Archive for the ‘Denver Group’ Category
The Denver Group, which waged a valiant fight during the summer to get Hillary’s name placed in nomination, are continuing with their efforts to reform the DNC and campaigning against what they consider the fraudulent nomination process and the nominee. They have an ongoing media campaign, this clip, speaks for itself.
Updated 8-25-08:
Bartoschevich Makes it Official – She is for McCain!
Here is the commercial she made for him.
Are there more like her, How many? Estimates are that at least 5-6 million of Hillary supporters are not enamored of Obama. Let’s say that of these only 10% are stubborn NObamist Republicrats, hmm that would be what, about wow, half-a-millions Debbies spread across the land.
Not Good For Unity
Not good for Obama.
Not Good For DNC
Here follows the original post dated: 85-2008
Un-delegated
Both these ladies did simple acts of speaking up. At a time when it was, well ‘inconvenient’ for the elites of the party. They dared to speak out against a glitzy spectacle of a coronation. They both stood up, and got noticed because they felt strongly about what they saw as injustice and disrespect to their causes.
Other tiny similarities: not surprisingly both of them work in helping/healing professions; they both live off Lake Michigan about 100 miles apart from each other
The first of the two, Susan Catania, has been featured a few days ago, when word first came of the troubles of Deb Bartoschevich. Catania works as co-ordinator of services for Sexual Abuse victims in Illinois. Deb B. is an emergency room nurse in Wisconsin.
What happened in Wisconsin at the party ‘hearing’ that resulted in removing DB from the delegate status? Some of the conference call can be heard here, it’s dramatic.
Their pre-occupation with Rush Limbaugh, of all things, and the sign-in sheet …. just listen
WISCONSIN STATE DEM CONFERENCE CALL
The immediate events surrounding what these two ladies chose to do couldn’t be more different. The way they were treated by their colleagues and parties is also vastly divergent. I am sure it was not easy on either one to be the odd one out.
The best part of the clip was Deb B saying she wants to go to Denver anyway. She mentioned the 18 Million March. That’s good. I hope she makes it safely there back to home.
More recently, John McCain met her and her family.
In this video she makes the new affiliation (or separation from old party) very clear:
Update / Side Note
Andrew Jackson was stoled out of an election in 1928, the resulting protests have been memorialized in the form of a useable jar, incsribed with the protest message.
Compliments to Nobama Nation USA, which has picture and more.
YOU are about to choose who will lead America, virtually a leader of the free world. This is your moment in the light, your turn to make history, your call to be conscientious
Your vote has been delegated to you by voters. Just as my vote is exercised with integrity and without prejudice, so should yours be. Consult your conscience, examine your reasoning, think of all the voters in your district, county, state or region of the country. What values do the people who sent you espouse. What dreams of people do you carry in your vote?
How best to represent the interests of democracy, freedom and American way? Do you love America?
This blog urges you to vote in the interest of America and the free world.
Vote without a sense of party line thinking, local politics, or worse, money consideration. Be smart. When numbers seize your mind, think electorally. It’s the map, not the math of delegate numbers. It’s not who has how many delegates, but who can vote. Watch this:
This is my personal effort, I am not paid by anyone. I admire Hillary, that’s why the following bothers me so much. A clear attempt to divide the Democrats. You can disprove the snark of McCain Ad, just vote for Hillary in every round of the roll call.
Super delegates:
DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU EXIST ?
Democratic party has delegated to you a supervening authority to cast a vote in your best political judgement. Will you exercise that judgement in self-interest, money-interest or in the interest of the whole country? Do you hold office in trust for all the people you represent? How good is your political acumen, how do you see the party winning in November?
Now that you are in your temporary lodgings, worn out by the trip and the hoopla, just chill a bit, kick back and breath easy. There. Here is a final word .. just before turning in, gather a few chuckles, here it is: Ten Funniest Moments of Hillary Campaign.
DC to Denver
Posted on: August 23, 2008
The Dem unity pony is kicking up a storm. Via Alegre’s Corner, check this video of an unabashed Hillary-supporting NY delegate… Go Jose, Go!
Jose Rivera on Clinton, Obama, Denver from Elizabeth Benjamin on Vimeo.
And then, surely you remember this one below? This makes the Biden blather is all the more nauseating.
The Democratic Convention has not occurred.
The party does not have an official nominee, a roll call has not taken place.
What has happened is the manufacture of a candidacy and the blessed transformation of that candidacy to a faux-nomination. An anointment of a selected person as the party standard bearer. Bypassing all norms and protocols of the democracy and the Democratic party itself.
If DC was perfidy, then this thing in Denver is a sheer travesty.
As long as we are compelled to talk about Biden, visit Once Upon a Time for an illuminating explanation of why Biden is ‘a pathetic dribble’, and indulge a bit in Raj Bhakta’s youtube humor. It’s irrelevent that he ran as Republican, it’s the India angle that matters. Not really a great insult in my book, just plain old goofiness.
Super-delegates took money, and endorsed a candidate that lost in their district. They took money, and endorsed a candidate that lost their state big!
They endorsed Obama eventhough Hillary won their district and their state!
Money can buy everything, even happiness. At the very least it will buy you a shrink or a monk who will tell you that you are already happy and don’t know it or, that happiness is just money well-spent or, that there is really no such thing as happiness! But will money buy you presidency of the USA?
Well, it looks like money will at least buy you a nomination. For in politics as in real life, there is no shortage of whores. And to the true whores I mean no disrespect for, were they to be a caste unto themselves, I would place them slightly above trust-fund billionnaires or draft-dodging chickenhawks. May be some whores are even higher than some non-learned Brahmins! After all, since the dawn of civilization female whores have collectively been the mothers-superlative to all real mothers everywhere, being in truth the habitual last source of succor to the little boy inside every grown up male….. Well enough of this rant about the sanctity of the much maligned profession of prostitution. Back to the important topic of buying politicians in advance of the coming nominating convention.
This topic came up once before, brought to us by the same due, GeekLove & Lynette Long. See here.
Dr. Lynette Long has been the champion workhorse doing the research in this obscure and dull subject. She has been methodically following the money flowing from the PACs of Obama, Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn and others. Money flowed to superdelegates like wine and honey in a tale from Arabian Nights! This has been documented widely across the blogs and picturized by GeekLove before and discussed here once before.
Dr. Long recently launched another effort on the web based on her research into the way the democratic caucuses were held this past winter. Caucus Analysis is a breathtaking initiative and worthy of every democratic and Democratic minded person in the land. Brief excerpts:
After studying the procedures and results from all fourteen caucus states, interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing hundreds of personal stories, my conclusion is that the Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process. [sic]
I also hope it gives pause to those Democrats who believe that Barack Obama is the rightful nominee and that Hillary supporters should just “get over it.” I have been a Democrat my entire life, but I will not support the Democratic Party at the cost of democracy.
Some examples are stunning in their clarity and glaring stakness, Dr. Long again:
No one doubts the accuracy of the almost three million Texas voters who voted in the primary that selected Hillary Clinton as their choice for the Democratic nominee— but then why wouldn’t the caucus voters, a sample of the primary voters, make the same selection? [sic]
On February 9, Washington State caucused to determine the distribution of the pledged delegates. Obama won 21,629 to 9,992 votes or 68% to 31% and received 53 of the 78 pledged delegates. Ten days later Washington State had a primary election in which no delegates were awarded yet 669,856 people chose to vote in this beauty contest. Obama won this contest by 51% (354,112 votes) to 46% (315,744 votes). How could Obama win by 37 points in a caucus and only 5 points in the primary, a 32-point difference? [sic]
Nebraska also had a caucus and a primary. The February 5 caucus, in which 36,571 people participated, yielded very different results than the May 13 primary in which 89,921 voters privately cast their preference for the Democratic Nominee. Obama won the caucus by 36 points, 68%-32%, but the primary by only two points, 49%-47%. There was a 34 point difference between the two results. As a result of the Nebraska caucus and primary, Obama got 16 delegates, Clinton got 8. The caucus counted, the primary didn’t. [sic]
And to conclude, a final coup de grace:
The caucus factor is a real statistical event which inflated Obama’s lead over Clinton and misrepresented the will of the people. [sic] The Democrats have let the Red States like Wyoming, Nebraska, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, Colorado and Nevada and the Southern States like North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana and the pick their nominee. Not a great coalition for the fall.
It’s my emphasis in that last bit. I can’t go on with this post, it’s just too nauseating. Please go to youtube to vote, favorite and comment on the video. Be sure to visit CaucusAnalysis. God Bless America!
The Toronto Star article on The Denver Group surprises habitual readers, even an intelligent casual reader perhaps, of newspaper articles these days.
Will Clinton’s name end up on ballot?
WASHINGTON–Storm clouds are forming over Barack Obama’s big Denver convention parade later this month, with behind-the-scenes efforts to put Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot showing no signs of slowing.
The Denver Group, an independent advocacy group which says it wants the party’s rules to be respected, has emerged as the most prominent of organizations pushing for a roll-call vote with the New York senator’s name as a presidential nominee.
Naturally the article places the story about the group in the context of Hillary’s name in nomination but accents it with a question mark in the headline. This indicates that something unexpected is about to happen, that what the public once presumed or was led to believe is likely to change? That is the real job of newspapers. Making a news report that questions status quo or asking questions that lead to genuine answers. Few papers do that anymore and fewer headlines wonder anymore.
Newspapers are happy to give us sensational, dramatic new facts, or decisions fait accompli. When tv, radio and print headlines ask a question it is usually a marketing ploy; learn more, details inside! Toronto Star asks a real question about what if. By placing the group’s name in this context, the article gives a special historical perspective to a casual reader.
There is more. Unlike other, ie US, papers that have talked about Denver Group, the T.Star goes on about it at length, quoting both Marc Rubin and Heidi Feldman. Feldman uses the baseball analogy and asks if anybody will go to a World Series game if the outcome is already known. Rubin talks about the angst of the 19 million voters who supported Hillary.
Having placed the group’s effort in the context, the article goes on to mention other groups also working to get Hillary on the ballot, such as HRC300, PUMA. This is important. Unlike other mentions, this lends a certain basis and avoids depicting The Denver Group as a lone voice in the wilderness type of portrayal.
Finally the article nails it down in my opinion, by being the only news account to put it all together. It refers to the nasty Edwards affair revelation:
A former aide, Howard Wolfson, further irritated the Obama campaign by telling ABC News this week Clinton would have won Iowa and the party nomination if candidate John Edwards’ extramarital affair had been known before the January caucus.
The readers’ comments are the usual mix, the language of the posters speaks for itself: insolence, anger, disdain, and intolerance of the Obeymatons; unrelenting Hillary love and quiet pleadings of the disaffected. The article is quite short, but well crafted, generous to The Denver Group, and dutiful in context and narrative. Too bad one had to go to foreign lands to find such!
What is Senator Obama afraid of?
Posted on: August 16, 2008
The newspaper ads of The Denver Group have been discussed in this blog when they were first published in Florida and Michigan papers, in the Congressional Quarterly Daily, in the Chicago Tribune. The impact these ads have had on the media has been discussed here.
Now, here is a television commercial made by the Denver Group for airing during the convention next week. Even if you watch it here (since this is a small blog that doesn’t get monitored by the big powers), please go to youtube, watch it, rate it, favorite it. And more important add your 2 cents of text.
It is important to showcase the power behing this commercial. Let your voice be heard.
On youtube, be sure to select, watch in high quality.
And we thought it useful to remind all about this slightly older (oh, how time flies) video by GeekLove:
And in case you forgot what all the fuss is about (you have been living in a cave all these months), view this:
So, Sen. Obama what are you afraid of, you sure you won fair and square? Are you sure you are a ‘winner’ ?
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLPoV4diMjk]
[contactform]
The title of this post, the line is inspired by Blondie, and a favorite, almost an anthem in this blog. Also, it is a bit of smiley nod in response to Heidi Li Feldman’s own observations in her post recently about a note from a kindly friend that “the tide may be turning.”
Of course, for us Hillary admirers this is an uphill battle. How uphill you ask, about a mile-high!
Alright enough of that, here is the real stuff.
Denver Group Ad Used In Online Poll
- Tallahassee Democrat
The Denver Group’s work is beginning to have impact, first amongst it’s own fans, encouraging them to donate, support, speak up and act (Act Blue, that is). Now, the effort is getting a bit of coverage in the mainstream media, spreading the word and educating the general public on the issue of nomination procedure. Some folks have used the ads placed by The Denver Group as starting point for other discussions, as seen in the screen shot of an online poll.
The Denver Post, the paper most convention area residents are likely to read and talk about, is now writing about efforts to place Clinton’s name in nomination. Here is the link to the article written by Alison Shery and Anne Mulkern
And down south in Texas, in an article bylined in Washington, Chron.com the online version of Houston and Texas News, reports that the Texas delegation is talking about a vote for Hillary.
Here is the link to that article.
Also, a Houston television station did a report on the PUMA email campaign and some impact it has had. Here is a video from news station KHOU , tip via Alegre’s Corner, on PUMA’s impact on one Dem delegate. (Thanks, texan4hillary)
The transcript of the news report, in case of video link problems, after the jump.
Link to the station reports, if you wish to keep tabs on future reports from them: click here.
On a related note, NPR did an interview with two pumas, Darragh Murphy and Pamela Merritt. Go listen and comment on the network blog here.
{Other posts on Denver Group Ads here, here, here,}
Now You Count - Now You Don't
Voters in Florida and Michigan are getting a earful.
The Denver Group print ads are running in Lansing Journal and Tallahassee Democrat.
And what perfect timing, coming right after the scam pulled by the Obama campaign to, oh hell yes let’s say it, bamboozle the voters of Florida and Michigan. Manipulate the process, fix the procedures at critical steps, make it seem like ’its the roolz’.
All during Spring we heard about the rules, ad nauseum. Where are they now? Oh, what magnanimity! Or is it just a flip-flop, a croc. Wait, there is a distinction between a flip-flop and a croc.
The bottom line is this, the Democrats are basically telling the citizens of both States:
Your votes don’t count when yours delegates counted; your delegates count when their votes won’t be counted!!
To fully understand the perfidy involved in all of this listen to just one voter from Michigan:
A few days ago, Florida State Dem Chair sent out an email, glorifying this latest attempt to pull wool over the voters eyes. Chairwoman Thurman says, quote:
Just minutes ago, Sen. Barack Obama sent a letter to the DNC credentials committee urging them to restore the full vote of the Michigan and Florida Delegations, proving his commitment to uniting the party and ending the uncertainty surrounding the process.[sic]
I want to thank Barack Obama, the Florida Congressional Delegation, the Democrats in our Legislature, and voters across Florida for fighting to have our votes count. This is a proud day for all of us.
My reply to the Chairwoman, excerpted:
I can share your pride only under the following circumstance: you will earnestly work for an open convention, place HIllary’s name in nomination; you will recognise the validity of Florida primary and ask the entire convention delegation to vote unanimously for Hillary during the first ballot; you will urge Sen. Obama to gallantly and democratically advocate the recognition of an election in Florida that the state itself seems to have embraced fully. Anything less Chairman Thurman, is usual politics of the most hateful kind and, in my humble opinion directed at Hillary.
It was a polite reply, but the bottom line is clear. Ideally Sen. Obama should look in the mirror and realise that the game he devised, succesfull so far, may not go further in his service. He may win in Nov. or might not. It is a gamble, regardless of what polls, focus groups, stats, analysts tell us. Time has not been his best friend so far. The polls seems to be wildly all over the place. They are certainly where they should be: he was widely expected to run away with this. This was supposedly Democrats’ year to lose.
It’s even a bigger gamble for the country, to take an unknown quantity, full of good intentions, devoid of solid experience in legislature, executive, or business to be made the most powerful person in the world. The national yearning for change is hard to measure and is not always what it seems. American public will forgive and forget a lot, and when frightened will even give their leaders benefit of doubt. But even the good people of this nation have limits to their gullibility. We all remember how RMN and WJC were treated, each with a measured just desserts that each earned. Or, to think that B41 was tossed shortly after a magnificient victory in a just cause. That the mechanics of 3rd party candidatures hurt him is irrelevent; the very presence of the latter is both cause and outcome.
Americans always elected based on a totality of image, impression and imperatives. Wildly different results (JFK vs RMN; RMN vs HHH, RMN vs GMcG, JEC vs RWR, RWR vs WFM) show that it is not always specific items of character, policy, idealogy that influences the final outcome in November. The citizenry seem to intuitively perceive something of the deeper kernel of what a candidate is, at the moment of voting, of that moment, and vote accordingly. Few of our elections have been close, and the really close ones remain controversial (JFK, GBW) until overtaken by history. While polls may measure, even predict, they can’t describe this valuable process that voters bring to the booth.
To capture the voters’ hearts and minds, the candidates must be big on both counts!
