Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I would do anything for Hill...but I won't do that.

Hillary Clinton returned to the Senate yesterday for the first time since being forced from suspending her Presidential campaign on June 7.

"Anyone who voted for me has very little in common with the Republican Party," she said. "If you care about the issues I care about and the future that I outlined in my campaign, then you really have to stay with us in the Democratic Party and vote Senator Obama to be our next president.”

Sorry Senator Clinton, but I Just Say No Deal.

I know that you’re a loyal Democrat and that you believe that supporting Senator Obama is the right thing to do for the party.

But I’m interested in doing what’s right for the country.

I can’t vote for someone who allowed my franchise to be marginalized and then cut in half. Conducting a revote at the campaigns’ expense, something that you fought for and Obama declined, would have made us whole. His refusal to “do what’s right” because it would have jeopardized his coronation shows me that he’s more interested in his own political ambition than the democratic principles that this country was founded on.

I can’t vote for someone who has made a career out of running for higher office while being too busy to do the job he was elected to do. See this You Tube clip for his explanation on why he never held a hearing of the Subcommittee on European Affairs:



I can’t vote for someone who says one thing on the campaign trail while his advisors (or former advisors) say something else. (See Samantha Power, Austin Goolsbee, Colin Kahl) We’re already seeing the effects of such conflicting statements with Obama’s own recent reversals on public financing and telecom immunity.

I’m sorry Hillary, but there’s nothing that you can say or do to convince me to vote for this man. It’s not your fault, although the Democrats and Obama’s minions will lay the blame with you anyway, but he sets off too many red flags for me ignore. I simply do not believe that he will do what he promises.

So what am I prepared to do, as Manolo Minx so rightfully asked?

I will continue to champion your signature cause, true universal health care with mandates. I will also vote for down-ticket Democrats who supported you and your platform to keep whomever is elected Commander-in-Chief in check. And I will continue to hope that the superdelegates realize that you’re the best person for the job, no matter how fleeting that hope may be.

But I will not vote for Obama.

NOTE: My original position of being against revotes to enfranchise Florida and Michigan was predicated on them being funded at taxpayers' expense.

Friday, June 13, 2008

My vote cost an arm and a leg this year


Thanks go out to PatRacimora over at No Quarter for the graphic.

Apparently the DNC & RBC thinks the voters in Michigan and Florida only have half a brain left too. Are we supposed to be using our left brain or right brain now? Are we going to suffer phantom itches where the other half of our vote is supposed to be? It is too late for Dr. Dean to fix this up. We're not crash test voter dummies.

Make sure to read Piper's eyewitness account of the sham May 31st RBC meeting. Also Iphie over at Corrente has a couple of first person accounts of the meeting: Initial thoughts on RBC debacle, and a followup post with More from RBC meeting.

SHAM: The DNC Rules & Bylaws Meeting

Author's Note: I apologize for the delay of this post. I'm currently working with hireheels.com and justsaynodeal.com.

Sista and I were at the DNC holdup meeting that took place this past Saturday in DC. We were also among those who chanted “Den-VER, Den-VER” as the robbery occurredrulings were being handed down. Here is the back story on what happened.

On Friday night, the group of protesters gathered in room 5201 at the scene of the crime Marriott Wardman Hotel to review the protocol for the demonstrations. We were told where we could (and couldn’t) stand to ensure that we respected the hotel’s property. We were told not to say anything derogatory about Senator Obama to the media as this demonstration was about democracy: nothing more, nothing less. We were also told to wear patriotic colors as opposed to pro-Hillary gear to keep our support neutral. (Fashion disclosure: I did wear my Hillary for President ballcap that Sista gave me to keep my scalp from being sunburned. My bad.)

Rumors had been swirling that most of the meeting credentials were given to Obama supporters ahead of Tuesday’s online registration. Two of us in our group did manage to get The Golden Ticket so that they could witness the theftattend the meeting. The rest of us decided Friday that we would either stand outside with the rest of demonstrators or take our chances on the same-day registration that was promised on the DNC Web site.

As I walked around the lobby of the crime scene hotel, I noticed many people wearing Obama gear, including one person with a DNC credential sporting a rhinestone “Obama 2008” pin. Biased much?

Same-day registration turned out to be a joke. Gucci Guy and two others from our group got on line 5:00 am in hopes of getting credentials. They were among the first of a long line of Clinton supporters waiting to gain entrance into the burglary meeting. As Sista and I protested, we learned that the DNC wasn’t letting anyone in despite having empty seats available. Our spies later told us that pro-Obama people outnumbered Hillary supporters four-to-one, and that they were allowed to ‘make some noise’ throughout the proceedings without being admonished by the crime lords committee members. The DNC obviously stacked the meeting with Obama supporters to control the narrative. We weren’t having any of that.

During the break, Sista, Gucci Guy, me, and the rest of our group managed to procure credentials. We sat in the balcony waiting patiently for the pilfering of Hillary’s delegates meeting to start. An older white woman sitting next to us noticed the relative youth and diversity of our group and assumed that we were for Obama. She was shocked to learn that we had not sipped the kool-aid.

You know what happened next. The RBC ruled that the Florida delegation would be seated in full with half a vote, effectively making me and Princess half a person. This is what prompted us to chant “Den-VER”. But it was the ruling on Michigan that inflamed us the most. We cheered as Harold Ickes layed the smackdown on the DC cartel other committee members and reserved Senator Clinton’s right to contest this decision at the convention. We were incensed when another member of the mafiacommittee praised Senator Obama for his ‘leadership’ in the matter, ‘Leadership’, I thought to myself as the crowd grew louder and more defiant. ‘Refusing re-votes and stealing delegates is not leadership. It’s thievery.’

The most vocal of the Clinton supporters were the older white women who felt as they were thrown into the glass ceiling by their own party. “What about Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina,” one yelled from the seats below us. “I came here for the vote of every American, and our Democratic party threw us down the tubes. I was a second class citizen before. Now I’m nothing,” said Harriett Christian of Manhattan as she was being escorted from the proceedings. Her post-DNC debacle rant has since had over 1 million views on YouTube.



The RBC ruled to split the Michigan delegates 60-40 and awarded all of the uncommitted delegates to Obama despite having removed his name from the ballot. In that instant, everything we thought that democracy was had been ripped from us. I sat in shock as I realized that our electoral process was not based on ‘one person, one vote’, but rather on a back room deal made by DC power brokers over a three-martini lunch.

Our group grew louder and more defiant. Gucci Guy started a new chant of “Madame President”. We attempted to walk out of the meeting, but security was told to lock the doors until the gavel had been struck.

When the doors finally opened, the glare of the klieg lights was upon us. The media had swarmed the most enraged while ignoring those of us who were seething yet calm. I was interviewed by someone from Sirus satellite radio who was shocked-shocked!-that I would hold Obama accountable for the decision handed down by the mob DNC. (Note to Sirius: Re-votes would have made us whole. Obama refused re-votes. End of story.)

I was able to approach Donna Brazile, who had been smiling like a Cheshire-Katherine Harris when the dust settled. I asked her what rule I had broken by participating in my state’s primary. She gave me a lecture on ‘teh rulez’ and on the actions of my elected officials. (Funny, I don’t remember my congressperson running on a platform of disenfranchisement. Odd.) She further told me about the horrible e-mails and death threats that she had received from Hillary supporters who were not honoring a woman who she had known for 16 years. She then invited me to e-mail her. I may take her up on that offer later today.

But she never answered my question. I left the Marriott Wardman feeling a lot more jaded and a little less like a Democrat. I still feel like that today, and I’ll probably feel like that in November.