Democrat Convention Conflict; Clinton Campaign Reveals Tactics
DOBBS: Democratic leadership tonight bracing for conflict at the Democratic National Convention which begins two weeks from tonight. Hundreds of Senator Clinton's supporters want their candidate to be nominated and they are prepared to fight for that privilege. As Bill Schneider now reports, there is deep division within the Democratic Party as the convention draws near.</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Hillary Clinton will address the Democratic Convention Tuesday night on the 88th anniversary of women getting the right to vote.</s>HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-NY), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are one party. We share one vision.</s>SCHNEIDER: Sounds like she's playing good soldier, but some of her supporters may not be ready to lock arms and sing Kumbaya. There will be more than 10,000 reporters at the convention, and very little real news. Political conventions have become heavily scripted.</s>OBAMA: Our staffs are in communication with Senator Clinton's staffs, but I don't expect any problems.</s>SCHNEIDER: The media will be looking for conflict. One pro- Clinton group says it has filmed a television commercial for Senator Clinton that will run next week on cable and Denver television. Another pro-Clinton group is planning marches and rallies the day Clinton speaks. What do they want? Senator Clinton's name placed in nomination, something she would have to sign off on. Plus speeches on behalf of her candidacy and a roll call vote. Over 1,600 delegates will be Clinton supporters.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two hundred Clinton delegates is all it would take if they really wanted to be difficult to make a mess at the convention.</s>SCHNEIDER: Senator Clinton seemed to encourage them when she said:</s>H. CLINTON: I think that you know people want to feel like OK, it's a catharsis, we are here, we did it and then everybody get behind Senator Obama.</s>SCHNEIDER: A catharsis?</s>OBAMA: I don't think we are looking for catharsis. I think what we are looking for is energy and excitement about the prospects of changing this country...</s>SCHNEIDER: See? Conflict already.</s>SCHNEIDER: Now, the Democratic platform includes a compromise on the health care issue, which could have provoked a very divisive debate at the convention. The draft platform embraces guaranteed health care for all Americans. A Clinton priority. But it doesn't require all Americans to purchase health insurance as Clinton wanted. Instead, it favors Obama's approach, requiring coverage for all children and making insurance more affordable for adults -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: As an ideal, as a goal, platform conflicts have not had a terrific history in conventions in either party of having any meaning whatsoever in subsequent months and years from their occurrence.</s>SCHNEIDER: What they do is they expose divisions. I remember deep division when Reagan challenged President Ford over detente. It just exposed the division in the party. But no one reads a platform after the convention.</s>DOBBS: How profound is this division, in your judgment, right now two weeks ahead of the convention, for the Democratic Party between Senator Obama supporters and those of Senator Clinton?</s>SCHNEIDER: I think Obama does have the support of most of Hillary Clinton's supporters. Something like 60, 70 percent, according to the polls. But there are some, according to a third, who are still holding out and they may never vote for Obama. Whether it's his economic policies, some people suspect racism, there could be many reasons, but a lot of her supporters just are not going with Obama.</s>DOBBS: Bill Schneider, our senior political analyst, we thank you.</s>SCHNEIDER: OK.</s>DOBBS: Well stunning revelations tonight from within the Clinton campaign. A new article in "The Atlantic Magazine" reveals a campaign strategy that targets Senator Obama's background and to use it against him in the campaign. In those e-mails, former Clinton strategist Mark Penn said Obama's quote "roots to basic American values are limited", end quote. Mary Snow has our report.</s>MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A behind the scenes look at Hillary Clinton's fight for the Democratic nomination reveals turmoil and in-fighting. "The Atlantic Monthly" obtained hundreds of campaign e-mails and memos, including one by then Clinton senior strategist, Mark Penn. In it he suggests Clinton use Obama's boyhood in Indonesia and Hawaii against him, saying that instead of showing diversity, it also exposes a strong weakness for him, his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking in his values. How we could give some light to this contrast without turning negative."</s>JONATHAN MARTIN, POLITICO.COM: Her top representative suggesting that angle is striking. I mean these are the sort of things that you see in e-mails that are circulating about Obama. It's the sort of subterranean smear campaign against him, but you'd never see these things actually voiced by the candidate.</s>SNOW: Democratic strategist James Carville says there are at times what he termed extreme opinions thrown around in campaigns.</s>JAMES CARVILLE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Had Senator Clinton followed Mark Penn's advice, it would have cost her much more angst and grief than it would have done her good.</s>SNOW: Is Obama's boyhood a theme that Republican Senator John McCain might use?</s>AMY HOLMES, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I think it would be very dangerous for John McCain to try to be going after Barack Obama based on these themes of patriotism or who is more American. And we saw that when Hillary Clinton even attempted to do it, that the backlash was immediate and intense.</s>SNOW: Now as for a response, a Clinton spokeswoman called the article old news. And as for that controversial memo suggesting Obama be portrayed as lacking American roots, the spokeswoman said everyone knows from the campaign she ran that Senator Clinton did not take that advice -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Well it's actually more profound and emphatic than that, isn't it, Mary? She not only did not take that advice, one doesn't know that she even considered it, but we do know she fired him.</s>SNOW: That's right. But according to the timeline of these memos, she did not fire Mark Penn until much later on than this memo was written.</s>DOBBS: How much time?</s>SNOW: I don't have -- I don't want to be quoted exactly, but...</s>DOBBS: Well you are going to be because you're on the air.</s>SNOW: I'm on the air.</s>DOBBS: So we'll leave it at indeterminate amount of time.</s>SNOW: That's right.</s>DOBBS: Thank you very much, Mary. Mary Snow. Well the state of Ohio tonight is suing an electronic voting machine maker after touch screen voting machines malfunctioned during the primary in March. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner saying that she had filed suit against Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold. That lawsuit claiming the Premier machines malfunctioned in 11 of the 44 counties using them. The Ohio lawsuit claims those machines dropped votes that were only recovered by election workers hours later. Just last week, Ohio Secretary of State ordered all counties using electronic voting machines to have paper ballots on hand. This is a trend that is growing all across the country. In fact, 57 percent of this nation's registered voters live in counties that will be using paper ballots in November. And according to an Associated Press survey, more than 100 million registered voters live in counties that will rely on paper ballots rather than electronic machines this fall. 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