Cullen Paints Colleen Garry as a Whiner
Posted by Marie on 07 Aug 2008 at 08:43 am | Tagged as: Beacon Hill, Federal, Greater Lowell, Presidency
Globe “City and Region” columnist Kevin Cullen landed a hit today on local State Representative Colleen Garry of the 36th Middlesex District which includes the communities of Dracut and Tyngsboro. Garry who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee generally flies below the political radar. She is considered to be conservative - she is for heterosexual marriage only, against in-state tuition for the undocumented and against stem cell research. What’s curling Cullen’s non-partisian hair? It seems that Colleen Garry is a whiney “HillBillie” who is pouting over a decided lack of “Barack Obama outreach” to her and other HRC supporters. She’s looking for more than e-mails and wants a more personal contact from the campaign. I guess that Garry’s pique was noted in a Herald article which focused on the recent 5 million-dollar Obama haul at a Boston fundraiser. I’m sure an Obama operative will be in touch with Garry soon! Will she answer?
Cullen aside - Garry and other Hillary supporters are at a political crossroads. Crushed that HRC’s nearly 18 million votes weren’t enough to pull-off a win for the Democratic nomination for President against a less-experienced guy from Illinois and angry that the historic moment for a woman (particularly this woman) becoming President won’t happen in 2009, they must make a choice. Will they stay home? Will they disrupt the Democratic Convention? Will they pull-out all the stops to bring Obama down? Will they vote for John McCain? Are they PUMA-nistas? Will Hillary Clinton herself be able to bring them into the fold for the November election? Will conversion to Obama-olgy only come with HRC on the ticket as VP? Stay tuned.
On another note - with credentials as a solid Hillary Clinton supporter in the primary I’ve purged the whininess and tucked away the pain. Perhaps it’s age and innate pragmatism - but changing the focus, mentality, philosophy, morality and bureaucracy of the current administration to a new agenda is far too important for the future to hold onto personal angst. I’m on the train - if only in the cheap seats.
Isn’t it true if Barack Obama doesnt make an effort to reach out to the former Clinton supporters he won’t win? I don’t consider that whining, I think thats a fact. True, most will just vote for Obama as (by far) the lesser of two evils. But whether he’s just ignoring Massachusetts Clinton supporters because MA is solid blue or its a larger problem, its still true that the first thing a candidate must do is ask for your vote and not just expect it.
Oh my goodness, Marie, you used an “ista” in your post! That means no matter what generation you come from, you are definitely hip to the groove now!
“isn’t it true”: not really. Hillary supporters are majorly breaking for Obama already, and it’s on the issues - McCain is an anti-woman candidate, while Barak holds the same views as Hillary on choice, women’s rights in the workplace, etc, and would appoint his government accordingly. Of course Hillary supporters, especially women, would turn to Obama. They’d be suicidal not to.
While the Obama campaign should definitely take the pains to reach out to Hillary’s people (and she and her people should help with this as best they can) is it practical to expect every low-level state elected official who vocally supported Hillary to be contacted personally by a high-level campaign official or Obama himself? Of course not! Geez. Talk about tooting your own horn.
I like Hillary supporters. Even the diehard ones who spouted some of the untrue talking points in the latter part of the primary. My mother in law was one such. (Good heavens above.) However, if you want to be considered a mature voters, you gotta just get over it. There’s no time to cosset every broken heart and make it live again. We go to vote in a couple of months.
Hillary wants Obama to lose, there is nothing she would love to see more. She’s looking to run 4 years from now. Out of the 7 people I knew that supported Clinton, 5 say there voting McCain and the other two for Obama.
The Obama campaign talks a good talk but has not walked the walk …to effectively gain Hillary supporters like me…… and bluntly, if he ignores elected individuals like Garry, I wonder if he pays attention at all….to anyone……..