Some Obama supporters are a new breed and they are driving a lot of voters away.  They are abusive and then they say ,"You can't leave; you got no place else to  go!"  Most women  learn about abusive men before they are even old enough to vote.  And by then many have a heightened awareness of abuse of power and injustice.

Some men learn these lessons early, too.  Whatever we thought of Obama in the beginning, we came to be very disturbed about the changing behavior of people at the great orange, all the way to the top.  Often they were people we had read and interacted with for a long time, maybe admired.  Some had been in gatherings together in person.  We became alarmed when comments started being abusive.  I don't mean this hyper-thin-skinned, persecuted overreacting, whining, knee-jerking cry of "foul" (or "racism")that is a regular feature of the Obama campaign now.

I don't mean the nothing stuff Obama supporters call abusive.  I mean real abuse.  Bullying taken to frightening extents.  Ganging up to beat down the writer.  Angry, destructive language, constant berating.  Diary hijacking that was instant and automatic and so thorough that the diarist would leave before anyone who had actually read the diary made a comment.  The harsh cruelty of the gang behavior was astonishing and very threatening

(If you are an Obama supporter and you don't see the difference between acting offended and wounded when the seventh most likely interpretation of a comment, if twisted just so, could be stretched to sound a little offensive and really abusive behavior where people are being so hounded that they are being located and their children threatened...please just go to another diary because you really won't learn anything here. But if you DO see the difference, I hope you can be alerted to behaviors that are driving people away from your candidate and are in the way of any effort to win voters back later.)

At large orange there were hundreds of thousands of posters and lurkers every day. In a matter of weeks the whole atmosphere shifted to very hostile.  Many, many diarists tried to reason with what used to be online friends, tried to elevate the talk to actual discourse, tried to argue logical trains of thought.  All of this was destroyed in swooping attacks by a large group who just filled up the space with mean, ugly, insulting garbage, berating and intimidating and demeeaning and dismissing.

We thought at first that they were hired trolls, freepers paid to disrupt and offend and divide; and some were.  But then it was familiar names acting ugly, seemingly released from any idea of appropriate behavior.  It got worse after that.  But I doubt anyone who didn't see it there will agree that it happened and understand how truly disturbing it was.

There was one certain constant in who acted this way and who didn't.  Not all of the Obama supporters acted this way, some tried to stop it and fought hard against it for a while, a few for a long while.( And some Hillary supporters issues a few sharp retorts and sarcastic remarks. The contrast with what I'm talking about here was stark and undeniable.)

But every person who behaved in this horribly aggressive, bullying, abusive manner was saying they supported Senator Obama and the single factor that fit all of those being attacked was that they were all Hillary supporters OR asking questions to try to reconcile some concern about something Obama had said or done or inquire about qualifications and policies proposed or past record in order to decide which candidate to favor. ( There was a lot going on with Edwards supporters, but leave that aside here.)

Some members of the large orange worked too many hours each day trying to offer a different voice, some information, some argument, some encouragement and also some support of other victims. The side controllers where not helpful.

Alegre tried to put up a diary most every day as a different voice and we would all gather there in support.  But it was vicious and cruel and frightening what was coming from them, like a mania of some group of lost boys alone in the wild with no boundaries and no fear of predators, trying to out do each other with the next daring response.

Bizarre and so beyond anything healthy that we were all seeing how destructive it was to continue to expose ourselves to the abuse.  Still some stayed to support each other until Alegre had had enough and hundreds and hundreds left with her.

Other liberal blogs crashed over the next few days with way too much traffice as we all sought out new places to check in several times a day. People reorganized, added servers and added RULES.  It was an amazing, shocking relief to be able to carry on discussions, transfers of information, ruminations and disagreements in civil environments that weren't dangerous to visit.

You would be astonished at the number of people who decided against Senator Obama because of the actions of those supporters.  There were hundreds of thousands of people every day witnessing what they did to the Hillary supporters and to the people who had any questions about Obama.

How many times have we heard people say that they had been interested in Obama and had not felt that good about Hillary ...until they saw how Hillary supporters were being treated on the blog OR until they saw how Hillary (and Bill) were being treated by Obama and the campaign, compounded by so many in the media.

Hillary's support has defininately grown tremendously because of decisions of Obama folks to be abusive.

I'll give you one tiny, minute, mild example of lack of civility(not the heavy stuff, just a little cut of what she daily puts up with without complaint but significant in that it reveals character).  After Hillary won West Virginia she spent a good chunk of the next day taping interviews with all of the news shows for TV, most of which would air at the evening news hour.  Then she was to meet with her  finance committee and some superdelegates to assess and plan.

She had just won by 41 points a huge victory for someone who's campaign had been universally declared dead and no longer counting the week before. Any worth competitor would have recognized and respected that win in those circumstances.

Senator Obama contacted all the news channels and evening news anchors and jtold them there was something really big coming up and that he wanted live camera setups at this huge rally he was holding in Michigan and that they would have to cut to their news broadcasts live.  He then brought out Edwards for his endorsement and both gave speeches carried on all the channels.

They had to bump all of the Hillary interviews about her big win and the rest of her campaign...her moment to bask and to frame where she goes from here, herself instead of leaving it to the pontificating punditry to presume.  It was her chance to answer questions to quell the speculations that were passing for fact among pundits and 'reporters' like Lawrence ODonnel for example who tells us her speeches are actually concession speeches.

So she went into her meeting with supers and finance people with it all abuzz with Edwards' endorsement, the same Edwards who had just spent three days on tv  talking about why it would be wrong for him to endorse now and how important it was not to do it now.

Now this was not a big thing for Hillary to have to handle and go on and our girl is used to being treated this way and going on, making no complaint.

But it should tell the rest of us something important about Senator Obama and Senator Edwards,, We should see it in the context of expressions of values, respect for the process and personal credibility and integrity of message.

 Is it appropriate behavior for the 'frontrunner who has it all wrapped up' and now needs to show that 'reaching across divides' and 'unity' with 'new politics' are not just propaganda manipulation of the gulible but are Obama's actual values and honest intent.  

He has in this small instance at his time of 'great triumph' a chance to prove his, until now, empty words and turn his speech to action. But he failed.  He chose to take an advantage he supposedly did not need.  If he is so far ahead, he could act true to his lofty claims about how he would govern.  After all it is the lofty claims that he offers voters.  We have no proof of what he really wants to do or even can do...just his word.  Wednesday there was a small opportunity to be big, to be gracious, to appear interested in unity as an example of his 'new politics'.

He has, as he often says, ' presented his vision'. Now what does he chose when he can afford to be seen acting on it without harm to his chances and all the while appear to want reconciliation for the general election.  He made his choice and he failed and Edwards helped him.(and then sent out a massive fund raiser!)

They both know what they were doing was mean and unfair and dirty.  And they did it just because they could, thinking it would give them an extra advantage at Hillary's expense.  They got away with it.

But to women and a lot of men with a distaste for injustice and especially women too familiar with abusive behavior, this is a warning reminder of what we learned a the orange.  This is not a good man, not a fair or just man and he doesn't play by the rules and he encourages dangerous excuses like racism and sexism to blame some and win others.

He has a history of taking other people's work and calling it his own and of taking credit for work he didn't do, and winning honors from people he won't contribute to and using power to help the powerful and taking currying favor and seeking help from people he then turns his back on to curry new favors from the other side.

He whipped up the loyalty of the Black community more than almost anyone has and he won't give anything back.
He doesn't burn to serve or love the problem solving or feel the great needs and have great policies and programs springing from his deep caring. He buys and sells influence and power and many of the people who have helped him elevate have been lowered by him in return.

I think that the reason he only got 37% of the Black vote in Massachusetts is that they had already had a trial run with Gov. Deval Patrick, another David Axelrod client, who had the same message of "hope and change" and some of the same speeches, it turned out, and similar resume...not really qualified but sold as a fresh outsider to bring unity and change.  And the community embraced and elevated and supported Patrick.

Now most everybody is sorry.  He acts like he hates the work;he;s not good at it he whines about it and doesn't kknow how to fix things and make things happen and unity didn't happen after the speech.  Now the state is in buyer's remorse in a big way and the community is embarrassed.  When Barack Obama came to town with the same credentials and the same speech the Black community turned their heads and said a resounding "Hello, Hillary".

All the senior politicians were for Obama but not their people.  They wanted someone who could do the work and sounded like she knoew how to do it and what the problems were and how to start fixing them.  The opposite of that plagerized speech Obama used.  The saw that they had been conned and they weren't buying twice.

Now most of the Hillary supporters I know and hear about are more for Hillary in proportion to the abuses of the Obama campaign on Hillary and the process. And to the abuses of the Obama supporters who have somehow be inspired, freed, encouraged and unchecked by Obama to behave in such a way as to shut down and drive off and threaten any opposition.

The poster who inspired this diary could not see the link bewteen the behavior of the candidate and how it was reflected and inspired in the behavior of his supporters and so had asked," Surely nobody would reject a candidate because of how his supporters acted?"

This time the answer is 'yes'.

Note: Those of you who were not Obama supporters over at the large orange know exactly what I mean.  And we recognize several offenders as having come over here with us. I think what we experience is frightening and dangerous.  The more it happened the more I saw it reflected in what I was learning about the actions and history of their candidate. And the more uncomfortable I became with the idea of Obama becoming President and with the reality that so many people would want him, and them  in charge of the country.