PUMAs wooed by McCain

The last place Kathy Archuleta could have ever imagined she’d spend the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, was at a happy hour sponsored by the Republican Party.

But the 54-year-old Democrat joined several other Hillary Clinton supporters, along with volunteers and officials from John McCain’s campaign, at a Happy Hour for Hillary.

…

And just as the Democrats’ convention was getting started in Denver, both the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee unveiled four TV ads geared toward Clinton supporters.

The most recent McCain ad involves the famous Hillary Clinton “3 a.m.” spot and will be aired during the convention. The 30-second spot uses footage from Clinton’s original ad and declares, “Hillary’s right.”

That’s funny.  McCain’s people holding a pro-Hillary happy hour just a bit away from the DNC, and getting Democrats to come in.  McCain has audacity.  Who Dares Wins, it’s not just a pretty slogan.

There’s no doubt McCain will be courting PUMAs.  “Divide and conquer” is a tactic almost as old as war and politics.

h/t A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days, which is having a field day with the election recently.

PUMA reaction to Palin pick

Riverdaughter at The Confluence opens the show with a take-down of Rebecca Traister’s article at Salon.com:

Post- electable Obama lovers, welcome to the General Election! Like it so far? Awwww…I know, I know. Grown-ups can be soooo unfair!

…

Because we believe that one person equals one vote, like, you know that thingy called “Democracy,” and not the “post-rational” thought of stealing votes to favor one candidates over another. By doing that, and we saw it live on national TV, the DNC coddling & vote stealing not one, but TWO DNC events makes Obama beyond “post-electable”

…

Well in reality, Hillary as VP wouldn’t have sat well with me at all, but to your non-news junkie, the “Hillary as VP” buzz inspired many Democrats to sigh relief if Obama were the nominee, given Hillary won 18 million votes and has 35 years of experience and will be right there holding Obama’s hand, babysitting his post-electability and cleaning up mess after mess.

There’s more, and it’s a pretty interesting read. I was unaware of the charge of vote-stealing, and I wonder what the story is on that. She has 176 comments on her post as I’m writing this, and they’re fun in their own right.

Next up, campskunk at Alegre’s Corner opens up the comments after the Palin decision and the comments are pretty straightforward.

Commenter Cal writes:

“… No, John McCain doesn’t get my vote, and neither does the coronated one. But I’d be fibbing if I didn’t admit I giggled right out loud today at McCain’s “audacity.”

Team McCain – 1
Team Obot – 0″

Commenter bmc writes:

“… I don’t give a damn about the Democratic Party anymore. I’ve been looking for a reason to vote for John McCain, and he gave me one this morning. It’s not just because she’s a woman; it’s because her personal story is compelling, and she’s the sort of woman who doesn’t just talk the talk; she walks the walk. She gave a brilliant speech, and she’s a reformer, with an 80% approval rating among the nation’s governors and her state. She’s able to work across the aisle, as McCain is, and her personal story is right out of Norman Rockwell. One son going to Iraq; her baby has downs syndrome. And, she’s very likeable. John McCain asked for my vote today. As it stands right now, he’s going to get it. I like Sarah Palin and I think this is an INSPIRED move by McCain. A stunning, stunning act of political brilliance.”

And it goes on from there, with attacks on McCain and Palin, praise for them, etc. Tons of interesting stuff.

For our third PUMA reaction, we turn to the PUMA PAC:

The Puma Movement is NOT in disarray. We are united in our goals:

1. No Obama for President
2. No more Howard or the other Architects of this FIASCO at the DNC
3. Support Good Guy Dems

Today is a tumultuous day. Don’t be afraid of a little disorder. It is inevitable — the McCain Camp just pulled a brilliant tactical move and we need to regroup. But as we do so, we must remain united.

Again, the comments are great. I don’t mean that facetiously. I really enjoy them, and I kinda sympathize with them. I have felt what they are feeling. I just felt it a decade or so ago.

There are also some new PUMA sites out there:

No We Won’t: PUMA Radio

No We Won’t

POC PUMA (People of Color PUMA)

Democrat in Exile (blogger)

PUMA Party (for all your ‘Democrats for McCain’ bumperstickers)

NObama Network (which seems to be a collection of links to PUMA groups)

welcome aboard, Sarah Palin!

best choice? I don’t know, but let’s add it up:

identity politics: female, young — if we look to Obama for youth, that gives Mrs. Palin a plus-plus; maybe pulls in some PUMAs

executive experience: of the four candidates (P & VP), she is the only one with executive experience as an elected official

(side-note, the Obama campaign’s reaction is a joke:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” said spokesman Bill Burton.

we can play that card back to ‘Today, the Democratic Party put the former editor of the Harvard Law Review …’ or, even better, ‘Today, the Democratic Party put a man with zero executive experience …’ contrast it with McCain’s congratulatory message to Obama on his winning the nomination)

(which really, now that I think about it, this was an excellent opportunity for Obama to say something nice about a woman, cuz he kinda needs to, imho)

contrast: Obama picks an old white guy, a Washington insider prone to racist gaffes, as his vp; McCain chooses a young white woman and Washington outsider — who’s the candidate of change?

p.s. i guess there goes my dream of a Condi Rice vp slot …

p.p.s. also, no Mad Minerva vp slot, another shame, but I sense she’s young and may be better suited for the 2016 elections, when we’ll have to replace McCain-Palin, by which time I also suspect she’ll be half cyborg and therefore able to represent both New Overlord demographics

instapundit roundup of reactions (to the Palin pick, not to MM’s non-pick)

(and not to the non-pick of Rice, either, of course)

(care for some tea?)

anti-PUMA activities?

Simon Owens at Bloggasm is reporting that a number of anti-Obama blogs were shut down after complaints:

After some digging it became apparent that several Blogspot accounts had been shut down because of similar spam issues, and nearly all of them had three things in common: Most were pro-Hillary Clinton blogs, all were anti-Barack Obama, and several were listed on justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama website.

I haven’t verified it, but since PUMA blogging seems to have become my thing recently, I thought I’d note it.

h/t Protein Wisdom

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Update (2008 July 1): An article in the NYT gives more information.  Google (which owns Blogspot) claims it was a problem with their spam filters.  The PUMAs don’t buy it.

Related: PUMA: more wild and wacky election fun, Obambi: hatin’ on Obama

Obambi: hatin’ on Obama

Obambi is an eye-opening site that shows there is some serious Obama hatred around. I ran across it looking through PUMA sites I mentioned previously.

Posts include things like Barack Hussein Obama: 10 Things to Fear and Unity My Ass: Say It Ain’t So Hillary, Barack Obama is a Vile Socialist. But what grabbed my attention most were the graphics. Juxtaposing words like “racist,” “nope,” and “idiot” with images of Obama, and clearly photoshopped images of Obama with Iranian leader Ahmadinajad, really make an impression, of some kind.

Then there’s The Kilzone, which is worse.  Images there mix swastikas, sickle and hammer themes, and other objectionable symbols with Obama images.  Whatever one thinks of Obama, or any of the candidates, none of them are comparable to Nazis or communists, and this kind of imagery is sickening.

PUMA: more wild and wacky election fun

Just got introduced to PUMA – Party Unity My Ass. Apparently, these are the “dead-ender” Clintonistas (insurgency implications included). Here’s some quotes from two PUMA sites:

PUMA Power:

Now is not the time to put a love object in office, a weakling who will be entirely dependent on his power elite enablers. Or worse, he may be a dissembler who has barely disguised his contempt for the voters.

There will be a lot of calls for “Unity!”. But let us acknowledge what this really is. “Unity” is a weapon that the party is going to use against us. It is the emotional blackmail of the teenager. “If you don’t let me have my way, it will be all YOUR fault if something bad happens!” “If you don’t get in line, it will be YOUR fault if we lose.

Cannonfire (toward the end of the post):

The Obot journals have published a few pieces on how to talk to the PUMA partisans. All of these pieces show them to be just as clue-free as Garrett and Dan were in that old skit. None of these pieces suggests that the progs might make some headway if they showed some humility. Here’s a suggested start:

“We spread lies against Clinton. We acted like Freepers. We’re sorry.”

Pure ego forbids them from making this admission. Indeed, the Lightbringer himself has said that he had to “bite his tongue” in dealing with Hillary — as though he were the offended party, as though he were on the receiving end of a smear campaign!

There’s no humility in Obotland. As these reponses to Traister’s piece exemplify, they remain mired in their revolting Messianic adulation of the Lightbringer (even though they no longer even try to defend him against charges of serial prevarication) and in their hatred of all things Clintonian . . .

What a really interesting campaign this continues to be.

Update (2008 June 28 ): US News mentioned this phenomenon, noting that more than 100 anti-Obama blogs have been created in the last 20 days.

Update (2008 June 29): The Confluence has a photo essay on a PUMA protest at a Unity event with both Obama and Hillary. Very interesting. Here’s Just Say No Deal, Party Unity My Ass, Democrats 4 McCain, DNC Monopoly, PUMA Party, and there’s a lot more out there.

Also, I have a new post up about Obambi.com and other hate sites.

Update (2008 June 30): Anti-PUMA activities?