Despite what some scientists claim is the next great mass extinction, a new species has emerged after Sen. Barack Obama was named the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. This fierce new species, called the PUMA, is a mammal in the Hillary Clintonae family and is native to the Americas.
This new breed of PUMA lurks in the deep, dark depths of the “comments” section of the Cafferty File blog, one of their most common habitats. They are most active around dawn and dusk, infiltrating the dense underbrush of the Internet. They feed on rationality, and are known for their shrill cry, which sounds somewhat like “Second place is the same as first place”.
This contingent of Sen. Hillary Clinton supporters began referring to themselves as PUMAs. PUMA, as I came to learn after a great deal of confusion, stood for “Party Unity My Ass.” They quickly became known for their baseless rants, annoying threats and strong hind legs for catching up with quicker prey.
KANSAN
After amusing myself by reading inane comments for a few weeks, I started to wonder: Who are these people, really? Surely, not everyone who voted for Clinton in the primaries is that riled up about her narrow defeat to Obama that they would try to form some subversive group to distract the party from its goal of reclaiming the White House.
I’ve read a lot about the supposed 18 million voters who apparently want Clinton running on the Donkey Party, or they will switch their votes to Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. This seems unrealistic to me, since Clinton is much closer ideologically to Obama than to McCain. If people wanted so badly for her to run the country, it doesn’t make sense that their second choice wouldn’t be somebody who’d have an at least relatively similar administration.
That, and all of the Clinton supporters I know have been willing to accept that, as well as she did, Obama obviously did slightly better.
According to the PUMA tracks that were left on the Cafferty File blog, the leadership in the Democratic Party had somehow anointed Obama their candidate when he did not deserve it. Reasons for this include the number of super-delegates who declared their support for him, after many of them were believed early on to be in favor of Clinton. And, of course, there was the fiasco involving the delegates from Michigan and Florida. When the two states had their delegates stripped for holding their primaries before Super Tuesday, a privilege that had only been granted to a few states, “Count Every Vote” became, for a brief period, a popular slogan.
I spent a fair amount of my summer perusing the comments on CNN.com’s various blogs, which are apparently the natural habitat of PUMAS. For every story, even ones which had absolutely nothing to do with the presidential election (therefore, not the fun ones), I was told that Obama and his mean, nasty supporters are rich, elitist snobs who hate America, women, blue-collar citizens and fluffy little kittens.
But I think I may have discovered a secret facet of the species. My favorite conspiracy theory is that the PUMAs who have overtaken the Internet are actually covert McCain supporters, using subterfuge to help their candidate.
Admittedly, this is unlikely for the organization as a whole. I’ve read about organized PUMA groups that number around 2 million members, so there have to be a few legitimate sore losers in the pack.
In truth, I see the rise of the PUMA as a need for ventilation after an extremely heated primary. It isn’t unreasonable, considering that toward the end, it became almost as intense as the general election will be.
The organizers of the Democratic National Convention have agreed with that sentiment and have stated that not only will Clinton get a prime speaking time in Denver, but her pledged delegates will also be able to cast their votes for her, despite her suspending her campaign over the summer.
Call it a cave-in to an extremely vocal minority (which is what I call it), but ultimately, it seems necessary to bring the Democratic Party back together in time to win back that prime habitat called the White House in November.
Cohen is a Topeka senior in political science.
Discussion
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Ha. You think Nader ruined if for the Dems? He's got nothing on Hillary. Give me a freaking break. I don't know if the Democrats deserve to win, as a whole, after this. I won't be surprised if they lose it, either. They've lacked a spine for at least 8 years, now it seems the brains are missing, too.
You vote for who you like. Nader didn't ruin anything. I will gladly vote for him again if I keep being let down by my two 'mainstream' candidates.
It's sad that, in this country, I hear many people voting for 'who they hate least.'
I will gladly abstain from the Presidential race in lieu of voting for someone I don't like. Or I'll vote for Nader. :D
Personally, I'm going to waste my vote by giving it to somebody I think can do the job well, not John Alzheimers, Hopey McPresidentsCantReallyDoWhatIWantToDo, nor even Hillary Rodham-LookIHaveAVagina.
Its the first election I can vote in, and already I'm starting to despair that my vote doesn't count.
http://www.bobbarr2008.com
I'm very anti-libertarian on many issues (I'm an education major and libertarians want to destroy public education) but I'm thinking of voting for Barr anyway in protest.
Can I vote for the Hillary Clinton-head-on-a-mountain-lion body creature instead?
Though I sympathize with the Hillary folks (they definitely were screwed out of their choice), their leader has dropped all delegates and towed the party line like a "good soldier". To say that her millions upon millions of supporters aren't justified because they don't align themselves with Obama's policy truly tramples freedom of choice. They can vote for whomever they want and if you think that there shouldn't be any disunity, keep dreaming. If it was bad enough for Clinton to even have to address the issue you know it is on many peoples minds. You don't see McCain talking about all the disunity in the Republican Party. They feel that they can spare over a million votes apparently.
Some of you Democrats think that the primary season is a showing for Democracy but this is half true. In reality the delegates can do as they wish, they hold all the cards. The primary is just a sample as to who is most likely to lead the Party to victory. Do you think Abraham Lincoln had the majority of the delegates when the Convention came rolling around. No, he had 10% but he was the best choice for the Party for the circumstances at the time and he was chosen. The same can be said of several other candidates in our history who eventually were elected to office. By comparison Hillary had just under 50% much more than a meager 10% for you Democracy buffs. I support neither media coronated candidate and that is all that this is. Ben does a great job of perpetuating their Reign of Terror over our minds.
I am educated on the checks and balances placed in the system by the Party leaders. If the delegates weren't meant to have a choice then why elect them at all and why waste millions on extravagant Conventions with an additional 100 million in security if the "presumptive nominee" meant the nominee? With that logic it would be interesting to see what would happen if Edwards was right now on top. Would you tow the line then? Or what would the young people of America do if Obama lost in a narrow lead, would you not demand a brokered election if at all possible to get that Change in your pockets? What if you knew that Hillary would destroy McCain by over 10% while anyone else would suffer a terrible defeat?
These are the real reasons Conventions exist, so those elected by the people can make the final vote based on current situations. Its a little thing called representative government seeing as this is a Republic and all. Once again Ben you're laying the rhetoric on real thick and you fail to get it but hey, barring some voter fraud, maybe your man will win this after all.
Ooh, BaneMaler's feisty.
Mr. Cohen expresses this thought about Clinton voters, when wondering if they will really switch their vote to McCain, instead of 'settling' for Obama:
"This seems unrealistic to me, since Clinton is much closer ideologically to Obama than to McCain. If people wanted so badly for her to run the country, it doesn’t make sense that their second choice wouldn’t be somebody who’d have an at least relatively similar administration."
As I like to deflate obvious, 'conventional wisdom' whenever I can, may I suggest that no, it doesn't always make sense to cast your vote for a 'similar administration'? I would remind you all that Hillary's nickname in Arkansas - back before she and Bill ever headed to Washington - was the "Lady MacBeth of Little Rock". Second place simply will not do for Madame Clinton, and by extension, for many of her supporters. So, how to get her back in first place? By making sure that John McCain wins. She immediately becomes the Democratic favorite for 2012 with McCain Victory. If Barack wins, though, she has to wait 8 years, when SHE will likely be too old for two terms. And this is before considering that she'd still likely have to elbow past the sitting VP at that time.
Thus, outwardly, she will support Obama. But really? Honestly? Well, with the Clintons, how many times in the past has the difference between public statements and behind-the-scenes-reality been something on the order of....a gulf the size of an ocean?
Not to suggest that this will happen of course, but you can certainly see that in order for Clintonistas to vote for McCain, all they have to do is put the interest of the Clintons ahead of the interests of the Democratic Party. So, the question is, "How many Clinton people are really that mercenary?"
Anybody want to take bets either way?
I'll just say to you that my column was about supporters, not the candidate herself. I've found that the vast majority of Clinton supporters (or at least the ones I know personally, of which there are many) have in fact followed the "conventional wisdom" that you disagree with. I wrote about a vocal minority, which you are guaranteed to get among 18 million or so Democrats.
And yes, I am vain enough to read the comments of my own column AND to respond to something. It doesn't bother me.
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