I REALLY wanted to vote for the Democratic platform. Or at least the one that Hillary presented. (Susan UnPC wrote about the DNC platform in August). Hillary’s platform protects our country, provides healthcare, protects our natural resources, pays everyone a living wage, grants respect and civil rights to everyone, respects and supports the blue collar working Americans, takes care of the members and families of those serving in the armed forces and the vets who have served; those are my values.

As I consider this, I realize that the platform is only a secondary part of my vote. In order to vote for the platform, I must believe two things: first and foremost, that our national security will strengthen and our country will remain safe and protected; and secondly, that the people presenting the platform can and will deliver.

In both these areas, I have no faith in Barack Obama or the party that manufactured him. Zilch. Nada. Nil. Everything I’ve learned about him over the past year, and continue to learn through his words and actions, makes it clear that he can never meet my two requirements. He has no foreign policy experience, and do you recall his response to the Georgian crisis? From the August 13th Washington Post:

“Russian peacekeeping troops should be replaced by a genuine international peacekeeping force, Georgia should refrain from using force in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and a political settlement must be reached that addresses the status of these disputed regions,” Obama said during a break from his vacation in Hawaii on Monday.

(This is very important people, very telling. Obama is waaayyy out of his depth. Larry wrote about Obama’s Impending Pearl Harbor)

Soldier4Hill makes it abundantly clear why she won’t be voting for Obama. Watch her again:

As Patsy says in her video statement, Obama is a creation, albeit a very flawed one, of the so-called Democratic Party. And that’s the rub: the Democratic Party showed signs of a terminal illness throughout the primaries, and it died the day of the Rules and By-laws Committee decision to give Hillary’s votes to their selected candidate. One of my favorite bloggers, garychapelhill, attended the meeting and writes this (read his entire post):

On May 31, 2008, I witnessed what could turn out to be the beginning of the end of democracy in our country. Obama’s henchmen on the Rules and By-Laws Committee of the DNC stole votes and delegates that had been awarded to Clinton by the voters of Michigan and gave them to Barack Obama. Of course, there’s hardly a footnote of this from any of the MSM coverage of that event. But I saw it firsthand, and it is the main reason that I will never support Barack Obama, and why his cronies like Brazile, Wexler, Dean, Germond, Fowler, et al. need to be run out of our party for high crimes against democracy itself.

All of their accusations of racism, their blatant sexism and misogyny, the discrimination against the working class, the flip flopping (many posts document Obama’s two-faced backtracking flip flops and Susan posted an excellent video piece), makes it painfully obvious that there is no real platform. As Michael Gerson writes in the September 17 edition of the WaPo:

Even worse for Obama, all these shifts to catch the prevailing winds confirm the most serious concerns about his political character. As a senator, he has almost never opposed the ideological consensus of his party. (The ethics reform he often cites as his profile in courage eventually passed the Senate 96 to 2.) And now as a presidential candidate, Obama has run his campaign with all the constancy of a skittish sailboat on an erratic ocean.

What do the Democrats have? As of now they have racked up a list of unforgivable offenses. The so-called roll call on the convention floor (yeah, we’re that stupid); the aiding-and-abetting of the virtual gang rape of Ferarro, Hillary, Palin and the rest of us; the frigging celebrity money-pump into Obama’s campaign when the economy is collapsing and many of us can barely afford gas to get to work. Now Charlie Rangle has called Palin “disabled.” And it goes on and on and on.

The LATimes’ Doyle McManus makes an interesting observation about the distinctions between McCain and Whosit:

McCain… has frequently rebelled against established orthodoxy, especially in his own party. Obama…is more cautious — and more likely to stick with his party’s usual position.

And now that I’m clear on what Obama’s party’s “usual” positions are, I won’t be voting for it. And that party’s hope and change creation has been exposed as his manufacturers’ defective creation. Gerson concludes by pointing out that there is no there there:

Obama could attempt to “beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism.” He could try to build a coalition that “stretches through red states and blue states.” He could reject “the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up.”

The candidate who said those words the night he won the Iowa caucuses did pretty well. But whatever the outcome of this presidential election, that candidate is no longer in the race.

My oldest brother sent me the piece Gloria Steinem wrote on Gov. Palin, an elitist, patronizing piece in which she diminishes people who hunt (not understanding, I guess, that many people hunt to put FOOD on the table, especially in these difficult economic times), among other smears. So, I felt compelled to write him back. A lot of this is information those who have been paying attention already know:

I am not an apologist for Sarah Palin, but I find the argument that SHE is inexperienced as Steinem said to be laughable. The DNC selected the least experienced candidate ever, one who refuses to make available ANY paper trail at all - no college or law school transcripts, no medical records, no passports, no birth certificates, and claims he had NOT ONE PAPER or DATE BOOK available from his time in the IL Senate (which is part-time service, btw). One who has no legislative accomplishments of note to his name. Never mind the LONG list of his sordid associates which throw his whole “good judgment” stance out the window.

Or his lack of chairing ONE meeting of the European Affairs Subcommittee, which oversees Afghanistan, and now claims that we need to do more abt Afghanistan,and who wants to return to the foreign policy of DONALD RUMSFELD…If this was BUSH, the Progressives would be going batshit crazy screaming our fool heads off.


But for some reason, this is all fine and dandy. Never mind all of the university professors who are now shrugging off his constant plagiarizing (and his picking a running mate who is also a plagiarizer), an act that can get students thrown OUT of universities. Why? I really don’t get this infatuation with this man! Without a teleprompter, he can barely even talk!! But he is “eloquent,” and has “good judgm ent.” Um, no. And he is sexist as all hell, to boot.

And for some reason, Obama is constantly comparing himself to the VP pick, not the presidential nominee. Much easier for him to pick on a woman than a man, as he demonstrated time and again during this campaign. Flipping Hillary off, brushing her off his shoulder and his shoe, having “99 Problems BUt a Bitch Ain’t One” playing when he won Iowa. Class act this guy. Oh, and for what it’s worth - he lives 1 1/2 blocks away from Bill Ayers, who lives right down the street from the Farrakhan Compound. What a coincidence.

Oh - is now when I tell you that my brother has a PhD., and developed some major software, whose clients include NASA? Yeah. He’s supposed to be smart (my younger brother and his wife - both PhDs - also are big Obama supporters, at least my brother is. My sis-in-law is a “Vote Democrat” no matter what more than anything.). Just goes to show that there is a difference between being educated and having common sense. I can say that because I have BOTH!!! Ahem.

Here’s what he wrote back:

These are interesting accusations. Do you know these things for a fact? What is your source of information? Is there some doubt about the fact that Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review? You don’t get to that place by being a flaky biscuit. Is there any doubt about the fact that McCain was at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy?

I don’t follow you with the Donald Rumsfield foreign policy thing. What do you mean?

One thing I can say for sure. I have seen Obama in many interviews and town hall type conversations, besides the podium speeches. He has always impressed me with his speaking ability in off the cuff situations. This is a sharp dude.

I also like Joe Biden very much. He is a solid, decent, knowledgeable person.

At the end of the day, this is about policies, not personalities. Who do you think is going to best implement the objectives of Hillary Clinton? If you say McCain-Palin, then I don’t see how you get there.

Oh, boy. Evidently, he does not have the same desire for sources when others are “accused,” but whatever. And yes, he DID go there about the personalities. Here’s my response:

Yes, I know these things for a fact. This is what I do every day, all day long.

I don’t know if I will even vote this year, so don’t assume I am voting for McCain/Palin. I can say that McCain is an honorable man, and has given his entire life i n service to this country. That means something. He is also moderate, and a reformer, something Obama will NEVER be (oh - today’s BIG report is about Obama raging on Palin, particularly about the Bridge to Nowhere, which she did get rid of afterall - and which HE VOTED FOR TWICE!!! He claimed, “Palin Can’t Just Make Stuff Up!” No, that purview belongs to Obama alone.). But Obama will never get my vote. He should never have assumed he would.

So that’s how my morning started - not at ALL about what I was going to write today. But you never know what is going to come up, I reckon. And I know there is evern more about Obama, but I figured I was pushing my luck with him actually reading it this far.

Ah, families…

Approximately a year ago thousands of committed volunteers attended “Camp Obama,” a four-day indoctrination program, geared at teaching pre-screened Obama volunteers grass roots organizational strategies.  

The training, which specifically focused on the caucus states, taught volunteers to be “ruthless,” “take risks,” and win at all costs. Obama’s campaign and Camp Obama’s strategy which focused on the vulnerable caucuses and the early primaries worked. 

Obama only lost 1 out of 14 caucuses, a staggering achievement, especially when he lost 21 out of 38 primaries and scored a statistical tie in popular vote.   How did he accomplish such an astonishing string of victories that would eventually define the Democratic Primary? 

At www.caucusanalysis.org, a new website devoted exclusively to the 2008 Democratic caucuses, you can read Tales from the Front, stories told to sites founder, Dr. Lynette Long, by participants in all 14 caucus states.  Here are excerpts from  the website. For complete statements and a mathematical analysis of each state, go to www.caucusanalysis.org.

FROM IOWA

I live in Davenport, Iowa - Precinct 23.  I arrived at our precinct caucus at 6:30.  At 6:50 pm, over 75 people of African American descent came walking in, past the tables and sat in the Obama section.  I knew one of them from my canvassing.  I knew another one who did not live in this precinct!  And aside from the 4 or 5 families that live on Hillandale Road, there are no other black people in this unusually white precinct and one of those black couples were in my Hillary section.  The results were Obama 3, Clinton, 2, Edwards 1!  It was impossible for me to argue since the precinct chair was an Obama supporter from another precinct.  A very large bus was seen in the parking lot afterwards carrying these folks back.

FROM IOWA

You probably have heard about the busloads coming in from over the IL border, but you may not have known about the busloads coming in from the NE border. North Omaha and Omaha itself are two of the three places in NE — Lincoln being the third — where there’s over 5% African-American population. Obama’s campaign offered people things like I-pods and free stuff– t-shirts, clothes, shoes, and at least two free meals on the Nebraska side.

FROM KANSAS

There were a lot of young people there and a lot of black people.  We do not have that many blacks in this county.  El Dorado is a small town of about 12,000 and it is the largest town in the county.  There are probably only a handful of blacks that live in El Dorado.  I work with the school district and travel to the high school, middle school and elementary schools and believe me, there are very, very, few  black students.

FROM MINNESOTA

There was NO voter registration for the MN caucus… no identification was checked so Obots were going from room to room voting over and over again giggling all the while doing it. 

FROM NEVADA

Throughout this mess of a process, hostility built to a degree I found truly alarming.  Some overenthusiastic BHO supporters formed a gauntlet in the hallway outside the registration area, on the way to the ballroom, within the zone in which campaigning was prohibited.  Any HRC supporter was subject to verbal abuse, ridicule and, eventually, physical assault.

FROM NEBRASKA

Nebraska was totally chaotic and each precinct location had a different way to do the caucus. In Nebraska, 18 precincts where crammed into one high school in Sarpy county. When I got there, it felt like I stepped into a Third World voting situation. They were trying to determine whether people could actually participate in the caucuses or not, and then it seemed like they just gave up on that and just let anyone participate. There was a gym at the high school where about 5 precincts met. A person was supposed to fill out their preference on a slip of paper and then turn it in. They tried to run it like a primary instead of a true caucus, just take out any semblance of order and guards against voter disenfranchisement that a normal primary would have. I found a pile of these preferences slips just sitting on a table where anyone could pick them up and fill them out.

FROM TEXAS

I was at the Texas Caucus and the Obama supporter’s took the Packets as early as 6:30 AM which they were told not to do, They never let go and then when time came to vote they took over the precinct by some of them pushing the people that were supposed to run it across the room to chairs. They called in incorrect totals for Obama instead of correct ones. He actually had 4 delegates and they called in 19 delegates.

When my 88 year old Mother showed up, who can hardly walk on her walker, and they took her walker away from her when she said she was there to vote for Hillary. They said you are in the wrong place old woman; this is an Obama precinct, and you need to go across town. When I saw what was happening I called the police.  Blog post no quarter evelyn

FROM TEXAS

As an eye witness at the Precinct and Senate District Conventions, this is how Obama won many caucuses. First of all, vast numbers of Obama supporters were bused in to the conventions. They were loud and intimidating. Texas Democratic rules state that each person who participates in the Precinct Convention should have voted in this precinct and sign-in personally on a formal sign-in sheet. So many Obama people showed up, that there were not enough sign-in sheets available, so when the conventions ended, there were many sign-in sheets for Obama filled out in the same handwriting, not signed-in as specified. As Hillary supporters, we obtained copies of these sign-in sheets from all over south Texas, Harris County in particular. We laboriously compared the names on the sheets to see if the person who attended the precinct convention had voted in the primary election. Many listed Obama people had not. We then cross-checked the names of the Obama people to see if they lived in the correct precinct. Many times the Obama people did not come to the correct precinct and often appeared on sign-in sheets, as being present in several precinct conventions at the same time (a violation of the space-time continuum).

FROM THE TEXAS CONVENTION

I walked into the Nueses,Texas County Convention only to discover that I was already there as an Obama delegate.

FROM THE TEXAS CONVENTION

They shoved Obama signs in Clinton delegates’ faces, three inches from the nose, called them racists, and told my friend that she had to move from her third-row seat in one meeting and go sit in the back.  She also said that the proceedings were heavily laced with black power speeches by preachers as well as public officials.

FROM WASHINGTON STATE

What I saw was at least 3 trained group agitators — Since my MA is in group dynamics and group facilitation I recognized when someone is using techniques that I have been trained in. If such individuals were planted in ALL precincts, along with bringing in ringers — then ALL caucus results are bogus. For this sort of intensive origination to take place in a rural area — this means that a vast amount of money was spent to manipulate the results of the caucus. The Obama supporters kept changing the number of delegates — subtracting Clinton delegates and increasing Obama delegates, each time they claimed someone had changed and they had to do "complicated" math and that’s why Clinton kept losing delegates. There were NO Clinton supporters checking the Obama "math".

Read full accounts at www.caucusanalysis.org.

Contact DrLynetteLong@aol.com

It’s no secret that they have been replacing delegates to ensure votes for Barack Obama at convention time. After all, let’s face the fact that Barky is terribly concerned about being embarrassed during that roll call vote. Since he has no clear ‘mandate’ he is doing what he always does. Fix Things Up So It Looks Better For Him Than It Is. Thus, he has surrepticiously been dumping a Clinton delegate here and a Clinton delegate there and replacing them with Obama delegates–in order to and make his roll call count look prettier than it really is. Later, all his sycophants will yell about how OBVIOUS it is that he is a Real Winner. Oh, he’s a winner all right…..a Real Winner in the figurative sense. Barack Obama is a real piece of work.

Overall, it looks as though they pretty much expected that people were going to sit down and shut up while they worked their magic. Especially those damned women!

At first, the caucus fraud and irregularity situations appeared to be pretty well buried. If you go to Dr. Lynette Long’s dedicated Caucus Fraud site, you will see that silence, Golden as it is for The One, isn’t going to be the order of the day on that subject either. I’ve been informed that Superdelegates are currently the recipients of caucus fraud information. We shall see just how far they are willing to voluntarily comprehend the significance of this.

Meanwhile, Clinton Supporters in Kentucky just can’t shut their damned mouths, you know? They are ticked off and they aren’t shy about saying so. Thank you to my loyal reader, “Just me” for this gem of a link.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — Fighting between Clinton and Obama supporters continues in Kentucky, as WHAS11 News has learned that Hillary Clinton supporters in Kentucky have filed an official protest with the national Democratic Party.

The complaint alleges that a Hillary Clinton delegate to the national convention was replaced with a Barack Obama supporter, in violation of the party’s rules.

The state party removed Todd Hollenbach, a delegate who supports Clinton, and replaced him with Ruth Ann Palumbo, who supports Obama.

But you see, there is no end to the smarmy behavior slithering out of the DNC. Here’s their little ole’ explanation.

The state party made the change because the DNC requires gender equity at the national convention.

The complaint says that the Kentucky Democratic Party broke the rules when it balanced the gender of the delegate count by replacing a male Clinton supporter with a female Obama supporter.

Delegate Todd Hollenbach was replaced by Ruth Ann Palumbo. Hollenbach supports Clinton, while Palumbo is an Obama supporter.

Ah, suddenly the Gender Card! Apparently, the DNC and Barack Obama think that the people of Kentucky fell off the back of a moving truck. While pretending that the gender they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about suddenly deserves “equity,” they finagled yet another opportunity to remove a Clinton delegate and replace it with an Obama delegate. I suppose they expect gratitude from women for this. After all, at least they are getting hoodwinked bamboozled attention, right?

Obama has been on a “switch the delegate” trip under the radar folks. He wants to make sure that roll call vote isn’t as close as it really would be if he didn’t manipulate the system to make himself look better. He’s been under the radar messing with delegate switching and lopping off heads all over the place. I was going to insert a Florida news link entitled “Obama replaces six Florida delegates,” only to find the link is no longer there. Here’s a Google of that news title. As you can see, it happened, but Winston may have actually jumped out of Orwell’s 1984 again and Poof! It’s gone.

You go ahead and give this “missing link” the benefit of the doubt. But frankly, I wish I had $1000 every time one of the news links about Obama I wrote about in the past year “disappeared”–so I am going to pass on that grace from now on.

Part I - The Restoration

Senator Obama has announced with a magnanimous flourish that he would, in all his beneficence, call for the Credentials Committee to restore the votes of Florida and Michigan delegates to 100%. If you recall, when we left off at the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on May 31st, Florida and Michigan had 100% of their delegates seated, but only with 1/2 vote each. Sounds like the Party is healed. Right?

Wrong. Remember that the fury that emerged at the end of the Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting was not over the 1/2 vote penalty. People were outraged because the RBC threw out the results of the popular vote, which gave Obama no delegates, and replaced them with an amalgam of exit polls and other data, giving Obama all of the “uncommitted” delegates and hijacking four of Hillary’s, effectively handing the race to Obama.

Obama’s play for unity on Monday did nothing to change that absolute corruption of the democratic process.

Part II - Everybody Agrees On the Platform

The Irish Times coverage of the Platform Drafting Committee Meeting that took place this past weekend in Cleveland, reported, “Heather Higginbottom, an Obama policy aide and a member of the drafting committee, said that Clinton’s official representatives helping to shape the platform have asked neither for a healthcare mandate nor gender-bias language.” Kumbaya right? Of course not.

Do you really think that after all we’ve been through that nobody spoke up to influence the drafting committee to include language addressing gender bias and incorporation of mandates as part of any plank concerning universal healthcare?

I Own My Vote did. I Own My Vote assembled the results of theVirtual Platform Committee Meeting as of last Thursday with the names of 1351 participants and a copy of the I Own My Vote Pledge, and distributed it to every member of the drafting committee. Among the platform planks we submitted were ones calling for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, denunciation of gender bias, and inclusion of a mandate in any universal healthcare plan.

Party rules state that the platform is open to public comment until the platform committee votes. The Obama campaign’s effort to pretend there is no dissent is offensive. When the campaign calls for input and 1,351 people speak as one, it doesn’t matter whether Clinton’s official representatives ask for particular language or not.

We will work to amend the platform if no such language is included.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

NoQuarterUSA Action Of The Day: We ask that you take part in the I Own My Vote Virtual Platform Committee Meeting now! It takes five minutes. Click here to start. If you have not yet signed the pledge, click here to do so.

What have we here? Obama has asked the Credentials Committee to seat Florida and Michigan at full strength? (Read the comments to see how the average reader interprets Obama’s letter.)

I can’t decide what I loathe more: that Obama all but acknowledges he stole the primary or that he assumes that the average Hillary supporter will be in any way assuaged by this obscene gesture of asking the credentials committee to restore full voting rights to Florida and Michigan now that he’s taken his victory lap and then poked us in the eye with his Grand European/Mid-East Tour.

Back when his “magnanimity” would have counted, he would have suffered small hit in his delegate lead and everyone would have been happy and impressed by his sense of fairness to the voters. But back then, no amount of pleading could convince him to ask for such fairness. He couldn’t even be moved to join in a revote effort.

The reason is very clear. Without Florida and Michigan, Hillary’s other states lacked the critical mass of delegates that would have put her on an even footing with him. In fact, if FL and MI had been counted fully from the beginning, it would have been all over by February 5th. Her substantial and decisive wins in FL, MI, CA, NJ, NY, MA, and AZ would have dwarfed his insignificant wins in the western caucuses.

The weightiness of all of those big D and swing states would have had him barely hanging in the race. OH and TX would have finished him off. We all know this. That’s why it was so important for him to screw FL and MI back in February. It doesn’t make them any less screwed now that he’s sent a letter.

No, instead, Hillary was forced to pole vault a 435ft bar all primary season while Obama was allowed to gently ease his way over a knee wall, assisted by a boost up from his friends in the media and the RBC committee. Obama successfully kept these two states out of the tallies until he could get the Rules and Bylaws committee to grudgingly give them half of their voting strength, while at the same time awarding Obama uncommitted Michigan delegates that should have remained uncommitted. And he stole 4 of Clinton’s delegates.

He must think we are really stupid if he thinks we can’t see through this meaningless gesture:

• He still selfishly retains 4 of Hillary’s Michigan delegates. He doesn’t give up a single Michigan delegate that should have remained uncommitted.
• The number of delegates needed for nomination has now changed. It’s a higher threshold number now but there is no acknowledgment that this is the case. Does he even qualify as the “presumptive nominee”?
• Unless there is a nomination for Clinton at the convention, the restoration of Florida and Michigan to full voting strength doesn’t count. They can only vote for one person, Obama, or their votes will count as “present”.
• If the delegates can’t vote for Clinton for nomination, even if she doesn’t win it, there is no way for MY vote in NJ to count. I am officially a non-voting voter as far as the DNC is concerned. My delegate has about as much of a voting right as a Berliner.
• It does nothing to achieve party unity. In fact, there won’t be party unity until every delegate has the right to vote for the person he pledged to and have that vote count. Otherwise, the convention is nothing but a sham, a Potemkin election where everything is scripted and a facade is erected to make it look like we are all onboard when nothing could be further from the truth. But the degree of the disunity will be felt in November when Obama goes down to defeat behind the unpopular party’s nominee.

Why bother, Barack? Are the numbers starting to frighten you? Did you decide you needed Florida and Michigan after all, as if any voter from these two states can’t see through this? How about you give back your ill-gotten booty in Michigan and take off the sash that says “presumptive nominee”? Why not leave it up to the voters in Denver to decide if you deserve that title? It would be the sincere thing to do, the honest thing to do, the courageous and unselfish thing to do.

Yeah, right. Why don’t you just brush those inconvenient Hillary voters off of your shoulder?

Just as so many of us predicted, now that it can’t hurt him and he has successfully gamed the system and insulted everything this country’s democracy stands for, Leland Gaunt Barack Obama wants every Florida and Michigan delegate counted.

If this isn’t a sign of just what a crooked, morally bankrupt Chicago Thug he is, I don’t know what is. He and Donna and Howard blocked these delegates and these voters from being counted because he knew he would lose. Then he blocked their re-votes because he knew he would lose. No sense of denying that he blocked these re-votes, it’s a matter of record now.

And now………….that it benefits (as in “Cannot Hurt”) The One, he will let his peons be counted. The man is the most despicable excuse for a human being I have seen forced upon an American election in my not so short life. And that includes George W. Bush.

This is just another sign of who and what Barack Obama really is, folks.

While we railed against the GOP in the 2000 and 2004 elections for their dishonesty, these guys look like Disney characters when you consider the slime trail left behind by Barack Obama, Donna Brazile, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi et al.

And of Course, Obama’s Hood Ornament, Howard Dean and his complicit band of bullshitters have “decided” that the unbreakable ROOLZ that they used to tank Hillary Clinton can now officially be waived, suddenly “democracy” and fairness are of interest to him.

Today we received a letter from Senator Obama requesting that the Convention’s Credentials Committee grant each delegate from Florida and Michigan a full vote. We deeply appreciate and value Senator Obama’s perspective on this important issue. This matter will be the top priority for the Credentials Committee when we meet on August 24th. As always our goal is to ensure a fair process and a unified Democratic Party so that we can win in November.”

These people shouldn’t even die before they go to hell. They should all just be sucked down into the abyss bodily while still alive. I’m not even saying what’s REALLY on my mind, that’s how odious these people truly are. The Real Barack Obama says it best about this lying, cheating thief.

Nice words. But where was Sen. Obama when Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Ill.) had her Michigan and Florida delegates stripped from her? Worse than that, where was Sen. Obama’s spirit of “party unity” when he stood by and accepted 4 of Sen. Clinton’s Michigan delegates when his name had, through his own actions, not even been on the ballot?

You know what we PUMAs are going to say to your “unity” schtick Sen. Obama? Just in case you don’t know by now, that you’ve not figured it out, RBO would almost bet the house that all those “bitter” “deadender” Clinton supporters are going to let you twist in the wind. You just kicked your former Democratic opponent and all her supporters square in the teeth.

Not only that. You are a cheater and you gamed the system and cheated in small state-after-small-state caucuses. You are a liar and have told lie after lie—call it a flip flop or adjusting your position as much as you’d like—but a lie is still a lie. You are a thief and you have stolen the Democratic nomination.

You should be ashamed of yourself. It is doubtful that you see anything but that the end justifies the means, as that is how you have climbed the political ladder in your crawl to the top thus far.

Words cannot express what you have done. Let’s just “hope” that you get everything you deserve.

You have no soul, Barack Obama, do you?

In order to “save” the Democratic Party, Brazile resolved back in 2003 that she might have to destroy it first. And who better to help her in this lofty pursuit than her new best friend, the man neoconservatives call “The Architect”.

…………………………..

BY ROSEMARY REGELLO

It’s not every activist politico who gets to write a post in the Washington Times that begins like this: "As I sat by my window and staring out at the wonderful Washington, D.C., landscape, my office announced a phone call from Air Force One."

Evidently, Donna Brazile was reminding all the little people on Capitol Hill that she had friends in high places. In summer of 2007, Bush senior advisor Karl Rove wasn’t answering any subpoenas from Congress, but he didn’t mind talking to Brazile. From his perch at 20,000 feet, he informed her that this was probably a good time for him to get out of Dodge.

“Mr. Rove’s resignation is not a retirement,” Brazile reassured readers of the right of center newspaper. “It’s just another opportunity for him to create that lasting Republican majority he envisioned years ago and to spend his waking days doing what he so enjoys — beating Democrats in the alleys and gutters. Just ask Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Rove’s target when he called in to speak to Rush Limbaugh. He couldn’t help it. Mr. Rove just had to take one last shot before riding out of town. More to come, Team Clinton.”

Brazile’s breezy account confirms what many have long since suspected. Rove’s claim to be sitting out the 2008 race is hogwash. The mastermind of today’s unraveling U.S. constitution is in no position to kick back, down gin fizzes and watch the country collapse under an Administration he put into office twice. The list of crimes that Bush’s top henchman could potentially be charged with - everything from fraud to war crimes - should be enough to keep him and his fellow Sopranos in hair-trigger mode until the next president gets sworn in. And the notion that he’d leave the choice of commander-in-chief in less capable dirty hands than his own requires more than the willing suspension of disbelief. It requires medication.

That’s why the Rove-Brazile tryst merits further exploration. They first hooked up some time in 2002, according to a New York Times article. The connection might have been a means for Brazile to expand her clientele, but she dismissed that angle in an interview, implying she had bigger fish to fry. It was the Democrats’ lackluster relations with African Americans and poor track record in elections, she said, that led her to start trailblazing new frontiers. To put it in a Brazile nutshell, the Republicans had a better machine.

”The idea is to re-energize the African-American electorate and revive the Democratic Party at the same time,” she told Times reporter Katharine Seelye, ”I want to revitalize the party from the grass roots up. We’re losing voters.”

With that noble cause in mind, she and Rove began to "chirpily exchange e-mail, chat on the phone and write letters, indulging in their shared zeal for the inner workings of politics," Seelye wrote.

Rove said he’d sometimes call Brazile before a press appearance to get feedback on various Bush policy angles he planned to discuss. In exchange, he furnished Brazile’s clients with access to White House social events.

"People think I’m crazy talking to Karl Rove," the strategist confessed to the Washington Post a month after the Times story appeared, "but there’s something about this guy."

Yes, there certainly is something about Karl Rove. In consultation with Vice-President Cheney’s office, it was Rove who outed Valerie Plame’s C.I.A. identity over a flap about uranium in Niger. Three years later, those subpoenas were overflowing his in-box because he’d told Alberto Gonzalez to fire nine U.S. Attorneys who refused to do his bidding. Rove is also under investigation for an entrapment scheme that put Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman in prison for two years.

Those Republicans sure do know how to close the deal in politics. In addition to basking in The Architect’s dapper charm and irresistible company, Brazile opened diplomatic ties across town with archconservative Grover Norquist. Norquist heads one of Jack Abramoff’s favorite charities, Americans for Tax Reform, and is famous for his remark that he’d like to see federal government crippled to the point where he can take it home and drown it in his bathtub. For a brief window of opportunity, he set aside that morbid fantasy to help one of Brazile’s closest friends, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes, push some legislation to increase revenues in her district.

According to the same Times article, “Mr. Norquist said he and Ms. Brazile, both Washington residents, were devising a plan to urge Congress to allow the city to raise the height limit on buildings as a way to broaden the tax base and improve schools.”

Brazile served as Holmes’ chief of staff and press secretary during the nineties. In that same action-packed year, her old boss teamed up with other D.C. officials to schedule an unauthorized, nonbinding earlybird presidential primary for 2004. DNC chair Terry McAuliffe sent sent out calls to the candidates to boycott the affair, but Howard Dean didn’t heed the directive. The former Vermont governor swept into D.C. and gobbled up almost as many endorsements as another candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton. Who needed those arcane DNC rules, anyway?

The Brazile Factor

At the time of these contentious political developments, Brazile chaired the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, a program set up after the Florida recount debacle in 2000. During that earlier episode, she’d experienced firsthand Karl Rove’s unscrupulous knack for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Now she was tasked with brainstorming new strategies to prevent any future gaming of the electoral system.

In 2004, Dean ended his presidential bid after the Wisconsin primary and Kerry lost the general election. This time, Rove generated thousands of extra Bush votes in key Ohio precincts where only a few hundred Republicans lived. Not surprisingly, Brazile remained unimpressed with her party. That winter, she submitted an essay for the left-leaning website Slate.com, which was running a series called “Why Americans Hate Democrats – A Dialog”.

Hard as it must have been to top that inspirational title, the political strategist managed with her piece “Tapping the Obama Factor”. The Chicago politician had just been elevated to the U.S. Senate, but instead of offering an introduction to him, she mostly dwelled on her own life story - rising up from poverty in Louisiana, listening to her grandmother read scripture, etc. etc. Eventually, the essay worked its way back to the stated topic.

"This is a new moment to identify and recruit better messengers," she wrote. "Perhaps it’s time to tap into the ‘Obama’ factor: Scour statehouses for young, energetic, inspiring, and emerging leaders with the ability to connect the head and heart. Too many of the old Democratic guard have stayed in Washington, D.C., too long to fully recognize how most Americans live their lives."

It was a novel way to spin the Illinois election. Obama did score a landslide victory that year, but it had little to do with his age, energy level or the obsolete nature of the Democratic Party establishment. His campaign manager David Axelrod ran the classic Rovian smear campaign, first accusing Obama’s top primary contender of sexual impropriety. After disgracing Blair Hull out of contention, Axelrod used the same device against the G.O.P. primary winner, Jack Ryan.

Of course, this is where things get interesting. House Speaker Dennis Hastert decided he must stick his oar into the battle, calling on Ryan to end his senate bid. The candidate dutifully bowed out, and in his stead, the Illinois Republican Party fielded an unknown, African American bible-thumper from Maryland named Alan Keyes. Clearly, the G.O.P. wanted Obama to win that election. No other explanation can account for the party sacrificing a senate seat to a (supposedly) liberal Democrat who’d (supposedly) spoken out against the Iraq War in 2002.

A Hollywood script writer couldn’t have come up with this storyline. Within a year of arriving in Washington, Brazile’s rising star – the product of a globe-trotting Kansas woman and a philandering tribal leader in Kenya - had launched his presidential exploratory committee. The Internet fundraising team of Howard Dean signed on for the ride. So, too, did some of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, corporate law firms, and energy giants. By the end of 2007, Obama would post a record-breaking haul of $100 million in campaign contributions. And all while he was still "introducing himself", as Brazile and other analysts put it, to the American public.

Who exactly brought the banks and oil companies to the table still remains to be ferreted out, but it wasn’t Dean or Brazile, or even the man who placed Obama on the speaker’s list at the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry. It’s more likely that Karl Rove huddled with top Bush fundraisers to set that gravy train in motion. Among the candidate’s money bundlers were George Kaiser and Robert Cavnar, both oil industry executives. Other Bush campaign pioneers joined the bandwagon soon afterward.

Now Brazile was impressed. Judging from another My Day installment penned in 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, she sounded like a woman who had been born again:

“While my family was hurting, when they were on the edge feeling left to fend for themselves, the last thing I wanted to do was whine. I got into the groove quickly and contacted Ken Melhman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee and an old friend, Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House.”

Then she started tossing out the cupcakes: “President Bush, who promised to rebuild the Gulf coast in a speech at Jackson Square, invited some African American leaders over to the White House on December 7th to discuss a broad range of issues…To my great surprise, the meeting with President Bush was cordial and candid. The President listened intently and reassured us that his Administration would not drop the ball.”

Funny how such innocuous fluff takes on a new and sinister meaning when read in hindsight. Yet even from the perspective of a contemporary audience, those claims were a stetch. For people living in New Orleans, the Katrina ball had already been dropped. When the levees broke, Sec. of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was attending a conference on bird flu, the President relaxing on his Crawford ranch. Back in Brazile’s home state, over a thousand people drowned during three days of waiting for rescuers to reach their homes. Several million homeless residents survived, homeless, only to a second disaster called FEMA.

But Brazile didn’t let facts on the ground spoil her picnic. Continuing her upbeat dispatch, “Since then, I have met once more with President Bush and other leaders who are committed to working together to restore the lives and the communities devastated by these two hurricanes…I can tell from the meetings that the rebuilding of Louisiana remains high on his list of priorities.”

Preparing for Battle

One can only speculate on Brazile’s motives in streaming out that hallucination. As she would mention in the Washington Times article two years later, her “old friend” Rove had hit the ground running with the start of the 2008 election cycle, appearing on talk shows to bash frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Behind the scenes, G.O.P. rank and file activists were organizing crossover voting drives to knock Clinton out of the race before November. In the red states, they could easily outnumber Democrats at the caucuses, enriching Obama’s delegate count and allowing him to boast later “I’ve won more states.”

To recruit additional foot troops for this effort, New Hampshire G.O.P. leader Stephen DaMaura started the Facebook website “Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary).”

On the Democratic side, it became Brazile’s job to smooth over Obama’s path to the nomination. That required manipulating the primary calendar. Picking up on the diversity argument of Eleanor Holmes and the D.C. coalition, she pressed for an earlybird South Carolina primary and a Nevada caucus to augment the Iowa and New Hampshire dates.

While the advantages of South Carolina were obvious, by necessity the second contest required a less obvious, more covert action plan to avoid any accusations of stacking the deck. Although the Clinton camp didn’t realize it at the time, a caucus in Nevada (like a caucus anywhere) would naturally benefit Obama, since her base of blue-collar, older and non-English-speaking supporters would not be driving across town to attend some meeting run by disorganized volunteers. On the other hand, motivated Republicans could be counted on to show up, especially if the G.O.P. candidates could be persuaded not to campaign in the state. (They didn’t.)

Nevertheless, the reason for adding more earlybird contests in the first place centered on ethic diversity, so selling the DNC (and the public) on Nevada required some tweaking of those caucus parameters. That’s why arrangements were made to allow the state’s casino workforce of some 60,000 predominantly Latino workers to attend specially set up caucus sites just for them.

But wouldn’t this huge Hispanic voting block put Clinton over the top in Nevada? Not necessarily. It turns out that the union representing casino employees, S.E.I.U., would be backing Obama, just as they had supported Dean in his presidential bid. So those voters could now be added to the Obama column.

Thus, with caucuses scheduled in Iowa and Nevada, a primary in South Carolina with its near majority African American demographic, and the New Hampshire Republican brass on the job in that state, the chance of Clinton heading into Super Tuesday at cruising altitude had spectacularly diminished.

“Including two more states will not only be good for our country, it will be good for our party and good for our nominee," Brazile told the Los Angeles Times in August 2006.

Sounding an early portent of doom, the South Carolina delegate on the rules committee said in the same article, “If you campaign in a state that is outside the rules, then you’re not entitled to delegates from that state."

A year later, that scenario unfolded like a bad dream for the DNC. Over the objections of Florida’s state Democratic Party, a Republican-controlled legislature moved its primary to January 29, 2008, one week before the official February 5^th cusp adopted by both the Republican National Committee and the DNC.

On August 25, 2007. the DNC rules and bylaws committee met to adjudicate this unspeakable crime. State party chair Karen Thurman testified at the meeting, walking the committee through the chronology of her long and fruitless battle to overturn the date switch. The Republicans had attached it as a rider to another bill, one authorizing the replacement of electronic paperless voting equipment with more traditional optical scanners. Unable to defeat the rider on a partyline vote, the Democrats begrudgingly approved the larger measure.

Anyone who has watched the re-broadcast of those DNC proceedings on CSPAN can’t help but be dumbfounded by the discussion that followed Thurman’s presentation. A slam-dunk case for a rule waiver turned into a shameless bout of piling on, as committee member Brazile and several others accused the state party of not trying hard enough to change the date. (One also noticed from the broadcast the unusually high number of African Americans on the 30-member committee, as opposed to near zero representation for other minorities.)

When asked by Brazile why she hadn’t made any plans to hold a caucus in place of the primary, Thurman balked. The logistics and $8 million price tag, she said, were beyond comprehension, given that Florida boasts 4 million eligible Democrats.

"I understand how states crave to be first,” Brazile blustered in a Washington Post interview the next day, as if none of what Thurman told her had registered. “I understand that they’re envious of the role that Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally played, The truth is, we had a process . . . We’re going to back these rules."

Later, the head of the DNC Voting Rights Institute published an op-ed in the same newspaper, this time under the combative heading, “Why We Stood Up to Florida”. With the cockiness that was fast becoming her trademark, Brazile griped, “It was hardly an extraordinary act, although you wouldn’t know it from the furious reaction that ensued in some quarters…Why the uproar? It’s simple: state envy.”

She went on to list all the economic benefits coveted by states vying to hold early primaries, again diverting from the core issue of Republican meddling in Democratic affairs. Inexplicably, the press coverage of the showdown also overlooked the G.O.P.’s role in moving up the primary date.

The same week the rules committee stripped Florida of all its convention delegates, Michigan’s state legislature voted to move up its primary to January 15th. Both states could have easily been pegged as Clinton strongholds, making their exclusion from the election cycle suspect. Michigan is an industrial blue-collar enclave with few of the upper-middle-class voters and college students that represent Obama’s base. Florida’s Hispanic population is huge, and combined with an abundant supply of New York retirees, would likely also resist the Obama "surge".

Moreover, using Republican crossover voting to shave points off Clinton’s victories posed problems in both states. In Michigan, native son Mitt Romney had a significant campaign apparatus in place, while Rudi Giuliani was expecting to draw his line in the sand in Florida. Where these battleground territories were in play, neither gentleman would appreciate Rove siphoning away their voters. Better just to invalidate the primaries on the Democratic side. That way, Clinton’s delegate lead could be held in check on Super Tuesday.

"Seeds of Doubt"

With the votes of the country’s fourth and eighth largest states thus consigned to the junk heap, Brazile turned to other pursuits. Hired as a paid election analyst for CNN, she carried on a double life - one as an official DNC spokesperson, the other as a partisan campaigner for Barack Obama. In February, when best-guess estimates gave Clinton the support of two-thirds of the superdelegates, she declared, "If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party."

If party leaders were as worried about negative fallout and damage control then as they claimed to be a month later, they might have reeled in their contract employee at this point for a heart-to-heart chat. That didn’t happen. Brazile just reloaded her pistol and repeated her empty threat to all who would listen. On another occasion, she accused former President Bill Clinton of being a racist. It was inexcusable, she said, that during a speech Clinton referred to Obama as a "kid" and suggested his presidential bid amounted to little more than a "fairy tale".

"And I will tell you," Brazile bristled with emotion, "as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing."

To be sure, Clinton said Obama’s evolving position on the Iraq War was a fairy tale, not his candidacy. As for alluding to his youth, Brazile and other cheerleaders for the Illinois senator had been doing it themselves for the past four years. It was a classic example of the Mark Twain quip that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put its shoes on. Only CNN’s presence in the equation gave the adage literal meaning. Surely, the DNC would intervene now that Brazile had insulted a former Democratic president on national television. But nothing.

Notwithstanding the character smears and 24/7 swiftboating by the American media, Sen. Clinton persevered, scoring big wins in the Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio on March 4^th. On March 5th, she was accused of engaging in a “negative” campaign designed to "destroy" her adversary.

“Despite Obama’s impressive victories in February, Clinton’s comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt,” Brazile informed the Associated Press that day, “If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate. But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and other should be on standby."

(ABC’s Jake Tapper went Brazile one better, claiming Clinton was exercising the "Tanya Harding option".)

In response to the call to arms, Dean promptly petitioned Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to intervene in the protracted race, while Senators Dodd, Richardson and Leahy demanded that Clinton end her candidacy for the good of the party.

Now this sounded familiar. Jack Ryan must have been chuckling to himself from his perch inside a bar, drinking rot-gut whiskey. In Washington, meanwhile, Reid promised that “things will be done” to determine a nominee before the convention. Pelosi told George Stephanopolis on his Sunday talk show that the superdelegates should not overturn “the will of the people”, but denied rumors that she was telling members of Congress that Clinton, if nominated, would be a "drag" on their own campaigns. As the Democratic Party version of the Adams Family was thus occupied in their hand-wringing, chest-beating and sharing of apocalyptic visions, Clinton pressed ahead, picking up 9 out of the final 13 primaries. Three of them she won by more than 30 points.

But no sooner had the daylight begun to shine at the end of the tunnel when another Rove-Brazile shoe dropped. For some reason, her triumph in the popular vote was not matched proportionally by delegates earned, and it had something to do with Obama’s phenomenal gains in the caucus states of Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, etc. One would not have expected an African American liberal to clobber his opponent by a two-to-one margin as he did in many cases. More importantly, her delegate gains in the primaries involving millions of voters seemed to pale in comparison. This made no sense.

In late May, a disability activist named P. Cronin appeared on scene to sort out the Twilight Zone phenomenon. Cronin, who like most disabled people is not a big fan of caucuses, spent some time in late May analyzing the tallies from the 2008 Democratic contest, comparing the impact of the two different voting methods on the race.

According to Cronin’s study, nearly all of Obama’s 138-delegate lead over Clinton could be traced to 12 red state caucuses. In most of these contests he routinely won by 2-1 margins, even though polls in those states showed the candidates much closer. In Idaho, for instance, with its scant African American population, few colleges and relatively few Starbucks outlets, he captured 15 of the state’s 18 delegates.

Something fishy was going on here. Did Dean’s so-called 50-state strategy include the recruitment of pro-Obama activists to organize on the candidate’s behalf in caucus states? Did the number of DaMaura’s G.O.P. crossover voters wildly exceed expectations? Or was there just downright lying in the computation of the vote tallies?

The case of Washington state underscores the mystery of this Bermuda Triangle for Clinton delegates. On February 9^th, Obama earned a whopping 52 of the Washington’s 78 delegates after a 36-point victory in the party-run caucus. Over 240,000 allegedly eligible voters cast ballots in that contest. But a week later, just ahead of a state-run certified primary, the polling data showed that Clinton might actually win the election. On February 19th, after 650,000 ballots were counted Obama eked out a 5-point victory, hardly the 2-1 margin responsible for his 26-delegate net gain in the state. Unfortunately, the primary was non-binding.

Cronin notes in the study that those states that furnished the newcomer’s vast delegate booty contribute a grand total of 69 electoral votes in the general election. Few of these territories have voted Democratic since 1964.

It also appears that the votes of those lucky caucus-goers counted for 5-10 times more than the traditional Democrats who attended primaries. Obama netted more delegates in his Idaho win, for instance, than Clinton in her entire Ohio-Texas-Rhode Island romp on March 4th. The following table illustrates the questionable validity of these dispersements. Notice that the last column shows the delegate gain for the winner:

2008 Democratic Presidential Preference Election © 2008 P. Cronin
—————————-

Even in the Navada caucus that Clinton won, Obama was awarded more delegates. The New York senator couldn’t seem to win for winning. There, the S.E.I.U. endorsement dissolved into wishful thinking when the casino workers broke for Clinton two to one, giving her a 6-point victory. A few months later, Obama left the state convention with 3 more delegates.

While there’s no evidence implicating Dean in Obama’s caucus routs, the DNC had maintained staff on the ground in all 50 states since 2005, when he first became the chair. In August 2007, a few weeks before his rules and bylaws committee stripped Florida of its delegates, he announced in a press release that his 50-State Strategy project, the Voting Rights Institute and another DNC division known as the National Lawyers Council were collaborating on a nationwide survey of voter databases, registration procedures and other "election mechanics". According to the release, DNC staff would work with local election boards in gathering information in advance of the 2008 presidential election. "Protecting the right of every eligible American to vote is a top priority for our party," Dean and Brazile said in a joint statement. "Every eligible American deserves the confidence that when they go to the polls to cast their ballot they can do so without fear of intimidation or harassment, and that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately."

Throwing Mama Under the Bus

On May 31, 2008, the rules committee reconvened to discuss those "eligible Americans" living in Florida and Michigan. A week before the meeting, the Democratic Party tried to attach an air of legitimacy to the proceedings by having legal counsel weigh in on the dispute. Although by Brazile’s own account, the Supreme Court gives political parties wide latitude for determining how they pick their nominees, the lawyers claimed it would be unlawful to fully honor the certified votes of January 15^th and 29^th . The committee could do no more than restore half the nearly 350 convention delegates up for grabs.

Always amenable to compromise, the Clinton campaign accepted that limitation but rejected a proposal for Obama to receive some of her Michigan delegates, plus those of all the other candidates in the Michigan primary. After all, the Illinois senator voluntarily withdrew his name from the ballot, then vetoed a re-do primary which Clinton donors raised $10 million to fund. In a sane world, one could argue that he forfeited the state and therefore deserved no delegates.

Former Governor of Michigan Jim Blanchard didn’t present that line of attack, however. The Clinton spokesman stuck to the modest request that the candidate receive delegates in proportion to the votes cast for her. A few minutes later, it was Brazile’s turn to speak, and the CNN analyst first took the opportunity to congratulate herself for displaying restraint in the meeting up until that point. Then she repudiated Blanchard as if he were a child.

"My mama taught me to play by the rules and respect the rules…When you decide to change the rules, especially, in the middle of the game, it’s called cheating."

Dispatching the governor to go stand and in a corner and contemplate the error of his ways, Brazile’s committee allocated the Michigan delegates according to a fruitcake-like recipe involving exit polls, alleged write-in votes for Obama, the palm-reading of a psychic (just kidding) and the actual tally. In the end, Clinton gained a mere 4.5 delegates from the contest.

Any masochist following the 2008 election knew by then that Brazile had disregarded her own mother’s counsel long ago. Neither she nor her co-horts have lost any sleep over the thousands of complaints filed about the conduct of the caucuses, including some 2,000 submitted in Texas alone. Voter intimidation, stacks of fabricated sign-in sheets slipped in with the legitimate records, phony declarations from Republicans about their intention to switch parties, votes delayed until deep into the night, inaccurate tallies called in by phone, and other dirty tricks have yet to warrant even a cursory investigation by those who preach that playing by the rules represents a core value of the Democratic Party.

Even in the aftermath of her power grab, Brazile continues to denigrate those who challenge the authority of the party’s new African American leadership. In a July 22nd post on Daryl Cagle’s website, she groaned, "How many ways do these Hillary delegates, voters and supporters need to hear it before they get it? Sen. Barack Obama is the party’s nominee. He won. He will get to choose his running mate. Obama sets the agenda for the convention, and, while I understand their passion in wanting Hillary to be on the ticket and to have a prominent role at the convention, it’s not her decision… As much as we all would have loved to see a woman in the Oval Office, it wasn’t Hillary’s time. Period."

It’s ironic when you think about it. The DNC’s Voting Rights Institute was created to stop exclusionary practices and increase participation at the polling booth. Now its chairwoman is presiding over one of the most hostile and fraudulent campaigns since those newspaper delivery trucks ran over the boy scouts in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

"Mr. Rove proved you can win elections with rumors, fear, division and manipulation." Brazile wrote back in 2007, after that friendly exchange with Air Force One. "But you can’t win hearts that way."

No, you can’t. But then, this influential political fixer no longer appears to have use for that particular organ. Which may be why she finds men like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist so appealing.

- Rosemary Regello editor@thecityedition.com

(For more on the G.O.P. manipulation of the Democratic Primaries, see our in-depth report Bamboozling the American Electorate Again)

Copyright 2008 TheCityEdition.com

Despite some in the DNC carrying the water for the Obama campaign’s talking point that those unwilling to vote for Senator Obama must be racist, and a complicit media spreading this lie across the land like a filthy virus for reasons of their own, the truth of the matter is something they seem loathe to acknowledge.

People of good conscience who care neither about a person’s race, gender or age are concerned with far more important matters in choosing our President: a person’s character, solid leadership skills and a consistent record – or that they have any record at all. We are not concerned about bowling or bourbon shots. We could give a damn about pantsuits or logos.

We are in a mess in this country and we need a wise, experienced hand to lead us forward, not a puppet king. Those who have been around the block are not concerned with electing American Idol. We don’t need someone whose inexperience is only outweighed by his arrogance and disingenuous behavior. 300 million in this great nation have already experienced a similar debacle these past eight years with very unfortunate results.

Witness Nancy Pelosi’s June 24th interview with Greta Van Susteren of FOX News (videos):

Basically, when the Speaker of the House sits with a smile plastered on her face, pretending that we have a united party and does not give so much as a nod to 18 million disaffected Clinton voters, I have to wonder in what rarified air she encapsulates herself that a reality of this magnitude escapes her.

When the best thing Speaker Pelosi can say to counter Ms. Van Susteren’s concerns about Senator Obama’s inexperience or flip-flopping on critical policy questions is that he is “fresh” – well, forgive me, but this sounds like a feminine hygiene commercial, not a campaign talking point. Likewise, Pelosi states that Senator Obama’s lack of experience is one of his best selling points. Wake me. I must be dreaming. She as much as admitted the DNC wants a blank slate, i.e., a pawn to do their bidding. I would think his supporters would likewise find this as insulting as those who did not vote for him in the first place.

We are talking about electing Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and leader of the free world. Fresh? How about this one – “he’s a Washington outsider” – perhaps, but he is a Chicago Insider and has shown himself, along with David Axelrod and his surrogates, to be capable of and comfortable with the nastiest tactics ever devised by Mayor Daley’s corrupt political machine. Of the many disturbing occurrences in this primary cycle, the loss of fair reflection and the casting aside of democracy at the Rules & Credentials Committee meeting of May 31st is just one in a series of great disappointments. Other parts of this debacle have been discussed ad nauseum and I will not repeat them here.

For years, I stood in lock step with the DNC, despite their inability to choose winning candidates, despite the seeming spinelessness of some of their actions in Congress. I did so because I naively believe they were the party of the working man and woman. I used to refer to Republicans as the “Hooray for me, f*ck you, party.”

Forgive me, Republicans. I take it back. I know better now. You and I may never agree on an agenda. We may not see eye to eye on most things, but gone are the days I will feel like I am committing a crime just for checking out John McCain’s website. Gone are the days I will scream from the highest hill about the fixing of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. That these things did happen is not up for debate in my book.

But that Democrats have proven themselves just as capable of shenanigans as the Republicans has broken my naïve heart and I will not be won back by cheap promises or threats. It is for this reason I have left the party and registered as an Independent.

With the exclusion of some truly honorable public servants in our legislature, lately I have come to believe that the enmity between Democrats and Republicans is so much posturing, while party insiders, and that includes Senator Obama, just scream loudly on the Senate floor, yet kick the can down the road, without passing effective legislation that will really be of assistance to those most in need of it.

My friends and I did not spends days upon days at call centers getting out the vote in 2006 so that Democrats could take back Congress only to have Speaker Pelosi announce that “impeachment is off the table.”

Ironically, while Pelosi’s argument for selecting Obama is that he is “fresh,” he and the Democratic leadership have taken to threatening us with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, reactionary SCOTUS appointments, and a “100 year war in Iraq” in order to force our hands and get us to vote for their chosen messiah. Talk about employing the nuclear option.

I believe in attraction rather than promotion and I certainly do not believe in negative reinforcement the likes of, as a fellow traveler so eloquently put it, “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” Why the hell would any sensible person return to a party that invites them with nothing yet threatens them with the loss of their civil rights? Battered woman syndrome perhaps? Not something I suffer from, thanks.

Even the ultra conservative Justice Scalia has stated he would not overturn Roe vs. Wade as it would fly in the face of stare decisis; well settled law.

Furthermore, Republicans know that overturning this law would leave them without one of their favorite drums to beat at election time, and probably send them scurrying because the resulting uproar in this country would be uncontainable. Historically, Republican presidents have appointed conservative justices only to be disappointed by these judges’ rulings once they ascended to the bench. There is no barometer for how they will vote. My point – I will not be threatened into voting for anyone.

Does this behavior even sound like something Democrats would do? Does this sound like the party you thought you knew? If that is what the Democratic leadership is resorting to, then I tell you, just three weeks after they ‘anointed’ their candidate, they are very well aware he is in serious trouble.

But you get what you pay for and in shunning the clearly stronger candidate in this ultra-close nominating contest for packaging and a symbol, the DNC has backed itself into the unfortunate position of having to heap threats on top of deceit to keep the illusion alive.

If Senator Obama cannot step back from his out of control arrogance long enough even to acknowledge how much he needs the support of the large part of the Democratic base that has roundly rejected him with good reason, he has no hope of succeeding in this election. It would be wise for him to contain remarks like the one he made to Representative Diane Watson at a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus last week when he indicated that Clinton’s voters should “get over it.”

If the DNC leadership insists on beating us down with threats and branding us falsely, or worse, insisting there is no problem to begin with, then this ‘no lose’ year for the Democrats will see them become the world’s laughing stock, having once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Anyone reading this blog is familiar with my now-legendary YouTube video (here and here) where I exploded at the DNC and vowed to support Senator McCain - so I’ll spare you the rehashing of my story.

My vow has not changed and my beliefs have not waivered. Although the YouTube incident was somewhat unpleasant, I feel lucky to have the opportunity and platform to continue to speak up about the disingenuousness and overall political mischief perpetrated by the Democratic Party, most especially the misogynistic tactics that they exploited and employed this campaign season.

One of the most reprehensible characters in this fiasco has and continues to be Nancy Pelosi.

To get started - I would like to discuss the comments made yesterday by Nancy Pelosi on the topic of sexism and misogyny. Speaker Pelosi said she wanted to know more facts before she made a final pronouncement about sexism and the Clinton candidacy. “I myself find that I get a tremendous upside from being a woman and I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the sexist remarks that people make.” What an amazingly pompous, completely disconnected statement. I guess we can be thankful that she didn’t finish it off with “let them eat cake!”

Maybe in Nancy Pelosi’s rarefied life of wealth and power that were either inherited by her politically influential family or her husband – she doesn’t understand what sexism is. If Nancy feels there’s an upside to being a woman maybe that’s why she doesn’t want more women in powerful positions because that would diminish hers. Nancy Pelosi likes being a part of the old boys club instead of working to get rid of the old boys clubs so all Americans can have equal access to better positions.

Coupled with her ignorance or, rather, refusal to see the truth (subjective ignorance I guess), Ms. Pelosi also abused her power in the nomination process by favoring Mr. Obama. Admitting there was sexism would only prove that Ms. Pelosi was part of the process to nominate the weaker candidate. I’ve lived through the more inexperienced man getting the better jobs over and over again, however, the promotions were usually given by men – I find it more offensive when women participate in this behavior against other women.

Do we really need to rerun through the castration remarks, cackling, claws out comments or painful deconstruction of an honest, choked up moment to get a validation of the rampant sexism? Or will the new Democratic Party just start marketing a Nancy Pelosi stripper pole to compliment her upside of sexism viewpoint now that the Hillary Clinton Nutcracker has served its purpose?

I’ve read some articles over the past couple of days saying that PUMA voters and women in general - will fall in line and vote for Senator Obama in November. These articles use examples from previous elections to prove that party loyalists will vote with the party after the anger from a long primary fades.

I work as a waitress and most of my customers (women and men alike) feel the sexism was so obvious that they will either not vote or they will vote for McCain. I don’t think the political pundits who predict voters coming back to the Democratic Party realize the severity of this problem.

I would like to thank No Quarter for asking me to submit a post – this was a challenge but I’m sure it will be easier next time.