Women's Voices has strong ties to Clinton

ryanteaguebeckwith — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:06:42 -0400

The group behind the "Lamont Williams" calls has strong ties to Hillary Clinton.

According to research by the Center for Investigative Reporting, principals in Women's Voices Women Vote have given $34,800 to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or her political action committee since 2000, while only giving $3,600 to Barack Obama and $2,300 to John Edwards.

(In fairness, Obama did not run for U.S. Senate until 2004 and Edwards was not a national figure until his presidential campaign that year.)

The group's leadership have worked with the Clintons as well.

Founder Page Gardner served as the deputy political director for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, Joe Goode was a pollster for him, Mimi Mager served as a member of the Clinton transition team and John Podesta was chief of staff to President Clinton.

There are some non-Clinton connections, too, including Obama supporters William McNary and Todd Webster and Edwards supporter Chris Dresser.

Asked by The Insider about the connections earlier this week, Clinton's state organizer Ace Smith acted offended.

"You're asking me about something that has nothing to do with our campaign," he said. "This is getting to conspiracy talk."

Hat Tip: Facing South

Women's Voices: Calls weren't malicious

ryanteaguebeckwith — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:08:46 -0400

A board member of Women's Voices Women Vote says it did not mean to confuse voters.

In a statement sent to Dome today, William McNary says that the group has been trying to help unmarried women and other underrepresented voters get registered.

"There may have been mistakes made in this particular registration drive in North Carolina, but Women's Voices, Women Vote's motives were not malicious or intended in any way to confuse voters," he said in a statement.

Recent automated calls by the group to North Carolina voters have been criticized for violating state disclosure laws and creating confusion about voter registration. The Barack Obama campaign called the calls "extremely disturbing," and some bloggers noted connections to the Hillary Clinton campaign from Women's Voices staffers.

But McNary, who is black, noted that he has worked for get-out-the-vote efforts in the black community with the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and currently supports Obama for president.

"Given my candidate preference and my background and associations in voter registration efforts, I can say with great conviction, there was no effort to suppress or confuse African American voters, or any other voters in the state of North Carolina by Women's Voices, Women Vote," he said.