The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> KAMALA OVER HILLARY br> One reason that the national board of NARAL, the pro-abortion lobbying organization, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama , and encouraged its state membership to do the same, was a series of behind the scenes conversations between the Obama campaign and NARAL. /p>

"The message was, get on board or risk losing influence," says an Obama strategist. "We needed one of these [feminist or pro-abortion] groups to step up and walk away from Hillary. NARAL did it, and to its credit under great danger to its credibility with its membership."

NARAL has since been bombarded by its members with hate mail and threats of loss of donations for a perceived abandonment of Clinton. But as part of the conversation with NARAL, Obama advisers suggested that Obama was more likely to put in place key feminist and pro-abortion activists than Clinton. "The name that kept popping up was [San Francisco District Attorney] Kamala Harris. The campaign promised she'd become increasingly higher profile with Obama, and the women's groups love her," says another Obama strategist.

Harris is viewed as one of the most radical local elective office holders in the country, a district attorney who has refused to seek the death penalty even against cop-killers, and who has won high praise from the homosexual and pro-abortion lobbies that have strong bases in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Harris has been mentioned for high profile jobs in an Obama Administration, with some claiming she could be a dark-horse candidate for Attorney General. "She's smart, with not a lot of experience, but given where the Senate could be [with 60 Democrats], confirmation of someone this unqualified for that important a job wouldn't be far-fetched," says a San Francisco Democratic operative. "That's one reason why the campaign wants to give her a higher profile in the coming months, to test her."

p> SORRY MIKE br> Talk inside the McCain campaign is that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee isn't going to be given the high profile role in the general election campaign that he expected. "He's just not a team player and doesn't seem particularly committed to seeing

topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Abortion