Photos: Nora Walsh-De Vries

Angry PUMAs on the prowl in Denver

They don't care if they make Chris Matthews happy, or if they make Hillary Clinton look bad. They don't even care that she wants them to stop.

By Rebecca Traister

Read more: Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Politics, News, Democratic National Convention, Rebecca Traister, Barack Obama, 2008 election

Aug. 26, 2008 | DENVER -- "This is where you see the civil war!" burbled Chris Matthews, experiencing near-asphyxiatory pleasure on an outdoor stage in the sweltering Denver heat, while behind him two competing groups, Obama supporters and the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) backers of Hillary Clinton, chanted "Obama! Obama!" and "Hillary! Hillary!" at each other. Matthews looked as though he might wet himself as a camera panned the crowd, and he declared, "We're at ground zero!"

Actually, he was about six blocks away from the Pepsi Center, the crowd behind him was probably no more than a hundred strong, and at least one of them was dressed as a toilet, (a gesture that seemed to have nothing to do with Clinton or Obama). But this is how media fantasy gets made, a miniature tableau of political discord, played out in front of a couple of well-placed television cameras and a television host who finds fetishistic, hyperbolic meaning in everything having to do with the defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her still-sore supporters.

Whether they knew it or not, the PUMAs who had congregated next to the MSNBC stage were making the night of the man who has done everything in his power to destroy their purported heroine. They held aloft Clinton signs and hand-markered cards reading "Stop Delegate Intimidation!" and "South Jersey PUMA." At one point, three women and three men holding "McCain" signs started a melodic chorus of "Clintons for McCain, sweetie, Clintons for McCain, sweetie," in reference to Barack Obama's bad habit of referring to women by that diminutive. Next to them, a man in an Obama hat shouted, "You're all irrelevant! Jesus!"

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But irrelevant is not how the protesters will be portrayed by a media that has been salivating over the possible disruption of the Democratic convention -- by angry, broom-riding succubi! -- for weeks. Never mind that there were probably no more than 50 shouting PUMAs. Never mind that every national political convention in modern history becomes a locus for vocal agitators. Never mind that over the weekend, antiwar protests had been larger. Never mind that in three days in Denver I had not spotted a single PUMA or Hillary protester until I found where Chris Matthews was broadcasting. Never mind the guy in the toilet outfit. To hear Matthews, and the talking heads at CNN tell it, these demonstrators were "ground zero" in a rift that could potentially destroy the Democratic Party and ruin its national convention.

This scene was pretty much the worst nightmare of the women I had spoken to earlier in the morning at the Unconventional Women program, devoted to exploring the current climate for women in politics. At the Buell theater, mentions of Hillary Clinton, as well as a clip from her stirring concession speech, were met with enthusiastic applause and some light cheering, but nothing resembling disruptive anger. In truth, most of the current or former Clinton loyalists could not be more different from the afternoon's demonstrators, but they will likely be tarred with the same hysterical brush.

"There is such a fear of women coming into power, that when they protest, they are given more weight," said Marie Wilson, head of the White House Project, before speaking as part of the Unconventional Women's programming, acknowledging the likelihood of protest. "Just the fact of women saying they support their candidate and want to make their voices heard sounds more scary than it would be if it were guys. That's just part of backlash. But come on. When women gather around a water fountain, men get scared. People oughta just chill."

Wilson acknowledges that there will be residual tension at the convention. But she sees the discord as a positive thing, a perhaps painful step in the right direction. "Putting issues on the table" -- as opposed to keeping political frustrations pent up -- "is what is going to bring people together." Wilson believes that in the wake of Hillary's run, "we are in the middle of a revolution. Women are stepping up and taking power." She said her organization, which encourages women to seek elected office, has seen a 61 percent increase in participation in the past year.

A half-hour later, many of the same sentiments were echoed by a woman who sat behind me during Nancy Pelosi's presentation, which was taken over by Code Pink protesters. As the demonstrators shouted for peace, I heard a soft voice say, "Ask Pelosi why she asked Hillary to get out of the race." After the speech was over, I spoke to Pat, a 73-year-old retired teacher who declined to give her last name because her husband is a delegate.

"I'm not anxious to disrupt the convention," she said, adding that she plans to go to a pro-Hillary march on Tuesday, but that "if it gets rowdy, I'll step to the side. I consider that march a thank-you to Hillary for having not given up." Pat said she'll vote for Obama, but that she just wonders, after listening to Pelosi tell the crowd about how there should be more women seated around her at the White House table, "Why, why, why did she ask Clinton to leave the race? And why did she encourage superdelegates not to vote for her? That whole speech she just gave was about how women have to strive for power, but she used her own power to diminish and destroy Clinton's."

This was anger, no doubt about it. But it was reasonable, rational, thoughtful and politically sophisticated anger, not the "No-bama!" protests I would see later in the day. "The thing is," said Pat, "if Obama loses the election, don't think it won't be Hillary who's blamed." But, she said, she doesn't believe the convention will be badly disrupted by protest. "A roll call vote, that's traditional!" she said. "Dennis Kucinich got one, and Shirley Chisholm. I don't understand why it should be such a big deal."

Neither did Dana Kennedy, a 40-year-old Hillary delegate from Arizona who is one of the 300 signers of the petition to get the roll call vote for Hillary. "My hope is that in the first round of voting I get to vote for her, and in the second round, I will vote for Obama," said Kennedy. "A vote for Hillary is a vote for history and not against him."

Next page: "Oh, it's the Hillary dumbasses. I'd best get out of here before I get to fighting"