Tuesday, June 24, 2008

John McCain's New Ad On Obama's Public Financing Pledge Shown On Clinton Supporter Sites

The new ad produced by the John McCain campaign hits Barack Obama hard, using his own words from interviews and speeches to show his changes of stance on the public financing issue, from pledging to use it to his recent announcement that he would not be utilizing the system, becoming the first presidential candidate since 1976 to refuse to do so.

The ad, shown below, is called "Words".



This ad comes out as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama plan to actively work to unite the Democratic party and bring the female voters that have been denouncing the treatment of Hillary Clinton by the Democratic National Committee and those that feel that the party itself has turned their back on them.

That becomes relevant because of where this McCain ad is being run.

The very vocal Clinton supporting website called No Quarter, is showing the McCain ad.

No Quarter is a die hard Hillary Clinton supporting website, with the writers united behind the idea that they, along with other Hillary supporters, can make the superdelegates that are supporting Barack Obama, change their minds before the Democratic National Convention in August.

Many sites have sprung up recently on the Internet (sites are listed along the right side of the linked URL)claiming to be Hillary Clinton supporters that will be voting for John McCain, but what makes No Quarter different from some of those other sites, is that they are still actively pursuing the option of Hillary Clinton winning the official nomination at the convention.

No Quarter makes it clear that they are not endorsing John McCain by showing this new McCain ad.....yet.

Caveat: We are not at the moment endorsing John McCain, and are focused on trusting Democratic delegates will realize, before August, that Hillary Clinton is a far stronger candidate. Many NoQuarter writers and readers admire Sen. McCain, and will vote for him if Obama is the nominee, and we welcome the free and frequent expression of that viewpoint. After August, we will assess this blog’s official position.

But Democratic delegates to the national convention had better know this: Hundreds of thousands of Hillary Clinton supporters will NEVER vote for Barack Obama. And a great many will vote for John McCain simply because they believe he is qualified to be president, and that Barack Obama is NOT qualified or experienced enough — and we’re worried sick about such a teleprompter-dependent neophyte being handed the toughest job in the world.

Generally when the primary process is over and presumptive nominees are chosen, people in the individual party, be it Democrats, Independents or Republicans, will get in line and support the choice of the party.

This year there seems to be a difference and that is that a portion of the Democratic party, even though they are a minority, is not only refusing to fall in line, but are actively working to promote John McCain, some from the moment that Clinton suspended her campaign and others stipulating that support should the Democratic convention not declare Hillary Clinton the candidate.

This minority, which seems to be growing, is being called angry and bitter, but as many point out, that anger isn't the main reason that they are willing to back John McCain who is the presumptive nominee from the opposing party.

One example of those pointing this out is a site called HillBuzz, who from their archive listings, have been around since February of 2008, and they believe that the insistence from pundits that the blue collar voters and they specify the women in particular will "shut up and come home this fall, sending Obama to the White House," is, in their words, "absolute craziness".

They explain why:

You can't predict what's going to happen in November, based on what happened in past races, where the party naturally congealed around the ultimate winner.

This year is different, because the person who won the most votes, Hillary Clinton, was not selected by the DNC as the party's nominee. For a lot of people, lifelong Democrats all, all rules went out the window on May 31st, 2008 -- when Donna Brazile and "Teh Roolz" held court and sliced 4 delegates away from Clinton, and handed them to Obama for Michigan.

People who always identified with the Democratic party no longer do anymore.

That's never happened before.


The lines are being drawn in the sand and while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are uniting to pull her supporters behind him, some of her supporters are uniting against the idea and others are uniting, fundraising and actively working against Obama and for John McCain.

They are selling bumper stickers called Democrats for McCain, they are actively showing all John McCain ads on their sites to use against Obama and the newly created PUMA site, which stands for "Party Unity My Ass" is offering free blogs to help with their particular campaigning efforts for McCain and/or against Obama.



Their mission is succinctly explained in the comment section of a CBC News article which spoke of their creation, when a commenter named Maryland PUMA, said:

We are male, female, trans, gay, bi, and lesbian. We are families, single moms, single dads, seniors and college students. We are Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Spiritual and Atheist. We are white, black, brown, red and yellow. We are educated, street smart, uneducated, or being educated. We are military and we are civilian. We are poverty, lower class, middle class and upper class. We are rural, urban and suburban. We are mainland states and island states. We are PUMAs. WE ARE AMERICA.

Why would we vote for a candidate of the opposite party? COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY. We will not 'fall in line' when we feel the very foundation our country was built upon, Democracy, is in real peril.


This is a problem that the Democratic party is trying to get a handle on before it grows to a point that it cannot be handled, but no one seems to have any ideas of how to address the actual issues that some of these supporters are bringing up and are instead accusing them of being bitter, angry and selfish.

In their minds and from their statements, they feel they are being slammed by Obama supporters, they are being marginalized by the Democratic leaders and they are getting angrier by the second because the key issues, the DNC's treatment of them and of Clinton, Obama's lack of experience and changing positions.... the basic reasons they originally chose Hillary Clinton over Obama for, are not being seriously addressed.

Only time will tell if ignoring those key basic reasons, the Democratic party is doing the right thing or if they are miscalculating.

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