Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, digging in for a delegate-by-delegate fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, returned to Washington yesterday with plans to make Tuesday's Virginia primary a major battleground.
The New York senator will make her first campaign foray into Virginia
on Thursday, when she holds a rally at an Arlington County high school.
She also confirmed her commitment to speaking at the Jefferson-Jackson
dinner Saturday, which will draw hundreds of Democratic activists to
Richmond.
"Virginia and Maryland are very important states," Clinton told
reporters at a press conference at her national campaign headquarters
in Arlington. Citing the elections of a Democratic governor and
Democratic U.S. senator in recent years, she said, "Look at the changes
that have happened in Virginia in a very short period of time."
Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign announced today that
several veteran Virginia Democratic operatives will be directing her
effort in the state's Feb. 12 primary.
Mike Henry, Clinton's deputy campaign manager, will
be the senior Virginia strategist. Henry managed Kaine's campaign
during his 2005 bid for governor. Henry, widely credited with
bolstering the state Democratic Party's voter files and outreach
efforts to suburban voters, was also involved in former governor Mark
R. Warner's (D) 2001 campaign.
Matt Felan, finance director of Kaine's 2005
campaign, will be Clinton's Virginia director. Even though Kaine
supports Obama, Felan is also executive director of Kaine's political
action committee, Moving Virginia Forward.
The results are in, and the students of Washington & Lee University
in Lexington, Va., are staking their 100-year reputation of being an
almost always accurate presidential candidate predictor on the first
viable female candidate in history—Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The
former first lady, they decided at this weekend's Democratic Mock
Convention, will clinch the Democratic nomination over rival Sen.
Barack Obama.
