Puma 4 Palin

When early in the campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination Senator Obama’s campaign issued a memo that assailed HIllary Clinton as Senator (D-Punjab), it revealed a number of things.

First, that Hillary was popular among Indians, as Bill was. She had been, over the years well-received by the Singhs, or Sikhs, the original residents of the Punjab. Historically the most important segment of the Indic subcontinent and renowned for their valor, hard work, intelligence, and diasporic dint.

And second, that memo also said something about Obama and how he would win. He would win by smear, reverse smear, and outright lie and rumor.

Obama had already promised a political philosophy of Change, Hope, Transformation, and thereby enticed millions of youngsters with the lure of ‘transformational new politics’ or post-partisan style of campaign, electioneering and governance.

None of that was believable, of course, as experienced voters always knew. But a whole generation of new voters and disaffected Bush-haters fell for it. For the Clinton haters of all persuasions, the Obama campaign was manna from heaven. Before you could say presto-chango, folks fell in for Obama.

Hillary hatred really needed no new motivation. It existed for decades, since her days as the First Lady of Arkansas. It derived from her pursuit of a profession (law), her dedication to a cause (health) and her standing by her man (Bill) through thick and thin. Americans with diverse motives took jolly part in Hillary hatred. The Obama campaign gave full vent to this, aided it, abetted it, one might even say facilitated it’s propagation by TPM, HuffPo, D-Kos, and DU.

The real impetus to this blog came in the aftermath of the DNC-RBC meeting at the end of May 2008: the committee not only gave Obama delegates even though he took his name off the ballot, it took away FOUR delegates from Hillary Clinton and re-allocated them to Obama. The DNC-RBC used ingenious, tortured logic: since “more people would have gone to the polls if they thought the election  really counted, and they would have voted for Obama”. And then there was the situation with Florida and Michigan delegate seating, and delegate strength.

This perfidy perpetrated by the DNC, engineered by Donna Brazile, permitted by Howard Dean and blessed by the party leadership including Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and others, embittered millions of Americans. The rage, frustration, bitterness, sorrow, and pain were best illustrated by a then utterly unknown woman from New York. Harriet Christian was unexpectedly caught on tape by the brilliant Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake blog. The rest, as they say is history.

In the wake of the DNC-RBC meeting, hundreds of blogs sprang up. Dozens of groups sprang up. Thousands of Hillary voters did a Democratic Party’s electoral equivalent of  the old Hippy Revolt. They turned off, tuned out, and dropped out. A new age of Democratic PUMA party dawned.

The party establishment miscalculated, and itself was misled by the Obama campaign. With the help of adoring, raucous youngsters, fawning self-righteous media elites, the left-leaning liberal pundits, the Obama campaigned built itself into a sort of juggernaut that was hollow from within and hallowed from without. With little substance to offer, it built on platitudes, rhetoric and gamesmanship. The DNC bought it lock, stock and barrel. But millions of Hillary voters were not buying it.

Such was the climate of electoral discontent in which this blog was born. The intellectual basis was that long-ago memo, see other Page for the details. The emotional basis was a visceral revulsion at all that Hillary-hatred has wrought,  in no less measure by the party bosses, the party opportunists, and the newly partisan.

This blog started as a protest against the treatment of Hillary Clinton by the sexist, misogynistic, blogosphere, the MSNBC pundits, the CNN arbiters of what constituted news, and the print punks at AP, WaPo and NYT. The magazines did their share of it too. Only the Internet offered a space for the supporters of Hillary, who wanted to vent their emotions. This blog was one such.

Many Hillary blogs have moved on after the silly spectacle of  coronation at Denver. Some just folded, some plod on, a few have morphed into GOP voices, some have become Democrats for McCain, others have branched off into activism related to reforming the Democratic party, changing the primary election procedures and caucuses, etc. A few set out to write-in Hillary.

This blog would have died a natural death at the time of Hillary’s speech of acclamation. But Sarah Palin changed all of that about four days later. NO, IT WAS NOT SARAH, IT WAS THE LEFT BLOGS that changed our mind.

The vicious and despicable attacks on Sarah Palin kept this blog alive!

In the 3 weeks since being nominated, Sarah has been subjected in one short blitzkrieg of character destruction attempted from every possible angle. Voters already incensed at the treatment  Hillary received, and would have gone quietly away to lick their wounds and sulk, have instantly been galvanized. We identify with Sarah. One doesn’t need to be a woman, mother, moose burger eater or even have a view on God or abortion, to be infuriated with the media coverage and the left-wing treatment of a candidate for national office.

The infamy of Senator D-Punjab memo lives on, and keeps on giving!

Just about every criticism of Sarah, voiced loudly by the Left, was also valid about Obama.  We pointed this out, early on, even before her actual nomination. This campaign is not about McCain/Obama and Biden/Palin anymore. It is about McCain versus Biden, and Obama versus Palin. That was stated right here, three weeks ago.

The future of this blog is bright! Just as it was easy to start D-Punjab, just as it was hard but doable to become a PUMA, so it was with equal measures of grief and unease that it became possible to change over to a Puma for Palin. The cause of this blog is easily heartfelt. The emptiness of the alternative enables it.

As long as the bloviators keep lambasting Sarah in much the way they actually should have done to Obama over the last year, it becomes that much easier to blog about Sarah. The grist for the mill never ends.

It is almost as if the lefty commentators have no sense of irony at all. All the barbs they throw at Sarah come right back to hit Obama. To these boomerang throwers, this Puma says, “Duck you sucka!