A Hillary Backer Who Loves Biden Will Vote for McCain/Palin

I emailed Simone DuBois after John McCain made his seeming (to me) boneheaded pick of Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his VP. DuBois, a Hillary diehard who takes her place in the 2008 campaign history because it was she who, earlier this summer, videotaped Hillary at a "Unity" [with Obama] fundraiser in Los Altos Hills, California. It was there that Hillary seemed to encourage her supporters to devise a "strategy" for a roll call vote at the convention as a means of "catharsis." and volunteered that she could not control her supporters. I wrote about it at the time and linked to the You Tube video of the event that had become an instant hit.

I later interviewed DuBois and described how she switched from unwavering Democrat to a woman who was set to vote for John McCain.

I kept in touch with her during the Denver convention when she and her gang of "warriors" engaged in a kind of street theater to ridicule Obama. Here's a sample in DuBois's words: "One guy started yelling 'haters, haters, haters' -- We started chanting 'Rezko' -- then he said 'Monica' -- we laughed and chanted 'Ayers.'"

I have just received an email from DuBois describing her elation at the McCain pick of Sarah Palin. It remains difficult for me to square how someone who supported Hillary -- a pro-choice, left-of-center politician, a faith-based politician when she needs to be, but certainly the firmest of believers in separation of church and state -- could morph into a supporter of Palin who advocates teaching creationism in the public schools.

When I interviewed DuBois earlier in August, weeks before Obama selected Biden to be his vice president, she told me that her second choice in the primaries was Joe Biden; "I love Biden."

But not enough to vote for Obama/Biden.

Here's DuBois in an email of August 31 describing her unbounded enthusiasm for McCain/Palin:

I think [McCain] made a brilliant choice. You have 90% of AA's voting for Obama many because he's black. If you're black and not voting for Obama then you are harassed, ridiculed and shunned. It happened to delegates at the convention last week who were voting for Hillary. So - I think there will be several swing voters going for Palin - they can identify with her. Having Palin on the ticket sealed the deal for me. She's a women's point of view for me.

I am so disappointed with the democratic party with their voter fraud and lies. They (DNC) got kicked in the pants on this -- they didn't see it coming - I thought about it - I said he should pick a woman - maybe Palin.

Obama was completely STUPID not to pick Hillary. She would have sealed the deal for him - would have brought in PA, OH, AK, VA, etc. His arrogance and inexperience will cost him the election. He will not win."

Comments

[RapidRay]

The large majority of us are political dilettantes. If we can stir ourselves to vote it is a surface event.
The candidates are shape shifted by Hessian loyalists and if elected, candidate and their paid soldiers of fortune go their merry ways without us. (i.e.): G.W. Bush.
So what are we to do? Vote tribal, vote color, vote class, vote religion, vote Oprah!
And now...vote gender.
As Professor Yakov Smirnoff says: "What a country"

[mgloraine]

People who cast their vote based upon issues of personality or matching demographic (i.e., voting for the ticket with a female on it because there's a female on it) aren't going to be persuaded to consider the policy issues or even the impact to their own lives; that would require thinking, evaluating, and possibly changing one's view of the world - way too much work! It's a lot easier to stick with prejudiced notions, like suggesting that Palin represents a woman's point of view because she's female, despite the fact that she's AGAINST everything women have been striving to attain the past 50 years.

Nothing anyone says will change Ms. DuBois' mind at this point - she has a burning spite inside her and she will vent it, even if she ultimately makes the rest of her own life totally miserable as a result. She's not as interested in voting for a female as she is in teaching Barack Obama and his supporters a lesson. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." She wants to get even no matter what.

[wizened]

its harder and harder to take Dubois seriously. None of the issues are importnat to her. she votes her prejudices. She supports Palin because Arfrican-American men feel "pressure" to support Obama? A "woman's point of view" trumps the woman's views? She should stop embarassing herself.

[Jwoman]

It makes me sad and really ashamed that any woman would vote for a woman just because she is a woman. There was good reason to be for Hillary--she was smart, experienced and shared my values and views on all kinds of issues. And the fact that she was a woman was a distinct plus. Sarah Palin has none of these things. The only thing she has in common with Hillary and the women who supported Hillary is her plumbing. If people care at all about this country and the crises we are in both domestically and internationally, they could no way put this woman a heartbeat away from a 72 year old president who has had cancer.