The McCain campaign is now actively courting Hillary's disgruntled supporters, hoping they'll vote their anger without checking out his dismal record. They're really playing these people for a bunch of clueless suckers. From HillaryIs44:

mccain camp called me today and other dems here in town. dems for mccain they are called -led by dems-. the dem that called me expressed his anger at hillary’s treatment. i spoke to another staff there-they are flooded with hill suporters phone banking etc. they are crafting ways for dems to be part of the mccain coalition. today obama’s folks should have been calling grassroots activists like me-instead the mccain folks are all across america. you tell me.

Really good post.

The Great and Growing Divide
Many of us watched today as Hillary Clinton said something that physically hurt to hear. She asked us to support Barack Obama. Loyal Democrat that she is, and true to her word, Hillary did the unimaginable. She asked the rest of us to support someone that many of us actually loathe. And that is putting it mildly.

But Hillary did something else today that is already having ramifications throughout the country. Hillary supporters are taking sides. And there are basically two camps. One camp that is sticking with the party and one camp that isn’t
Reforming the party from within is wishful thinking. The only way a party reforms is by humiliating defeat, running off the rails, or egregious abuse in the opposition party.
If BO is elected, they will be in charge of the party…in fact are in charge of the party as we speak. Try to go talk to them about reform. Go talk to them about counting every vote…about changing the caucus system to transparent primaries. Tell them how you feel about it. I think we all know what the attitude will be.
For me…my only recourse is to withhold my support from the current party leadership and the BO party leadership. It’s a drop in the bucket but I don’t feel like I will be complicit in Republican style tactics…even if they worked.

Ronmaven echoed the sentiment and clarified it:
The defeat of Obama would be the best kick in the pants for the DNC we could possibly deliver. You want to CHANGE the party? Vote for McCain. You want the party to only get worse? Vote for O.
To some, NOT supporting Obama is the moral thing to do.

Ccwarrior perhaps says it best:
easy decision for me I will sellout the party that SOLD me out. and I can live with that. I would never dis-respect my daughters, and vote for Obama after the treatment they witnessed from him doing this election …NEVER

But I have saved the best for last. Before I put it out there I want to make one thing very clear. I have nothing but the deepest respect for linfar. She has been a staunch Hillary supporter and she is such an excellent writer. I just happen to totally disagree with her about Obama and unfortunately may have to write things in the future that criticize her positions. It isn’t something I look forward to.

But having said that I think that unfortunately linfar grabbed a mug full of the Cult-Aide today because low and behold, she quotes from none other than the Prince of Darkness himself (Jonathan Singer) to make her point.

from mydd
Singer: Can you speak to the online supporters, the people online who are so strong for Hillary, who don’t want to see her leave, as a strong

Hillary supporter yourself?
Sen. Chuck Schumer: As a strong Hillary support I say, look, I was for Hillary all the way. I was sort of the first Senator to endorse her and I guess I’ll be the last off the bandwagon, which I guess will be tomorrow. But, having said that, I would say to all of the people online, there’s too much at stake to sit this out, to be angry, to be bitter. There is too much at stake. A Supreme Court with more Alitos and Roberts. A continuation of the war in Iraq.

A failure to have a healthcare policy that helps people. A failure to have an energy policy that frees us from foreign oil. All these are such huge things that we have to do what Hillary said there, which is overcome, not look back, even though there are lot’s of disappointments, but look forward.

I expected these bugaboos coming from Schumer. But a little reality never hurt anyone. Except Cultists I’m told. We hear the same nonsense you would expect from otherwise seemingly reasonable people. The trouble is that they think they will be able to bamboozle and scare us with their line of bullshit.

Everything Schumer mentions is something that the Congress controls, not the President. Supreme Court… confirmed by the Senate. Iraq War funding…. controlled by Congress. Health Care policy…. written by Congress. Energy policy… written by Congress.

SO WAKE UP! And stop letting these people get away with lying to you.

The reason Bush has got away with so much and has done as much damage as he has these past 7 years is because of a weak, feckless and complicit Congress. A Congress that has allowed him to do everything he has done. Because a strong Congress acting in the best interests of the American people would never have allowed Bush to do many of the things they are so fond of complaining about.

Where were the Articles of Impeachment? The Speaker of the House said that they would never be introduced.

Why has the Congress continued to fund the war? The Senate Majority leader doesn’t know how to throw a knock out punch.

Why are Americans still being spied upon? WHY?!?
In fact, the Supreme Court that Schumer and others are warning us about has done more to stop Bush than all of the Democrats in Congress combined. So enough of these silly myths. I half expect Obama to come out next and state: “You are either for us or against us.” Wanna guess what my answer will be?

These spats. This falling apart is expected. And it will likely become more vicious and personal as the days wear on. I fully understand those that are toeing the party line. I used to be one of them. Until this year. Until the Democratic party proved to me that it didn’t really stand for anything any more.

What I want to know is this: how is it that so many Clinton supporters are going AWOL, and it's Obama supporters who're called "cult" members?

glad you think we don't matter and that there are so few. even more reason not to feel any guilt for not voting obama.

1. You cannot take the word of anyone on the internets that they are truly a "supporter" of the person they claim to be. When I encounter a virulent, intensely confrontational supporter of any candidate who claims to be a Democrat, I start from the assumption that the person is actually a GOP troll in disguise. Even if I've had prior dealings with such persons - then I just tell myself that they were very, very clever at keeping their true identities hidden until now. Alternately, I tell myself that my erstwhile friend/fellow traveler is simply suffering through a period of intense delusional breakdown, and that it will eventually pass and all will be good again.

2. You really can't convince GOP trolls and/or people in the midst of a psychological breakdown of anything. It's not worth your time to try.

3. Real supporters of real candidates need some time to come around. They will, eventually, on their own. Many will perceive even your best-intentioned gestures of "outreach" as invasive acts of proselytizing if they come too soon. Let them come to you. They will, honestly. I spent a good bit of time at the Edwards blogs in the last days of that campaign, as an Edwards/Obama supporter. There was a lot of hostility to people "inviting unity" or talking about other candidates in any way. And the history there was *nothing* like it is here.

Just my few cents. I appreciate the efforts you're making and agree that we all need to continue to work toward party unity. But the most conciliatory gesture at the moment might be to just leave the Hillary supporters alone for a little while. Acknowledge in "neutral" and "Obama" spaces how welcome they are and how much we look forward to a combined effort, and then make sure that we're gracious when they do come around. But we don't need to actively go in search of their "unity" at this moment. They'll come home in their own time.

A statistic I saw that I keep flashing on: while only about 25% of Clinton supporters (all told) have claimed they won't vote for Obama, in the 2000 Republican primary race, just over 50% of John McCain's supporters initially claimed that they would not support W. Hillary's speech said a lot more, far more convincingly, than Johnny's "hug." I just don't think we need to worry yet.

sounds like your coping mechanism is more delusional than angry hilliary supporters. lol

I think your wasting time worrying about hillaryis44. I think it is an anti-Obama site that used Hillary as it's lure to attract pro-Hillary dems, especially women to trash Obama. If it was really pro-Hillary I don't think it woulod would not be going on a pro_McCain bent now.

Huffington Post reported it was started by a man named Alex Rodriguez, a political activist in NYC.

Hillary has given her message, hopefully those who support and admire her will follow her advice and vote for the candidate who's policies fall closest to her positions.

No Avatar Yet

Apologies - meant to begin a new thread.

I guess closed letters are so last century...

The Victorians thought that women shouldn't have the vote because they are governed by silly emotions. Why are so many Hillary supporters acting in a way now that can resurrect this view? To say out of anger and frustration that you will destroy everything out of petulance with a vote for McCain only resurrects the old Victorian view of women. Of course we all know that men often are just a stupid. The problem isn't that women are silly and ruled by their emotions. The problem is that human beings often are silly and rule by emotions. But this time it a set of feminists who are showing this trait, and this injures their cause more than they seem to realize. It plays into all of the old stereotypes that were used to deny women the vote and a place of power in society. Cut it out! For the sake of all of us.

Because Hillaryis44 squashes and censors dissent. They are propaganda. Talk to your friends - anyone who might be leaning in that direction - and bring them back to reality. As Hillary said, there's simply too much at stake.

really good one from TM:

For me there is no threshhold an obama can reach to get my vote, the line was crossed long ago, when he directed his minions to behave the way they have. And learning about his friends and allies only makes me question what he really has in mind if he were to win the Presidency. There are so many similarities to his rise and the rise of facism and communism and some of their leaders Mussolini and Hitler and the fact that his stepfather was a communist and his mother supported sommunism while in Indonesia, paranoia? I don't think so but something isn't right and I too have the same feeling about him as I did with bush in 2000, but it is more profound.

When obama said "I could get her voters, but I doubt she could get mine" they were across the blogosphere chanting, "I will never vote for Hillary".

When obama's theme song in SC by JZ "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one of them" his little minions were out in full force calling Hillary a bitch and every other word they could think of.

When obama was out last fall (after the PA debate and the media began their full frontal attack)calling her the most untrustworthy, will do and say anything, dishonest candidate; his minions were spewing the same rightwing garbage.

When the obama camp jumped on the RFK comment and claimed she was waiting for his assassination again there were the little evil minions suggesting she was calling for his assassination and demanding an apology.

The disenfranchisement of 2.5 million people and the supression of votes.

I could go on, but never in my life have I seen this type of vile, divisive, and hateful behavior and I don't care what anyone said, NO ONE ever had to go through what Hillary had to fight against this primary, not even in those good ole brawls of the past.

No, there is nothing obama can do or his snot nosed little punks to ever get me to support him.

But what I never thought is that I would no longer be part of a party I loved so much. The dem elites were just as culpable and what they did at the RBC drove the stake right through what they stood for and now I have to consider down ticket dems on whether or not I can vote for them, because voting for them is accepting the corruption they seem to believe is ok, in usurping the will of the voters for their own, this culture that began in 2000 and strengthened during the bush years (in his dictatorial aspirations)will bring down our country if it is allowed to continue.

To me my country comes first before any party. And people wonder why the Founding Fathers' didn't want Factions', they were wise and new history would repeat itself. We the People have to take our power back and set things right.

“No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her” -Susan B Anthony, 1872.

Example of importance of the 'gut' vote:

A friend of mine with whom I am usually apolitical wrote in response to a tentatively political post to her that she did not like Obama.

She also professed that she liked neither McCain nor Hillary and that she would likely vote for Obama over McCain.

But there is no reason, I though to myself that I could allow the regret that this very bright woman would feel if she learned one basic fact AFTER becoming an accidental McCain supporter and voting for McCain on Nov 4th.

She is a survivor of domestic abuse, and can recognize the underlying global disrespect and dehumanization of women signaled by any man's verbally abusive language to his intimate.

Did you know, I told her, that John McCain called his wife a cunt and that he did so in front of other people who have confirmed this?

No thinking, feeling, breathing woman can imagine their president using that adjective about another woman ever, ever, ever at all - let alone in public - and my extremely bright friend was utterly appalled.

It's over for McCain as far as this voter is concerned.

On to the next.

When I posted this, I was using HillaryIs44 in its more generic sense--sort of a placeholder for all of the pro-Clinton, anti-Obama sites out there (many of which were clearly set up by the Republicans). Here's an interesting post about the HillaryIs44 site itself:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/24/163437/416/562/522170

hillary is 44 site is ran by a republican.it was discovered by Ben Smith at politic.com.those people are being lead by a republican in a most stealth way. When you allow emotion fear,and not reason to control your thinking,your ripe for the repugnican picking.

great talking points on this ANTI Mccain one

www,therealmccain.com there's a place you can email it around please do

kos did an analysis of how many people visit the site and post most of the posts came from the same people, something like 80%... they are a very small group of not too bright individuals.

you might as well save your breath.

yes, you are correct... i saw that but i just felt like adding my two 'sense' for the uninformed.

hillary still seems to have everyones knickers in a knot with her threats about her '18 miilion' supporters. many of my friends were for hillary and many were for obama, the ones for hillary have told me, unequivocally, that they will vote for obama should hillary lose.

as hillary rosen at huffpost so aptly put it... 'i am a democrat not a bargaining chip.' hillary would like us to believe that 18 million voters will not do anything without her approval-- not so.