Though some local Hillary Clinton supporters [cough, John Grisham, cough] have yet to throw their weight behind Barack Obama, David Slutzky came out to a state Democratic joint canvassing kick-off event June 21 for Obama, Mark Warner and Tom Perriello—and he wasn’t bashful about now supporting the Illinois senator, wearing a white Obama bumper sticker over a black t-shirt.
“I’m an elected Clinton delegate, and I’m going to campaign my tail off for Obama,” says Slutzky, a county supervisor who was a senior policy advisor to Bill Clinton in his first term and who represented Hillary Clinton’s environmental agenda at an Iowa event prior to the caucus. (Helping fuel Slutzky’s enthusiasm was the fact that his daughter, Rebecca, is the regional field director organizing the effort—and that it was her birthday.)
“John McCain is a disaster waiting to happen,” Slutzky says. “I’m still enthused about Clinton, but she’s not on the ballot. I really admire Bill Clinton, but he’s not on the ballot either.”
Slutzky was one of about a dozen Dems who hit the streets for the trio on Saturday. Joining him were David Toscano, Charlottesville’s state delegate, and Denise Lunsford, the recently elected county Commonwealth’s Attorney. The canvassing was organized by Virginia Victory 2008, which is working to get Virginia Democrats elected to national offices. The idea was to kick-off canvassing around the state at 10am—a similar effort got underway in Belmont on Saturday morning.
The Democratic office at 1380 Rio Rd. had plenty of material for Mark Warner’s Senate campaign and Tom Perriello’s House bid—but still hadn’t gotten a big shipment of Obama material. If Obama is to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, he will probably need the coattails of Warner, a popular former governor who is running against a somewhat less popular former governor, Jim Gilmore.