Clinton, Obama in last-ditch Connecticut fight

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut has only 48 delegates to offer to the victor of Tuesday’s Democratic primary, a far cry from California’s 370.

But with only hours left before the voting begins, both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama each demonstrated how significant they think the state is on the Super Tuesday battlefield.

Clinton brought her campaign to the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, and Obama addressed a rally of about 15,000 shouting people in Hartford Monday evening.

Clinton proved with a New Hampshire victory on Jan. 8 that women are her key demographic, comprising nearly 60 percent of that state’s electorate.

Clinton won 46 percent to Obama’s 34 percent, according to exit poll interviews.

Timed for local TV news
So it made sense that the Yale event — well-timed for mid-day and 6 p.m. local news broadcasts — showcased a dozen women, flanking Clinton around a table, as they discussed family and health care policy.

On the wall, behind the former first lady were home-made signs reading, “My mom says Hillary,” “Hillary Cares” and “Kids for Hillary.”

For an hour and 40 minutes, an exhausted looking Clinton (who appeared to be battling a cough) talked health insurance, child abuse, domestic violence, obesity, lack of child care for working mothers, the subprime mortgage crisis, the lack of family physicians, and the high cost of student loans.

The topics were decidedly less than upbeat.

Video Clinton tears up Feb. 4: Sen. Clinton gets misty during an introduction by her old mentor at a campaign event Monday in New Haven, Conn. MSNBC

She underscored how long she has been waging legal warfare against Republicans, mentioning that during one law school summer she worked “trying to prevent the Nixon administration from giving tax-exempt status to segregated academies in the South” in 1971. 

The point was to show her mastery of the details of social policy. For one listener, at least, she succeeded.

Gladys Deutsch, director of the Leila Day Nursery school in New Haven, gave a glowing review of the entire event. “She was knowledgeable, articulate, she just was excellent.”

But Deutsch was not completely convinced that she'll vote for Clinton on Tuesday. “I’m sort of still wondering, but I was very, very favorably impressed with her demeanor, the way she connected with people. I think I was surprised” at how well Clinton established rapport with the dozen women. 

“I was leaning toward Obama before I came here, and I just was very favorably impressed with her, so I’m still thinking. I’m going to do a little soul-searching tonight,” Deutsch said.

Once in a lifetime
Seven hours later, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, one of the introductory speakers for Obama, told a crowd of people filling the XL Center in downtown Hartford, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment, my friends.”

Obama’s stump speech was almost identical to the one he gave in North Charleston two days before the South Carolina primary — “I can’t do this by myself; you need to be ready for change!” The difference in Hartford was that the crowd was four or five times bigger and even more frenzied than the one in North Charleston.

And Obama added a few flattering lines about Sen. Chris Dodd, the state’s senior senator who dropped out of the presidential race last month. A Dodd endorsement of Obama would be dramatic, but time may have run out for that move.

In the crowd was Wilma Torres, a product demonstrator from Bristol, Conn., who said she brought her grand-daughter to see Obama “so she could see what rallying is all about.”

Slide show   Super campaigning Click to see images on the eve of the biggest Super Tuesday in U.S. history. more photos

She said, “I think it’s time, like he said, for the low-income people to get ahead and I think with him being the president, maybe my grand-kids will be better off. He talks like he’s going to help all the low-income people get ahead.”

Connecticut’s primary will serve as a test case for gauging whether Obama can put together the coalition that will allow him to wrest the nomination from Clinton.

Unlike Massachusetts, this is not a state where most of the state’s senior Democratic elected officials have endorsed Obama. And unlike New York, it's not Clinton’s home turf.

Obama's coalition
Obama’s South Carolina victory and his second-place finish in New Hampshire made clear that he has drawn most of his support from a coalition of highly educated, affluent professionals, young voters, and African-Americans.

If Obama can assemble that same winning coalition in Connecticut, he is likely to do it again in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other states that vote after this week.

And Tuesday's outcome in Connecticut is likely to be broadcast even as voters in Arizona, California and other western states are still casting their ballots.

A big victory in Connecticut could ripple 3,000 miles to the Pacific Coast on Tuesday.

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