Summary: Obama HQ asked us not to demonstrate outside of the DNC Rules and By Laws Meeting on Saturday, May 31, 2008 in Washington, DC. The meeting may determine how the Florida and Michigan delegates are seated at the Democratic National Convention in August, 2008.
Obama HQ wants us to register voters in our local communities (not outside the hotel - smile) on Saturday during or after the DNC meeting. Watch the meeting live on CSPAN.
Join your local Barack Obama supporters and register voters on Saturday. There are voter registration events Saturday and they need YOU!
Voter Registration Drive - Saturday, May 31 2008
Instead of protesting, Obama HQ is encouraging Obama supporters from across the region to make a positive impact on Saturday, May 31 by joining the Vote for Change National Voter Registration and Mobilization Drive. Plan a voter registration drive.
Virginia Area Voter Drive - Saturday, May 31, 2008
Voter Registration events in the Virginia area on Saturday, May 31, 2008. See a map of voter registration drives already planned in VA on the Obama web site.
Find a Voter Registration Drive Near You
Please go to the Vote for Change National Voter Registration and Mobilization Drive web page.
Obama Campaign Said...
We can send a powerful message to the special interests that dominate the old politics if millions of people get registered to vote. Recent voter registration drives have registered more than 200,000 new Democrats in Pennsylvania, more than 165,000 new Democrats in North Carolina, and more than 150,000 new Democrats in Indiana. Those numbers just scratch the surface of what's possible.
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Voter Registration Rules for Your State
1. Before you begin any Voter Registration, please read your state’s legal guidelines.
2. Following local guidelines ensures we empower the greatest number of people possible in our Vote For Change effort.
Are you not just a little tired of all the whining and pouting?
Many of us have had "to settle" not once, not twice, but sometimes three times. And each time we made the transition and stayed with the Democratic Party. I don't recall that any of us threatened to go vote for a damn Republican. I know I didn't--that will be the day!
And many of us went through a lot more unfair treatement of our candidate than either the Hillary or Obama fanatics have had to endure! Corporate America decided to designate the candidates in "tiers" according to how much money they had--now that's fair, isn't it? Thus our candidates got about three minutes to Clinton, Edwards and Obama's 10 minutes. It was ridiculous the allocation of time. Certainly not democratic by any standards.
That's bad enough, but our candidates were treated even more shabbily. Beginning with Gravel, CNNBC owned by the largest war contractor (GE) in the nation told Mike Gravel, 24 hours before the second debate that he could not appear because he had not raised a million dollars. Isn't that fair now? How would you have liked it if Hillary were told in the second debate that she could not appear because she didn't have enough money--or for any reason for that matter? Corporate America dictates who can and cannot appear in our National debate! Did the DNC do anything about that? Hell no. Did any of the other candidates (Hillary or Obama for example) refuse to participate, or walk off the stage? Hell no. As a citizen, I did all that I could. I contacted Chuck Todd of NBC, called the DNC, sent letters and called the offices with no responses of all the candidates. and they all appeared and debated. SHAMEFUL
Was that the end of the crappy biased treatment? NO. In Iowa, less than 24 hours before the Iowa debate, the The Des Moines Register (a.k.a. Ganett Corporation) called Dennis Kucinich and told him that he could not participate in the debate because he had not had an Iowa based permanent storefront since October 3. (That debate was in December. I called the Des Moines Register and asked for a written copy of that rule. No one could find one for me. I also asked them if that were the case then why didn't they have the common decency to notify Kucinich of that the middle of October as opposed to two and a half months later.
Again I contacted the DNC regarding my outrage that once again corporate America was being allowed to dictate who can and cannot participate in a national political debate. That is so wrong. Again I called all the other candidates offices and left messages and wrote letters. Again, all the remaining Democratic candidates participated in the debate as if nothing had happened.
SO TO BOTH HILLARY AND OBAMA FANS: BUCK Up and stop acting like you are victims. If we are going to play THAT game then you people are going to have to go to the back of the line because if THAT is the game, there are a lot of us who deserve to be ahead of either Hillary or Obama fans.
WELCOME TO AMERICA where we allow multinational corporations to dictate who can and cannot participate in our national political debates. The jury is still out on whether we will act like a banana republic and count the votes in a state where one of the two candidate's name was not even on the ballot. But that would be no worse that the travesty that has already been allowed. At least more people a paying attention to this one.
and I don't care that I didn't use the extend post. I usually do but I don't feel like being polite this time.
In a Democracy, we do not change the rules in the middle of a campaign to benefit a candidate. That’s what happens in banana republics.
The plain bare truth is that the Democratic leaders of Florida and Michigan disregarded the DNC primary calendar and held the elections according to when they wanted to. Florida, in particular, gives a lot of excuses about the Republican legislature, etc. That argument doesn’t hold water. Many states, such as Texas for one example, have Republican legislatures and we held our primary according to the DNC calendar.
So that is the first hypocrisy—that Florida and Michigan “had” to hold their primaries when they did. They did not. They had other choices and they could have gone to the DNC to discuss alternatives and they did not. Their leaders chose to defy party rules. Key word: Chose. The Florida Democratic leaders were not victims in this even though they are positioning themselves that way after the fact.
The second hypocrisy that is going on here is that the Hillary campaign is really concerned foremost with the voters of Florida and Michigan and “want their votes counted.” Well of course they do. It is to their advantage.
But get real and consider this scenario of what could just as well have happened if other states acted with such disregard for ALL the voters of ALL the states as did Florida and Michigan. What if, for example, on Tuesday January 29 that North Carolina, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Georgia, Colorado, and Minnesota had also decided to go out of turn like Florida?
What would you be saying? Would you be on the side of counting these states too, or only just the ones that Hillary carried (which in this example, would have been a grand total of l). Why is it OK to give full benefits to two states who disregarded the primary calendar rules of our party?
It is true that it was the leaders in these two states and not the people who made that decision. And again that is where the democratic process comes in. If you don’t like what your leaders do, you vote for different leaders. But what you don’t do is change the process in mid-stream. That is not how a democracy works.
Hillary says that she is just an ordinary American and not an elitist, but she doesn't act like an ordinary American.
Americans follow the rules that they have agreed to follow. We tend to disregard those who change rules for their own benefit. It is simply not the democratic way. Kings and Queens try to change rules in the mid-stream when things are not going their way. Ordinary Americans are not so presumptuous.
All the various rule changes and creative math coming out of the Hillary camp remind me of the Queen’s famous game of croquet from Alice in Wonderland where the mallets were flamingos and balls were hedgehogs. And as if that were not bad enough, the Queen changed the rules as the game went to better her odds of winning.
Here are a few lines from the Croquet Game to stir your memory:
Read More »Wattree
Dem. Conventions? Are they on this site anywhere? Thanks.
www.DemocraticWarrior.com/forum
Someone has to start the blog and since I am the first member of the Stonewall Democrats of Ventura County group its up to me to get the ball rolling.
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Ron
Voting republican for me was not an option, goes to the old saying; "once bitten twice shy." I was hopping that the democratic party would put forth a half way decent candidate. Unfortunately, whatever chance the Democratic party had to sway me and other Floridians over to their candidate went down the drain yesterday.
The Democratic Leadership threatened to strip Floridians of their votes in choosing a democratic candidate because a republican controlled Florida Legislature, singed into law a change of date for the Presidential Primary. The Democratic party is so blind and worried about "their party rules," they fell right into what the republicans wanted them to do.
How arrogant can the Democratic Leadership get?
Democratic Party rules say that States can not hold their 2008 primary contest before February 5th, except for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Why? That's the tradition. The Democratic Leadership wants to take the strong action to discourage other States that were considering advancing their primary in violation of party rules.
Remember the allegations by Democrats that the 2004 Presidential election was rigged because of alleged electronic voting computer glitches and fraud in Florida and Ohio? How could you forget--since they're still whining about it? Get over it and move on!
Here is the State of Florida that had questionable results in the last Presidential elections in which President Bush supposedly won by 537 votes. Instead of trying to covert republicans over to the democratic side, what the Democratic Leadership has just done is disenfranchised Florida Democratic voters and any possible converts.
Something is very wrong with the "system," when you have one of the political parties disenfranchising voters because they want to go against "tradition." Where was the democratic party when the vote was being taken? That is why we are in the mess we are in today, no one want to speak up and go against tradition.
What do you think?
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