Poignant column about the Clinton campaign at First Read tonight.

[madfloridian]

There is no pleasure in it, even though I have heard too many of her surrogates out spreading anger today.

If she hadn't used my state and divided us, I would not feel so much anger toward her.

Once the primary manipulation started, the talking points started. They came from some of the state's major Democratic leaders, many of whom I had much respect for. They came from Bill Nelson, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Corinne Brown (who constantly calls for Dean to resign), Alcee Hastings, and the state party leaders like Steve Geller and Dan Gelber..though Gelber eventually apologized. Kathy Castor, daughter of Betty, was in on it at the beginning, and even was critical of Dean who campaigned a lot for her mother....but she has also backed off.

I have found that I can not even look at the first three Democrats I mentioned above without feeling my blood pressure rise. They are the worst. They are right on message every time they go on TV. Today on Hardball Debbie WS even said Florida did not break the rules. Her eyes gave it away that she knew she was lying. So sad. She was one of the best progressives here.

Those three sold their credibility for Hillary Clinton.

I heard today on TV, was it Hardball...that Harold Ickes has twice taken losing campaigns to the convention. Will have to look that up. Will he take yet another campaign to convention? I hear James Carville said she was going to convention. Also Howard Wolfson. They are truly amazing.

MSNBC's First Read tonight has a rather poignant post about her campaign. Actually it is just plain sad.

Clinton: my only friend, THE END…

The New York Times seems to be signaling that the end is near. "Clinton was accompanied by a skeleton crew of aides and a diminished press corps Wednesday as she continued to tour some of the remotest parts of America. After a tourist stop at Mount Rushmore, she drove nearly three hours across the desolate Badlands to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and made her electability argument to a somewhat bewildered crowd of about 250 people outside the Little Wound School. ‘I believe the electoral votes that I will win make a very strong argument,’ she said. ‘Look at the states I won and will win. These are the states that form the base of a Democratic victory.’”

“But there was also an elegiac tone to some of her remarks. ‘I view my run for president as a solemn obligation,’ she said. ‘I don’t run for president because I need any more publicity. I don’t run for president because I need the adulation or the celebrity. I don’t run for president to live in the White House. That was a wonderful experience, but that’s not why I run. I run because I believe we can do so much better for our country. The unkept promises are corrosive.’”

Clinton offered no clues as to her future after June 3, but she had a reflective tone as she made a rare visit to the back of her campaign plane to chat with reporters at the end of the day yesterday, NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli reports. “You know, I feel so good about the process,” said Clinton, glass of wine in hand. “I feel that this has been a really positive, productive primary season in so many ways. And you know, I put some of that in the memo about the numbers of people that have been brought in. Millions of people who have registered who never voted, who never participated.”

She said that she thought her party could make future primaries “more sensible,” but that given the current rules she is confident still. “We’ll see what the Rules and Bylaws Committee does with Michigan and Florida. We’ll see what happens Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. And then we’ll see where we are.”

The New York Post piles on. In a lighthearted stop at Mount Rushmore at reporters’ behest, the Post puts it all on its cover with a photo of Clinton framed with the presidents on the mountain top and the headline: “Rock Bottom.”

That was a surprisingly moving article by MSNBC.

I have been angry at her campaign attacks on a national party that is really trying to change the power structure of the Democratic Party to outside of DC. Her campaign and my state have really affected fundraising for the DNC with their theats and intimidation.

Moving the Piggy Bank

The Democrats' status as a national party may have reached a nadir in 2004, when President Bush was re-elected, and they lost five open Senate seats in the South, despite discontent over events in Iraq. The Democrats targeted a minimal number of states in that year's presidential race, to give them just enough votes in the Electoral College to eke out victory. Huge swaths of the South and West were surrendered.

....."Dean reached an epiphany when meeting with angry Democratic state chairmen during the 2004 convention in Boston, said DNC executive director Tom McMahon. Dean vowed to rebuild the local parties by dispatching money and manpower from the capital. The state chairs formed the core of his support in the chairmanship race, and do so today. So was born the 50 State Strategy.

Yes, it angers me how the party is being attacked, how my state is being used as a tool to continue the campaign to convention.

I was a huge fan of the Clintons during the 90s, we had eight good years. Things only changed when she decided to grab the Florida delegates.

This tactic is how I will remember the Clintons,unfortunately. It has divided us, it has caused reasonable people to show unreasonable anger. They don't know who to blame because they haven't heard the truth...that Florida Democratic leaders are to blame. Not the DNC.

That is how I will remember her.