Many PUMAs are depressed and angry today. I understand how you feel, even though I expected this result.
The nomination was rigged, long ago. The people responsible for ignoring the will of the voters and selecting Barack Obama as the nominee have been plotting and planning for years. This was no accident. The full scope of what happened may never be known, but in hindsight some of it is obvious.
We were caught by surprise, and have been playing “catch-up” for months. But we have made tremendous progress. PUMA is less than three months old, and we have already made the national news.
So we lost this battle, but it was one they didn’t even expect to have to fight. Now we have to regroup, get organized, and figure our and strategy and goals for the future. There will be a need for local, state and national activities. We need to be ready next time, so that things like caucus fraud don’t occur.
This struggle will take a long time. It will last at least four years, maybe longer. Women’s Suffrage and the Civil Rights Movement took decades. Considering the progress we have already made, I expect that we will achieve victory much sooner.
Meanwhile, life goes on. We have jobs, families, and lives to live. We need to pace ourselves, so we don’t burn-out.
Our next goal? Making sure that Barack Obama is defeated in November.
PUMA
Filed under: Barack Obama, General, Politics, Presidential Election 2008 Tagged: | PUMA
right on righteous dude!
seriously good post… I for one and up to the task.
http://pumaalliance.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/orange-r-evolution/
http://pumaalliance.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/772/
PUMA Not Going Anywhere.
plus I read and post much faster than the others!
I cannot wait to vote against The Fraud!!!
Lessons from the Orange Revolution
http://ncrcafe.org/node/2020
Some interesting reading and comparisons.
“Imagine this – a rigged national election. The popular candidate garnered more votes and precincts but still did not win. Now imagine the population refusing to sit back, to throw up their collective hands, to give in to apathy. Such is the story of the “Orange Revolution,” the 2004 presidential election in the Ukraine, a tale with lessons for us.”
Bravo, MyIQ!!
I’m ready and anxious for the fight
I sympathize, Charles. I’d be distracted by the view too.
I’m staying, and fighting. I’ll see this fraud defeated, and we will rebuild.
BTW RD, I think the Cheeto was around for a very long time before they made the news. We got exposure FAST. It’s going to grow.
Charles, you could give us running commentary on what you see – LOL!
One thing I left out was that Hillary may not be part of our future.
She may not choose to run again, or who knows what may happen.
PUMA is not about any one candidate or party.
Our goal might be retaking the Democratic party from the people who have hijacked it, or it may mean forming an entirely new party.
Charles: LOL!
Ooops, that was myiq, not RD. Sorry.
Hee Hee!! I just took a peek at TL — all the posts since Jeralyn’s “get on the bus or get under it” send off today have less then 10 comments each — I love it, because part of her “rationale” for telling us to STFU was because the posts were all getting 200+ responses. I hope this keeps up.
Strongly agree that top priority is defeating O. It’s his party now. If he’s elected Dean, Brazile and their cabal (along with Axelrod, his thugs and their media enablers) will be viewed as heroes and the dems will ignore any calls for reform.
“Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, taking his turn in Denver today to bash Democratic nominee Barack Obama, hammered home the Republican message that the staging of Obama’s acceptance speech reveals his arrogance and vanity.”
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/pawlenty_piles.html
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=NY_NYP&ref_pge=lst
Uh, ladies?
You do realize that SF has one of the highest percentages of “confirmed bachelors” in the nation?
myiq –yes, we know all about SF, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy looking!!
Yes, myiq, but I can always admire. Beauty is beauty, whether I’m going to sleep with it or no.
I’m disgusted with the way so many sites decided to require all visitors to drink the kool-aid or leave.
Actually, many male models, body-builders and “exotic dancers” are gay.
It’s us hetero males that tend to get fat and sloppy.
I doubt we have to even lift a finger to ensure his defeat. Tonight’s rock concert/greek god show is going to backfire on him. Soon to be seen on http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/…
Oh, Charles. I saw your post. I’ll comment later. It wouldn’t be appropriate right now.
Regrouping, you need to keep PUMA radio going and arrange a virtual conference to make sure the coalition has the strategies right. Also I think some of PUMA strength is also weakness at times. Leadership is needed to decide on and to stay on message.
History isn’t made by people who wait
PUMA just “happened”
It wasn’t planned or organized. Things happened too fast.
I love me my San Francisco. Relatives all around the Bay area and I go into town everytime I visit.
I’m jealous, Charles – of your location, that is. I prefer looking at the other gender.
Even the television down here in Oz today is all Obama all the time. Had to turn away.
I’ve been holding on to the infinitesimal hope that the convention would not turn out this way.
It is something of a very sad relief to see the Democratic Party officially and irrevocably divorce itself from what it has always stood for. After all the hints (to put it mildly) given during the primary, I finally know where I stand as far as the Democratic Party is concerned. And it’s not within the party.
The party has set me free and cut me loose. It doesn’t want me anymore. I am no longer a Democrat.
(Yeah, I know – goodbye cruel world)
I think my coal miner union-organizer grandfather would understand completely why I can no longer be a member of this party. He would have disowned any descendant who abandoned the party of the working person. But this is no longer the party of the working person.
My grandmother likewise would have disowned any descendant who abandoned the party that stood for equal rights for women. But this is no longer the party of equal rights for women.
These are my examples of real Democrats. These are my touchstones: Grandpa the union organizer and Grandma the suffragette. Their black-and-white wedding photo taken in 1914 hangs in my dining room and reminds me every day of my heritage. I won’t let them down and I won’t let myself and my principles down, even if it means abandoning the party that has abandoned their principles.
It causes me grief that I can no longer call myself a Democrat with enormous pride, given what they did as Democrats. It kills me that the Democratic party is no longer my home. But I didn’t want to leave the party. The party left me.
We are not what we used to be. But we can be something better. We just can’t be Democrats.
No, it’s not. And I don’t think we’ve waited at all, have we?
In case you haven’t already done so….or I missed the post…perhaps unsubscribing from the Dem listserv and leaving a comment would be a good place to start.
The comment I left when unsubscribing:
“You lost me when you did not pick HRC as your running mate. Her speech proved to me that my vote for her during the primary was the right choice. You do not yet have the experience or ability to lead this nation. To quote millions of my new found friends, Party Unity My Ass. At the end of the day, I, like many Americans, will not vote the party line like a trained seal but will vote for the best candidate. At this stage of the game, that is John McCain.”
“Making sure that Barack Obama is defeated in November.”
Right On!!!! Absolutely! !!!Can’t wait to see him defeated, I’m already planning to party for a week after the election. He’s going down in flames and I can’t wait to see it.
It really frightens me the way he is so much more secretive than W, even, and can you imagine criticizing anything he did as President? He’d have his hit squad out their “disappearing” people, and I’m not kidding. All this about squelching the true ads about his association with Ayers? Power gone mad!
A Democrat all my life until now, and it’s hard to believe that I’ll be voting for McCain. But now I’m relishing the thought of pushing that lever or whatever flavor of voting machine they have in November!!
I’d “write in” Hillary, but I want “the one” defeated.
BTW, are there any PUMA’s in Tampa?
Hillary 2012!!
PUMA’s RULE!
I stopped going to Talk Left a long time ago – back in May BTD said Hillary supporters are “cultists” and he “despises” them… I didn’t stick around for more.
How many PUMAs that made it to Denver had any plan to do so back in May?
Most people have to plan things like that far ahead, arranging vacation time, air fare, lodging etc.
Thus far, PUMA has been spontaneous and organized on the fly.
Next time, we’ll be prepared.
NEW POST
Katiebird – we’re waiting for you!
myiq, I hadn’t thought about it until I read your post, but if it weren’t for PUMAs and the Denver Group people might have thought that the chicanery was limited to May 31. Now we know for certain–and so do a lot of other people who wouldn’t have otherwise–that our election was stolen. Well done PUMAs!
pumaalliance, you might not take the Orange Revolution at face value if you were to read the critique of Obama that a certain “controversial” author makes from the left.
In his view, the Orange Revolution, like the Rose Revolution, was a (left) CIA operation that, among other purposes, served as a rehearsal for the Obama “movement.” Whatever you think of Webster Griffin Tarpley’s “Obama: The Postmodern Coup,” the argument deserves to be debated, not dismissed out of hand.
Angie! I thought your name was familiar! Looks like I’ll be spending more time here. Sad, but I knew the purge was coming.
Actually, I feel sort of liberated now.
I don’t have to think about “party unity” anymore. I don’t have to accept deeply flawed candidates because they are “better than the alternative”
I don’t have to support guys like Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry anymore.
Hi stxabuela — I remember you from TL too — of course, my “user name” (which is my real nickname) isn’t as recognizable as others on here. Good to see you here too.
Is anyone on here going to watch that circus at the Ocropolis so I don’t have to? (I will not anyway, but I’d like updates if some one is going to take one for the team).
Charles, I read your post on history, and I loved it. Thanks. That is the source of many of our problems now – these kids neither know nor care about even history as recent as a few decades ago.
Obama = Rock Star
McCain = Rock Solid
McCain ’08
Hillary ’12
America first-ALWAYS!
I am in for the long haul and cannot wait until Obama is defeated. I left the DNC back in June when they stole this election. I am kind of glad she doesn’t have the nomination since the idiot split the party let him have the rewards of that. The reward is a very huge landslide victory. I will never vote for a party again. I will vote for candidates not parties both Parties will have to work for my vote.
really? wow! I haven’t read that book actually, that is interesting… however even if I did believe it I think now we are pushing back against what is essentially a marketing scam we shouldn’t be afraid to use marketing in order to do so. Orange ribbons have also been a symbol for democracy and stolen elections for Florida, and also the PUMA PAC use orange and the PUMA/Hillary marchers in Denver also used orange.
However on the claims made in the book even if I did believe it (which I am not sure I would) I don’t think it changes the basic idea that grassroots movement needs symbolism like this and it makes them more powerful.
my last was to Palomino of course.
myiq2xu; Yes, but as Elaine Benes would say, they mostly play on the other team!
Charles and myiq2xu, you’ve got me in stitches. I live in SF (one of the multitude of single straight gals who live here and get so depressed at all the eye candy that’s “not available”!) and work in the Castro, and when the Bears come to town…..well, it’s downright scary.
Not as scary, of course, as the coronation tonight!
I notice the color ‘orange’ being used all the time. Orange cheetah, and so forth. How did that get started and what does it mean?
That looks like a parody site to me.
Gilligan is my boy-toy
(edited for the amusement of myiq2xu)
cbn:
Orange is the color of a prominent fauxgressive blog that was nicknamed the “Great Orange Satan”
Something must have went haywire at MSNBC. My husband was watching his favorite program “Jeremiah” on Sci-Fi and none other than Awfulman Olberman came on announcing about the doings at the coronation tonight. Freaky as shit. I told my husband to change the channel. He turned it and went back and the idiot was gone. Must be having problems at Cesar’s crowning.
http://www.youtube.com/theorangeunderground
is pretty funny too.
random acts of cheetos
Well we’re not going anywhere, and you seem to be on our site. So you Piss off.
I totally agree that our ultimate goal is to make sure Obama loses in November. You can vote for McCain, a third party candidate, stay at home, or write in Hillary. Any of these options will make you feel better than feeling forced and guilt tripped into voting for this fraud simply because he is a “democrat”.
Great post.
I am so grateful to everyone who went to Denver, who started PUMA, to the Denver Group, riverdaughter and all the people who post here.
I was in the Ukraine at the time of the Orange Revolution. The people there did not expect justice, but demonstrated to make it happen. We have learned to do the same.
I did not want to vote for McCain before, but now it becomes a matter of necessity to stop someone more unqualified than McCain make it to the WH.
It’s at the lowest level.
I was doing my 16-year old boy routine…
What makes you so sure Obama won’t pick a judge you don’t agree with. Here’s the thing. He is untrustworthy and unreliable.
As proven by his backtracking on FISA retroactive immunity. To accuse people of voting for her just because she is a woman is
nonsense however, 80% of the black community voted for Obama. Clinton was and is the better candidate and Obama will not deliver on most of his promises. Also the primary elections were gamed a fraudulent from start to finish. No one supports him here. Go away.
I should have added, after their campaigns dishonest attacks on Bill Clinton in South Carolina. However I should have ignored the troll but I didn’t know if any moderators were around.
If you had any doubt that this was a long tie in planning – think – a black man making his acceptance speech on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic I have a dream speech – clearly it’s been in the works for a loooonnng time.
Unfortunately, they picked the wrong dude to use for this charade – he is no Martin Luther King
I live in Kansas so my vote really doesn’t matter but I’m hoping that people in swing states vote for McCain – only to stop Obama.
I don’t think McCain will pick an attack dog for his VP. He seems able to stand on his own – not like Obama.
“Our next goal? Making sure that Barack Obama is defeated in November.
PUMA!” HERE!HERE!
“Free at last, Free at last, Free at last!”
Ah, yes, us swing-state voters…what power I hold here in Pennsylvania…
Obama could easily pick a judge we don’t agree with. He could do in the name of “unity”. McCain and Obama will both choose a business “progressive”. But McCain just very well might pick a judge we (and his dem friends in the senate) can live with in the same spirit of unity.
echinopsia, that was a beautiful comment.
I am appalled that bloggers I’ve previously respected for their desire to see Obama defeated have now completely reversed themselves. They are suddenly sounding very much like the Kos critters…’if you don’t like it, get off my blog’, etc.
How can people be so warped that they have bought into the very things they have fought against all these months? Do these people have such insecure values that they can shift allegiances so quickly, so fully?
Whatever happened to principles? These people have been bought very cheaply and consequently, I no longer see them as having any value at all.
With the media gushing and 24/7 Obama, I can only hope that the real people in this country (those that aren’t glued to their TVs) can’t be bought so easily and that their good, common sense prevails. This country needs to get mad, really mad at how our votes are being subverted by the media and the Obama machine.
Thank goodness for PUMA. Out of all the faux grass-roots crap that went down this election season, PUMA may be the only authentic one. Congratulations to all PUMA!
Nobama/08
Someone upthread is talking about blogs changing alliances…are you referring to Talk Left? Jeralyn laid down the law today that there will be LIMITED criticisms of the Dem ticket, although she explicitly said she would not vote Obama if Biden was on the ticket. She even made up a funny graphic with Obama and Biden in an old timey Oldsmobile.
I left Talk Left today for good. It’s a great blog but like many who were leaving today in droves, felt that we were being somewhat stifled in our discontent with the DNC, the process and of course, one Barack Obama. In the words of TL, we were told to “get on board”.
I’ll stay at the station and shoot Obama and all his voters the finger thankyouverymuch.
txpolitico67:
My personal take on TL:
http://myiq2xu.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/purging-dissent-is-not-democratic/
Well, the Dems are officially looking like their mascot now. A bunch of jackasses. I’d like to see our movement finally produce a viable 3rd party. Whether that means starting our own, or possibly joining one of the numerous ones already established. There are a couple of options that stand for PUMA principles.
I will never trust the unDemocratic Party ever again. They are now equally as vile as the Repubs to me.
Uhmm….as far as the rules which were rigged against Hillary, one of the people that helped adopt them would be Harold Ickes.
“Our next goal? Making sure that Barack Obama is defeated in November.”
Wow. This is really sad. (shaking head)
“Obama won the popular vote”
Um, yes, And by your calculus, when he loses to Mccain, he’ll win the popular vote then, too. Hey, it’s easy, just discount FL, and Mi and well, every other state, and count his 300 million times–he won unanimously!!! Except, he has kind of a problem with the complications involved in voting, so in case he accidentally votes JM himself, maybe we better count Mi-no, she probably won’t–well, Axlerd will very likely vote for him, unless the consciene thing kicks in. Okay, i got it, Donna. We’ll use Donna’s ballot.
That will keep him warm sittin by the fire in Chicago. A lot warmer than the people freezing in his bud’s tenements, anyway.
And no matter what, he’ll always have the Idaho and Alaska caucuses.
Blah blah blabbity blah
(edited to make more sense by myiq2xu)
I made a poopie in my pants!
(edited for the amusement of myiq2xu)
“Our next goal? Making sure that Barack Obama is defeated in November.”
(edited by myiq2xu to eliminate unnecessary words)
yes,riverdaughter, I’m sad and angry!!! The only reason that I registered democrat was because Hillary was the candidate.I voted for her and my vote was stolen by the DNC, given to Obama by Hillary herself! It’s ourageous!!! Coming from South America I thought that here in the USA was a REAL democracy, and after this disaster from the DNC and it’s group I’m more than disappointed I’m disgusted!!! I couldn’t believe Hillary herself suspended the fake roll call to give Obama MY vote!!! so.. this is too much…. I need a break!!!!
Come November, I’ll decide if I vote for MCCain or an independent candidate. As for now, I’ll go on with my life… no more politics for the time being… thank you for fighting for justice, I wish you good luck…..!
I have smelly feet
(edited for the amusement of myiq2xu)
It is time to celebrate. We’ve come a long way ladies
http://cougarsforclinton.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/mccain-makes-a-girl-his-vp/
Wha now women are not allowed to make up heir own minds? I gues if hey don’ agree wih you their no a women
[...] week they ran an article on how the Democratic Primary was rigged for Obama, and in fact had been rigged years ago, in their own words: The nomination was rigged, [...]