Bloodthirsty Liberal

Thanks to Aggie and David Brooks (see both below) for putting my feelings more articulately than I can manage this morning.

I just wonder what Obama’s running for. Isn’t President something of a demotion for someone already crowned sovereign—if not even greater (am I the only one to see the halos in his graven images)?

What effect would an election have? The mere will of the people is but a whisper on the wind to the acclamation of last night. Who cares what “the people” think, and when will they get over themselves?

But how much of a boob would he be if he actually did lose? Gods don’t lose. Messiahs don’t lose. Especially not to geriatric cripples with thinning hair, skin cancer, more homes than he can count, and a cranky disposition.

As much as I hope and pray for the sake of the country that he lose, I’m not sure I can see my friends and family put through the heartache—much less Barack himself. Have you ever seen a fallen idol? It’s not pretty.

PS: I think I’m going to be ill:

Ooh, baby:

And when we get behind closed doors
Then she lets her hair hang down
And she makes me glad that I’m a man
Oh, no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Pardon the unpleasant images that may evoke, but it would appear that this convention won’t appear at all. Whether the rooms will be filled with smoke or with arugula we will never know. Cause we ain’t gonna see it:

Expect to see a roll-call vote at the Democratic convention tonight? Be prepared for disappointment, as Hillary Clinton’s delegates will have to do. Instead of a normal floor vote, the tallies will be taken before delegates arrive at the Pepsi Center:

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention are casting ballots for the party’s presidential nominee at their hotels this morning.

The vote, negotiated by the campaigns for presumptive nominee Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, is expected to speed proceedings from the floor of the Pepsi Center tonight, when totals will be read from the floor as part of a roll call vote.

But it is also leaving many delegates perplexed.

Some delegates were confused because Sen. Clinton was not expected to release her delegates until the afternoon.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Mary Sullivan, a Clinton delegate from Albany, N.Y. “I’m gonna vote for Hillary. I’m a Clinton delegate and she hasn’t released me yet.”

I heard a similar report about the Massachusetts delegation on the local NPR affiliate—and the reporter took pains to note that they weren’t too happy about the arrangement.

So what’s up with that? Does Team Obama fear embarrassment at the hands of the PUMAs? Perhaps they should, but rank cowardice is hardly the proper response. Why he can’t accept the truth of the historically close primary race as a strength, not a weakness, is beyond me. Locking Hillary and her supporters in the closet is hardly presidential.

In something of a routine for him, Bill Clinton is set to steal the spotlight from the candidate tonight:

Sen. Joe Biden will make his first appearance before the Democratic National Convention as his party’s vice presidential nominee Wednesday night, but the real drama of the evening may come from former President Clinton and what he says about Sen. Barack Obama.

…

But Bill Clinton may still steal the spotlight. Some of the sharpest exchanges during the hard-fought Democratic primary season occurred between Obama’s campaign and Clinton, who was vigorously campaigning for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, for the Democratic nomination.

On one occasion, the ex-president said electing Obama would be to “roll the dice,” and he also called Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war “a fairy tale.”

Clinton was perplexed and unhappy that he was asked to speak on the night when the theme is national security, sources close to the former president said Monday. They said he would prefer to talk about the economy, the issue that helped him first capture the White House in 1992.

And in another signature move, after having his way he plans to sneak off before first light:

Hillary Clinton will be on hand for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, but according to a source close to former President Bill Clinton, he will not: the source tells CNN that Clinton will not join his wife at Invesco Field Thursday night.

A previous engagement, I’m sure. One he couldn’t postpone to attend the acceptance ceremony of his party’s candidate for the highest office in the land.

Her name is Stella.

Have you heard of a group called The New Agenda?

This is a group of “high-powered” (that must be why they didn’t invite me) Clinton supporters who are taking a very long and broad view of the primary season and the treatment of Hillary Clinton. I mentioned Bad News. The Bad News is that a recent Pew poll found that almost a third of Clinton primary voters won’t vote for Obama - especially older women. They are ticked-off about the media/pundit misogyny and the lack of response from the DNC. Huh. That sounds a little like yours truly. I remember writing some pretty angry posts late last winter and early last spring as I listened to comments around the size of her rear end, the color of her pantsuits, the quality of her laugh… I believe they called it a “cackle” once too often.

Thing is, it’s no longer about Hillary for many of them. I sat in on a group of high-powered Clinton supporters gathering in New York last week to create a nonpartisan group called The New Agenda. There was little discussion of the current campaign.

The New Agenda’s agenda is to look out for women’s political interests where the Democratic Party and old-line feminist organizations had failed. The attendees reserved special fury for the Democratic National Committee and its passivity before the misogynistic carnival. One of their specifics is getting MSNBC jester Chris Matthews fired — and if he intends to run for the Senate from Pennsylvania, to end that idea.

Every member has her own plans for November, including for a few, voting for Obama. Co-founder Amy Siskind, a former Wall Street exec and Clinton fundraiser, told me, “I won’t vote for Obama, but I’m not sure what I’ll do.” Cynthia Ruccia, a Democratic activist from Columbus, Ohio, who twice ran against Republican John Kasich, is supporting McCain — and organizing other Democrats in her swing state to do likewise.

The McCain camp has noticed. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and McCain’s adviser, met with Siskind in New York. She flew to Columbus to confer with Ruccia, Nancy Hopkins, another New Agenda founder, and 75 other miffed Democratic women. (Hopkins is the MIT biologist who famously protested a suggestion by then-Harvard University President Lawrence Summers that boys might be innately better at science than girls.)

DNC chairman Howard Dean has called Ruccia twice. “He was just waking up to the thought that women around the country were upset over the treatment of Hillary,” she told me. Ruccia tends to doubt that putting Clinton’s name to a roll-call vote will mollify many of the female holdouts. “The train left the station a long time ago,” she said.

There’s more, worth a read. I so hope that we don’t blink come November.

- Aggie