Nevada: Obama Hypocrisy On Outside Spending

After our experience at the 100 Club Dinner in New Hampshire, JW and I warned against overzealous Obama supporters potentially taking things a bit too far and turning off prospective supporters. It appears the early signs of this are visible in Nevada…

Quick context before getting into the story: Following the 60,000 member Culinary Union’s endorsement of Barack Obama, the Nevada State Teacher’s Union that is supporting Hillary Clinton (and some other people) filed a lawsuit which hoped to stop the Culinary Union from caucusing at their place of work (casinos). Given that the caucusing plan was in palce prior to the Culinary Union’s endorsement, there were some legitimate questions raised about the lawsuit coming after the Culinary Union announced its endorsement; naturally, the scrutiny was only more intense given the fact that a pro-Clinton union was the party that filed the lawsuit. Bill Clinton defended the lawsuit. A judge dismissed the suit.

Indeed, there are tensions in this campaign, but a few days ago both the Clinton and Obama camps declared a truce to racial tension that was beginning consume the discussion. Nevertheless, a pro-Obama labor union is running a tough radio ad in Spanish against Hillary in Nevada [audio here]. The ad attacks Clinton’s ostensible support of the aforementioned lawsuit, saying:

Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.

Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless. Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; there’s no respect

Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote. Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people.

Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”).

Hillary responded to the ads and called for Obama stand against them, saying:

“They’re shameless and offensive. They’re untrue and I would hope that Senator Obama would have the same standards in Nevada that he did in Iowa where he called for the end of 527s and their independent expenditures. It is way beyond bounds for anyone to make the shameless and offensive claims that are in those ads.”

Others in the Clinton campaign have decried Obama’s conduct with respect to these ads ad urged him to distance himself from them. It’s also worth noting that the ads are being run by a PAC and not a 527, although I think the distinction isn’t terribly important in this particular situation.

Edwards also chimed in by denouncing the ads and criticized Obama for not taking a stand against the content of the ads, especially in light of all the criticism that Obama levied against Edwards back in Iowa under similar circumstances.

The Obama campaign has yet to speak against the ads and instead has opted to defend the content. An Obama spokesman said the following:

“Coming from a campaign that is repeatedly launching absolutely false attacks against Sen. Obama, it takes some chutzpah. The fact is, their camp [Hillary Clinton's] clearly would like to have workers’ voices silenced and they need to live with that unfortunate position”

Even putting aside Obama’s agreement to not inject race into the discussion (the corollary of that being that he will speak against instances of people injecting race/ethnicity into the discussion on his behalf) and his overall argument that he change politics as usual, it is still somewhat troubling that Sen. Obama hasn’t spoken against the ads given his prior position on similar issues in Iowa.

Leading up to the Iowa Caucuses, Obama spoke against outside spending on behalf of presidential candidates. At a time when 527s in Iowa were spending money in support of Edwards, Obama said that if the tables were turned, he would ask the unions to stop spending money on his behalf, however he dodged the larger question of whether or not he would ever accept the support of 527s:

When questioned this morning if he would take a pledge not to accept help from 527s, Obama dodged the question.

“You know the problem with 527s is you have no disclosure and you have no campaign laws. And my sense is if we want to increase transparency and accountability in how our campaigns are run then we should have monies funneled through channels where the people know who’s funding the campaigns and who’s accountable for the ads.”

Obama said that right now, he would tell a union to stop advertising on his behalf.

He was asked if he would accept support from 527s if he was the nominee but Obama did not give a definitive answer. He said he hopes to get Republicans to come up with an agreement on how to operate. However, Obama added, “I’m not going to endanger the Democratic party’s ability to win races by letting the other side outspend us by two or three hundred million dollars.”

In short, it would seem: when outside spending works against Obama (as in Iowa), he’s against it and when outside spending works in his favor (as in Nevada), he either supports it or remains silent on the issue. Now, again, I realize that these ads are being paid for by a PAC and not a 527; however, as noted above, the distinction is really meaningless in this particular situation — outside spending is outside spending, regardless if it’s being done under the legal structure of a 527 or a PAC.

In order to be consistent, Sen. Obama really needs to take a stand against this ad and others like it.

As an aside, Joan Walsh discuss a report of alleged voter intimidation by Obama supporters in the Culinary Workers Union. I don’t think this particular issue is anything to get too riled up about, especially in light of the sketchy facts. Further, I’m sure every candidate has some overzealous supporters and similar kinds of reports can be dug up for just about any candidate. That said, this report may do nothing else than underscore just how bad caucuses are and why they simply shouldn’t be used.