I wanted to be the first to report on my adventures with Kaila at the Hillary rally last night, but one of the Hillarite blogs beat me to it. The blogger and their commenting buddies have their panties all in a bunch over our actions at Hillary’s non-concession concession speech. One Clinton fan compared us to Nazis, while another simply said: “these people are scary.” So what did we do that was so bad?

Our group consisted of Kaila, my buddy D-Blaze, his roommate Michelle, and yours truly. We got to the site of the rally right as it was supposed to be starting and there was a sizable line. We queued up and spent the next two hours conversing with Hillary fans about how they’re planning on voting for McCain if the Hills doesn’t get on an independent ticket. I also learned that Clinton supporters are super excited about a rumor that started on right-wing blogs of a video where Michelle Obama says the word “whitey.” They’re hoping the video will be Obama’s “Hymietown” moment. Hillary’s negative campaigning has gotten these people so worked up that a shocking amount of them actually would rather see McCain win.

As we got inside, we learned that we wouldn’t be allowed to enter the main room. They sent us to an “overflow room” in a lecture hall where we watched the returns and speech on a projector. As we filed in, a woman got up and told the crowd that Hillary would come to speak with us after giving her speech. We knew we’d have to behave ourselves if we wanted a shot to confront her in person. As Obama clinched the nomination, we struggled to disguise our enthusiasm. I noticed that there were two other Obama supporters sitting in the front of the room.

When Hillary finally took the stage to make her speech an audible hush descended over the crowd each time it seemed like she was conceding. Once she announced that she would be making “no decision” the room erupted in cheers and chants of “Denver! Denver!” The whole thing made me very nauseous. As the celebration of indecision and sore-loserism continued, Secret Service began to prepare for Hillary’s entrance. We missed Obama’s speech because the bitter Clinton campaign operatives shut off CNN when he was on the air. After another half hour or so, Hillary’s entourage began to appear near a side entrance and the crowd moved behind a rope line that they set up in front of the door.

The applause wasn’t deafening when Hillary and Chelsea appeared, but the atmosphere was pretty festive considering the circumstances. These people really can’t deal with the reality of the Obama victory. We waited until Hillary and Chelsea were right in front of us before making our presence known. I was kind of carried off in the excitement of the whole thing, so I don’t remember the exact words I used but it was something along the lines of this:

“Hillary you lost! Have the class to concede! You agreed to the Michigan and Florida rules just like everyone else and you are the only one who didn’t have the honor to stick to their word. Stop lying! Stop sabotaging my party!

I know that sounds like a mouthful, but I had quite an opening to speak since, as the Hillblogger said, Hillary and her supporters were “taken aback” by the outburst. Once they regained their composure, the Hillarites started shouting and shoving us. We began chants of; “Obama!,” “Concede!,” and my personal favorite, “Yes we did!” About five to ten other people in the room were chanting with us and it became clear that we weren’t the only Obama fans who had shown up to crash Hills’ party.

Once the Obama contingent revealed itself, Hillary was quickly ushered from the room by her staff. We walked out continuing our chants and as we left the building, we heard more and more people joining in with us. Once we were outside on the streets of Manhattan, many passerby also started cheering for Obama and the Hillary crowd was clearly outnumbered. Afterwards, we headed over to an Obama victory party at a nearby bar to continue our celebration.

From what I’ve read of the response to our little demonstration in the Clintonista online communities, the Hillarites are outraged by our conduct. Do they forget how their brethren were protesting outside the DNC RBC meeting? And unlike the Clinton rabble rousers, we actually have real numbers on our side. The Hillblogger who wrote the post about the dustup in the Baruch overflow room asked:

What would make a person stand in line for over two hours, then sit in an auditorium doing a whole lot of nothing waiting to hear a speech, then watch that speech surrounded by hundreds of cheering supporters of a candidate you are openly hostile towards, then sit around for another 45 minutes just so you can have an opportunity to hurl insults directly to a person’s face?

I’d like to take this opportunity to answer their question. What Hillary has done with regards to the Michigan and Florida primaries is disgusting. She was part of the decisionmaking process and agreed with the rest of the candidates to not run a campaign in those states. She is the only one who didn’t stick to her word. She is using this cheap maneuver to paint Barack Obama as an illegitimate nominee. Her attacks on Obama are baseless and do nothing but help McCain. After two questionable elections, I can’t sit idly by while someone tries to play games with the numbers to suit their needs. By not conceding, when it is clear no one buys her argument, Hillary has exacerbated the problem. She is creating an unfair and unstable situation in the party that may lead to a McCain victory.

This isn’t about who you supported from day one. Hillary is attempting to subvert the Democratic process and I will not sit idly by while a third American election is decided by deceit. So call me whatever you want, but I was there to make myself heard last night and if Hillary doesn’t acknowledge reality and concede by Friday, I’ll be there outside her headquarters in Midtown every day next week too. I refuse to sit at home on my ass while Hillary hijacks the Democratic party and hands our country to the Republicans simply to satisfy her own ego. They say we were uncouth last night at the rally, but Hillary should have quit a long time ago. We have been quiet and respectful throughout the past few weeks while she continued to tarnish Obama and pretend she had a chance to win. The time for polite pretense has ended. I refuse to be silent any more.