LAS VEGAS, NV.White House hopeful Barack Obama suggested Sunday that allies of Hillary Clinton were behind a federal lawsuit aimed at closing down voting sites in Obama-friendly casinos on this citys famous strip.
In a novel deal worked out in advance with the Nevada Democratic party, nine hotelswhose workers are represented by the Culinary Workers local 226will serve as at-large precincts for strip employees who cant get home for the caucus this Saturday.
Once Obama got the backing of the Culinary Workers last week, a lawsuit was filed late Friday by the Nevada State Education Association whose leaders are sympathetic to Clinton asking to shut down the at-large precincts.
The move has backfire potential because it is likely to energize Obama’s troops.
You know you notice that the rules were OK as long as you did what they wanted you to do, and as soon as you decided ‘I’m going to support the outsider, I’m gonna support the new guy. I’m gonna support the guy who’s standing with the working people instead of the big shots,’ all of a sudden they decide they want to change the rules!
“Now, I didn’t make the rules? Did you make the rules..You didn’t make the rules. They all agreed to how this was going to work, so the notion now that six days before the caucus that they are gonna to try to disenfranchise the hard workin’ folks on the strip, culinary workers, but also folks who are workin’ at the McDonald’s on the strip.
“Folks who, you know, may not be a member of the union, although they need to be But You know, the construction worker around here you know there are a lot of people who want access to the caucus and what we have to do is to remind everybody that you don’t win an election and you don’t serve democracy by trying to keep people out. You’re supposed to try to bring them in and encourage everybody to get involved!
Asked about the lawsuit Sunday on NBCs Meet The Press, Clinton said, The courts and the state party will have to work it out.
The caucus idea is for neighbors to get together to argue and talk about their choices, she said. The problem is that if you have a limited period of time, as I pointed out long before anything happened in Nevada, youre going to essentially leave people out who cant be there during those one to two-hour periods of time.
