March 08, 2008
Caucusing Is Difficult
CASPER, WY, March 7 -- Remember that "Caucusing is Easy" how-to video Hillary Clinton's campaign rolled out in the days leading up to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses? It made it look like a breezy process, complete with hamburgers and dancing and singing and a comments from old and young.
"Dancing is hard. Caucusing is easy," went one line.
It's been a little more than two months since the senator lost the Iowa caucuses and almost every other caucus since, save the contentious Nevada vote. And while she stumped in WY Friday, her campaign has consistently downplayed her chances.
The candidate herself acknowledged the high odds at events here yesterday, calling this race an uphill climb, while exclaiming to supporters that their votes were "worth fighting for."
Despite aides insistance last week that they embraced the caucus process, the senator has made it clear she's not too keen on a system she believes leaves many people out -- nurses, members of the military, people who work the night shift or who can't get off their day shift and the very old.
So as she campaigned in hopes of holding her own and winning as many delegates as she can today in WY, which Obama is expected to win, Clinton riffed on the difficulties the process presents.
"Most people have no idea what a caucus is," she told an audience in a Casper gym. "Frankly, I've never caucused, cause I've never lived in a state that did that. I've always just voted, you know, and I thought that worked out ok."
And earlier at a town hall attended by several hundred in Cheyenne, she said it was no secret that many of her supporters had never caucused before and were not clear about how it worked.
"It's not an election," she said. "In fact, time and time again, people have said to me, you know, I can't come because I work. I'm gonna be out of town. There's not an opportunity for a lot of people to participate."
But even though everything Clinton says indicates she's seeking to keep expectations low, she's determined.
"I've never been a quitter, and I've never given up, and I'm just keep going, and I intend to keep going all the way to the White House," she vowed.
(NBC/NJ's ATHENA JONES)
Posted at 12:22 PM
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