Denver — A mixed message from Hillary Clinton in a last-minute personal pitch left Connecticut delegates like New Haven State Rep. Juan Candelaria (pictured) ambivalent, and ultimately divided over whom to back for president at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday.
In the end, while other states delivered a unified vote behind nominee Barack Obama, Connecticut split: 21 stuck with vanquished contender Clinton, while 38 voted for Obama.
The ambivalence came after a personal message from Clinton earlier that day in which she opened the door for her supporters to make a last display of Hillary fervor, instead of supporting Barack.
The personal pitch contrasted with her televised prime-time speech the night before to the full Democratic National Convention, when she urged her troops unequivocally to unite behind Obama. Her mixed message left New Haven and other Connecticut delegates confused, and scrambling.
Just minutes before the state delegation was set to declare its official choice, for instance, this state labor leader scrambled to change his choice.
Leo Canty (pictured initialing a ballot) was joining the state’s delegation on the floor of the Pepsi Arena for the final roll-call nominating vote. Other states — even ones that Clinton won in primaries — delivered a unified vote for Obama.
Connecticut’s split vote was hashed out in a series of last-minute decisions in the final 24 hours before the vote.
The back-and-forth began on Tuesday evening with a call from State Rep. Jason Bartlett, who was serving as a whip for the Clinton campaign.
Bartlett, who lives in Bethel, is a New Haven landlord and former campaign manager for two New Haven mayoral candidates. This spring he co-chaired Clinton’s campaign in Connecticut. As Wednesday’s vote approached he tracked down the state’s 22 pledged Clinton delegates and asked them to stick with their candidate in a morning vote.
Though Obama had secured the delegates to propel him to nomination, Clinton’s name was put on a paper ballot passed out at hotel breakfast Wednesday morning. Delegates would show support for Clinton on a first ballot, then could switch their vote on a second ballot if they wanted to support the party’s man.
At breakfast, the delegates dutifully complied.
Canty checked the Clinton box on a paper ballot. So did New Haven’s Debra Hauser (pictured with Bartlett), a die-hard Clintonite, as well the rest the state’s Clinton team.
A Personal Message
At 1 o’clock, they got a second message — a personal message from Hillary herself, at a private reception in a downtown convention center. The message came a day after the New York U.S. senator publicly called for party unity in her prime-time speech.
In the room packed with hundreds of her supporters, Clinton left an opportunity open to express non-unity: She’d give voters a final chance to vote for her, instead of Obama.
She announced to her supporters that the party would allow for a roll call vote, a move she said would recognize the wishes of the 18 million people who voted for her during the primaries.
“Wooooo!” replied Bartlett, who was standing in the crowd with a video camera.
The senator absolved her delegates of their commitment to vote for her.
“I am here today to release you,” Clinton announced.
“No! No!” cried New Haven’s Candelaria (pictured), who was attending his first convention.
Clinton told the crowd that she had cast her vote for Obama, but her supporters didn’t have to.
“I am not telling you what to do,” Clinton said. “You’ve come here from so many different places having made this journey and feeling in your heart what is right for you to do.”
She ended her speech by saying that the objective was to elect Obama and “leave Denver united.”
A New Haven Rep’s Ambivalence
As the candidate left in a flurry of camera flashes, her words left some confusion in their wake.
Candelaria said he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
“If I go by my conscience, it’s her,” he said. According to the wishes of those who sent him to Denver, “my duty is to cast that vote for Hillary,” he said.
But, he added, his mind could change by the time he headed to the roll-call vote just over an hour later.
Bartlett, in contrast, felt assured — released to make one final stand for Clinton before jumping on the Obama train.
“I’m not going to twist anyone’s arm” to stick with Clinton, he said, but he’d like one last chance to recognize the candidate for whom he worked so hard.
Dick Blumenthal (pictured later in the day with former U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont), Connecticut’s attorney general and a pledged Clinton delegate, had a third reaction: He felt released enough to switch allegiances.
“I will now vote happily and enthusiastically for Barack Obama,” said the wiry political veteran. He said he was voting Obama in the name of unity — but “not unity that compels people to swallow their principles.” The differences between the once-archrivals “are a shadow, are minuscule, compared to Hillary Clinton and John McCain,” he said.
Cross-Country Consultation
Leo Canty was still on the fence. He felt he had to take the question back to the people at home — and quick.
He picked up the phone and dictated an email to his wife, Sue Canty. She posed the question to a 300-person email list of those who sent the delegate to Denver: To switch, or not to switch?
As Canty raced over to the Pepsi Center, the emails started pouring in. Sue Canty relayed them in voice messages to her husband. He got caught in traffic, arriving only minutes before the giant spotlight turned to the Connecticut section of the room, and a vote count would be announced.
Canty heard the last few messages. “A vast majority were for Obama,” he said. He rushed down to the party chairwoman and checked the Obama box on the ballot.
Subsequent states in the area wowed the room with a bold stand for unity. New Hampshire, where Clinton won a key primary, cast all its 30 votes for Obama in a swift decisive stance. Massachusetts made the same move. So did New Jersey, where Clinton had done well.
Finally, in an orchestrated performance, Illinois yielded the floor to New York, which cast the votes that pushed Obama over the threshold. Hillary Clinton called for a voice vote, one big aye to nominate Obama, “in the spirit of unity.”
“Yes!” cried the Connecticut delegates. Obama became, at long last, the official party nominee.
“Well, it’s done!” said Hauser, shaking her hips to the tune of “Love Train” as the room got up and danced. Hauser had made the switch to Obama for the second ballot, arguing “If Hillary can support Obama, I can.”
“And, of course he’s a wonderful candidate,” she added.
Switching sides with her were Canty, Blumenthal and superdelegates John Olsen and Ellen Camhi.
Candelaria stuck where he was. Rolling in about 20 minutes after the vote, he didn’t have time to switch camps. “If I had been here, I would have changed my vote,” he said. “That reflects the unity of the party.”
Canty speculated others might have changed too, but didn’t get to the Pepsi Center in time.
New Haven’s State Sen. Martin Looney, who’s long supported Obama, remarked on how the other states — including Arkansas — had made a point to show their unified support for Barack.
“Connecticut Clinton supporters basically felt they had to continue their support for Clinton,” he said. “I don’t know why they felt that to a greater extent than the other states.”
Nancy DiNardo, the chair of the state party, explained the choice this way:
“I just think that, you know, our delegates worked hard for both candidates, and they felt that Hillary Clinton deserved some recognition for the wonderful — no, great — job that she has done throughout this campaign.”
Bartlett said despite the last-minute display of Clinton fervor, he was resolute in his support for Obama.
“This is my first full day wearing an Obama pin,” he said, pointing to his lapel. Now, he said, “we’re going to work for Obama.”