Let rational head prevail. Fight to McCain.

If even 10% of those who voted for Hillary actually vote for McCain there won't be a "Democratic Agenda" because President McCain will veto it. This is a huge problem the party must now confront. The manner of Hillary's exit will determine whether or not Obama is the next President

"were not Dems to begin with, nor did they care why Sen Clinton was running for president."

With all due respect, stimulate yourself.

I've been a Democrat since day one.  I respect and admire Senator Clinton.  

The idea that Clinton supporters aren't even Democrats is patently absurd.  

You are inferring your own bias with that broad statement. I did not say all Clinton supporters. I am talking about the Clinton supporter that 'threatens' to vote for McCain. That supporter does not support the Dem agenda and yes with those threats I question their Dem credentials, because what they are saying is that they plan to vote against most of  what Sen Clinton was running for.

They are caught up in the candidate and not the message. I have no allegiance to Obama only the message. One thing I am glad I did not do was to get caught up in the Obama hype. One thing I know is Sen Clinton or maybe it was her campaign style is what pushed me away.  I liked her message but not her tactics. So I started to look at Edwards and Obama. The rest is history.

You may get your wish.

Connecticut is a fairly reliable Democratic state.  Gore won it by 17%.  Kerry won it by 11%.  Clinton won it by 18%.  

Nominating Obama will put it in play for the Republicans.  Per Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Connecticut finds Barack Obama attracting 47% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. Given that choice, 4% would opt for "some other candidate" while 5% are not sure.
In early March, Obama led McCain by twelve percentage points. However, that poll was conducted before Obama's controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, became part of the campaign dialogue. Currently, Obama is viewed favorably by 57% of Connecticut voters. That rating is down ten percentage points since March.

Putting Connecticut in play?  Only a weak candidate with a narrow appeal would lose CT.  (Cue music for Mike Dukakis, who did lose it.)

I voted for one in each of the last 4 presidential elections and I wasn't a Democrat then either.

You have 17 million for one side and 17 million for the other.  It really strikes me that if we don't find some unhappy medium (any compromise is going to be distasteful) for both sides, one side is going to punish the other in perpetuity.

It really strikes me that for people who want Senator Clinton in 2012, they forget that a sizable chunk went for Senator Obama.

It also strikes me that for Senator Obama supporters, they don't realize that the easiest road to the nomination is bringing Clinton Supporters into the fold.  Your strategy really shifts without a unified base.

FLS,

How old are you ? Seriously, how old are you?

How old were you in Reagan/Bush era of the 80's?

Do you know that between 6-10 million "registered democrats", "aka Reagan democrats" consistently voted Republican in that era ? Many of them coming from the North & Midwest.

And these same group of registered democrats came home in 1992 & 1996 to support a democrat again.

I admire you for attempting to sound courageous, principled, and cute- but do you mind if I throw a bucket of freezing water over your head ?

You & 17 million Obama fans can scream, yell & proclaim to the world  the words , " the hell with Clinton democrats, we do not need them. they can vote for McCain".

Yes FLS. You can do that 24/7 until November.

But on the eve of November 4th, when you face reality-----

There will be No President Obama.

What democratic agenda? There will be No democratic agenda.

Come back to earth FLS. Emotions & Positive thinking alone will not deliver the white house to Obama.

Let me end by saying:

Right now, depending on who you believe among all these so called pollsters & political experts-

anywhere from a low 20% to as high as 40% in several key battleground states of Clinton supporters are expected to either vote for McCain or not vote at all. But most pollsters show between the 30% and 38% range.

Can that number change? sure.

Will Obama at least get majority of Clinton supporters to vote for him in Nov. Absolutely !

No matter who you believe, Obama should get at least 60% of Clinton voters. Hopefully higher.

But lets not kid ourselves.

As Stu Rothenberg eloquently put it. If even 10%- of Clinton supporters vote for McCain in November, there will be no President Barack Obama.

He also points out that in every presidential election, anywhere from 5% to 8% of both democrats & republicans normally switch to the other side. That pretty much washes it out.

But the Clinton base of democrats are not part of that equation. They are working class whites, women, & latinos who put Bill Clinton over the top twice & nearly put Gore over the top.

As Rothenberg clearly points out, if say 10% or 15% Clinton democrats defect to the GOP, battleground states like PA,MI,OH,MO,FL,NH would immediately turn red in the GE. And just like Gore & Kerry, the entire south would be gone.

It would be a huge electoral defeat for the democrat.

There's a lot of work to be done here my friend.

And simply dismissing Clinton supporters as unimportant is one option Obama can afford.

Whats the key in all these according to Rothenberg?

No pollster or expert today even shows 10%-15%. Majority are all showing the range of 30%-38%.

Reality is very different than hope.

serious attention to our grievances and they are major ones which go back years.

I simply don't understand why you want us to give unconditional support to your candidate, and why I, personally, should have to continue holding my nose while I'm voting, once again, for the party's chosen and most flawed candidate, who so arrogantly dismissed us by telling us that we were the ones who would come around but not you, his supporters, if Clinton won?

Why should I support a man who chose to surround himself with racist, sexist hate mongers for the past 20 yrs for pure political ambition? Why are these very same people, who were close to him, sabotaging his campaign?  

You have no idea how hard it was for me to vote for Kerry, who ran as Bush "lite" regarding the war, simply because he had a D next to his name! A man who didn't have the courage to defend his character as it was demonized and worse, as his heroic military service was denigrated by a man who went AWOL for the last 2 yrs of his service in the Texas National Guard during the Viet Nam war! How lame could he be but I still voted for him because he was the democrat! What does it say about my character?

I'm at an age (61), when I don't want to do that anymore. I'm fed up of toeing the party line, losing elections after elections because of bad handpicked party candidates a la Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis,and yes even Carter because my vote was taken for granted!

Really, upon reflection, why should I, as a woman, continue to endorse a party which has let me down time after time? A party in which 22 elected democratic members were allowed, without any sanctions, to confirm pro-life Roberts and 4 democrats who voted to confirm the rabid pro-life Alito, whom, by the way, your candidate didn't want to filibuster until kos and democrats.com shamed him into it! I just remembered that Scalia was confirmed 98 to 0 which included Gore and Kennedy and what about the 11 democrats who voted for Thomas!!! The democratic party has taken our votes and our money and in return has given us these pro-life judges time after time! So don't cite the threat of Roe vs Wade to us when democrats continue to be complicit in it's drip, drip dilution even though women are the most loyal and dependable majority of voters -damn us, because where can we go? At this point, it makes no difference! Our lives and health have been put at risk for political gains with no repercussions from us until now! The party stood by while Clinton was denigrated by the media such as the whole of MSNBC. Dean has now recongnized and spoke out against her sexist treatment 3 days before the end of the primaries - telling isn't it? Let's molify the little women so they'll come out in force in November... how very pathetic!

Why is it that the republicans can filibuster successfully the majority of the legislation proposed by the dems during the 1 1/2 yr they have been the minority and the dems caved in and hardly used the filibuster as a weapon against their obscene legislations for 14 yrs?

Why haven't they tried to give us some kind of relief from high cost health insurance such as allowing individual policy holders the ability to fully deduct the cost of their premiums on our tax form? or better yet pass a law banning health insurance companies from disqualifying people with pre-existing conditions?  

Why are we still in Iraq with no prospect of leaving after they promised us they would get these poor soldiers, who are our sons, brothers or husbands, out if we voted them in?

What have they accomplished of importance, in stand alone bills, without having to add them to the war appropriations bills to get them passed except to try 8 times to give amnesty to illegal aliens which was starting to piss me off because  shouldn't they fight and put the present dire needs of the american people first before anyone else? What is the urgency and their stubborness about this bill if not for their corporate masters salivating at getting cheap labor to further erode american wages? Ask any engineers in any discipline how well they are doing financially and how secure they are in their work with most projects going either to India, China or Romania? Engineers have now become "checkers" of the badly executed work from people coming out of diploma mills from these countries because it's still cheaper than paying americans to do the job fully!

I refuse to be the good little girl anymore and do as I'm told! Saturday was an epiphany for me - I finally realized that it's not a democratic party, as it ironically calls itself, but a finely tuned machine masquerading as a party fighting for democracy which was unmasked to the whole world as being the complete opposite.

To you, the new young urban and suburban members of this corrupt party, I envy your enthusiasm, idealism, naivety, your freshness of ideas, as I once had, and good for you for claiming the party as your own - the torch has been passed and my sincere good luck in trying to reform it. I hope for your sakes that you will achieve it and that you will not one day, as us "old asses", as we were once called on this site, wake up and see all your beliefs, ideals and hard work for what we thought was a "democratic" party crushed as mine were Saturday!

If that day comes because you succeeded, I might just give the party another look but not today or in a near future, I'm too busy licking my wounds, and they are deep, I feel betrayed, my principles and convictions were shattered and frankly I've been burned by this party too many times - I'm divorcing myself from the party and in my case, I never thought I would ever say this, but I have no choice but to look to McCain because I need his promised $5,000 for my health insurance, I don't have the luxury to wait for Obama to think about giving mandated health insurance to adults in his 2nd term and only if it works for kids because my life literally depends on it, today!

Maybe we will all go vote for Nader like so many did in 2000?  Let them know what it's like.