Clinton's 'den' poses threat to Obama

Some think split may spell doom for the party, as New York senator prepares to call on her 18m supporters to back presidential nominee.

Hillary Clinton's supporters Bettyjean Kling, left, and Robin Rolans write blogs in Denver. Below, a pile of the diehards' buttons at the Puma political action committee.

DENVER // Inside a two-storey, grey-brick building on Delaware Street, not far from where Barack Obama is expected to accept formally the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday, are all the ingredients of a good grassroots political shop.

There are campaign placards on the wall, a line-up of laptops on a makeshift desk, coffee cups and Coke cans and the type of political fervour that helps get candidates elected. There is just one problem for Mr Obama: none of the Democrats here are planning to vote for him. This is the so-called "den" for a political action committee of disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, known as Puma, for Party United Means Action. The acronym also stands for Party Unity My A**, a separate but affiliated group of Clinton Democrats who have vowed not to back Mr Obama in November and stay home or vote Republican instead.

When Mrs Clinton addresses the Democratic National Convention tonight, she will again do what she did when she suspended her campaign in June: endorse her one-time rival and ask her supporters, who numbered 18 million, to do the same. And many of them, in turn, are planning to say right back: no way. "As much as it makes me sick, I'm going to have to vote for McCain if she cannot pull out this nomination," said Robin Purnell, 54, an insurance agent and lifelong Democrat and Puma PAC member from Indiana, who is also holding out hope that Mrs Clinton will somehow still win.

The Democratic convention in Denver is perhaps the party's best chance to show it has unified behind its presumptive nominee, the freshman senator from Illinois, who defied the political odds to defeat a far better-known and initially better-funded candidate, Mrs Clinton. "Coming together" is a talking point here. But in the Puma PAC den, and among many disillusioned supporters of Mrs Clinton from all over the country, unity is just a word. Even Mrs Clinton, no matter what she says tonight, seemingly cannot force her supporters to back a man many believe did not win the nomination fairly and is not experienced enough to serve as US president.

"I appreciate that she is a loyal Democrat and that she has her own job to do," said Darragh Murphy, a mother of three in her 40s from Massachusetts, who is executive director of Puma PAC. "But I have my own conscience to consult." Clinton supporters hear this a lot: you lost, get over it (they hear far less polite things, too). But their movement, they say, is not just about Hillary Clinton. It is about how the Democratic Party, in their view, subverted its own rules to dub prematurely Mr Obama the presumptive nominee - even though neither candidate had secured the needed number of delegates - and strong-armed Mrs Clinton out of the race.

"We have the ability to really punish the Democratic Party for not taking us seriously," said Kim Haas, a research chemist from New Jersey who has a kind of second life as "riverdaughter", the name she uses on her blog. "You can't get over being disenfranchised. Democracy's not something you can get over." The end of the primary campaign, when Mrs Clinton effectively conceded the race, saw the almost immediate spawning of a slew of Democratic anti-Obama groups, including the Pumas, Nobama, Just Say No Deal and Clintons for McCain. Many of their members are middle-aged or older working-class women who fit squarely within the so-called "Hillary demographic".

Among them is Bettyjean Kling. A retired schoolteacher from Pennsylvania, Mrs Kling spent US$10,500 (Dh39,000) on a used camper and last week drove it, with two fellow Pumas, straight through to Denver, where on Sunday she was helping prepare for yesterday's pro-Hillary rally in a downtown park. "I'm one of those bitter Pennsylvanians, the Bible-thumping, gun-toting, bitter Pennsylvanians," she said, referring to remarks Mr Obama made during the primary to "bitter" voters in her state who "cling to guns and religion" as a kind of escape from tough economic times.

Just how much of an impact Mrs Clinton's supporters will have is unpredictable; some say their complaints are far more vocal than they will be significant. Still, national surveys show some cause for concern. In a new CNN poll out this week, 27 per cent of those who voted for Mrs Clinton in the primaries said they plan to vote for John McCain. That is up from 16 per cent in June. Shirley Luther, of Beaumont, Texas, dropped by a rented hospitality suite for Clinton delegates - a safe haven of sorts in a city awash in Obamamania - on the eve of the gathering's opening, decked out in a cowboy hat, a Hillary T-shirt and a sober confession: come November, she will be one of those fall-away Democrats.

"This is bigger than a little Nader group," said Mrs Luther, referencing Ralph Nader, who has run for president several times as a third-party candidate but does not have a large national following. "This could be the next swing group. You think of them, all over the country, mad as hell about this. It's stunning." "I'm angry that I have to do this," said Mrs Luther, 59, a retired welder at an oil company. "We should have had a better candidate."

Mrs Clinton's name will be put forth for nomination tomorrow in a first-round roll-call vote, during which her supporters will be able to honour what Mr Obama has called her "historic candidacy". She will then release her delegates so they can support Mr Obama on the second ballot, though under Democratic Party rules, delegates are permitted to vote for whomever they want. That is what Linda Figueroa, 54, another Clinton delegate from Texas, plans to do. But honestly, looking around the delegate suite, even just at the divide within her own state's delegation, does not leave her optimistic about the Democrats' chances of recapturing the White House.

"If we lose, it's going to be because of the split," she said. Some of Mrs Clinton's most ardent supporters seem to see things only one way. "It's either Hillary or no one," Mrs Figueroa said. @Email:[e-mail]