INSIDER TELLS OF OBAMA DELEGATE “PURGE”

[OpEdNews.com]

Marcy Winograd is an Executive Board member of the California Democratic Party, representing the 41st Assembly District (Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Topanga, Malibu, and Brentwood). And she is also an Obama delegate.

Winograd brings us interesting news about Barack Obama. According to Winograd, Obama is “purging” strong, progressive women and other politically active Democrats from his California delegate list, and has winnowed the pool of persons allowed to attend the convention in August down to a robotic few.

The reason: Obama is afraid that strong women with their own political constituencies and other independent thinkers might switch and vote for Senator Clinton at the convention. (After the first ballot, if no nominee is selected, even the pledged delegates can vote for whomever they want.)

Writes insider Winograd:

“By dusk on Wednesday, the California Obama campaign had purged almost all progressive activists from its delegate candidate lists. Names of candidates, people who had filed to run to represent Obama at the August Democratic Party National Convention, disappeared, not one by one, but hundreds at a time, from the Party web site listing the eligibles.

“The list of Obama delegate hopefuls in one northern California congressional district went from a robust 100 to an anemic 23, while in southern California, the list in Congressman Waxman’s district almost slipped out of sight, plunging from a high of 91 candidates to 17. Gone were strong women with independent political bases.

“Who was left standing, still in the running for the Sunday delegate caucuses?

“The bundlers, the men and women who skirt campaign finance laws by bundling cash, a bundle of $2,000 here and a bundle of $2,000 there -- and some, though certainly not all, of the Obama volunteers, loyalists from day one.

“Who was kicked to the curb? Brian Leubitz, a Calitics blogger with a mighty pen, Tad Daley, former policy advisor to Cranston and Kucinich and a career fellow with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Alan Toy, a disabled rights activist and Chair of the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Santa Monica, and a nameless, yet tireless grassroots volunteer who toiled nights making precinct maps …. and me. Marcy Winograd.

Winograd explains why she survived the delegate purge:

“Did I take an Obama loyalty oath? Even better.

“Two years ago I picketed a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in Hancock Park and was quoted telling the Los Angeles Times. “Hillary Clinton led us to war. She is not the kind of leader we need.”

“I sit on the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party and will vote in June on DNC delegates who will preside over the convention in August.

"These are the men and women who will make the rules at a potentially brokered convention.

“How very sad, indeed, that the Obama campaign has chosen to slash and burn its list of supporters, as this purging policy projects the wrong image, makes the campaign look nervous, not at all confident – and, I'm afraid, anti-democratic and mercenary, given the coveted treatment of bundlers running for delegate seats.”

OUR TAKE: Barack Obama really fears Hillary Clinton at a convention floor fight, and is equally insecure about the loyalty of his own supporters. Sad indeed!