Demos Want Clinton Off Straw Poll Organizers Fear Humiliating Loss To Powell In Cityvote Ballot
The Democratic National Committee wants President Clinton’s name pulled from the ballot of a preference poll of city residents because it fears he might not do well against Colin Powell and Jesse Jackson, organizers said Friday.
“I am dumbfounded,” said Larry Agran, executive director of CityVote and a Democrat. “I can’t figure a reasonable rationale for the president and the DNC to be so hostile toward a presidential preference ballot that ought to be on very favorable terrain for him. This is his political base.”
Organizers hope as many as 500,000 people will participate in CityVote’s nonbinding ballot Nov. 7, 1995, in conjunction with local elections in 19 cities. The cities range from Fayette, Mo., with 2,900 residents, to Boston, with 574,000 residents.
Spokane and Coeur d’Alene are among the cities participating in the balloting. Local officials could not be reached Friday for comment regarding the DNC’s decision.
The ballot lists 21 current and potential presidential candidates in alphabetical order, including Clinton, the major Republican candidates, as well as potential candidates Powell, Jackson, New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, Ross Perot and others. The list was drawn up by CityVote organizers.
DNC Chairman Don Fowler sent letters Thursday to the mayors of participating cities, asking that Clinton’s name not appear on the ballot.
“They have been very fearful first toward Jesse Jackson and second, now, toward Colin Powell,” said Agran, the former mayor of Irvine, Calif. “But the president really doesn’t have anything to fear except fear itself.”
Agran said none of the cities so far has indicated it will take Clinton’s name off the ballot, but he finds the request troubling.
“The deep concern for me is what this implies about his indifference toward urban America,” Agran said. “Anyone with an ounce of sense knows our cities are in terrible trouble. Yet to see a sitting Democratic president engaging in these very unseemly efforts to strip his name effectively off a ballot, this is not the kind of leadership we need at this time.”
A letter from Fowler to the CityVote offices in Pasadena, Calif., says the DNC’s decade-long policy is to oppose “straw polls and … to disavow, discourage and disassociate itself from any such straw poll.”
But Agran says that policy was “conveniently overlooked” during the hotly contested Democratic presidential primary season in 1991-92.
CityVote organizers pointed to a newspaper story from 1991, reporting that “Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton trounced his five announced competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination in a straw poll of nearly 1,800 Florida Democratic Convention delegates … it was the first test of strength in the 1992 contest, although the results are not binding.”
Organizers said the cities par ticipating in CityVote are: Spokane; St. Paul, Minn.; Pasadena, Calif.; Olympia; Minneapolis, Minn.; Boston, Mass.; Tumwater, Wash.; Moscow, Idaho; Lacey, Wash.; Fayette, Mo.; Tucson, Ariz.; Rochester, N.Y.; Spokane County; Tacoma; Greenburgh, N.Y.; Boulder, Colo.; Coeur d’Alene; Wenatchee; and Newark, N.J.
, DataTimes