Courting superdelegates at Dems' state meeting

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/31/8 | John Wildermuth

[SmithL]

Former President Bill Clinton, pushing his wife's presidential campaign, assured California Democrats on Sunday that the increasingly hard-edged contest won't hurt the party's prospects in November.

"We're going to win this election if we chill out and let everybody have their say," he told more than 2,000 delegates to the state Democratic Party convention in San Jose. "We can win this election if we just let this play out, stay together, grab hands and signal to America we want to change the future of the country."

Although California voters already backed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Feb. 5 primary, the former president was back in the state to woo the state's 21 superdelegates who haven't yet announced whom they're backing in the scramble for the nomination.

Supporters of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama also were courting those delegates, mostly elected officials and party activists. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, state co-chair for Obama, gave her pitch for the Democratic front-runner Sunday morning.

Obama's campaign "has been about the audacity to do what seemed unimaginable," she told the delegates. "Our next president must be able to bring our nation together. Barack Obama will be the president for all of us."

In recent days, Obama supporters have publicly pushed Clinton to abandon her campaign and back Obama, who has a commanding lead among the pledged delegates of states that have already held their primaries or caucuses.

[SmithL]

[rod1]

Everytime either Hill or Bill stitcka head out of their spider hole someone needs to ask...Where’s the prior years’ tax returns?

[MarkT]

Well, the money will be flying from both sides which reminds of the story about the Louisiana judge. It seems that the Judge had standards: he said that the defendant had paid him $25k to throw the case to the defendant and further that the plaintiff had paid him $15k to throw it their way. He concluded that if the plaintiff would come up with another $10k, he would rule on the damn merits of the case.