By CHARLES STILE
COLUMNIST

Meet Caren Z. Turner, a Democratic fund-raiser, a devout supporter of Hillary Clinton, and a lobbyist with a 25-year Inside-the-Beltway career.

Now Turner, who shuttles between Washington and her home in Tenafly, may include this entry on her political résumé: defector to Republican John McCain.

"I am not comfortable with Obama," Turner said in an interview with The Record last week.

Turner, who began this year as a member of "The Group,'' an informal committee of Hillary Clinton's top New Jersey fund-raisers, is now a member of Together4Us, a group of disenchanted Hillraisers who recently sounded out Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser.

Barack Obama, she believes, benefited from Democratic Party nominating rules that disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan and gave disproportionate clout to states with caucuses. He benefited from the "misogynistic" Hillary-bashing and did nothing to stop it.

A broken party and doubts about Obama has led Together4Us to take a serious look at McCain. The organization, meanwhile, is demanding a high-profile role for Clinton at the Democratic National Convention and an overhaul in the party's nominating process.

Here are excerpts of her interview:

Q: What did you think you would accomplish by meeting with a McCain representative?

The people involved in Together4Us have a general dis-

comfort with the way the Democratic process and the Democratic caucus system went down, with the Florida, Michigan representation, with apportionment, generally.

I think we also have a great discomfort with the misogyny that was expressed by the media during the entire election and the deafening silence by the DNC and the Barack campaign in the face of such denigration of women generally.

Q: Can you give me some examples of the misogyny that most angered you and your colleagues?

MSNBC was the worst that got me. The most was the Chris Matthews interview or discussion where he said, 'Let's face it. I'm going to be blunt here,' he says. 'The only reason she became a U.S. senator is because her husband messed around.' She is a Yale Law graduate, She is a brilliant woman. She is enormously talented, and that is just horrific.

Q: You mention his lack of protest or his standing up to denounce misogyny in the media. Is that it? Is that the sole reason, at this point, why you are not comfortable with Obama?

This is another example of a less-qualified male getting a promotion over a more qualified female. I have been in Washington and doing federal legislation longer than Senator Obama has. That's not very comforting. Frankly, from a war perspective and a national security perspective, I don't feel safe with him.... I'm not comfortable with the people who he has chosen to affiliate with – the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, et cetera.

Q: Why not support Obama if the differences between Hillary and Obama, on most issues, are marginal?

His positions seem to shift.... He has shifted on campaign finance and he has shifted on FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] ... and he has shifted on a whole bunch of things, so I don't know where he is.

I can tell you where McCain is. I can tell you where Hillary is. And for good, bad or ugly, I know where they are. I can agree or disagree, but I know where they are.... Him? I don't know where he is. We've got a moving target here.

Q: Some Democrats might suggest that by backing McCain, you are backing the continuation of Republican rule that they believe has brought discredit and damage to this country.

I would say that all Democrats are not created equally and all Republicans are not created equally. George Bush and John McCain are not the same. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not the same. And so to label Bush as the same as McCain is sloganism. John McCain is about as centrist a Republican as one can find. Hillary Clinton was the most centrist contender for the presidency.

Q: What do you say to your harshest critics - I've seen this on the blogs - that this is a kind of petulant, lashing out of a sore loser?

This doesn't have to do with Hillary Clinton. This has to do with fixing the Democratic Party, which is not functioning properly. Name calling - do what they want. But I challenge anyone to tell me that this apportionment system was a good thing, and a good use of ... resources. I challenge them to tell me that what happened to Florida and Michigan was a good thing. Or that the caucus system was a fair system - some people don't get a chance to vote. That has nothing to do with Hillary. It has to do with infrastructure that is broken. There is infrastructure in the DNC that is broken.