Clinton, Obama Teams Look to the Lawyers; Aides Reach Out to Edwards Backers

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Top Candidates' Teams Look to the Lawyers
Clinton, Obama Aides Reach Out to Edwards Backers
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 28, 2008; A14

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico -- As the race for the Democratic presidential nomination raged on in South Carolina and across the country this weekend, America's top trial lawyers became the focal point of a different aspect of the campaign at a seaside resort here.

At a kickoff reception for the lawyers' winter conference, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, slapped backs and clinked glasses poolside for hours. "I talked to everyone down there, including the waiters," he said as he headed for another reception. Upstairs, at a mahogany-paneled martini bar, Sen. Barack Obama's finance director, Julianna Smoot, was huddled with a group of Florida attorneys whose hearts, if no longer their inner handicappers, were still with former senator John Edwards, the candidate they all called "Johnny."

With South Carolina primary returns showing Edwards a distant third, McAuliffe and Smoot both sensed an opportunity: Some of the Democratic Party's most prolific fundraisers were looking for a new candidate to get behind. So in conference rooms, at the casino and by the pool, the Obama and Clinton finance officials engaged in what could only be described as a campaign within the campaign, this one targeting financial backers instead of voters.

Their efforts come at a critical time. While the two Democrats have each raised more than $100 million over the past year, they have now spent the vast majority of that money. They are just days from the mega-primaries scheduled for Feb. 5 and need to feed enormous field operations and a television advertising budget that is already consuming more than $2 million every day....

***

After two days of working the hundreds of trial lawyers in town, McAuliffe said he concluded "they're ready to move." He said he received commitments from at least three trial lawyers to raise $100,000 before Feb. 5, including one from a current Edwards supporter....Edwards's top fundraiser, Fred Baron, said he was not surprised to see some trial lawyers raising money for other candidates as well. "There's an enormous amount of crossover," he said. But Baron said he has not seen any "leakage" in recent days from Edwards's core supporters. In fact, he said many of the trial lawyers he has spoken with this week have passionately urged Edwards to stay in the race. "They don't want his voice silenced."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012702192_pf.html

[flyarm]

1. screw them!..read that again..screw them..i believe we will see the largest pres under vote ever!

no way will i support the crooks!

Rezco arrested this morn in Chicago ..look it up!

and yet the clean Candidate gets ignored by these bastards..no way no how will i tie my name to the crooks!

Not in the repig party and never in my own Dem party.

A crook is a crook..parties do not immunize crooks!

fly

[Demeter]

2. I Hate McAuliffe on General Principles

He should be collecting unemployment, or in prison.

[surfermaw]

3. Didn't mention the 3 mil coming from the Internet, with $230,000 from this site.

In the month of January read article Edwards strategists moves on to Plan B...below, click to read the article mentioned this very web site although not by name

[peacetalksforall]

4. Every time I hear Mcauliffe's name or the acronym, I tense up. I don't

understand how that transpired - but it was over a long time and from watching tv. One day, I found that he and they did not represent me on positions and persuasion. Then, pieces started to fit in based on looking at outcomes and their famous centrist be-all.

Centrist allows x amount of children to still go hungry, uneducated, or be killed and crippled in other countries, or be killed in floods in our own as well as live in trailers or be shoved to other states, and centrist is not opposed to war and war weapon manufacturing companies. Centrists are OK with using our kids to kill instead of what I thought we were about - using our kids to defend us while our leaders sought peace.