Tony Campbell at Examiner.com on July 30 reported that Hillary Clinton supporters are quietly planning a coup to claim the presidential nomination from Barack Obama on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention.

Campbell writes, “The group, P.U.M.A. (Party Unity My A**), claims that 15 delegates have switched from Obama to Clinton in July. There is still the possibility of a floor convention vote to fully seat the delegates of Michigan and Florida, which would benefit Senator Clinton. Finally, the Obama flip-flop on the FISA bill has not been well received by the more liberal segments of the Democratic faithful.”

Given that 2025 votes are needed for the nomination, the pro-Hillary website DoneDems.com suggests these hopeful numbers: “Obama has about 2229.5 delegate votes, with 1766.5 pledged delegates and 463 superdelegates. Clinton has 1896.5 delegate votes, with 1639.5 pledged and 257 super delegates. Shift just 175 delegates from Obama to Clinton, and Obama’s power grab comes to a halt.”

By my own count, Hillary is only 128.5 votes short of 2025, which actually is easier to acheive than 175 votes, but I’m not sure even this number is correct. I’ll do some more reporting on this point and report my findings here.

The core question remains: Could a Clinton coup happen?  The odds are against success, but Obama is vulnerable.

Read the rest of this entry »

Representatives for many of the citizen groups planning events during the Democratic National Convention met together in Denver on Sunday morning, July 20, with the dual purpose of sharing information about their plans and trying to heal a rift among the activists.

The so called “consulta” fell short of being representative of all the diverse organizations planning activities during the DNC.  More than 85 percent of those attending were from either Recreate 68 or Unconventional Denver.

I did not hear anybody at the consulta, for example, overtly declare during the opening introductions that they were there representing the coalition of immigrant rights organizations planning a nonviolent mass demonstration on Thursday, August 28, the last day of the convention.

Some groups represented at the consulta were not members of the Recreate 68 coalition. These  included Code Pink (playfully creative nonviolent street theater protests), Hunger for Justice (feeding those at “Tent State” and other encampments), The People Call For Change (evening programs during  the DNC to build a positive vision of the future), The World is Listening (a network of compassionate listeners at the DNC so people can voice their visions), and the Network for Spiritual Progressives (holding an independent two day interfaith conference at the start of the DNC with Rabbi Michael Lerner, Matthew Fox, Sharon Salzburg and others supporting the Global Marshall Plan).

There was only token representation from the Alliance for Real Democracy (ARD), which I’m told was begun by a few people who walked away from Recreate 68 because that coalition refused to publicly renounce any and all use of violence at the DNC. These people joined with others to form ARD, which has independently grown to include diverse groups that were never part of R68.

The contrast between Recreate 68 and the Alliance for Real Democracy is striking.

Read the rest of this entry »