Update: The Richardson Campaign has denied the existence of any deals at OpenLeft:
Richardson Campaign Response (4.00 / 3)
Hi this is Joaquin with the Richardson Campaign and the rumor is false- there are no deals. These are typical last minute election shenanigans.
Joaquin H. Guerra
Richardson for President
jguerra-at-richardsonforpresidnet.com
IMO, named source trumps unnamed source, so take the rest of this with a grain of salt.
Original Article Follows:
Still unnamed sources though. From the Iowa Independent, which looks like an online only news source(?), can't vouch for reliability:
Gov. Bill Richardson's campaign is expected to direct their supporters to caucus for Sen. Barack Obama in the second round of voting at Thursday's caucuses in precincts where he is not viable. Two sources familiar with the plan told Iowa Independent that the New Mexico Governor's organizers have been instructed to direct supporters to Obama in the places where they fail to reach the 15% threshold for viability.
Site claims it's an exclusive, was just posted moments ago.
This comes on the heels of yesterday's Off The Bus report that quoted an unnamed Obama staffer saying there was a rumor that Richardson would send his support Obama's way.
The editor's note on the post makes clear this is not a deal, but a strategic decision:
Editor's Note: For about ten minutes when this story was first published, it asserted that there was a mutual agreement between the Richardson and Obama campaigns to swap supporters in precincts where one was not viable. This, it turns out, resulted from a misunderstanding that has since been cleared up. There is no deal between the two campaigns; there is only a strategic decision -- one which makes complete sense -- on the part of the Richardson campaign about where to direct its supporters if their group is not viable in certain precincts
Still waiting for on-the-record comments.
(Note: Feed readers may have cached our earlier headline "Obama/Richardson Deal Confirmed By Iowa Independent". This is because (as stated above) the Iowa Independent initially claimed a deal, but softened that claim after the first ten minutes. (Ah, the perils of RSS...)We have altered the headline to reflect their change) |
