Clinton Supporters’ Demanding Emails To Superdelegates May Be Backfiring (UPDATED)
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that supporters of Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton who comment on the pro-Clinton blog Taylor Marsh got ahold of an email list and have been emailing demanding, even angry, emails to superdelegates — and there are signs that some superdelegates are now very unhappy campers:
As the Democratic primary nears its long-awaited conclusion, undecided superdelegates have been drowned under a sudden deluge of angry, sometimes vicious emails from Hillary Clinton supporters urging them to not fall in line behind Barack Obama.
The letter writing campaign picked up steam late Thursday evening when several superdelegates confirmed that a coordinated effort had been launched, apparently independent of Clinton’s campaign, to raise last-minute concerns about Obama’s candidacy and present the specter of voter defections should the Illinois Democrat become the nominee.
[UPDATE: Marsh has responded to the HP piece with a long post of her own blasting the report and stressing that she had nothing to do with what her readers decided to do. It begins:
I in no way have anything whatsoever to do with the narrative being pushed in Sam Stein's post over at Huffington Post. Stop.
Whatever my readers are doing is their business. I am in no way involved. Stop.
Read it in its entirety. FOOTNOTE: Marsh has been a contributor to the Huffington Post herself.]
Back to the Huffington Post:
In more than dozen messages sent yesterday evening and shared with The Huffington Post, supporters of Clinton emailed a laundry list of political and exceedingly personal attacks on Obama’s candidacy, including criticisms of his prior associations and claims that he, not Clinton, had played the race card. The letters underscore the high emotional pitch of the late stage Democratic primary as well as the utter conviction among many supporters of both campaigns that their candidate is solely worthy of the nomination.
So have the letters made many superdelegates see the light and decide to announce that they’ll support Clinton — even though Clinton at this point isn’t ahead in the number of pledged delegates, the popular vote, campaign funding collections or even (by ABC’s recent claim) superdelegates?
Not quite:
Such campaigns targeting superdelegates have mostly been avoided out of fear that the party officials would react negatively to outside pressure. And at least four superdelegates on the receiving end of yesterday’s emails suggested that they did more harm to Clinton’s cause than good.
In one exchange, Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager and a stalwart of the Democratic Party, responded with frustration to a writer’s threats of defection. “Honestly, this is the 9th email today,” she wrote before 8:00 pm. “So I believe you’re ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade, voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq. Yes, please join Rush and McCain asap. The train has left. Catch it.”
The Clinton campaign did not return a request for comment as to whether it was behind the email campaign.
That last sentence means the Clinton campaign (a) is trying to figure out how to defuse this without alienating its committed supporters (whom students of politics could consider need to be committed for sending less than respectful emails to superdelegates who are their last hope), (b) doesn’t want to give this more publicity, (c) tacitly supports the effort.
Stein gives readers a bit of feedback on how some superdelegates are reacting to this new form of abusive political spam:
At least two other party insiders wrote the Huffington Post expressing concern over the scope (”I’ve received emails like this for weeks but tonight it started in mass) and negativity of some of the Obama attacks, including one red-state Democrat:
“I spent my entire life in the two reddest states in the entire U.S. so please excuse me if I fail to discern the nuances of the arguments sent my way this evening in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to intimidate the remaining unpledged delegates by threatening to leave the party and vote for a third Bush term if I and others like me don’t vote for Sen. Clinton,” wrote the exasperated superdelegate. “I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don’t vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides – but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn’t support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed.”
If you look at what is going on now:
–Hillary Clinton created a controversy with her comments about being a better candidate because she appeals more to white voters.
–Bill Clinton will get lots of play (and some who see it will agree with him) in his latest public burst of anger.
–Paul Begala raised eyebrows by saying “”Obama can’t win with just the eggheads and African-Americans…” (OOPS! There goes the Humpty Dumpty vote..)
–Clinton supporters are flooding superdelegates with threatening emails. They seem to forget that politics also involves trying to persuade, not just intimidate.
Bill Clinton often talked about wanting to build a “bridge to the 21st century.”
But, increasingly, the Clinton camp seems as if in terms of common sense political coalition building, it’s trying to burn its bridges in the 21st century.
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DAMOZEL
