Lest We Forget: PUMA Edition

Throwing down the gauntlet « The Confluence

...PUMA was only tangentially about Hillary Clinton. We thought she was the best candidate in 2008 but the fact that she was a woman was only icing on the cake.

PUMA was about voters. When the party decided to manipulate the delegate count to get their predetermined outcome, ignoring 18000000 voters, they crossed the line with many of us. If Obama had won fair and square, we would have voted for him. The fact that he didn’t signalled to us that he wasn’t going to listen to voters. When the party turned over our votes and our protestations were squashed by the likes of Kos, Obama figured that he could do just about anything without any reference to the voters in his base. And that’s just what he’s done...

Tea Party Posts

NO QUARTER has two excellent posts on the subject: here and here.

I would be at my local tea party except I know I would have to listen to an enormous amount of drivel about "damn liberals" and "damn Democrats," and since I am both, why would go anywhere just to hear myself get cussed? If some of us PUMA types got a chance to chat then I might go, otherwise, I will just cheer.

To Puma, Or Not

Liberal Rapture: 'Sexing PUMAs'

"...PUMA is also a Democratic primary reform and feminist movement.

Donna, you lost me after '(1)'. I am a PUMA. I am not a battered woman. I presume you are, and if you need to 'commiserate' and 'vent about the abusers', vent to your heart's content, but don't call that PUMA. The millions of adherents claimed by PUMA are not all battered women stuck in recursive victim-mode. PUMA is public domain. PUMA is all of us. PUMA is me.

I'll repeat now what I told Murphy's coven: You must choose. You can either be a battered women's support group, solipsistic and marginalized, or you can be a broad-based political organization participating in the reclamation of our political landscape. You cannot be both.

Your definition of a PUMA applies to but a tiny fraction of the true PUMAs, so stop calling yourselves that. You're giving the rest of us a bad name.

(c) 2009, by 'tamerlane', all rights reserved."

I am not a battered woman, but I certainly sympathize, and I also think tamerlane has a valid point. If the middle can retake the country, then many of these marginalizing, gender and race based problems will see solutions being offered instead of cliches and rants. We need Pumas to help foster a political system based on mutual respect and rational thought, not the current horrid demonization that happens anytime anyone takes a contrary view.

Media Misses Pumas

American Thinker: Signs Pointing To A McCain Victory: "...Well, there is another story out there that the MSM refuses to address. A huge story. One that could, and I think will, significantly affect the outcome of this race. I'm referring to the widespread phenomenon of registered Democrats openly supporting John McCain. There are numerous 'Democrats for McCain' type organizations. There are numerous websites and blogs written by Democrats touting McCain's candidacy. There are pro-McCain grassroots efforts being led by Democrats. And we all know friends or relatives who are Democrats, who voted for John Kerry in 2004, and who are no fans of President Bush - but who are going to vote for John McCain this year.

Yet, surprise surprise, the mainstream media is not talking about these voters, not talking about the real rift that is occurring within the ranks of the Democratic Party. Needless to say, if a similar rift were occurring in the Republican Party, it would be treated as the major story that it is. (Indeed, as such stories about the political fault lines in the Republican Party have been treated in the recent past.)

Who are these pro-McCain Democratic voters? They overwhelmingly tend to be former Hillary supporters. Perhaps the most well-known of these voters are the "PUMAs" - which stands for Party Unity My Ass. These are Hillary supporters who are adamantly opposed to Obama. Let's not forget that during the Democratic primaries - real elections, not polls - Hillary crushed Obama among white working-class and middle-class voters in such key states as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. If a meaningful number of these voters end up voting for McCain, as I predict they will, then Obama's smooth road to the White House is going to run smack into a brick wall..."

Adrift In A Sea Of Indifference

Thursday: Resistance- no longer useless « The Confluence: "...We keep coming back to the fact that the media and the DNC would like to put the older, uneducated, working class, women and eventually, African Americans, on an ice floe and let them fend for themselves. It appears that the Democratic party no longer intends to represent those groups. “Those people” represent a vast majority of people in the United States. The recent brouhaha over Joe the Plumber demonstrates that voters in both parties have woken up to the new reality that they simply do not count anymore and they’re angry. If this is America, they should still be able to vote in confidence that their wishes are respected and counted and this is no longer necessarily the case.

We are resisting the chopping away at the ice that the priveleged part of the tribe is doing to disconnect us from them. That is what is fueling the resistence. And what is happening on Wall Street right now is a bellwhether for what is to come if Obama wins by discounting and suppressing the vote. It isn’t right to take the taxes of the hardest working Americans and give it to the well connected on Wall Street without those taxpayers having a say in how the money is used. TThat is the way the government will operate in the future if the DNC, Obama, Pelosi et al get their way. For once and all, they won’t have to reach out the Bubbas, as they call us. They will treat us like non-voting partners in whatever business plan they intend to carry out..."

At some point the middle will realize that neither party represents us, though both want our votes. The GOP uses faith and patriotism as a wedge to pick the pockets of the middle class and the poor and redistribute the wealth to their elites. The Dems use ethnicity and victimization to pick the pockets of the poor, the middle, and the wealthy and then figure ways to redistribute the money to their elite. The bottom line is the same: the rich get richer and the rest get screwed. Neither Obama nor McCain will change this system since they represent both self and other interests that benefit from the system. The only way to "get 'er done" is a complete upheaval in the legislative branch with extremists from both sides being replaced by people who actually work for the people, as opposed to those who talk but do not do.

Clash In Catland

The Pumasphere [ insert trademark symbol, insert copyright symbol, insert patent notice, insert exponent superscript for emphasis {its mine!mine!mine! givemecredit or illwhimperallnight}] has erupted in an exchange of racism and densism charges. Here and here.

Note: my apology for this post in the comments.

Post of the Day

Anglachel has created quite the analysis of the stumbling, crumbling, bumbling bevy of bunglers known as the Democratic Party (and yes I are one). Get an extra cup of coffee and go read it: "Where The Shadows Lie."

Not One

The boys and girls of This Week's Roundtable have once again described former Clinton supporters as Regan Democrats and women. I loathed Raygun, almost as much as my disdain for Bush The Lesser. The neocons are my antithesis. Yet, there they go again. While many people who do not support Obama fall into that category, there are quite a few of us who are not supporting him but not supporting McCain either; many of us are simply pro-democracy, America-firsters. Neither the GOP nor Barack Obama have show an overarching love of one-man-one vote democracy.

And there we are-- betwixt a rock and a hard place.

Puma Time

The following was lifted from The Confluence:

'...So while Obama supporters are talking out of both sides of their mouth, PUMA is actually building bridges. It was morning, and I was just coming from the campground office, and a man was standing next tp the PUMAmobile and looking at its banners. He turned to me and put out his hand as if to shake mine. As I went to shake his, I noticed he was handing me a $20 bill.

“I want to thank you so much for what you are doing”. he said, “Neither the Republican nor Democrat party are listening to the voters”. He said he saw what the party did to Clinton, and was wondering how many Democrats would get really pissed off. Here he is in his own words expressing his PUMAness.'

"One American, One Vote"

It's The Hillbillies Again

Since I are one, I can use the ethnic slur. WaPo: who needs Clinton’s primary voters anyway? « Not Your Sweetie

Reminding The "Leaders"

Tom Vilsack Doesn’t Get It. (Heh heh, I said Vilsack.) « The Confluence

"...Hello, Democratic Leaders? YOUR CONSTITUENTS ARE TALKING TO YOU. Why aren’t you listening? What is wrong with you?

Our problems with Obama are based on the issues. We are not Republicans who go crazy because we are afraid Obama is not Christian enough to keep all the little zygotes from being murdered in their wombs. We don’t care if his middle name is “Hussein” and we don’t think he is a secret Muslim being brainwashed by Angela Lansbury to murder all the white people in their sleep. For Jeebus’ sake, WAKE UP! We don’t think Obama will be a good President because he is a liar, a total opportunist who will betray anyone and everyone in order to gain power and prestige. He has no beliefs. He has no principles. He loves himself more than should be humanly possible. And, he’s being financed by huge corporate interests who have no desire to rock their financial boats.

In short, he reminds us of George W. Bush..."

Why I Puma

Heidi Li's Potpourri: The difference between supporting a person and supporting a principle

"...I know that many people think that Senator Obama can win the presidency with lots of money and the unhappiness people have with the current Republican administration. I do not think that will work. Senator Obama needs votes from millions of people like me, people who feel that a process that was established without regard to particular outcome must be followed to its natural conclusion. A rigged or short-circuited process taints the result in a way that I find off-putting. So often this political season the Democratic Party, sometimes at the state level and sometimes at the national one, has seemingly disregarded its own rules because some in the Party find that following those rules is inconvenient or fatiguing or scary. I understand those feelings: they are based largely on the fear of uncertainty. But just because one fears or dislikes uncertainty one cannot wish it away..."

Fair play used to be not only a Democratic principle but an American ideal. What happened?

Pumas and Greens

Saturday: The forgotten « The Confluence: "...I may be wrong here but you appear to be a fan of the Green party. PUMAs are not Greens. They are Democrats or former Democrats. We’re not interested in Green party dynamics. Sorry. Your candidates so far have been a little fringey. Nader and McKinney come to mind. Going to the Greens would be little different than voting for Obama. In Obama’s case, the ideologues are zealously screaming for CHANGE!, whatever that’s supposed to mean, while with the Greens, the ideologues are zealously screaming for dumping everything in the current system that many Americans now rely on, like corporations for jobs and gas powered engines and stuff like that. The point of the PUMA movement is that change doesn’t happen by ideology alone. The ideologues can’t simply grab the reins of power and impose their vision of the world on the rest of us. They have to be able to work hard and sometimes with their enemies. I don’t see that either the Greens or Obamarama have abandoned their belief in magical thinking. I object to parties composed of people who demand an unattainable degree of purity from human beings. I’m a rational person. I think most PUMAs are..."

I am for the obliteration of the current "system," but the dismantling must be done slowly and carefully-- no moderate wants death and destruction. The current system can be made satisfactory by slow, steady reform. The best place to begin? Universal Health Care. We don't have any candidate advocating for it. Even the ones who claim to still want the insurance companies, the people who make money by denying coverage, in the middle of things. Can someone explain to me why we need insurance companies in health coverage? (And don't say the "guberment will screw it up" because Medicaid and Medicare work fairly well, as does the VA, even though it is woefully underfunded.)

Another PUMA Place

Count Us Out and another.

Blogger Banned

"Banned from MyDD / Nowhere Man"

Hiding the Rift

Howling Latina: DNC Stealing Hillary Votes

"The howler hadn't heard any recent buzz about the delegate situation so she foolishly thought the matter had been settled. Hillary delegates would vote for Hillary, of course.

But...she was wrong; more high-jinks from Obamaland is on its way; it's not enough the DNC took away Hillary votes from Michigan and awarded them to Obama; nope, they now want to take ALL her votes away and give them to Obama.

Alegre's Corner links to an article in The Wall Street Journal chronicling Obama's thoughts on the subject; and the verdict is in. Obama thinks to allow Hillary to claim her rightful delegates in Denver would beget famine, pestilence, chaos and confusion and besides he could lose it all. STILL...

A full roll-call vote that reminds everyone how close she came to being the nominee could reveal party rifts going into the fall campaign, they said..."

Exposed!

STOP PUMA - The Petition Site

They think we're working for the GOP. Where's my check?

Puma Posing

Will Bower with justsaynodeal on Fox with Molly Henneberg

New Political Party Forming

...otherwise known as the confluence of the Pumas and the Strange Bed Fellows (what wonderful cartoons and mascots those two would engender!)

 

Following a cogent discussion of Ross Perot, danps arrives at this conclusion:

 

Quoted from http://www.correntewire.com/the_democrats_risky_strategy:

 

The Democrats' Risky Strategy | Corrente

...What is real and very similar, though, is the restlessness of a good part of the electorate. Last week may have seen the start of a new alliance between civil libertarian-minded citizens on the right and the left with the creation of The Strange Bedfellows. It began largely in response to the FISA reform bill, and look at the events surrounding it: Steny Hoyer negotiated it behind closed doors, introduced it and less than 24 hours later engineered a vote (with the blessing of Nancy Pelosi), all in the face of outrage from the left. A site was created for contributions to oppose it and it raised six figures literally overnight. Democratic capitulation on the burgeoning surveillance state has created tension that seeks an outlet. The party’s continued rubber stamp of the President’s hugely unpopular Iraq policy is another source of tremendous frustration.

 

Democrats are playing a dangerous game. They apparently reason that Republicans will bear the brunt of dissatisfaction over Washington’s unpopular policies. That may well be true. The GOP faces a disaster this year because they gained control of all major parts of government and then engaged in an orgy of excess, alienating moderates and depressing their loyalists. Having achieved their electoral goal they spent all their credibility very quickly. Democrats seem to be in the process of a sellout of a different sort. They seized control of both houses of Congress but seem oblivious (or indifferent) to the public’s anger. Instead they seem to be playing a game of political jujitsu, using the overexertions of the right to give them leverage to flip them totally off the mat. It may be a brilliant tactical move but one with long term risks. First, urgent policy issues fester because no meaningful action can happen under such a strategy. That leads to the second problem, deep dissatisfaction with what comes to be seen as a lesser of two evils. By eschewing opposition the Democrats are creating a pool of thwarted activists. Such people are primed to create new realities or respond to the latest version of a quirky billionaire with homemade charts. I’ve written before about the Republicans’ implosion; the ground may be shifting underneath the Democrats as well.

 

PUMA Accounting

Go here: Hill, Yes! O., No! - washingtonpost.com, for a balanced report on the NoBo forces.