The Democrats are trying to put on a good show of party unity after their long and divisive primary, but everything might not be quite as friendly as the Democrats would like us to believe.  There is plenty of tension between the Obama and Hillary camps, and a lot of it revolves around money.  Hillary’s campaign is millions of dollars in debt, and in a show of unity Obama has committed to helping her repay it.  However, the Obama campaign doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about achieving that goal.  The Wall Street Journal reports that: 

At a Midtown Manhattan fundraiser designed to help raise cash for his campaign and help retire debt for his former opponent’s, Barack Obama offered praise of Hillary Clinton. But he temporarily forgot to make his pitch about debt retirement.

“Hold on a second guys, I was getting all carried away,” he said about a minute after he walked off stage to Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” that typically plays after campaign events. “Senator Clinton still has some debt, and I could have had some debt if I hadn’t won. So I know the drill,” he said, as he instructed donors to use the “debt retirement” envelopes under their seats to mail in a contribution to his one-time rival’s campaign.” 

Meanwhile, many Obama supporters aren’t very excited about repaying debts that Hillary Clinton racked up in the process of attacking their candidate.  Politico writes:

To this end, when Ed Chandler, a Chicago venture capitalist and Obama donor, sent out an e-mail last week promoting an intimate dinner with the nominee for high-dollar donors he made clear to specify where the dollars were going.

“NONE OF THE MONEY RAISED WILL GO TO PAY OFF HILLARY CLINTON’S DEBTS,” Chandler wrote to potential givers in an e-mail obtained by Politico.  ”While you may have heard that Sen. Obama has asked people to make a separate donation to the Clinton campaign for that purpose, neither the law, nor the ethic of this campaign, will allow for any transfer of funds from Obama For America to Clinton.”

Clearly all is not well in the Democratic Party.  Many former Hillary supporters are already backing McCain, and if they believe Obama and his campaign are slighting Senator Clinton, more will surely follow.

They will not go silently into that good night! Hill-Dawg’s supporters are cotninuing to travel nationwide to volunteer for their leader as described in this article from the Washington Post.

“It’s become so personal, just one insult after another,” Smith said. “These sides are starting to feel some hate for each other. Everybody is angry, but I’m going to keep at this as long as I can. I never want to look myself in the mirror and say, ‘You quit. You didn’t do your part.’ “

Barack might have some trouble bringing women voters back into the fold after this nomination is all sewn up. With sentiments like these:

“I don’t even know these other women, but I feel like I do,” said Zenia Kuzma, from Shepherdstown. “We’ve been going through this same ordeal together.”

…there’s is definitely some allegiance-to-a-higher-cause-type motivation for many women voters with Hillary’s candidacy. And right on que:

“The more I’m involved, the angrier I get. Every call for her to get out of the race just incenses me. It makes me crazy. Who are you? Who in the world are you to tell this woman who’s done so much that it’s time for her to be quiet and sit down?”

As I have said before, this Dem nominating process is driving a wedge between certain demographic groups that Obama will need decisive margis with to win in November.

We shall see…