Obama Campaigns on Capitol Hill

By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff Tue Jun 17, 12:14 PM ET

Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is launching an aggressive Capitol Hill campaign to bring former supporters of vanquished primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton fully into his camp.

Obama will meet with some of his toughest critics tonight when he huddles with members of the politically and culturally diverse Congressional Hispanic Caucus at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters. CHC members Raul M. Grijalva of Arizona, Xavier Becerra of California and Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois were among Obama's most ardent supporters in the primary, but Clinton drew stronger backing from the CHC and from Hispanic voters.

Latina Clinton supporters criticized Obama just last week for failing to make personal appeals to them to start working for him. Since then, he has placed calls to some of the Hispanic women who felt they were getting a cold shoulder from their party's standard-bearer.

The CHC meeting is one of several on the calendar or in the planning stages this week between the Illinois senator and Democratic constituencies on Capitol Hill, including a Thursday confab with the Congressional Black Caucus of which Obama is a member.

As political leaders in their own right, members of Congress can be effective surrogates and fundraisers for presidential candidates within their own district, and, in some cases, with national constituencies. Obama has been criticized by primary friends and foes alike for not paying enough attention to Democratic members of Congress.

Some of his longtime allies have warned Obama that failure to reach out personally to lawmakers could complicate his effort to unify the Democratic Party behind him, and this week's effort appears designed to address those concerns.

"We were told that he was going to make some approach to us to join the fold," Rep. Grace F. Napolitano , D-Calif., a former chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told CQ Politics last Wednesday. "I haven't heard from Mr. Obama."

Since then, the Obama campaign has contacted Napolitano's office to arrange a discussion, according to Napolitano's press secretary.

Obama's personal contacts with Latina lawmakers are seen as particularly important because of the strong bond many of them formed with Clinton and because of the deep rifts among Hispanic members of Congress, which have increasingly fallen along gender lines in recent years.

Obama hired deposed and estranged Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, who is Hispanic, to be chief of staff to the unnamed Democratic vice presidential nominee, a move that could be perceived as an olive branch to Latinas, a slap at Clinton or both.

Within the CBC, the Obama camp applied intense pressure to lawmakers who backed Clinton to switch sides, and the rivalry at times grew personal. It has been suggested that Clinton supporters might face primary challenges for failing to back the black candidate in the primary, and there is some concern among former Clinton supporters that retribution could be exacted against them by Obama's allies.

An Obama spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the senator's outreach efforts.