[Dialogue] Pay Up or Risk Long Battle, Obama Told

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/22/barackobama.uselections2008>  

Pay Up or Risk Long Battle, Obama Told

By Ewen MacAskill

Barack Obama has been warned that his refusal to pay the traditional "street
money" to local operatives to help get the vote out in Philadelphia today
could cost him the crucial percentage points needed to knock Hillary Clinton
out of the race for the White House.
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0422_06.jpg>
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0422_06.jpg> 0422 06
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0422_06.jpg> 

In many of the city's poorer wards, the recipients look forward to these
bonuses from Democratic officials - a hangover from the days of the party's
old-fashioned machine politics - even though the amounts are relatively
small, ranging from $50 to $400.

But as in other contests, Obama is relying on his own army of unpaid
volunteers to get the vote out. The Clinton team, meanwhile, is not saying
whether it will pay out "street money".

There are 69 wards in Philadelphia and estimates suggest it would cost Obama
$400,000-$500,000 to pay the 14,000 people normally required to help get the
vote out.

Carol Ann Campbell, an integral part of the city machine, said she expected
Obama to win the city, but his failure to pay could cost him the crucial
margin needed to force Clinton out of the race for the presidential
nomination.

In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, Campbell defended
the practice of "street money", saying: "We are a machine town." She added
that there was nothing dirty about it. "The committee people and the ward
leaders have to buy lunch for hundreds of people, otherwise they won't have
good workers. They have to buy coffee, orange juice and doughnuts. That's
just the way it is."

Since the start of the primary campaign last year, Obama has avoided using
the Democratic machine, on the assumption that it had already been tied up
by the Clintons, and instead built up his own volunteer network. He has
encouraged his supporters to be self-sufficient, with volunteers bringing
dishes into campaign headquarters rather than sending out for meals.

The different approaches have produced a clash of cultures in Philadelphia.
Obama's team on the ground is being supplemented by thousands of young
supporters who have travelled from Washington, New York and other
neighbouring conurbations, watched warily by the locals, some of them
resentful about being denied the "street money".

Jeremy Bird, Obama's Pennsylvania field director, told the Los Angeles Times
that the campaign had faced a similar predicament in South Carolina over the
traditional distribution of money: "We always said that we're not going to
do politics the way it's always been done because it's always been done that
way."

C 2008 The Guardian

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/22/8444/

 

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