Staunch Hillary Clinton delegate axed by Wisconsin party

Well, they got her.

Debra Bartoshevich, the duly elected Democratic Party delegate for Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin who vowed undying loyalty to the former first lady, has been dumped by the state party and barred from attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month.

According to the Associated Press, the state party's administrative committee has officially whacked Bartoshevich from the 92-member delegation.

Bartoshevich campaigned tirelessly for Clinton in Wisconsin and traveled to other states at her own expense. She was excited at the prospect of the first female candidate for president in a major party.

A 41-year-old emergency room nurse who says she's never voted Republican in her life, Bartoshevich was fiercely in favor of Clinton's universal healthcare program. She donated chunks of her salary to the New York senator. Bartoshevich was elected a convention delegate at the county level and was very excited about the trip to her lifelong party's national convention. (As she explains in detail in this video available by clicking on Read more line below.)

But when Barack Obama won sufficient delegates to capture the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Bartoshevich was bitterly disappointed. Not unlike a lot of the 17 million supporters who...

...voted for the New York senator. While Clinton has urged her backers to support Obama, many seem to be hesitating.

"No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her," Bartoshevich told a local journalist. "That's by Susan B. Anthony."

Bartoshevich had such residual anger about the treatment of Clinton by her party that she said come Nov. 4 she was going to vote for John McCain, who is not a lifelong Democrat.

State party chair Joe Wineke, an ardent supporter of John Edwards until he became an ardent supporter of Obama, began proceedings to strip the delegate status from Bartoshevich.

Before the vote, Bartoshevich told the committee by phone that she, like millions of American women, had been "inspired" by Hillary Clinton's run and that her loss last month was "an emotional time."

Bartoshevich said she was open to persuasion by Obama and pleaded for the opportunity to listen and to cast her vote for Sen. Clinton in Denver.

The committee voted 23-0 to throw her out.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[chargy]

Seems like the DNC said "pick up your toys and go home"
Some leadership. Dean, Pelosi, Brazile count your days they are numbered. We need to have adults in office.
Go PUMA's
HIllary 08/ McCain 08

[CC]

What did she expect? She made it clear that she was intending to be a disruption, and that really is a good way to get yourself uninvited, to any party.

[coolrepublica]

Wow! Democracy as seen by the democratic party. Fall in line or get thrown out.

Unions are working to make sure they know who union members are voting for in elections and the democratic party support that effort.

Howard Stern was right. It seems that the democrats are closet communist. We learn a lot this campaign season. A lot.

[Tom J]

Your phrase 'officially whacked' reminds me of Clinton's hilarious Sopranos ad (definitely the funniest ad of the entire campaign).

On a serious note, I look forward to Hillary's speech at the convention and I do NOT want it overshadowed by some delegate on a personal vendetta against Barack who thinks she's doing Hillary some sort of favor by refusing to recognize reality.

[gaiaschild]

I am sorry this delegate is hurt. I might feel the same had the primary turned out another way. The Clintons did not catch the wave of change in a winning way. There is a sense with Obama's candidacy that we can mature, we can grow beyond the sort of campaign tactics that further polarize, divide, accuse, and demean. It's a huge sea change and is is beyond gender and race differences. Certainly there will be a woman president but there has to be a spirit of positive leadership and not a spirit of recriminate and ruin the other. As you can see, Sen. McCain is reacting in the old way. Rather than bringing an inspirational vision, he's reactive to the Obama promise. We need to do better. It takes maturation but it defies fossilization and crystallization of the old ways. No arterial plaque, neurosis and fakery. No need for recrimination and assault. Leadership.

[Zoe]

May of us who voted for Clinton are "open to persuasion by Obama" but each day it becomes more and more obvious that Obama is not "open" to persuading us. He is not interested in votes of the grassroots Democratic party. He has plenty of money from corporate supporters and has surrounded himself with "yes we can" men who tell him that he will win. His arrogance tells him that he will handily win despite the fact that he and McCain are running neck and neck in all the polls. And besides, Obama can always steal the election, the way he cheated in the caucuses.

[Alex Masuerte]

The bottom line is she was out of line with the party's interest and so she must go.
Party first before candidate. If she can't live with that she has no purpose being a delegate, so she deserves to be booted out.
Democrats - democratic and have freedom of our actions. But we must face the consequences of our acts as well.

[Vote Hillary]

That's the DnC for ya! Exactly why i'm voting Republican this year.....Hillary2012!!

[omgroflcakes]

Pwned.

Obama '08.

[Don L]

You do have to admire their spirit of tolerance for differing opinions and fair treatment of a minority. Gosh, you think she was against murdering the unborn, or winning the war on terror, or something real evil to throw her out like that.

They just treated her like their media friends treat the truth - throw it out when it gets inconvenient. I suspect the day isn't too far off when these intolerant control freaks gain control and do this to all of us -particularly the fools in their own party that empower this stuff, thinking it'll never happen to me.....

[cindy a]

Good riddance to bad rubbish! If I had been there voting, it would have been 24-0 instead of 23-0. She deserves to sit in the dark for four more years of Republican misrule while McCain appoints more Scalias and Thomases to roll back women's rights. But that's not what the rest of us deserve!

[jmousso]

I've been a lifetime Democrat and I will in no way vote for Obama or donate another penny to the Democratic Party. The Party's treatment of the Clintons and their supporters has been disgusting.

They act like Obama is the second coming of Jesus Christ! NOT!

The Party wants more money so they grand stand their "selected" candidate.

GO PUMA

[Alan]

Ignored? Hardly. Her vote counted the same as every other voter's.

[Rachel]

Gimme a break! of course you don't get to attend the Democratic convention when you publicly declare you are planning on voting Republican! Grow Up.

[Bobbi Nash]

I agree with Debra. You have to put the country before the party. And I don't think Obama is right for the country, for the economy, for women or for the party for that matter. What threw me over to the McCain side was his arrogance -- replacing the flag on his plane with his own symbol, using a "pretend" presidential seal, and especially his recent "I love me" tour. How vain.

[Go Obama]

My My My such a bitter little person. The Democratic party does not need such narrow minded people. She should feel very welcome in the company of Bush, Cheney, Rusmfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cain. These are people who are all on the same wavelength.

[Tim]

There were two candidates.

The democrats voted for one of them.

The other lost.

Please explain why this is unfair? I'm sorry that the person you liked lost, but that is fair, and that is life.

I lived through 8 years with a president that I did not like from day one. I will still vote, even if my candidate loses again.

I will not cry if my candidate loses. And I DEFINITLY will not through a fit like a little kid, try to cause chaos in the system, or make rash decisions that effect me and everyone else negatively.

This little girl makes me sick. Obama got the icecream cone instead of Hillary, so lets know the icecream cone out of Obama's hands too, there, now no one gets any happiness.

[w3bgrrl]

You should know that the party the LA Times regularly shills for is properly called the DEMOCRAT party, not the "Democratic" Party. If the party were "democratic," its nominee would be the popular vote-winning Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Irony. Ain't she grand?

[jr]

If they had let her go to the Demovention she might have tried to throw a wrench at the monkey - I meant throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings. ....And if the opportunity was there certainly she would vote for HIllary, wouldn't she. There is a lot more room under the Obamamama bus, and when that is full, get another.

[Vince]

Zoe: Hillary's supporters were the grassroots of the party? Big business and the party establishment were solidly behind Hillary since before she even announced, and it took the party grassroots to get Obama to where he is today,

Obama and McCain are running neck-and-neck. The Gallup tracking poll now has Obama up between 8 and 9 points the past 2 days. Gallup showed it dead even when Newsweek and LAT/Bloom had Obama by 15 and 12, so Obama's margin in the Gallup poll is very significant.

In addition, the winner is selected by the electoral college, not national popular vote. RCP averages have Obama winning the EV 322-216 right now. That is a very large margin. He looks like he can win a whole handful of states that Hillary had zero chance at winning.

[Vince]

wbbgrlll - Saying that Hillary won the popular vote ignores the caucus states, where there are no vote counts, but in which he won overwhelmingly. Should they not count democratically? And if the party rules from the beginning stated that whoever won the popular vote won the election, everything would have been completely different. Obama focused on delegates, since those were the rules in place. He let Hillary run up her margin in some states, and knew he could split delegates in other states without winning the popular vote. Most of all, he wouldn't have put so many resources into caucus states if the nomination was decided by a national popular vote. My point is Obama would have had a completely different strategy if the nomination was decided by a national popular vote, so it's not fair to look in hindsight like that.

Nonetheless, I dispute your claim that Hillary won the popular vote. If this were a true national popular vote contest, Obama would have made sure that he would have been on the ballot in Michigan, in which case Obama would have definitely held onto the popular vote. That's why you can't change the rules late in the game, because his decision not be be on the ballot in Michigan was a DELEGATE decision, not a POPULAR VOTE decision. Any fair analysis of Michigan shows that Obama may have won, but would have at least come close, and there's no way that she would have netted the 134,746 votes needed in Michigan to even tie him in the popular vote.

The primary is over. Your candidate lost. Stop whining. Life sucks.

[Iowa-Grant]

What is bizarre is the "PUMA" group is not ALL Hillary supporters and of course, is not supported by Hillary herself.....which makes it difficult to say what they say with a straight face.

My concern is that it is telling the vote was unanimous, the vote was instigated by an Edwards and not Obama supporter, and that people report on this but Ron Paul's counter-RNC convention has NO ONE saying McCain isn't the republican nominee.

I am also a little personally annoyed at how this group is hurling any and all feminist statements around totally out of context.

I'm insulted that Susan B Anthony is quoted out of context. That this woman quotes her for her purpose when anyone who knows who Susan B. Anthony was knows she isn't speaking generally in that quote and about some selective disagreement but specifically to the fact that women couldn't vote, ALL Women, not just a select group of people who didn't understand that Hillary, like Obama, always could potentially lose. This is a far cry from women's suffrage when every party disbarred them categorically. It's a low move.

It was a given, you don't have two winners.

That these people would vote for McCain, who is Hillary's polar opposite under the guise of feminism and democracy, is pure irrationality and riddles.

And someone saying Obama can't stand grassroots politics.....his supporter base and fundraising is primarily grassroots and small donation based.....so.....huh?

[Al]

PUMA might as well mean GOP. Don't let the door hit you on your hypocritical rear on the way out.

[Elvis has left the building]

Less hypocritical than gov. Judas this Hillary supporter sure got the shaft by the states democrat's nomenclatura.Stalinist tendencys are getting more and more noticeable since the jr Illinois senator has become the presumptive nominee. Expect more Hillary supporters to be excomunicated by the Obama goons.
Chicago's political democrat traditions were inspired mainly by Al Capone and Joseph Stalin. This spiritual pestilence is spreading to most other states under
the watch of Michele's hubby and the rev Jackson knows a fraud when he sees one. Jackson and Hillary appear to be the only dem. leaders to see through
the Chicago imposter.

[Slobodan Voroshilov]

I came to the USA from Soviet Russia at the height of
Stalin's reign. It appears certain to me that America will
relive Russia's days of blood baths and the goulag if by
some satanic influence the voters should elect Stalin's
reincarnate in the person of this Obama demagogue.
George Soros, the eminence grise,behind Obama was and still is Stalin's apologist.....his moove on .org storm
toopers have collected most of Obama's tens of millions
and watch them poison the fall campaign with mind bogling propaganda of Marxist and Maoist garbage.