Kind GateKeepers for Mr. Carville's email: I beg you to forward this to Mr. Carville. It is the only information that can give the superdelegates a public rationale to choose Hillary.
Dear Mr. Carville,
By fate I happen to be sitting on the Greatest Story Ever Untold about the 2008 election. If you know One Honest Journalist who wants a Pulitzer & isn't terminally afflicted by Severe ObamaSwoon Syndrome, please tell me who so I can crawl over glass to get her/him this information.
Headlines run along the lines of:
Hillary Actually Won Iowa //
28% of Hillary Voters Mad As Hell - Here's Why //
Dems Ignore Huge Voter Suppression //
Hidden Trap for Dems in Fall //
The Will of (Only the Healthy)People? //
Superdelegates Have a Real Job To Do //
A Mockery of Democracy //
The Math is NOT the Math //
Shocking 15% Caucus Skew //
I'll give you the gist & then work back. In Texas Hillary's voters were +4 in the primary and -12 in the caucus on the same day. A 16% swing! This startling & huge number is true tho hidden in ALL the caucus states. Hillary actually won Iowa. The shameful 15% Caucus Skew -- NO ABSENTEE BALLOTS for Hillary's core voters -- applies to ALL the caucus states. Suppose we had only seen the Caucus Results in Texas? That's what happened in Iowa & all the other caucus states.
If those disappeared votes showed up in Hillary’s column, she’d be easily ahead in those pledged delegates & popular vote, but apparently the Marshmallow Media & Mr. Obama’s other supporters don’t really care about the Will of the People. Which people? The Will of (Only the Healthy) People, apparently. It’s a Mockery of Democracy. In my 2400 volunteer phone calls for Hillary, an average of every 8th call in a caucus state got me 87-yr-old Vera, “Oh no, honey, I can’t caucus, I’m a cripple.” I say, “Couldn’t you vote-by-mail Absentee?” No Absentee Ballots for the house-bound in Caucus States. “If I can’t be there in my body, I don’t count.”
Hillary didn’t “get back the women’s vote” in New Hampshire because she teared up in a diner. Baa baa Humbug. Bleating Unexamined Media Nonsense. Her New Hampshire voters got back the Absentee Ballot. There is an epidemic of house-bound older women in America, most with a terrible fear of falling. When the deplorable 15% Caucus Skew is revealed in detail, the (non-lemming) superdelegates will have to take into account the voter suppression against a large core group of Hillary’s voters and a bastion of General Election Democratic voters. These cheated voters all know they’ve been silenced, disappeared. Ruth, 82, “Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean I can’t think.” Lorna, 91, “I don’t dare go out to caucus, dear, I’m off-balance.”
Democracy is not a game. The rules of democracy are that each citizen gets her/his one sacred voice, vote. There is no metric by which the Democratic nominee is not chosen by the superdelegates. The whole point of (non-lemming) superdelegates is to think long & hard. Hundreds & hundreds of thousands of Hillary’s voters, the backbone of the Democratic Party, were cheated of their share of pledged delegates and popular vote because they are house-bound and were forbidden an Absentee Ballot. No organization, no 'ride' helps these folks, only the Absentee Ballot. This is voter suppression on a massive scale. Mr. Obama’s putative lead is The Big Lie. Imagine for one moment that 15% of Mr. Obama’s young or black supporters were prevented from voicing their vote for him. Would that feel just, feel democracy, feel American to you? Of course not. You’d rightly demand that reporters and superdelegates look into it & take it into account.
I put this as a polemic because I have fallen so hard for the Myth of American Democracy thru my life. John Kennedy was murdered on my 19th birthday. I was watching black & white flickering TV when Ruby shot Oswald. I wept for MLK, for Bobby. I had no plan to have this heart-wrenching story be dumped into my ear. Who knew that there were so many older women house-bound by this dread of falling? I have to speak out fiercely for Vera, Lorna, Ruth. This is doubtless their last vote and they shouldn't be suppressed by my beloved Democratic Party. I believed that progressives mean it when they say they speak for the silenced and invisible.
The Chuck Todds, David Gregorys, Tim Russerts, Matthews, Olbermanns -- and even Hillary's spokesfolk -- all have it wrong. Everyone knows generally & vaguely that Caucuses Stink. The missing piece is this huge specific number of disappeared Hillary voters who also are a vital chunk of the Democratic General Election force. Everyone prattles on about how upset the black vote and the young vote would be if the superdelegates decide that Hillary is the better candidate against Inevitable Republican Attack Machine. What no one talks about is that stunning 28% who say they won't support Mr. Obama in the General. I was shocked by the number until I remember just how many older women are enraged by not getting to vote & no one respecting them enough to complain about it and the staggering Media Misogyny which has bludgeoned anyone listening.
These non-coastal older women are seldom online so they aren't part of the Obama Blog Troll Army whose legions assault the Media. But they're there in force, hidden and furious and heartbroken. (They also don't have the give-money-every-few-days access that those of us online do, so Hillary's fundraising doesn't reflect her support at all.)
Mr. Carville, it's not because I'm smart that I have this info. It's just that when I heard Vera say, Oh, no, honey, I can't caucus, I'm a cripple. If I can't be there in my body, I don't count" and then the fourth call after that was another fear-of-falling Hillary supporter and the seventh call after that -- I began to keep track. Caucuses are not quaint and charming, not Tra la la to Grandmother's Caucus We Go, not hallmarkcard, normanrockwell -- they are a Mockery of Democracy. Most Grandmothers can't get there. This Caucus Scandal is rotten in our democratic soul. I am happy to talk about this any time of night or day. The only way to drive a stake into the vile heart of the Caucus System for the future is to show how drastically it twisted this election.
It's true that I would particularly love a woman reporter to get this Pulitzer because the journalism business is still so skewed against women reporters, but I'd take any reporter who groks (really gets) it.
Sincerely,
ps.
//Not in my focus for this protest, but also awful vs Caucuses. In Nevada I was talking to Mary in Vegas. She hoped she could get off work to caucus for Hillary but told me that she'd talked her sister in a small Nevada town named Tumbleweed or Dry Gulch or somesuch. "My sister told me, 'Mary, I can't caucus because if my boss knew I was a Democrat and for Hillary , I wouldn't have a job on Monday.'" Holy moly. It drove home to me why we have the Secret Ballot. It was chilling.
//Yes, I know that Maine has an awkward & complex way for a few voters to get an Absentee Ballot so I leave that state out so as not to muddy the waters.
//I also realize that a lot of other types of folks are disenfranchised by the deplorable Caucus System but they seemed to even out amongst the candidates. The big group disappeared for one candidate was the older women for Hillary.
//This is not about Hillary's campaign & its failings re Caucus States. It's about Hillary's voters who need an Absentee Ballot & neither Hillary's campaign nor those disabled voters could do anything about the lack of an Absentee Ballot in Caucus States.
//[Note re the intellectual epidemic outbreak known as ObamaSwoon Syndrome: “The infatuations of the sensual and frivolous part of mankind are amazing; but the infatuations of the learned and sophistical are incomparably more so.” --I. Taylor from 1913 Websters]
//contact caucusdebacle@gmail.com
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