Clinton Supporters Launch New Email Campaign To Try And Derail Obama Nomination

Scripps Howard News Service reports that there’s a new email campaign underway by some Hillary Clinton supporters to derail the nomination of Democratic Senator Barack Obama, who is now starting to seriously sag in various national polls:

A massive e-mail and Internet campaign is under way aimed at derailing the nomination of Barack Obama and making Hillary Clinton the party’s standard bearer next week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

“It’s downright nasty,” said Memphis, Tenn., superdelegate and city council member Myron Lowery, who has shared dozens of the messages he’s received with The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal newspaper.

“I think it’s divisive for the ‘Support Hillary’ campaign to continue at this time. She made the decision to fully support Mr. Obama,” said Lowery, who initially supported Clinton but later switched his allegiance to Obama. “I don’t know why they’re not taking their cue from Hillary and falling in line.”

Lowery said he does not believe Clinton herself is behind the effort, but that it’s “her supporters, acting on their own because they’re proud of what they have done for her.”

One message veers into extreme, EXTREME right wing territory:

“I think it’s a terrible tactic,” said Memphis delegate, Baptist minister and Shelby County, Tenn., Democratic Party Chairman Keith Norman. “We had hoped that this kind of politics, especially from within the party, would have been abandoned.”

A pledged Obama delegate, Norman noted that some of the attacks are overtly racist and that in one instance Obama was likened to “the Anti-Christ.”

The biggest story of the 2008 campaign may turn out to be the Democrats’ lack of party unity. If it ends in an Obama defeat, it’ll also be a huge story — and Democratic obstacle to victory — in 2012.