In a blow to Hillary, judge dismisses casino lawsuit

January 18, 2008

A federal judge issued a ruling Thursday that was expected to favor Senator Barack Obama in presidential caucuses in Nevada on Saturday, as he and the other candidates worked to keep their hopes alive from South Carolina to California.

The ruling by Judge James Mahan of U.S. District Court in Las Vegas blocked an attempt to prevent casino workers there from caucusing at special precincts - many of them the casinos where they work. The arrangement was intended to make it easier for the hourly waitresses, bellhops and housekeepers to take part in the caucuses.

A teachers union sympathetic to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York had sued to stop the special caucuses, but it did so only after the culinary union representing most of the shift workers - the most powerful union in the state - had endorsed Obama.

"State Democrats have a First Amendment right to association, to assemble and to set their own rules," The Associated Press quoted Mahanas as saying.

The Nevada caucuses, primaries in South Carolina on Saturday for Republicans and a week later for Democrats, and the primary in Florida on Jan. 29 lead to the hugely important slate of primaries in more than 20 states on Feb. 5.

As candidates mull over how to spend precious time and dwindling treasuries ahead of that "Super Tuesday," some are already spending time in the Feb. 5 states. Obama, the Democratic winner in Iowa, campaigned Thursday in California, where he got a boost by long-distance: the endorsement of a colleague in Washington.

Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he was supporting Obama as the best person to restore America's image around the globe. "Many around the world have lost respect for America and the hope that America once gave them. That's a tragedy," Leahy said. "We need a president who can re-introduce America to the world."

Leahy became the seventh senator to endorse Obama. Nine senators have announced that they support Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In South Carolina's Republican contest, three polls put Senator John McCain of Arizona, who won the New Hampshire primary, in the lead, with Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, a close second.

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who trailed far back with Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator, essentially ceded the state to McCain.

The South Carolina winner has gone on to take the party's presidential nomination in every election since the 1980s, and campaigning has been intense there this week. But it appears somewhat less than sure, in this fluid race, that the state will retain its kingmaker's role.

There were reports of the sort of negative campaigning that derailed McCain's presidential campaign in 2000. Some voters said they had received "push poll" calls - which sound like legitimate polling calls but aim to influence voters' thinking - that favored Huckabee over McCain.

Huckabee has denied any connection to the Colorado-based group making the calls, Common Sense Issues.

And fliers circulating in South Carolina suggested that McCain was not the war hero that he is known as - a navy jet pilot, he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five years - but a collaborator. McCain and some of his fellow prisoners have vigorously denied the assertion.

The Feb. 5 phase of this extraordinarily close contest will require broader, more unified themes than in the early states, when the candidates were able to tailor their pitches fairly precisely to local politics and economic concerns.

Romney, who won the primary Tuesday in Michigan, has attempted to carry forward the message that worked in that ailing industrial state, arguing that as a successful businessman and former governor he was well-placed to lead the country in economically challenging times.

Even while spending time in South Carolina, Romney has made it clear that he does not expect to be able to compete with McCain there. "It would be an enormous surprise if he were unable to win here," Romney said in the town of Bluffton.

The Washington journal Politico likened Romney's strategy in the state - working for votes, but essentially ceding it to McCain - as being "politically half-pregnant."

Romney's Mormon religion, which might help him in Nevada, the state with the fourth-highest number of Mormons, is thought to be a handicap in South Carolina. Conversely, Huckabee's background as a former Baptist minister should help in a state with many evangelical Christians.

Romney, McCain, Huckabee and Thompson have all campaigned in South Carolina this week.

Source: IHT.com

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