The battle for the hearts and minds – well, actually, the votes would do – of Fair Haven Democrats was engaged Saturday morning as rival foot soldiers from the Obama and Clinton camps set out from staging areas just blocks from each other armed with buttons, bumper stickers, and bilingual talking points.
Union shop steward Ernest Thompson, from Local 35 of Unite/Here at Yale University, along with students Jacob Koch (the campus director of Yale for Obama) and Julie Raisch, struck camp at the firehouse on Lombard and Poplar and headed out on a “literature drop” mission for Obama.
This in no way meant dropping a course in Shakespeare, but gently placing packets of Obama material on every doorstep in Fair Haven. Since Fair Haven is almost entirely Democratic, it was fairly certain none of the materials would be wasted on a Republican porch. So all homes more or less were targeted.
The aim also was to get permission from the owners of the laundromat and convenience stores to leave piles of packets for the customers to take with them. This apparently was also achieved.
Meanwhile, an equal number of Clinton supporters — about 25 to 30 in number — gathered in the parking lot of the Spanish American Merchants Association on Grand near Ferry Street, three blocks to the south. The Clinton supporters, to a reporter’s eye, were somewhat older and more established.
Even the students were older and more established. The Obamaniacs were well represented by college undergraduates and even high school students — Koch said Yale is five to one for Obama . Among the Clintonites in the parking lot were second year Yale Law School students Rachel Osterman (left) and Lindsay Eyler. Eyler is chair of Yale Law Students for Hillary (a Yale Law grad; Obama went to Harvard Law). She said her school is pretty much divided between the two candidates.
Neither had ever done grassroots, door-to-door canvassing as they were about to set out to do. Were they nervous? Perhaps a tad. If she got the door opened just a crack and had only 20 seconds to make her case to a Fair Havener, what would they say?
Eyler said that all the clich√©‘s were true about Clinton being ready to lead on “Day One.” Osterman said her candidate is brilliant, effective, and knows how to build coalitions.
John Wililams, the coordinator of constituent services (pictured here with canvasser Mary Haddon, a New Haven attorney), is the prime organizer in the area for Clinton. He distributed materials and a “script” to the Clintonites. The main points of the script were that the senator is ready to lead, yes, on Day One, that she’d fix the economy, and undo all the Bush administration messes. It was not clear if the script was also in Spanish.
The Obama folks, like youth services worker Adriana Arreola (pictured below), who had managed Mayor DeStefano’s most recent reelection campaign, were not knocking on doors but leaving materials at their base. They did not appear to have a script. However the lead item in the English-Spanish flyer, which they were distributing, reminded readers that an Obama presidency would keep young people in school and attend to the teaching of English-language learners.
“Obama.” it also noted, “is a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which allows undocumented students to pay lower in-state tuition rates.”
The two groups skirmished at C‑Town, the supermarket at Grand and Ferry, handing out competing flyers and buttons to shoppers laden with bags, but no casualties were noted. All along the front, which stretched from, yes, Front Street to Poplar on the east-west axis, and from Lombard to Chapel, there was individual combat, when the canassers and lit droppers’ paths crossed, but it was of a fairly polite nature.
The little discussed “secret” of activists like State Rep. Juan Candelaria, and Hill Development Corporation Executive Director David Alvarado, is that Democrats will be proud of either candidate. “Only now,” said Candelaria, “we absolutely want Hillary to win. She is about working families, and she understands our issues. Hillary is one of us!”
His enthusiasm was apparently undiminished by news Saturday morning of a press conference across town in which U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro, John Larson, and Chris Murphy had all come out for Obama. “I respect them all,” he said. “And don’t you be worried. In the fall, Democrats will all be united. But now I’m for Hillary.”
Representative Jose Serrano, also a supporter of Clinton, was supposed to have greeted the canvassers, but he was detained, and Candelaria effectively pinch-hit.
It was not clear whether the Obama group would be equally “proud” if Clinton prevailed in Fair Haven and to the nomination.
Arreola said her group’s plans were to be back in Fair Haven on Sunday — as well as the Hill — to leaflet with faith-based materials. Meaning?
“Obama’s written of how he came to be a Christian, that when he was organizing in Chicago, he was drawn into a church and heard one of the ministers preach a sermon on the ‘audacity of hope,’ which became the title of his book. We have an article on this. The Latino community is fairly conservative on the religious issue, and will want to know about this. We’re going to put those flyers, you know, on windshields.”
Coordinator Williams said that he was encouraged by the turnout Saturday, and that volunteers for Clinton would canvass for several hours and then phonebank throughout the city. “Then we’re going to get ready for Hillary’s appearance in Hartford on Monday.”