Thread: NANNY STATE: Clinton offers baby-sitters for caucusgoers

Hillary Clinton's campaign offering teen baby-sitters for Iowa caucusgoers
BY MICHAEL SAUL in Des Moines and MICHAEL McAULIFF in Sioux City, Iowa
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, January 2nd 2008, 4:00 AM

Appleton/News

Hillary Clinton reaches out to backers Tuesday at rally at Sioux City Art Center in Iowa.
Meet Hillary Clinton's secret weapon in Iowa: baby-sitters.

In Thursday's caucuses, it all comes down to getting out the vote. And Clinton is going to the extremes, even lining up baby-sitters and day care centers for caucus-going moms.

She is locked in a tight race with Democratic rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards. Securing every extra vote in a race in which fewer than 50,000 people may show up will be the difference between a momentum-building win or a humbling defeat.

The Clinton campaign is opening day care centers across the state, including three in Des Moines, and has enlisted a legion of teenage girls to render their tyke-watching services.

"I really want to see Hillary Clinton elected, but I'm too young to caucus, so I'll baby-sit for someone else so they can," said Molly McGuire, a 14-year-old from Des Moines.

She'll watch a 2-year-old and a 6-month-old, free of charge.

Old Iowa political pros say the top three Democrats have excellent organizations, but Edwards' voters are the most likely to show up. That leaves Clinton and Obama pulling out all the stops to turn out the newcomers.

Obama Tuesday launched an army of about 500 volunteers in Des Moines.

"The only thing that counts is whether over the next 72 hours you're willing to work for this and make the phone calls, and knock on the doors and grab your friends, and grab your neighbors and say, 'It is time for us to deliver on change,'" he declared.

"It's going to come down to who gets their supporters out, and I'll put my money on my organization," Obama said later as he and Clinton campaigned across Iowa.

Obama is even using caravans of buses to bring Chicago-area students back to their Iowa colleges from winter break in time to caucus.

mmcauliff@nydailynews.com
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... en_-2.html

Smart move, but is it enough to make up for pissing off all of the Lou Dobbs fans that will be voting?

W

Who said the voters who take her up on the babysitting offer are actually going to vote for her? Would serve this power mongrel right

I know this is not buying votes per say, but it does not quite pass the smell test either.

Didn't Michael Moore get in trouble for giving out a package of Ramen noodles and a token "clean pair of drawers" to college students for promising to vote (not for anyone in particular, just a promise to go vote)? This is awfully fishy, IMHO. Besides would you trust a babysitter hired by Hellary Clinton? YIKES!

Are the babysitters being paid or volunteering?

Fences make good neighbors.

I also heard on the news today that Hillary is providing 5000 cars to transport voters.

She has endless money so her people can sit around and think of ways to spend it.

Agree with W, not a good move to speak negatively of Lou.

No wonder some politicians need advisors 'cause they are out of touch with the general public.

Jean - oh, you speak more truth than you probably know!

No wonder some politicians need advisors 'cause they are out of touch with the general public.

Remember the famous story about when Bush Sr. about when he went to the grocery store one day and was rumoured [?] to have asked the clerk...something like this:

Bush Sr: "What's that?"
Clerk: Oh, that's a scanner sir. It reads this little barcode printed on most every package..."

Ya. Outta touch alright. And that was many years ago... It's only gotten worse since then too.