This Floridian-turned-PUMA says NO DEAL to opportunist-in-chief

The One has graciously asked the DNC Credentials Committee to reinstate the delegations of Florida and Michigan and restore their voting power in full:
“As we prepare to come together in Denver, however, we must be -- and will be -- united in our determination to change the course of our nation. To that end, Democrats in Florida and Michigan must know that they are full partners and colleagues in our historic mission to reshape Washington and lead our country in a new direction. Accordingly, I ask that the credentials committee... pass a resolution that would entitle each delegate from Florida and Michigan to cast a full vote."
Thanks Barack! How generous of you to allow us wayward voters back under the big tent just in time to witness the circus and spectacle of your coronation! I’m so glad that we can be considered “full partners and colleagues” now that the primaries are over and you have nothing to lose from our votes being counted. You are the very embodiment of voter rights and political courage!

Hey Barry, you know when a statement like this would have been helpful? During the primary season when it still mattered. Or on May 31 at the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing. Just sayin’.

Seriously, Senator Sweetie, if you didn’t want our votes while they were still meaningful, and, you know, could actually affect the outcome of the race, why should you expect that we give them to you now?

You shouldn’t.

You allowed us to be shut out of our party’s nominating process simply because the results weren’t in your favor.

You could have held revotes to make us whole.

You could have allowed the RBC to recognize the primary results and grant the delegates full voting power back in May.

You did neither. Instead, you did what was politically expedient and were rewarded for it by getting votes and delegates that you didn’t earn.

Thanks, but no thanks. This Floridian says NO DEAL, and she has a suggestion on where you should stick that olive branch.

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.

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.

Count Our Votes Rally--May 31

Members of the Black Sheep Delegation are traveling to Washington DC to attend the May 31 meeting of the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee. This meeting will determine the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegates. We will deliver the petition signatures and demand that our voices are heard and our votes are counted.

Hillary Clinton made a speech in Florida yesterday about the importance of our franchise:



Hillary made a beautiful, poignant argument about why our votes should be counted. It's one that I've been making all along: the voters shouldn't be punished for actions that are beyond their control, especially when 'teh roolz' that prohibit that action are being changed and applied arbitrarily to game the system.

The voters aren't responsible for the pissing contest that is going on between the DNC and the state Democratic parties, yet we're are the ones being pissed on.

This issue shouldn't be about a candidate or even a political party. It's about democracy. As long as someone is eligible to vote, no rule or restriction, such as voter ID, should prevent them from doing so.

Obama supporters should want Florida and Michigan to count

Obama supporters, do you feel lucky? Well, do you?

On February 7, 2008, I started a petition demanding that the Democratic National Committee recognize the results of the primaries that were held in Michigan and Florida. At the time, I thought that this was a cause that all Democrats could rally behind, especially after the debacle of 2000.

I was wrong.

It appears that support for the petition is dependent upon the candidate that one favors. Hillary Clinton supporters want the votes from these states to be counted. Barack Obama supporters do not.

It shouldn’t be that way.

It’s true that counting the votes of these ‘renegade’ primaries would benefit Hillary Clinton, but anyone who thinks that’s why we should recognize the will of the people in these states is being incredibly shortsighted. Recent history and a quick look at a map of the Electoral College should tell anyone that.

The last two elections were incredibly close. Democrats won Michigan in 2000 and 2004, but (debatably) lost Florida and Ohio each time. A win in either of these states would have stopped the disastrous presidency of George W Bush.

If voters in Michigan and Florida are disenfranchised this primary season for a rules violation that was beyond their control, these two states will assuredly turn red this November.

Michigan and Florida Democrats will not forget how their party cast them aside and unfairly stripped them of all influence this year, especially when the rules that the DNC is currently hiding behind only called for a 50% reduction in delegates.

They also will not forget how Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina were permitted to break those same rules without penalty.

The DNC’s draconian punishment, a pathetic attempt to make an example of Michigan and Florida, has caused the voters of these states to be portrayed as rule breakers, as children who stole an Oreo from the cookie jar of democracy and must be given a time-out.

This treatment is both demeaning and insulting, and it is alienating Democratic voters in these states. Evidence of this has already been seen in Florida. According to a poll conducted by the Miami Herald in March, 25 percent of Florida Democrats will be less likely to support the party in the general election if Florida is shut out of the nomination process. This leaves a huge opening for the GOP in the fall.

The Republicans handled their primary scheduling dilemma correctly. Besides Florida and Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Wyoming also held their contests in violation of Republican National Committee rules. But rather than curry favor with some states at the expense of others, the RNC followed their own rules and stripped them of half of their delegates.

The states were punished equally, and all of the primaries were considered relevant in determining who the Republican candidate for president would be. This will be a powerful argument that the GOP can use against the Democratic candidate in the general election when competing for votes in Florida and Michigan. It’s an argument that John McCain has already begun to deploy:



So I’ll ask the question of Obama supporters again: do you feel lucky? Should Obama get the party’s nomination with a 48-state strategy, do you think that he’ll be able to put Florida and Michigan in the win column, even as he blocked revotes those states? Do you think that the 2.3 million voters who participated in the rogue January primaries will just fall in line behind a candidate who doesn’t think that they should be counted, especially a state that had been wronged in the past? Well, do you?

I don’t.

If Florida and Michigan voters do not have a meaningful role to play in the selection of a presidential nominee now, while it still matters, don’t expect them to support the party in November.

Think about that the next time you feel compelled to wag your finger at them while shouting the DNC mantra “rules are rules”.

UPDATE 4/15: SusanUnPC of No Quarter makes the same argument about the Electoral College by citing a new Rasmussen poll.