Lynette Long

EARTH TO THE DNC!

Over the years, when I heard people say they felt abandoned by -- even forced out of—the Democratic Party, I couldn’t fathom what they were talking about. While far from perfect, and not always having nominated the candidate of my choice, the party’s principles have always most closely aligned with my own.

Today when someone says they’ve feel abandoned by -- even forced out of—the Democratic Party, I hear the words of a kindred spirit. And what I can’t fathom is the party’s apparent determination to destroy itself.

Earth to the DNC. Earth to the Obama campaign. You cannot win elections by relegating large voting blocks to the junk pile.

Immediately after the Rules Committee debacle, I emailed a friend saying that the disillusion, anger and sense they’ve been disenfranchised could drive many Hillary supporters to either stay home or vote for McCain. Alluding to the need for massive fence mending, I concluded "The Democratic party would be unwise to underestimate the numbers, passion and commitment of these voters."

Unwise? Underestimate? Talk about understatement! In my own defense, I claim naiveté. The DNC had clearly demonstrated it didn’t believe that every vote should count. At the time I wrote that email however, I honestly thought the party wanted to bring the disenfranchised back into the fold…if for no other reason than their numbers could tip the balance in a close election.

It’s not the first time in life I’ve asked myself, "What were you thinking?" But I never thought I’d be asking that about the Democratic party’s principles. Nor did I ever believe the party would openly tell huge blocks of voters to go jump in the lake. Again, you need the numbers to win elections.

The question then is why? Why has fence mending been replaced with disdainful admonitions to get lost or smug assertions that disrespected voters will fall into line because they’ve got no place else to go? Even if some voters believe that, screaming at the doubtful, calling them names, and telling them we don’t want your vote anyway is hardly a recipe for party unity. On the other hand, it has helped to swell the Puma Pac ranks.

Like Republican George Bush before him, we now have a Democratic candidate who claims to bring people together while splitting the country asunder. Black against White. Men against Women. Rich against Poor. Democrats against Democrats. Old against Young. On a recent blog, for example, an Obama supporter unjustly accused millions of women, ‘Because you’re all too old to care about abortion rights, you want to drive us into back alleys." Excuse me… but those whom you call ‘too old to care’ are the very people who fought for and secured your own reproductive rights. No one’s asking you to say thank you, but you can at least acknowledge your history.

I AM NOT LOLITA

by Lynette Long

I am not Lolita.  I will not crawl back into  bed with a party that raped me.  I will not stay in an abusive relationship because I have no where else to go.  I will not be placated by a pat on the head or a worthless trinket.  I will not spend the rest of my life waiting for tomorrow or listening to people tell me that today is better than yesterday.  I am tired of being invisible in a country to which I have given so much.  I am tired of reading editorials written by men, watching male sports teams and male news anchors. I am tired of spending money adorned with images of men.  I am tired of having a government and a court of men run my life. For all their arrogance, men have not done a good job of running my country.  We are constantly at war, we ignore the least among us, a large percentage of our citizenry is poorly educated, and crimes against women and childen are at intolerable levels.  A country run by women would be more humane, more peaceful, and more prosperous.   I am tired of waiting for my turn. I am tired of other women who are willing to wait their turn.  Our turn is now.  I will not go back to the Democratic Party.  It is not my party.  It cannot placate me with more promises.  History proves that the Democratic Party over promises and under delivers. Barack Obama will be no different. The Republican Party is not my home either.  I will find a home.  I will create a home.  A home that reflects my values.  But returning to an abuser, only perpetuates abuse, and then I become complicit in the abuse.  I am not Lolita.  Howard Dean, do not expect to find me in your bed come November.

PILGRIMMAGE TO DACHAU

Authors note:    The following was written in 1995. Contained in my collection of essays published in 1999, it won an outstanding literary achievement award in 2000.  Naturally some of the essay's references are outdated because it was written pre 9-11 and pre-the GW Bush administration, but I believe the message is timeless...and perhaps even more relevant today. 

From people I've interviewed about their caucus experiences; to Super Delegates nasty, dismissive and sometimes threatening responses to pleas for fairness (including Donna Brazile's warning the DNC is stockpiling names of people who disagree with her); to racist accusations that all disagreements with or failure to adore Obama are are racist based, to the misogynist denigration of Senator Clinton and all women, to the media's manipulating the news and openly controlling who shall be elected...ad infinitum...this country is in far more danger from within than any time in history. Please read and be forewarned.  The potential consequences are far to great.

Olivia Taylor-Young

No Experience more overwhelming

A Pilgrimage to Dachau

I stare transfixed at the picture in the newspaper.  It is of a blue-eyed, blond-haired little girl.  Feature for feature, she looks so much my own childhood pictures, I feel as if I am seeing a mirror across time.  Even our long curls are worn in the same Alice-in- Wonderland style.  But she is not me.  Her name was Anny-Yolande Horowitz.  The photo is from her identity papers, issued in 1940 by the collaborationist Vichy regime.  Two years later, when I was skipping off to kindergarten in my native Providence, Rhode Island, Anny-Yolande was deported to Auschwitz from her native Strasbourg, France.  She was gassed upon arrival.

Today, pictures of my childhood and growing up fill our family album, along with photos of my own babies and their growing up.  And Anny-Yolande's face graces the cover of a memorial album containing photographs of 1500 French children...just a sampling the 11,000 who were shipped to Nazi concentration camps.  1

When I look the picture so similar to a little girl that once was me, I can imagine the feelings of a San Francisco woman who visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.  Her maiden name was Eva Heymann, and she was born in Berlin of the 13th of February.  Handed a folded, commemorative card inscribed with the name and birthday of a victim, Eva opened it to read, Eva Heyman, February 13. 2

These stories represent more than chilling coincidence.  They are examples of how the fabric of all lives is interchangeable, and its patterns determined by fate, luck or time and place.  Any person's tragedy could just as easily belong to another.

This lesson is intensely magnified when one retraces the footsteps of those who perished.  Visit a restored concentration camp, and the dead once walked on the very paths which you now follow.  They wore the tattered uniforms now displayed behind protective glass, perhaps on the very spot where you stand.  They entered the same buildings ...including the "Krematorium" which they exited in ashes.  You feel their spiritual presence and can almost hear their cries.  No commemorative cards are necessary.  The entire experience is in memoriam.

It rained the day we went to Dachau.  We drove through the magnificent Bavarian countryside, my husband and I, observing that the dark, somber sky seemed an appropriate backdrop for our pilgrimage.  We also sadly marveled at how such horror could spring from a place so naturally beautiful...or that a country so rich in its history of the arts and scientific accomplishment had been capable of such barbarism.  Our conversation was sincere and well-intended, yet it soon seemed like empty intellectualizing.  Realizations are swift inside a former concentration camp. One: illusory backdrops are neither appropriate nor relevant. The sun never truly shines on places of horror.  Two: the only answer to incomprehensible "hows or whys" is that human evil exists--even in the midst of accomplishment and beauty.   

               

HILLARY TALKS ABOUT THE CONVENTION

Hillary Clinton is asked about the convention and whether her name should be placed in nomination at the convention.  She also indicates there is no way she is going to win the nomination.

NO INTEGRITY IN THE PRIMARY PROCESS

MEMO

To:                  Harold Ickes

                        Terry McAuliffe

                        Jonathan Mantz

                        Karen Keogh

                        

From:             Jay S. Jacobs

Re:                  PRIMARY & CAUCUS DELEGATE ANALYSIS

Date:               May 14^th, 2008 – POST WEST VIRGINIA

            

Analysis of delegates (with latest estimates) for use in speaking with press & “Super Delegates:”

1. Caucus-elected delegates make up 17% of ALL “pledged” delegates chosen to date (515 of 3064).  They represent, however, only 3.37% of the total votes cast (1,086,494 caucus votes versus 32,247,908 primary votes – excluding Florida & Michigan where no delegates have been seated).

2. Thus, primary-elected delegates each represent 12,283 voters, while caucus-elected delegates only represent 2,073 voters.

3. The 515 caucus-elected delegates give disproportionate weight to caucus states of 5.925 times the vote given to primary states.  Note that in all of the caucuses only 1.086 million voters participated.  By comparison, the Florida Primary vote that some argue should be ignored attracted about 1.75 million voters – they receive no delegates.

4. Obama currently leads Clinton by 156 TOTAL “elected” delegates – 151 of them or 97% of his lead from the caucus states.  (Obama – 1600 / Clinton – 1444)

5. In 32 Primaries – out of 2537 total “elected” delegates – Obama leads by 5 delegates.

6. In 17 Caucuses (plus Texas) – out of 515 total “elected” delegates – Obama leads by 151

7. If you equalize Caucus and Primary delegates – based on “one man, one vote”, Obama’s Caucus Delegate lead is discounted to 25 delegates – making his “democratic” equivalent total lead only 30 delegates (25 caucus plus 5 primary) before the remaining contests.

MAJOR DONOR TO PARTY TREASURER: OBAMA IS A BAD INVESTMENT

The following is a letter sent to DNC Treasurer Andy Tobias (pictured at right) telling him why, from a rational investor's point of view, Obama has not earned the author's vote. The letter was sent by one of the DNC's biggest donors, a donor who has historically maxed out to the DNC and who was a maxed out donor in both the Kerry and Clinton campaigns, in response to comments by Tobias that she could not see the forest through the trees.

Dear Andy,

So you want to know what is taking me so long to "get on board"?   Let me try to answer with some discussion of what my 25 years on Wall Street and the Hedge Fund community have taught me, and what insights I can share in order to explain my stance.

As you know, anyone in our profession meets with countless management teams on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.  The "plots" change from time to time and the cast of characters play musical chairs. After awhile, they become all too familiar.  You have seen the movie before.  When you spot the corrupt CFO enter the scene, it immediately casts a doubt on the rest of the management team.  One or two conclusions can be drawn - either they are inept or they wanted a dishonest player.  Neither answer provides any comfort, but always insight.  I have been lied to by the best of them over the decades; I am sure you have had similar experiences.

After years of stepping in land mines, I learned to read people and situations. I had no choice - my listening skills were honed, my gut fine-tuned.  I picked up on what was and was not said, and I always paid close attention to the cast of characters.  The actions of a management team always told me more than anything they ever said.  If they were bailing out, so was I.  If the head of sales left unexpectedly, alarm bells went of.

EARTH TO DEGETTE: WE ARE NOT COMING HOME!

From the Washington Post:

DeGette, a congresswomen from Colorado, and Minority Whip, is using her book tour, which she plans to kick off next week at the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York, to continue working over disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters who have been threatening to vote for McCain. The Colorado congresswoman was a co-chair of Clinton's presidential campaign but is now lobbying disgruntled Clinton supporters who have been flooding her offices with angry phone calls not to back Barack
Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee. DeGette says the barrage of phone calls from die-hard Hillary fans have let up. Still, she says, "This is not a done deal for Obama."

What do I think:

Well if the calls have let up, we better start calling again.  Remember, anything worth having is worth fighting for.  We can't give up easily.  We can't give up at all.  I will not show my blind alliegence to the democratic party but I will fight with every breath I have for Democracy.

CALL THESE SUPERDELEGATES

Here are the phone numbers of the superdelegates that endorsed Obama against the will of their constituants. These senators and members of congress also got money from Obama.  Call them.

Rep. Baron Hill: 202-226-6886
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter: 202-225-5822
Sen. Jeff Bingaman: 202-224-2852
Sen. Frank Lautenberg: 202-228-4054
Rep. Ron Klein: 202-225-8398
Rep. Joe Donnelly: 202-226-6798
Rep. Gerald McNerney: 202-225-4060
Rep. Jason Altmire: 202-226-2274
Rep. Niki Tsongas: 202-226-0771
Rep. Dennis Cardoza: 202-225-0891
Rep. Gabriella Giffords: 202-225-0378
Rep. Jim Costa: 202-225-9308
Rep. Zack Space: 202-225-3394
Rep. Charlie Wilson: 202-225-5907
Rep. Jay Rockefeller: 202-224-7665

NOW SILENT AGAIN!!!

Rapper Ludacris, in a song released today entitled "Politics", calls Hillary Clinton an "irrelevant bitch" and also attacks President Bush and Sen. McCain. These lyrics are outrageous, offensive, and unacceptable.  Here are a few lines from his new song.

1. Hillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant

2. paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified
3. McCain don't belong in ANY chair unless he's paralyzed

4. get out and vote or the end will be near
the world is ready for change because Obama is here!
cause Obama is here
The world is ready for change because Obama is here!

Lots of groups have spoken out about these lyrics, but NOW is silent again.  Where is Kim Gandy when we need her?  She was quick to condemn the cover of the New Yorker, but says nothing about the cover of Ludacris.  Is she there head of the NAACP or NOW?  Instead of fighting for women's rights Gandy is meeting with Obama, and telling women to vote for him.  Trust me Kim Gandy is in the tank for Obama.  She should resign as the President of NOW and work for the Obama campaign.  We don't need you on our team Kim, you are worse than useless.   

Here is a report of the meeting Gandy had with Obama in the LA Times. "Obama mentioned that "he knew there had been frustration with stuff directed at Sen. Clinton by the media," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.  "It was very important for him to reach out," said Gandy, whose organization has yet to make an endorsement. "Obviously he needed to reach out to women in the same way that he has reached out to Latinos and to labor leaders and
to environmentalists, and even to evangelicals."

For those of you who would like to write Kim her email address is president@now.org.  Don't expect an answer. I haven't gotten one.
   

ARE SUPERDELEGATES FOR SALE?

by Lynette Long

In a few weeks the historic 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Primary between an African American Man and a White Woman will end. The two candidates competed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam. At the end of these contests, neither candidate had earned enough pledged delegates to garner the necessary 2118 needed to win the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Hillary Clinton earned 1640 pledged delegates while Barack Obama earned 1763 pledged delegates. A paltry 123 pledged separated the two candidates at the end of the primary season. Since there was no clear winner, the superdelegates would determine the Democratic nominee.

Approximately 800 superdelegates will make up around 20% of the 4000 delegates at the convention. These superdelegates are Democratic Party leaders, Democratic governors, and Democratic members of congress. They have the right to endorse either candidate without reason and can change their endorsement from one candidate to another at any time. The superdelegates are very powerful and highly sought after by candidates. One superdelegate is equal to one pledged delegate or 11,361 voters in California or 7,220 voters in New York. Many factors influence which candidate a superdelegate endorses but they usually vote the way their constituents vote. Some superdelegates have intense personal relationships with particular candidates that may influence their endorsement. Members of congress may also be influenced by money given or promised by party leaders, the DNC or the candidates themselves.

Politicians collect money for their campaigns but most American’s don’t realize that politicians collect a separate a pot of money called a Leadership Political Action Committee or PAC. These PACs are used to hire additional staff and pay for additional perks such as limos and first class flights. But one of the major reasons for these PAC’s is to donate to the campaigns of other candidates. Nancy Pelosi’s PAC is called PAC to the Future, Barack Obama’s PAC is called Hope Fund, and Hillary Clinton’s PAC is called Hillpac. Money was distributed by these PAC’s to the superdelegates to influence their voting. The Federal Elections Commission requires scrupulous reporting of how PAC money is obtained and how it is spent. This data can be retrieved at www.opensecrets.org.

In 2007, Obama distributed 299,000 from his PAC to superdelegates. He especially targeted the states of Iowa and New Hampshire. On July 25, 2007, the Hope Fund made $1000 donations to each of the following groups: Hillsborough County Democrats, Hudson, NH; Martha Fuller Clark for State Senate, Portsmouth, NH; Merrimack County Democrats, Chichester, NH; New Hampshire for John Lynch, Manchester, NH; Sgambati 4 NH Senate, Tilton, NH; Stafford County Democratic Committee, Durham, NH and Sullivan County Democrats, Claremont, NH. Obama also gave $5000 contributions to New Hampshire Democratic Party, Concord, New Hampshire, on July 26,2007; New Hampshire for John Lynch on July 25, 2007, and New Hampshire Democratic State Committee, Concord, New Hampshire on November 3, 2006. Obama did not announce his candidacy until May 2, 2007.

Obama also gave New Hampshire Democratic State Senator Jacalyn Cilley $1000 on July 25, 2007. She endorsed Obama on July 31, 2007, just six days after his contribution to her campaign. On July 26, 2007, first term New Hampshire Congressman Paul Hodes of New Hampshire endorsed Obama. The New Hampshire Primary was not until January 8, 2008 and Hillary won New Hampshire.

By March 28, 2008, Hope Fund donated $710,900 to superdelegates, more than three times as much as Hillpac. ($236,100). A study by the Center for Responsive Politics showed that presidential candidates who gave more money to a superdelegate received their endorsement 82% of the time. This is especially disturbing when the superdelegates endorse a candidate that is decidedly contrary to the will of the voters in their state and their districts.

After reviewing state and congressional voting records as well as PAC donations, members of congress were identified that fulfilled the following four criteria: 1. These members endorsed Barack Obama. 2. The constituents of their state preferred Hillary Clinton. 3. The constituents of their district preferred Hillary Clinton. 4. They got more PAC money from Hope Fund than from HillPac. These senators are Jeff Bingaman, Frank Lautenberg, and Jay Rockefeller. The members of the house are Jason Altmire, Dennis Cardoza, Jim Costa, Joe Donelly, Gabrielle Giffords, Baron Hill, Ron Klein, Patrick Murphy, Gerald Mc Nerney, Carol She-Porter, Zack Space, Niki Tsongas, and Charlie Wilson.

Charlie Wilson is the perfect example. He ran in Ohio’s District 6 in 2006. His seat was the seat of the former governor and is located in Southern Ohio. Wilson was a last minute candidate for his seat and because of this was a write-in candidate. The governor and the party worked hard to get Wilson elected.  President Clinton made an audio recording endorsing Wilson that went out to 50,000 homes.  The governor of Ohio is a big Clinton supporter, the voters of Ohio voted 54-44% percent in favor of Clinton, and District 6, Wilson’s District, voted for Clinton 70% - 27%. Yet Wilson endorsed Obama. It looks like there is no loyalty in politics to either your constituents or your friends. Wilson got $7,000 of PAC money from Barack Obama, but no money from Hillary Clinton. Was this a factor in his choice?