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June 27, 2008 3:18 PM

Two Clinton Voters On Why They’re Not On Board With Obama

(UNITY, N.H.) Laughter rippled through the crowd of over 2,000 at the elementary school field in Unity, New Hampshire, when Hillary Clinton said of her long primary battle with Barack Obama, “I was proud we had a spirited dialogue.”

Recovering quickly, Clinton smiled and said that it was the nicest way she could think of phrasing their fight for the nomination.

Hillary Clinton came here to pledge her support to Obama, and the crowd gave each Democrat a warm reception. But not all of Clinton’s supporters are on board with her vocal support of her former rival.

Malka Yaacobi, a musician from Cambridge, Massachusetts, said that she voted for Clinton in the primaries, and Obama still did not sit right with her.

“I will not say I’ll vote for him,” she said. “ …I don’t trust him and he doesn’t have experience.”

Chris Baimbridge from Northwood, New Hampshire, also voted for Clinton in her state’s primary. Baimbridge said she grew so frustrated with a cable news channel’s coverage of Clinton that she could no longer watch it.

“I really believe the press treated her unfairly,” she said.

Baimbridge wasn’t as dismissive of the idea of voting for Obama in November as Yaacobi was, and she cited John McCain’s visit to Liberty University as the reason why she won’t consider voting for the Republican.

But Baimbridge said she may just stay home in November. And it wouldn’t be much help, in her eyes, if Obama asked Clinton to be his running mate.

“I just don’t think Hillary could take second place and be told by somebody else what to do,” she said.

Click Below To Watch These Voters' Reactions To Obama:




More Coverage From Unity, N.H.:
Clinton Backers Try To Look Past Concerns
A Unified Front For Obama, Clinton

Unity Prepares For Obama And Clinton

Tags:
hillary clinton ,
unity ,
barack obama ,
john mccain ,
primary ,
democrats
Topics:
Hillary Clinton
June 27, 2008 8:42 AM

Starting Gate: Welcome To Metaphor, New Hampshire

(UNITY, N.H.) This town of just more than 1,700 people will today host an event that, during the most contentious days of the nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, some Democrats feared would never come. But their joint public appearance this afternoon – the first since Clinton suspended her campaign three weeks ago – was never in quite as much jeopardy as fearful Democrats (and an obsessively speculating media) seemed to think.

That’s because the party insiders and elected officials known as superdelegates always had the power to settle even the closest of races long before the party's convention in Denver. More importantly, they had the incentive to do so: After eight years of what many Democrats feel was the worst presidency in modern history, the vast majority were not going to risk their party’s chances at taking back power by dithering between two candidates who, ultimately, were remarkably similar on the issues.

Many still harbor painful memories of the Democratic convention in 1980, where Jimmy Carter ended up essentially chasing rival Ted Kennedy around the stage in an effort to join hands for a show of party unity after a tough primary fight. It was an undignified moment for the president, who never quite caught his vanquished rival. (Here's how Walter Cronkite described the scene: "Sen. Kennedy leaves the stand, sober, unsmiling. There will be no pictures in tomorrow morning's paper, and none for posterity, of Ted Kennedy holding Jimmy Carter's hand aloft.")

Today’s event, by contrast, will serve as a demonstration of a successful move towards party consolidation, one taking place long before the convention. Clinton’s donors – whom CBS News political consultant Joe Trippi characterized in a conversation with Horserace this week as “probably the greatest collection of big dollar Democrats ever put together” – have gradually put aside their reservations about Obama, in part simply because they want to get on board with the man who came out on top. “These are people who want to support whomever the Democratic nominee is,” Trippi said. Last night, many of those donors met with Obama and Clinton for an upbeat gathering at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC.

Clinton herself is too smart to be seen holding a grudge: She knows it is in her political interests, not to mention her ideological ones, to do everything she's asked to help her former rival. (Doing so also doesn’t hurt her efforts to retire her significant campaign debt.) Her husband is a somewhat harder nut to crack: Bill Clinton’s tepid endorsement of Obama this week, issued through a spokesman, looked like evidence of his continuing anger towards the presumptive nominee. The former president believes that Obama ran against his presidential record and thinks his campaign falsely implied that he is a racist, and those wounds have yet to heal. But the Obama campaign assumes, probably correctly, that Bill will eventually come on board.

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Tags:
barack obama ,
hillary clinton ,
unity
Topics:
Starting Gate
June 23, 2008 1:21 PM

Obama, Clinton To Campaign Together Friday In New Hampshire

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton plan to campaign together at a "Unite For Change" rally on Friday in the town of Unity, New Hampshire. (Now how's that for a symbolic location?)

As the Obama campaign's brief press release notes, "Both candidates received exactly 107 votes in the western New Hampshire town in the primary."

It will be the first joint appearance for the former rivals since Clinton suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination. The Obama campaign has yet to release further details about the event.
Tags:
barack obama ,
hillary clinton ,
unity ,
unite
Topics:
Democrats
April 7, 2008 11:05 AM

Ex-Clinton Staffer Launches Unity Ticket Petition

A former aide to Hillary Clinton’s initial campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle has launched a drive to gather signatures calling for a Democratic ticket featuring both Clinton and Barack Obama, reports CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder. The online petition, called “Vote Both,” carries a simple message: “We the undersigned call upon the members of the Democratic National Committee to support a unity ticket with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.”

The creator of the petition is Adam Parkhomenko, a longtime aide to Doyle before she left the campaign earlier this year. Parkhomenko left the Clinton campaign three weeks ago. Read Ambinder’s full report here.
Tags:
Clinton ,
Obama ,
Unity ticket
Topics:
Hillary Clinton
January 15, 2008 5:00 PM

Unity08 Founders Now Pushing For Bloomberg Bid

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to evade questions about whether he'll launch an independent run for the White House, but today the group of people urging him to enter the race grew just a bit larger.

Two founding members of Unity08, an effort to field a bipartisan "unity ticket" nominated via the Internet, announced today they're establishing an online petition drive to encourage Bloomberg to enter the race. Former Republican consultant Doug Bailey and Gerald Rafshoon, who served in the Carter administration, praised Bloomberg as a competent, non-ideological leader who could bring people together and solve the country's problems.

"After seven years, this country is ready for a competent leader," Rafshoon said at a press conference in Washington. "It's ready for a non-ideological approach to our problems, and it's ready to stop the partisan bickering that goes on between parties and within parties."

Bailey and Rafshoon said their draft campaign is totally separate from Unity08, which has effectively shut down due to fundraising issues and a dispute with the Federal Election Commission. They also said their new project isn't connected to Bloomberg in any way, though they have told one of the mayor's top aides -- Kevin Sheekey, who's reportedly laying the groundwork for a Bloomberg bid -- what they're up to.

"I think it's fair to say he smiled," Bailey said when asked about Sheekey's response.

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Tags:
Unity08 ,
Doug Bailey ,
Gerald Rafshoon ,
competence ,
independent ,
New York
Topics:
Michael Bloomberg

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