The Clintons have started to get vicious in the lead up to the election - but it’s not all one-way trafficWHEN Barack Obama spent his last evening before the Nevada caucus addressing a rally at the Nevada University student union, he was conforming to the caricature the Clintons have painted of him as the candidate of the well-educated liberal elite, rather than the sons and daughters of toil – or, as Americans prefer to call them, the hard-working middle class.
It did not help when he told voters that he had bought his wife a glass of champagne the night before on her 44th birthday. “I didn’t realise you could pay that much for a glass of champagne in Las Vegas,” he joked. “If I had known how much it would cost, I'd have had a sip.”
Obama proved, however, that he was just as determined to fight for votes in Nevada as Hillary Clinton. The battle unleashed some of the dirtiest politics of the election, leaving the two candidates spattered with mud and Clinton triumphant as they hurtle towards the Democratic primary in South Carolina this Saturday.
There were rowdy scenes at Caesar’s Palace and other casino sites as the caucuses began. The acrimony spilled into accusations of voter intimidation and name-calling, disputes over President Ronald Reagan’s legacy and charges of inexperience on both sides, with a nasty racial undertone perilously close to the surface.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3216580.ece