President Clinton Defends Suit Against Casino Caucuses

NAPA, Calif. — President Clinton is defending a lawsuit challenging Nevada's plans to hold special on-site presidential caucuses for casino workers, though he denied any connection between his wife's presidential campaign and the litigation.

Mr. Clinton complained that the first-ever casino caucuses were unfair to others who will be working when the delegate selection takes place at midday on Saturday. He also said the special arrangement was undemocratic because it will give casino workers more influence than they would have by numbers alone.

"Do you really believe that all the Democrats understood that they had agreed to give everybody who voted in a casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct? Did you know that?" Mr. Clinton said in a testy exchange with a television reporter who asked him about the issue following a community forum Senator Clinton's campaign sponsored in Oakland, Calif., to discuss the mortgage crisis. "This is a one-man, one-vote country. … Some people in Nevada are old-fashioned. They think the rules should be the same for everybody and everybody's vote should count the same."

Last Friday, several individuals and a teachers union sued to prevent caucuses from being held in nine casinos along the Las Vegas Strip. Workers at most casinos on the Strip are organized by the powerful Culinary Workers Union, which has endorsed Senator Clinton's rival for the nomination, Senator Obama of Illinois.

The former president grew angry at suggestions by the TV reporter, Mark Matthews of KGO, that the litigation may have been triggered by Mrs. Clinton's campaign in the wake of the casino workers' union's decision to back Mr. Obama. "We had nothing to do with this lawsuit. I read about it in the newspaper," Mr. Clinton said. "Now, everybody's saying, 'Oh, they don't want us to vote.' What they really tried to do was to set up a deal where their votes counted five times, maybe even more."

Mr. Clinton objected to the reporter's tone in an exchange that became so tense that Oakland's mayor, Ronald Dellums, interceded, trying to pull the former president away. Mr. Clinton refused to budge and lit into the journalist. "Your position is that you think the Culinary Workers votes … it should be easier for them to vote than anybody else in Nevada that has to work on Saturday. That's your first position. Second, when they do vote, their votes should count five times as much as everybody else. That's what the teachers have questioned. So if that's your position, you have it. Get on your television station and say it," Mr. Clinton said. "Don't be accusatory with me. I have enough to deal with."

At an Oakland barbecue restaurant, the former president heard from Oakland homeowners facing foreclosure. The largely black audience provided an opportunity for Mr. Clinton to tout his wife's plans to address the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis on minorities. "This has disproportionately affected members of the African American and Latino communities," he said. "We need to try to put the brakes on this. ... This is a true tragedy here."

The former president said Mrs. Clinton is proposing a $30 billion fund to spread out and lower mortgage payments so people can keep their homes. "That will cost the taxpayers some money but it is nowhere near as expensive as allowing all these foreclosures to occur," he said.

Later, speaking for his wife at the Napa Valley Opera House, Mr. Clinton sounded downright glum about the country's economic condition. "The economy is imploding on itself because we are not producing enough new jobs," he said.

The former president avoided explicit attacks on Mr. Obama, but hinted that his soaring rhetoric was unlikely to be fulfilled. "This country needs to get back in the solution business. We've had enough gridlock and enough talk. We need to do," he said. "It is the president's job to see that real changes happen in your life. Not to talk about change but to make it happen. ... No one else has done this who's still running but her."

Mr. Clinton said his wife is well regarded by men with whom she has worked, but he acknowledged that she has had troubling appealing to men in the voting public. "It's really interesting to see what men are comfortable with. There is a big gender gap in all these primaries," he said. The former president also said his wife has lagged among younger women, perhaps because they lack a sense of history. "I think that they don't appreciate how far women have come and what they've been through," he said.

While pundits debate whether Mr. Clinton is an asset or a hindrance to his wife's presidential bid, he is drawing large and fervent crowds. In Napa, the 500-person hall was packed and 1000 or more people were stuck outside. A college rally in Davis Tuesday night drew more than 11,000 people, aides said.