Clinton linked to Vote Suppression Efforts in NC.

[Biddle]

Remember all the shifty tactics that were used in 2004 to suppress votes in FL amongst black communities? Flyers that gave the wrong date for vote registration deadlines. Mysterious phone calls redirecting voters to wrong polling places, etc.

Well, looks like it's happening again in NC. (A state that Obama is pretty strong in.) A DC non-profit is robo-calling people in NC, giving them the wrong dates to mail in their vote registration. If they use the dates that the caller gives them, it will be too late and they won't be eligible to vote in the next election.

What's worse, the several members of the non-profit have donated regularly to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Some have also questioned the ties between Women's Voices operatives and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. Gardner, for example, contributed $2,500 to Clinton's HILLPAC on May 4, 2006, and in March 2005 she donated a total of $4,200 to Clinton, according to The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org. She has not contributed to the Obama campaign, according to the database.

Women's Voices Executive Director Joe Goode worked for Bill Clinton's election campaign in 1992 as a pollster; the group's website says he was intimately involved in "development and implementation of all polling and focus groups done for the presidential primary and general election campaigns" for Clinton.

Women's Voices board member John Podesta, former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, donated $2,300 to Hillary Clinton on April 19, 2007, according to OpenSecrets.org. Podesta also donated $1,000 to Barack Obama in July 2004, but that was well before Obama announced his candidacy for president.


Read the whole torrid story here (http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/04/facing-south-exclusive-dc-nonprofit.asp).

So, aside from bugging her own office and claiming that Obama did it, has Hillary dropped any plays from the Republican Election Playbook?

[speedymarie]

Ok, there's nothing her to link the Clinton campaign to these actions.

Yes, Clinton SUPPORTERS may very well be involved, but that's not the same thing.

This is despicable and sad, but let's not imply that Hillary herself was encouraging this.

[robbersean]

Ok, there's nothing her to link the Clinton campaign to these actions.

Yes, Clinton SUPPORTERS may very well be involved, but that's not the same thing.

This is despicable and sad, but let's not imply that Hillary herself was encouraging this.


I kind of agree with you, but just to play devil's advocate here, would you say the same thing about George Bush in 2000 when people who had contributed to his campaign conducted a slanderous robo-call campaign against John McCain in South Carolina? That is, would you say that George Bush, and those working on his campaign in 2000 are free from blame because they weren't directly responsible for the robo-calls, even if their supporters were?

[millerjake30]

I kind of agree with you, but just to play devil's advocate here, would you say the same thing about George Bush in 2000 when people who had contributed to his campaign conducted a slanderous robo-call campaign against John McCain in South Carolina? That is, would you say that George Bush, and those working on his campaign in 2000 are free from blame because they weren't directly responsible for the robo-calls, even if their supporters were?

Ummm, yes.

[speedymarie]

Yes, if there was no evidence that people working on Bush's campaign were actively encouraging the calls.

Now, if someone comes up with emails to this group from the Clinton campaign that basically say "hey, can you help us fuck with Obama supporters?" that's a different story.

I'm an Obama supporter, and so if I thought that the Clinton campaign was actually trying to disenfranchise likely Obama voters, I'd be pissed. But just because some folks who support Clinton took it upon themselves to do this, I can't blame Clinton for that.

Now if this makes it in to the mainstream media, and Clinton comes out in support of this group, or fails to denounce it, that is another story as well.

[jimfath]

It's the difference between having rabid supporters and having someone like Karl Rove to do your dirty work. That kind of connection is often hard to prove to the candidate.

It's looking more and more like I'm going to be voting for Ralph Nader... oh man...

[Ldub]

Ok, there's nothing her to link the Clinton campaign to these actions.

Yes, Clinton SUPPORTERS may very well be involved, but that's not the same thing.

This is despicable and sad, but let's not imply that Hillary herself was encouraging this.

It's kind of hard not to considering the tactics she's used in this campaign. the saddest of all being the Bosnia sniper fire. Pathetic. since things are looking grim for Hillary now, she'll probably be pulling anything she can in the last few primaries.