Cantwell says she’ll keep supporting Clinton

Democratic superdelegate Maria Cantwell said she’s sticking with Hillary Rodham Clinton and waiting to see how the remaining states vote before discussing what – if anything – could make her switch.

“I’m not going to make any decisions about anything until all the states have voted,” Washington’s junior senator, in Spokane Thursday for a series of appearances, said in an interview after a speech to the Downtown Rotary Club. “We had the process play out here, and I think it’s important to let the rest of the states have their say.”

Cantwell endorsed Clinton, a longtime political ally, at the end of last year and was at her side when Clinton campaigned in Spokane and other Washington cities before the state’s precinct caucuses. She wouldn’t speculate on conditions that would make her switch support to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who currently leads in the delegate count.

“I’m not considering anything at this point in time except for letting the process play out,” she said. “I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to go through that process.”

She likened it to Washington’s 1984 governor’s race, when Republicans had the incumbent governor, John Spellman, and the Democrats’ two strong candidates, Booth Gardner and Jim McDermott, battled all the way to the September primary.

“The fact that they had so much attention focused on that part of the race, I think it was a linchpin to helping (Gardner) go on and beat then-Governor Spellman.”

For the current campaign to help this year’s eventual nominee, however, Clinton and Obama would have to use the remaining months to focus on key issues like the economy, the housing crisis and crumbling infrastructure where Democrats and Republicans are far apart, Cantwell said.

During her Rotary Club speech, Cantwell said the nation needs to do more to have its work force flexible enough to adapt to changes in technology and communication. It doesn’t need to just conserve energy but find ways to sell the energy conservation it develops to emerging countries.

The nation also needs to increase its energy capacity, she said, not just through more oil refining but with alternative sources such as biodiesel. But she didn’t think a major switch to nuclear power was likely in the short term, particularly in the Northwest, which had a serious problem with nuclear power plants that fell way behind schedule and went way over budget in the 1980s.

Earlier in the day, Cantwell said she will soon introduce legislation to reform federal mining laws that date to 1872, charging mining companies more for the right to use federal land, making more areas off-limits and adding cleanup requirements for companies that receive permits.

She recently has been pushing for more aid to members of the Spokane Tribe who developed cancer after mining uranium at the Midnite Mine on their reservation.