WASHINGTON — A massive e-mail and Internet campaign is under way aimed at derailing the nomination of Barack Obama and making Hillary Clinton the party’s standard bearer next week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
“It’s downright nasty,” said Memphis, Tenn., superdelegate and city council member Myron Lowery, who has shared dozens of the messages he’s received with The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal newspaper.
“I think it’s divisive for the ‘Support Hillary’ campaign to continue at this time. She made the decision to fully support Mr. Obama,” said Lowery, who initially supported Clinton but later switched his allegiance to Obama. “I don’t know why they’re not taking their cue from Hillary and falling in line.”
Lowery said he does not believe Clinton herself is behind the effort, but that it’s “her supporters, acting on their own because they’re proud of what they have done for her.”
Most of the messages Lowery has received from across the country come from Hillary supporters making the case that she won more voters’ votes in the primaries, she won bigger states, that Obama won states that won’t vote Democratic in November, and that she is the only “electable” Democrat.
“I think it’s a terrible tactic,” said Memphis delegate, Baptist minister and Shelby County, Tenn., Democratic Party Chairman Keith Norman. “We had hoped that this kind of politics, especially from within the party, would have been abandoned.”
A pledged Obama delegate, Norman noted that some of the attacks are overtly racist and that in one instance Obama was likened to “the Anti-Christ.”
“We have a historic moment that we need to grasp and we need to move forward as a unified party,” he said.
She may need more than whips to keep her delegates under control in Denver.
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