Sam Sedaei: Don't Buy It I'm sure you've seen an article that's prominently posted on The Huffington Post website. The article reports on a 63-year-old angry rancher and self-proclaimed Clinton supporter who has started a group with the stated goal of setting up 527s "to raise money, run TV and radio ads against Obama" in order "to promote John McCain." The article on Wired Blog Network is titled "Angry Clinton Supporters Rally for McCain Online." Don't buy it so fast.
I had a drink with a few of my less-obnoxious Republican friends in DC last night. As I was explaining to them that I was pleased to see Hillary Clinton read the handwriting on the wall and start to do her part to bring the party together, these young Republicans brought up all the anger that they had seen Hillary supporters express at the DNC Rules and Bylaws meeting last weekend. They then told me about this website on which supposed Hillary supporters were gathering to defeat Obama, and hence help John McCain.
Of course I was disappointed to hear about the site. How could any rational person ever vote for her or his worst choice in this election because they didn't get their best choice? What was it about Obama that was more objectionable to these people than anything about John McCain, a war-mongering flip-flopping Republican who fell in line with Bush -- the most disastrous president in this country's entire history -- 95% of the time?
But then one of these young Republicans who has been a supporter of John McCain answered my question and somewhat angered me in the process. He told me that he became a member of this group two days ago and asked a bunch of his friends to join, which they also did! When I asked him if he thought most republicans knew about this website, he said that most of the ones that were close to him not only knew about it but were predicting its creation and waiting to join as soon as it was created. He also told me that Dan Carlson, a former college republicans' president from my undergraduate school, Kalamazoo College, and now the national secretary of College Republicans was actively recruiting people for this site.
This is of course nothing surprising. Starting on Tuesday night, even John McCain started courting Clinton supporters during his speech. Although Senator Obama won the nomination fair and square, winning the most number of delegates, states won and popular votes sanctioned by DNC, you may believe that all members who are joining this website are real Hillary supporters. Don't buy it. There is no evidence of that. In contrast, a CBS poll on Wednesday showed Obama holding a 6% lead over McCain nationally - a bigger lead than that in most other polls taken before Tuesday.
Of course there is no way of knowing how many members of this group are real members of any group. But if there is any evidence, it shows that the people who are supporting this site are mostly not Hillary supporters, but Republicans who have always been for John McCain and are just out there to keep the Democratic primaries' wound open and manipulate and keep Hillary supporters from supporting their second best choice, Senator Obama.
But if you're still mad at this group despite knowing this, I want to remind you that there are a lot of republicans who are very unhappy about McCain as the nominee and just need to be reminded about all of his nonconservative "flaws." I suggest starting a website for these conservatives and ask the supporters of one of his competitors from the primaries to join and support Obama. A competitor, like, say, Mit Romney?
<a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d02d45ea398b8d7be365081717d3164a";><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d02d45ea398b8d7be365081717d3164a";/>
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