Friday, August 8, 2008

If "PUMA" Was Really Pro-Hillary, They Wouldn't Be "PUMA"

(Originally posted at Yes to Democracy: The ANTI-PUMA)

If you're anything like me, you're getting sick & tired of all the ugly smears being thrown at Democrats by the McCain campaign... With the help of the corporate media. Fortunately, Democrats are now fighting back. Unfortunately, there's a group of so-called "Democrats" that are actively working to further the right-wing smears against us & our candidates.




OK, I'm sure you know who I'm talking about now. While Alegre's Corner obsesses over media-hyped "tension" between the Clintons & the Obamas, The Confluence celebrates whatever polls they can find showing McCain within "striking distance" of Obama. Oh yes, and let's not forget the continuing devolution of No $0.25 to complete right-wing propaganda machine. Basically, these "Clinton Democrat" PUMAs are carrying water for the GOP. Why?



Once upon a time, I was close to some of these "PUMAs" before they broke off from

the party and began to actively work against Democrats. These bloggers used to be rational people, working for Democratic candidates and progressive values instead of trashing them. I used to be awestruck by the good work they did for Hillary Clinton.



But ever since the primary season ended, I've wondered what went wrong. Has their anger really gotten the best of them while bringing out the worst? Have they become so gullible to GOP lies to actually start believing these untruths and proclaiming them as "important news"? What happened to the Hillary bloggers I once knew?



If these folks really think they are helping Hillary by smearing her, Barack Obama, and the entire Democratic Party, I think they're sorely mistaken. If anything, their efforts are only fueling efforts by the "Clinton Haters" to smear Hillary Clinton even more than they already had during the primaries by using these rumors to suggest that Hillary is trying to divide the party to make Obama lose. The "PUMA" followers who think what they're doing is "in honor of Hillary" need to rethink what they're doing.



This is why my friends and I are doing all we can to help Barack Obama win while also sending more & better Democrats to Congress. As true Hillary Clinton Democrats, we know the only way the progressive agenda Hillary advocated can be enacted is if & only if we have a Democratic President & Democratic Congress. If "PUMA" really cared about honoring Hillary Clinton, they'd be doing that instead of working full-time to spread lies for the Republicans.

3 comments:

andgarden said...

Who knows. All I can say is that, to the extent they have any influence at all, the PUMA are damaging the prospects for Hillary's top policy priorities to be enacted.

Anonymous said...

Marc Ambinder recieved this email from an Obama delegate:

I'm a DNC pledged delegate for Obama. Your recent PUMA PAC musings piqued my interest, if only because I do sort of have a metric on how big the PUMA people are as a movement. About a month ago I woke up and took a look at my e-mail and instead of seeing few new e-mails in the morning I saw more than three hundred.

PUMA released the e-mail addresses of the delegates to their supporters and asked them to e-mail us with a form letter. I'm sure you've seen the letter (if not, it's pasted in below), but since I set up a filter to direct every e-mail with "PUMA" in it to a folder on my Outlook, I can tell you that about a month after their letter-writing campaign began (I don't get many more these days), I received a total of 404 messages.

Given that their entire raison d'etre is getting delegates to vote otherwise, this makes me think the PUMA movement is actually quite small, even if it is quite good at getting press. PUMA will surely stage something at the convention, but if they can only get 404 people to send e-mails, I'm not sure how many they can get to fly to Denver and make an impressive scene.

Anecdotally, I would add that my interactions with the many Clinton delegates over Facebook and in person has been uniformly positive.

atdnext said...

andgarden & Psychodrew-

True. The "PUMA" faux-movement isn't accomplishing much, other than embarrassing themselves. It's just sad that they're doing it in Hillary's name as they increasingly suck up to McBush & the GOP. They've really become quite pathetic.

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