Thank-you to all voices responding to the call for fairness, from the Superdelegates

Go to superdelegate, Norma Fisher Flores website here:
and particiapte in this citizen call for unity from the DNC and responsibility in the actions on the part of some of the Superdelegates' voting behaviors!




Sandra G. Blundetto
Attorney at Law
103 Hawley AvenuePort Chester, New York 10573

May 21, 2008

Governor Howard Dean

Democratic National Committee

430 South Capitol Street SE

Washington, D.C. 20003

Rules and Bylaws Committee Members

Democratic National Committee

430 South Capitol Street SE

Washington, D.C. 20003


Re: All votes must count


Dear Chairman Dean and Rules and Bylaws Committee Members Donna Brazile, Mark Brewer, Martha Fuller Clark, Ralph Dawson, Hartina Flournoy, Donald Fowler, Carol Khare Fowler, Yvonne Gates, Alice Germond, Jaime A. Gonzalez, Jr., Janice Griffin, Alexis Herman, Alice Huffman, Thomas Hynes, Harold Ickes, Ben Johnson, Elaine Kamarck, Allan Katz, Eric Kleinfeld, David T. McDonald, Mona Pasquil, Mame Reiley, James Roosevelt, Jr. Garry Shay, Elizabeth Smith, Michael Steed, Sharon Stroschein, Sarah Swisher, Everett Ward, and Jerome Wiley Segovia:

I am writing to you on behalf of myself and other women who believe they are not being factored into the decision making of the Democratic National Committee (the “DNC”). If you want my continued support and vote in November you will demand that no one declare victory until all of the primaries are over and until everyone has had a chance to vote and until all votes from Florida and Michigan are counted.

DO NOT assume that women who have been ignored will vote with the party come November. I, like many women who support Senator Clinton, will not vote for a Democrat in November if all votes from Florida and Michigan are not permitted to count and if everyone is not permitted to be heard.

I am very upset over the message you are sending by condoning the actions of some senior Democrats. Mr. Kennedy’s countless calling for Senator Clinton to pull out should not be condoned and I cannot continue to be a member of our party if the DNC permits men of stature to disregard women.

Mr. Kennedy adamantly supports Mr. Obama, even though Senator Clinton overwhelmingly won Massachusetts by fourteen (14) points. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly called for Senator Clinton to pull out of the race, yet when he was running for President he took his battle for the Democratic nomination to the convention floor, trying to change the rules to unseat Jimmy Carter even though Carter had the requisite delegates to win the nomination. This party is condoning Mr. Kennedy’s and other senior members’ flagrant disregard for women, and we have a clear message to each of you, “Women do not want to be left in the water.”

We poke fun at the Republicans but at least they permitted Mike Huckabee to stay in the race even though he had no chance of winning. The Republicans did not disenfranchise their own voters.

It appears that the senior members of our party believe that the rules for women candidates are not the same as the rules imposed upon male candidates.

Let me remind you that the DNC has every reason to worry that white women voters, three times larger than the combined black vote, will either stay away from the polls in November or vote for McCain. I cannot believe that my own party is attempting to disenfranchise women – the very group that can elect a Democrat but will not vote for one if they are not heard.

I read yesterday an article written by Dr. Lynette Long who reminded me of what Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, said in 1969, and I quote “Of my two handicaps, being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.” The DNC, Mr. Kennedy, John Edwards and senior members of our party have been more sensitive to racism then to sexism in this election. Let me remind you that many women are educated and hold offices of high regard and take issue with your condoning the behavior of Senator Obama who refers to women as “sweetie.” Nor are women “typical,” a phrase Senator Obama used to describe his “typical white aunt who would not cross the street if she saw a black person on the other side.” Senator Obama’s comments are racist and sexist. Does our party endorse racism and sexism? Racism and sexism of any sort should not be tolerated.

Women are not irrelevant. Women are not typical. Women are not second-class citizens and it is wrong to condone pervasive insidious sexism. Our vote matters. Women will determine who will win in November. Women comprise more than fifty percent (50%) of the vote and white women are the largest race/gender voting block in the country.

Voters who support Hillary are not racist. We are every color and of every religion. We support Senator Clinton because she is the more qualified candidate and the only one who can beat Senator McCain. In fact, Karl Rove’s electoral maps prove Senator Clinton can beat Senator McCain but guess who can’t beat Senator McCain? Electoral maps put together by the consulting firm helmed by Rove, and obtained by ABC News, show Senator Hillary Clinton to be a stronger general election candidate in a hypothetical general election match-up against Senator McCain, than Senator Obama.

The Democrats will be defeated without Senator Clinton as the presidential nominee on the ticket. History will show that you condoned a flagrant disregard for women in this election and that the Democratic party caused its own defeat. You are ignoring the largest voting block. Why are we Democrats?

Women will have no choice but to adhere to the moral imperative to leave the Democratic party or ensure that a Democrat is defeated. Only then will women be respected and never again be ignored. When women vote, Democrats win.

If you want my support in November you will let everyone be heard and you will count each and every vote from Florida and Michigan. We simply cannot ignore the fact that a record 2.35 million voters in Florida and Michigan went to the polls and exercised the most fundamental of all rights – the right to vote. If we stand for nothing else we must stand for the principle that every vote counts and that every vote is counted. Florida and Michigan will be crucial states in November and we cannot afford to alienate voters and should not aim to handicap our nominee. We cannot permit Floridians again to be disenfranchised and I do not want to belong to a party that disenfranchises anyone under any pretext. A decision must be made by May 31st so that the Florida and Michigan delegations can have a meaningful participation in the Democratic National Convention. Voters in Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico are waiting to cast their ballots and we need their support.

Senator Clinton is the stronger, more experienced candidate. Senator Clinton can and will win in November. Senator Obama cannot defeat Senator McCain.

Every single vote from Florida and Michigan must count! Please, I beg you, do not cause our own defeat by disenfranchising voters.

Sincerely,

Sandra G. Blundetto
Attorney at Law


cc: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Senator Ted Kennedy (Via Federal Express)

John Edwards
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Terry McAuliffe
Certain delegates


Among the other open letters to the Democratic National Convention and the Superdelegates I really liked, is this one from my state:


To Every Super Delegate:


The voice of the people is the bedrock of our democracy. We do insist that you hear the collective voice of the people. Count every, single vote honestly and allow the Democratic nomination for president to be decided the same way.

In a Philadelphia Inquirer article this past week, columnist Jonathan Last, noted how Senator Clinton, "has the numbers." Continuing to state: "Lost in the excitement of Barack Obama's coronation this week was an inconvenient fact of Tuesday's results: Hillary Clinton netted approximately 150,000 votes and is now poised to finish the primary season as the popular-vote leader. In some quaint circles, presumably, these things still matter.”

We are part of that quaint circle. We are also among those who began this primary season with hope and now vacillate between outrage and despair. How painful to witness what, at best, historians will view as another shameful period in our history and, at worst, the demise of the Democratic Party. You have the power to prevent that. Please, in the name of fairness, use it wisely.

And please, please open your eyes. The quest for the democratic nomination was supposed to transcend and herald the beginning of the end to bigotry. Instead, it has unveiled wide, perhaps insurmountable chasms, including the brutal, insidious misogyny that pervades our culture. It has also revealed rock solid maneuvers to blame the victim.

We at least pretend to be 'shocked, shocked' ...that racism still exists in this country; yet sexism is considered so unimportant it is practiced with regularity and glee: Tee shirts telling a presidential candidate to go cook some guy's dinner. Members of her own party ignoring landslide primary victories, insisting she step aside, and admonishing her supporters not to waste their votes on her and/or their money by contributing to her campaign. Pundits calling her a bitch, a murderess and worse on national television and accusing her of "pimping" out a daughter who chose to campaign for her. Let her make an historical reference to the campaign process, and members of her own party she twist her words into exploiting the Kennedy family's tragedies or plotting an assassination; yet there was absolute silence from democratic officials when media pundits accused her of being willing to settle for the Vice Presidency in order to do Obama in.

Subject Obama's every move or word to the same twisting and daily diatribes launched at Hillary, or substitute Afro-American for the sexist invectives, and the outcry of virulent racism would be swift and well deserved. Yet where is the outcry when a woman is the target of denigration? And why is it justly accepted that Obama's supporters believe he's the best candidate. Yet, as if it's unthinkable any woman could be thought of as the "best qualified," Hillary supporters are dubbed losers and/or racist and their motives are questioned and negatively psychoanalyzed.

And why did no super delegate or member of the DNC challenge CNN's declaration that democrats wouldn't dare deny an African-American the prize in a neck-in-neck race. The party's silence speaks volumes begging the question, what about women?

The answer is that many women voters take Hillary's mistreatment personally and many life-long democrats of both genders consider their party complicit in a media-driven misogynist holocaust. They demand fairness, which will never be achieved by over-riding the will of the majority with the will of the few_ particularly even the super few. Nor will fairness by achieved by a pretense of party unity. We have to look at these problems honestly and openly, work to solve them and allow every voice to be heard.

Even if the decision goes all the way to the convention floor, as long as it reflects the voice of the people, the party will come together. Otherwise, if Hillary is denied the nomination by numbers manipulation or some pretense at party unity, many of her supporters intend to re-register as independents and/or write in her name, vote for McCain or not vote at all. The Democratic Party would be unwise to underestimate the intensity, determination and power of these voters.

Neither can the party delude itself that passions will cool by November and everyone will fall into line. The will of half a party's voters cannot be ignored without repercussion, no candidate can win with massive demographic defections, and when people perceive their party has abandoned them they vote with their feet, regardless of the consequences. Only by counting every vote; discounting prejudice and the media, and selecting the nominee at a fully represented convention, will the Democratic Party have a chance to heal its rifts. Otherwise - and the thought is terrifying -- the election will be handed to McCain on a silver platter.

Glennie & Barry Feinsmith

Ashland OR 97520