Clinton
Supporters Send Last-Ditch Obama Attack Emails To Supers



As the Democratic primary nears its long-awaited conclusion, undecided
superdelegates have been drowned under a sudden deluge of angry, sometimes
vicious emails from Hillary Clinton supporters urging them to not fall in line
behind Barack Obama. 



The letter writing campaign picked up steam late Thursday evening when
several superdelegates confirmed that a coordinated effort had been launched,
apparently independent of Clinton's
campaign, to raise last-minute concerns about Obama's candidacy and present the
specter of voter defections should the Illinois Democrat become the nominee. 



In more than dozen messages sent yesterday evening and shared with The
Huffington Post, supporters of Clinton
emailed a laundry list of political and exceedingly personal attacks on Obama's
candidacy, including criticisms of his prior associations and claims that he,
not Clinton, had played the race card. The letters underscore the high
emotional pitch of the late stage Democratic primary as well as the utter
conviction among many supporters of both campaigns that their candidate is
solely worthy of the nomination. 



Such campaigns targeting superdelegates have mostly been avoided out of fear
that the party officials would react negatively to outside pressure. And at
least four superdelegates on the receiving end of yesterday's emails suggested
that they did more harm to Clinton's
cause than good. 



In one exchange, Donna Brazille, Al Gore's campaign manager and a stalwart
of the Democratic Party, responded with frustration to a writer's threats of
defection. "Honestly, this is the 9th email today," she wrote before
8:00 pm. "So I believe you're ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade,
voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more
to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq.
Yes, please join Rush and McCain asap. The train has left. Catch it."



The Clinton campaign did not
return a request for comment as to whether it was behind the email campaign.
One author said that she was responding not to the senator's staff, but to
commenters on the blog of Taylor Marsh,
a committed supporter of the New York Democrat whose readers had gotten a hold
of a list of email addresses. 



"It was a 'spur of the moment' idea brought about by a blog (Taylor
Marsh)," explained Shirley Luther, a Texas Democrat who threatened to vote
for McCain should Obama be the nominee. "Tonight several of our bloggers
came up with the idea of writing the super delegates. Someone on the blog found
a list of emails and posted it.... Everything I wrote is the truth about my
political background. The exit polls show I am not alone in refusing to vote
for Obama and opting to McCain. This probably would not be possible if there
was any other Republican running. But there are a lot of moderate Democrats who
do respect his service."



[Added Later]: Taylor Marsh denied any involvement in the
affair, saying her readers and commenters were responsible for their own
actions. 



Luther's email, compared to the nearly dozen provided to The Huffington
Post, was mild in tone. Beyond threatening defection from the party, authors
attacked Obama for his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and William
Ayers, the unrepentant Weather Underground member who is a Chicago
acquaintance of the senator. One writer accused the Illinois Democrat of
playing the "race card" against the Clintons
-- a proposition most political observers argue is reversed -- while several
others called him a misogynist. 



"How can we elect someone who has never accomplished anything, refuses
to take stands on issues, befriends anti-American terrorists, attends a church
for 20 years with Wright, and denies ever hearing anything controversial, and
then stages a *public fight* so he can finally denounce him, takes credit for
bills in the Senate that he had nothing to do with, and is propped up as the
candidate of change??" wrote one Democrat. 



Added another: "Obama, in my opinion, will NOT survive the general
election against McCain. But even if he does, he will be beholden to the
old-time politics, politicians and bundling interests that raised him up to
where he is. It's not new, better politics. It's a sales job that's been done
by the old power guards... Look at the presidential loser's club that has lined
up behind Obama: Walter Mondale, George McGovern, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy, Bill
Richardson, Chris Dodd, and John Kerry. Agents of change? Hope, Unity? A new
way to do politics?"



At least two other party insiders wrote the Huffington Post expressing
concern over the scope ("I've received emails like this for weeks but
tonight it started in mass) and negativity of some of the Obama attacks,
including one red-state Democrat:



"I spent my entire life in the two reddest states in the entire U.S. so
please excuse me if I fail to discern the nuances of the arguments sent my way
this evening in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to intimidate the
remaining unpledged delegates by threatening to leave the party and vote for a
third Bush term if I and others like me don't vote for Sen. Clinton,"
wrote the exasperated superdelegate. "I have been uncommitted throughout
this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety
of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to
threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don't vote for Sen. Clinton. I
have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without
exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that
threatened a vote for McCain if I didn't support Sen. Obama. You really ought
to be ashamed."



UPDATE:



Phil Singer, a spokesman for Clinton,
emails to say that the campaign knows nothing about the emails. Meanwhile, two
readers write in to say they saw the campaign being coordinated at the friendly
Clinton website Hillaryis44.org, as
well as the blog page on Clinton's
own website.







?



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