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Patrick Leahy Calls on Hillary to Drop Out of Race •
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Bob Casey to Endorse Obama, Join Bus Tour
By Thomas Fitzgerald
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Friday 28 March 2008
Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president
today in Pittsburgh, sending a message both to the state's primary voters and
to undecided superdelegates who might decide the close race for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
Dan Pfeiffer, deputy communications director for the Obama campaign, confirmed
that Casey would announce his support during a rally at the Soldiers and Sailors
Military Museum and Memorial and that he would then set out with the Illinois
senator on part of a six-day bus trip across the state.
The endorsement comes as something of a surprise. Casey, a deliberative and
cautious politician, had been adamant about remaining neutral until after the
April 22 primary. He had said he wanted to help unify the party after the intensifying
fight between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"There are few stronger advocates for working families in Pennsylvania
than Sen. Casey," Pfeiffer said.
By coming out for Obama, Casey puts himself at odds with many top state Democrats
- including Gov. Rendell, Rep. John P. Murtha and Mayor Nutter - who are campaigning
for Clinton.
The endorsement also comes at a crucial time for Obama, who has been trailing
Clinton in Pennsylvania polls by double-digit margins but who also has bought
at least $1.6 million worth of television advertising statewide in the last
week, more than double Clinton's expenditure.
Obama strategists hope that Casey can help their candidate make inroads with
the white working-class men who are often referred to as "Casey Democrats."
This group identifies with the brand of politics Casey and his late father,
a former governor, practiced - liberal on economic issues but supportive of
gun rights and opposed to abortion. (Obama favors some gun-control measures
and backs abortion rights.)
Obama badly lost the white working-class vote to Clinton in Ohio and Texas
on March 4, keeping the outcome of the fight in doubt amid questions about whether
he could appeal to a group of voters that has often strayed from the party in
presidential elections.
Since then, Obama has been stressing economic issues important to the middle
class more often than his calls to reform politics. His campaign's recent TV
ads in Pennsylvania also feature blue-collar imagery.
Other state Democrats who support Obama include Reps. Patrick Murphy and Chaka
Fattah, and former Lt. Gov. Mark Singel.
Casey sees Obama as an "underdog" in the campaign who sacrificed
at the beginning of his career to be a community organizer "in the shadows
of the closed steel mills in Chicago," said a source close to Casey who
is familiar with the endorsement decision but was not authorized to speak publicly
about it.
The source, reached by The Inquirer yesterday, said that Casey was also impressed
with how Obama had stood up to the pressures of the campaign, including recent
attacks over the racially incendiary remarks of his former pastor.
Casey's decision was also personal, motivated in part by the enthusiasm his
four daughters - Elyse, Caroline, Julia and Marena - have expressed for Obama,
the source said. "He thinks we shouldn't be deaf to the voices of the next
generation."
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Contact staff writer Thomas Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
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Obama-Supporter Patrick Leahy Calls on Hillary to Drop Out of Race
By Greg Sargent
TalkingPointsMemo.com
Friday 28 March 2008
Senator Patrick Leahy becomes the first prominent supporter of Obama to explicitly
call on Hillary to get out of the race in an interview with Vermont Public Radio:
"There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates
to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator
Obama. Now, obviously that's a decision that only she can make. Frankly I feel
that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate."
Just yesterday, Chris Dodd, also an Obama backer, said something similar, suggesting
that party leaders should come together in April and force an end to this.
So the big question now is whether we're about to see the calls for Hillary
to leave the race start snowballing - and whether that will make any difference.
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