Eli Sanders gives a floor view of a Seattle caucus

HT to Gabriel Malor over at AoSHQ

Eli Sanders is a correspondent for The Slog, the blog for The Stranger which is Seattle's only newspaper. He was at the second round caucus for Democrats in the 43rd district. Pay close attention to the report, and note that the emphasis below is not mine, but Mr. Sanders:

There was a portion of the program devoted to surrogate speeches, and Obama’s surrogate, Sen. Ed Murray, stood at the rear of the stage (where the lights were actually on) and pronounced: “I have been coming to these meetings since the mid-1980s and I have never seen anything like today.” The numbers were a very good sign, he said.

Hillary Clinton’s surrogate? He was very, very late, causing a lot of grumbling from the crowd, which was overwhelmingly pro-Obama.

While everyone waited for the Clinton surrogate to appear and give his speech, Congressman Jim McDermott showed up and lumbered toward the stage. Before mounting the steps he turned back to take in the crowd and snap a digital picture for himself. In his remarks he too praised the turnout, saying: “It makes me think we’re going to win in November.” But then he added, ominously, that Republicans are determined to play the fear card. “They’re looking for ways to have bomber strikes on Iran,” he said. “They’re looking for some little excuse.” The audience loved every word of it, giving McDermott the lefty hero treatment even though he remained neutral on the issue of the day, the question of who the Democratic nominee should be. “Both of them are good candidates,” he said.

When Clinton’s surrogate finally showed up he was… Sean Astin??? Yes, the man who played Samwise Gangee in Lord of the Rings had flown up to rally the Hillary Clinton troops. Which made very little sense, given that the type of people who show up for legislative district caucuses on a Saturday don’t really need a celebrity (or semi-celebrity) to motivate them to take political action.

Astin’s speech was most memorable for this line: “Should Obama get the nomination I will become a massive Barack Hussein Obama supporter.”

Hussein? Eyebrows shot up. Brows furrowed. Heads turned. A friend in the audience texted me: “Hussein!?” I’m not sure what Astin was up to with that line, but someone probably should have told him that Seattle’s 43rd District is the last place in the U.S. where subliminal messaging around Obama’s middle name is likely to move Democrats toward Clinton.

Further proof of this: There was some time to kill as multiple tallies of the delegates and alternates were done, and when the time-killer of taking audience questions had run its course and the idea of teling jokes had been nixed, someone suggested doing the Pledge of Allegiance to pass the time. (Are you listening, right-wing bloggers? This is going to get good.)

At the mere mention of doing the pledge there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down. One might more accurately say the idea of pledging allegiance to the flag (of which there was only one in the room, by the way, on some delegate’s hat) was shouted down.

There is something amiss when not only will Obama no perform the Pledge, or acknowledge the flag, but his supporters refuse to do this as well. Scratch "amiss." There's something simply wrong about it. It is a symbol of this nation, and it should be respected. His supporters clearly could give a rip about their patriotic responsibility.

As for Jim McDermott, what an @$$. He knows damn good and well we're not "making up excuses" to go after Iran. We don't need to. Iran is already in deep enough trouble with it's nuke program. Should they unveil a working nuclear weapon, we'll have the justification to take out those sites, especially if they resort to nuclear blackmail of Iraq, or any other nation in the region which happens to be an ally of ours.

This display was positively sickening. It reminds me of the Paul Wellstone Memorial back in 2002. These people are unhinged, angry, petulant little Democrats that will take anything that's fed to them without questioning a single aspect of the statements. The lack of patriotism alone makes me want to puke.

Folks, this is what we're up against. It's the a-typical "Network" moment, but instead of one man screaming "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it was an auditorium filled with Democrats. If these people don't get their way in August, we can see angry mobs crying "FOUL" if Obama doesn't win the nomination. And, of course, there's November where, if McCain wins, the cacophonous screams of "voter fraud" will echo across the nation.

To avoid that, I suggest the Democrats do the right thing, and nominate him. Then I suggest we Republicans turn out in droves on election day, and give McCain the landslide win to shut up the idiotic accusations that we cheated.

Publius II