JUSIPER

 
Puerto Rico primary update

Posted by Sini

As we noted last week, SEIU has significant presence in Puerto Rico but has not mobilized, at least in any visible way, for Obama as of yet, despite its national convention being held in Puerto Rico from May 28 to June 4. Now comes news that Obama will speak at the event after the primary, on June 2nd or 3rd.

Meanwhile, according to both campaigns, the candidates’ arrivals are now imminent. An anonymous spokesman for the Obama camp told El Nuevo Día last night that he will arrive after tonight’s event in Iowa and two to three days in Florida, where he will appear in Orlando and in Tampa, the center of the state’s all-important I-4 corridor and a national battleground since 1992.

Puerto Rico doesn’t matter as much as it might have had Indiana and North Carolina not played out as they did. But the island is not yet irrelevant because it is the Clinton camp’s last attempt at a symbolic victory in the popular vote. For that to happen, there would have to be massive turnout and a lopsided Clinton victory.

But it’s not clear who will win; the Obama forces seem to have the advantage organizationally, while the Clintons have name recognition, and, let’s face it, the Puerto Rican equivalent of the Appalachian vote. It was telling indeed that local Clinton chair and Senate President Kenneth McClintock crowed that “Clinton ganó el voto Bubba” following the West Virginia results a week ago. Puerto Rico has its own complex issues around race, and they will most certainly be a factor in the primary, quite possibly favoring Clinton.

Secondly, at least for now, it really doesn’t feel as if this is going to be a high turnout election. The candidates have yet to visit, and TV ads haven’t aired, although the Obama campaign claims to have some ready (the Clinton camp, interestingly, has only announced radio ads. Any serious ad buy in the local media market might be the most costly for both campaigns since Indiana, the last seriously contested primary, which can matters when a campaign is $20 million in debt).

I suspect the Clinton’s only route to victory will be for Clinton to tie Obama to Acevedo Vilá and to any unpopular PPD leader they can find. This would permit her to galvanize the statehood vote and give her a proxy battle in a year that NPP voters may be more mobilized than their counterparts. In fact, if she actually went ahead and called for statehood, she could do an end run around Obama’s pro-statehood supporters. This would, of course, fly in the face of her policy positions as well as the Clinton administration. But surely anything is possible for a woman who once claimed to be a civil rights advocate only to run the most racist Democratic campaign since George Wallace.

3:01 PM |