Dear DNC leadeship,
I realize that you have a history of making poor choices and losing national elections but let’s set that aside for a moment. You are indeed correct in assessing that what’s happening in the current race between Senators Clinton and Obama is a potential threat towards democratic unity. However, your solution, which appears to be the dual strategy of calling for Senator Clinton to quit while also calling for superdelegates to step forward and bring pressure to bear before Pennsylvania and the remaining states vote, risks doing the opposite of what you intend. You see, calling for someone to quit and then abusing your offices and the apparatus of the DNC in an attempt to end the race early is quite undemocratic. Not only that, your attempts to undermine democracy for the sake of favoritism (under the guise of unity, of course) are transparent. Oh yes, all of us rank and file voters noticed that.
What you’re attempting to create is in fact an illegitimate nominee. Further, you’re insuring that many Clinton supporters will en masse defect to John McCain in protest or stay at home. Allow me to be clear, unity is not, “shut up and do as I say.” You can’t unify the party by pissing on half the voters and calling it rain. Voters don’t take too kindly to being insulted and that’s exactly what you’re doing now by telling us that “party unity” is more important than the voice of the people.
I know this must sound strange to you, but we, the majority of those voters that actually call ourselves democrats as opposed to independents, understand that democracy is a system that gets both its legitimacy and its power from the voters. The way to unify democrats is to allow all voices to be heard. Only through legitimate debate will we reach consensus.
Silencing one party and beating their supporters into submission through all too clever attempts at manipulation risks losing those democrats for decades.
Signed,
One of about 50% of democratic voters.
Who is this letter directed at? The DNC hasn’t done anything to try and push Hillary out of the race. Beyond calling for civil discourse and saying it would be nice to know who the nominee is by July, Howard Dean has remained entirely neutral and has never once called on Hillary or anybody to drop out.
Hi Sean,
I was mostly referencing Donna Brazile’s comments on Sunday about the credentials committee (which were for the record wrong in fact as well as purpose), Pelosi’s comments (which she thankfully corrected today) and the various comments of elder party members. Brazile, implied in her comments that Dean’s 25 loyalists would vote a particular way when she proclaimed that it was impossible for Clinton to gain a majority. Not only was she wrong in her math (Clinton can in fact still gain a majority) but her assertions gave the appearance that the credentials committee would not under any circumstances seat the FL and MI delegations. You’re correct that Dean has done well in keeping neutral but others have done their best to make it appear otherwise.