A few weeks back someone asked if I could shed a little light on the lobbying of Supers. This isn't really timely anymore, but still may be of interest.
This is a long entry, so I've broken it up into four posts. There are some stories in here I haven't talked about, both good and bad, funny and sad. Take a look. I've broken up the lobbying into different parts of the campaign.
A few things right off the bat: Supers were not given gifts, no promises of employment were made, and no trades for campaign contributions were explored. These are all myths that circulated in the media and all of which are part-and-parcel untrue.
2007: All presidential campaigns sent mail to Supers, but only Clinton and Obama had staff assigned for outreach. Most of it was not based on persuasion, but on relationship building. The Obama camp had the strongest efforts of outreach in 2007.
January, 2008: The heat started to turn up on Supers right after Iowa and especially right after New Hampshire. My perception on this is probably skewed, though, because I was on staff with Bill Richardson and once he dropped out of the race (after New Hampshire) my Super vote was up for grabs and I started getting more calls.
After BR dropped out on Jan. 10th, I went to work on the MSNBC debate in Las Vegas which was to take place a few days prior to the Nevada caucus. I'm on stage at the auditorium sitting in for John Edwards at the debate table, so that they can adjust the lighting on his desk position. So I'm sitting there, with a spotlight on me, and I get a call from a (212) area code number. I answer and the voice at the other end says "please hold for President Clinton."
I chat with him for about 10 minutes, which, when you have a President on the line, feels like an hour. It was impressive (and maybe a little concerning) that he had the book on me. I mean they really did their research. First, the President thanked me for my work as a Democratic Party staffer on his re-election campaign in 1996. Very nice. Then he went on talk about how well he knows Bill Richardson and all of the good work they did together in his administration, and that he and Hillary have always worked hard to reach out to the Hispanic community. Also very nice.
Then he thanked me for my work as an Intern in the House and the Senate. WTF the guy had my intern profile?! From like the early 90's?! That's impressive. And oh it gets better. Not only did he know I interned for Tom Daschle in DC and Rep. Jane Harman in Southern California, but he said, in classic Clintonian graciousness (paraphrasing), "I really want to thank you for working with Jane to push that budget through in 1993. I know you were probably just answering phones for her, but that was really important." Holy shit this guy is smooth.
It was extremely flattering and as I've stated before it is very hard to tell the former leader of the free world "I'll have to get back to you."
Around this time the Obama calls started coming in as well, mostly from my counterparts on the Nevada campaign. But I was scheduled to finish out the MSNBC debate in Las Vegas and then I was volunteering to work the following Politico.com debate in Los Angeles, so felt that in order to maintain fairness in the process that I would have to remain neutral.\
First in a series of four.
Very interesting! It must have been tough saying no to President Clinton.
Posted by: Regina | June 11, 2008 at 10:11 AM