The New York Daily News blog reports that a ruling is expected tomorrow on the lawsuit which seeks to make it harder for many members of the infuential Culinary Workers Union (that endorses Obama) to caucus in Nevada:
The Culinary Workers Union is handing out leaflets that say the Clinton campaign is behind the lawsuit brought by the teachers union and calls it a massive voter-suppression effort. Organizers have also begun to get the word out to the Hispanic community that they in particular will be affected if the judge rules in favor of the teachers union. “That’s out there,†a political operative on the ground in the Silver State said, describing how the word is spread among the Hispanic community.
Though Sen. Clinton’s camp denies involvement in the lawsuit filed by people who coincidentally support her candidacy, Bill Clinton took to the talk radio airwaves (again) to defend it:
“Do you really believe that all the Democrats understood that they had agreed to give everybody who voted in a casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct? Did you know that?” Mr. Clinton said in a testy exchange with a television reporter, Mark Matthews of KGO. “What happened is nobody understood what had happened. … Now, everybody’s saying, ‘Oh they don’t want us to vote.’ What they really tried to do was to set up a deal where their votes counted five times, maybe even more.”
As I noted previously:
Clinton has long maintained that the caucus system disenfranchises certain types of voters.   But altering the status quo in Nevada may be seen by others as an act of disenfranchisement also  and one from which Clinton may not be able to credibly distance herself.
Ironically, the culinary union is more than 40% Hispanic, a vote Clinton has long considered a firewall against the Obama campaign. But Obama has been blowing his Hispanic dog-whistle in Nevada, from the union halls to his Spanish TV ad. The horse race polls have tightened. Now, an attempt by Clinton supporters to get their way in court instead of the ballot box may blow up in their faces.
Election via the court system is the eternal legacy of algore and the Dems.
Isn’t Harry Reid’s kid like heading Hillary’s campaign in Nevada? It sure will look a lot better for him if Hillary wins, but I guess if the lawsuit fails he can always blame the hispanics in the casinos.
Happy, Harry Reid is one of them <ominous chord> Mormons <bloodcurdling scream>. If he’s supporting Hillary, it’s gotta be so he can underhandedly engineer Mitt Romney’s victory in November.
Can someone tell me what Billy Jeff is referring to with that “votes counting five times” bit?
The Clintons, er, Teachers Union, er, State Teachers Union has lost to Obama/Culinary Union/County Teachers Union. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Breaking News Section:
“Can someone tell me what Billy Jeff is referring to with that “votes counting five times†bit?”
I have been trying to find that out, also. I can find no mention of it anywhere else, it seems Clinton may have just pulled it out of his ass. Imagine that.
For the Dems the delegates are distributed by caucus site independent of the number of voters at the site. The casino sites are projected to have many fewer voters than other sites but they may be electing the same number of delegates. Therefore, each casino voter’s input will have a much greater effect.