It’s a message that we should never hear coming from a member of a group advocating for reform. Sadly, there are some within the New York State Democratic Committee Reform Caucus who prefer to ignore a problem eating away at the credibility of the Democrats in New York State: The problem of Hillary Clinton.

Forget the presidential race in 2008, in which Senator Clinton has fallen out of the lead. Hillary Clinton has bigger problems to deal with.

Members of the New York State Democratic Committee are debating open defiance of Senator Hillary Clinton in the year of what was supposed to be a simple re-election and preparation for a powerful run for the presidency.

It isn’t just Senator Clinton’s support for invading Iraq. It isn’t just her continuing support for the Iraq War, and her refusal to admit that she was wrong to ever support it. Senator Clinton has spent much of her first term in office collaborating with George W. Bush and the Republican Party for their favored legislation. She helped the Republicans pass tax cuts for the rich. She voted for the infamous Patriot Act twice. When Russ Feingold introduced a resolution to censure George W. Bush, all Hillary Clinton had to offer was a scolding for Feingold for daring to defy to the President. Clinton stood with those right wing Democrats who insist that openly confronting George W. Bush could hurt the Democrats, in spite of the fact that less than 30 percent of Americans support President Bush right now.

Then, this month, Hillary Clinton hopped over to Connecticut to support Senator Joseph Lieberman, the most infamous of the right wing Democrats in the Senate. Joe Lieberman has been President Bush’s pet Democrat for years, and it’s embarassing to see Hillary Clinton standing in his defense.

There is an alternative to keeping Hillary Clinton in the Senate: Progressive Democrat Jonathan Tasini is running a campaign that promotes all the progressive political issues that Hillary Clinton seems to believe she doesn’t need to bother with.

Members of the New York State Democratic Committee are meeting in Buffalo, New York today, and they will be met with an anti-war protest in the streets outside the hotel where their convention is set. The Western New York Peace Center and Progressive Democrats of America are teaming up to organize the protest, designed to pressure pro-war Democrats like Hillary Clinton into rethinking their opposition to peace.

Inside the convention, members of the Democratic Reform Caucus will be debating each other. Over the weekend, two camps have emerged in the Reform Caucus. Many members of the caucus, which operates within the New York State Democratic Committee, are pushing for a public opposition of the nomination of Hillary Clinton to the United States Senate, because of her many anti-progressive votes and policies. A few others within the Reform Caucus, however, are urging that the entire Reform Caucus stand united behind Hillary Clinton, in spite of the fact that many New York State Democratic Committee members in the Reform Caucus do not really support Clinton. Their argument is that opposition to Hillary Clinton’s pro-war, anti-progressive acts in the Senate should be kept in private, so that polite discussions with Senator Clinton can take place and have a hope of succeeding.

The flaw in this pro-Clinton argument is that, in her six years as a Senator for New York State, Hillary Clinton has refused to meet with the Reform Caucus even once. The behind-the-scenes, hidden opposition to Hillary Clinton within the leadership of the New York Democratic Party clearly has not worked. It is time for open resistance, and I encourage those members of the Reform Caucus who disagree with Senator Clinton’s rightward-leaning politics to say so openly.