Obama Camp in Snit Mode Over Carville’s Comments

Incipient puma James Carville let it all out last night on CNN, criticizing “Obama’s Convention” for offering no positive message or even going a little negative on Bush and McCain.

“The way they planned it tonight was supposed to be sort of the personal — Michelle Obama will talk about Barack Obama personally, Ted Kennedy was a very personal, emotional speech,” Carville said. “But I guarantee on the first night of the Republican Convention, you’re going to hear talk about Barack Obama, commander-in-chief, tax cuts, et cetera, et cetera.”

“You haven’t heard about Iraq or John McCain or George W. Bush — I haven’t heard any of this. We are a country that is in a borderline recession, we are an 80 percent wrong-track country. Health care, energy — I haven’t heard anything about gas prices,” Carville also says. “Maybe we are going to look better Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But right now, we’re playing hide the message.”

Oh dear! I guess Carville forgot that Clinton backers are supposed to STFU and spout the Obama party line. Will Obama order CNN to dump him again as they did during the primaries? The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama’s campaign is a bit PO’d at Carville right now.

Obama strategist Robert Gibbs pooh-poohed such talk Tuesday morning.

“What we set out to do last night I think was accomplished in a very, very big way,” he said, pointing to Michelle Obama’s well-received speech that touted Obama’s biography and her own.

We’re here, we’re likeable enough, and dog-gone-it, we’re crossing party lines.

Hi everyone. We finally made it to Denver late last night and met up with Betty Jean and others.  It was a long drive and I discovered that there is warp in the fabric of space time that makes time in an RV go slower than regular time.  But now we’re here and we are about to head over to the 18 million voices march and then to the celebration of Hillary’s candidacy in Chessman park.

I wanted to show you this clip of Indigo Girl, our newly commissioned colonel in the PUMArmy.  She is an amazing person, and we should all feel lucky to have her in our corner.  You all saw the wonderful job she did on the PUMAmobile.  Here she is talking about something that I have heard over and over again from women.  Maybe it is just because I am a man that I didn’t hear this particular dog whistle.  I mean, I heard it, and I thought, “What a jerk”, but I didn’t know how much it would strike a chord in women.

Also, I thought I would share this with you.  How many times have we been accused of being nasty Republicans?  I’ve never voted for a Republican, but I also never dreamed of demonizing someone for just being one, but that has been standard fare for the Obamans for some time now.  Whenever they grow tired of calling us racist, it seems they pull out “Republican” as if that word carried as many negative connotations.

However, aren’t they supposed to be behind Obama and his post-partisan world?  Wasn’t Obama supposed to  be able to get Republicans to crossover and vote for him?  Oh and I mean in the general election, not just as a way to scuttle Clinton. 

Lately, Obama has been taking the positions of Republicans.  This does not seem to upset his supporters.  I would guess because they want to work with Republicans.  Although,  I would think that if you really wanted to get Republican support for your positions, and work across party-lines, demonizing people for being Republican would be counter-productive.

So while Obama supporters are talking out of both sides of their mouth, PUMA is actually building bridges.  It was morning, and I was just coming from the campground office, and a man was standing next tp the PUMAmobile and looking at its banners.  He turned to me and put out his hand as if to shake mine.  As I went to shake his, I noticed he was handing me a $20 bill.

“I want to thank you so much for what you are doing”. he said, “Neither the Republican nor Democrat party are listening to the voters”.  He said he saw what the party did to Clinton, and was wondering how many Democrats would get really pissed off.  Here he is in his own words expressing his PUMAness.

Thanks John.  We’ll put your $20 to good use.  PUMA is fighting for Democracy in America and that includes Republicans.

Find the PUMA (Open Thread)

Photo taken by Jeralyn at TalkLeft

Tuesday: Happy Anniversary!

What was the role of The Press this year?

On this date in 1920, the United States granted women the right to vote.  They had been voting in several states before then.  In fact, I was surprised to find that my state, New Jersey, had given them this right in 1790.  A woman could vote as long as she was sufficiently wealthy or owned property in her own right.  But it seems that the idea that a politician might have to acommodate the demands of women was so distasteful that the right to vote was rescinded in NJ a couple of decades later.  The more things change…

The amendment to the constitution was introduced to Congress in 1918.  President Wilson lobbied for the bill throughout the next year until it passed out of Congress to be ratified by the states.  Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the amendment 88 years ago.

It doesn’t seem like the battle is won though. What is your right if you are expected, intimidated, bullied, shamed and demanded to turn over your vote to the men you didn’t want?  What right is there when the woman you *did* want is treated no better than an early suffragette, insulted, demeaned, stripped of some of her victories and “left to the violence of the mob”.  Sylvia Pankhurst, a leader of the suffragist movement, wrote about the hostility she and others encountered in their struggle:

We were not afraid.

A small, hostile group had established itself by the plinth, prompted by the organisers of the disturbance, whom I recognised as old hands at such work; poor, shabby public house loafers, they shouted without pausing for breath till their red faces were purple. I continued in spite of them, by taking pains to speak clearly and not too fast. From the north the disturbers hurled at me roughly screwed balls of paper, filled with red and yellow ochre, which came flying across the lions’ backs and broke with a shower of colour on anyone they chanced to hit. The reporters on the plinth had drawn near me to listen; thus, inadvertently, they intercepted the missiles aimed at me, and were covered with red and yellow.

They sprang back to avoid a further volley, and Mrs. Drake’s twelve-year-old daughter, Ruby, received a deluge of red full in her eyes. Crying, she buried her face in her mother’s dress, while the “patriots” raised a cheer.

We were naive to think that the struggle ever ended.  What we have witnessed this year seems to have set back the clock for the rights of women by 40 years.  Not only have we seen that the political power we thought we had was vapor but our social advances have been threatened as well.  Last week’s executive order regarding Health and Human Services treatment of reproductive services for women puts at risk whether a woman will make reproductive decisions on her own or whether she will encounter a phalanx of individuals who will substitute their own moral judgment for hers.

The struggle continues.  As long as a woman does not get credit for her own accomplishments and for her own personhood, there will be no equality.  Today, we meet in Denver and will don our white and sashes to march and demand that the country give us Bread and Roses.

Update: NOW is a little late to the party.  Emil Jones feels free to call a delegate an “Uncle Tom” and only when it is almost too late does NOW remember its mission and take up the gauntlet in her defense.  If we don’t hold the DNC and the Obama campaign accountable immediately, we can expect more of this stuff in the years to come.  These are Obama’s friends.  These are the people who “made” him.  Their attitudes and behavior are his attitudes and behaviors and I will not believe otherwise until the candidate himself denounces and rejects Jones and Jesse Jackson Jr and every other disrespectful man who gave him a boost to the top.  The buck stops with Barack.  We are holding him to it.

Carville: If this party has a message they did a hell of a job hiding it

While we get news from Riverdaughter’s night at “The Beautiful Protest and Rise” and Gary & Mawm’s PUMAmobile adventures, here’s this:

UPDATE (h/t MadamaB!)  James Carville’s full quote per Jake Tapper/ABC News:

On CNN this evening, Clintonista James Carville voiced his displeasure with tonight’s proceedings as having no theme, no message.

“James Carville seems the least satisfied Democrat in here right now,” noted CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “What’s going on James?”

“Well if this party has a message it has done a hell of a job of hiding it tonight I promise you that,” Carville said.

“How do you mean?” asked the anchor. “You haven’t heard about Iraq? You haven’t heard about John McCain?”

“…George W. Bush, you haven’t heard any of this,” said Carville. “I mean we are a country that’s borderline recession, 85% 80% wrong track country, people, health care, energy, I haven’t heard anything about gas prices, I mean maybe we are going to look better Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but right now like I say we are playing hide the message pretty good.”

“David Gergen said this a short time ago, that in the first two hours what is the message?” said Cooper.

“And you know what? David didn’t get to where he was in life because he’s stupid  He was exactly right. I look at this and I am about to jump out of my chair…There’s no message coming out of here, there is no sense that the party has a sense of urgency, and we’ve only got four nights this is 25% of the whole thing.”

But, but James, it’s important for people to get to know the REAL Barack.  Besides, Democracy is so 90s. 

Dealmaking and drama lead up to Clinton speech – By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

The Clinton and Obama camps agreed to limit Wednesday’s divisive nominating process for president, allowing some states to cast votes for both Obama and Clinton before ending the roll call in an acclamation for the Illinois senator.

In one scenario, Clinton herself would cut off the voting and urge the unanimous nomination of Obama, according to Democratic officials involved in the negotiations. They discussed the deal on condition of anonymity while final details were being worked out.

But some Clinton delegates said they were not interested in a compromise, raising the prospect of floor demonstrations that would underscore the split between Obama and Clinton Democrats.

“I don’t care what she says,” said Mary Boergers, a Maryland delegate who wants to cast a vote for Clinton.

“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is Barack Obama‘s convention,” Clinton told reporters. And yet, she said, some of her delegates “feel an obligation to the people who sent them here” and would vote for her.

As part of the deal, Obama and Clinton activists teamed up and circulated three petitions on the convention floor Monday night — supporting Clinton, Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden. Each needed 300 signatures.

Clinton said she wouldn’t tell her backers how to vote, but she told them she would cast her own vote for Obama. “We were not all on the same side as Democrats, but we are now,” she said.

The lineup for the second day of the convention features 11 governors and prominent House and Senate leaders. The convention’s keynote address will be given by former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a former supporter of Hillary Clinton‘s.

James, you didn’t get the memo?  The message is “destroy all things Clinton.”  So what if she won the popular vote with 18 million votes and was the candidate that won the most votes in primary history.  Hogwash!  She needs to go to the back of the line and make room for Gov. Mark Warner!  But what is the presumptive presumptuous Preciouzzz doing to smooth any differences?

Obama has taken the minimum public steps necessary to accommodate the Clintons, including giving them prime-time speaking spots. 

But he has taken few of the extra steps that Clinton allies say would have gone miles toward fostering goodwill.

He did not work hard to help her retire her $24 million campaign debt.

He did not make a high-profile statement repudiating any suggestion that Bill Clinton played “the race card” in the nomination contest — an allegation that the former president considers grossly unfair and that continues to infuriate him.

Just as significant, Obama has maintained a certain cool diffidence toward the former president. They spoke by phone last week. But for weeks before that, associates said, Clinton had heard nothing and did not even know when he would be speaking at the convention. The Obama campaign’s only communication was a form letter sent to all delegates.

Clinton loves to offer advice to fellow Democrats. But even in their conversations, Clinton friends say, Obama shows little deference or signs that he thinks Clinton, the only Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win two terms, has any special wisdom to offer.

“There is a lot Obama could have done to unify the party, and basically he hasn’t lifted a finger,” said one Democratic operative who is close to the Clinton team.

Do you think that the press is finally getting it? 

¡Que viva los PUMAs! (Long live PUMAs!)

If you’re not asleep, you might be up all night

And what’s going on in the PUMA blogs?

At By the Fault, our friend Charles Lemos wonders if there’s forgiveness for John Edwards. He shares Hillary’s calls for Unity and uncovers details about new trouble for Obama in Illinois.

Heidi’s talking about Faux Unity. I wonder what she means?

Polling and pundants at InsightAnalytical with a couple of ideas I haven’t heard before.

MountainSage exposes shams and videos galore.

And Sugar is watching the Convention. If I’d only known. ….

What do you read when you’re up all night?

[UPDATE] One More!

Light the Night celebration in NYC, by edgeoforever

Convention Low Lights and Open Thread

This is the most boring convention ever. How much are they paying for the music?

Tune into NO WE WON’T now instead?

Meanwhile, Does our Presumptive Nominee live in a glass house?

And more convention alternatives….

UPDATE:

And later join our friend Matt at My Two Cents, more BlogTalkRadio to fill in the low points of the Democratic Convention:

Tonight is a special DNC Convention after party with review and discussion of the first day of the Democrat’s Convention in Denver! Special Guests: The Honorable Rev. David James Manning. Also Co-Founder of The Denver Group Marc Rubin! Topics: DNC Convention, Roll Call Vote, Clinton Vs. Obama, McCain Vs.Obama, Polls, Electoral Map, Etc!!!

Join Me[Matt] and my guest co-host Phillip Tonight at 11PM ET!!!

Link:

Union Station protest at the MSNBC kiosk

Look for us on your evening news, Conflucians.  We got ourselves a posse and went down to Union Station in front of the MSNBC kiosk.  We protested and shouted slogans (in NPR-speak) and completely drowned out the Obamaphiles.

making noise at union station

We had a lot of support from passersby.  I was very encouraged that there were many sympathetic people.  I don’t think the Obama people knew what hit them.  They’ve had such a free ride for so long.  No one challenged them. no one was skeptical.  They have been handled with kid gloves like pampered little brats.  But in the face of all of the people they’ve been calling stupid, old women, they seemed oddly subdued.

Chris Matthews made an appearance and stood there silently while some of us finally got a chance to tell him how we felt to his face.  The coward waited until we left before he came down from the stage to talk to the crowd.

We stayed for about 45 minutes and then marched away up 16th street, the media in hot pursuit.  They followed us to the Starbucks and hung around to interview.  There were dozens of photographers getting shots of beautiful Murphy with her strawberry blonde hair striding up the hill, eyes fixed in front of her.  She leaned over to me with a sly smile on her face and whispered, “I’m so damn glad we came to Denver.”

Update: We broke a site record!  Murphy is getting tons of wonderful comments at PUMAPac and some have even donated money.  Keep up the good work getting the word out.

When Democracy returns to the Democratic party, so will we. Until then, PUMA!

Hey my Conflucians!  Waiting for reports from RiverDaughter, who’s at Denver’s Cheesman Park “The Beautiful Protest and Rise 2008” (see flyer on the right hand column), followed by candlelight vigil and from our PUMAmobile Dynamic Duo, Gary and Mawm – stay tuned!  In the meantime, add your Conflucian snark by captioning these photos and read post below if you like:

PHOTO 1

PHOTO 2

 

PUMAs are having a BALL in Denver!  “WE are the one no was expecting,” as the lovely Darragh Murphy from PUMA PAc states.

Here’s a snippet from the New York Observer:

Clinton’s Wishes Don’t Spoil PUMA’s Fun –by Jason Horowitz  |  August 25, 2008

In a flat, windswept part of Denver known, depending who you ask, as LODO, for lower downtown, or RINO, for River North, where the city’s yellow cab company once had their depot and where office and loft space now sit in the middle of parking lots and tall body-dumping grass, the PUMA women, and a smattering of PUMA men, held a premier of the anti-Obama movie, “The Audacity of Democracy.” Under pink and yellow neon lights at the sleek Fuel Café, the group’s organizers offered a respectable spread of sautéed spinach, prosciutto-wrapped dates, seasoned mushrooms, falafel, mushrooms and assorted salads, including one fattened with steak. The party had a cash bar, but it carried all sorts of top-shelf alcohol served by a handsome wait staff dressed seriously in culinary whites. A large contingent of foreign press, nearly outnumbering the Clinton loyalists, gave the proceedings an even greater air of sophistication.

A reporter from Le Monde interviewed Edwin Paytner, a round man who blogs as Texas Hill Country, for more than a half an hour. Two German reporters flanked Darragh Murphy, the founder of PumaPac, who has accused Obama supporters of killing bunnies as a scare tactic, scribbling her every word into notebooks. A glamorous Italian reporter talked sympathetically to a white-haired woman in a white Hillary t-shirt .

Taku Tsuchiya, a Japanese television reporter explained the intense international scrutiny.

“It’s interesting,” he said, “Because Obama’s popularity is declining right now and they might have something to do with it.”

And yes for those viewing – IT’S NOT about Senator Clinton, it’s about DEMOCRACY.  We’re not bitter dead-enders.  We are about ACTION.  We are the Democratic Base.  We make things happen in the USA, and we come in every color, size, gender, age, physical ability etc. etc. you can think of.    I wrote this yesterday, posting again because – well, it just says what I want to say:

I stand by my Floridian voter’s opinion:  

If a bank robber was caught stealing money and at their trial, they made a plea bargain to give most of the money back – it still doesn’t exculpate them from the crime they committed.  The robber should be punished regardless.  PUMA was formed to protest the DNC’s hijack of Democracy.  We want Democracy back in the Democratic Party, and you will not get our support and votes until our Democratic leaders start acting Democratically again. 

In Florida, our votes are used like toilet paper since 2000, and since the DNC’s leadership mostly ignores its voter base, they thought the best way they can win an election is by copying the Rove playbook.   How about counting our votes and LISTENING to your voters for a change?   Everytime they do listen, Democrats win the General election.  Had Ted Kennedy been the 1980 DNC candidate, Reagan would have never won nor started the Neo-Conservative movement.   I still resent that the Democratic leadership did not fight for Al Gore’s votes in 2000, had they fought like their Democratic voter base asked and pleaded them to, we would not have 8 years of the most destructive presidential administration in this country’s history. 

We put our trust in a party that we thought valued and represented Democracy and that would fight for our votes and for clean and transparent elections processes.   But since they won’t fight for Democracy, we will.

What happened on May 31st, 2008 was a crime against Democracy.  4 delegates and 600,000 votes were STOLEN in order to cushion Obama’s popular vote and delegate pile.   Had Obama won fair and square, if he had a popular vote lead (which Hillary does and Obama doesn’t)  and had won his delegates without the caucus fraud and DNC/RBC fiasco on May 31st, we’d be a united party. 

As far as I’m concerned, this changes nothing.  We still have an illegitimate candidate that won through illegitimate means.   And PUMA will continue to be a consciousness that lives in all of us here at this little corner of the blogosphere until Democracy is back in the Democratic Party

 

As Carol Diamonds says: PUMA HAKA!

¡Que viva los PUMAs!  (Long live PUMAs!)

A Safe Refuge and Open Thread

In honor of Mawm and Gary’s PUMA Vacation:*

I want to add my welcome to our visitors. And share some of the ground rules.

The most important thing to know is that The Confluence is a refuge for PUMAs and Hillary supporters. It was created by Riverdaughter in the wake of the abuse we received at our former blog-homes. And the administrators of The Confluence have always kept that concept of A Refuge in mind when we review the comments posted to this site.

The rule (if there is one) is pretty simple. If it makes us (or our friends) uncomfortable or unhappy we delete it. Obama supporters: We’re not here to “Inform” you. Or “Help you understand.” We might keep your comment if it’s amusing or if we want to play with you for a while. But, if you bore us? You’re gone. Without a trace. And we won’t apologize.

I want to repeat my welcome to PUMAs near and far. I love this place that Riverdaughter made and I hope you come to love it too.

* Photos take in Kansas City, Kansas at midnight last night.  I just talked to Gary and the PUMA mobile is now a little west of Manhattan, KS.  They haven’t got a generator so they only have Internet access when they stop for breaks.