On The HUSTINGS

By Staff Reporter of the Sun | January 21, 2008

CLINTON, OBAMA CAMPS QUARREL OVER NEVADA CAUCUS TACTICS

The presidential campaigns of Senators Clinton and Obama are trading charges and countercharges of dirty tricks on Saturday when Nevada Democrats attended presidential caucuses. Mr. Obama's camp released a Clinton campaign manual for precinct captains which erroneously indicated that 11:30 a.m. was the "deadline" to register at a caucus site and that "doors close" at that hour. In fact, noon was the final cutoff and voters in line at that hour were supposed to be accommodated. In a conference call with reporters, an attorney for the Obama camp, Robert Bauer, said Clinton supporters insisted on closing the doors. "This was their marching orders," he said.

"It's a completely false claim," Mrs. Clinton's Nevada state director, Robert Mook, said in a dueling call. "We don't have authority to shut the doors. We're not running the precincts," the Clinton campaign's communications director, Howard Wolfson, said. Mr. Mook said "ambiguities" in Nevada Democratic Party instructions led to confusion over the start time and supporters of both candidates were affected.

The Clinton camp said the confusion in their manual paled in comparison to casino workers being subjected to "strong-arm tactics and intimidation" to follow the Culinary Workers Union's endorsement of Mr. Obama.

Both campaigns said they had complained to the Nevada Democratic Party and Mrs. Clinton's staff said they were considering other options. Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote of caucus attendees, but Mr. Obama narrowly prevailed in terms of delegates, picking up 13 to the New York senator's 12.

INDEPENDENT GROUP DENIES HITTING McCAIN ON VIETNAM RECORD

An independent conservative group supportive of Michael Huckabee is denying a report that it had suggested in automated phone calls to voters that Senator McCain collaborated with the North Vietnamese during his time in a prisoner-of-war camp. The group, Common Sense Issues, sent a statement to reporters yesterday saying that Fox News had "incorrectly" reported the accusation about Mr. McCain. "The truth is that the word 'Vietnam' does not appear in the phone scripts Common Sense Issues uses in any of its campaigns," the statement said. The group did acknowledge making so-called robo-calls critical of Mr. McCain's positions on abortion, taxes, campaign finance, immigration, gun rights, and same-sex marriage. Another group, Vietnam Veterans Against McCain, had put out flyers in South Carolina accusing the Arizona senator of collaborating with the enemy in Vietnam.

OBAMA PROMISES TO CONFRONT PRESIDENT CLINTON

Senator Obama is vowing to reply forcefully to what he says are misstatements about his record and campaign by President Clinton. "The former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," the Illinois senator told ABC's Good Morning America in an interview to be broadcast today. "This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate."

OBAMA GIVES AWAY MORE MONEY LINKED TO CHICAGO DEVELOPER

Senator Obama is giving away to charity an additional $40,350 in contributions linked to a Chicago developer facing federal corruption charges, his campaign told the AP Saturday. The money comes on top of more than $44,000 in funds associated with his friend and former fund-raiser, Antoin Rezko, that the senator had given away earlier this year.