Notes From the Campaign Trail, May 8
Samantha Hayes, Washington, D.C.
Before the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana this week, a very interesting phone call took place between a well known Clinton supporter and the Speaker of the House. The kind of phone call you sort of wish you could have overheard.
According to officials who are familiar with what was said, but won’t identify themselves, the caller was Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood movie mogul. And he called Pelosi in an effort to buy Clinton’s campaign more time. And for leverage? Money.
Weinstein is a prolific fundraiser for Clinton and has given tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to Democrats in the Senate over the last ten years. The sources say Weinstein threatened to stop his donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee if she did not consider his proposal for a re-vote in Michigan and Florida. Clinton desperately wants the votes in those states counted so she can come closer to catching Obama’s delegate total. But those contests, both in January, broke party rules and right now, delegates from the two states are not included in the number needed to secure the nomination, 2,025. Weinstein told CNN he vehemently denies making any threats.
He reportedly also wanted Pelosi to back off a suggestion she had made to superdelegates to support the Democratic candidate who is leading in pledged delegates early next month. That statement, made in March, angered the Clinton camp.
Pelosi has said repeatedly that she is neutral in the Democratic nomination race. One of the officials familiar with the conversation told CNN she told Weinstein “Don’t ever threaten me again.”
Pelosi’s spokesman would not talk about that phone call but did say the speaker has had many private conversations about the Presidential campaign. No doubt there are more to come.
This entry was posted on May 8, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Politics. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: barack obama, cnn, d.c., democrat, democratic congressional campaign committee, florida, harvey weinstein, hillary clinton, indiana, ksat, michigan, nancy pelosi, north carolina, presidential campaign, primary, samantha hayes, san antonio, senate, speaker of the house, superdelegates, washington
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