They went after Barack Obama, and he proved more popular and more resilient than Team Hillary. They went after Howard Dean, and he didn't cave. They went after Bill Richardson, and he didn't give in. Now, they have come for our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
Hillary Clinton's big donors see their dreams of a Senate confirmation hearing and a post as Ambassador to the Bahamas dying before their very eyes, and so they are making threats. Senator Clinton's fundraisers, indignant that after all of these years of effort on behalf of Bill and Hillary they may not become overnight guests in the Lincoln Bedroom, and irate that all their money may not buy them a plum foreign assignment in the next administration, told Howard Dean that he had better find a way to get Florida and Michigan seated at the Democratic Convention -- or else they'd pull their money from the Democratic National Committee.
But their ploy didn't work.
Then, James Carville famously branded Bill Richardson a "Judas" for letting his conscience come before his jobs.
Bill Richardson laughed.
And now, the same fat cats who took on Howard Dean, and failed, are going after our good Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. They are once again threatening to pull their money from the Democratic National Committee. The reason this time? Speaker Pelosi said that the superdelegates should follow the will of the people and that the superdelegates should pick the nominee who has the most votes and the most delegates.
To those whose dream is gladhanding at the Atlantis Resort, this was an outrage! They immediately fired off a letter to Madame Speaker. They wrote:
"We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August."
In other words, the donors, the money people, believe they are more important than the hundreds of thousands of people who have made small donations to the candidates. They believe that their money buys them a greater say in our democracy than the say that you have and that I have.
Are they right? I guess that Hillary Clinton has told them that they are indeed correct.
Now, the big $$$ people expect that they will roll over Nancy Pelosi. They will wave wads of cash at her, and hope that their threats cause her to encourage the superdelegates to pick a candidate, without paying heed to what the people want.
Speaker Pelosi is tough. I look forward to her response to those who seek to bribe her.
The Speaker won't be the last Democrat threatened by a desperate group of people, clinging to the last vestiges of a presumed power. After Senator Obama, Chairman Dean, Governor Richardson and Speaker Pelosi, Team Hillary will come after anyone who dares see things objectively. They will come after anyone who has the gall to speak up. They came for them. They'll come for me, too.
Is this the future of the Democratic Party? Is this what we want? If this is how Senator Clinton's team deals with their fellow Democrats; how would a President Clinton ever get anything accomplished in a bipartisan way?
Back in the early '90s, Senator Clinton told Jim Cooper, the Congressman from Tennessee with a health care proposal that was more moderate than hers, that she would crush him and he would regret ever speaking to her. She told Bill Bradley that she would demonize anyone who stood in her way on health care. She icily dismissed Daniel Patrick Moynihan's questions about her program.
Let's remember, Jim Cooper, Bill Bradley, and the late Senator Moynihan are and were Democrats. Hillary's plan went down in flames. So did the Democrats in the 1994 elections.
Can we really take eight more years of the Clintons in the White House?
The Obama campaign, and all good Democrats, should follow the wisdom of Dalton, bouncer at the Double Deuce: Dalton said, "Be nice until it's time not to be nice."
Democrats, it's time to send a message to Team Hillary, the team that is trying to take down the Democratic Party. It's time not to be nice.
If the Clintons feel that they still have such a great chance of winning, why get their cronies to write such letters?
She apparently doesn't realize it's a two-edged sword and her delegates could very well desert her and vote for Obama.
Is it ego or delusion? Maybe just memorex?
That was just a joke.
Now here we are in reality with "Billionaires for Hillary".
Wow.
I don't think it's fair to call the donor letter a "bribe." These "rich donors" are the same people who subsidized Pelosi's own campaigns, who put her where she is today. It's more like a threat to withhold support in the future. And they have every right to remind Pelosi that they supported her for a reason and they expect her to deliver.
Marc Aronchick
Clarence Avant
Susie Tompkins Buell
Sim Farar
Robert L. Johnson
Chris Korge
Marc and Cathy Lasry
Hassan Nemazee
Alan and Susan Patricof
JB Pritzker
Amy Rao
Lynn de Rothschild
Haim Saban
Bernard Schwartz
Stanley S. Shuman
Jay Snyder
Maureen White and Steven Rattner
Key Gifts:
Hope Fund (Obama’s PAC $5000), Obama for President ($4000), Barbara Boxer ($4600), Al Sharpton ($2000), Kweisi Mfume ($3000)
Sim Farar total gifts to Democrats $129,000+ since 2004
Key Gifts:
Hope Fund (Obama’s PAC $2500), DNC ($50,000), DSCC ($26,875)
(Is it OK if I say this huffpo censors?)
And worse, our constitution has forever been subverted by this "unitary executive" who has done so with overt crimes. Yes, Bush has publicly and privately broken the law and subverted the constitution. Signing statements, FISA, knowingly lying to the American people etc. etc. Impeachment wasn't optional -- it was a matter of defending the rule of law and the constitution. Men and women have died protecting it from lesser threats.
It was an act of extreme cowardliness and a betrayal of the men and women who so died not to impeach this criminal. No, she is not our "good speaker." Not by a long shot.
Vonny cal.
OBAMA CAN LOSE AND HILLARY CAN WIN....LEGITIMATELY.
How hard is that to understand?
LET THE VOTERS, VOTE AND STFU.
The Obama nation is SOOOOOOOOOOOO desparate it is pathetic.
tax returns, WH paper, earmarks, donor lists, less lies more factual information please, perhaps you can take the time to write to Hillary and suggest transparency in government is a good thing for the public, .. oh she knows that, so, like Cheney she hides things for her own protection, tax returns, unscrubbed from 2001-2007, 2001-2006 should have been released long ago... every wonder what she and he are hiding... selling out the American people for a personal dollars talk about Judas, or Judases in this case.
Hillary Clinton took the time as First Lady to visit our troops on the frontline, which was, at the time, considered the most dangerous mission a FL had taken since Eleanor Roosevelt.
Has Laura Bush ever visited our troops in Iraq?
I'm fine with Hillary's embelleshment...there was a grain of truth to it, and really was just a misspeak.