New York City – The vast majority of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s congressional supporters in New York will be skipping her Saturday drop-out announcement in Washington – citing reasons ranging from town halls back in their districts to campaign obligations to the observation of the Jewish sabbath.
“It’s shabbos, we’re not going to be here!” said Queens Rep. Gary Ackerma, who baked under the sun during an outdoor Capitol Hill press conference today whose purpose was to give 19 pro-Clinton, no-shows a chance to pay their respects.
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Ackerman is Jewish but delegation dean Charles Rangel, who isn’t, added: “It’s a Jewish holiday — enough said.”
Ackerman later elaborated: “She scheduled this event late yesterday – we all have complicated schedules and obligations back in our districts to meet with our constituents.”
Many delegation members, who planned to leave Washington for New York today, were miffed that Clinton didn’t make her announcement sooner to accommodate their schedules, a person familiar with the situation said.
Three African-American representatives – Yvette Clarke and Ed Towns for Brooklyn and Gregory Meeks from Queens – privately informed Clinton they had endorsed Obama early yesterday. Clinton staffers have cited skepticism from some New York reps as the reason Clinton backed out when she did.
In an unusual move, about 20 of them gathered at party headquarters to announce they were supportive of Clinton’s decision to drop out of the race – without officially backing Obama.
In what may be the longest negative RSVP in recent memory, Rangel announced: “Because we are not going to be in session, because of the difficulty in arranging our legislative and political schedules… we thought it would be in the best interests of showing the unequivocal support of what she’s doing… [by] going to our congressional districts this weekend and working hard for the endorsement of the Democratic nominee of these great United States of America.”
Rangel was referring to Obama — whom he won’t formally endorse until Clinton bows out.
Eight other reps, most notably Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens/Brooklyn), were no-shows at the no-show presser and plan to attend.
Miffed? nothing about this indicates any one is miffed. in video it seems like they are joiking around. Yesterday when the news came out that she was going to drop on friday, the obamatrons started blasting her for scheduling her drop on the anniversary of the RFK assasination. It seems that no matter what she does,. even when she is gracious and doing the right thing people will have a problem with it. As this article explains, the new york congressmen were not going to be in DC this saturday regardless. they arent “miffed.”
(except that she lost since they all supported her).
(Jerry nadler is stading there in the back of that vid.)
Miffed that she’s dropping on Shabbos? I’ll gladly take it on any day it comes. And Obama’s? I would take on Yom Kippur as well.
WHO CARES when she backs out. I will personally miss the fighting between them.
Horay for Operation Chaos!
hillary has done so much for the jewsih community concerns and for israel. she deserves only our sincerest gratitude