In private, Dems agree: Damage done in (Nevada) caucus will ripple

[ursi]

Las Vegas Sun Feb. 10, 2008
Prominent Nevada Democrats have been shuttling from meeting to meeting recently, trying to patch up frayed friendships following last month’s at-times brutal presidential caucus.

Rory Reid, the Clark County Commission chairman who was Sen. Hillary Clinton’s state chairman, has met with prominent advertising executive Billy Vassiliadis, who was on Sen. Barack Obama’s steering committee, as well as D. Taylor, head of the Culinary Union, which backed Obama.

Sen. Harry Reid, state Chairwoman Jill Derby, state Sen. Steven Horsford, state Sen. Dina Titus, Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen and many others are engaged in the fence-mending, to the extent it’s even possible.

A partial account of the wreckage left in the wake of the caucus:

In the final days of the contest, former President Clinton accused the union of voter intimidation, even as the Culinary and Obama accused the Clinton campaign and its allies of vote suppression. The state teachers union sued the state party to shut down special caucus sites on the Strip that were viewed as Culinary sites. The chairman of the Clark County party called Culinary leader Taylor a bully.

Then there was a raft of back-and-forth accusations about support for gaming, opposition to Yucca Mountain, and whether the Clintons were injecting race into the campaign.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/feb/10/private-dems-agree-damage-done-caucus-will-ripple/

[Demeter]

1. Just the DLC Self-Destructing

and that's good.

[flyarm]

2. i got emails from Edwards volunteers who worked the caucus's in Iowa..they said

they never saw such a cluster fuck as there was in Nevada..they said it was race and geneder biased,..they said it was mean and ugly and so non democratic..and honestly they said they are done with politic's that curwed them..they said it was disgusting..mean mean mean..and wrong! They all said that state should never ever have had a caucus..

many were lawyers..who were just digusted with the process in Nevada.

fly

[ursi]

4. It was bad in so many ways. Not requiring IDs at LV Strip sites meant illegals were able to caucus

...and many caucus sites in LV had people there who barely spoke English. (I know because I have already heard from people who had family members there).

People who had to work at casinos throughout the rest of the state had to work. Nevada National Guard members who are in Iraq had no say. The list of complaints goes on and on. And what this was really about was three super powers in Nevada, Casino corporations, the Culinary Union and the teacher's union who wants to raise taxes on the "gaming industry." Screw the rest of Nevadans.

And then there is still that unresolved question about the $12,000. the State Party spent to fly Bill Clinton to the Lake Tahoe forum in August so he could speak there and campaign for Hillary the same day.

It's a mess. County registrars are throwing out thousands of bad voter registrations from the day of the caucus due to no proof of identity or address verification. Rumors abound that Clinton campaign staff from out of state caucuses under false Nevada voter registration. Did anyone from the other camps do the same? We don't know. No way to prove it now.

Obscene.

[flyarm]

7. i will twell you ..in Iowa..the cheating i saw was all from the Obama side..

and i saw it with my own eyes..can you say buses of college age kids?

and no registration..and they kept them out of the gym so the neighbors couldn't see the kids!!

yeah..

all the notes taken ...were Obama people cheating!!

fly

[flyarm]

8. i will tell you ..in Iowa..the cheating i saw was all from the Obama side..

and i saw it with my own eyes..can you say buses of college age kids?

and no registration..and they kept them out of the gym so the neighbors couldn't see the kids!!

yeah..

all the notes taken ...were Obama people cheating!!

its why i can not.. today ..support him..no way no how!! and i don't think i can in the future..i was pissed what i saw..very very pissed.

fly

[juajen]

3. Gosh, I can see how everyone considers Obama such

a uniter. I can't ever remember dems being so united.

:sarcasm:

[stillcool]

6. ah...how quickly we forget..

Clinton group trying to prevent Nevada workers from voting

lasvegassun.com — A Clinton-allied teachers' union has filed a lawsuit against voting in the coming Democratic caucus in nine Vegas Strip hotels. The legal move could prevent large numbers of Nevada's seasonal culinary and hotel workers (whose unions recently endorsed Barack Obama) from voting. Hillary Clinton will do anything she can to win this election.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/12/133648/896

January 14, 2008
A dubious lawsuit undermines Nevada caucuses
Posted January 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am


Late Friday, the Nevada State Education Association, which is backing Hillary Clinton in the state’s upcoming caucuses, filed an interesting lawsuit that deserves a closer look.

The Nevada caucuses are a week away, and the state teachers’ union has decided to throw a monkey-wrench into the legalities of the process. The Nevada State Education Association has filed suit against the state Democratic Party, on the grounds that the nine at-large caucus locations set up on the Las Vegas Strip make it too easy for workers there to caucus, while no similar accommodations have been made for other Nevadans.

Those workers, if they can come out and caucus, are expected to vote heavily for Barack Obama, who won the Culinary Workers Union endorsement this past Wednesday.

“This has been a fully transparent process,” state Democratic party spokeswoman Kirsten Searer told the Las Vegas Sun. “These rules have been approved by the Democratic National Committee and the campaigns have been fully informed throughout this process, which started in May.”
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The Nevada State Education Association never complained about the “at-large” precincts — until Obama won the support of the Culinary Workers Union, whose members mostly work near these precincts. Given the timing and the circumstances, it certainly appears that the NSEA wants Clinton to have an advantage, so the group is suing to eliminate these precincts, making it harder for other union members to participate in the election process.

This is very disappointing. We’re Democrats — don’t we want to make it easier for people (especially union members and minorities) to vote?

Indeed, the closer one looks at this, the worse it appears.

When the Nevada Democratic Party took up the issue of creating these “at large” precincts last year, the plan passed unanimously. And yet, four Nevadans serving as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were in attendance when the measure was approved. If they didn’t like the proposal, why didn’t they vote against it?

Culinary union secretary-treasurer D. Taylor told the Associated Press that the plaintiffs were using “Floridian Republican tactics to suppress cooks, housekeepers, people of color and women.” That’s certainly harsh, but given what we know, the criticism is not without merit.
---------------------------------------------

What I can say is that the timing of this lawsuit looks utterly ridiculous. The precincts were fine right up until another union backed the “wrong” candidate? People who supported the precincts are now going to court to shut the precincts down? One union wants to make it harder for another union to participate in a Democratic caucus?

Here’s the bottom-line question for anyone looking at this controversy: if the Culinary Workers Union had thrown its support to Hillary Clinton last Wednesday, would the Nevada State Education Association have filed a lawsuit on Friday? I think the reasonable, intellectually honest position is pretty obvious.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Hillary is not called a polarizer for nothing, and now her unfaithful husband is outdoing her

Think of how the party will be forever fractured if Hillary wins the nomination solely on the basis of the superdelegates. 1968 will look like a picnic!