Feinstein: For Clinton fans, Obama is clear pick

DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE PRESS SERVICES

LITTLE ROCK — Barack Obama will win over Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters because he offers a “stark” contrast with John McCain on issues such as health care and the economy, California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Feinstein, speaking on the ABC News program This Week, said Obama “needs to reach out to the Clinton supporters, and he needs to reassure them as to what he would do in the agenda for change” on issues that Clinton’s backers care about.

“You’re not going to get major health-care reform out of John McCain,” Democrat Feinstein said as she cited a list of policy differences between Obama and McCain, who have secured enough votes to be their respective parties’ presidential nominees. “And it goes on and on like that.”

Clinton suspended her presidential bid Saturday and urged the nearly 18 million people who voted for her during the Democratic primaries to back Obama, whom she often criticized during the campaign as inexperienced and out of touch. McCain is making his own appeal to those voters, including the elderly, working-class whites and women, to cross over and vote for him in the November election.

Feinstein, who hosted a private meeting between Clinton and Obama at her Washington home, said she believes Clinton is committed to helping Obama get elected.

“She recognizes that it’s over, and I think every instinct in Hillary Clinton is to help,” Feinstein said.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said on Fox News Sunday that Obama’s victory in his state on Feb. 12 shows the first black candidate to be a major party’s nominee has crossover appeal.

“The fact that people preferred Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama does not mean they’ll not get on board,” Kaine said, adding that Obama won white and Hispanic votes in his state’s primary.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, said McCain is better positioned to win key states in the upper Midwest such as his own, which has 10 electoral votes and hasn’t backed a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972.

“Who’s the change candidate in this election? It’s McCain,” Pawlenty said.

TOWN HALL REJECTED

McCain and Obama rejected an offer Sunday from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News to host the first proposed presidential town-hall meeting because they do not want it limited to one television network.

McCain, the likely Republican nominee, last week asked his Democratic counterpart to join him for 10 meetings in the coming months, and campaign managers for both sides said they had agreed in spirit to schedule joint appearances.

But the campaigns rejected aformal offer outlined in a letter from Bloomberg and ABC News on Sunday that envisioned kicking off the town-hall series with a 90-minute, prime-time broadcast from New York. The campaigns said the candidates want the meetings open for broadcast on all television networks or on the Internet, rather than be sponsored by a single network or news organization.

Bloomberg, a billionaire mayor who toyed with running for president as an independent, will not give up on trying to influence the town-hall meeting process, a spokesman indicated.

“We’re committed to finding a similar format that works for a joint town-hall meeting between the two candidates in the nation’s largest city,” Stu Loeser said.

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said the network is open to discussing a wider distribution plan.

“We think the important thing is bringing the candidates together,” he said.

Bloomberg and ABC News President David Westin had proposed that the first meeting take place at Federal Hall in Manhattan. McCain already had suggested the venue and wanted the first meeting to take place Thursday.

In their letter to the candidates Sunday, Bloomberg and Westin said the date and other details - like how much interaction the candidates would have with voters or a moderator - would be worked out between the two campaigns.

SUMMER TO-DO LISTS

With 11 weeks to the start of the Democratic convention - and the Republican event just days later - strategists for McCain and Obama will be focused this summer on the shrinking electoral map, finding a running mate, defining the opponent and fundraising.

Many Americans will see little evidence that a presidential election is under way. They will view virtually no TV ads, visits by candidates or local news coverage.

That’s because the campaign, like the past two, will focus on about 15 competitive states. Both parties see the other states as reliably in their camps and not needing attention, or totally out of reach.

McCain will start by trying to hold the 31 states President Bush won in 2004 (which are almost identical to the 30 he won in 2000).

Obama must claim one or more of those states, while losing few if any of the ones Al Gore and John Kerry won in their narrow losses to Bush.

Analysts question whether a vice presidential choice seriously affects a presidential election, but Obama calls it the most important decision he will make before Election Day. He and McCain have appointed small groups to vet contenders.

Obama first must decide whether to choose Clinton, who battled him to the end and has many supporters who want her on the ticket. Many political insiders think he will turn elsewhere, but they do not agree on a front-runner.

McCain is likely to look at Republican Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Charlie Crist of Florida, two battleground states.

Campaign pollsters say the average person still knows relatively little about Obama or Mc-Cain. Both men and their allies will race to fill in the blanks with appealing portraits of themselves and unflattering pictures of the other.

Obama has assembled an unprecedented political fundraising machine, raking in $264 million in 16 months. McCain has raised $115 million in 17 months. McCain, assured of his eventual nomination, had his best fundraising month in May, raising $21.5 million. Obama raised nearly $32 million in April.

Information for this article was contributed by Sara Kugler, Charles Babington, Jim Kuhnhenn of The Associated Press and Ryan J. Donmoyer of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1, 6 on 06/09/2008

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