Holding the DNC’s Feet to the Fire: An Interview with Marc Rubin of The Denver Group
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on September 21, 2008 at 10:55 AM in Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, Democratic Nomination, DNC, Donna Brazile, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John McCain, Nancy Pelosi
In the face of some powerful Democratic fundraisers/supporters of Senator Clinton and even Democratic legislators now boldly endorsing Senator McCain, it is clear that the wheels may be coming off the Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Dean/Brazile bandwagon. That people would abjectly refuse to support the Presidential nominee and, you should pardon the expression, start batting for the other team, seems shocking. Although given the disingenuous, inexperienced candidate we are supposed to be supporting, not at all surprising.
The media’s pillow-fluffing rhapsodic musings about the Obama ‘movement’ made them abandon their objectivity faster than a child abandoning a broken toy. The DNC gambled on an unvetted, unqualified, well-sculpted concoction of New Age-y hyped up post-partisan platitudes that really don’t make much sense to Americans struggling to keep afloat. Their gamble has resulted in a split of the Democratic Party. No matter what Obama does, his numbers won’t go above 50%. No amount of money, media favoritism, or caucus fraud can change that fact.
What to do now? When in doubt, play: j’accuse!! The media and Dem party leadership have started pointing fingers. Racism!! They cry. Nonsense, I say.
The racism charges have been put out by Senator Obama personally and many in the DNC/Obama wing of the Party. This is a scenario that both they and the media can hide behind to avoid questions and blowback if Obama loses. It’s a way to be insulated from failure so they can still claim to be relevant if the election results in a loss for Obama in this “no lose year for Democrats.” How we got to this place of throwing the far more qualified candidate under the bus will be discussed for some time to come.
What we are seeing is a battle for the Democratic Party itself. Clearly the ‘Howards’, ‘Nancys’ and ‘Donnas’ in the DNC chose to kick the Clinton wing to the curb by forcing delegates to make a selection before it was time to vote and staging an end run around the legitimate nominating process. They did their best to pretend that Hillary’s 18,000,000 voters and her 1912 delegates did not exist.
To that end, Marc Rubin and Prof. Heidi Li Feldman, co-founders of The Denver Group, through the use of grass roots fundraising, both on and off the internet, did a tremendous job of creating and placing effective targeted advertising that added pressure to the decision to put Hillary’s name into nomination and get a roll call vote at the Democratic Convention.
Unfortunately, we all know what happened as a result of the thuggish tactics of the DNC leadership. The only good news is that the reputations and favorability ratings of Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Donna Brazile, Harry Reid seem at an all time low. Apparently, someone out there is paying attention.
Marc Rubin shared his thoughts with me about the Convention, its aftermath and how The Denver Group is evolving in an effort to apply pressure for change in the fractured Democratic Party and hold the current party leadership’s feet to the fire.
Marc, looking back, what is your feeling about how the Convention played out?
The convention was a total fraud. The roll call vote was rigged, and every Democratic rule and procedure was violated in order to do it and they did it in broad daylight right in front of the watchful eyes of the news media who have the powers of observation of a drunken sailor on a Saturday night. They just let the corruption happen without comment. Some of the more egregiously blind were Mike Barnicle, Chris Matthews and of course that Olbermann guy who still thinks this is sports.
What would you want to explain about the roll call vote or outcome for those not as intimately involved in the situation? There are still those who think Senator Obama won the nomination “fair and square.” What is your response to that?
Well there is no accounting for people’s ignorance and refusal to think for themselves, but according to Democratic Party rules it was totally rigged. Rule 6, I believe, states clearly that pledged delegates have an obligation to vote according to the voters who elected them based on the primaries.
Just as one example, Clinton ‘landslided’ Obama in the New Jersey primary winning many more elected pledged delegates than Obama. As you saw during the roll call vote all 130 pledged delegates “voted” for Obama. And no one blinked an eye. And as everyone knows super delegates were going to decide this because Obama didn’t have the 2/3 needed in pledged delegates. They never were given a chance to vote. The last unofficial count according to Politico.com prior to the roll call vote showed among super delegates, 271 for Obama, 268 for Clinton and 160 undecided. If the roll call vote was honest, Obama would have most likely lost.
Had you ever been so involved in a campaign? What motivated you to go the extra mile?
What motivated me was unfairness. The incredible deceit of Pelosi outright lying during the primary season, saying that super delegates had an obligation to vote according to the pledged delegate count, the slanted playing field, the deceit and dishonesty of the news media and people like Jonathan Alter, MSNBC and others calling for Clinton to get out, and of course the Florida and Michigan fiasco when Obama and the DNC and the media colluded to deny both states their rightful voices. The last straw was after the last primary when Pelosi forced super delegates to declare 6 weeks before their votes would count so they could short circuit the process and declare Obama the winner when he wasn’t.
As Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania pointed out, the DNC insisted on nominating the weaker candidate. Aside from the obvious consequence of making the election harder to win, what do you think are some of the short and long term consequences of such an action to the Democratic Party going forward?
Harder to win? Try impossible to win. One candidate ‘landslided’ the other in 13 of the biggest states in the country, not just won, but won by landslide margins and they sent out the loser. They deserve to lose and lose big. The short term consequences are short term pain for long term gain because a massive Obama defeat will get rid of Dean, Pelosi, Brazile and the Obama wing of the party and get it on the right track again.
The DNC is using various scare tactics to get everyone to fall in line. What is your response to their favorite ploys?
a) McCain as neocon?
As rated by conservative groups, McCain has the worst conservative voting record of any Republican member of Congress which is one reason Rush Limbaugh hates him. I’m going to write a post specifically addressing all of this because it’s so ludicrous.
b) Threats to reverse Roe v. Wade?
As for Roe v. Wade, it’s designed to scare people who are ignorant of the law, the limits on the power of the executive [branch] and how the legal system works. It’s virtually a done deal that Roe v. Wade will never get reversed in a McCain presidency and if you want proof, no Presidents were more opposed to Roe v. Wade than Bush and Reagan and nothing happened in 16 years of both administrations and for logical reasons. It won’t happen under a McCain administration either.
c) Conservative SCOTUS appointments?
Appointing judges is a crap shoot. Look at David Souter. Besides, even conservative judges respect court precedent and only in extreme and compelling circumstances are willing to overturn long-standing decisions and it hardly ever happens and it wouldn’t with Roe v. Wade. There is a big difference between conservatives WANTING it to be overturned and a court doing just that, assuming you could even find a case where someone with the standing to bring a law suit would do it.
d) What about the DNC and media pushing that if one does not vote for Senator Obama, one must be racist? How effective is this tactic?
Martin Luther King said he dreamed of a day when a person would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. That day has obviously not arrived for Obama, his campaign and those in the DNC, who think making an issue of race and using it to try and intimidate weak minded people is the way to win the election.
Any objective person would come to the conclusion, based on everything known, that Obama doesn’t have the character, courage or the conviction even to be an effective Senator much less President. Using accusations of racism to try and intimidate people into voting for an unqualified candidate will backfire among everyone who sees through it and resents it.
That doesn’t include patronizing knee-jerk liberals such as Keith Olbermann and others like him; the kind of patronizing pseudo-liberals that Lenny Bruce made fun of in the early 60′s, who want to show how un-racist they are by drumming up support for someone with the ethics of a dishonest used car salesman.
But it’s a good reason the polls can’t be trusted. When Obama and his minions try and use the race card to intimidate people, those who do feel intimidated will say one thing but will do another. The more they do it, the more they alienate the people they are trying to win over, so the tactic of trying to get people to prove they are not racists by voting for him, like taking some kind of loyalty oath, smacks of racial McCarthyism, and while it might be successful with some, most people will reject it.
Aside from the obvious wish to scare up voters, why do you feel they are using such a risky tactic?
It is a sign of desperation and reinforces the truth that Senator Obama has nothing to say and nothing to offer.
We have many, many African Americans who have been elected to public office — mayors, governors, members of Congress, members of state legislatures, and none of them had to use race as a tactic to get elected. All were elected on their merits and won re-election or were defeated based on their performances. In the end the more Obama uses race the more he is telling people he has no game.
I understand The Denver Group has a new offshoot — Democrats for Principle Before Party — what are your new goals going forward?
A massive defeat for Obama and the resignations of everyone in the DNC who produced him and the elimination of the Obama wing of the party which is obviously corrupt and putting the DNC back into the hands of people who understand the word “democracy”.
It wasn’t Clinton’s supporters who stooped to the level of the Obama wing and corrupted and mishandled everything, so to start with, Clinton and her supporters would obviously do a better job getting a Democrat back in the White House and getting the entire party back on track after all the “I told you so’s” are over. This also means replacing Pelosi, Reid, Dean and everyone else. If the Democrats retain control of Congress, I can’t see any member of the House with 2 cents for a brain re-electing Pelosi Speaker of the House. Once this is over, we should see a big power shift back to sanity.
When you see how the DNC has so skewed the process this time, what can be done to effect change on a grass roots level? What would be your advice to those feeling completely disenfranchised by the primary season – how can they bring pressure to bear to make sure this sort of thing never happens again?
Vote for an Obama defeat, whether than means voting for another candidate or leaving the Presidential line blank. No money to the DNC, and donating money to The Denver Group to help finance Democrats For Principle Before Party.
Finally, what can you say to those who don’t understand why you are not just “lining up” the way most Dems usually do in support of any candidate? If you could correct any misconception about how they view your actions, what would you say to them?
I’d say they should look at themselves and whether they have decided to believe what Obama and the news media tells them or their own “lying eyes”. Understand that Democrats don’t “fall in line” like Republicans do, that Dean and Pelosi’s “fall in line” strategy has backfired and showed a distinct lack of understanding of who Democrats are, and the last thing I would tell people is do themselves a favor and try thinking for themselves and not believe something is true just because someone tells them so.
But if people can’t see the rank dishonesty and hypocrisy in everything Obama has said and done by now: his lying about [Rev.] Wright and the fact he was never offended enough by what Wright was saying to leave and never go back, his lying about FISA, NAFTA, his reneging on his promises and pledges, and if they don’t mind being led around by the nose I don’t know there is anything more anyone can say.
Thank you for taking the time to do this interview, Marc. I honestly feel watchdog organization like yours are critical, particularly now, when the media is working so diligently to manhandle the truth. As you and Heidi Li point out on your website, it is crucial to stop all the errant finger pointing and lay the blame squarely at the feet of those to whom it belongs.
I’m not advocating anyone vote one way or the other, but John McCain said something apropos during his convention speech, in re vetoing ‘pork projects’ that come across his desk: “They will be famous. You will know their names.”
A good prescription for the current Democratic Party leadership. Don’t you think?
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*Marc Rubin is an award winning art director and writer in the advertising business, was a contributing editor for National Lampoon in its heyday, the head writer on a number of prime time network TV series and is currently developing several movie and TV projects.
To learn more about: The Denver Group / Democrats For Principle Before Party.
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