Debra Bartoshevich and Hillary Supporters for McCain

After being rejected by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, former Dem delegate Debra Bartoshevich speaks her mind in a new John McCain ad.



Read more about Debra Bartoshevich here and here and here.

Joe Wineke, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, reacted with disbelief when first told Friday afternoon that one of his state party delegates is now a McCain supporter.

“Not a delegate? To the national convention?” said Wineke, who was getting ready for the start of the Wisconsin state party convention Friday in Stevens Point.

“We have a Clinton national (convention) delegate who says she’s voting for John McCain?” Wineke repeated, for clarification. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Wineke said “almost everybody I know who was for Hillary” is solidly behind Obama now. As for Bartoshevich, he said, “my suspicion is she doesn’t know what she’s getting into” because “the delegates to this convention will be very upset.”

Asked if publicly supporting the other party’s presidential nominee could affect a delegate’s convention status, Wineke said, “I never thought I’d ever get a question like this.”

After some preliminary checking, Wineke said he assumed Bartoshevich would remain a delegate.

But Friday night, after a story about Bartoshevich appeared on the Journal Sentinel’s Web site, he had apparently reconsidered. At the state Democratic Party convention, party members, including Clinton supporters, unanimously passed a resolution asking the national party not to seat Bartoshevich at the Denver convention. Wineke spoke in favor of the resolution.

Another pledged Clinton delegate, Paula Dorsey of Milwaukee, offered the resolution.

Dorsey said trying to expel her fellow Democrat from the party’s convention “hurts my soul and it hurts my heart,” but it is the party’s presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), whom convention delegates must support.

...In an interview, Bartoshevich expressed lingering unhappiness over the Democratic nominating process, said Clinton was treated unfairly by the party and said she has deep reservations about Obama’s lack of experience and his judgment.

“I’m kind of disenfranchised,” she said.

She said she planned to vote for Clinton at the convention, but in an Obama-McCain matchup in November, “I will not be voting for Obama. I will cast my vote for John McCain.

“I just feel you need to have somebody who has experience with foreign matters.”

She said a series of controversial Obama associations, including but not limited to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Chicago developer Tony Rezko, reflected poorly on his judgment. And she echoed the complaints of many of Clinton’s most ardent supporters that Clinton was treated unfairly in the nominating process and by the party.

“No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her — that’s by Susan B. Anthony,” said Bartoshevich, referring to the suffragist.

Bartoshevich called herself a “devoted Democrat” who had never voted for a Republican for president.

“I’m on a lot of the (pro-Clinton) blogs, and so many people, male and female, feel the same way as I do,” said Bartoshevich, who was listed as a Racine County co-chair for the Clinton campaign and who traveled outside Wisconsin to volunteer for Clinton. “The Democrats jumped on this wagon of Barack Obama, and nobody really knows him.”

At first Wineke assumed that Bartoshevich would retain her delegate status.

It's a natural assumption in a free country.

As it turns out, if you're part of Wisconsin's delegation, you're not protected by the Bill of Rights.
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Here's more on Hillary supporters in Denver.