Reply #34: I definitely think somethings up...

[news_junkie]

With Bill and Hill (and others). Excerpts from a letter from Donna Brazille were posted several places today (I think it was originally published in Roll Call).

Here's part of it:

Dear Governor:
I have known and admired you for more than 16 years. As you recall, we first met while working on the Dick Gephardt for President Committee back in 1987. Although Gephardt lost in the primary, your unwavering support of a little-known Congressman from the Midwest was crucial and helped validate his campaign proposals on health care....

...But just as you appeared to be on the verge of catching fire in the Iowa caucuses, the winter turned harsh. People loved you in their hearts, but they became frightened of what it would mean for the Democratic Party to have you serve as our standard-bearer. Some of those same people are now involved in a last-ditch effort to stop your candidacy.
Your youthful, tech-savvy supporters were new to the game of hardball presidential politics. They were playing in a league where the rules change based on who's in the game. Soon, some party insiders flush with cash went to work to cool your jets. You haven't quite been the same since the moment they made and paid for a video comparing you to Osama bin Laden.

Perhaps this time you will make it to the top. But, as you have experienced, the climb up the ladder from ex-governor, ex-presidential candidate to chairman can be steep. The hurdles now, like the obstacles you confronted in the Democratic primaries, are mainly about ego. For all its talk about inclusiveness, the Democratic Party is extremely turf conscious. Thus, it's incumbent on you to reach out and bring these people, the very ones who went to the mat to stop you, into the fold.

The bigger fish in the Democratic pond (the party is still swimming upstream) are truly bottom feeders eating away their young, casting aside callously their base and ignorant of the sharks circling our old coalitions. They have dismissed an entire generation of potential leaders when they held power by failing to lift up those who were coming behind. With you, some of the people who have been kept down found their voice. No matter what happens next week, keep fighting for them.