The Real Battle in the Democratic Party

On the surface the battle appears to be one between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But that is just the surface battle. The real battle is much deeper much more entrenched and has gone on for decades.

The Democratic Party has not been an organization run by the rank and file voter for decades if ever. It is a party of the powerful elite who in many cases pre determine who the candidates will be all the way from city councils to President. It is a party of the Democratic Leadership Council that include people like Hillary Clinton who decide for the voters the direction of the party and the candidates that will be supported.

The candidates that are chosen get the money, the support, and the favors and are expected to return the favors. The ones on the outside have to fight scratch and try to raise money on their own and most often fail. To be chosen by the elite to run for an office, you tow the line, suck up to the power brokers to do their bidding. They tell the candidates when and if its their turn to run for an office and what office they can run for.

A great example of this was Paul Hackett’s attempt to run for Senate. Paul, a party outsider suddenly rose from nowhere on the scene. He got massive support. He became very popular not only among voters but in the national media. One problem, the party had decided it was Sherrod Brown’s turn to run for Senate. So did the voters get to choose our nominee, no. The party elite went to the money donors and got them to cut Hackett off. No money, no campaign. Suddenly Sherrod Brown is running unopposed.

Since the 80’s when the Clinton group took power, this control of the party has only increased. They have led this party from totally controlling the government to losing the House and the Senate. The numbers of registered Democrats continued to go lower and lower as they became less happy with the same poor choices in candidates year after year. The number of voters who considered themselves democrats but were dissatisfied grew and often defected to vote for Republicans. The only good news has been George W. Bush, who’s total incompetence along with the rabid criminal behavior by Republican officials in places like Ohio, led to some gains of what the party lost in seats and offices.

Now today the party is at a new place. The elite, the Democratic Leadership council and the big donors ordained Hillary Clinton as their candidate. She had paid her dues to the party, given the favors and the support. Thus it was her turn to be the Presidential nominee.

Something unexpected happened, Barack Obama. All those democrats disgruntled with the party returned. 10’s of thousands of new Democrats became active in politics and the party for the first time. The most amazing thing of all, they opened their checkbooks and built up the campaign war chest of Obama to dwarf the one the big money elite had and was building for Hillary.

“How rude of these new democrats how dare they not follow the chosen one” they think. They now see their power being diminished. They are circling the wagons, calling in favors, threatening party leaders who dare to defect from their side and twisting arms of super delegates. They fight to use their control to change the rules so that they can prevail over these rude upstarts.

What they have failed to see is that it is too late. They have lost the liberal media. People like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz have joined the upstarts. Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Mayors are ignoring the threats and intimidation of the elite and are joining the groundswell of change. The most amazing thing of all is the big money donors are being outspent badly by the rank and file democrats making their power more of a nostalgic memory then current reality.

All that remain on the other side are the Clintons, the DLC, the party hacks who are the only group of Super Delegates still giving Clinton the lead among them. Half of the elected officials that are Super Delegates and have committed, have already gone to Obama.

They will not give up their control easily as has been evidenced by their threats to Nancy Pelosi. But they cannot win without destroying this party. It is time for them to realize they have lost the party and a new generation of Democrats has taken over.

If you want to send a message to the party elite that the voters control this party, sign this petition