Day 3… Hillary Day

Damn that lady is brilliant.

She spoke twice yesterday.  Once at a “Women Count” function and second at the convention.  She absolutely hit it out of the park with her speech.

She also did what she had to do…  threw full weight behind Obama.  Maybe now they will leave her alone now.

Oh, and Bill, a man of pure brilliance, posed a hypothetical yesterday…

“Say you have candidate x and you agree on all the issues with that candidate but you don’t think they can deliver on any of them.  And then you have candidate y and you agree on half the issues with them but you think they can deliver on all of them.  The question becomes for whom will you vote?”

he then quickly added that this has nothing to do with what is going on now….  ROFL.

LOL, I love Bill

Day 2… Ok, So I Gave A Speech At The Rise Hillary Rise Event…

Somehow Darragh Murphy conned me into giving a speech at the Rise event in Cheeseman Park, and it was pretty tough on me.  I have been on a sort of outrage autopilot, but getting up there to give the speech I had to communicate what I saw to others, and it made me very very sad.

I had not prepared a speech, so whatever I gave was completely extemporaneous…  and so here I will recreated as best I can the speech I gave (with a few corrections and clarifications)

Hello, I blog as Texas Hill Country.  Some of you may know me and some may not, so…  hi.

First, I would like to talk a little be about myself, where I come from and how I ended up here.  You know, I have not had a life that was really all that different from Barack.  I was born to a middle class family.  We didn’t have a lot when I was a kid.  I lived in a muslim country for a few years as a child.  I then got bounced around between family members for a little while.  I have lived in several countries and even more states.  In high school, I worked at a Blockbuster video store right next to a Baskin Robbins.  Oh, and I am still paying on the student loans I took out to go to law school.  I went to Washington DC and worked for more than 143 days…  but, unlike Barack, I don’t think I am qualified to be President of the United States.  (punctuated with a snarky smile btw)

I come from a very old Democratic family.  My great grandfather was a Congressman under Roosevelt and fought to pass the New Deal.  My parents knew the Kennedys and went to the Holy Trinity Catholic church with Teddy and, occassionally, Bobby.  My Dad was going to Georgetown Law and my Mom worked in the Jesuits office.  Every so often, Father McSorley at the school would ask my Mom and a few of the students to help Kennedys and do odd jobs, small clerical stuff and the like.

As a kid growing up I always heard how inspirational and how amazing the Kennedys were and just how much Jack, Bobby and Ted meant to my parents.

Well, fast forward to the 90′s.  Bill Clinton came on the scene, I could vote and I was intensely interested in politics.  Very quickly, the man from Hope, Bill Clinton, became my Jack Kennedy. After Hillary gave her speech in Beijing on how women’s rights are human rights I was floored by her.  She became my Bobby.  I love them dearly.  They have meant so much to me and inspired me in incredible ways.

But I will never forget or forgive how their character was assassinated this year.

It is fortuitous and ironic that we gather here, in Cheeseman Park, the site of a former cemetery, to celebrate the death of democracy.

And, so I stand before you with hope.  Hope for change, but not the type of change Barack Obama wants.

I have hope that I will live in a country where our votes are respected.  I have hope that I will live in a country where our votes cannot be changed.  I have hope that I will never have to look into the eyes of my wife or future daughter and say “You almost made it.  I am sorry the boys held you back.”

And I want change.

I want to change this country back to one where I don’t worry about my vote counting.  I want to change the Democratic party leadership to one where I don’t have to worry about whether or not they will listen.  I want to change this country back to one where I don’t have to worry about the sanctity of the vote.

And I want to change this country to one where we no longer have to hope…

We can just be.

So, there it is…  my speech.  A bunch of crap I put together off the top of my head.  I hope it makes sense to some of you.

love to all.

My First Day In Denver… What An Amazing Adventure.

I came into town and immediate fell asleep.  I had driven all night from Dallas to Denver and badly need the rest.  After about 3 hours, I woke up, called my wife to check in, and then called fellow Capital Hill member Papau.

Papau was over at the PUMApac headquarters, so I got directions and headed on over.

WOW…  media everywhere, delegates stopping in, and the blogger station full of 6 people typing away.  It was a buzz of activity.

I met a bunch of wonderful people and lots of bloggers that I know and respect dearly.  I was also thrilled to hear people liked my blog…  I was shocked and humbled that people even knew who I was.  It was very nice.

Darragh was fantastic.  She came up to me and introduced herself, we talked for a bit, and became buddies quickly.

I headed over the the PUMAhomestead with Darragh Murphy, Sheri Tag, MarylandPUMA, LadyBoomerNYC, and Darragh Mom (aka Mamma PUMA).

We talked lots, blogged and got ready for the shindig and the unveiling of the Brad Mays movie, the Audacity of Democracy.

The party started at 8, by 7:15 there were 5 media vans there unloading cameras and a variety of reporters getting out of their cars.

The party was off into full swing, there was a coctail bar and catered food…  all excellent btw…  and the reporters just floated thru the crowd talking to a variety of people.  There were tons of them.

I got interviewed by AP, CNN, Le Monde, and a Japanese news paper…  and I am supposed to give a phone interview with a reporter tomorrow morning.  I saw she was holding a piece of paper with FT on it, so maybe Financial Times?  I dunno.

The one reporter that did not seem interested in talking to me at all was the guy from the Fort Worth Star Telegram…  basically, my local paper!  Weird, right?  I talked with a reporter from France for 30 minutes, but the one from home wanted nothing to do with me and was actually kinda rude about it?  ROFL.

Regardless, the interviews went well, stayed on message…  explained that it was not about candidates or platforms, it was about the process… the breaking of the rules, the changing of votes, the caucus fraud, etc etc….

I listened to Diane Mantouvalous, Will Bower, and Darragh Murphy give interviews as well, and they said much the same thing.  I was thrilled with that because the message is getting tightened up and more clearly stated.

The most shocking part of it is that the reporters were really responsive to what we were saying and that the puma narritive has really changed from the “bitter old women” meme to one of understanding…  of hey, ok, we are starting to get it now…  and oh, wow, ok your segment of the party could very well make or break this election cycle.  You people are for real.

My honest guess is that when Obama passed over Hillary as the VP, and it came out that he had not even vetted her or discussed the selection with her and then made the announcement by sending out a 3AM text message…  I think that the reporters and the media realized that it was not us that split the party, that the Obama campaign has been treating Hillary disrespectfully and by proxy the 18 million people that voted for her.

I think they are also starting to actually listen to us and why we are angry.  It is not the candidates, its how it was run.

It has been a wonderful change in the story.  It looks as if the media is turning around!

There is so much more coming up and I am looking forward to tomorrow!!!

Bad Habit: The Party Of Rights And Freedoms? I Think Not.

Mary Ellen over at Bad Habit has a fantastic post on the contrast of what the Democratic Party is supposed to be about and how they are running their primary and the Convention in Denver.

I HIGHLY suggest it.  CLICK HERE

And here is a pic from her post to entice you to do so…

For Those Going To Denver… Rise 2008

Festivities start at 2pm with a candle lit salute to Hillary and democracy at 9:45pm.  LINK

Democratic Voter Drive In Louisiana Registers… Dead People, Dogs, And Cats?

On the heels of the reports of ACORN voter registration irregularities in New Mexico brought to light by GRL at Insight Analytical comes a new report about irregularities in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes (aka counties).

A group called Voting Is Power,  is funded by the national DNC, has submitted about 50,000 voter registration cards from 4 different parishes…  problem is that on these cards include the names of dogs, cats, dead people…  and apparently the guy in charge of verifying that the cards are real?

The Times Picayune reports that:

While Voting Is Power has sent in batches of applications for months, registrars have begun to see a disturbing pattern of misinformation on the forms, including duplicates, cards filled out with different colors of ink, or using the names of pets or dead people. In Jefferson, DiMarco sensed something amiss when a new registration card recently crossed his desk.

The card, partially filled out, had his name and listed his office’s post office box on Citrus Boulevard as the address. It also listed him as a male, a Democrat and African-American.

“And I can tell you I’m only one of those,” said DiMarco, who is white and Republican. There was one bright spot, though. “They flattered me by making me younger — I did appreciate that.”

 

Real smooth…  the head of the Post Office for the parish, who would know if there was another person with the same name in that parish, gets a voter registration card with his name on it???

And pets???  Seriously???  Between ACORN and VIP, we might have a Garfield/Lassie ’08 ticket…

 

BTW – this VIP is different than the one started by the Muslim American Society 

thanks for pointing this out nellie!