The Obama campaign's ethical stances are giving the Philly political machine fits. This from the LA Times:
The dispute centers on the dispensing of "street money," a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote. Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot soldiers and loyalists who make up the party's workforce. It is all legal -- but Obama's people are telling the local bosses he won't pay.
The assumption by many quoted in the article is that these foot soldiers will work for Clinton instead.
Neither the Clinton nor the Obama campaign would say publicly whether it would comply with Philadelphia's street money customs. But an Obama aide said Thursday that it had never been the campaign's practice to make such payments. Rather, the campaign's focus is to recruit new people drawn to Obama's message, the aide said. The field operation "hasn't been about tapping long-standing political machinery," the aide said.
Obama's campaign has been grass-roots oriented and I would be surprised if this stance really costs him but many experts on PA politics think it will.
