THIS is Unity?

The debate on who will be the nominee for the Democratic party is over. Sound familiar? As said with another "hot" issue, anytime someone tells you something is over, bunker down. The real fighting hasn't even started yet.

It's one of the most tenuous, shakey alliances in recent political history. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Two bitter rivals for the same position coming together for the sake of party unity. It's a coalition of great idea and sound concept, built on a foundation resting in quicksand.

Why?

Because a large and growing number of Hillary supporters are walking away in disgust at being forced with the prospect of Barack Obama as the nominee for the Democratic party in the November elections.

Despite the media events, the public rallies, and photo op after photo op showing a smiling Clinton and Obama greeting the assembled, things are far from well with the Democratic party base. The party is in trouble. And it's in denial about the trouble that it faces.

Unity was spared the banality of unanimity.

Carmella Lewis, with her Hillary T-shirt and Hillary placard, came all the way from Denver to make sure there would be plenty of ambiguity, duality and ferocity in Unity.

Just as Hillary was testing out the unfamiliar familiarity “Barack and me” Friday and talking about “his grace and his grit,” Carmella began loudly booing and waving her sign.

“We want Hillary!” screamed the 57-year-old retired ad saleswoman and Clinton delegate.

“It’s over, lady!” yelled some Obama supporters a few yards away.

But is it really over, at that?

Dissension in the ranks begins with the formation of such grass roots movements as PUMA and the determination of existing groups of Clinton supporters such as HireHeels.com, working as a loose confederation, called Just Say No Deal, representing a large and growing number of women voters who state that they will do whatever it takes to ensure that Barack Obama is not elected to office. These women, who supported and believed in Clinton, backing her to the end and beyond, are not ready to simply "let go" after seeing their candidate leading in popular votes but losing to a slim margin of delegates.

In actuality, I can understand their reasoning, as can, perhaps, other southerners observing the situation, better than voters in other parts of the country, for reasons of our own and a shared concept of another dream that was taken away from it's supporters.

In response mainly to PUMA, the forerunner organization spearheading the Hillary backers in self-imposed exile, Governor Ed Rendell has formed a PRO-Unity group that goes by, interestingly enough, HOUND (Hillary-Obama-United-Not-Divided). The purpose behind Rendell's group is to ensure that there IS party unity and harmony, and to work with patience and understanding to bring the PUMA women back into the fold of the Democratic Parties.



So, a group named for a type of dog is going to try to herd like wayward sheep another group named for a mountain lion...

Does anyone else see the potential for some badly chewed up hounds in this equation?

They should, because a recent press release by PUMA has declared that Rendell and his HOUNDs "are missing the point."

Online, in Washington D.C. and Nationwide - The Just Say No Deal Coalition issues the following response to Governor Ed Rendell’s counter movement HOUND (Hillary-Obama-United-Not-Divided). While we thank the governor for recognizing us as a fluid, viral, viable and ever growing movement— we PUMAs and members of the Just Say No Deal Coalition want to respectfully point out that Governor Rendell and his crew are missing the point.

In HOUND’s credo Governor Rendell states, "PUMA advocated that Hillary Clinton supporters do not vote for Barack Obama just for the sake of party unity…We believe Sen. Clinton supporters should vote for Sen. Obama because, as Hillary herself said so forcefully and poignantly in her great speech a few Saturdays ago the best way to achieve the changes she has fought so hard to bring to America, and on which she based her campaign, is to support Sen. Obama…"

The philosophy on which the Just Say No Deal Coalition was founded is plainly stated as this:
We, as millions of disaffected voters or PUMAs have banded together to form a Coalition of the unwilling. We fervently believe in Country Before Party. If political parties won't uphold core democratic principles, who will? If the voters don't hold the parties accountable, who will?
The answer, "We (PUMAs) will at all costs!"

For the veterinarians in the audience, remember, these are actually people we are talking about here. But I'm sure that local hospital emergency rooms will accept the volunteer service of your skills as trained medical professionals once the cat and dog fight begins in earnest...

In the meantime, there are other segments of the Democratic party, or individuals just in general, who don't care to see the Rock Star candidate elected to office. At least 60 Orlando municipal vehicles have suffered vandalism in recent months, with most of the graffiti messages painted onto the city vehicles, bearing such messages as "Obama smokes crack."

Unacceptable behavior regardless of one's candidate of choice.

Currently, there is no clear solution to resolve the fracture in the Democratic party. Hillary's supporters remain steadfast in their insistence that the nomination was basically stolen from her and that she, and husband Bill, were treated badly by the media, the Obama campaign, the Democratic Party as a whole.

In reading over the PUMA rebuttal to Rendell's Hounds, in which they basically tell him WHY that dog won't hunt as the party continues to implode, some are whispering in other corners, observing the situation from the outside, two words: Operation Chaos. It does make one wonder...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

.

Limbaugh Safe from Ohio Voter Fraud Charges

Ohio officials have announced that talk radio show icon Rush Limbaugh has no worries of being prosecuted for promoting voter fraud in the Ohio primaries. Limbaugh's goal has been to keep the Democrats split up until the August DNC Convention in Denver.

For the past few weeks, talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh has been promoting what he calls "Operation Chaos," his plan to make sure that the "soap opera" of the race between Senators Clinton and Obama continues as they both seek the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in the general elections this coming November.

Part of the strategy of "Operation Chaos" has been to urge Republican voters in the remaining primary states to cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary elections. At stake have been Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other states who have not yet held their primary elections.

The problem facing it's success in Ohio was the sworn declaration of loyalty to the party required by the Ohio Democratic Party, in which the person signing the document would swear allegiance to the party and support it's ideals and candidates in good faith. Violation of the contract is considered to be a felony offense. This, however, lies in contrast with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and is basically not prosecutable.

Thus, Limbaugh is safe from prosecution for promoting "voter fraud."

We have no intention of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh because lying through your teeth and being stupid isn't a crime," said Leo Jennings, a spokesman for Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann.

When asked whether she has concerns about what Limbaugh did, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, replied, "I think it's very bad form, but I think most voters are intelligent enough to make their own decisions."

While certain media outlets have had Limbaugh under fire during this campaign season for his "Operation Chaos," the concept his hardly new to this election process. Limbaugh, by his own admission at the onset of the plan, was inspired by the same tactics called for by DailyKos back in January for Democrats to vote for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the Michigan Primaries.

If you know someone in Michigan, send them the email I've included below the fold. If you don't know someone in Michigan, send the email to your liberal friends and see if THEY have friends in Michigan. Get the word out, whether by blog, mailing list, MySpace or Facebook page, or whatever.

If we can help push Mitt over the line, not only do we help keep their field fragmented, but we also pollute Romney's victory. How "legitimate" will the Mittster's victory look if liberals provide the margin of victory? Think of the hilarity that will ensue. We'll simply be adding fuel to their civil war, never a bad thing from our vantage point.

Michigan, as well as Florida, had it's nominees stripped for the DNC Convention, nullifying the Democratic Primaries for those two states. This was the situation prompting the DailyKos call for Democrats to infiltrate the Republican Primary in Michigan.

It should be noted that Mitt Romney is no longer in the race for the Presidency, but that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still vying for the Democratic nomination.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


.

McCain Benefits from Democrat's "Soap Opera?"

As the ongoing warfare between Clinton and Obama continues, John McCain has a chance to regroup and prepare his campaign strategy for the coming November general elections. What can he do to remain in the public's mind from now until then?

The slug-fest between Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama continues. Currently, Obama leads in the popular vote and has secured the support of several states, while Clinton has secured several larger states and possibly holds sway over a number of super-delegates for the upcoming Denver convention in August. And the mud is slinging and flying. From Obama's controversial religious ties and affiliations to Clinton's embellishments on her role in international affairs as First Lady, including a very embarrassing version by her of events on her trip to Bosnia, neither candidate is doing themselves any favors as the primary season begins winding down to a close. At this point, both of them are covered with mud, and they're largely not slinging it each other, but winding up falling, face first, into the puddle and muddying themselves.

There is little doubt that either candidate can garner enough support at the polls to become the clear-cut leader going into the convention. Neither candidate seems willing, at this point, to concede to the other and bow out. This leaves the playing field wide open for voters in the remaining primaries and caucuses, and a convention seeing the entry of not one clear choice for the party, but two equally determined individuals to choose from.

The good news is that an ugly convention fight is highly preventable. The one advantage of a scenario that's both completely hair-raising and utterly foreseeable is that everyone has an incentive to stop it. The bad news is what's not preventable: a contest that rolls into June. Even without a messy convention, the current trajectory of the primary campaign could easily destroy the party's White House prospects.

Democrats have never been known for Spock-like rationality, but even they see the logic of avoiding a convention fiasco. "It's in nobody's interest in the Democratic Party for that to happen," says Mike Feldman, another former Gore aide. "There is a mechanism in place--built into the process--to avoid that." That mechanism, such as it is, involves an en masse movement of uncommitted superdelegates to the perceived winner of the primaries. Almost everything you hear from such people suggests this will happen in time. "I think once we have the elected delegate count, things will move fairly quickly, " says Representative Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party's House campaign committee. Increasingly, there is even agreement on the metric by which a winner would be named. Just about every superdelegate and party operative I spoke with endorsed Nancy Pelosi's recent suggestion that pledged delegates should matter most.

We've all seen exactly how wonderfully Nancy Pelosi can run things by now, haven't we?

With so much focus on the fighting amongst the Democrats, what is going on with the Republican side of the campaign? John McCain is taking a little time to regroup and form his strategy for entry into the general election segment, and Rush Limbaugh has implemented what he calls "Operation Chaos," his plan to keep the "soap opera" of the Democratic primaries race going on through the August convention in Denver.

Folks, we are doing it! Do you realize, we are doing it! Things are happening out there on our terms. Why, this is just fabulous. "McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll. That is a sharp turnaround from the Reuters/Zogby poll from last month, which showed in a head-to-head matchup that Obama would beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent. ... Matched up against Clinton, McCain leads 48 percent to 40 percent, narrower than his 50 to 38 percent advantage over her in February. 'It's not surprising to me that McCain's on top because there is disarray and confusion on the Democratic side,' Zogby said." Wait a minute. McCain's on top means Hillary's on bottom. We were told Hillary will never be on bottom, particularly when it comes to this dream ticket.

McCain's campaign manager has stated that the focus for the next phase will be on McCain's positive aspects, his service records both in the navy and in government, and to make the public more aware of who McCain is as an individual. One of the hurdles McCain faces will be in how to best spend his campaign money; McCain is historically not a candidate who has been successful in raising huge amounts of campaign funds. Reestablishing the campaign infrastructure is another priority for the McCain camp, having to rebuild it since it's 2007 collapse due to lack of funding.

McCain is gaining ground in the polls, however, in large part due to the infighting of the Democratic party, and several polls show him leading either top Democrat in the race for the White House in November.

Mr. McCain commands considerable support among independents, especially against Mrs. Clinton, of New York. This suggests that should she win the Democratic nomination, he would have an easier time winning states like New Hampshire and Colorado. Against Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain fares worse among independents but slightly better among Democrats. That signals opportunity in states filled with lunch-bucket Democrats, like Michigan and Ohio.

Long before the Democratic race ends, Mr. Fabrizio said, Mr. McCain must “war game” a strategy and a message for either outcome.

This is probably the main problem facing the McCain camp, for the moment. With no clear cut leader on the Democratic side, McCain can really do little more than await the emergence of the Democrats nominee and ultimate candidate that he will face for the November ballot. Until the August conventions, all any of us can really do is await the outcome of "Operation Chaos."

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


.