The path to Democratic Party Unity has one track.  It leads to serious party reform to try to undo as much of the Party destruction that has happened the last year as the leadership plowed further and further away from the basic Party values.  And the rest is clear in this open letter to Hillary written by an Independent, just the sort of Independent the Democratic Party needs to attract and have "unity" with. She titled it:

                   On to Denver!!!!

I am 44 years old, and was never much interested in politics. So, you know, when all this primary stuff started a year ago, I really didn't have much interest in any of the candidates specifically, only "let's get anyone else in there other than Bush". But, I started watching the debates and reading up on all the candidates.  In a perfect, ideal world, we wouldn't be voting for a person because of their "Party" and friends, we would be voting for that individual who has a track record of crossing those very lines and trying to get the important things we all want in life: health, wealth, harmony and happiness, regardless of, gasp, party affiliation. Quite quickly, I realized Senator Clinton was head and shoulders above Obama and the others, on every issue, on judgment, character and certainly experience. She frankly blew me away with her command of the issues. I found myself picking the person that has a track record of what I am looking for. That person is Senator Clinton. She has worked hard and diligently for all Americans, and spent years (35) building strong relationships because she has a passionate vision of what America can be. She became MY candidate. "Hill-R-We", became my mantra.

When I read that the "party leaders were tired" of the Clinton campaign bringing up the FL & MI votes for the past few weeks, I thought: well, E-X-C-U-S-E ME! I am tired of not having a say in a Presidential election, I am tired of not having my vote count, I am tired of no insurance, I am tired of little business in a struggling economy, and I am REALLY tired of some out-of-touch, well-paid, Washington fatcats deciding they know more than their constituents! The straw that broke this voter's back was the way the DNC mishandled the FL and MI votes. That is NOT democracy, NOT the values of the Democratic Party and certainly NOT my values! The media has mounted the most biased, blatant one-sided campaign for Obama that frankly reeks of more than just voter suppression. What happened to journalistic integrity?

CNN suggested she'd assassinate him. Twice.

We just sent complaints like this to the cable news stations.

On two recent primary nights a pundit on CNN in covering the primary answered the question of whether Obama should pick Clinton as Vice President.  In the first instance David Gergen said ,"Not if he wants to survive his first term".

Even though there were emails of outrage to CNN at the suggestion that Clinton would assassinate Obama to get his job, the very next primary night another pundit, Alex Castellanos (at 3:50 pm PDT May 13, for those who need a citation), in answer to the same question said,  "He'd have to hire a food taster".

Each night there were other pundits supporting Obama on the set and they and the anchors gave not one whit of disapproval.  The only reaction was general laughter!  Now those comments were undisputedly meant for the viewer to think of Hillary Clinton as a murderer.  And they were said and repeated and laughed at because they felt comfortable that there would be no reproach, no punishment, no outrage, no negative consequences to the pundits, the program , the others on the stage or CNN.  Why is that?  How were they so sure, so comfortable with those accusations?

There was a rec'd diary up for a while dismissing Hillary because of some new polls in Colorado, Oregon, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.  The states involved carry 50 Electoral Votes.  Hillary  is within the margin of error, close to McCain when they run against each other in those states.

There were some other interesting numbers in the swing state polls of matchups between McCain/ Obama, and McCain/ Clinton.  In the six potential swing states fully matched and reported May 21:

Obama wins one,  beating both Clinton and McCain in COLORADO.

McCain wins two, beating Obama and Clinton in polls in UTAH, VA.  Clinton wins three, beating McCain, and Obama loses against McCain.

Clinton wins FLORIDA, MISSOURI and NORTH CAROLINA.

So for May 21:

Obama  - 9 electoral votes
Hillary - 53 electoral votes

Just in case anybody was wondering, our girl is a fighter and she is not quitting on us.

Washington Post

"Senator Obama's plan to declare himself the Democratic nominee in Iowa is a slap in the face to the millions of voters in the remaining primary states and to Senator Clinton's 17 million supporters," Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson wrote in a memo to reporters today, titled "Mission Accomplished: Not so Fast."

Asked about Obama's Iowa rally in a satellite television interview with a Eugene, Ore., station, Clinton herself said "you can declare yourself anything but if you if don't have the votes it doesn't matter."

After those interviews, she told a crowd at Maysville, Ky., "This is nowhere near over."

An open letter to the media:

Just thought you probably didn't know that Pew Research did a poll this week and guess what?

They discovered that:

85% of the people had been following stories of Obama and the media trying  to push Hillary out of the race.

22% were following American Idol

11% had seen stories of Jenna's wedding.

Outcome: 72% of people were upset with what they saw the media and Obama doing trying to push Hillary out and want the race to continue.

We should explain to Russert and Matthews and George and Wolf and Keith and Gloria and David and Alex and Suzanne and Paul and Rachel and Sean and Bill and George and Candy and Tom and Brian and Shepherd and Contessa and Lawrence and Nora and John and Chuck and Ben and Roland and Donna and all of the rest of the people on TV who will be teaching America over the next three days what's happening and what it means! They need to be hearing how we feel about their dismissal of our votes and their misrepresentations about our process (some from Donna Brazile, Howard Dean and Paul Begalia.)  We need to change their ridiculous, stale and uninformed talking heads' talking points.  They reach  some of the voters we need to win. Don't let them turn those voters off with this misinformation campaign. (Their chatter was so out of date last week that nobody even seem to notice the startling data in the exit polls; they just dismissed West Virginians as insignificant, old, undereducated, poor  as though they were dismissable to Democrats and as though that was who the data said were voting! Embarrassing for them and important for the party not to associate with or condone that behavior.

The RULZ of nominations are that as long as there are two or more candidates, the nominee is declared after the official convention vote of the people elligible.

To win, the candidate needs one half, plus one,votes of the delegates credentialled and seated at the convention, cast by secret ballot, reported in live outcry by the state delegation, counted, recorded and confirmed by the Secretary of the Party in the presence of the entire convention delegation. THEN the magic number of majority is applied and the convention knows its' nominee.  If no one reaches the majority, the vote is called on the Second Ballot, and on till somebody reaches the majority vote, counted and confirmed. THEN we have a nominee.
 

Some Obama supporters are a new breed and they are driving a lot of voters away.  They are abusive and then they say ,"You can't leave; you got no place else to  go!"   Most women  learn about abusive men before they are even old enough to vote.  And by then many have a heightened awareness of abuse of power and injustice.

Some men learn these lessons early, too.  Whatever we thought of Obama in the beginning, we came to be very disturbed about the changing behavior of people at the great orange, all the way to the top.  Often they were people we had read and interacted with for a long time, maybe admired.  Some had been in gatherings together in person.  We became alarmed when comments started being abusive.  I don't mean this hyper-thin-skinned, persecuted overreacting, whining, knee-jerking cry of "foul" (or "racism")that is a regular feature of the Obama campaign now.

I don't mean the nothing stuff Obama supporters call abusive.  I mean real abuse.  Bullying taken to frightening extents.  Ganging up to beat down the writer.  Angry, destructive language, constant berating.  Diary hijacking that was instant and automatic and so thorough that the diarist would leave before anyone who had actually read the diary made a comment.  The harsh cruelty of the gang behavior was astonishing and very threatening