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I’ve been suspicious from the beginning about the existence of ”PUMAs": Female Clinton supporters who are so bitter about her loss that they will throw equal pay, reproductive rights, the environment, and a chance at peace under the bus to get their revenge by voting for McCain. I’m skeptical even though they show up in comment threads all over the internet, claiming they’re real. I’m skeptical even though they wrote Rebecca Traister letters claiming that they exist. I believe that the Republicans are cheerful rat-fuckers and therefore would not hesitate to set up a secretive operation of people running around claiming to be Clinton voters who are voting for McCain to keep the legend of the PUMAs alive. If you can convince people that there are PUMAs, then you accomplish two giant goals for the McCain campaign:
1) Creating the illusion that McCain is moderate enough to attract the votes of feminist Clinton supporters and
2) Reinforcing the narrative about how feminists are just hysterical bitches with no common sense who subsist on outrage, can’t act in their own self-interest because of their feminine-addled brains, and can safely be ignored.
My suspicions grew. Commenters claiming to be PUMAs don’t seem to have much history of commenting on other things at blogs. The supposed “outraged feminists” in pieces like the one Jesse covered this morning don’t exist---if there’s so much outrage, how come the journalists chronicling it can’t get one real world feminist to sign her name onto the outrage? There’s a lot of speculation, but no quotes.
And then there’s the PUMAs, an acronym from the name of a PAC that formed after Clinton quit to supposedly stand up against the meanie sexist Democratic infrastructure. It didn’t take much work for me to discover who started this PAC:
With her name and her zip code, all it took was a quick jaunt to Open Secrets to find out her campaign donation history:
“>
That’s the only donation listed. So, not much of a Clinton fan but appears to be big on McCain.
The “About” page at the PUMA blog states the vague goals:
“>
I want to draw your attention to the first one, which implies that the PAC was formed to support Clinton during the primary run. But if you look at the date on the PAC form, the PAC was registered on 6/3/08. Clinton officially dropped out on 6/7/08, but for days before, it was basically known she was out.
I would like to argue that this PAC was not formed to support Clinton, but to support the media narrative about hysterical feminists, and to help the McCain campaign with goals #1 and #2.
I bet similar digging would show that a lot of PUMAs aren’t exactly what they’re claiming to be.
Update: Looks like I’m not the first person to do a little simple fact-checking.
$500 for McCain, what a surprise.
Seriously though, good work. I hope that this debunks a lot of notions that are out there.
We bow before your skills.
Also, as the article you linked points out, PUMA just sounds way too much like cougar to be credible…
Let’s not forget the other purpose of this: to promote disunity in the Democratic Party.
Are you liberals so poisoned by your McCain Derangement Syndrome you cannot accept that it’s perfectly okay for a man to pretend to be woman who supported Hillary and now supports McCain out of hatred for Obama?
So caught up in MDS you would be suspicious of somebody coining a term like PUMA as a screen for unsavory political argument?
Are you?!?!?
Good! ‘Cause it’s about time some of us wake up and realize the ratfucking never stops…
Now watch. If this gets exposed as a Reichwing ratfucking operation, let’s see how long it will take before some wingnut claims it was really a Democratic operation to make the Republicans look bad…
They had a story on one of the cable news shows yesterday about the literally “hundreds” of pro-Clinton, anti-Obama sites like PUMA...and the first thought I had is “why are they taking these sites at face value, I bet three quarters of them are Rethuglican operatives posing as Hillary supporters!”
I hope the left blogosphere digs into many of these sites and finds how phony most of them are…
And that the rest, if they really are Dems, come to their senses and don’t cut off their noses to spite their face!
Nifty detective work! If only the people (way over)paid to call themselves “reporters” would do a little of that…
They really do exist Amanda. I work with one. But the thing is that though she is registered democrat, she generally votes republican anyway. Hillary was the only thing keeping her in the democratic fold, and it was strictly based on personality, not ideology.
They had a story on one of the cable news shows yesterday about the literally “hundreds” of pro-Clinton, anti-Obama sites like PUMA...and the first thought I had is “why are they taking these sites at face value, I bet three quarters of them are Rethuglican operatives posing as Hillary supporters!”
Even if it’s not a ratfucking operation--and PUMA certainly looks like one at this point--we’re talking about “literally hundreds” of people. Ooooh. I’m skeered. We’re talking about an election where 65-70 million people will likely vote for the winner, and yes, I am aware of our electoral system, but the chances they have of skewing an election one way or the other is minimal at best. If this thing is close enough for McCain to have a chance at winning because of these people, something else has gone horribly wrong.
They had a story on one of the cable news shows yesterday about the literally “hundreds” of pro-Clinton, anti-Obama sites like PUMA...and the first thought I had is “why are they taking these sites at face value, I bet three quarters of them are Rethuglican operatives posing as Hillary supporters!”
This being 1996, websites can only be designed by about .001% of the population. That’s serious business!
but the chances they have of skewing an election one way or the other is minimal at best.
The whole thing has a propaganda value way bigger than its electoral strength. Perhaps someone is hoping to create a media story. The media likes to go for anything stupid.
I have it from an unimpeachable source (my pharmacist’s nephew’s dog-sitter’s next-door neighbor) that Darragh Murphy has a tape or DVD or major CinemaScope production of Larry Sinclair lashing out at “Whitey,” either in a sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ or the national convention of the American Nazi Party. Whatever. And I consider myself a loyal Democrat. I didn’t leave the party - the party left me, v.2.008
I agree with you 100% - I’ve thought this was some kind of GOP scam from the beginning, and I still do.
I’m surprised they didn’t call it WARTHOG…
Everyone PUMA isn’t a real animal!
Cookie to anyone who gets the joke…
Some of them are definitely real, but yeah, it’s being blown out of proportion overall and there is probably Republican scheming at work.
What’s the old and accurate aphorism?
People on the right hate the media when it does its job. People on the left hate the media when it doesn’t do its job.
Needless to say, the left has a helluva lot more to complain about than the right, but the right does most of the effective complaining.
Good luck expecting the CMSMW to look into this. The ones that aren’t bought are lazy, and the ones that aren’t lazy or bought are always stymied by those who are.
I hadn’t heard of them, no. I don’t doubt there are a few women who have completely lost it---women are equal to men, not superior, and so we have our nuts just like men---but that’s not the point. The point is that beyond the crazy level, there is rat-fucking going on.
My concern is that by saying, “We’ve got a handful of genuine nuts here!”, we are distracting from the real story, which is that the McCain camp clearly is interested in cultivating a story about a trend that’s just not real in any demographic sense, and they are willing to lie and rat fuck to create that story. And we’re helping them out when we highlight the handful of genuine nuts, both by making it seem like there is more of a trend than there is and by giving them the cover story they need to hide what they’re doing.
Also, as the article you linked points out, PUMA just sounds way too much like cougar to be credible…
If even I picked up on it, it must be as obvious as the day is long.
And an old Smothers Brothers routine:
“There were vicious pumas in the crevasses.”
“There are no pumas in the United States, Tom. No pumas in North America.”
“Well, there were these vicious beasts in the crevasses. And they sure looked like pumas.”
Well, ignoring that there are some Clinton supporters whose ideology is closer to the McCain camp, in any case, in exchange for amplifying the fakes doesn’t make us any better, imo. Personally, I hate it when I get lumped into any one group when I know that there are exceptions (ex: if I write lovingly about Israel, I immediately get called a neo-con even though I’m vehemently opposed to numerous aspects of that country’s existence).
Seems like sticking to the focus of why Obama is preferable is the most concrete way to persuade people who are persuadable. The group you’re highlighting isn’t going to be persuaded; the former Clinton supporters might be. So the goal of exposing is to show how repulsive McCain supporters are. But how man more Obama votes does that get us?
While not arguing the point of your article, Amanda, I too have to say that I know of real examples of these sorts of women. One in particular is a friend of my mother’s who identifies herself as a “feminist” and yet claims that she can’t vote for Obama, she “doesn’t know him,” and she’s voting for “the evil she knows rather than the one she doesn’t.” My mother doesn’t have the stomach these days to argue with her or even to answer her e-mails. And I don’t blame her. All we can do is hope her brain switches back into the “on” position some time between now and November. Since it clearly isn’t on at the moment.
It’s obvious that McCain would want to encourage it, but I think you underestimate the extent of the feeling. The rapid growth, for instance, of Riverdaughter’s Confluence blog, which I mentioned before, suggests that it is more than just a random few wingnuts. As I said, it’s obvious that the GOP would want to play it up, but if I were you, I’d be wary of ignoring the extent and thinking of it.
Even if it were up to a Nader-in-2000 number of voters, it’s still something to be concerned about. And I still think myself that Obama was a mistake for the Democratic Party, or at least a riskier choice.
Jill, plenty, actually. The hope in the media by creating a non-existent trend---with the help of the McCain campaign---is to create the idea that McCain is a moderate and that you can vote for him without worrying too much about him doing something like, oh, overturning Roe. If we refuse to fight back against a rat-fucking, then it will be successful.
Seriously, you’re asking us not to fight back. That’s the spirit that helped Kerry lose in 2004.
If there are increasing numbers of real examples, also, I’ll bet the media narrative gave them more reasons to feel justified in their bad behavior. So these are concrete examples of women who should logically vote for Obama, but swept up in a media-and-McCain-generated frenzy, won’t. Maybe if we can show them that they’re being duped, they will start being rational and quit living up to the stereotype that women are irrational.
Fight back? Again, the kind of “fight” hinges on whether or not you’re going to dismiss the issue as a complete fabrication.
And if you assume that they are completely irrational, you aren’t going to “bring them back to their senses.”
The main argument against the idea there there are serious numbers of actual feminist women who are part of the Dem base who are going to go to McCain is the fact that, seriously, very few people seem to be able to come up with anyone they actually KNOW who fits that description.
Back in 2000, I knew plenty of Nader supporters. And I was a 19 year old redneck who considered myself moderate and didn’t even run in politically engaged circles. Most of the people I considered fellow travelers back then had Ron Paul signs in their yards this past Christmas.
In 2008 I find myself a committed leftist surrounded by liberals of all stripes and boatloads of feminists, both activist and not. I also live in New York, the heart of Hillary Country. If there were heaps of feminist liberal Democrats out there who were clamoring to vote McCain, I’d have run into one by now.
Women willing to get hysterical pretending to support Clinton on behalf of McCain are those that continue in their efforts to make political and social gains in this nation. Self-haters, classic Freudian repression--whatever. They hate themselves and spread their hatred outward. This campaign has been shameful as far as the lengths the media has gone to find and cover these women, not to mention the unhinged quality of coverage by many pundits. I was an Edwards supporter but found myself defending Clinton all the time because of the sometimes unbelievable nature of the media coverage she received. Argh. Thanks for the legwork.
But that’s not where I get the sense that the numbers of anti-Obama dems are coming from. They’re kind of like the inverse of the Nader voters. They’re security/soccer mom types who trust the Clinton name and brand, and feel that the Obama campaign rode to victory on denigrating it, among other compaints. They mistrust the youth/activism type that they hold responsible for Obama’s ascendency, deeply resent Howard Dean from his ‘04 campaign onward, and for some of those I’ve encountered on the Internet, this is their first stab at being a minority in the party, and it’s not a comfortable fit. That it chafes increases their resentment.
The argument is that they’re being held hostage to Roe, when they have no confidence that Obama and his supporters and their collective experience and program really reflect their own lives. That may be wrong, may be right, but either way, but it’s not an insigificant criterion on which to base a vote.
They’re security/soccer mom types who trust the Clinton name and brand, and feel that the Obama campaign rode to victory on denigrating it, among other compaints. They mistrust the youth/activism type that they hold responsible for Obama’s ascendency, deeply resent Howard Dean from his ‘04 campaign onward, and for some of those I’ve encountered on the Internet, this is their first stab at being a minority in the party, and it’s not a comfortable fit. That it chafes increases their resentment.
Well, yeah. Republicans do tend to feel like “minorities” when they join the Democratic Party in order to game the general election. Most members of the Democratic Party are Democrats.
Just because you voted for Clinton in ‘96 doesn’t make you a member of the Democratic base.
Mandos:
And if you assume that they are completely irrational, you aren’t going to “bring them back to their senses.”
Actually, I find that you get into far more trouble when you assume that people — people in general, not any particular demographic — aren’t predominantly irrational actors.
If you want to see that principle in action, try having an extended conversation with your local right-libertarian (or an Objectivist, if you’re really brave and/or patient).
The main argument against the idea there there are serious numbers of actual feminist women who are part of the Dem base who are going to go to McCain is the fact that, seriously, very few people seem to be able to come up with anyone they actually KNOW who fits that description.
Actually, I’d say the main argument against the idea there are significant numbers of actual feminist women who are going to support McCain is the simple fact that actual feminist women are not complete freaking morons.
Calling them Republicans doesn’t work: they’re a traditional (D) base and have been for a long time.
I think the gas rebate issue, or whatever it was, was a case in point as to the divergence of views here. One side (most of the Obama-supporting blogosphere) saw it as a case of junk economics being promulgated by Clinton, and denigrated the reputation of the reality-based community, which is what they thought the (D) stood for. Unscientific pandering.
The other side saw it as a gesture in favour of government as a New-Dealish provider of immediate assistance to individual people, regardless of its economist-approvedness.
For that latter side, the Obama side looked like Democratic Johnny-come-latelies who bought economic anti-government arguments too easily. Social liberals, often economic libertarians, held hostage by Roe, no commitment to what many Clinton supporters saw as role of the Democratic party as a New Deal guarantor.
And Balloon Juice? Case in point.
A $30 (if the stars align) savings being compared to the New Deal?
I wonder why anyone would think that was irrational.
Au contraire, I think it’s dumb to assume that everyone is stupid who votes differently from you. To talk math-speak a bit, they may be optimizing a function of which you are not aware.
My function is basically whether at least marginally fewer people would suffer and die. So if I could vote in a US election, I’d probably vote for Obama, tepidly. Or if she had won, Clinton, tepidly. Marginally fewer people will die screaming with either of them than with McCain. Other people have more optimistic criteria. It’s there that you find the real differences, and even the apparently ignorant come up with some surprising reasons and decisions.
It’s not just the $30. The reasons for dismissing it and the arguments given by one side made the other side distrustful. It may or may not have been wrong, but it wasn’t prima facie stupid. At the time, it sounded like if it had been $300 or $3000, some Obama supporters would have opposed it, for principled reasons. That meant a real difference in political outlook. The value of putting a small amount of money in people’s pockets is itself a philosophical difference and a signal to some that larger things aren’t safe either.
Need to restore faith in the immediate benefits of government, right? That I agree with. A lot of the anti-gov’t sentiment in the US is actually somewhat easy to understand, because the benefits of the government so rarely show up directly.
“Au contraire, I think it’s dumb to assume that everyone is stupid who votes differently from you.”
Auguste said “irrational”, not “stupid”, and yes, there is a huge difference between those concepts.
Anybody can be irrational under the right circumstances, no matter how “smart” they are. And expecting that eliminating a few cents of taxes on gasoline will reduce the price by dollars is irrational. Period.
And you know another great example of irrationality? Pretending somebody is rational when they claim eliminating a few cents of taxes on gasoline will reduce the price by dollars…
There are many PUMA NOT McCAIN feminists out there. They state that they plan to write-in HRC, or to vote Green if write-in not an option in their state. I have seen their blogs for years or have been on listservs with them for years. I suspect that most of them will vote for Obama when pull comes to lever (old fart here). There may be many centrist or Blue Dog Democrats out there who simply will not vote for a black man, but don’t want to appear racist. These (consciously or unconsciously) racist centrists never were feminists, though they believe in equal pay for equal work. They may also be inherently more fearful in temperament, and subject to the Obama is Muslim myth.
So there we go. The talk about “rational” vs. “irrational” and what one does about these concepts is one of the main differences in perspective. The $30 may have been “irrational”, but there are still reasons to think it was a smart thing to do. And even if it wasn’t smart, the reasons for opposing it may still leave people cold and mistrustful.
The whole thing revolved around “irrational” and “pandering”, and for some people, “pander” is precisely what they wanted and believed was the right strategy, and “rational” is slavery to a defunct economist.
During this campaign, I’ve come to realize that the little things matter, and that offense at a slight may seem “irrational” but may yet not necessarily “stupid” or “unwise.”
Mandos:
It’s not just the $30. The reasons for dismissing it and the arguments given by one side made the other side distrustful. It may or may not have been wrong, but it wasn’t prima facie stupid.
Well, pretty much everyone who works in the economics of the oil industry was pretty straightforward in their assertion that that the gas rebate proposal was pointless pandering and wouldn’t solve any problems at all. The lesson here is that being unable or unwilling to accept an overwhelming and unambiguous argument from obviously non-fallacious authority isn’t the act of a rational person, it’s not just a matter of opinion, and it’s most certainly not just a “philosophical difference.” It’s an overt rejection of the entire basis of logic and rationality.
This isn’t toddler tee-ball, where everyone goes home with a gold star and a pat on the back no matter how bad they suck at it. We’re talking about the real world, where the simple act of having an opinion just isn’t enough.
A lot of the sincere PUMA women may also be poorly informed, no thanks to the press, which all but gives McCain B-Js on a daily basis. Specifically, they may not have heard about the Ledbetter decision and about McCain’s approval of same and unwillingness to vote yes on reparative legislation. I’d stereotype the non-racist sincere PUMA women as white, middle to upper-middle class, probably married, not in need of reproductive services (menopausal or tubes tied), working or staying home, suburban or exurban, doesn’t go to any effort to find out news, only thinks of poor people as distant “them”. Clinton may be a hero, but generally they don’t find politics interesting beyond the horse race.
Not everyone who backed Clinton was a progressive or a feminist. I don’t think there are massive numbers of them preparing to vote McCain. There certainly are some. Some of them may be more hawkish on foreign policy than Obama. Some may be pro-life or think that McCain isn’t really anti-choice and just pandering to his base to get elected. They may have other reasons they like McCain. As Incertus said, if there are enough of them to sway the election, we have much bigger problems. And at places like Shakesville, where you’ll find plenty of commenters who still are pretty upset about the primary, they mostly are voting Green, not for McCain, or not voting at all. They consider themselves non-partisan progressives.
Anyway, I’m inclined to think that some amount of this is, as you said, rat-fuckery and some amount of it is real, but all of it is a very small minority of voters. I’d like to see the media stop buying into this meme unless they can find some substantiation, but I also think you’re spending a lot of time getting upset and trying to refute something that in your posts you say is not actually a big deal.
Not so. You are seeing this as JUST a matter of the amount of money that goes into gas rebate, andwhether the rebate *itself* made sense *economically*. What other people were seeing was a very eager willingness to listen uncritically to industry economists (== the *enemy*, an attitude to which I have some sympathy). In fact, the failure to see the externalities, and the eager willingness to call it “pandering” was itself an symptom of “economism”, for lack of a better word. Instead, the larger political/social/cultural benefit of the tiny economic improvement it may actually be was ignored. (As was the chance to stick it to the economists...)
That this point is not seen by Obama supporters captures a lot of the disagreement in itself. It means, for some people, in some traditional (D) constituencies, that the Obama supporters cannot be trusted to reflect or include their political predilections. And if Obama is a movement, this must necessarily affect the attitude of an Obama presidency. Not a stupid nor even an irrational train of thought.
(The “not so” was for Dan.)
Seriously, Mandos, you’re arguing that somehow a gas tax holiday- the epitome of clueless Republican vote pandering taxes, was somehow a progressive idea? Hey, those Bush tax cuts must’ve been even more amazingly progressive, huh?
Listening to experts, experts from all freaking sides which you somehow dismiss as being “pro-oil economists” is a bad thing now? If you want to make your own facts feel free to wuit lying about your politics and vote for the Republican candidate like you’re obviously planning to. Just don’t lie to us, we’re not stupid enough to be fooled by the lies you can fool the rednecks and Jesus freaks with.
I can’t vote in the USA. I can only aimlessly opine. If you want to accuse me of being a wingnut rather than acknowledge the extent and meaning of the PUMA phenomenon or at least agree to disagree with me, that’s your prerogative.
Have fun. I hope I’m wrong, but just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
You mean the “phenomenon” that Amanda just demonstrated is a Republican rat-fuck operation?
And admitting that, doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of conservatives or Republicans posing as something else.
Like Carly “fuck poor women, I got mine” Fiorina?
Tax holidays in the US are a traditionally Republican gambit, meant primarily to play on people’s ire towards “big government,” not economists, and thus are very very far from New Deal thinking.
I suppose Clinton could have pulled a good chunk of mostly conservative women from the McCain camp. But we’re already seeing a chunk of conservatives being pulled from McCain to Obama anyway. It’s at best (for McCain) a wash.
Mandos:
So there we go. The talk about “rational” vs. “irrational” and what one does about these concepts is one of the main differences in perspective. The $30 may have been “irrational”, but there are still reasons to think it was a smart thing to do.
Sure, if you think that “GIMME $30, ASSHOLE!!!” is a devastating political argument.
And even if it wasn’t smart, the reasons for opposing it may still leave people cold and mistrustful.
Tough shit. I’m sick of being expected to validate people’s hurt feelings. If you’re in the wrong, you’re supposed to get your feelings hurt. That’s how you learn not to be wrong the next time.
The whole thing revolved around “irrational” and “pandering”, and for some people, “pander” is precisely what they wanted and believed was the right strategy, and “rational” is slavery to a defunct economist.
Yes. There’s a word for those people: “stupid.” I have no patience for someone who wants to be pandered to and refuses to listen to anyone who knows more than they do, as if being a willfully clueless assfedora were some kind of noble calling. Those people can go fuck themselves, and frankly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for defending them (unless, of course, you are one yourself, and then you pretty much have to defend them, don’t you?).
You are seeing this as JUST a matter of the amount of money that goes into gas rebate, and whether the rebate *itself* made sense *economically*. What other people were seeing was a very eager willingness to listen uncritically to industry economists (== the *enemy*, an attitude to which I have some sympathy). In fact, the failure to see the externalities, and the eager willingness to call it “pandering” was itself an symptom of “economism”, for lack of a better word. Instead, the larger political/social/cultural benefit of the tiny economic improvement it may actually be was ignored. (As was the chance to stick it to the economists...)
First, you don’t have the slightest clue how I’m seeing this. So fuck you very much for that. If you really want to engage in such transparent dishonesty, do it at TownHall where that kind of thing is tolerated.
Second, if I were talking about “industry economists,” don’t you think I’d have said something about actual industry economists, who, like, work for the actual oil industry? I said “[people] who work in the economics of the oil industry,” not “[people] who work in the economics of the oil industry.” Again, if you’re going to argue strawmen, go find someone who can’t see right through it.
Third, the reason you “lack a better word” for “economism” is because you just made up the concept out of whole cloth all by yourself. Again, strawman bad.
Fourth, the only benefit to Clinton’s gas rebate is that people might have been more inclined to vote for her if they really thought she was going to give them $30. BECAUSE THAT’S HOW PANDERING WORKS.
That this point is not seen by Obama supporters captures a lot of the disagreement in itself. It means, for some people, in some traditional (D) constituencies, that the Obama supporters cannot be trusted to reflect or include their political predilections. And if Obama is a movement, this must necessarily affect the attitude of an Obama presidency. Not a stupid nor even an irrational train of thought.
I want you to explain, in detail, why I should give a crap about people who clearly don’t have the slightest fucking clue what they’re talking about, but still demand that I listen breathlessly to every word that they say. Then I want you to explain how your unenlightened self-interest (and the desperate desire to make sure everyone knows about it) is in any way intelligent or rational.
I can only aimlessly opine.
That is painfully obvious.
Props on your research skills, Amanda. Calling out the disingenuous among that bunch and making clear that- in large part- it is much sound and little fury will hopefully keep the subject from catching on in the less responsible media.
And their numbers and impact on this election will be much less than they’d like to think. There has been a small percentage of Democrats that didn’t support the party candidate in every recent election. Using someone who actually won as an example, Bill Clinton lost 15% of the Democratic vote in 1996 (5% of that to Perot).
Amanda, I’m not “asking” anything at all, and I certainly wouldn’t ask you or anyone else to not fight back, especially when I’m more than willing to take the time to write multiple posts about the CSCT supporters being illogical and needing to consider the actual consequences of what they’re suggesting.
What I am saying is that there’s more than one single set of voters who say they were for Clinton and now will vote McCain: there are ones like the CSCT group and there are the PUMA groups - like you’ve exposed.
And the people in these two groups are not the same so why would we approach them (or fight them as you say) in the same way since the goal in doing so will be different? The CSCT group probably includes many persuadable voters who know that McCain is not an option but are still unable to voice a switch to Obama. On the other hand, the PUMA group is impervious to any kind of persuading - and that’s why your exposing them for who they are matters - for that group - because it shows the desperation.
But lumping the former group in with the latter could result in solidifying whatever alienation that group already feels, without Clinton still running. And I can’t imagine what strategy would be considered a successful one if it exacerbates that sentiment by suggesting that they never were for real in the first place.
Oh, dear: is anyone else envisioning the horrible headlines? “Cat Fight Among the PUMAs”
<sigh>
You know, the people I’ve heard from who won’t vote for Obama because they “don’t know him” or “don’t trust him” sound to me like they are saying “I don’t understand black people/folks with foreign names, and I don’t want to, it scares me.”
Because, normally, when you don’t know much about a candidate, you do research, right?
Amanda,
I’m usually a lurker but I wanted to say that you should check out the website, The Confluence ran by Riverdaughter. Ever since HRC conceded it has grown exponentially. These people were real democrats who can’t bring themselves to vote for Obama. Frankly I am disturbed by their sense of entitlement and their ignorance of the democratic rules.
And if you assume that they are completely irrational, you aren’t going to “bring them back to their senses.”
I remain unconvinced that lying to people would also help. Shame is actually a powerful weapon, and the reason “liberal” became a bad word.
Jill, approaching the irrational Clinton-to-McCain voters by pointing out that they are being lied to by McCain’s camp does strike me as a logical way to wake them up to common sense. I mean, if you’re like, “Look at us! We’re a movement!” and then you’re shown that no, you are following someone who is lying, can and hopefully will take the wind out of sails and will set them on the right path of voting for the candidate who actually supports their self-interest as women.
Amanda - yes - I do get this tactic as you explain it in this most recent comment. I am only, and I truly mean only, suggesting that at least the most vocal “don’t vote for Obama” group with which I’m familiar came into existence long before PUMA. But I do understand your suggestion that perhaps such a group will feel even more okay with going with McCain if they listen to a group like PUMA, EXCEPT for the fact, as you point out, PUMA is a fake. Got it.
I personally cannot get into the mindset of the Clinton supporters who refuse to accept Obama as the candidate, even though I’ve been face to face with them. And I don’t know anything about the extent to which these groups are in fact listening to one another - you said you hadn’t heard of CSCT so maybe PUMA is unknown too? I don’t know. Given McCain’s absolutely horrific record on so many issues important to Clinton supporters, even those who say they “can’t” vote for Obama, if Clinton can keep up the level of support she’s been displaying for Obama through Oct. and depending on Obama’s VP pick, I just cant imagine the numbers being relevant or greater than the votes gained for Obama through other avenues.
At least, that’s my hope.
Alas, one of my favorite blogs, Tennessee Guerrilla Women, has drunk the PUMA Kool-aid
I was not at all surprised by the research. I suspected it was a Repub front to split the vote and discredit women.
Darragh Murphy: Another Concerned Woman for America
WONDERFUL JOB Pandagon! Expect a flood of PUMA voters, they can’t realize when they are being DUPED.
You people are disgusting, Barack Obama has accomplished NOTHING in his career. McCain will win in 08’ against Obama.
PUMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Not all of the PUMAs are “hysterical” or “menopausal.” Not all are even female. There are many, many people out there who won’t vote for Obama simply because they don’t want him to be President. He is too inexperienced and unqualified. As for his policies being similar to Clinton’s, who knows if that’s really true or not because he changes his mind about so many of them. He flip-flopped on FISA. I don’t even trust him on choice, because of the Casey endorsement. What did he promise Casey in order for that to happen? Do you consider yourself progressive? One of Obama’s biggest supporters is homophobic “ex-gay” gospel singer Donnie McClurkin.
Fortunately, Obama is not yet the official nominee. Superdelegates will decide this, one way or another, and they have until the convention in August.
Thanks for the research!
I looked at about 35 pf the sites linked at justsaynodeal.com, and only one or two of them had any content at all except Hillary v. Obama, and almost all of them had much more anti-Obama than pro-Hillary content. There were plenty of Republican buzzwords: Muslim, Marxist, liberal media, guns and Bibles, sex and drugs scandals, Kim Jong Il endorsement, Larry Sinclair, birth certificate questions, illegal aliens.
It’s possible that some of these are legit single-issue sites started during the campaign by otherwise pretty conservative Hillary supporters whose only issue was electing a woman, but there has to be a lot of astroturf fakery in there.
Not all old, not all women, they are however all racists.
The only area where McCain has more in common with Clinton than Obama does is skin color. There is absolutely no other standard by which a Clinton supporter could even consider voting for McCain.
I seriously doubt that any significant number of actual feminists are stupid enough to vote for McCain. It’s nothing more than a Republican operation to present a bullshit narrative to the media.
Any so called progressive who votes for McCain has the blood of every soldier he sends to die on their hands. I hope they enjoy being complicit.
Barack Obama is a racist and a sexist. Please all of you kool-aid drinking cultists please name one legislative accomplishment Obama has done...that’s right there is zero! He sat in an anti-american church for 20 years and even donated to it. That’s not cange you can believe in...thats change you can XEROX!
Barack Obama is a racist and a sexist. Please all of you kool-aid drinking cultists please name one legislative accomplishment Obama has done...that’s right there is zero! He sat in an anti-american church for 20 years and even donated to it. That’s not cange you can believe in...thats change you can XEROX!
Comments like this are why stupid people shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Whether or not the Riverdaughter site is legit (not a Republican front), it’s horribly unimpressive. There’s a lot of publicity-seeking and posturing going on, and a lot of the stupidest Green rhetoric. Riverdaughter says:
“If I wake up on Nov. 5 to find that Barack Obama, the inexperienced, untested, unvetted, lightweight candidate who we counted on you to stop, if I find that he is NOT my president, I will finally be over it. If the man who called me a racist because I thought he was unready does not take the oath in January, I will be satisfied.”
That’s a pretty clear statement. She says that she probably won’t even vote for McCain, but if her main goal is to make sure Obama won’t become President, why shouldn’t she?
I do know an angry Clinton Democrat (my sister) and we have to deal with that. Even people like Digby are angry at Clinton’s media treatment and many of the statements by Obama supporters (and to a lesser extent, by the Obama campaign).
But the “justsaynodeal” phenomenon looks fake, and the Riverdaughter phenomenon looks dubious (not necessarily fake, maybe just very stupid.) We can’t take ths PR onslaught at face value.
I just keep wondering if this makes John McCain PUMA MAN.
That would be <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081693>, possibly the worst movie Donald Pleasence was ever in, which is saying something.
I actually do know a couple of people IRL who were Hilary supporters and now plan to vote for McCain. They’re pretty politically ignorant- I’m trying, I’m trying- and they don’t like the idea of “a Muslim” being President. Yeah. I SAID they were politically ignorant.
“ 2) Reinforcing the narrative about how feminists are just hysterical bitches with no common sense who subsist on outrage, can’t act in their own self-interest because of their feminine-addled brains, and can safely be ignored. “
this is not a narrative, this is a very real phenomena. And it is not even characteristic of “feminine mind” or whatever.
If one creates a homogeneous echo chamber comprising of shrill dittoheads and slowly eliminating sensible competing opinion. The entire group in the end will become overcharged shrill fest. It’s what indoctrination is about. (Right wing blogs, OS forums are the classic internet examples. In real world, it would be common psyop strategy.)
Feminism blogs, several of the top ones are creating this echo chamber. The original goal is noble enough, to create “safe space”. But unwittingly that leads of the creation of supercharged echo chamber with highly homogenized opinion feed on daily outrage. Once it reaches critical mass, most of lead posters lost control of the group. Most caves upon mass backlash. Resentments is high.
The problem with PUMA. It uses exact same language and techniques to generate outrages commonly used. It taps deep in the resentment created daily, but the ultimate goal is of course different. Coop the resentment and redirect it against democratic party. This phenomena is highly predictable. Common campaign strategy.
--
As of now, the metric seems to indicate PUMA is holding steady, not a fad. It is no doubt supported by Television. (observe how many interviews they get) GOOG is holding it at 200K or so. Technorati is imploding.
But more importantly PUMA has several intellectual drivers behind it. There is a method in the action. It’s very consistent and typical online viral marketing mix with ground politics. (not many, I would say less than 10 or so)
As of now, it is hard to say “how many voters” exactly will be affected by this. Since there is no open traffic data. But looking at leaning democrat feminism blogs sympathizing with PUMA, at least there are some.
What action to take? Hard to say. but
1. feminism blogs need to connect with each others and start communicating
2. create coherent talking point on basic women issues. (put it in one place so everybody can link) This should be the basic agreed upon goals. PUMA big trick is to focus on petty rules to tap into outrages completely ignoring issues.
3. start fighting for mindshare, switch to campaign mode. (PUMA is intense online campaign effort. This is not fad, or momentary blog bleep)
4. deconstruct the mechanics of PUMA-McCain connection. (method, logic of operation, google rankings, who is paying, does it matches McCain email)
Remember it’s ultimately about “voters” and issues, not clever tricks or elaborate campaign gag. always keep an eye on the basic.
They’re security/soccer mom types who trust the Clinton name and brand, and feel that the Obama campaign rode to victory on denigrating it, among other compaints.
Those are the people who handed George W. Bush the election in 2004: 55 percent of white women voted for him.
That’s part of the problem here. A lot of these people didn’t vote for Kerry last time around and were only going to vote for a “name” Democrat. Otherwise, they were going Republican regardless of what happened.
My big worry with these groups is that they’re going to take the unorganized disgruntled and organize them before they can be widely exposed as fakes. Yes, the people who fall for it will feel stupid on Nov. 5th when they find out they were fooled by Republican operatives, but by then it will be too late.
Anya,
Obama has many legislative accomplishments:
Illinois State Senate
1. Law requiring confessions to be taped
2. Healthcare for children
3. Earned Income Tax credit for low income families
4. Law prohibiting racial profiling
U.S. Senate
1. Nuclear Proliferation
2. Ethics Standards
3. Good Government transparency.
Interesting how they all hail from decaying, dying, depressed parts of the country.
I’m hoping that the population of younger people swelling the west and northwest, the ones who will suck representatives from these places come the 2010 census, will massively outvote them.
Great diggin’, Amanda.
I know many, many Clinton supporters who met the demographic for the “Pumas”: white feminists over 50 who were, to one degree or another, disappointed by Hillary’s defeat and infuriated by the misogyny directed her way. My informal poll of four family members who were Hillary backers: three solid votes for Obama (with a hope that HRC gets on the Supreme Court) and one voter leaning towards Cynthia McKinney, but admitting she’ll come around by November.
It’s all hype, this Puma-ing. The anger isn’t hype, mind you—it’s legit and powerful and entirely justified. But the votes for McCain aren’t coming.
On the other hand, the “Obamican” phenomenon is real. I’m registered with the GOP, and my vote’s goin’ for Barack in the fall.
From the blog of the Riverdaughter:
Any day now, Obama supporters will be knocking at my door and ask me to get a membership in their exclusive club. I will be treated like a queen once they scan the voter’s rolls in NJ and see my name. It will be like, “Oooo, Riverdaughter is a “creative class” unaffiliated. Well, we must really ask her to do a round of golf with us or share a latte.” I will be pampered and courted and made to feel better than all of you losers who comment on this blog.
Arrogant? Entitled? Pompous? Hell yeah.
I hope she does her hair and makeup and nobody ever knocks. What a psychotic narcissist!
Example of effect.
http://americaninitaly.blogspot.com/2008/06/riverdaughters-reply-to-hounds.html
I read a great post today over on the Confluence, by Riverdaughter. It perfectly describes the feelings of many, many Hillary supporters, and PUMA’s.
Saturday: Ed, you’re making this too easy
Posted on June 28, 2008 by riverdaughter
Bostonboomer forwarded the following announcement to me:
HOUND’S CREDO By Governor Edward G. Rendell
We have formed HOUND (Hillary-Obama-United-Not-Divided) in response to the creation of PUMA (party unity, my ass — or its cleaned up moniker, People United Means Action).
PUMA advocated that Hillary Clinton supporters do not vote for Barack Obama just for the sake of party unity. Even though we in HOUND are loyal Democrats, we agree that no one should cast a vote for President because of a desire to achieve party unity. We believe Sen. Clinton supporters should vote for Sen. Obama because, as Hillary herself said so forcefully and poignantly in her great speech a few Saturdays ago, the best way to achieve the changes she has fought so hard to bring to America, and on which she based her campaign, is to support Sen. Obama, whose policies are almost identical to hers.
-----
technorati chart
http://www.technorati.com/chart/party+unity+my+ass?language=en&authority=a4
Those are the people who handed George W. Bush the election in 2004: 55 percent of white women voted for him.
Women! What a resource. Is there anything we can’t blame them for?[1]
Mnemosyne, I had actually heard that a sizable number of white men voted for GWB in 2004, too. Of course, it can’t be anywhere near 55 percent of them, or you’d have said it was them who handed him the election. Maybe you have a rough estimate, though?
[1] No, it’s okay, I get what you really meant, of course. You mean that men aren’t responsible for their GOP votes, because they always vote that way, and if it’s predictable that men will do a bad thing, we treat it like the weather. Only women can be held accountable.
I have to say Riverdaughter’s response to Ed Rendell is rather stupid and illogical.
I want to draw your attention to the first one, which implies that the PAC was formed to support Clinton during the primary run. But if you look at the date on the PAC form, the PAC was registered on 6/3/08. Clinton officially dropped out on 6/7/08, but for days before, it was basically known she was out.
6/3/08 was the date of the last two primaries, MT and SD. She wasn’t out yet.
Part of the rationale for organizing these kinds of groups was specifically to encourage Hillary not to bow to the pressure of the end of the state-by-state primary season—but rather to take her fight all the way to the convention, make her case to the superdelegates, and sway enough of them to get the magic number.
So by that standard it would be true, strictly speaking, that an organization formed on 6/3/08 was “formed to support Clinton during the primary run”—because on of the raisons d’etre for the organization was to declare that the race wasn’t over yet, and it wouldn’t be until the convention itself.
Also, a McCain 2000 supporter isn’t necessarily a GOP ratfuckologist. My in-laws in New Hampshire LOVED McCain in 2000, and in 2008 the women voted for Clinton (the men opted for Obama). A lot of the fan base for McCain 2000 prided themselves on their no-nonsense attitudes and well-tuned bullshit detectors. (Most of the media STILL sees him that way.) So the PUMAPac person having contributed to McCain 2000 isn’t necessarily proof that she’s a diehard Republican, because that cycle’s version of McCain was all about distancing himself from diehard Republicans.
Long story short, I think it’s quite possible for someone to give money to McCain in 2000, genuinely support Clinton in 2008, and genuinely prefer McCain to Obama in 2008, without skulduggery. They like pragmatism and experience, hate slickness, and aren’t particularly ideological.
Now, is it likely that a person fitting this description is also a self-described feminist? I find that harder to believe, myself, but I suppose it’s possible, especially remembering the moderate noises of McCain 2000 (who seemed to suggest he was pro-choice, wasn’t at all a God-squadder, etc.).
Is it just me, or does Silver Swan sound a lot like squashed lemon?
The last polls I saw showed that Obama was doing worse among white men than among white women. It’s only a very, very small group of white women - older women from the suburbs, who are already the women most likely to vote Republican than any other group of women - that is likely to support McCain over Obama.
Not only is this story contrived; it’s playing sleight-of-hand. It’s creating divisions amongst Democrats while leading your eyes away from the white male demographic Obama needs more support from.
The ones I’ve heard from, such as in the previous thread about this (other than my aunt, who has apparently decided Obama is racist) feel (or felt; I’m not hearing much about it lately, but then, I’m not really looking) that because some of the Obama fanboys were sexist, the thing to do is “teach the Democratic party a lesson,” and make the Democratic party “earn their votes,” and… of course the way to do this is to make it easier for McCain to win...? One wonders when the Democrats would then have time to learn any lessons or earn votes while trying to counteract or work with McCain, or just how grateful they are supposed to be to the contrarians for opening their eyes and making this great sacrifice on everyone’s behalf, but one does not receive an answer. These are all bloggers I’ve read before, some for quite some time, with whom I usually agree on other subjects, and they are all feminists.
I certainly do not like the way sexism has been excused or ignored during this campaign, but I don’t see how the logical answer is to vote for a man, or make it easier for this man to win, who (to name one thing) has called his wife a “trollop” and a “cunt” in front of others (I’ve actually seen that compared to Obama calling a random woman “sweetie,” as if the two incidents were more or less the same thing and the Obama incident was slightly worse).
They like pragmatism and experience, hate slickness, and aren’t particularly ideological.
How is such a person gonna vote for McCain? Is starting “at least one more war in the Middle East”, and staying in Iraq for 100 years pragmatic?
Simple, atheist—just decide that he doesn’t really mean it, or that it would weigh on his conscience all the while. That’s what all the McCain-moonstruck pundits regularly do.
All the McCain 2000 fans have internalized the idea that he sometimes feels forced to say things that make other people happy, but he does it grudgingly, and deep down he knows the real score and is on the right side.
I think a huge amount of McCain ‘08’s appeal derives from people who haven’t been paying attention to anything he’s said this time around. He’s still coasting on the Maverighteous~! ‘00 campaign. That’s when McCain (TM) was born, which has very little to do with actual opinions held or policies proposed or advanced by John Sidney McCain III.
Oh, hell. I thought if even Lambert who hated Obama with the passion of a thousand burning suns was going to vote for him, that there was unity, but obviously this is not the case. And the idea of Obama giving up his Michigan delegates when it can be shown that the “uncommitted” delegates who cast a vote fair and square meant to vote for him is absurd.
I am starting to get worried again. Even if the PUMAs are not real there may be enough people who will just stay home.
I should add, in case it wasn’t obvious, that I’m not talking about my own views on Obama vs. McCain. I’ll vote for Obama, though I suspect that he’ll disappoint a lot of people to his left—like Bill Clinton did, as my garage full of The Nation magazines from the ‘90s will amply document. I’m just trying to get inside the head of the for-real person who prefers both Hillary Clinton and John McCain to Obama.
And IMHO voting McCain to spite the sexist media makes about as much sense as taking up smoking to get back at the tobacco companies.
People keep saying that Obama will be a disappointment but we on the left have a tendency to think that once we win the office then everything will follow. We have to put his feet to the fire. You think FDR made those changes voluntarily. NO. It was the people that was driving the agenda.
Since the latest poll shows Obama with a 16-point lead in NJ the Obama people will probably not be spending a great deal of effort to wine and dine any individual voters as of now. The poll is 49% Obama, 33% McCain. That is a lot of undecideds but Bowers has moved the state to “Solid Obama” as of today.
Wow. Talk about not respecting women, treating them as idiots, and attributing all sorts of failings to them, moral and aotherwise, because they don’t believe and act as you think they should.
PUMAs exist, and they have a few darn good reasons for wanting to vote as they do, not the least of which is that they don’t owe their vote, or anything else, to anyone.
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/
When I read all the insults on here against Clinton supporters, and remember the insults against HRC made by Obama supporters, it makes me smile. Because I hope you keep up this attitude, and that you continue with your vile, condescending, smug drivel all through the general election. Then I hope you keep wondering why people didn’t want Obama to win.
You have no idea how you sound. You can call us racists, call the Clintons racist, and then wonder why we don’t join you. You can assume we have no clue about our own self interests, are hysterical, stupid, etc. I understand this makes you feel safe and powerful. You can assume we don’t exist, don’t know what we are doing, that we are liars. Go ahead.
I don’t think Obama is a good candidate. I am, and have always been, a liberal. I’ve never voted for a republican candidate. You can try to shove him down my throat, you can insult me, you can shout me down, ignore me, misinterpret me, silence me. But you can’t make me vote for him.
You told me he was something new, something different. He isn’t. I don’t trust him on any major issue I care about. When he won the nomination through misogyny by proxy, and then told me to get over it, I did not get over it. When he sold out the constitution, I didn’t get over it. When he sells you and your ideals out, you can choose to continue to support him. You might be happy he’s elected, you might not care about his actions and his betrayals of real principles. But I will still care.
You can’t win with me. I see him and what he does, and I won’t be bullied into submission.
I’d rather the blows against my beliefs come from someone who doesn’t pretend to be on my side. I’m not voting for McCain, but I’ll be glad if he wins, if only to hear the gnashing of your teeth.
“ Is it just me, or does Silver Swan sound a lot like squashed lemon?
Lindsay Beyerstein on 06/29 at 12:08 AM “
that would be me.
I suspect you don’t like what I conclude, but I post what I see. (It is a very flawed statistic.) but I can only see what’s on the web, and guesstimate the readers. Yes, looking at blogroll, the three easiest to identify groups around PUMA groups are McCain, white older white feminists, pro israel. (about 4/2/1, ratio) at 200K google. it’s a medium blog activity. Not just a bleep.
I post all tools and methods. You can redo it and correct my conclusion.
(or do you want to argue about Israel position in foreign policy in regard to this election. I assure you I know what I am talking about and I can bring reasonable links to back up my assertion, as DJA can attest)
You have no idea how you sound. You can call us racists, call the Clintons racist, and then wonder why we don’t join you. You can assume we have no clue about our own self interests, are hysterical, stupid, etc. I understand this makes you feel safe and powerful. You can assume we don’t exist, don’t know what we are doing, that we are liars. Go ahead.
Don’t mind if I do, you big fat liar!
FAKE! FAKE! FAKEY FAKEY McFAKEPANTS!!
I’d rather the blows against my beliefs come from someone who doesn’t pretend to be on my side. I’m not voting for McCain, but I’ll be glad if he wins, if only to hear the gnashing of your teeth.
F-A-A-A-A-A-K-E !!!
“Oooo, Riverdaughter is a “creative class” unaffiliated. Well, we must really ask her to do a round of golf with us or share a latte.” I will be pampered and courted and made to feel better than all of you losers who comment on this blog.
“Round of golf”; “share a latte”?
Is it just me, or does that sound remarkably like Rove’s depiction of Obama as the snide guy at a country club?
Anyone who supports McCain when their position on the issues is closer to Obama’s is a fool or a racist. Now if your position is closer to McCain’s anyway, that’s fine, vote your conscience. If you voted for HRC b/c she was a woman despite her position on the issues, it makes perfect sense for you to be angry she didn’t win and then vote for McCain, since you only voted according to gender in the first place.
But anyone with liberal ideals simply cannot vote for McCain on the issues. His positions mirror Bush’s. He’s one of the Keating 5. He changes his answers 360° within a week. He’s anti-Roe. He’s violated his own ethics laws. He’s a tax deadbeat and a corporate tool. He’s not a maverick independent, if he ever was.
Someone with liberal ideals cannot be true to them and vote McCain. Obama may not be the progressive candidate we deserve, but he’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative. He is black and McCain is white, but voting that way isn’t voting for liberal ideals anyway.
In this era of Faux Noise, it’s hard to get to the issues, but when you put their positions up and compare, there is a difference. Electing Obama and electing progressive Democrats to back him is the only logical behavior to support liberal ideals. I believe that women have brains and know how to use them. I find it very hard to believe that a woman who is a feminist and a liberal would ever really vote for McCain. I can see a protest vote for Nader or HRC, but not for McCain--at least not out of a sense of outrage over betrayal of liberal ideals.
Unless you want to burn it all down and salt the earth to start over…
Always said it and I’m still saying it, this is a bullshit issue concocted for political effect. Ignore these trolls.
Wikileaks published what appears to be a McCain campaign strategy memo organizing Clinton for McCain meetups. The document hasn’t been conclusively authenticated, but it’s worth a look.
Fourteen million people voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary. Conventional wisdom had it that Clinton supporters skewed conservative. So, it’s not all that surprising that a certain percentage of former Clinton supporters would gravitate towards the McCain camp, even without outreach from the Republicans. If even 1% of those voters went over to McCain that would be 140,000 PUMAs. Not enough to make an electoral difference, but enough to provide a hundred and forty thousand anecdotes and a fair number of blog posts.
A tiny but non-trivial minority of Hillary voters in the primary were Republicans participating in Operation Chaos, Rush Limbaugh’s plan to hurt the Democrats by drawing out the primary. If they cared enough to vote for HRC in the primary, I’d expect them to keep playing along in the general.
I don’t have data on this, but there must have been a certain number of Republican women who switched to Hillary because they liked the idea of a woman president. I’d expect those people to be the leading PUMAs--folks who would have backed McCain all along if it hadn’t been for Hillary.
If I were the McCain camp, I’d be courting these people and doing my best to create the self-fulfilling prophecy that Hillary Clinton supporters are defecting to McCain in large numbers.
This is good research on Darragh Murphy, although I’m not sure that a donation to McCain in 2000, when he was running against the Walking Disaster in the primary, is all that damning. Why no one in the MSM bothered? See my piece on Russert in the Nation last week.
This article, which was called to my attention from elsewhere, did however motivate me to look at the PUMA type comments on my recent article in the Washington Post, “Looking to the Future, Feminism has to Focus” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/06/AR2008060603494_Comments.html#.
Unlike the findings in this article, the PUMA type commenters, drzimmern, hazwalnut, msakel, and several others, have commented elsewhere and all during the primary—in the Post, the Times’s Caucus, Salon and the like. This is not to say that there are more than a noisy six PUMAs in the forest, but as a factual matter purely I wonder if it is a mistake to believe that all such commenters are a creation of some Republican opposition machine.
“Fourteen million people voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary. Conventional wisdom had it that Clinton supporters skewed conservative. So, it’s not all that surprising that a certain percentage of former Clinton supporters would gravitate towards the McCain camp, even without outreach from the Republicans. If even 1% of those voters went over to McCain that would be 140,000 PUMAs. Not enough to make an electoral difference, but enough to provide a hundred and forty thousand anecdotes and a fair number of blog posts.
Lindsay Beyerstein on 06/29 at 10:23 AM “
what bothers me is television. That feeds into the puma web. Had television not involved, the late june spike (see technorati, icerocket) would not happen. The spike seems to last about 2-3 days. So not very widespread aside from top 4 puma blogs. If I have to make wild guess, probably this involved 1-300K readers. But something is definitely sustaining PUMA. Talking overall web sketch, this is not a bleep. google’s blogsearch keep indicating several new blogs are being created daily (obviously paid bloggers. near zero usefulness, only an indicator how many people are involved, not amount of readers. )
Most common subtext I find: Incompetent black man, sexism stole Hillary’s chance, related to zionism. (The rest are combination of those or simply GOP spam blog, rehashing key items)
see here:
http://www.technorati.com/search/party+unity+my+ass?authority=a4&language=en
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=party+unity+my+ass&btnG=Search+Blogs
I for one think, this might have effect if played long enough in states such as PA, IN, OH, MO. If not flipping vote to McCain, at least create discontent so reagan dem voters stay at home.
6/3/08 was the date of the last two primaries, MT and SD. She wasn’t out yet.
But she had already been resoundingly trounced, and was expected to concede within the week. She actually had to issue press releases to the effect that she did not plan to concede that night, even though there was massive evidence that her campaign was in the process of shutting down operations (not scheduling further appearances, sending staffers home, etc).
I love how our collective media-cycle attention span now apparently lasts less than a month. What are you guys talking about? NOBODY knew Clinton would concede the first week of June, even 4 days prior! We have always been at war with East Asia Eurasia!
I’ve been slowing down to gawk at this car crash for a while now and I really think Silver Swan hit the nail on the head above. It’s internet groupthink, a sociological phenomenon we’ll surely being hearing a lot more about in the future.
Mnemosyne, I had actually heard that a sizable number of white men voted for GWB in 2004, too. Of course, it can’t be anywhere near 55 percent of them, or you’d have said it was them who handed him the election. Maybe you have a rough estimate, though?
Way to miss the point. I’m saying that the 55 percent of white women who voted for George Bush in the last election, are not Democrats. They’re Republicans. They may have slid towards Clinton because she was a brand name they recognized, but they’re Republicans, so of course they reverted back to their own party once Clinton was out.
[1] No, it’s okay, I get what you really meant, of course. You mean that men aren’t responsible for their GOP votes, because they always vote that way, and if it’s predictable that men will do a bad thing, we treat it like the weather. Only women can be held accountable.
Uh, no, I’m pointing out that the trend over the past few years has been for white women to start becoming more conservative and going Republican the same way white men have, and probably for the same reasons. If you want to shut your eyes to that fact and insist that white women voters are all pure at heart and vote solely on the merits, unlike white men, be my guest.
Again, a majority of white women voted for Bush in 2004. Why are people so surprised that the same group is saying they’ll vote for McCain?
“..but as a factual matter purely I wonder if it is a mistake to believe that all such commenters are a creation of some Republican opposition machine.”
Well, OF COURSE NOT. An effective rat-fuck attack has to eventually take on a life of its own w/poor deluded idiots (Lenin was good at that, no?), so the head rat-fuckers can move on to other enterprises.
Leverage, baby, leverage: those operatives can’t do all the heavy lifting themselves.
(I DO like how they just CAN’T stop themselves from ruining it by giving it such an obvious acronym. Thank Gods for their self-defeating stupidity.)
I am starting to get worried again. Even if the PUMAs are not real there may be enough people who will just stay home.
4jkb4ia
I wouldn’t worry that much, 4jkb4ia. This astroturf scheme may rope in a few gullible people and convince them to vote for McCain or sit this one out, but I don’t see this meme having a very large effect. The internet still isn’t powerful enough for that yet. Luckily.
It’ll be an interesting laboratory to see how these astroturf operations work. We should focus on finding out interesting and useful facts, and strategies for dealing with this kind of horseshit in the future.
There’s no question that the McCain campaign is courting Democrats. It even has an official outreach program on the campaign website, Citizens For McCain: Democrats and Independents for McCain, a group headed up by none other than Joe Lieberman.
There’s no question that FOX News is giving a platform to self-proclaimed Clinton-to-McCain groups like Darragh Murphy’s PUMA. If FOX is paying attention to self-proclaimed Demcrats, you can it’s out of solicitude for McCain’s electoral fortunes first and newsworthiness a distant second.
Here are the remaining questions: What percentage of vocal self-proclaimed Clinton supporters for McCain ever really backed Clinton? How much help are these C4M groups getting from the Republican party, McCain 2008, or Republican-allied surrogate groups? How much help are they getting from grassroots Republican activists independent of the party?
“I’m saying that the 55 percent of white women who voted for George Bush in the last election, are not Democrats. They’re Republicans. “
Not necessarily. Some of them may be Independents. Plenty of people split their tickets.
George W. Bush only lost women by 3 points in 2004. He lost them by 11 in 2000. Bob Dole lost them by 14 in 1996. What is forgotten about the 2004 election is that Kerry did better among men than Clinton or Gore. For all the hot air about Kerry and Edwards not being manly enough, they did a remarkably good job of closing the gender gap among men. The problem is that Bush more than made up for it among women. How? I don’t know.
The gender gap appears to be back with a vengeance for this election. McCain has a large lead among men, Obama has a larger lead among women. The idea that Obama will have any trouble winning women is a myth. Women are the people who are giving him the lead in the polls.
I also think Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” is overrated. Yes, plenty of former Bush voters voted in the Democratic Primary. Most of them voted for Hillary Clinton. However, there are several explanations that don’t involve Rush or the VRWC.
1. The Republican race was settled on Super Tuesday. The Democratic Primary was the only game in town after that.
2. Some of these voters are Independents, not Republicans.
3. Hillary Clinton is the more moderate candidate, Barack Obama is the more liberal candidate.
4. A moderate Independent or a Republican with nothing better to do on election day would choose Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama because Hillary was the more conservative of the two candidates.
5. Finally, Republican’s aren’t exactly confident about McCain and many are far less worried about Clinton than Obama.
We exist. We have large numbers. And we are Democrats. If you weren’t worried about it why write about it? Go ahead and believe that this is a “Republican thing”, a “sore loser thing”, or a “mentally ill thing” if it makes you feel better.
However, maybe you should spend some time trying to ascertain your chosen one’s positions on Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Cuba, NAFTA, rogue dictators, handgun laws, FISA, public financing, Wright, HIS GRANDMOTHER, etc., since they seem to be changing on an hourly basis.
Our rejection of your candidate is a stance of country before party. Period. You can go back to your juvenile insults, name calling, and other mature forms of communication now. Spewing vitriol will never change the fact that BO is unqualified to be POTUS.
The following is dedicated to “cultfree”:
Trolling Trolling Trolling
Keep those poster rolling
Not serious, just trollaing RAWHIDE!
Trolling Trolling Trolling
Accusations rolling
Not serious, just trolling, RAWHIDE!
P.S.
Cultfree, learn the proper use of an apostrophe, and chill out with the run-on sentences.
You think FDR made those changes voluntarily. NO. It was the people that was driving the agenda.
Actually, it was the ever-present specter of fascist or communist upheaval or even take over. Both groups made huge strides on the heels of the shambled and extreme poverty that Europe experienced in the wake of WW I. The US was experiencing similar conditions of too many unemployed - particularly young male unemployed - labor actions and desperation that generated Mussolini and Hitler. Self-saving government action to relieve the stress and inculcate loyalty was an imperative.
The PUMA entitlement is very much anti-feminist - unless you define “feminist” as “someone who steps into an inherently patriarchal structure and expects to take it over after waiting her turn”.
Sorry ladies, but it apparently doesn’t work that way.
The real term for such a person is Damsel Usurper Predicting Exaltation.
FDR very much saved this country from a Red (or Brown) revolution. Which is why its just silly for the Republicans to call him a “socialist”, since without FDR we could have ended up with real, live, Stalinist type socialism.
BTW Cultfree, Obama is more qualified in terms of actual length of public service than Governor Backwater Clenis was when he was inagurated.
Both have fewer years playing tea party with wives of heads of state as a 3am emergency event.
Thanks Amanda for the research.
I have been following this PUMA thing at Tennessee Guerilla Women for a while-it seems there are are 3 or 4 commenters(yttk, carolyn bk, woman voter) who repeat the same diatribe over and over again after every post by egalia, that it raised a lot of suspicion for me. It has become a virtual echo-chamber. I must say though that their overtly racist language has been toned down of late. Yes, there are possibly some HRC voters who will vote for Mccain(just like some dems voted for Bush), but the Democratic Party cannot give these unhappy people too much credit.
Their argument always boils down to:
Obama was selected by the DNC
Obama is unqualified
Obama is a racist
The Democratic Party is sexist, gay-baiting and misogynist
The primary process was rigged for Obama, etc
I must confess that I find some projection there. I also find some of this laughable.
I have always believed that true democrats realize that Obama is better for the future of the country than Mccain. But we cannot stop some blogs from couching their hate for Obama in terms that they think others will find acceptable. They are now relegated to some blogs(like NoQuarter) and FOX News!
Clinton-Lieberman-McCain Democrats exist, but I don’t know how many there are. I was surpised that Bush Democrats existed in 2004, but they did, and were able to cancel out the Kerry Republicans. Offhand, I would say more McCain Democrats exist than Obama Republicans, but well find out in November.
The good news is that they probably won’t remain Democrats for long. The bad news is that they won’t remain Democrats for long.
The Republican Party is collapsing. Demographic trends are ominous for the “Reagan coalition.” Younger voters are considerably more liberal. Furthermore, the goals of the conservative movement have largely been met. The original goals of the conservative movement were 1) anti-communism 2) lower taxes and less regulation and 3) social conservativism. The Berlin Wall has fallen and the GWOT is a poor substitute. OBL is a bad guy, but he doesn’t compare to the “evil empire.” The Republican advantage on taxes has disappeared. Nobody likes paying taxes, but after the budget was balanced under Clinton, the 2003 Bush tax cuts were “a tax cut too far.” The estate tax cuts were politically, economically, and morally inexcusable. (Republicans like to say that people should keep more of their own money that they worked hard for. The estate tax cut allowed the children of wealthy parents to keep more of the money that their parents worked hard for.)
$500 for McCain, what a surprise.
Seriously though, good work. I hope that this debunks a lot of notions that are out there.