... On PUMAS, and Hillary's Army
clinton, Culture, puma 9:30 AM
To many outsiders, the Just Say No Deal Coalition truly appears to be an army without a war.Many who know my involvement with the Hillary for President movement remind me that the nominating process is 'over' and that I as well as my fellow disheartened warriors should 'move on'.
It's. Not. That. Simple.
I came across a quote today that really jumped off the page as an excellent parallel to why we can't 'just let go' and 'move on' so quickly:
"Every great movement - social, political, or religious - in its infancy, is marked by militancy. Its faithful shine with a spirit of sacrifice, a willingness to accept defeat and humiliation rather than compromise principle. Its True Believers are impatient, to the point of intolerance, with the half-hearted and the half-committed. He who is not with us is against us. That is the way we were." -Pat Buchanon on the Barry Goldwater campaignAnd in truth, that's the way we Clinton supporters were. Except that many of us still are. We are still battleready and irate because this cause has, before our very eyes and under our very noses, transcended one person. Between our first loss and our first win in January, we realized the importance of standing up to keep the dream alive of Hillary as POTUS. Then, somewhere during a long string of losses and setbacks, we became driven by something larger.
At the onset of this campaign season, Bill Clinton rightly said that we don't have to be 'against' any candidate. But as time wore on, and voting began, it was instantly clear who the frontrunners would be: first three, then two.
Various voting blocs assembled into coalitions, and those coalitions broadened and deepened as each passing state had its say.
But as the candidates brought their arguments to voters, an interesting thing happened - the campaigns - and indeed the candidates themselves - transformed. Barack Obama's campaign became less and less about hope and change for the people of America and more about the man himself - the icon. Hillary Clinton's campaign became less about herself and more about the people she's always fought for. He became the frontrunner, and she the underdog.
Then came Texas and Ohio.
Winning those states that night was truly a divine victory not just for Hillary but perhaps even more so for those of us who had fallen in love with her through the campaign. Those of us who believed in her vision, who dreamed her dream, and who held her hand through ten straight losses.
It was our turn.
And that March night did indeed mark a turning point in many ways. Texas and Ohio began a huge wave of momentum at the ballot box that couldn't be stopped by superdelegates and the media suggesting that that voters should give up and let the other guy march on toward the nomination.
In fact, between March and June our girl won more contests, collected more votes, and even on the final day of voting, she carried a state while he carried a state. The home stretch was very good to us.You must keep in mind that through these ups and downs, many of us weren't sitting idly by and hoping for victory. Nay, we were on the phones, working email banks, talking to superdelegates and every voter that would listen to persuade them that we knew what we were talking about - that we need a president that will do more than make us 'feel good.'
And people listened.
So, after a hard fought battle, a razor-thin margin, and a dead heat all the way across the finish line, why wouldn't we be eager to fight on?When all way said and done, more people signed on to our cause. By a margin of 18.1 million to 17.9 million, more voters in fact pulled the lever for us.
We won the hearts and minds of women, working class whites, latinos, asians, gays and lesbians, the people of the border states and the swing states.How then could we not be baffled that our nominee isn't the nominee? How do we just 'get over' the party forcing Hillary out of the race? How do we accept a convention with no roll call vote?
"For so many of my supporters, just like so many of Barack's supporters, this was a first-time investment of heart and soul and money and effort and sleepless nights and miles of travel. You just don't turn it off like that." -Hillary Clinton in Palo Alto, CA at a unity event.Don't the voices of the 18.1 million people, the most ever for a primary candidate, matter to the party?
Ponder these thoughts when you catch yourself asking why we don't move on and get in line. It's a movement much bigger than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and certainly much bigger than myself.
If that makes you uncomfortable... "Just get over it!"
Posted by Nick Stone
on 9:30 AM.
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Great Story,But Better Ending,Beautiful
Some of us have simply been taking a breath here. Fellow solders are moving into position. It's time to advance. Beating in all of us is the heart of an American patriot, and when we hear the name Hillary Clinton, it beats a little faster. We're ready to fight.
You got it. This is bigger than Clinton and Obama. The "hard left" has taken over the DNC and they have to be stopped. They didn't like the Clintons because they were center-left and had too much power, so they set out to cripple them and put a puppet in the Presidency.
But win or lose, the DNC will still be here next election cycle and the one after that, so they're going to have to be ousted if we want to take the party back.
BTW The DNC's plan is good old socialist populism. It's worked many other places - when things are bad, you tell everyone they have a common enemy, such as oil companies or Wall Street bankers or Washington insiders, and that they're standing up for "the people". Obama's latest "Robin Hood" energy policy is the shape of things to come.
It's actually much harder to govern like Clinton did, where you set long term goals for the country that our designed to strengthen it. The Obamabots recognize that, which is why they demean and discredit him.
Pumas.....America before Party
Make your vote count in November
Save America from disaster..
Senex, Ireland
I understand your loss. I just do not agree with the premise that because things did not work your way, then you need to destroy everything and everyone else. There are many more voters than 18,000,000. There are more than 200,000,000 Americans trying to get rid of a government that sends its people to die in a war for oil, that takes away people's jobs, that takes away people's right to own a home, that takes away the possibility for people to have medical benefits...That is many more that 18,000,000 voters.
If you value your right to destroy and divide more than the rights and needs of a whole country, then, there is nothing in my heart that can in any way support your anger or your actions.
Anonymous - you do not understand my loss. You keep thinking in electoral terms as set by the media and DNC- the "clinching". In fact, no candidate lost, no candidate won - the nomination is to be settled at the convention as no candidate won it in the primary (the minimum 2135 delegates).
My loss, a the present moment is the democratic process. It's also the belief that while the GOP were the election thieves, the dems were the honorable victims.. Now I have seen it - they both do it. I'll be damn if I'll accept this!
While I certainly understand your discontent with Barack Obama, the fact that you are even considering voting for John McCain is just unbelievable to me. A man who has said nothing this campaign the gay community, except that he thinks that your right to get married is non-existent, will probably get your vote?!
While your total distrust of Barack Obama also baffles me to a degree, I can not see how you don't feel that John McCain is any MORE trustworthy? This man has changed his mind almost every step of the way. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI
Even going so far as to lie about an important moment in his life (one that there was even a movie based on!), simply to pander to the down he was in (this is just disgraceful). See:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/in-pennsylvania.html
It's stunning to me that you are going to base this over your vague "feeling" of distrust, rather than actually stepping back and seeing whose viewpoints and stances on issues most closely correspond with your favorite (but ultimately unseated) candidate.
Your CAUSE? The HARD LEFT? Oh my God! LIke the 12 people left in this country who believe there should be a truly progressive government even matter...
I'm sorry Senator Clinton lost, too. She's a huge intellect, and was once guided by beliefs and principles. Like McCain, however, her calculations on where to go to be electable betrayed her beliefs and in the end cost her the nomination. What more is there to say?
As for the Clintons being centrist, yes, that's true, in the sense that the center has been pushed so far right over the past 30 years as to be just shy of fascist. Sadly, Senator Obama has tacked rightward as well in the general election in a dubious effort to win the votes of red state "moderates" who believe we are a christian nation whose destiny is manifesting as we speak. Phaaaaah.
At this point, the only thing left for a liberal such as myself is to buck up and hope for a unified party to prevent further right-wing appointees to the courts.
So, yes. Take a breath. Think really hard about what comes next. Mrs. Clinton has a bright future, it just doesn't include the White House.
The NY Times recently ran a story about Hillary's tepid support of Obama, this is unacceptable!!!
It is long past the time when you Hillary whining hens need to get off your ample asses and start to support Obama.
He won, you lost, GET OVER IT and get in line.
Thank you HECTORB for reminding us of exactly the type of remarks that we've taken from Obama's kool-aid drinking supporters throughout the contests. Your snide and condescending attitude is precisely the fuel that stokes our drive to pursue our goals of a better campaign. Thank you, sincerely!
HectorB may have put it a little crudely. But he has a point. By now all of this raging is beginning to look to me like one big long hissy fit that can’t be turned off.
I’ve seen comments about “election stealing”, etc. but, to me, election stealing is the kind of thing that happened in Florida in 2004 and I never saw anything like that in the primaries. And yet, you’d vote for the very people who made that Florida chicanery happen. That’s a move that could only be compared to someone slicing off her nose because she’s ticked off at her face.
Obama has the delegates, there isn’t going to be a massive write in vote for Hillary, and all you’re going to do in November is be a Nadar spoiler. I like Hillary; always have. But voting for McCain for president just because you can’t vote on Hillary is an unbelievable act – like if you can’t have ice cream you’ll just take arsenic, thank you very much. It’s almost as if you don’t think it matters who is President of the U.S., as long as it’s a woman. Well, it matters to me. I don’t want four more years of the GOP and those seriously scary neocons. And if you actually vote for McCain just out of spite and he wins, then you will deserve what you get the next four years. But the rest of the country doesn’t deserve it.
Oops! Looked again at my above comment and saw I need to correct a typo! Let’s hear it for the Supreme Court and their “unbiased” election calling. I meant the election stealing was in 2000, although there was plenty of chicanery still going around in 2004.
Mojomama,
First let me say, what you have to say is fair. It is. You have expressed very valid concerns, and I can see why someone like me completely switching sides in a war of such importance can seem like an act of childishness and spite.
You will probably not be surprised at all to hear that to me, it's not that simple. I try not to speak for others, but am compelled to stand up against something that I feel is an important, substantive and glaring misunderstanding. A lot of us who voted for Hillary in the primaries are livid, and we feel victimized. Not because she didn't win, but because of how she lost. We're not all just bitter 90 year old women with 10 cats.
Speaking as a Floridian, especially, I take my vote very seriously - and I should. 537 of us put GW Bush in the White House in 2001. Sincerely, I apologize for that. We really botched that one. The Republicans definitely used the US Supreme Court and some voodoo recount methods to get to that number, and many of us are pissed off about it.
But in 2008, it wasn't the Republicans that screwed us. It was the Democrats. That hurts twice as much. The Michigan matter was a mess, and voters there definitely got screwed with their pantsuits on. But in Florida too, some funny politics brought us to the delegate amounts we received.
First, we were told that our votes would count for nothing. We came out to the polls in record numbers anyway. Hillary wanted our voices to count because frankly she needed our delegates, but also because she really does care about our voices being heard. Barack Obama stood directly in the way of revotes in FL and MI until he remembered that he'd have to come back to both of these states in the Fall and beg for our votes once again. We got stuck with a half vote each, and that's fine.
It wasn't until Hillary Clinton had conceded and it appeared as though her name wouldn't even go into nomination that Obama sent a letter to the DNC rules committee and asked that our full votes be restored 'in the name of unity and moving forward'. Read this way:
"Dear DNC Rules Committee:
Now that I clearly won with or without them, and now that the delegates can probably only cast a ballot for me at the convention anyway, and because I don't want these constituents to be pissed off at me when I beg them for their votes in November, I've decided to get off my high horse and put democracy above politics.
Go ahead and give the whiney bastards in Michigan and Florida a full vote.
Arrogantly yours,
Barack Hussein Obama"
So, we have some complaints against the DNC. If this is missing the forest for the trees, or cutting off our noses despite our faces, then so be it. But we have to send a message to the party that you can't pick and choose which ones of us are important. 18 million people came out for Clinton, 18 million for Obama. So let's not act like it wasn't a razor close election.
Also on a final, but important thought, many of us that voted for Clinton ACTUALLY like John McCain and value some of what he stands for. Clinton was a center-left candidate, so it's not that surprising that some of us would choose the best candidate over brand loyalty when it comes to the leader of our nation.
Don't be surprised if Florida again picks the next president. I hope we get it right this time, and we just have to live with the fact that we don't necessarily agree on which one the 'right guy' is. That's democracy in action.