If I NEEDED Any More Reasons...

To leave the DNC, Nancy Pelosi's comments in today's San Francisco Chronicle would have done it. As I said to my partner today, this merely confirms my (painful) decision yesterday to leave the DNC. Pelosi has gone beyond the pale with her take. Here is the piece from the Hillary Responders:

Action Alert! NEED RESPONDERS' REBUTTAL

San Franscico Chronicle: Pelosi won't allow convention fight

By Carla Marinucci

Our Thoughts: Someone should inform House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Clinton supporters don’t quit on their candidate. Also, that she should wait on coronating Obama because WE ARE TAKING this election to the convention. And we sincerely thank Speaker Pelosi for being so concerned with all American voters being truly heard at the Democratic Convention.

Full Article:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will step in if necessary to make sure the presidential nomination fight between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama does not reach the Democratic national convention - though she believes it could be resolved as early as next week.

Pelosi predicted Wednesday that a presidential nominee will emerge in the week after the final Democratic primaries on June 3, but she said "I will step in" if there is no resolution by late June regarding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, the two states that defied party rules by holding early primaries.

"Because we cannot take this fight to the convention," she said. "It must be over before then."

Pelosi made the comments during a wide-ranging, hour-long session before The Chronicle's editorial board. She talked about the prospects for the election of a Democratic president this fall, the legacy of President Bush and the California Supreme Court's ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

The speaker talked in depth about the party's dilemma as its primary process comes to a close after Sunday's Puerto Rico primary, in which 55 delegates are at stake, and Tuesday's South Dakota and Montana primaries, in which 33 total delegates are up for grabs.

Obama, according to the Associated Press, is within 45 delegates of winning the nomination, a number he could reach by Tuesday. Pelosi said she is confident the Democratic National Committee's rules committee, which meets in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, will resolve the issue of Florida and Michigan.

"For now, 2,026 is the magic number" of pledged and unpledged delegates needed by a candidate to win the party's presidential nomination, she said, but "if they decide to seat (Florida and Michigan) this weekend, there will be a new magic number."

While saying she believes those two states' delegates should be seated, Pelosi added that it must happen ''in a way that is not destructive to any sense of order in the party."

"If you have no order and no discipline in terms of party rules, people will be having their primary in the year before the presidential election," she said.

"So there has to be some penalty."

She said the party committee will come up with a formula that is "fair and accepted by both campaigns," perhaps allowing the states 50 percent of their delegates. But "if the resolution is not appropriate, then it remains for the (Democratic National Convention) credentials committee to resolve it," she said. Then, "it will have to happen by the end of June" or she will intervene, she said.

The Democrats hold their convention in late August in Denver.


Pelosi said she has not been in contact with the Clinton or Obama campaigns on the matter, because "I think it is all going in the right direction" and will be resolved "in an orderly fashion" as early as next week.

Despite the prolonged and often divisive primary process, Pelosi said it has been "a very positive experience" for the Democratic Party because of "millions of people who are attracted to this campaign ... Hillary and her message, and the same thing for Barack Obama and his appeal."

"We will benefit from it in November," she said, predicting the party will be unified behind its standard bearer, whether it is Obama or Clinton. "People are already saying to me: I'll be ready - as soon as we have a nominee - to come around."

"(They) know at the end of the day we cannot have a Republican president, four more years of George Bush, tax cuts for the wealthy, a war without end - the list goes on and on," she said.

Pelosi, the nation's first woman speaker of the House, said she is keenly aware of efforts, reported in The Chronicle this week, of the San Francisco-based political action committee, WomenCount, which is running full-page newspaper ads headlined "Not So Fast!" - warning against what it calls premature efforts to push Clinton from the race and crown Obama the party's nominee.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Clinton friend and one of the effort's organizers, said Wednesday the committee has raised $400,000 in the past 10 days from women across the country determined to make the case for Clinton all the way to the convention.

"God bless their enthusiasm," said Pelosi of the effort. "These women are fabulous, and I know many of them very well." But she said, while "we all want to see a woman president ... they want me to be the chair of the convention, who is neutral. And yet they want me to be for Hillary Clinton."

But the speaker said that activist women who make up Clinton's supporters, blue-collar voters and Obama backers will come together when they realize they "have the most to lose by a Democratic defeat."

And she said voters, too, will be energized by the party's "progressive economic agenda to grow our economy, for real initiatives on health care," education, infrastructure, housing and other key "kitchen-table issues."

"We just won three special (House) elections that the GOP never thought they would lose in a million years," said Pelosi, referring to recent congressional races in Illinois, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"(Republicans) tried to make it about me and San Francisco values. They don't have a message," she said. "It's going to be a very bad year for Republicans."

Email Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.

Email Nancy Pelosi - AmericanVoices@mail.house.

My Email to Speaker Pelosi:

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

I scarecely know what to say to you after reading today's Chronicle article in which you state you do not want the two candidates to take the nomination fight to the Convention, and that you expect it to be resolved after the last primaries. That is not YOUR decision to make!

Are you THAT out of touch with the American people? We have REPEATEDLY said we DO want this to go to the Convention, if necessary, to determine our nominee. NEVER BEFORE has a candidate been treated like Senator Clinton has been treated in this primary season. She is by FAR the most qualified Democrat, but the way you, Howard Dean, Donna Brazille, and others have treated her, you would think she was just in her first term or something. Oh, no, wait - that's Senator OBAMA who has little experience!!! This is not supposed to be a coronation. The nomiee for the Party is supposed to reflect the will of the people, and the candidate most likely to win the White House. That candidate, by popular vote, and by ALL of the polls, is Senator CLINTON.

And if you care SO much for the Rules, why are NH, IA, and SC not being penalized as well??? There is only ONE reason for it - you, and the DNC leadership, assumed Obama was going to win all three states, and have gamed this nomination. That is why THOSE states, who broke the rules, had ZERO penalties. Meanwhile, two heavily Clinton states, FL and MI were penalized 100% by Donna Brazille and the DNC. That kind of disparate treatment, that VAST disenfranchisement of voters, is reprehensible. The DNP should NOT be the Party of Disenfranchisement, yet that is EXACTLY what it has done. It is staggering to me that this is what the DNC has become.

It is exactly this type of behavior, in addition to your failed leadership in the House (as if ANYONE needed more ammunition that George Bush is a war criminal, McClellan's upcoming book PROVES he intentionally deceived us, but YOU took Impeachment off the table preemptively. This seems to be a PATTERN with you.), that has led MANY of us to leave the Democratic Party. I am a lifelong Democrat, or was, until now - I never thought I would be SO ashamed of my party as I am now. The constant bias demonstrated against Senator Clinton, along with the blatant sexism and misogyny demonstrated by this Party, has made it clear that this is not the organization with which I want to be affiliated. I will continue to support Senator Clinton's candidacy, and I will support individual candidates, but the DNC has lost yet another member, and conributor.

Make no mistake - it is not Senator Clinton dividing this Party - it is you, Howard Dean, and Donna Brazille who are destroying this Party. And allowing the Republcians to keep the White House. You should all be ashamed of how you have acted this primary season.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Amy