I’m pissed at Hillary for all of these followers of hers who claim that they’ll be voting for McCain now that she’s not on the ticket. I know it’s got to be flattering to have supporters willing to destroy the country for you, but enough is enough. Unless she wants to go down in history as the woman who made a third Bush term possible, she’d better give one hell of a speech tonight, and put the fear of almighty God into them.
Oh, and this is Debra:
Debra is a delegate pledged to Clinton who says she’ll be voting for McCain. It’s probably also worth pointing out that Debra, incorrectly, thinks McCain is pro-choice.
Sorry, but I’m pissed. I’m pissed that Hillary let it come to this. I’m pissed that she took the low road during her campaign, giving McCain the ammunition he’s using now to to attack Obama and tear the party apart. And, I’m pissed at the 27% of her supporters who say they’ll vote for McCain.
It makes me insane that these people don’t see that McCain is using them and their anger to drive a wedge through the heart of the Democratic party. And it pisses me off that they don’t see that a vote for McCain is a vote against the right to choose, a vote for reckless preemptive war, a vote for right wing Supreme Court justices, a vote for tax cuts for the rich, and a vote against universal healthcare. I can understand how it is that they might still be pissed, but I don’t see how they could, if they really believed in Hillary’s platform, cast a vote for John McCain. It’s unconscionable… Clinton’s got to publicly call these people out tonight and tell them that they have to put the future of the country before their own feelings of perceived injustice.
27 Comments
I think she did a good job, but I was hoping for more. I would have liked for her to have personally addressed her supporters who say they’ll be voting for McCain. And I would have liked for her to have explained how she came to support Obama after having said that he was unfit to lead. But, all things considered, it was a good speech.
I was an ardent Clinton supporter. But, I spoke up to support Obama right away.
I wonder how many of these Hillary supporters who are now supporting McCain are really just closet racists. They’re just giving their vote to the white candidate.
Hey, someone has to bring it up.
Check their voting records. Hillary votes more like McCain than Obama. Just like her husband, she spouts off a lot of liberal talk and then votes to the right of center. When people challenge her, she can point to things she has said in the past as “fighting in the trenches” but when push comes to shove, both Bushes, both Clintons, and McCain all push the same agenda. Hillary’s criticism of McCain last night was not near as damaging as her criticism of Obama during the primaries.
When the decisions get tough, Obama either doesn’t vote or else votes “present”. He speaks ideologically and has such a short track record that there’s relatively fewer negatives than someone with a 30 year public record. At best, Obama’s oratory skills will enthuse his base, but just like Carter, his lack of cred with those inside the beltway will result in an administration unable to accomplish anything. If he’s elected, in two years Republicans will take back control of both the House and Senate and gridlock will result. The level of hatred between the parties will grow even more vitriolic and the power brokers will chuckle and slap each other on their backs and count their stacks of money.
Haven’t you ever thought that all of this perpetual talk of division within the Democratic party and people flocking to McCain is Republican engineered and far more rare in reality than in the news?
Far more people are flocking from the Republican party to Obama this year than flocking to that party due to Clinton. Speaking of this rare phenomenon in the news all the time diverts attention from the real shifts going on in American politics.
The Republicans have made a disaster of this country and of countries around the world, and more so, they have done that destruction by strictly conforming to their defunct party platform. That story should should be honestly told, and so to the new hope (and numbers) that Obama has brought to the Democratic and will continue to bring in coming years as he diversifies the party.
Clinton’s speech was spot on. Directly calling out the PUMAs would have given disproportionate attention to a marginal group. Much more effective was this appeal to her supporters:
“I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?”
I also think it would not have been worthwhile for Hillary to talk about how her view of Obama has changed. I’m sure that she still thinks that she would have been a better nominee, so for her to make up some narrative about a change of heart would have rung false. It was much better to remind her supporters of what’s at stake in this campaign:
“Well, John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s OK when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work. Now, with an agenda like that, it makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.”
Why does anyone think that McCain is pro-choice? Didn’t he say that he would work to outlaw abortion just last week?
I am pissed that you believe the media hype that 27% of Hillary Supporter won’t vote democrat.
I don’t believe the statistic at all. How do we know that the people that make up the mysterious 27% actually were EVER were Hillary supporters!!! Prove it to me (I bet carl rove is behind this lie -paying people to say these things). Show me that this 27% are card carrying members of the Democratic party.
A TRUE democrat… would never think of voting for a Republican alive today!
IF this statistic is true it’s the national party’s fault for not educating and recruiting members of the party itself, for just recruiting voters every FOUR years, and not working year round all the time to make the party strong.
Keep feeding the Republican machine. That is what they are SO fucking good at…negative tatics to get what they want. And here you are a Democratic Blogger once again feeding the machine by basically insulting your own party and feeding the rumors.
If this statistic is true be pissed at the National Democratic Party for not growing the party at its roots. But you and other bloggers going on and on about Hillary supports are just hurting party and spreading crap.
Sorry but it IS historic what Hillary (a WOMAN) achieved in this election, It’s the process and how the the democratic convention works, delegates, super delegates, etc. If you don’t like that she ran so long, then get active in the National party and change the fucking rules. There are traditions at play in this convention, and her act of formally giving her delegates to Obama is important and significant for women.
Give the CLintons some credit !!! My god they are for the people and the party. Hillary Clinton made history of women, I think that is fuckin important. And she wanted to have it “in the history books” maybe for herself, but I really think she pushed to the end for all women.
I voted for Edwards, will vote Obama…I am a democrat. I will campaign one more year, but if we loose I will blame people like you that has to continue to bash on Hillary. Where is your party unity?
Turn off MSNBC and start to really think about statistics before you repeat them and comment on them.
And about idiot McCain…he WAS pro-choice for many years…but drank the “kool aid”.
The Republicans have made a disaster of this country and of countries around the world, and more so, they have done that destruction by strictly conforming to their defunct party platform.
Well that’s just a blatant untruth. The last part, I mean. The neocons, former Democrats, hijacked the Republican party by demonizing the left and fooling the base with empty talk of limited government, abortion, State’s rights, and gun-rights, then went back on their rhetoric and made it a party of big government foreign/domestic interventionists, which is in no way its traditional party platform by a long shot.
Wiki Definition of Neoconservatism
Traditional Republican rebuke of Neoconservatism by good ol’ crazy Ron Paul
Youtube version of same
I’m not trying to annoyingly promote the now irrelevant Mr. Paul, I’m just trying to get the facts straight regarding Neocons here.
No worries. Running a black guy for president, you should expect a lot of defections. I thought we all knew that.
The point is that we’re expecting more than enough new voters and defections from the other side to make up for it. Wasn’t that the plan?
It might be best just to treat these people with respect for now. Once Obama gets in and appoints Hillary to Secretary of State or to the Supreme Court or something, they will adore him.
“It makes me insane that these people don’t see that McCain is using them and their anger to drive a wedge through the heart of the Democratic party. And it pisses me off that they don’t see that a vote for McCain is a vote against the right to choose, a vote for reckless preemptive war, a vote for right wing Supreme Court justices, a vote for tax cuts for the rich, and a vote against universal healthcare.”
McCain’s record shows he prefers to compromise with liberal Democrats than deal with the base of his own party. He has blithely thrown his party under the bus as part of the “gang of…” efforts in the Senate. He LOVES Democrats – he has no desire to drive a wedge in the heart of the Democratic Party. What tripe!
Just because those famous Reagan Democrats are finally out from under the thrall of Clinton is no reason to fuss!
Nora Ephron from the Huffington Post
My favorite part of Hillary Clinton’s speech last night was when she admonished her followers not to put their affection for her over the issues. When she reminded them that what’s at stake is far more crucial than their loyalty to her. When she reproved them for thinking for even a moment that her historic thrilling campaign was more important than the real campaign to defeat the Republicans.
Where any of her followers could have gotten the idea doesn’t seem to have crossed her mind. The fish stinks from the head down. The Clintons’ narcissism (and yes, I know, it’s an overused term but if there was ever a moment for it in our national life, this is it) perfumed every bit of Hillary’s campaign, and it leaked down to her contributors and followers. “Were you in it for me” was her funniest line of the night.
In this morning’s Times there’s a piece about the Hillraisers, the people who raised over $300,000 for Hillary, many of whom are apparently bitter and angry that they were not given rooms in the Denver Ritz-Carlton, as the early Obama fundraisers were. They are so mad, according to the Times, that many of them are flying home today and deliberately missing Obama’s speech on Thursday….
I’m sure that there were many people who supported Hillary Clinton just because she was a woman and didn’t care what party she belonged to. The Republican set is just going back to the group they supported already.
Personally, I think Indecision 2008 (Comedy Central) put it best…
“One of the big things that all the Democrats and media like to get worried about is the seemingly large percentage of Clinton supporters who seem poised to jump ship from the donkey party if — when — Barack Obama wins the nomination.
I will agree that it makes perfect sense to do something like that- To choose to vote for someone whose values are completely at odds with your own just because some guy had the nerve to run a successful campaign against your candidate of choice. I mean, that’s what a smart, thinking, reasonable person would do, right?
I’m still convinced that we should saddle the country with a heavily conservative-weighted Supreme Court for the next several decades just because the historic female candidate who who was forced to deal with overt sexism lost out the historic black candidate who was forced to deal with overt racism.”
Is it too late for an Obama/Stewart ’08 ticket?
The real question is how many of the “27% of Hillary voters” would have voted for her in November if she had won the nomination. The Democratic primaries went on long after the Republican primaries so in states with open primaries, plenty of Republicans voted for Hillary to extend the primary fight as long as possible. I voted for McCain in the 2000 Michigan primary against Bush and voted for Gore in the general. I suspect most of those “Hillary Voters” are not and never were Democrats, just as I am not and never was a Republican.
Kirk: “I voted for McCain in the 2000 Michigan primary against Bush and voted for Gore in the general. I suspect most of those “Hillary Voters” are not and never were Democrats, just as I am not and never was a Republican.”
Shocked, shocked, shocked I am that any Democrat would deliberately choose to vote in a Republican primary! Truly this is a scandal of infinitesimal proportions!
Everyone needs to quit worrying. Obama will be our next president.
Nope.
Don’t worry about a thing. Nader will steal votes from McCain, giving Obama Texas, Ohio, and Michigan to put him over the top in the electoral vote count!
In the meantime, keep a close eye out for local swine exhibiting barnstorming characteristics…
Something like a million people voted for Ron Paul in the primaries. That should split between Obama and Barr. TOPS, 25% to McCain. Tops. Probably way less.
Not big numbers, but numbers nonetheless.
Fucking Democrats. I always like them until I see the en masse at the fucking convention, waving fucking flags and talking about how they’ll fucking save me and mine money.
Fucking fear-mongering greedy, populist patronizing Patriots.
Because, you know, saving US Americans money, and saving US from AIDS (fuck Africa), and saving US from foreign oil, and US from violence is the fucking most important thing in the fucking world.
God bless US, every one.
(Don’t get me wrong, I’m voting for Obama, I’m just sick to bloody hell of what plays in politics. And, I’m over tired, and feeling pissy. Which is usually what makes me vote for Nader.)
McCain will win. There are many people who just won’t be able to bring themselves to vote for a black guy, no matter what they say right now. McCain will win and we’ll have 8 more years of this nonsense.
OEC, I hope you’re feeling better today.
Debra was a McCain supporter from the get-go, is my guess. This is a ploy to trick dummies who don’t know how they feel now the Clinton is out of the race.
McCain thinks former Clinton supporters will vote for him. However, I think the Debra chick is a fake.
Just what we need, another conspiracy theory… …Debra was actually Sarah Palin in disguise! …or wait, maybe Debra was Karl Rove in drag! “Her” voice was a bit deep after all!
Don’t worry, be happy man.
Cousin Geoff,
Thank you. I am. It happens every election. America is great and all, I just get very pissy every convention season at the thought that our interests are the highest and mightiest … that our comfort level is the moral high ground.
I did like Obama’s bit a lot though, so that helped.
Now, I should take a deep breath before the next deluge…
I kinda liked Ol’E Cross’ swearing fit. I knew we could eventually get to him.