Why wouldn't the media eat this up? They love shoveling horse crap down their own throats. It's why they're so full of sh*t.
The PUMA movement (which stands for Party Unity My Ass) is a joke. Regardless of the fact that most polls show 80% or more of Hillary Clinton's supporters going to Barack Obama, and that Obama leads heavily amongst Women over John McCain, the media, and most importantly some of the blogs, are insistent that they are a legitimate threat to Barack Obama's presidency. Frankly, I'm more concerned about Obama sneezing in the middle of an important speech than I am about these losers, but you know the media. Always creating a story where there is none.
But these PUMA idiots have the media's attention. And, to their credit, they're taking advantage of it. They're even going so far as to have a meeting in DC sometime soon to discuss how they can further develop a strategy to punish Obama for winning.
But there is a major problem the PUMA movement is about to run into: not all PUMAs are there for the same reason. You see, there are many sub-species of PUMA. Allow me to go into further detail:
The Republican PUMAS (McCainicus inrealitus) - These "Democrats" aren't in fact life long Democrats. They're easy to spot. These are the jackasses who go online on the blogs or newspaper websites and say "I'm a life-long Democrats who is voting McCain in 2008, Hillary in 2012." However, it's easy to spot these fools in what they're doing. They TOO overzealous for the movement, TOO absurd. And other PUMAs have a difficult time swallowing McCain; these guys embrace it wholeheartedly. No, the fake Democrats make up a sizeable chunk of the PUMA population, and do so only to intimidate Democrats into thinking are party isn't unified.
The Angry Feminist PUMAs (Forgetus sumpremecourticus) : These might be the most absurd, and these are the one's most obsessed with "punishing" Barack Obama, even though it's against their best interest. However, in contradiction to what the media tells us, these do NOT make up a majority of PUMAs. My mother, a solid Hillary Clinton supporter and feminist who said she would never vote for Obama, eventually took of the Clinton bumper sticker and supports him now. Like most feminists, she realized that while Obama isn't a woman, his record of women's issues is far superior to McCain. These few feminists who are so angry they can't think straight want to support a non-equal pay, pro-life candidate who left his first wife after she got in a car accident and he met a hot, rich new woman. Yeah, he sounds like a real pro-woman kind of guy. These are the most self-destructive, and therefore the most frustrating, of the PUMAs. It's also sexist. Yes, I said it, sexist. It is just as sexist to vote for Hillary Clinton because of what she has under her skirt as to vote AGAINST Hillary Clinton because of it. You're still voting on anatomy either way, which is sexist in it's very nature. Allow me to give you another example: if this race had been six women and one man, would it be ok for me, as a guy, to vote for the man because he is a man? No, it would obviously be sexist. Regardless, this is the SMALLEST group, as most feminists are pretty intelligent people, and understand that when it comes to who is best on the issues, it isn't even a real choice.
The Conservative Democrat PUMAS - (Georgebushius lovibus): There are too kinds of Conservative Democrats; those who may have conservative or centrist leanings on a few issues but who agree with Democrats that Government is inherently a good thing that can help the people, and then there are Republicans who pretend to be Democrats. I'm proud to call myself a member of the first group, and almost all of those members of the party are supporting Barack Obama, and practically none of us are PUMAs. The other Conservative Dems, however, weren't going to vote for Obama in the first place. These "democrats" really aren't democrats, though I certainly wouldn't deny them party membership. Just to say that in most races (Governor, Senator, President) they were planning on voting Republican anyway. Now, even most of these guys don't want to be PUMAs, as it's simply a waste of time. They'll vote for McCain, but certainly won't go online to blog about it. But some of these morons insist on calling themselves PUMAs and claiming love for the Clintons. In truth, however, these were the same people slamming Hillary Clinton from 1992 through 2000 with the b-word. These are just people finding another way to lash out at "liberal Obama", whom they don't particularly like. For those PUMAs who, however, honestly belive Obama is too liberal, allow me to say one thing: as perhaps the sole representative for the more conservative/centrist wing of the Democratic Party in the Virginia Blogosphere, allow me seven words: shut the f*ck up for a minute. If you honestly believe Obama is too liberal, take a moment to talk to some of those just-as-crazy Kossacks who think he's too centrist now. Then maybe you'll come around. Whoever the Kossacks are mad at within the Party, we'll probably like. So right now, we should love Barack Obama.
Finally, the last, and most populus species of PUMA:
The Whiner PUMAs (Patheticus Maximus): These are the worst. Oh GOD do these guys annoy me. These are liberal, loyal Democrats who gave money, time, and effort to Hillary Clinton. Now, normally, you expect these people to get on board. "Hey, we lost, but that's politics." Not this time, though. Because of the media's easly insistence on Hillary's inevitability, these people feel like they were robbed. They weren't, of course. Hillary Clinton lost because she ignored the caucus states. Most (but not all) of Obama's pledged delegate lead comes from places like Washington, Kansas, etc. These are also the people who get mad at black voters for supporting Obama in the South, but also get angry at ANY woman who chose to vote against Clinton. The hypocrisy is just mind boggling. These are the majority of PUMAs; whiners who feel robbed, and therefore they get together in an echo chamber and let each other know how wronged they were. We have a name for these people in sports: Sore losers. Primaries have a point: to have one winner, and lots of losers. Hillary Clinton lost. Such is the process. She gracefully conceded, and has moved on. So have most of her supporters. But rather than choose between the two remaining candidates based on the issues, these big babies want to take their ball and go home. Frankly, these are the kind of kids who nobody wanted to pick to be on their kickball team. Makes it kind of hard to want to court them to come back into the fold, doesn't it?
Now that we've examined the types of PUMAs, can we see what the common thread is? All of these groups, with the exception of the Republicans pretending to be Democrats, act against their own best interest by supporting John McCain over Barack Obama.
The only group that makes sense in this PUMA movement is the Republican group. It's dishonest, Roveian, and completely Republican in it's essence. No point in really arguing that one, seeing as it's kind of hard to be surprised.
The other groups, however, are nothing short of idiotic, and if they were really a puma, the species would surely go extinct. To act so against one's self-interest in shear spite is beyond stupid. It is beyond politics. It is, frankly, suicidal. Feminist PUMAs who support McCain are voting to continue unequal pay, abolish abortion, and have one of the most unsympathetic courts to female issues in American history. Liberal PUMAs who vote McCain out of spite vote to kill a chance at energy independence and national healthcare, while voting to continue Bush's neoconservative foreign policy. And conservative or centrist Democrats who follow the PUMA path will do nothing but support a continued fiscal responsibility unlike anything seen in America since Herbert Hoover.
The PUMA movement isn't a threat to Barack Obama. As much as these idiots, and yes they are idiots, think they'll throw the election, they won't. All they'll do is say they proudly voted to end the right to choose, to end fiscal responsibility, to kill national healthcare, and to support the oil industry for another four years in the Whitehouse.
The PUMAs call themselves "real Democrats." If they are, then I'm ashamed to associate with them in the party. They are an embarassment to the party as a whole, one I'd bet Hillary Clinton is ashamed to be attached to in any way, shape, or form. They're the spoiled children of the Democratic Party; they think they're entitled to the Presidency because the media told them they were. But if the MSM has proved anything this election cycle, it is that they're irresponsible, and that they're only in it to make a buck. If the PUMAs were mature, they'd look at the issues, and recognize that the candidate who is best for them is Barack Obama, and instead of holding on to some ridiculous hope that if McCain wins in 08, Hillary can waltz in to office in 2012. We can't afford four more years of Bush. We need a Democrat in office now.
Like I said before, the PUMA movement is a joke. Its effectiveness is limited, its strength is minor, its logic fatally flawed, and its purpose corrupted. They are the black sheep of the party, existing only to comfort each other in their defeat rather than joining with a former opponent to save our country. The PUMA movement is pathetic. The people who participate in it are pathetic. And frankly, I think I've said all I can about them.
But to any Obama supporter, I have one word of comfort: don't worry. Because if Natural Selection has taught us anything, these guys are on their way out.
First of all, the PUMAs have no chance of influencing the general election? Really? Try explaining that to the millions of Democrats who hate Ralph Nader for handing the 2000 election to Bush by taking 2% of the vote in Pennsylvania, 3% of the vote in Ohio, and almost 97,500 votes in Florida where Gore lost by 537 votes. Yeah, I know, the Republicans sprinkled stupid dust on the voters in Palm County and Miami-Dade and tricked them into voting for Pat Buchanan. Still, if 97,500 left-leaning votes had gone to Gore then the Republican shenanigans would have been all for naught. So, 80% of Clinton's supporters are solidly for Obama? Fine, the remaining 20% (or 3.6 million) can create mischief in November. That's over 6 and a half times the difference in the popular vote between Gore and Bush and almost one million votes more than Nader got in 2000.
Second of all, you forgot to address an important sub-species of PUMA voters, Independicus mindimus. These pesky voters represent the true Third Party in the United States and are, as a group, as large as the Democratic Party and larger than the Republican "Tiny Tent" Party. They are willing to vote for some Democrats and not for others. They have been alternately called "Rockefeller Republicans" and "Reagan Democrats." They tend to vote for a candidate they can relate to and feel no compunction whatsoever about crossing party lines when they don't particularly like the standard-bearer in the party they normally affliate with. It is a truism in politics today that no one can be elected President without the Independent vote. Obama understands this and is tacking to the right to make sure he gets their support. Lumping them with "idiots" who are "full of shit" "jackasses" and "not lifelong Democrats" is certainly one way of wooing their support, but probably not the most effective approach.
Third, don't dismiss the Clinton voters who feel cheated by the system. You say that Clinton lost because she ignored the caucus states. They will tell you that she lost because Florida and Michigan were disenfranchised. My own opinion is that neither is true. Clinton lost because more people voted for Obama than for her. Period. End of story. However, if you want the Clinton voters then you have to compromise and reach out to them. The DNC 'gets' this with the compromise on the Florida and Michigan delegates. "You lost--get over it" is not a compromise.
Fourth, don't make the mistake of ignoring history. The McCarthy supporters in 1968 felt no more cheated than Clinton's supporters this year and handed the election to Richard Nixon. Four years later they demonstrated that they were "idiots," "black sheep," and "irresponsible" by securing McCarthy's nomination and proving the wisdom of the party leadership in 1968: that McCarthy was unelectable against even the weakest Republican.
Finally, if these PUMA folks are so impotent, then why are you so mad?
To quote Ken, peace.
These PUMAs showed their true colors at that DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting. They're the type of people who've been spreading the 'Obama as Manchurian Candidate' viral emails for months now. They're the type of people who go around talking and acting like liberal Democrats, but would have a heart attack if their own daughter went out with a black guy.
The Republicans have more litmus tests for "real" Republicans than a graduate Chemistry course. If Democrats want to follow their lead into oblivion, then all they have to do is start with the us-them stuff. Then, the lines are drawn and let the most righteous side win.
In the end, Dan's approach is the only approach there is. These people have chosen to make themselves the enemies of the Democratic Party. That was their choice, and we should respect their choice by treating them like the enemies they are.
Don't kid yourselves: there is nothing we can do or say to conciliate these people.
When was the last time you heard a Republican say something this crazy:
"[Obama] is a cult. His campaign is an anti-woman cult. I will actively campaign against him."
I have family members and friends who will vote for McCain because they believe he is the superior candidate. That's cool. PUMAs, on the other hand, HATE Obama with a passion.
Please Virgil Goode, come back to the Democratic Party! We won't let Obama print "In Moooo-hah-med We Trust" on our currency!
Perhaps it was easier for him to find a sympathy for these disgruntled and misguided Hillary supporters. Like me, he was a Hillary supporter, so he too may have more insight into what they are feeling. I know you were an Obama supporter after Edwards dropped out (I was originally an Edwards supporter too, so there we share a common bond).
I can also understand your frustration with the PUMAs. But I thing your tone in this diary is unhelpful to the problem - and it is a big problem. I'm going to reprint what I wrote as a comment on Aznew's diary because I think it applies here to:
It's easy to get angry at the PUMAs. Like you, I was a pro-Hillary person. I supported her until the last primary. And I believe there are problems with the proportional weighting of the caucuses; the outsized influence of the early rural states like Iowa and New Hampshire, which is out of proportion to their size or amount of delegates; and the near disenfranchisement of Florida and Michigan, which could have cost us their votes in the general election. But both sides knew the rules and Obama ran the better campaign. He won it fair and square. We need to fix the process so that losers perceive it as more fair. We also need to fix it so that we we can, hopefully, avoid these types of hard feelings and bruising primaries in the future.Having said all that, the self proclaimed liberal PUMAs truly puzzle me. If they truly understood what Hillary Clinton stood for and fought for all her life, they couldn't possibly consider voting for McCain. He is the polar opposite of everything Clinton and any feminist has believed in or fought for.
McCain is anti-abortion. He has said he will appoint "strict constructionist" judges to the Supreme Court. That would not only affect a woman's right to choose but would also impact discrimination law suits, equal pay legislation and a host of other issues that also affect women and all working people.
It troubles me deeply that these women, and some men, are so angry that they would cut off their noses to spite their faces. And even worse, their anger has blinded them to what a truly good candidate Obama is. We had an entire field of excellent candidates in the primaries and for PUMAs to turn their backs on the Democratic Party and its principles in a fit of anger hurts them and hurts all of us.
Responding with anger, though, does not help the situation. We can't win all of them back. But we should try to convince as many as possible that it's time to move past anger and to focus on what is really at stake.
We do that by countering their every argument with facts about McCain and about Obama. We also counter it by appealing to their hearts as well as their heads with a compelling narrative about what can be lost by tossing their votes away foolishly. And we have history and illustratons to back it up: Nixon in 1968 and Bush in 2000. That's what happens when disgruntled liberals turn their backs on everything they truly believe.
Some people we can get back and we must try. But we have to call this what it is: childish and irresponsible. I'm still angry Gore lost in 2000 but I don't have to be a jerk about it.
I'm with you. I'm pissed at them too. It's also childish and irresponsible for those PUMAs to hold Obama and his supporters hostage to try and have them pay off her campaign debt.
But I do think a couple of them will come back...but I'm not welcoming them back with open arms.
But I am interested in more than just winning an election cycle. I am more interested in building a generation-long Democratic dominance at the federal and state levels to get this country back on track. Clinton started it, but Bush set us back. 4, or even 8 years, or an Obama presidency will be great, but t will do limited good unless it is accompanied by the creating of an enduring ruling coalition of people of disparate interests, but common objectives.
The way I see it, the only people beyond hope of becoming a part of this coalition are the 29 percent or so who still approve of GWB's performance in office. They are dead-enders beyond reach.
The so-called PUMAs are really showing us one thing: disloyalty. Firstly, they do not want to follow the will of the party. Secondly, they do not want to follow the will of the people. If you do not like democracy, then complain about Obama winning. Clinton has the opportunity to win the race fair and square and it didn't happen. Her campaign failed. Grow up and move on. What is more important to you? A Democrat winning or not? Obama is more like Hillary than McCain is. Obama may even give an important post to Hillary where McCain will definitely not. Honestly, I look at this movement as a group of people whose loyalty to a candidate is unwaivering (a fantastic quality) but who will not commit to the ideals of the candidate, the party the candidate represents, or the values of democracy. Like spoiled children complaining about not getting their way, this group of people is a scourge to democracy and Democrats.
We need responsible Democrats and we need greater party loyalty if Democrats ever hope to be a permanent force of change in this country rather than the candidate who fixes things when people are angry at Republican mismanagement.
This woman is a rock star in the PUMA community: