Because all the smart, hip, young "progressives" were enthralled
by Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party elite were able to
convince themselves that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had no real
supporters -- or, at least, no supporters with the kind of
passionate intensity that Obama's acolytes could bring to the
campaign.
Wrong. Hillary's most ardent supporters tend to be women of a
certain age, but their intensity shouldn't be underestimated just
because they belong to a post-menopausal demographic.
As they've watched their girl get shoved aside by the brash
Obama and his youthful cohorts, Hillary's army of liberal crones
has become increasingly embittered toward the Democrats.
That bitterness erupted like a volcano of venom Saturday, when
some of Hillary's supporters were manhandled out of the ballroom at
the Washington, D.C., hotel where the Democratic National
Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) was meeting.
One of the ejectees, an elderly Manhattanite who identified
herself as Harriet Christian, stormed up to a phalanx of TV cameras
and began ranting that, by denying Michigan and Florida the full
representation that Clinton had demanded, the committee was
rejecting "the best nominee that's possible." She continued:
"And the Democrats are throwing the election away! For what? An
inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not
been a white woman that was running for president! And I'm not
going to shut my mouth anymore!...I'm no second-class citizen --
and g--damn the Democrats!"
Incoherent and irrational -- and perhaps, in some sense, racist
-- as her rant may have been, Ms. Christian's sentiments were
echoed by other pro-Hillary protesters who were tossed out of
Saturday's RBC meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.
"I've been voting for 40 years," said Deborah Foster, a
gray-haired gym teacher from Long Island, N.Y., after she was
ejected. "Those idiot bosses in there have given me two winners in
40 years. And now they're going to tell us how people are voting
and take votes away? The party elite sucks."
Displaying a bruise on her arm she said had been inflicted by
DNC goons, Foster described how she'd been among a pro-Clinton
contingent that started chanting "Denver! Denver!" when security
"swarmed down" and told her, "Let's go. You've had your last
chance."
WHETHER FOSTER and her comrades have truly had their last chance is
a question that may remain unanswered long after the "inadequate
black male" stakes his claim to the Democratic nomination.
The RBC's decision Saturday to seat the Michigan and Florida
delegations -- but to count their votes at only 50 percent -- put
Obama within shouting distance of a convention majority. He's now
got 2,051 delegates to Hillary's 1,876, according to RealClearPolitics.com, which calculates 2,118 as
the magic number needed to win in August when the Democrats convene
in Denver.
Obama's August gain may be less than what Democrats lost for
November, namely the goodwill of many thousands of hard-core
Hillary fans.
These women have volunteered for her and cheered for her and
sent her their money. On a deeper level, to many liberal women,
Hillary's been a heroine since 1992. To see their candidate beat
down by the Democratic elite is a sort of personal rejection of
them, and who can blame them for feeling bitter?
Where that bitterness goes from here is unknown. The shouts of
"Denver!" that got the pro-Hillary protesters ejected from
Saturday's meeting at the Marriott found an echo in an official
statement issued afterward by the Clinton campaign.
"We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the
Credentials Committee" at the convention, senior adviser Harold
Ickes and campaign manager Tina Flournoy wrote.
TEAM OBAMA IS reportedly seeking a "negotiated surrender" from
Hillary, but if that fails, Clinton could spend the next 12 weeks
in guerrilla-warfare mode, spreading the message that she's been
ripped off by the DNC, and rallying her troops for an Armageddon in
August.
Being a sore loser would hurt Hillary's future viability -- 2012
is still a very real option, should Obama fail this fall -- so it's
more likely she'll grudgingly hoist the white flag in a couple of
weeks.
Whether she'll be able to salve her supporters' bruised feelings
is less certain, and perhaps irrelevant. By Nov. 4, the battle
lines may be drawn so starkly, with such powerful appeals to
partisan loyalty, that even Hillary's most bitter backers will feel
obliged to vote for Obama.
Or maybe not. As Harriet Christian shouted at the TV cameras
Saturday, "Our Democratic Party threw us down the tubes!...And they
think we won't turn and vote for McCain? Well, I got news for all
of you: McCain will be the next president of the United
States!"
topics:
Barack Obama, Law
