Clinton Team Convention Poster Strategy Tamped Down Dissent

By Dawn Teo and Kelly Nuxoll

All week, the name that was on everyone's lips was not Barack Obama but Hillary Clinton. Convention goers and journalists alike speculated throughout the week whether the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) supporters would pull a stunt at Hillary's convention. Some PUMA supporters have asked for a roll call vote but stated that they will support Obama after a roll call. Others have openly called for a floor flight, saying that giving Hillary the nomination would be the only way to rectify an outcome that they see as unfair.

Hillary Clinton had her own plans. Not only did she give a great speech that convinced many of her supporters to support Obama, but her 40 person whip team who spent the week tamping down on dissent within her delegate ranks had a brilliant plan to thwart dissent in the convention hall Tuesday night.

Just before Chelsea Clinton introduced her mother, the Hillary whip team directed the distribution of Hillary sign placards. Volunteers quickly counted out the number of seats in each row and passed out enough signs so that each person would have one. The bright white Hillary signs brilliantly obscured the more contentious Hillary signs that were mostly hand-written on white poster boards. The Hillary signs were also an olive branch to the HIllary supporters who were feeling unwelcomed by the Obama supporters. After the speech, one Hillary supporter said, with tears in her eyes, that she had never felt welcomed by local Obama supporters but had a completely new view of the Obama campaign after seeing thousands of Obama supporters cheering, screaming, and shaking Hillary signs during Hillary's speech.

After handing out the white Hillary placard signs, the volunteers returned with huge bags of vertical blue signs that said UNITY on one side and on the other side either OBAMA, MICHELLE, or HILLARY. Then they asked which ones the spectators wanted -- another brilliant move by the Hillary whip team because everyone wanted one of these beautifully designed signs, even the contentious Hillary supporters because there was a Hillary version. It was yet another olive branch to those who felt unwelcome and gave the perfect appearance of unity for the television cameras.

Hillary's speech was certainly the highlight of the week so far (Obama's speech at Invesco Field will, of course, be the biggest draw). Security staff said that the line to get into Pepsi Center was incredible compared to Monday.

The convention center was jam-packed, many of the credentialed members of the press made to circle the Pepsi Center to wait for seating. Some of the bloggers who managed to gain entrance to the bloggers' seating section were forced to sit on the floor and steps. A U.S. Sen. Nelson apparently gave away valuable designated blogger seats to some of his friends. Even when a DNC volunteer usher asked them to leave the restricted blogger area, they refused, stating emphatically that Senator Nelson told them that they could sit there. A few bloggers tried explaining to them that in an area that only has 30 seats, they were taking 10 percent of a very scarce, in-demand resource. Still they refused to move and absconded while everyone was preoccupied during the final applause.

Image of crashers in the blogger seating area by at Buckeye State Blog.

Follow Dawn Teo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dawnteo

Comments

[guyinAZ]

That's great reporting. I suspected that the image of feminist unity we were fed on TV was different than reality. There is no way that the railroading of Hillary Clinton is going to be forgiven so easily.

I still wonder what price was paid to Hillary for stopping the delegate vote. You can bet there was some major concessions made somewhere because Hillary wouldn't have swallowed that bitter pill just to be a team player for the party bosses.

The real question now is: how many of those angry feminists and die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters are going to consider Sarah Palin? My guess is that a lot of them will start moving to Palin even though some of her right wing views might seem to be at odds with the liberal feminists that seem so loud and vocal in the Democratic party. Dems are now entering state of denial about the possibility of mass defections of women, but they better start dealing with this new reality.

Perhaps that's a subject Dawn could tackle soon.

[NorVaGal]

Wow....just wow!!!! Hillary and Bill are back-- Big Time! Thank God we never really lost them. And, thank God our nominee, Sen. Obama has ALWAYS known that they love America and the Dem Party too much to ever desert it. Even when hot-heads like me had given up faith.

I am utterly humbled by Hillary's magnanimity. Can't wait to see what outstanding roles she and Bill will play in an Obama administration. WooooHooo!!!!

[Aviva032]

Good to hear some real reporting from the ground, rather than the big media version.

[afgail]

I think all the preconvention friction was invented by the pundits who have nothing constructive to say. I think it never really existed. Just as I'm begining to think all the sniping at the Clintons on HuffPo is Republicans (posing as Obama supporters) making mischief. The big welcome Bill Clinton got today was heart felt and universal in the convention hall.

[BassMent]

afgail, I'm with you. I mean, I have thought for a long time that it's pretty obvious that many people who post around here are GOP plants. The fact that on any given day they appear out of nowhere with new screen names and identical talking points gives the game away. But all of the national media attention on Hillary's supporters really had me thinking that this convention could erupt in a floor fight.

I now think that there were probably a dozen or so really cranky people in the Hillary camp, and that the media gave them a ridiculously disproportionate amount of attention. We can talk about the strategic use of signs and placards to disguise the unrest, but the real proof was in the roll call vote. When HIllary pulled the plug and called for the acclamation vote, Obama was leading her in delegate votes by a 5-to-1 margin. How could that be if half of the people there were angry Clinton backers all prepared to stage a coup, as the media insisted? Clearly, MANY of Hillary's delegates chose to vote for Obama once she had released them.

It was all hype to keep ratings up, and I admit that I fell for it.

[Dawn Teo - Huffpost Blogger]

I talked to quite a number of Hillary delegates who said that they wanted to vote for her during the first roll call due to the historical nature of her candidacy but that they would vote for Obama in the second round. Very, very few were actually against Obama -- they really just wanted history to record Hillary's achievement.

I have a far different (and more positive) view of Hillary's supporters after meeting many of them in person and hearing their story without the biased media filter.

[Dawn Teo - Huffpost Blogger]

What I've seen here is that even within the PUMA people, they are not a monolithic group. Most of them were saying that they would support Obama if they just got a roll call vote so that history would be recorded for Hillary's achievement. The people who wanted a floor fight or who wanted Hillary to take the nomination were a very small contingency. The welcome that the Clintons got was very heartfelt, and it was beautiful to watch the sea of white Hillary signs held by enthusiastic Obama supporters who were so glad to applaud Hillary Clinton.

[truthmachine]

"an outcome that they see as unfair"

These people are just like Republicans -- when their cheating doesn't work for them, they call their opponents cheaters.

[QueenTiye]

Thank you for sharing that! It was a genuinely wonderful thing to watch on tv, and I noticed right away the brilliant shift and uniting of the entire room in an outpouring of support for Hillary! I also loved reading that Hillary got a standing ovation from Obama's staff behind the scenes. Wonderful! :)