Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Who the Hell is Psychodrew?

When discussing our blog on MyDD yesterday, I received the following replies:

Clintonistas for Obama is not a blog by Hillary supporters. It is paid for and created by the Obama campaign.

Brain washed Obama Cult followes assume we are all stupid. They are wrong.

They are in for the shock of their lives in November.


Stop this charade.

You are not a Clintonista. You are a paid Obama blogger. You are not fooling anyone.

I won't identify the commenter, as I'm not sure if this person is a Clintonista or a Republican troll. You can read the thread here. However, I realized that in setting up this blog, we perhaps missed one essential step.

While some of the others are better known in the blogosphere, I am a relative newcomer. I've been reading blogs on and off since last summer, but I didn't jump in and start posting my own diaries at Daily Kos until this past January. For those who doubt my credentials as a Clintonista, I invite you to read some of what I wrote:

In “Why Xerox Matters,” I argued that Hillary was justified in questioning the authenticity of Obama’s message at the debate in Texas in which she referred to his borrowing passages from his supporter’s speeches as “change you can Xerox.” In “A President Who Understands Me,” I described why I became a Hillary Clinton supporter:

Time and again throughout her life in and out of the spotlight, both as a politician and the spouse of a politician, Hillary Clinton has had to choose between was it best for herself and what is best for others. She has made difficult choices, putting her husband, her daughter, and her country before herself. Attacked from the right for being too unconventional, attacked from the left for not being unconventional enough, Hillary has been remained committed to one principle—public service is about putting the interests of others before oneself.

SNIP

When I see Hillary, I see somebody who has faced similar impossible choices. She has faced them because she is a woman, she was criticized for them because she was a public figure supporting her husband's career, and yet she soldiers forward. To me, that is inspiring. For the first time, I have the opportunity to vote for a candidate who understands people like me, people who live at the margins of society, people for whom there are no easy choices. That is why I am supporting Senator Hillary Clinton. That is why I hope you give her another look. That is why I am standing by her no matter where the campaign goes this week.

In “Some Inconvenient Findings for Obama,” I discussed polling data which showed that the majority of Democratic voters—including Obama supporters—felt that the super delegates should support the winner of the popular vote rather than the winner of the pledged delegate lead:

The other inconvenient finding is that, in the event that one candidate wins the most popular votes while the other candidate receives the most pledged delegates 59% of Democratic primary voters believe that superdelegates should support the candidate who receives the majority of the popular vote. Only 26% believed that the superdelegates should go with the winner of the pledged delegates.

I went on to argue that Obama was “dragging his feet” on re-votes in Michigan and Florida because of this polling data. I got clobbered, CLOBBERED in the comments.

On March 15, tired of the negative atmosphere at Daily Kos, the Clinton bloggers, myself included, led by Alegre, left Daily Kos. Here is my comment pledging solidarity with the other striking bloggers. I have returned twice—once to post a unity diary that was somewhat well received, the other to research this diary.

I continued blogging at MyDD. I have attacked Bob Herbert for accusing Hillary Clinton of playing the race card in "Bob Herbert, Hypocrite" and in "An Outrage to All of Us," I criticized him for blaming Obama's poor showing among blue-collar workers on racism.

I also went after Senator Obama over NAFTA and Bittergate. In "Another Obama 'Mistake,'" I challenged his integrity. In "Where is the Outrage," I argued that if Obama were in second and in need of re-votes in Michigan and Florida, the media and the DNC would be treating the issue differently. I discussed the issue again after the Pennsylvania primary in "The Nightmare Scenario." In "...At the Expense of Everything Else," I argued that accusations of racial bias being hurled at the Clintons would devastate the party.

If anybody is still not convinced, then I point you to the most ridiculed and detested of all pro-Hillary sites, No Quarter, where six of my diaries from MyDD and Daily Kos were posted.

For the record, I absolutely stand by every single word I wrote. I take none of it back. Even if you disagreed with my analysis, nobody could dispute that I sourced all of my facts.

So how can I go from having written all of these critical diaries to supporting Senator Obama? For me, it's simple. It's health care. It's the war. It's gay rights. It's the economy. On all of the issues, if Obama loses, America loses. We had a tough primary fight and I am not happy--not at all happy--with the outcome. But the primary battle is over, and as my hero, the finest Democrat I've ever had the honor of voting for, put it:

I entered this race because I have an old-fashioned conviction that public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their dreams. I've had every opportunity and blessing in my own life, and I want the same for all Americans.

And until that day comes, you'll always find me on the front lines of democracy, fighting for the future.

The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.

SNIP

You know, I've been involved in politics and public life in one way or another for four decades. And during those ... during those 40 years our country has voted 10 times for president. Democrats won only three of those times, and the man who won two of those elections is with us today.

We made tremendous progress during the '90s under a Democratic president, with a flourishing economy and our leadership for peace and security respected around the world.

Just think how much more progress we could have made over the past 40 years if we'd had a Democratic president. Think about the lost opportunities of these past seven years on the environment and the economy, on health care and civil rights, on education, foreign policy and the Supreme Court.

Imagine how far ... we could have come, how much we could have achieved if we had just had a Democrat in the White House.

We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much.

SNIP

So I want to say to my supporters: When you hear people saying or think to yourself, If only, or, What if, I say, please, don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.

7 comments:

atdnext said...

Drew-

Thank you. You've represented Hillary so well in these last few months, and you're still doing so now. I'm so proud to call you a co-blogger. Please keep up the excellent work!

:-)

Student Guy said...

Drew,

Indeed I've gotten into some scuffles with you in the past that were pretty heated, and I am a 'sane/rational' Obama supporter.

As I say in my link here "political writing by smart people who I am glad to have on my side now". I couldn't be happier not to be back in March/April territory, Inter-Nicene squabble are the worst.

Student Guy said...

Scratch that "Obama supporter" it should be democrat as all of us want the same thing A dramatic sea change towards progressive principles.

atdnext said...

Student Guy-

I know. I'm so glad we're all on the same page again. At least now, we can scrap the "circular firing squad" and focus all our attention on beating the GOP and electing Democrats! :-)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I have to agree. It's a lot more fun being mean to Republicans. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that Republicans are people, too.

They are people, right?

Student Guy said...

Drew I don't know about some of them,

The Ron Paulites sure seem like spam-bots at times...

Alessandro Machi said...

I want Hillary for an entirely different reason.

If Barack Obama wins because of the massive financial support he received from George Soros, which in turn was used to spawn Huffington Post, MoveOn.org and Media Matters, which in turn were used to pack pundits onto MSNBC, and so on and so on, the bar is raised for future elections in a very devasting way.

Don't bother even running for president next time around unless George Soros and cohorts approve of you.

But it's worse than that.

Rupert Murdoch, seeing how George Soros in essence started before the gun went off by actually choosing the democratic candidate rather than supporting the democratic candidate actually chosen by the people, will in turn do the same thing on the republican party, and suddenly, voters are actually voting in the fall on two political leaders handpicked by two opposing billionaires.

If George Soros does not get involved this time around, Hillary Clinton wins in a pretty close race with Barack Obama. Barack Obama becomes the darling of the democratic party with possibly a 16 year run in the white house, first as VP, then as president.

Instead, if Barack loses this fall, you know he will be back in four years, and so will Hillary Clinton. The democratic party will be locked into their own ground hogs day scenario, all because George Soros butted in where he shouldn't have.

This election is about George Soros, not about Barack Obama.

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