The race for California

Clinton and Obama battle for a mother lode of delegates -- in a state with a nonwhite Latino, Asian, black majority. Who has figured out the electoral math?

Hillary Rodham Clinton, foreground, is joined Feb. 1 at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco by (from left) Mayor Gavin Newsom, actors Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson, California state controller John Chiang, Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

Joan Walsh
salon.com
Feb. 5, 2008

If Hillary Clinton pulls off a win in California Tuesday, you'll be able to look back and see a large share of the reason onstage with her at the Orpheum Theater Friday night in San Francisco. Clinton came out to a packed fundraiser flanked by a rainbow of state leaders -- Controller John Chiang (California's highest-ranking Asian elected official), state Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, along with a token white leader, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Earlier that day Barack Obama had been represented in Oakland by locally beloved Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and the city's popular, famously antiwar Rep. Barbara Lee. It was a happy, high-energy event. But oddly, in an election Obama has framed as being about the future, Kennedy and Lee evoked California's race-relations past in ebony and ivory. While Kennedy is said to help Obama with Latino voters, who are overwhelmingly for Clinton, one might wonder why the campaign used a white stand-in rather than a real, live Latino leader. Indeed, he gave a shout out to César Chávez's nephew Federico, who supports Obama (his late uncle's union, the United Farm Workers, endorsed Clinton), but there were no Latinos or Asians onstage with him and Lee. ... ( more )

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