|
|
 |
||||||
 |
Office Space Obama to open Amarillo office By George
Schwarz The Amarillo Independent can confirm that the Barack Obama campaign will be setting up an office in Amarillo.
The campaign, which began organizing volunteers Saturday, was evaluating a downtown location as late as Monday night but, by deadline, had not confirmed the location. The campaign had considered using a location near Second and Jackson but it didn't work out as a permanent location, according to a source close to the campaign who requested anonymity. Josh Earnest, the campaign's communications director for Texas, said on Feb. 7 that plans exist to open 10 offices across the state to put the infrastructure in place for a statewide grassroots movement. "We do feel like we are walking into Texas with a little bit of a disadvantage," Earnest said last week. "Sen. Clinton is a very well-known public official in the Democratic Party, among Democratic primary voters." The more people learn about Obama, the better the campaign does, he said. Earnest said he had no indication that West Texas A&M University students had contacted the campaign. "I have not heard anything about that," he said. "I know that here has been a pretty significant volunteer presence across the state that predates a lot of our campaign's close attention to Texas. "A lot of these things have been happening without our campaign's direct knowledge," he added. Then, on Feb 11, Earnest said the campaign has gotten numerous requests for the senator to appear in Texas. As for the rumor that WT would rather host basketball games than have one of the two final Democratic presidential candidates some to Canyon, that isn't quite the case. The West Texas A&M University for Obama group has been trying to get official status as a university club, said Veronica Fuentes, one of the students spearheading the club. She said the West Texas A&M University for Obama group was originally formulated to be part of Obama's official Web site and, because they wanted to involve as many students as possible, the plan progressed to getting a Facebook site started. But the group had trouble getting a sponsor, she said in a Feb. 7 interview. Dr. Don Albrecht, a university vice president, said on Feb. 11 that the club had a temporary adviser, but he was helping just so the group could get set up. "That was Dr. (Russell) Lowery-Hart," Albrecht said. "He was doing it just because the faculty members were trying to look at their work loads to see who could take it on. "But there were several in political science, I think, who were interested in helping them out." The group wasn't stopped from moving forward, he added. Albrecht said that a student, Aimee Pritchett, had checked with First United Bank Center to see if they could schedule an Obama rally. Albrecht said he had understood from Pritchett that the Obama campaign wanted the facility reserved for a full week and the center told them it wasn't an option because a variety of high school and WT games were already scheduled. Lowery-Hart, in an e-mail to The Amarillo Independent, wrote, "We extended an invitation to each of the candidates from both parties. "Mr. Obama's campaign was the only group to respond. The campaign asked for more information about places, etc. They required that we hold a site for a week time period with no scheduled events for that site during that range." Lowery-Hart wrote that the center was committed with basketball games and those were contractual commitments. "They couldn't block it for a week hoping when he might come to town. That hadn't been determined yet," he said. Further, Albrecht said, the university's rules — based on Texas law and Texas A&M system policy — bars state resources to go to any campaign. "Obviously, they're not going to want us to pick one candidate over another and let any state resources go to any political situation," he said. "But, student groups can reserve space and use space for whatever their particular reasons are." The university itself wouldn't invite any candidate to be hosted by the university, but students groups can and are responsible for all the costs of the event, he said. He said he had never heard directly from the Obama campaign, only from the student group. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: February 21, 2008
|
|
