Not your average conference call...
Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:32 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC's Mark Murray
In an extraordinary Clinton conference call -- in which the campaign alleged irregularities in the Texas caucuses -- the top lawyer for the Obama campaign (Bob Bauer) jumped on the call during the Q&A session to rebut the Clinton camp's charges.
The Clinton campaign alleged (among other things) that Obama supporters were confiscating precinct chairman manuals at the caucuses, as well as locking out Clinton supporters from the precincts.
"What is happening tonight is an outrage," said Clinton Texas state director Ace Smith. "It's really disturbing and it's really undemocratic what is going on."
To drive this point home, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson reminded reporters that it had not held such a call in previous contests. "What is happening in Texas is not typical," he said. "It is quite extraordinary."
But during the Q&A session -- on the second question -- Bauer jumped into the fray. He charged that the Clinton campaign in the past had in fact filed a lawsuit raising questions about the Nevada caucuses. (In truth, however, it wasn't the Clinton campaign that filed the lawsuit; it was a state teacher's organization with ties to the Clinton campaign that did.) Bauer also noted that the Clinton campaign has complained about previous caucus contests.
Wolfson then countered that the Nevada lawsuit wasn't filed by the Clinton campaign, and he added: "This is not about the [caucus] process, Bob."
"Thank you for the question, Howard," Bauer later replied.
Minutes later, the Clinton campaign pointed out that Bauer never refuted the actual charges of irregularities in Texas.
It's also worth noting that the campaign cited irregularities in precincts 18 and 24 in Harris County (regarding the seizure of precinct chairman materials), as well as precincts 1851 and 75 in the same country (regarding Clinton supporters being locked out). But the campaign offered no evidence beyond that.
