Hillary Clinton diehards throw support behind John McCain

[Incognito]

Clinton diehards throw support behind McCain

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Tuesday, 8 July 2008

Many of Hillary Clinton's most prominent supporters, including a number of her famous "Hillraisers," are either defecting to the Republican John McCain or withholding their support from the Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Chief among them is the founder of the Esprit clothing store chain Susie Tompkins Buell who is bitter at what she claims was the sexist treatment of Mrs Clinton by the media during the campaign. "What really hurt women the most was to look back and see all this gender bias," she declared.

Many disaffected Clinton supporters and fundraisers believe Mr Obama did not do enough during the primary contest to end what they believe was a sneering campaign in the media. They are still angry at the way pundits referred to Mrs Clinton's laugh as a "cackle."

There is also anger at the way the mainstream media picked up on the comedian Chris Rock's comparison of Mrs Clinton to the knife- wielding madwoman in the movie Fatal Attraction.

Some of Mrs Clinton's fundraisers are pressuring the Democratic nominee to give her a prominent role in the general election campaign and in a future Obama administration.

"I am not a happy camper," said Jill Iscol, one of the 300 "Hillraisers," individuals who raised more than $100,000 (£50,000) for the Clinton campaign. But Ms Iscol said: "Not voting Democrat would be hard."

The disaffection is causing glee in the McCain campaign. Carly Fiorina, his most prominent female backer and former chief executive of the computer giant Hewlett Packard, announced yesterday that she was holding further talks with 20 of Mrs Clinton'sfinancial backers.

Details of campaign contributions reveal that in May, when Mr Obama clinched the nomination, 115 of Mrs Clinton's big contributors had switched to the Obama campaign with equal numbers donating to Mr McCain.

The front-page treatment by yesterday's Wall street Journal of the defection by some of Mrs Clinton's supporters to the Republican side was described as "quite misleading" by one of the Clinton's close advisers.

"Hillary raised almost a quarter of a billion dollars in the primary season," said Doug Sosnik who was political director in the Clinton White House. "The majority now supports the Obama campaign."

The Independent - Print Article

[*DIVA!]

Then they weren't Democrats to start with..or they are insane!

[Sasha]

Many disaffected Clinton supporters and fundraisers believe Mr Obama did not do enough during the primary contest to end what they believe was a sneering campaign in the media.

Why was Obama responsible for defending his opponent? Hillary sure as hell didn't defend him from racist attacks, and in fact launched or enabled them herself on a regular basis.

Not that I'm voting for him, anyway. His stance on FISA was the last straw.

[Grimmlok]

meh.

i'm over this whole thing anyway. McCain is pandering to the nutjobs, Obama is caving all over the place on every issue..

I'm just glad i don't live down there.

[Penny Lane]

Just another reason that Hillary didn't win the Dem's bid... her supporters are spiteful just for the hell of it. Gee, supporting McCain will REALLY SHOW THEM.

[nycgirl]

^^ not all of her supporters are spiteful though, most are voting Obama... and also there is a little bit of hypocrisy going on right now because a lot of Obama's supporters were saying they wouldn't vote or would even vote McCain a few months ago if Clinton got the nomination. But now they expect Hillary's supporters to just "get over it," well would they just get over it if the tables were turned? Maybe some, but not all of them would.

[*DIVA!]

In all honesty, if Clinton had won the nomination, my mind would've been made up at the end of the primary. I am a democrat, no need to go back and forth with who I am supporting.

[bychance]

They really getting on my fucking nerves.