Across the city today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton urged supporters and delegates to unite behind presidential hopeful Barack Obama, saying that they have more in common with him than John McCain.
At the Hispanic caucus this morning, Clinton encouraged Latino voters who had overwhelmingly supported her to support Obama and slammed recent McCain ads aimed at angering her supporters because of Obama’s vice-presidential choice.
Nearly 800 delegates and conventiongoers cheered her on when she arrived at the caucus meeting, held at the Colorado Convention Center, in which she greeted the crowd with a “buenos dias.”
Latinos voted for Clinton 2-to-1 over Obama in the presidential primaries. Their support was especially important in California and Texas, where Latinos make up 30 percent and 32 percent of the voters respectively, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Of the delegates to the convention, 11.8 percent are Latino.
“I want those of you who supported me to work just as hard for Barack Obama as you worked for me,” she said.
It convinced Martin Arteaga.
Riding the 16th Street Mall bus after the meeting, Arteaga, an ardent Clinton supporter and pledged delegate, said he was going to vote for Obama during the roll call.
“I’m doing it because she asked me to,” he said.
Gina Mora Nettle, a delegate from Minnesota, said she had a hard time choosing between the candidates but ended up siding with Obama.
“It was very moving because I’ve always been torn between Obama and Clinton,” Mora Nettle said about Clinton’s address. “It must be harder than it looks to get up there and tell your most loyal supporters, ‘Let’s get behind Obama.’ It was so impressive. She was so sincere; we can feel that.”
On the first day of the convention here, the Obama and Clinton camps have been working together to disquiet tens of thousands of Clinton advocates across the country angry at the results of the primary.
Although Clinton has been campaigning for Obama and has urged her supporters to vote for him, 10 days ago, she and Obama said jointly that Clinton’s name would be on the roll-call ballot at the convention.
Over the weekend, though, Clinton said she was going to release her delegates — a symbolic and legal gesture which means that delegates from 10 states pledged to her may be free from their legal obligation to vote for her this week.
Lawyers in several of those states, including California, said they were looking into whether that was possible.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Gloria Allred, a pledged delegate from California and a women’s rights lawyer. “We’re going to do everything possible to let everyone know that we were elected to vote for Hillary, and we are not going to breach her trust.”
In a Project United Means Action, or PUMA, van on the way to a protest rally, angry Clinton supporters vowed never to vote for Obama, saying that his résumé was thin and that he is degrading to women.
“Remember when he called that reporter a sweetie?” one yelled from the back. “I think that was his true color.”
Valerie Duhaime, who took a week off work in Florida to protest in Denver, said she was angry that there was no re-vote during the Florida primaries, where Obama didn’t campaign.
“He cared more about his political position than my franchise,” Duhaime said. “That’s what it comes down to.”
Outside the MSNBC tent near Union Station, a crowd of anti-Obama protesters gathered. Pro John McCain supporters drove around black “NOBAMA” sport-utility vehicles, and PUMA supporters, mostly women, roared in happiness.
Was there anything Obama could do to win them over?
“Absolutely no way,” said Mit Mar, a Clinton supporter from Texas at the rally.
Clinton is scheduled to speak tonight at the Denver Art Museum.
