Clinton challenger wages uphill fight
By ROBERT J. McCARTHY
News Political Reporter
Buffalo News
5/30/2006

While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Wednesday nomination for a second term at the Democratic State Convention is being called a "coronation," her treatment from disaffected Democrats will be anything but royal.
Leading the charge is Jonathan Tasini, a former union official trying to challenge her in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary. Like just about all of the Democratic opponents planning to demonstrate in Buffalo this week, it's all about the war in Iraq for Tasini.

"I can't believe the Democratic Party is not calling for an immediate end of the war," he said. "Morally, I can't let that happen."

Clinton is so popular among New York Democrats that few wonder if Tasini can muster the required 10 signatures from State Democratic Committee members to place his name in nomination. But Tasini says he is working hard to make his point in the dozens of club and caucus meetings around town this week.

"This party does not want to hear a debate about the war, and I find that shocking," he said.

Tasini is finding support in liberal Democratic groups. The Erie County Chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America held a reception Sunday for Tasini and joins him in opposing Clinton's support for the concept of the war - though she repeatedly has voiced opposition to the way it has been conducted.

"Hillary has been so very supportive of this war while so many other senators have come out against it," said Martin J. Sawma, president of the local Progressive Democrats. "She has been behind the president."

And the Western New York Peace Center planned a rally and news conference for this morning outside the convention at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo over Democratic support for the war from figures like Clinton and Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo.

"We're tired of Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Brian Higgins ducking the issue when it comes to Iraq," said Colin Eager, executive director, "and we can't afford to continue paying the prices for their political cowardice - a price that's measured in thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in a disastrous war."

Most of the anti-Clinton attention, however, will center on Tasini, former president of the National Writers Union and a resident of Washington Heights in Manhattan. He harbors no illusions he will get the support of 25 percent of the convention delegates to qualify automatically for the Sept. 12 primary but wants a convention vote on the anti-war resolution he is sponsoring.

"I'm not really talking about my candidacy; I want to talk about the war," he said. "And this may be the only place to have an up or down vote."

While hundreds of reporters from around the state, nation and world are gathering in Buffalo to cover Clinton in anticipation of an expected presidential bid in 2008, Tasini assails that mentality.

"There is not a better example of the celebrity culture in politics than my opponent," he said. "And when you take away her celebrity, her positions are not where the majority of Democrats are."