Hillary Clinton is due to officially suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama today and many Clinton supporters are refusing to vote for Obama and are claiming they will either not vote at all or vote for John McCain.
There is a significant bloc of Clinton supporters that say they will not vote for Obama. They will stay home or they will vote for John McCain.
According to a CBS News poll, released on Wednesday, 22 percent of Clinton supporters say they will vote for John McCain and 8 percent say they will stay home on election day.
Twelve percent of Democrats say they will support McCain in the general election. That's higher than the 8 percent of Democrats who defected to President Bush in 2004. Nearly a quarter of Clinton supporters say they will back McCain instead of Obama in the general election.
Women are the largest bloc of Democratic voters so 30 percent of them is a significant percentage and depending on how Hillary Clinton phrases her endorsement of Barack Obama will perhaps alter those percentages for some that say they will not vote or will vote for John McCain.
The problem for Clinton now is that she has already told her supporters that Barack Obama was not prepared to lead this country and was too inexperienced to hold the position of presidency. She has told them that in would be like "on the job training", she has insisted that she and John McCain were prepared from day one to run the country, going as far as to say, "Senator McCain will bring a time of experience to the campaign. I will bring a lifetime of experience and Senator Obama will bring a speech he gave in 2002."
Her speech will be important because she has to somehow justify to her supporters how she either misrepresented herself or that over the last few months Obama has developed new experience in running the country.
Her speech will definitely be a factor in how many will change their minds and support Barack Obama.
Then there are the Clinton supporters that will never vote for Barack Obama.
Previously one of those Clinton supporters, Harriet Christian was interviewed and it was reported here. Christian claims her reasoning isn't just her anger about the DNC's decision regarding the Michigan votes, but she believes that Barack Obama doesn't not have enough experience, so she is voting for John McCain.
Since then, many more have spoken out, like Amy Siskind, a 42-year-old mother of two from Westchester, who says she has a message for Howard Dean and the DNC Democrats and that message is "You have betrayed us, our children, and our future, and you will learn the new meaning of stay-at-home moms!"
Another example is shown by the New York Times Politics page:
Cynthia Ubaldo, 44, a Clinton supporter in Columbus, Ohio, just switched her registration from Democratic to independent and donated $10 to Mr. McCain. The endorsement on Saturday is a mandatory, empty gesture, Ms. Ubaldo said.
It isn't only women though.
There are also sites springing up on the web, like, "Hillary Clinton supporters for John McCain", which now claims "We are over 15,000 strong and growing", created by a man name Ed Hale, who says he was a "life long Democrat till May 31, 2008."
When I saw those 30 people break the rules and make their own, and then to vote to take away 4 of Hillary Clinton's delegates, but worst of all, make the uncommitted go for Obama, that was my last straw. What I saw today was what went on in the USSR (Russia) 30 years ago. The Boss's called the shots, and I decide that I did not want any part of them.
In my own comment section of my website, I see disenfranchised voters like Darlene who says, "I for one am a VERY ALIENATED Democrat!!! I feel that the Democratic Party has gone so far left that I can no longer identify with it! I'm FURIOUS about Florida and Michigan! I feel that the press was totally biased in Obama's favor! I simply cannot vote for Obama. I feel he's nothing but a smooth talker who will promise or say anything to get elected. I just don't trust him and I don't like Michelle! Surprisingly, I find myself (same with my husband, family and friends) deciding to vote for John McCain.... To most Obama supporters that would make me a racist, so be it!"
The same thread held comments from Betty, Democrat for Democracy, who all are disappointed, angry and just not willing to vote for Barack Obama, and Chris who simply says, "Mark me ---- a Republican vote mainly because once again the Democrats try to exert their personal will over us ---- the real voters."
The reports continue, with some saying that some Clinton supporters are organizing to draw other Clinton supporters to John McCain's side.
Cristi Adkins, of the newly formed Clintons for McCain group, told FOX News that Clinton supporters should seriously consider putting their money on the GOP candidate.
“It’s really not that big of a jump from Clinton to McCain,” she argued.
According to Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant, "our switchboards are pretty much lit up from women asking how they can change their registration — Clinton supporters. … We think there’s a real opportunity there.”
His words simply confirm other reports that have been saying the same thing.
McCain's new website, Citizens for McCain, which Joseph Lieberman helped launch, also welcome people from either side of the political aisle and John McCain explains why:
“I think there (are) a lot of Senator Clinton’s supporters who will support me because of their belief that Senator Obama does not have the experience or the knowledge or the judgment to address this nation’s national security challenges given we are in two wars,” McCain said Wednesday in Louisiana, casting Obama as an outside-the-mainstream partisan with “the most liberal voting record” in the Senate.
Barack Obama and John McCain both want the Hillary Clinton supporters and while many will support Obama after Clinton officially endorses him, despite the fact that her previous words criticized his lack of experience and substance, but that bloc of Clinton supporters that are changing their registration and sending donations to John McCain, who had his best month for contributions and donations in May, are unyielding.
No matter what Clinton says at her speech, the Republican National Committee, has already launched an all out offensive against Barack Obama, showing footage of Clinton declaring his inexperience and inability to lead, providing a research brief showing other prominent Democratic politicians saying the same thing as well as calling Obama "dangerous" and "confused".
When Obama woke up as the presumptive nominee Wednesday, his opponents on both the national and state level lowered the boom.
In Alabama, the state GOP chairman, Mike Hubbard, was ready for Obama with a statement questioning why Obama has not been to Iraq in so long.
In Florida, state party Chairman Jim Greer asked about Obama’s “willingness to meet with the Castro regime.”
The RNC was stocked with video footage of Obama’s Democratic rivals — especially Clinton — questioning his readiness to be commander in chief.
On Tuesday, with that night’s outcome clear, the RNC sprang into action, sending Republic surrogates out on more than 100 interviews in “national media, target markets, Hispanic press and blogs,” according to one official.
The RNC has also launched the "MeetBarackObama.com website which capitalizes on every weakness and vulnerability that they believe Barack Obama has shown.
The defecting Clinton supporters are just but one problem facing the presumptive Democratic nominee, but that particular problem has people worried and the last word goes to a Obama supporter, Kate Michelman, who is the former head of NARAL, and she says she is worried, "It does feel to me, just recently, like we're on a death mission. [T]here is a danger where we set a course for failure in November."
[Update] Another group PUMA PAC has sprung up, who say that "If Hillary is out, then our path is clear."
In response to the bungling, the baiting, the rule-bending, and the assault on the franchise of millions of voters in Florida and Michigan, PUMAs will not support the Democratic party’s nominee for president in 2008.
They insist that Obama is an "illegitimate nominee".
I ran across them from a Boston. com piece that says the P.u.m.a. name is an "acronym for the sentiment "Party Unity My Ass" - features postings by Clinton supporters saying they will never vote for Obama, even if it means electing McCain."
[Update #2] Read the comments on Hillary's website to see even more discontent and supporters refusing to unite for Obama.
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