Angry At Obama? How Hillary Clinton Could Still Be The Democratic Nominee

And your choices STILL are...

It's time to take a second look at Hillary Clinton as our Democratic nominee for president in Denver next month. Clinton could still win the nomination if she can get 175 more delegates. Barack Obama is losing a lot of progressives, according to recent articles on MSNBC, Salon.com, and the NY Times. Many liberal bloggers are also quite upset. Obama's move to the center is the last thing people imagined three months ago, now reality is starting to sink in.

The movement is called PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) and they state accurately that Clinton never ended her campaign, but that she just suspended it. PUMA members believe that Obama is just not the right candidate for the Democrats and that Clinton is. There is also a coalition of 80 groups, JustSayNoDeal.com, that is on a mission to get Clinton in office. What has set these Democrats off? Well, Obama's change in position on the Iraq war, campaign finance reform, his new support for the death penalty, his sudden embrace of Bush's faith-based initiatives, his support for a ban on late-term abortions, his pro-Israel speech to APAC, his support of NAFTA, and his recent vote in favor of FISA . Oh, and he also voted on a senate bill to keep oil companies rich. According to the press, Democrats are increasingly more disappointed at the young Senator of Illinois who once represented "change."

Here is what PUMA members are saying on their website:

Soon there will be no difference at all between Obama and McCain on the Iraq war, and the Democratic Party will have missed yet another historic opportunity to help the American people end Bush's and Cheney's failed Neo-Conservative policies. McCain is exploiting Obama's radical shifts in position as examples that Obama has no principles, but only opportunism and expediency, and that his much-touted soaring words mean absolutely nothing.

Many liberals who once thought Clinton was just another centrist fell off their chairs when they found out that she had voted against FISA. Perhaps this is all Clinton needed to show Democrats that she IS someone who stands up for them. Of course, Clinton has made mistakes in the past like voting for the Iraq war. This was the main thing that turned many Democrats off. She was also guilty by association. Bill Clinton made bad choices too: welfare reform, NAFTA, "don't ask, don't tell," the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), and on and on. But, I think it was unfair to put Clinton in the same category as her husband. I feel like she was never given a real chance as a candidate.

Obama is also losing Greens who were thinking of voting for him, and also many Nader supporters who had abandoned the consumer advocate for this race. These folks are now thinking of going back to their respective party candidates, instead of taking a chance at another "neo-con," as they would like to call it. In one of my previous articles "Obama, Don't Mess With Nader," I wrote about the importance of courting and keeping lefty-progressives happy. I wrote that Obama would suffer a major loss if these voters got turned off. Obama's political strategists didn't consider that moving Obama to the center, could mean forfeiting lefty-progressives (Greens) and moderate progressives that support Clinton.

Here is a commentary by a columnist from the Sun-Sentinel (Kingsley Guy):

The question is, how will Barack Obama respond now that he has the nomination in his hip pocket? At the moment, it looks like he's following Richard Nixon's advice, though on the other end of the spectrum. To win the Democratic nomination, Obama ran to the left, bowing to the MoveOn.org crowd, the industrial and teachers unions, the trial lawyers, environmentalists and the ACLU. With the nomination in hand, however, he's been heading toward the center.

The next few weeks should be very interesting to observe. This has been a very unusual election year for sure, and what a climax it would be in this period of history if Hillary Clinton ends up pulling it off after all. Still, last I heard she was campaigning for Obama and who knows what she thinks of the PUMA movement. I will try to find out.

Nevertheless, the emergence of this PUMA movement is solid evidence of how fractured the party is. Many Democrats are shocked to hear rumors that some Clinton backers will vote for McCain instead of Obama. Also, a member of JustSayNoDeal.com during a June interview on MSNBC, said that some Clinton backers don't want her as VP, only as the Chief.

Personally, I don't want four more years of Republican rule, but at the same time I don't want a wishy-washy Democrat in office like Obama is becoming. I have no problem with Hillary Clinton getting the nomination if she is truly honest about standing up for progressives. Now, would she also move to the center if she gets the nomination? Would she also betray us? Who knows. I think that Clinton may have learned from her mistakes after the primary. Perhaps, she is now really willing to be the lefty we all want. She already showed some progressive deeds by voting against FISA. So, just when we thought the drama was over, it turns out that it's just getting better. More Clinton, more Obama, more cow bell.

Further reading and viewing:

The Huffington Post on PUMA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tomasic/hillarys-puma-voters-say_b_111461.html

MSNBC news story on Clinton's chances
http://hillaryclintonnews.blogspot.com/2008/06/justsaynodealcom-on-msnbc-today.html

Public radio
http://www.nhpr.org/node/16628

PUMA website
http://www.puma08.com/

http://JustSayNoDeal.com

Hillary Clinton's campaign website www.hillaryclinton.com

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firecult

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