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Debate over McCain backer spices up Dem convention
Wisconsin Democrats, gathered in convention at Stevens Point Friday night, had no national party "stars" to gush about. Presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama, who was in the state Thursday, skipped the partisan gathering. So, too, did New York Senator Hillary Clinton, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Virginia Senator Jim Webb and all the other "names" mentioned as prospective vice presidential candidates.
Nor did they have a keynote speaker to get all excited about. In the absence of a national celebrity, they had to settle for a "keynote" from Governor James Doyle -- who would have addressed the convention anyway.
But they still had something to get excited about: The case of the dissident Democrat.
Debra Bartoshevich, a nurse from Waterford who was selected earlier this year as a Hillary Clinton delegate to this summer's Democratic National Convention, announced this week that, "I will not be voting for Obama. I will cast my vote for John McCain."
That's John McCain, as in the presumptive nominee for the Republican presidential nomination.
While Clinton, who abandoned her presidential nomination last week has urged her supporters to back Obama, Bartoshevich says, "I just feel you need to have somebody who has experience with foreign matters."
Such sentiments -- as well as residual anger on the part of some Clinton backers at what was perceived as disrespectful treatment of the former first lady during the primary campaign -- have raised concerns that Obama may have trouble securing the Democratic base in his fall fight with McCain.
For her part, Bartoshevich has joined "Citizens for McCain," the group organized by Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate who now sits in the Senate as an Independent Democrat, to get Democrats and independents to support the Republican candidate.
That has not gone over well with Bartoshevich's fellow Wisconsin Democrats.
State Party chair Joe Wineke, an Edwards backer who is now enthusiastically for Obama, asked Friday night's opening session of the state party convention to suspend party rules and begin an immediate process of stripping Bartoshevich of her national convention delegate status.
Answering Wineke's call to "send the message that the Democrats of the state of Wisconsin will never support someone who supports John McCain," delegates approved a motion to raise the question of whether Bartoshevich, having declared her support for the Republican presidential candidate, meets the requirement that national convention delegates be "bona fide Democrats."
Wineke says the state party will file a formal challenge with the Democratic National Committee early next week.
While the Bartoshevich flap highlighted concerns about party unity, Wineke promised the convention that, "We will be united as a Democratic Party in this state and in this country moving on."
For the most part, that seemed to be the case.
Two of Wisconsin's most prominent Clinton backers, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, delivered addresses hailing Obama.
Baldwin said she wanted Clinton backers to join her in "enthusiastically endorsing the candidacy of Barack Obama and working our hearts out to assure his election as the next president of the United States."
Lawton told the crowd that McCain had to be beat because: "We can't have four more years with a president that thinks the economy is a faith-based initiative."
File photo
Gov. Jim Doyle had to take the stage at the state Democratic convention Friday without the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Barack Obama. The two leaders were together at a rally in Madison in February.
