From PUMA to Palinocrat

Tammy Bruce, lifelong Democrat, Hillary supporter, and former head of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, the National Organization For Women, has crafted a fascinating essay discussing the ramifications of the Palin nomination. The combination of misogynistic attacks on Hillary during the Democratic primaries and the far left's reaction to McCain's pick of Gov. Palin as a running mate have laid bare the canard that the far left sought equality for women - or as I argue here, any minority. That reality has dawned on Ms. Bruce. In response, she eloquently explains how this completely changes the dynamics of the social war that the U.S. has been engaged in for the past half century and she explains why she will now support the McCain Palin ticket:

This from Tammy Bruce republished at RCP:

In the shadow of the blatant and truly stunning sexism launched against the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and as a pro-choice feminist, I wasn't the only one thrilled to hear Republican John McCain announce Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. . . . For Democrats, she offers . . . a chance to vote for a someone who is her own woman, and who represents a party that, while we don't agree on all the issues, at least respects women enough to take them seriously.

. . . Clinton voters, in particular, have received a political wake-up call they never expected. Having watched their candidate and their principles betrayed by the very people who are supposed to be the flame-holders for equal rights and fairness, they now look across the aisle and see a woman who represents everything the feminist movement claimed it stood for. Women can have a family and a career. We can be whatever we choose, on our own terms. For some, that might mean shooting a moose. For others, perhaps it's about shooting a movie or shooting for a career as a teacher. However diverse our passions, we will vote for a system that allows us to make the choices that best suit us. It's that simple.

The rank bullying of the Clinton candidacy during the primary season has the distinction of simply being the first revelation of how misogynistic the party has become. The media led the assault, then the Obama campaign continued it. . . .

Virtually moments after the GOP announcement of Palin for vice president, pundits on both sides of the aisle began to wonder if Clinton supporters - pro-choice women and gays to be specific - would be attracted to the McCain-Palin ticket. The answer is, of course. There is a point where all of our issues, including abortion rights, are made safer not only if the people we vote for agree with us - but when those people and our society embrace a respect for women and promote policies that increase our personal wealth, power and political influence.

Make no mistake - the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party's increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That's why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.

They are deciding women's rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.

Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in.

It should be no surprise that the Democratic response to the McCain-Palin ticket was to immediately attack by playing the liberal trump card that keeps Democrats in line - the abortion card - where the party daily tells restless feminists the other side is going to police their wombs.

The power of that accusation is interesting, coming from the Democrats - a group that just told the world that if you have ovaries, then you don't count.

Yes, both McCain and Palin identify as anti-abortion, but neither has led a political life with that belief, or their other religious principles, as their signature issue. Politicians act on their passions - the passion of McCain and Palin is reform. In her time in office, Palin's focus has not been to kick the gays and make abortion illegal; it has been to kick the corrupt and make wasteful spending illegal. The Republicans are now making direct appeals to Clinton supporters, knowingly crafting a political base that would include pro-choice voters.

On the day McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Palin thanked Clinton and Ferraro for blazing her trail. A day later, Ferraro noted her shock at Palin's comment. You see, none of her peers, no one, had ever publicly thanked her in the 24 years since her historic run for the White House. Ferraro has since refused to divulge for whom she's voting. Many more now are realizing that it does indeed take a woman - who happens to be a Republican named Sarah Palin.

Read the entire article. Ms. Bruce is an eloquent writer. And I believe she is correct. Gov. Palin, by virtue of being a self-made woman, is a "nuclear explosion" in the middle of the far left narrative. This stuff just gets more interesting by the day.

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How Long Til This Makes A McCain Ad

Head PUMA member Bill Clinton seems to be giving advice to Hillary voters in advance of her speech tonight which, according to her advisors, will call for support of Obama because she and Obama agree on the issues.



Heh.

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Party Unity?

Why don't you tell us what you really think Bill?

Hmmm, you think Bill Clinton might have a bit of angst? Likening Obama as a politician to a Chicago thug is probably not going to do a lot for party unity.

I'd love to be able to believe its time to break out the popcorn and watch the blue blood flow through the halls of the DNC Convention tonight and tomorrow - figuratively speaking of course. Unfortunately, I have no doubts that we will hear nothing but professionalism from Hillary Clinton tonight. Bill Clinton is a bit of a different story. I doubt that he will be refering to Obama as a Chicago thug in primetime. But I could well see lukewarm praise for Obama.

This from a Politico article, Denver Drama, Can The Clintons Get Over It?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is over it — at least when people are watching.

. . . Bill Clinton is not over it. He’s trying, his associates say. He’s slowly getting to a better place. But his resentments from the bitter campaign battles of last winter and spring are many and diverse, and people who have spent time with him recently said they fester just below the surface.

For the next two days, a convention that belongs to Obama will be dominated by the same two people who dominated the Democratic Party for the last generation and who have come to Denver in much different roles than they wanted. She speaks Tuesday. It’s his turn Wednesday.

For the Clintons, the politics of the week are simple: Accept the cheers of the many Democrats who still support them, be lavish in their praise for Obama, make sure that if he loses no one can say it was because they were covertly rooting for that result.

But the psychology of the week is complicated. It requires them to muzzle what friends say are their deep and continuing doubts about Obama’s electability, qualifications and political character.

It also requires them to embrace a generational transition in which the Clintons — whose political personas once stood for youth and the excitement of change — are cast as sunset figures, two conventional politicians in their sixties being shoved aside by a charismatic young celebrity.

“They are both going to do what they have to do,” said one veteran of Bill Clinton’s White House who remains close to them. “That does not mean they will enjoy it.”

But Obama, too, is part of the Denver psychodrama. Some Democrats with high-level ties to both the Clinton and Obama camps said they were surprised that Obama has not done more to make the Clintons more enthusiastic about his candidacy.

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.

. . . The success of the healing effort will depend not just on what people say from the podium, but on how supporters in the Pepsi Center and in the national television audience react. This group includes high-level Democrats and people who were among the 18 million voters who backed Hillary Clinton in 2008.

“There is a group of Hillary people who are very angry, very upset,” a senior Clinton adviser said. “Some of it’s directed at the media. Very disappointed. You can’t control all those people. These are CEOs — some of them major, rich people.
. . . Few Clinton associates interviewed believed there was any doubt she would run for president again if Obama should lose. And the Clintons believe a Democratic loss is entirely possible. They no longer vocalize their beliefs that Obama has scant experience and faces huge problems connecting with lower-income whites and other key voting blocs. But the criticism they leveled last winter and spring — both publicly and more sharply in private conversations with top Democrats — were entirely sincere at the time, and have not gone away.

. . . [Bill Clinton] wants to return to the elder statesman role, friends said. But his own grievances from 2008 — toward the news media, and toward Obama — are an obstacle.

In public remarks over the years, Clinton has said many times that his biggest mistakes in life came when he was tired or angry. During his wife’s campaign, he was often both — sometimes with good reason, as he witnessed errors by his wife’s advisers or endured what even many media commentators have called a pro-Obama bias in news coverage.

Clinton several times became ill-tempered in public, called Obama’s anti-Iraq message a “fairy tale” and denounced a widely respected journalist as a “scumbag.” His tirades during daily campaign conference calls became so frequent that some of his wife’s strategists stopped getting on the phone.

. . . That’s why aides are sharply limiting access to him now, until he has more time to put his feelings about Obama into perspective. Both Clintons declined repeated interview requests from Politico.

Bill Clinton believes the Democratic nominee, far from practicing a unifying, transformational brand of politics, has the political instincts of “a Chicago thug,” one longtime associate said. Clinton has told people that Obama allowed surrogates to try to suppress Hispanic turnout in the Nevada caucuses, and played “the race card” in reverse against the Clintons in South Carolina and other states.

In a testy interview with ABC News during an Africa tour for his foundation a few weeks ago — one that convinced Clinton he should not give interviews for a while — he vowed that he would unload with his real feelings about the campaign after the general election: “I have very strong feelings about it.” . . .

Ah, come on Bill, let those feelings out. The PUMA folks want to hear what you have to say. You'll feel much better, and likely, so will we.

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Democratic Convention Day 1

A pretty dull night over all. I was looking forward to listening to Jimmy Carter open the festivities and speak about Obama serving out Jimmy's second term, but the DNC wisely pulled the plug on that. The only thing better would have been having Rev. Wright giving the opening prayer - but he is being held by David Axelrod bound and gagged deep in the jungles of Ghana with labels plastered all over his body saying "Do Not Release Until December 2008."

Pelosi spoke - and no one paid any attention. Heh. You couldn't hear her over the chatter from the floor. It was good to see Ted Kennedy make an appearance also. He looked remarkably healthy and gave a stump speech that was vintage Kennedy. We may have been given a hint of how dire is his prognosis when he promised to be at the January swearing in.

The main focus of the night was the speech by Michelle Obama, Barack's bitter half. She gave a very well rehearsed speech that was well delivered and, I thought, a good speech. It checked all the boxes and sounded the utopian hope and change themes. At least it was positive and did no harm. Karl Rove gave it a failing mark for being too much a stump speech and not enough an introduction into she and her husband.

Michelle Malkin has both the first draft of Michelle Obama's speech (heh) and the text of the actual speech.

The real fun was apparently outside of the Convention where the nations breakfast people - assorted nuts and flakes - gathered en masse. Gateway Pundit has all the stories, including:

- An anarchist riot outside the Sheraton Hotel resulting in sixteen arrests.

- Michelle Malkin getting chased about by screaming lefties.

- A Soros funded group has a bus containing a shrine to the evils of Bush and a film showing Americans being attacked by roadside bombs in Iraq.

- Midwest Jim enjoys the accomodations made available to our guests at Club Gitmo, compliments of Amnesty International.

- The People's Press Collective has video highlights of some of the demostrations. You will find some friendly faces in the crowd, including Cindy Sheehan and Ward Churchill.

Stay tuned tomorrow - its PUMA day.

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Sowing The Seeds Of Discord

Obama has done little to make amends with the Hillary camp, and his latest moves - not vetting her for V.P., not consulting her for advice on V.P. candidates, choosing to send out 3 A.M. "phone calls" to announce Biden as VP, refusing to help her retire campaign debt - are driving the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) wing of Hillary supporters into a frothing rage. As Allahpundit puts it: "The only way this could be more awesomely awesome is if it involved robots."

Obama has sown the seeds of discord himself. McCain, for his part, has decided to provide some water and fertilizer, aiming for a bumper crop.



Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, has spent some time pondering the "glass ceiling" for women in the Democratic Party. He also chimed in with helpful suggestions for the PUMA folk, including that that put her name into nomination for Vice President at the DNC Convention next week. He does so in the name of party unity.

Heh.

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