Food for thought from Hot Air….
Remember the PUMA movement (Party Unity My A$$)? Hillary Clinton dead-enders attempted to organize in the tail end of the Democratic primaries, in a futile effort to unseat Barack Obama from the nomination. Now filmmaker Brad Mays has produced a documentary look at the PUMA movement called The Audacity of Democracy, and my friend Tommy Christopher at AOL’s Political Machine tips me off to the release and the trailer … which is NSFW due to some foul language:
Good question? I ask this of myself sometimes, where’s PUMA?
Though Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey asked this question today too.
Tommy has been a PUMA skeptic from the word go, and I’d presume that the film takes a similar approach to the movement from this trailer. In the end, of course, the skepticism was justified. It arguably put pressure on Obama to include Hillary in his campaign, but failed to put her on the ticket in either slot. In the end, the massive defections to John McCain threatened by the PUMAs never appeared, and Obama won in a rout.
The PUMA phenomenon deserves a look, and I’m interested to see whether Mays succeeds in capturing both sides of the equation well enough to make it worthwhile.
Stealth Magnolia 
After Obama became the D nominee, it was the R’s election to lose.
And, it wasn’t a rout, Reagan/Mondale, that was a rout.
The R’s had reams of campaign material they could have used, but they didn’t. They restricted their campaign to mocking Obama, and when McCain campaign events had participants shouting “NOBAMA”, McCain told them to stop. Apparently, stating your opposition to the candidate in the rival party is a no-no.
PUMA’s were never to going to convince Obama to acquiesce a thing to Sen. Clinton, but she IS SOS, traveling the world while Obie begs for the votes for his stimulus package.
I think the PUMA effect will be felt for quite a while.
In unexpected ways.
9.5 million of McCain’s voters would have voted for Hillary if she had been the nominee, according to exit polls*. Obama won by 7%, Hillary would have won by c. 12%. That figures in the Obama voters who would have stayed home, but does not figure in the Hillary voters who did stay home.
Polls in June and in late summer showed about 7 million Hillary supporters refusing to vote for Obama: 3 million planning to vote for McCain and 4 million planning to stay home.
Instead we had 9.5 million vote for McCain plus an uncountable number who stayed home. That is a better than expected showing for PUMAs! It’s three times the margin of victory in 2004.
*Cites available from tdo@turndownobama.com. Cite links may still be up at http://www.turndownobama.com and at blogs linked from there.
To add a little opinion here. Some Pumas wanted Hillary to be, or be offered, VP; others opposed it. A poll near the convention said that her presence as VP would lose as many votes as it would gain.
In my opinion, the presence of the Pumas gave Hillary a bargaining chip throughout the summer and fall, which she may have used in getting SOS and what has been called the ‘Clinton Restoration’, ie appointments of many old Clinton 90s people to the new cabinet.
I would love to see the PUMAs surge again and keep pressure on both parties. Having found this story on a conservative news board, I thought it was a good sign that PUMAs are still a force to be reckoned with 🙂
Denise, we PUMAs are still around and active. Daily Puma com is a good place to start. Also, we’d count The New Agenda as PUMA, though they dissociate from us.
9.5 million of McCain’s voters would have voted for Hillary if she had been the nominee, according to exit polls*. Obama won by 7%, Hillary would have won by c. 12%. That figures in the Obama voters who would have stayed home, but does not figure in the Hillary voters who did stay home.
Polls in June and in late summer showed about 7 million Hillary supporters refusing to vote for Obama: 3 million planning to vote for McCain and 4 million planning to stay home.
Instead we had 9.5 million vote for McCain plus an uncountable number who stayed home. That is a better than expected showing for PUMAs! It’s three times the margin of victory in 2004.
*Exit poll data from a CBS story c. Nov 5. I can supply more cites if they can get through moderation
Here is some more detail on the 9.5 million McCain voters:
“43% of these voters who supported McCain but would have backed Clinton if she were in the race described themselves as Independents. 31% were Republicans; while 26% were Democrats”
insert h….w’s stuff
cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/11/12/politics/horserace/entry4596620.shtml?source=search_story
I’m not sure we Pumas can claim the 31% Republicans or even all the 43% Independents, if we define Pumas as Hillary supporters in the primary who were protesting the DNC selection of Obama etc. Still 9.5 million is an impressive swing vote.
53-49% is not a blow out.
If there were no PUMA’s at all, then it would have been something like a 55-47 victory, which probably could bee viewed as a blow out.
http://www.DailyPUMA.com
Right after the election someone (MSM maybe) did some comparing and said that Obama’s victory was about as clear as Bill Clinton’s, rather than some big deal. I don’t think he was looking at the Pumas at all.