pretty common knowledge and why Clinton has been long favored in California. She has the backing of the California Democratic Party machinery. GOTV and ground troops and all that.

[neutron]

2. self delete

self delete

[GoldieAZ49]

4. nice, pay attention to the candidate, not the machine

[Cha]

5. Thanks, usrchange!

"The idea that a Clinton presidential campaign could face serious intra-party challenge here seemed far-fetched until recently. Mr. Clinton visited the state eight times in his first year in office and barely slowed down thereafter, offering disaster relief, trade promotion and aid to ease the economic transition of California’s declining military industries after the end of the cold war.

Just like his political role model, John F. Kennedy, who brandished high-profile support from Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack” and accepted the 1960 Democratic nomination in Los Angeles, Mr. Clinton cultivated Hollywood celebrities like Barbra Streisand and David Geffen.

But Mr. Geffen signaled a crack in that support when he broke with both Clintons in early 2007, decrying their behavior and political tactics. Mr. Geffen subsequently threw a fund-raiser yielding more than $1 million for Mr. Obama that became a coming-out party for the Illinois senator, whose opposition to the Iraq war and pledge to bridge political divisions found a ready Hollywood audience. So has his mixed-race, trans-Pacific upbringing in a state of unparalleled diversity.

“There’s a piece of Hollywood that is fascinated by the fact that we could have the first woman president,” said Marge Tabankin, an adviser to Ms. Streisand who formerly headed the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee. “But much of Hollywood is caught up in the aspirational side, the inspirational side of Barack Obama. They’re willing to go with the dream because they think it’s so transformative.”