HillBuzz Note: This post is just an FYI to let you know Cynthia Ruccia, in Ohio, has started a group for women who will not support Barack Obama for president under any circumstances. The group’s name is Clinton Supporters Count Too. It is not outwardly associated with the growing Democrats for McCain movement, or the corresponding Latinos for McCain or LGBT for McCain movements. HillBuzz wants to make it crystal clear that Hillary Clinton has stated repeatedly that she does not encourage her supporters to support anyone but the Democratic nominee. We also note, however, in the interest of full-disclosure, that the treatment Obama and his supporters have given Hillary Clinton and her supporters makes it seem highly unrealistic that the bulk of Clinton’s base would ever line up behind Obama, should he be the nominee. So, definitively, Hillary Clinton wants a Democrat to win in the fall, but her supporters largely feel she is the only Democratic candidate they will back. The consensus is: if not President Hillary Rodham Clinton, then it will be President John Sidney McCain.
Contact Information:
HCFPinOH@gmail.com
HCFPinPA@gmail.com
HCFPinFL@gmail.com
HCFPinMI@gmail.com
Women Threaten Obama Boycott
May 15, 2008 5:04 PM
FROM GUEST-BLOGGER RICK KLEIN, OF ABC’S THE NOTE
I’ve posted a few times in the last two days about female supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who are angry — at the Democratic Party, at the Obama campaign, or at the general situation that sees their candidate facing tough times, in their view, in part because of sexism.
Just talked to a 55-year-old Columbus, Ohio resident named Cynthia Ruccia, a spokesperson and organizer for a group calling itself “Clinton Supporters Count Too.” She said the group — numbering in the hundreds, and organized in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan — stands ready to boycott the Democratic Party if Clinton doesn’t win the nomination, and will work against superdelegates who support Obama over Clinton as a means of registering their displeasure with the party.
“We have a plan to campaign against the Democratic nominee,” the group said in a press release Thursday. “We have the (wo)manpower and the money to make our threat real. And there are millions of supporters who will back us up in the swing states. If you don’t listen to our voice now, you will hear from us later.”
Ruccia tells ABC News that she believes “millions” of women share her group’s views, though they have only begun to make contact with like-minded women. They’re disgusted, she said, that Democratic Party leaders haven’t more aggressively denounced sexist media comments and coverage in the campaign, and are angry at the drumbeat for Clinton to get out of the race.
“We’re just at the boiling point,” Ruccia said. “Women will sit back and be quiet about things for a while, but we’ve had enough. Unless Hillary Clinton is our nominee, we are not going to support the nominee.”
Part of their plan, she said, is a primary-night boycott of NBC and MSNBC during next Tuesday’s primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, particularly to protest comments made by Chris Matthews and David Shuster that her group feels were sexist.
Ruccia said she doesn’t necessarily view the disqualifying of delegates from Florida and Michigan as sexist in itself, but added: “I do believe the people there will not forget that Sen. Obama stood in the way of having their vote counted.”
This is one group, and not a very large one at this point. But in gauging the fallout among female voters of this divisive campaign, it’s also worth keeping in mind what’s going on in the wake of NARAL Pro-Choice America’s decision to endorse Obama on Wednesday.
As documented by the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, NARAL blogs are being overwhelmed, and many state affiliates are angry at the national group’s decision.
Emily’s List is furious. And Martha Burke, former chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, tells Stein she is “disappointed”: “It feels like they are abandoning a known ally for a less committed candidate because they want to jump on a bandwagon. I think the pro-choice community should stick by a woman who has stuck by them.”
