She Did A Lot, She didn’t do enough, Republicans’ Hillary Happy Hour, Voting with Dollars, and How the Obama campaign is smart / not so smart. Oh yeah, and Michelle.
By LisaB on August 27, 2008 at 12:00 PM in Current Affairs
Thought you might like a run-down of some articles appearing this morning.
1) Memeorandum has a story from the NYT about Clinton fund raiser / donors today. And it is interesting. We’ve heard that only some donors are reluctantly coming on board with Obama, but until now, we haven’t heard much about specifics - although we CAN guess.
“I’ve had more contact from the McCain campaign since the nomination than from the Obama campaign,” said Calvin Fayard, a New Orleans lawyer, major Clinton fund-raiser and longtime Democratic donor who is not in Denver this week.
Read the rest ->
Mr. Fayard said he was considering supporting Senator John McCain, the Republican, citing what he perceived as Mr. Obama’s inexperience.
—————————In June, when Mrs. Clinton suspended her campaign, Clinton and Obama officials estimated they might be able to collect $50 million to $75 million or more from Clinton donors. They appear to be nowhere near that.
And the prospects for the Obama campaign to wring more out of top Clinton fund-raisers who are inactive or unenthusiastic appears to be diminishing. There was much initial wrangling between the two sides over how to best draw in former Clinton fund-raisers, with some arguing that the Obama camp should alter its fund-raising structure to offer top Clinton bundlers titles parallel to those of their Obama counterparts. But Obama officials, who take pride in having less hierarchy in their campaign organization, resisted. In the end, they saw little need to change what was working, several top Clinton fund-raisers said.
Another sore point remains Clinton fund-raisers’ contentions that Mr. Obama has not done enough to help Mrs. Clinton retire her debt. The analysis by The Times found that Obama donors gave $300,000 to Mrs. Clinton in July and $135,000 in June.
I’ve only heard vague things about this. The author also goes into the disappointing fund-raising of the Obama campaign and how his decision to opt out of public financing is working for him.
2) Also at Memeorandum, today’s WaPo has a post-Hillary speech about the reaction of her supporters in Denver. All were thrilled, some said they would move to support Obama and several said they would not.
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most loyal delegates came to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night looking for direction. They listened, rapt, to a 20-minute speech that many proclaimed the best she had ever delivered, hoping her words could somehow unwind a year of tension in the Democratic Party. But when Clinton stepped off the stage and the standing ovation faded into silence, many of her supporters were left with a sobering realization: Even a tremendous speech couldn’t erase their frustrations.
The article goes on to detail some delegates’ feelings.
Weeping, Dawn Yingling, a 44-year-old single mother from Indianapolis, said that the speech was “fabulous” but that she still isn’t going to work for the Obama campaign. “She was fabulous, nothing less than I expected. It’s hard to sit here and think about she would have accomplished. We’re not stupid — we’re not going to vote for John McCain,” she said. But she’ll limit her campaigning to a House candidate. “It will take a Congress as well as a president. That’s what I can do and be true to who I am.”
————–
. . . The most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that only 42 percent of Clinton voters classify themselves as “solidly behind” Obama, and that 20 percent plan to vote for McCain. But in Denver, Clinton supporters sometimes classified themselves as belonging to one of two categories: the sad and the angry.
——————–
“I hate Obama so much that I’m going to devote as much time to McCain as I did to Hillary,” said Adita Blanco, a Democrat from Edward, Okla., who has never voted for a Republican. “Obama has nothing. He has no experience. The Democratic Party doesn’t care about us. You couldn’t treat [Clinton] any worse.”
Perhaps the best example of the persistent divide in the Democratic Party came after Clinton’s speech Tuesday night. The lights went down in the Pepsi Center, and some influential Democrats left downtown for good. They planned to head for the airport and fly home, long before Obama accepts the nomination in a speech at Invesco Field on Thursday night.
Clinton will hold a private meeting with her top financial advisers Wednesday, and many donors plan to leave immediately afterward. Terence R. McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign chairman and the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also plans to leave before Obama’s speech. Many of the women from 18 Million Voices, Fiechter’s pro-Clinton group, booked tickets for Wednesday and Thursday because “we really are taking a position of being indifferent to Obama,” Fiechter said.
Clinton’s delegates inside the Pepsi Center had no choice but to stick around, at least until the end of Wednesday’s roll call.
“I wish I could leave,” said Straughan, the professor from California. “To be honest, that would make this whole thing a lot easier.”
A good piece, worth the read.
3) CNN has a story about disaffected Ciinton supporters attending a “Hillary Happy Hour” in Denver – sponsored by the Republican party.
Naturally, both party goers and party throwers are still in amazement.
The last place Kathy Archuleta could have ever imagined she’d spend the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, was at a happy hour sponsored by the Republican Party.
—————-“Four years ago, if you said we’d be at a Hillary happy hour at the DNC, I would have called you crazy. But today is a great opportunity for people who … agree that Sen. Barack Obama doesn’t have the experience to be president of the United States,” said McCain campaign regional communications director Tom Kise.
And if Bob Herbert is reading this:
Clinton supporters-turned-McCain converts at the event were not just angry at Obama’s campaign; they’re furious with the Democratic Party’s nomination process this year.
“The DNC really pushed [Barack Obama] on us. Now they’ve left us with two choices: somebody who has no substance or a Republican,” said Jessi Cleaver, 35, of New York. “And these are terrible choices, and they worked hard to select this candidate. … We’re watching the DNC pick this candidate for us.”
4) Also at memeorandum, Commentary has a short bit about the divided Denver dems.
The bottom line: the Obama team may have seriously underestimated the impact on the faithful of Hillary’s non-selection as VP, even if both camps knew it wasn’t to be. That – -coupled with a failure to appreciate the amount of news an aggrieved group can generate with thousands of reporters milling about with not much to do until the main evening speeches commence — has created a major distraction for The One. Someone didn’t quite think this through.
5) Politico has a piece today about how the Obama campaign has done its work. Supposedly it has “learned from others’ mistakes” and “charts its own path” by respecting but not necessarily listening to the advice of party elders.
I think Politico got that wrong. I haven’t seen any respect. Read only if you haven’t had breakfast yet and are still convinced these people are “way more smarter” than you.
6) Time has a VERY cynical piece about how this inter-party war will end up. On the one hand, it isn’t likely the PUMAs and other anti-Obama groups will wield much power – “it’s a big country.”
On the other hand, Hillary’s core constituency can hurt and may take Obama’s crown away. But the real twist comes at the very, very end:
What is true – and very important – is that there are a ton of Democrat leaning voters who didn’t vote in the primaries, but look demographically a lot like the Hillary primary voters we’ve been paying all this attention to. They’re older, white, often blue-collar. And many have big doubts about Barack Obama. Hillary can really hurt Obama among this crowd if she shows hostility, maybe even enough to throw the election. That’s why the Obama campaign is acting like a bunch of nervous yes-men at one of Stalin’s birthday parties. But Hillary is a good, tough party soldier. Her speech tonight will be very good. So will her endorsement deliver the vote Obama really needs? Nope. Obama has to earn it on his own; many are more anti-Barack than pro-Clinton. Hillary will help a little tonight with her speech and scepter wave. Then later, in the privacy of the voting booth, she will do what the smart money already knows: cast her vote for her pal John S. McCain.
You’ll have to make up your own mind on this one. It offends and is yet a snark at Obama at the same time.
7) Then there are those who would, as we all knew, damn with faint praise. Despite a rousing speech, there are always those who felt it “wasn’t enough” for whatever reason. At TNR mentions MSNBC (they all watch each other, you know – it’s like high school).
One last note: At least on MSNBC, the pundits are eating this up. I couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with Keith Olbermann’s superlatives. Chris Matthews was gushing. The best Pat Buchanan could do was to acknowledge the speech’s success and use it as fodder for his argument that she should have been Obama’s running mate. But his colleagues would have none of this. And that’s a good sign, since it’s the media that has kept the silly disunity storyline going.
Really, I hope MSNBC isn’t thinking they can get their collective arses off my “crap list.”
8 ) Looks like the Obama campaign is still working the racism angle. Yet another surrogate blames racism for Obama not performing better. The Hill has this article.
A prominent union leader on Tuesday blamed racism for Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) failure to build a big lead over GOP rival Sen. John McCain.
Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), said many workers are considering voting for McCain (R-Ariz.) because of his military service and status as a hero of the Vietnam War.
McEntee said several union members had approached him, saying they could not vote for Obama because of his race. He also said some local union presidents have failed to support Obama out of fear.
While the race-baiting may have moved slightly off center stage, watch for this to NEVER be abandoned. It’s a STRATEGY.
9) The NYPost recaps the snubs of HRC in the latter days of the primary. Worth the read.
It’s easy to get confused about this, since so many in the anti-Hillary media who hysterically demanded her exit from the race have conveniently edited out from history anything that doesn’t fit into their nonsense narrative, as if her campaign invented party discord.
Let’s review.
The article then outlines some of the other democratic losing candidates who did not act so graciously – like Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart.
Obama supporters and party leaders continue to insult Hillary voters – and then seem shocked when so many of them say they’re going to vote Republican this year.
Nancy Pelosi, underscoring why Congress under her leadership has an approval rating teetering on single digits, lectured female Hillary supporters in an interview this week – telling them to not wallow in defeat. Said the multimillionairess daughter of privilege: “I think that women, we have to get away from the politics of victim. This is about you go out there and you fight.”
Thanks, Nancy. I’m sure all the working-class women who supported Hillary didn’t realize that the real problem is they need to get off their butts and “go out there and fight.” But now they know that being disappointed that their candidate didn’t win – an emotion plenty of men like, say, Ted Kennedy supporters in 1980 have experienced – is actually just being a whiny “victim.”
10) Sigh. I hate to do this, but MoDo has a piece today in the NYT. I won’t link. Google if you must. She talks about the convention “vibe.”
But this Democratic convention has a vibe so weird and jittery, so at odds with the early thrilling, fairy dust feel of the Obama revolution, that I had to consult Mike Murphy, the peppery Republican strategist and former McCain guru.
“What is that feeling in the air?” I asked him.
“Submerged hate,” he promptly replied.
What? MODO didn’t recognize a vibe of submerged hate? I guess she doesn’t read her own stuff (who can). But, maybe “submerged” hate is just way too subtle for her and that’s why she couldn’t figure out what it was.
If you bother to read her stuff, you know she doesn’t submerge her hate.
11) Realclearpolitics has a great piece about Michelle Obama. It’s not a screed, but uses Michelle’s own words and positions to outline why the remake of her image is so cynical.
Or at least I would love to support the person Michelle Obama has conjured for us this week — successful working-class girl who worked hard, upheld traditional values, and was rewarded by a great nation.
But in her case, as in Barack Obama’s case, there is just too much artifice and not enough reality here. Their true history keeps intruding — and their true views remain opaque.
Mrs. Obama went to Princeton. Her solipsistic senior thesis (1985) concerned the plight of blacks at Princeton. She complained that the college’s “Afro-American studies” program was “one of the smallest and most understaffed departments in the university.” She further complained that only one major university-recognized group on campus was “designed specifically for the intellectual and social interests of blacks and other third world students.”
Third World? Is that how she sees herself and other black Americans? That suggests a pretty advanced level of alienation — not the happy daughter of Chicago she served up Monday night.
No amount of video remaking will change a fundamental truth here. Michelle is aggrieved and has been her whole adult life. All it takes to see that is reading her works and listening to her speak. Nothing else is required.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
