I'm Scared: She is Never Going Away

And with that means the drama that was so nauseating and poisons my city in the 1990s is not going to go away either.

First, there was this news yesterday (not withstanding empty buses) from ABC News: Clinton Issues Post-Primary Schedule (Yes, Post-Primary Schedule). And apparently that resulted in "many confused looks passed between reporters on the back of the press bus." That would be the one occupied bus presumably.

Second, she's asking for votes to select her new t-shirt. No kidding. They are ugly too.

Then, earlier this week I got communication from the local Obama campaign about the DNC Rules & By-Laws committee meeting tomorrow. There were a series of emails with instructions on how to gain admittance. One first had to sign up at the DNC web site to be a "party builder." Guess Dean is learning from Obama on how to leverage the web. Only then would you be eligible to secure a ticket which became available at 10 am. I wasn't going to post the email, but Ambinder did over at The Atlantic today.

So, here to me is the pertinent part:

Note: The Obama campaign has asked that its supporters refrain from
protesting/demonstrating/rallying at the meeting, regardless of how
well-intentioned those efforts may be. Instead, they urge those without
tickets to engage in one of the activities listed below.

For those of you without tickets, there are three options for you on
Saturday morning.

1) You can show up early on Saturday and wait in the same-day
registration line in the hopes that someone with a ticket doesn't show
up. Tickets will begin to be given away on a first-come first-served
basis beginning at 9:30 am, which is also when the meeting agenda
starts.

2) Stay home and watch the meeting unfold on C-SPAN.

3) Most importantly, you can help move our cause forward in the region
by registering voters in Northern Virginia. We stand a good chance of
turning Virginia blue this year and that work has already begun. While
Clinton supporters are disturbing the peace at the RBC meeting, you can
help move our campaign forward.

I thought then and think even more so in comparison, highly of how the Obama campaign is being conducted. Don't rabble rouse, here's the last way to get a ticket, be informed, get more registered voters. And I thought that Obama instills such loyalty that his followers will do what he says, even if they don't like it.

To wit, this tale from the New Yorker's Talk of the Town, Huddle: Team Obama:

Todd Sutler, a third-grade teacher at the Bank Street School, raised his hand. “Can we talk a little bit about how to lay it on the Clinton people?”

“We don’t want to be dancing in the end zone,” Goldberg said. “Our plan is to sit down and have a drink with them, and, if they tell us they want to take leadership roles in the campaign, that’s great.”

Sutler said, “But they still might be thinking they have a chance.”

Later that day, Wednesday this week, I learned from the Washington Post's political blog, The Trail, about what Hillary's supporters are planning on doing. It made me sick to my stomach. For the fact of it, in itself. Like many in my generation, I look askance at protesters - because it rarely achieves anything.

But also because of the question - how on earth does Hillary put this back in the bottle? How? But she's not thinking of that.

And the premise is false! She's not losing because she is a woman. She is losing because she mismanaged her campaign. Period.

Roger Simon, Politico, titled a piece The Drama of Hillary Clinton and had this to say about the meeting tomorrow:

I have attended meetings of the Rules and Bylaws Committee in past years, and here is my impression of its members: serious. Very serious. So serious, they make members of the Supreme Court look giddy in comparison.

Want a hint as to what the committee cares about? Take a look at its name: Rules and Bylaws.

So what do think? You think its members like unruly crowds? Demonstrations? Tumult? Uproar? Commotion? Attempts to intimidate?

The Obama people — those rank amateurs! — don’t think so.

“We don’t think it’s a helpful dynamic to create chaos,” David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, said. “In the interest of party unity, we’re encouraging our supporters not to protest.”

The Clinton campaign has a different view.

Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton campaign chairman, Thursday defended the planned demonstration, by saying: “I like excitement! Let’s show passion!”

The Clinton campaign claims they have nothing to do with it. Let's be clear, they are doing nothing to discourage the intimidation of crowds. Now who's evoking echoes of FL?

But they sure sound defensive about it. Apparently in the Clinton campaign call today (via Ben Smith):

At the end of an extremely long Clinton conference call, Clinton backer and DNC rules maven Tina Flournoy responded to David Plouffe's implicit criticism of pro-Clinton protests outside tomorrow's DNC meeting.

"What we are seeing is a constant refrain that this is chaos — I’ve even seen the word circus used, which I must tell you I find particularly offensive," said Flournoy, an official of the American Federation of Teachers.

The protesters are coming "peacefully" to "stand with the people of Michigan and Florida," she said.

"Why that is extraordinary, why that is troubling, why that elicits negative comments I’m not sure, but I find that disturbing," she said.

Well, not withstanding Harold Ickes' prediction that many of Hillary Clinton's supporters will defect from her - not not her, not her 'womanhood' - but her line of thinking and reject her argument (made in a 13 page document this week) - I'm still scared. I hear Ickes and think - he's just managing expectations. There is a movement to protest in front of Ickes Georgetown home.

The Clinton campaign is even arguing over the powers of the DNC Rules Committee. DNC lawyers informed members of the committee that they don't have the authority to re-instate the full delegation at full count. And the Clinton campaign released its own legal opinion, apparently very dense, which maintained that the committee does, in fact have that power.

'til tomorrow