Great... Now Dems Are Being Told By Other Dems To "Get Over It"

Gone From the Granite State, But Tactics Not Forgotten

<snip>

The presidential campaign has moved on from New Hampshire, but it has left behind it deep fissures and feelings of resentment among local Democrats that some fear may linger all the way until November.

Some supporters of Barack Obama, stung by his narrow loss to Hillary Clinton, are lashing out at a large group of Democratic women leaders in the state who signed a letter criticizing Obama's commitment to abortion rights, a letter that went out by e-mail to many New Hampshire voters two days before the primary.

Other Obama backers are upset about efforts by top Clinton supporters to remove poll observers that the Obama campaign had stationed around the state on primary day, an intervention that the Obama supporters say hindered their get out the vote efforts.

Obama supporter Bill Siroty, a former Democratic chair for the town of Amherst, said the ill will is running so high that it could keep Democrats in the state who supported Obama from rallying behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, should she win the nomination. In 2000, bad feelings that lingered among some Bill Bradley supporters about tactics used by Al Gore in the primary - including misleading charges about Bradley's health care plan - were seen as one reason why Gore lost the state to George W. Bush in November, thereby giving Bush just enough Electoral College votes to take the presidency.

"People are very upset about it," said Siroty. "I've heard one or two threaten they're not going to vote for Clinton at all. Tensions are very high, and it could cause a rift."

Bette Lasky, the assistant House majority leader and a top Clinton supporter who was involved in both the e-mail and poll interventions, said she was sorry to hear about the bad feelings but hoped Obama supporters would get over it. "It's politics, and it happens," she said.

The e-mail questioning Obama's commitment to abortion rights was signed by a who's who of the state's Democratic establishment, which is dominated by women who supported Clinton in the primary. In addition to Lasky, the two dozen on the list included Terie Norelli, the speaker of the state House, Beverly Hollingworth, a member of the state's Executive Council and a former state senator, House Majority Leader Mary Jane Wallner, former state party chairwoman Kathy Sullivan, and Katie Wheeler, a former state senator from Durham who helped lead the charge for Gore against Bradley's health care plan in 2000. Echoing an attack in a mailing put out by the Clinton campaign that arrived in New Hampshire mailboxes the Saturday before balloting, the e-mail criticized Obama for voting "present," instead of yes or no, on several abortion-related bills while in the Illinois Senate.

"The difference between Hillary's repeatedly standing up strong on choice and Obama's unwillingness to vote 'yes' or 'no' is a clear contrast, and we believe the voters in New Hampshire deserve to know this difference," the letter stated. "We support Hillary Clinton because she never ducked when choice was at stake."

The Obama supporters say the accusation, which was laid out nearly a year ago and has cropped up from time to time since then, is unfair, noting that Democrats in the Illinois Senate often voted "present" on controversial legislation, not to duck issues, but as a tactical response to Republican efforts to force Democrats into unpopular votes that could be used against them in the future.

An Illinois Planned Parenthood official backed Obama up on this score over the summer, in response to an earlier round of questions about his record, and Obama has a 100 percent rating with both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. To try to defuse the e-mail and mailing, the Obama campaign on Sunday rushed out an automated phone call from a New England Planned Parenthood official vouching for Obama -- which the Clinton campaign in turn challenged by saying that the call had gone out to at least two people on the do-not-call list, against state rules.

And...

But the Clinton intervention at Ward 9 in Nashua nonetheless persuaded the moderator to ban the Obama observers. And the disputes, which dragged on for hours and grew quite heated, generally scrambled the Obama efforts to keep track of who was and wasn't voting, said Obama supporter Andrew Edwards, a rookie state representative assigned to observe the polls in Nashua, where Clinton ran up a big margin in her favor. Edwards was confronted by Lasky and by another veteran Democrat, state representative and Nashua Democratic chairwoman Jane Clemons, who he said issued a veiled threat during the dispute that he would face a stiff primary challenge in Nashua if he ran for reelection.

"The effect of it was that it basically disrupted our get out the vote operation," said Edwards. "My effectiveness that day was less than 50 percent as a result of the people who kept coming in" to protest the observers.

Clemons, whose son Nick Clemons managed Clinton's campaign in the state, said she objected to the Obama observers because she said she had been told by the Nashua City Clerk the day before that such observers would not be allowed and that letting the Obama use them conferred an "unfair advantage." In an interview Friday, the city clerk, Paul Bergeron, said this was not the case, that the discussion before the election had regarded volunteers challenging voters, not those checking names off lists.

Clemons denied that she had threatened Edwards with a primary challenge, saying that she simply asked him whether he was planning to run for re-election, which he may have wrongly interpreted as a threat.

Clemons did not sign the abortion rights letter because, she said, she was not asked to. She said she was not sure she would have if asked since she does not know the implication of a "present" vote in the Illinois Senate, as there is no such thing in the New Hampshire legislature.

She, too, hoped that the Obama supporters would get over their resentment. "You work so very hard for so very long that, yeah, there are raw feelings the day afterward," she said. "We try to give people time to get over it."

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Link: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/12/taken_for_granite.html

Be careful here... I've found that I don't "get over it" very well at all!!!

:nuke::wtf::nuke:

And BTW - Did we here of this sort of resentment between local Iowan Dems after the caucuses???

sleazy politics and Clinton she will never change and she will shit on her own supporters before it's over. Just like Bush.

I never thought I'd see such a show as this.

:popcorn:

For the record, Democrats (Obama supporters) have been telling other Democrats (those of us that beleive in equal and civil rights for ALL AMERICANS to get over it for months.

Yup, for months, Obamabots have been telling the GLBT community on DU to "Get Over" Donnie McClurkin, and Obama embrase of Homophobia.


Now that others are playing the same DIRTY, CRASS politics that Obama played, Obamabots are suddenly shocked and upset that anyone would play the same dirty political games that Obama himself has been playing during the campaign.


Well, Obama Nation - GET OVER IT. You threw American Citizens and loyal Democrats under the bus, and told us to get the fuck over it.
Karma's a bitch.

Remember - your candidate started playing dirty first. Don't act offended. Deal with it.

Your faux outrage is laughable.

get over it?

Disgraceful.

I am so glad I have never supported a candidate who does this stuff.

How you people can live with yourself I have no clue.

not and has stuff in his past that needs airing.

interesting to know how many Hillary supporters are willing to not give a shit about such tactics.

It speaks volumes about character.

who somehow have a VERY hard time hearing it back.

Furthermore, this is not voter suppression, and it's not Clinton's doing. It's a case of a dispute between voters, and there is NOTHING WRONG with the dispute getting a hearing in court.

Whoops....JEDNE...they meant Andrew Edwards a NH state rep....

:banghead:

Before Obama said he often voted present as a signal to proponents of bills that he might vote yea if the bill was changed. How would voting present on abortion work like that? It doesn't add up. Is Obama firmly on the pro-choice side or did he look for compromise?

I saw in another place that the tactical reason for the request for Obama's present votes was to protect pro-choice supporters from the heat of controversy. That means ducking. If Obama ducked the issues then Hillary's letter was correct.

<snip>

BuzzFlash has had a policy of not endorsing Democratic candidates in primaries because we think our readers should decide who they want to represent them. We admit to a bit of an Obama/Edwards tilt in our coverage, but we would support whoever the Democratic nominee is. Certainly, Hillary Clinton is extraordinarily well-qualified to become president.

That being said, some of the Clinton campaign tactics are starting to tick us off big-time, because they are dirty tricks claiming things that have been disproven. In particular, the Clinton campaign resurrected a warmed-over accusation that because Barack Obama voted present on some abortion bills when he was state senator here in Illinois, he is not fully behind choice for women.

Yet, as was the case in Obama's senate race, this was clearly disproven by the head of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, who says that Obama was a strong supporter of choice. A recent Associated Press article confirms: "During his eight years in the legislature, Obama cast a number of votes on abortion and received a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive, a vote that especially riled abortion opponents."

Yet the Clinton campaign, even after being chastised for being dishonest about Obama's choice record during the Iowa Caucuses race, is continuing to use this false accusation in New Hampshire -- and has continued to feed the misleading attack to the national press.

It involves a practice allowed in the Illinois Senate of voting present on some bills. Obama, at the request of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, voted present on some abortion bills in order to attract Republicans and wavering Democrats because if enough of them voted present the offensive bills would be defeated by allowing them an option other than voting yes. In short, according to the head of Planned Parenthood of Illinois at that time, Obama was doing what they asked of him.

"The poor guy is getting all this heat for a strategy we, the pro-choice community, did," said Pam Sutherland, president and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council.

The misleading and dishonest attack on Obama isn't even original. As we said -- and we know because BuzzFlash is in Chicago and obviously follows politics in Illinois -- it was used by Democratic primary opponents during Obama's senate run. (The Linked column from the Chciago Tribune was first published on March 19, 2004.)

<snip>

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2610479

:shrug:

The Clintons have a pro-choice leader who says the opposite. The way I read this, Planned Parenthood wanted the present option to attract members who didn't want the heat from a yes vote. Whether Planned Parenthood asked him to vote present or not, its still ducking. If the pro-choice organizations allowed members to duck tough votes its no wonder Obama got 100%.

The Clinton mailing may be one sided but I no longer believe it was dishonest. Obama really did duck the votes.

And as for the Clinton Machine having "a pro-choice leader who says the opposite."

I'm sure they have leaders of every single interest group that will say whatever they want them to.

Is this Clinton pro-choice leader involved in Illinios politics?

:shrug:

other side of this. This is from the letter:

"Illinois NOW cited Obama's "present" votes on tough choice issues in the Illinois State Legislature when explaining why they would not endorse him."

Its true the Clintons have somebody from each interest group who will defend them. That's also true for Obama.

Re: the bigoted "Embrace the Change" tour in South Carolina. They can taste what it feels like to be urged to "get over it".

>>>"Ill will is running so high that it could keep Democrats in the state who supported Obama from rallying behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, should she win the nomination.<<< Well walk a mile in my gay shoes.

Not a chance. I see this as just someone else trying to divide the Dems and weaken our chances. How bout instead of us 'getting over it', we 'play to win' and stop with the bullshit.

... that's just a republican talking point.

I WILL never_get_over_it

Note the passive tense, like it's the weather. Reminds me of the Alberto Gonzales line, "mistakes were made".

There ya go! Just keeps giving us reason!