http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/04/clinton_nixon_nixon_clinton.cfm

That is a transcript of the robocalls that voters in predominately black districts, which is to say Barack Obama-leaning areas, received in a ham-handed voter suppression effort by Women’s Voices Women’s Vote that was clearly intended to try to help Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the May 6 primary in North Carolina.

WVWV president Page Gardner has apologized for any “confusion” caused by her group.

But it is obvious that Gardner is playing the news media and others for suckers because the more we learn about the high-tech suppression effort the more obvious it becomes that it was black North Carolinians whom the women’s advocacy group was trying to confuse in the service of getting one of their own elected — a proclaimed feminist who like them has mastered the manly art of dirty politics.

It is minorly ironic that Jeff Fecke over at Shakesville has been one of the bloggers to depants Gardner in providing details of WVWV’s jackbooted approach to electoral politics. Ironic because certain Shakesville contributors expend considerable bandwidth pushing back against the perceived enemies of feminism, often in locker room language.

Anyhow, Fecke details the insidiousness of the WVWV effort, which is now under criminal investigation by North Carolina authorities:

* The robocalls made no allowance for people who already were registered to vote, merely stating that the recipients of the message must sign and date a packet mailed out by WVWV and returned so they would be able to vote.

* The calls did’t note that the packets had zip to do with registering for the primary.

* Primary registration already was closed when the packets were mailed out and calls were made.

* The calls contained no identifying information such as a call-back number or mention of who was underwriting and making the calls, which is one of the several violations of state law perpetrated by WVWV.

So who the heck is Lamont

The differences are very subtle, enough to allow “plausible deniability” to those inclined to give Mrs Clinton the benefit of the doubt.

I am not so inclined.

www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/2/64733/51431/906/507604

NPR also makes clear that WVWV has many strong ties to Hillary Clinton. They point this out not just in the All Things Considered piece but in a comprehensive table that accompanies the story on its website. I was aware of many of WVWV’s connections to Hillary that are in the table, but some of them were new to me. Here are highlights from the table:

1. Page Gardner, founder and president

Connections: Served as as deputy politcal director for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and presidential transition team.

Donations: $4,200 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2005; $2,500 to HillPAC in 2006.

2. Joe Goode, executive director

Connections: Pollster for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

3. Micheal Lux, board member

Connections: Worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, and later served as his special asst. for public liaison.

Donations: $2,500 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2000-2001; $1,000 to HillPAC in 2002.

4. Mimi Mager, board member

Connections: Member of the Clinton-Gore transition team; founding member of Emily’s List, which supports Hillary.

Donations: $2,000 to Hillary Clinton in 2007.

5. John Podesta, board member

Connections: Former chief of staff for President Clinton.

Donations: $2,300 to Hillary Clinton in 2007; $1,000 to HillPAC in 2001; $2,000 to Hillary’s Senate campaign in 2000.

6. Hal Malchow, leadership team

Connections: Hillary Clinton’s campaign owes Malchow’s firm, MSHC Partners, nearly $1 million for printing expenses.

Donations: $2,000 to Hillary’s Senate campaign in 1999-2000 and $2,100 in 2005.

7. Pat Griffin, leadership team

Connections: Former top advisor to President Clinton; served as asst. to the president for legislative affairs.

Donations: $4,600 to Hillary Clinton in 2007; $3,000 to Clinton from 2000-2005.

8. Maggie Williams, leadership team

Connections: Current campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, and many other ties to the Clintons.

Donations: $4,600 to Hillary Clinton in 2007.

well now you know. (This is PA primary we are talking right? )

The problem with Obama, he doesn’t control old style party machine and large chunck of media. That is the point why changing guard is very hard.

A lot of party people who support Hillary owe their politics to Hillary. (Those DNC super delegates?)

10% was expected for a long time because obama was behind like 20%. (if you note a lot of states Obama wins 20%. Your landslide theory works for general election, not party’s primary where the voters are different)

More DC/Big East Coast narcissism - shrug.

The campaign gets the minimum (-9%) The worst case scenario was 10%, and everybody was hoping 5%.

It’s a question of we could have done better. But definitely not “hammered”.

Come on. you know that…

No, I don’t know that. Way back in college, one of my favorite political science professors told us that a 10% victory was considered a “landslide,” and that’s what Mrs Clinton earned. If you are going to use percentages where the last significant digit is a whole number, it’s 10%, not 9%.

From The New York Times:

Hillary Clinton —-1,260,444—– 54.6%
Barack Obama ——-1,046,220—– 45.4%

To say that Mr Obama improved his position from months earlier, or that he did better than expected is just spin; I want him to win the Democratic nomination, and I even changed my registration and voted for him in the Pennsylvania primary, but I can still recognize hammered.

Mrs Clinton won 60 out of 67 counties, including Bucks and Montgomery, where Mr Obama had hoped to do much better; they’re largely upper-middle class white counties, with high education levels, the section of the white population in which he has done better in the past.

That gives me an idea for another option: Obama refuses to take part in the dumb-show, but demands his share of the airtime for ads or a pre-recorded speech. McCain will follow suit, reducing everyone’s airtime to 1/3, but it still works out fairly well.

Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama’s character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations. The original source of many of these hit pieces are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications. But they aren’t being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers — including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, academics, policy entrepreneurs, and think tankers — in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists.

yeah come on. It’s steph. (Clinton ex communication director)

The entire program will be SNL-esque, propped on Hillary side.

1. it is designed to patch Hillary’s connection
2. design to kick everybody else in the groin.

If I wer to make strategy. I’ll let Hillary do the TV jibe, then slam her with ad. later on. She is going to lie for sure in it. (plus, what wil she do? talk about something else? that’ll trigger an official complain.)