Californians ready to back Obama

Democrats opened their national convention on Monday seeking unity and urging Hillary Clinton supporters to rally behind the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco sounded the call for a unified party at a convention-opening breakast for the 441-member California delegation, including superdelegate Rachael Binah of Little River in Mendocino County.

“There are some people who don’t seem to understand that we really need to move on,” said Binah, a Democratic National Committee member attending her sixth straight convention.

“Their feelings are hurt and they just don’t seem to see the bigger picture,” said Binah, who endorsed Clinton but switched to Obama in early June.

Pelosi’s message on Monday was “we have to be unified: the sooner the better,” Binah said.

At a news conference Monday, Pelosi, who is chairwoman of the convention, said: “The nomination is decided, we have a vice president, we’re going to work together and go forward.”

The Associated Press also quoted Pelosi as saying that Democrats “had not yet achieved the complete reconciliation that we need.”

Clinton, a New York senator, attended the New York delegation breakfast on Monday and sought to assure skeptics that the party’s divisions would heal.

“We are after all Democrats, so it may take ... awhile,” she said, drawing out her words for comic effect. “We are not the fall-in-line party. But make no mistake, we are united.”

At some point this week, Clinton is expected to release the delegates she won in the primaries and caucuses and encourage them to support her former rival.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll of registered Democrats, conducted over the weeked, found that 59 percent want Obama as the party’s nominee and 37 percent favor Clinton.

Binah, who rose in Democratic Party circles as a vocal opponent of offshore oil drilling, said she got personal assurances from Pelosi on that issue at a Sunday night reception.

“She said she would do everything in her power to protect the (California) coast from offshore oil development,” Binah said.

Pelosi, a longtime foe of offshore oil drilling, said Sunday that drilling in some federal waters could be packaged in an energy bill that would also require royalty payments on oil profits to fund the development of renewable energy resources.

Binah said she was impressed by the Sunday reception, hosted by Phil Angelides, former California state treasurer, who is now chairman of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business and environmental leaders promoting alternative energy to create jobs and benefit the Earth.

“They want us to do it (develop alternative energy) really quickly,” Binah said.

The Denver convention is a model of environmentalism, Binah said, with recycling stations dotting the hotels and meeting venues.

In the media center Monday morning, Binah spotted a volunteer standing by the recycling area to show people how to use it. “They’re not all from California,” Binah quipped.

Associated Press contributed to this report.