Jan 19, 2008

Edwards picks up endorsement

Dean Democratic Club favors former senator in closely contested primary

By Kristina Peterson / Daily News Staff Writer

It won't just be rainbow chard and persimmons at the farmers markets in Palo Alto, Mountain View and Menlo Park this weekend.

Locals will be peddling politics as well.

The Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley will use the venue to promote its newly-selected presidential choice - John Edwards. Other club members will be making phone calls to voters in Nevada, South Carolina and California, said member Stephanie Grossman.

With less than three weeks before the California primary, local political groups are making their presidential picks and promoting them around the Peninsula and beyond.

Edwards earned the endorsement from the group of roughly 200 local Democrats largely because of his stance on universal health care and his refusal to accept money from lobbying committees, Grossman said.

"We want clean money," she said.

While a two-thirds majority vote was needed to produce the endorsement, founding member Carolyn Curtis said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., can still count on a bloc of supporters within the group's minority.

"There's huge Obama support" in the area, Curtis said, after attending the opening of Obama's Palo Alto field office last weekend.

In fact, Edwards isn't as favored locally as he is within the Dean Democratic Club, one of the area's most active political groups.

A poll of 800 registered voters in Santa Clara County released Friday showed strong local allegiance to Senator Hillary Clinton.

Conducted from Jan. 10 to 14 by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the survey showed 43 percent of county voters support Clinton, compared to 27 percent for Obama and 10 percent for Edwards, with the remaining 20 percent either undecided or preferring another candidate.

Among Hispanic voters, 69 percent support Clinton, compared to only 9 percent for Obama and 6 percent for Edwards, according to the poll.

Auros Harman, the local District 21 delegate to the state's Central Committee of the Democratic Party, said each of the three top Democratic candidates is finding support from a different segment of voters.

"My sense is that most of the 'party establishment'... likes Hillary, the grassroots activists (like Democracy for America, and myself) like Edwards, and people focused on electability like Obama," Harman said in an e-mail Friday.

While he supports Edwards, Harman said he could sense a "palpable excitement" over Obama.

"Obama does seem to click with the local culture somehow, the somewhat younger, more techy types," he said, predicting that Obama will come up with stronger results than polls show.

On the Republican side, the county poll shows strong local support for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who received 32 percent of the vote, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 16 percent. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee each received 9 percent, according to the poll.

Active local political groups show different loyalties, however.

The South Peninsula Republican Area Coalition, a group of roughly 200 Republicans, recently endorsed Giuliani, said coalition spokeswoman Dianna Eckford.

In a straw poll the group held Wednesday, Giuliani came in first, followed by Romney and then McCain.

But in a campaign where polls have already proven less than oracular, it'll be hard to predict who the Peninsula's top vote-getters will be.

Several organizations, including the Peninsula Democratic Coalition and the Stanford Republicans, have not made endorsements.

"It's going to be very interesting," Grossman said.



E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.