I didn’t listen to all of it–it was way late at night here in Japan, and this was no MacWorld keynote or anything–but I did listen to the DNC Rules & By-Laws committee for about an hour last night. One thing that struck me was the partisanship of the Clinton supporters in the crowd. I had heard something about Clinton supporters mobilizing for this thing, but had forgotten about that when I started listening. It didn’t stay forgotten for long; every time a Hillary supporter on the committee made a statement that helped Hillary, the Hillary supporters in the crowd burst out into applause and cheers. Not polite applause, but raucous cheering. Points that favored Obama were met with more muted, polite applause.

I thought that was bad enough; apparently, I would have been more disappointed had I continued listening:

Catcalls and boos from Hillary Clinton’s supporters rained down as former Michigan congressman David Bonior, representing Barack Obama’s campaign, suggested splitting the state’s lost delegation in half and awarding a part to each of the remaining candidates.

Other crowd reactions:

“We just blew the election!” a woman in the audience shouted. … Some audience members heckled [a Clinton supporter on the committee who approved of compromise]. “Lipstick on a pig!” one shouted. —Source

Clinton’s supporters jeered when results of the committee’s vote were announced inside a convention room at a downtown Washington hotel. They shouted “Denver, Denver, Denver” – signalling their hope to fight Obama all the way to the Democratic convention. — Source

Judging by the anger index out there today, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. They felt robbed — by Obama, the Democratic National Committee, but mostly the media.

“I’m about ready to kick you guys down the street,” one woman from Minnesota said when approached by a reporter. — Source

Of course, that was not even the worst of it. If you need to shower anyway and don’t mind descending into rather uncomfortable depths, then read this report on the bottom-feeders among the Hillary crowd–they sound hauntingly familiar, so similar to the people who claimed that the Clintons were mass murderers.

Look. What was reached was a compromise, and it followed the rules that everybody knew full well going in. It was not everything either campaign hoped for, it was in-between–but with Hillary so far behind, anything but an absolute victory for her pretty much signals defeat. But that’s not a measure of unfairness to Hillary; it is simply a reflection of the fact that she’s behind and would need every blast thing to go her way to win this. You can’t expect to be given more than a fair split just because you’re desperately behind.

But Hillary supporters don’t see it that way. Some still are thinking that Hillary was entitled to the nomination and see this as robbery; and some are still raging at what they perceive as rampant sexism and–yes–even reverse racism. Geraldine Ferraro let go with a rant this week that I couldn’t finish reading, it was so filled with divisive and paranoid invective that made me wonder, could so many otherwise reasonable people truly believe all this? This is not even as thin as polling saying that 20% of Hillary supporters in West Virginia voted on the basis of race–at least in that case, there was some evidence of racism in play. But what Hillary supporters are reacting to is wholly perceived, not based on evidence or even opinions in surveys. It is based upon a highly subjective reaction not supported in fact.

What it boils down to is that these hard-core, die-hard supporters, like Hillary, will simply not give up. And there is a telling, not to mention chilling message in what a Hillary supporter shouted in the second quote above: “We just blew the election.” That says it right there: to many Hillary supporters, if Hillary doesn’t win, then McCain does.

Which means that to them, any attack or attempt to undermine Obama is okay because, after all, he’s never going to win anyway. That’s what scares me about this crowd: not necessarily just their invective, but the inference which signals a willingness to sabotage the party’s chances in November out of pure spite.

I suppose this quote pretty much sums up the Clinton crowd:

Hazel Rigby, a Clinton delegate from Virginia, disputed suggestions Clinton is too far behind to win, regardless of the outcome of the Florida and Michigan dispute.

“I’m here because I still think she has a shot at it,” Rigby said. “I want her there in the worst way.”

The worst way, indeed.