Blood in the Sand

Let’s have a show of hands: Who out there believes that even if the Culinary Workers Union 226 had endorsed Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama that we’d still be seeing Clinton operatives within the Nevada State Education Association filing a lawsuit effectively barring nine caucus sites along the Vegas strip? And that if Obama's people had done this to the unions who could be counted on to vote for Hillary, that Camp Clinton wouldn't be screaming bloody murder, in turn?


Shut up, you don’t count.

Yet this is precisely what’s coming out of Vegas, according to Daily Kos’s Miss Laura.

Since both Obama and Clinton hail from Chicago and since this turf war is being waged in the Desert where Bugsy Siegel once held sway, this is beginning to look less like a presidential election and more like a mob gang war.

Now, Hillary didn’t specifically order this (or, as my Deep Throat who’d just called me with this breaking story told me, “it doesn’t have her fingerprints on it”) yet it’s notable that we have not heard Hillary, who had after Iowa publicly deplored tactics exactly like this, decry this desperately despicable chicanery that essentially turns on its ear virtually everything we've come to learn and cherish about the democratic principle of one-person/one-vote.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with voter rights. It's about politics, plain and simple.

Perhaps that isn’t so surprising since the lawsuit that would effectively bar nine caucus sites worth of casino workers from caucusing is coming directly from the Nevada Democratic Party and even the Democratic National HQ (according to the party’s spokeswoman Kirsten Searer). Plus, the Washington Post blog tells us that

(C)ulinary union leaders told the Washington Post they expected an outside group with ties to Clinton to file a motion seeking to quash the casino caucuses.

I guess this is the part where the Nevada State Education Association, which, coincidentally enough, recently endorsed Hillary, comes in. The suit is being filed through Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner, Renshaw, and Ferrario, a law firm that has verifiable ties to Hillary.

Here’s what it boils down to: The Clinton camp (or, rather, its totally autonomous and independently-acting supporters) seem freaked out that the Culinary Workers Union, which is a formidable union and the casino workers in other unions, could tip the balance of power in a closely-contested race. The suit tries to present a concern by the NSEA that allowing these unions to hold their caucuses at their jobs, on work days, unfairly discriminates against those union workers who can’t caucus on their home turf (such as janitors who have to open schools, for instance, for other caucus sites).

The casino workers represent the “at-large” caucuses which could account for up to 10% of the final tally of the Nevada caucuses next Saturday, a large enough chunk of votes that could easily throw this caucus to one candidate or the other.

Lee Atwater lives.

It’s essentially pitting one union against another and if Hillary and even Harry Reid (whose own son is a public Clintonite) don’t step on this right now and ask for the lawsuit to be dropped, it will be political suicide for both. And the fact that the largely African-American union, which is supporting the only African American democratic presidential contender, is being targeted by a Clintonite like Dina Titus, the Senate Minority leader in the Nevada state senate, doesn’t make this lawsuit smell any better, either. (On her blog, btw, she asks those who have questions regarding the January 19th caucus to contact her. I say we give her an earful, including why there’s no mention of this lawsuit anywhere on her official website.).

But don’t expect Hillary to be speaking out in an election year in favor of a union that’s already thrown its considerable support behind Barack Obama. Remember, she’d spent many profitable years sitting at Mr. Sam’s board helping Wal-Mart carry out every down-and-dirty union-busting trick in the book.

The Las Vegas Gleaner has more and Ralston, the Vegas Pundit has a .PDF file of the complaint that may be of interest.