Clinton's California Dream Team

Only Hillary Clinton, or someone like her, was excused for interrupting.

Clinton said she had big news that morning, and she wanted to share it over speakerphone with two of her close friends and allies before announcing it to the world.

"I'm in," she said. "And I'd love some help."

Rao and Buell, connected Silicon Valley power brokers, had helped Clinton raise money during her Senate campaigns, and they eagerly accepted this latest request. They hung up with Clinton, retrieved a phone list of potential donors and started making calls. By the end of the day, they had persuaded more than 100 Californians to make the maximum donation of $2,300.

Rao, 45, wrote her first political check for Bill Clinton more than a decade ago because she credited his economic policies with helping her build a $120 million computer storage business. She felt a similar devotion to Hillary Clinton building within her. Rao still carried business cards that omitted her title as founder and chief executive of Integrated Archive Systems, because men sometimes considered her authority off-putting. Despite raising five teenagers and building a company from scratch, she had never overcome gender stereotypes. Maybe this was her chance.

"We called everybody we knew until late at night, trying to get them to max out for Hillary," Rao said. "We wanted to make an immediate statement in California. This campaign was something to take seriously."

'She Needed Me'

Dolores Huerta received her call from Clinton a few months later, while doing chores in her home on the outskirts of Bakersfield. Her son had bought the modest house for $119,000, and Huerta paid $600 rent each month to live with him. She could afford it only because of a $2,000 monthly stipend she received as a settlement for police brutality in 1988. A San Francisco officer had interrupted Huerta's protest of President George H.W. Bush's stance on pesticides by jamming her with a baton, rupturing her spleen.

Huerta had spent her life fighting prejudice, building a rap sheet that totaled 22 arrests. She co-founded the United Farm Workers union with César Chávez in 1962 to help laborers, then started her own nonprofit in 2003 to promote community organizing in low-income areas. Now, at 77, she offers an opinion on even the lowest-level political races in California, establishing herself as a gatekeeper of sorts in state and local politics. If you had Huerta in your corner to deliver grass-roots Latino support, politicians said, you had your ticket in.

A few months after Clinton announced her candidacy, Huerta made an unsolicited call to the campaign headquarters to offer support. She explained to a volunteer that Clinton had been a lifelong amiga of the Latino movement, and Clinton's office churned out a quick news release. Then Huerta forgot all about the endorsement -- until Clinton called to say thanks a few days later.

At her dining room table in Bakersfield, Huerta listened as the effusive senator from New York talked about how much California meant to her campaign. Clinton said that Huerta, a trailblazer, could wield significant influence -- a prophecy she fulfilled by helping to deliver the United Farm Workers' endorsement a few months later. "Of all the politicians I've endorsed, nobody has ever called and been so grateful," Huerta said. "She made it clear how much she appreciated my support, and how much she needed me."

'The Most Important Election'

Courting Antonio Villaraigosa required more than a phone call; Clinton visited his house in California, invited him to two dinners in Washington, and scheduled a meeting between the Los Angeles mayor and Bill Clinton. Even then, Villaraigosa ruminated for months and spoke privately with Obama and former senator John Edwards before finally endorsing Clinton last May.

When he took office in 2005, the gregarious mayor earned a reputation for thriving during 20-hour days that left staffers exhausted. But even for Villaraigosa, perhaps the country's most popular Latino elected official, the pace he kept in working for Clinton was extreme.