Yes, way to boost the Democrats Hillary, make the nominee look as weak as possible just so you can gloat for a few days. Was Hillary embarassed by her 50% lost in Hawaii or Idaho? Hell no. Hopefully he can play it off as his version of Hillary's Hawaii.

Worse than stories about his weakness would be stories about how he doesn't care enough about those rednecks to campaign there.  Besides, that figure is bloated like the early pro-Hillary Texas and PN polls -- all he has to do is show up a few times and he'll slice that in half *minimum.*

West Virginia will be Hillary's last hurrah. She embarrased herself badly, the more so as the campaign wore on and she became increasingly desperate. I still am concerned - maybe especially, now - about this Obamaphenomenon. As I communicated to WoodyBombay, I hope that I prove to be wrong. But remember what I said because I think that I might not be.

The conventional wisdom has become that Obama's NC win means that Hillary cannot win the popular vote.  But if turnout is high and Clinton gets the 3 to 1 margin in West Virginia at which she is currently polling, she will take the popular vote lead after Kentucky.  (That's counting Florida and the caucuses but not Michigan, and using the popular vote counter at RealClearPolitics)

So she's not completely insane.

On the other hand Obama will win the popular vote if turnout in West Virginia is low, so he has a delicate task.  He could go negative, which traditionally lowers turnout, but of course that would be ridiculous considering his national lead and his image.  He would close the margin percentage-wise if he goes to West Virginia and campaigns, but that will also raise turnout as people get excited about the national attention, and so he'd probably end up with an even larger margin in terms of votes.  So the smart thing is to embrace the inevitability narrative, turn toward the general election, completely ignore West Virginia, and hope that the perceived irrelevance of the primary will lower turnout.

Why are people still talking about the popular vote metric as if it mattered? Last I checked, the only place where the popular vote counts in picking the nominee is in Hillaryland.  In case anyone missed it, Obama picked up at least 9 superdelegates today, including at least one switch from Clinton. He's basically pulled even in total superdelegate endorsements and has a 160 pledged delegate lead.  Why would anyone think taht the supers would suddenly stop moving toward him, and as long as they keep doing that, by June 3, he is likely to pretty much have the delegates he needs. and the closer he gets, and the more inevitable he looks, the quicker things will fall his way. The tipping point has already been reached. The popular vote, the electoral vote count, the big state count, etc. etc. all Hillary's invented metrics are irrelevant. It is OVER.

I just saw Michael Crowley on CNN, he's getting better in front of the camera, let's just hope he doesn't get contaminated by the pestilent filth at that network.  

Don't talk to anyone on your way out Mikey, and if they offer you a job, make sure your lawyer rewrites any contract CNN wants you to sign, otherwise they will surely swallow your soul.

Lymon is exactly right. Obama should get a massive bump out of the current media environment. If he shows up in West Virginia, there's gonna be some real excitement there. And if he doesn't show up, a lot of voters are gonna feel snubbed.

Obama should make some appearances in West Virginia, but not out of any calculation about perception conceening next Tuesday. He should do it because he's made  the case all along, unlike  Hillary (caucuses don't count) Clinton, that every state matters. Frankly, it matters not whether Hillary wins by 20 or 30 in West Virginia. The supers who are letting this play out are doing so because they want the primaries to play out before they get involved..But Hillary's margin i WV and Kentucky means absolutely nothing long-term.

The best possible outcome for Obama in WV would be anything over 40 percent, but I'm not holding my breath.  He should certainly campaign there anyway.

Being an Obama supporters means being dishonest. For months Hillary had a superdelegate advantage, these were touted as undemocratic. Now that the Anointed One has pulled even and may even lead is superdels, suddenly superdels are good. Hm... And that's after urging Hillary to leave the contest!

My my, aren't you guys honest! If your guy is soooo good, why don't you let him win outright? Perhaps because he can't win honestly?

Anyway, these shitty tactics show us how an Obama presidency will look like: "kiss the boots orf the Anointed One or you're a racist and a traitor". You guys look like Peron supporters.

"let's just hope he doesn't get contaminated by the pestilent filth at that network. "

Another demented screech from AaronBBrown, the resident Soviet commissar.

You're so imbecile Brown that you make one want to be a conservative just not to be a with far-Left loony like you. Why don't you move back to Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch or The Nation? Or go volunteer again for Nader? Those are the places for hysterical dimwits like you.

Sleepy, I'm going to give you the response I've been giving all Clinton supporters who suggest that we think Obama is "anointed," that his supporters are cultists, that we ask people to worship him bow down to him, lick his boots or anything similar:

Go fuck yourself.

Sleepyavl, wouldn't you agree that CNN is full of pestilent filth? Just because AaronBBrown says it doesn't mean it's false.

sleepy,

You're correct to question some of the inconsistencies among Obama supporters (of which I am one).

However, don't project our failings onto the candidate. He's worried about those on the fence, not the true believers. We're all capable of being inconsistent; we don't need Obama's help or anyone else's to be so.

Whoever up above said that Hillary is going to lead in the popular vote, at any time, is among the math-challenged Hillaristas.  Giving Hillary the benefit of every doubt, 43% in WV, 34% in KY, she has the potential to pick up 12 delegates in WV and 17 in KY.  However, OR votes the same day as KY and she is going to lose Oregon.  Her net probably cannot exceed 23 delegates from the 3 races.

At this point, strong turnout might produce about 12,500 votes per net delegate won.  Thus, Hilllary could pick up 150,000 votes in WV.  After KY and OR, she could have gained a total of 290,000.  Her potential in the remaining three races is about 5 more delegates for another 60,000 or so.  The VERY BEST CASE for Hillary, unlikely to be realized, is to pick of 28 delegates and 350,000 votes.

She is currently behind by 167 delegates and 820,000 popular votes.  At the end, she will be behind, best case mind you, by 140 delegates and 470,000 votes.  FL, if you gave her the whole thing and you can be sure that the supers discount that total, is only 294,000.  Her margin in MI is 62,000.  Even including FL and MI, Hillary will still be the loser in popular votes.  If, as is more reasonable, you discount them by half because Obama has always cut into her lead when he has campaigned which was of course prohibited in MI and FL, Hillary will end up the races down by at least 300,000 popular votes.

At no point, including after WV, including after KY and OR, is Hillary even going to be close in the popular vote.  

But, Run Hillary Run!  The people want their voices to be heard.  They want nothing so much as to be able to tell the world of their love for you.

Ah, I see that Clifton is the one with the math difficulties.  Like all good Hillaristas, he or she counts only the Hillary victories, leaving out the Obama victories.  Obama is going to win three of the last six races, although not by as big margins as he is going to lose the three he loses.  That's why Hillary will gain a bit, but the notion that she will overtake him in the popular vote is, let us say, unrealistic.  Hillary's campaign admitted that before NC when they realized they had better start tamping down expectations.

sleepy,

I don't think Obama wears boots.

Sleepy, I think aeromonas said it best.

"these were touted as undemocratic" - do you have a source to go with that libel? actually, never mind, because as an Obama supporter I can think of at least two people who never said it was undemocratic. If anything, Obama has probably been holding them back to make it look good on bad news days, and to keep from going over the winner's mark before the last primary is held; he's always said she can run her campaign as long as she wants because it is not over until there is a nominee; he wants this to run all the way to June to give her every possible chance, no matter how slim, because he appreciates the historical nature of her candidacy.

"the Anointed One " - your words, not mine; its not our fault if people like Obama more than Clinton.

"Now that the Anointed One has pulled even and may even lead is superdels, suddenly superdels are good" - never said superdelegates were bad, just said there would be hell to pay if they don't give the nomination to the person with the most pleged delegates after the last of the primaries and do not have a better reason than "electability" (apparently Hillary's political euphemism for the "unthinkable").

rozenson said: "Sleepyavl, wouldn't you agree that CNN is full of pestilent filth?"

Watch it! You don't want to go around disparaging the Clintonian News Network while sleepy is around, he might disparage you or call Obama the Anointed One again.

sleepy -

I think you need a nap.

Curiously, I never thought of Obama as a messiah, but I support him anyhow.  I wonder if millions of people never thought the same, but support him anyhow?

That's probably it.

And I don't think the Peron analogy works as Obama's a lot slimmer than him.

You guys don't need to be so smug. That is the main problem with Obama AND with his supporters. Your arrogance on behalf of the candidate is based on very little. Your insistence that Hillary should leave place you squarely in the Soviet camp.

How dare you say that?! Since you say that, why do you think you are any better than the Republican fuckers who did not want votes counted in Florida 2000? You seem to think that just because you are left-wingers that somehow makes you guys right even if you use every tactic from Karl Rove's arsenal. Being a left-winger is no guarantee you have any morality, not one bit more than being a right-winger. Stalin and Mao were left-wingers. Noam Chomsky and Kim Jong-Il are left-winger. The list of monsters can continue.

Starting with Peretz and continuing with most of the contributors here, you do not support Obama - you are fanatics enraptured by Obama. You do not want him to win - you want his adversaries to recognize that He is the Anointed One. In this light, his opponents are not opponents, they are heretic guilty of not seeing the light. I never thought there could be a dictatorship in America. Listening to you on this blog, reading the articles in the media and seeing what this demagogue is saying at his CommuNazi-style meetings, I can say: Yes, America is ready for a dictator. No worries, you guys with your shitty groupthink and intolerance of any criticism for the Anointed One, you will carry the portraits and lick his boots - or shoes, whatever the Anointed One chooses to wear.

Rozenson, I despise CNN too, just as I despise any network, although not for the reasons for which that hysterical cretin Aaron does. The profession itself is a disgrace - by design, because these journalists talk or write too often, sometimes every day. How can they say anything meaningful or true? Well, they don't.

The only good journalists I know are those that write rarely - investigative reporters from The New Yorker and similar places. This has strictly nothing to do with whether they are right-wing or left-wing - and everything to do with the fundamental constraint of writing often, possibly daily.

Take the falafel cart guy at the street corner and ask him to comment on TV after briefing him five minutes - the result is he same as on CNN or FoxNews or you name it, depending on the proclivities of said falafel dude.

If CNN is Clintonian News Network, you are an imbecile. Go lick Obama's boots, shoes, sandals or whatever the Anointed One chooses to clad His August Feet on at time of the year.

roidubouli,

Actually I'm neither math challenged nor a Hillarista.  In fact I'm both a mathematician and an Obama supporter.

But you don't have to take my word for it; just go to www.realclearpolitics.com/.../chooseyourown.html and input a 50% WV margin and a 40% Kentucky margin.  Look at line 36 for the final poular vote margin.  (Which is a worst case scenario for Obama).

And no, this isn't ignoring the other contests; it assumes Obama wins Montana and South Dakota comfortably, and Oregon narrowly, but loses Puerto Rico by a lot.

So it's pessimistic (or optimistic, if you're supporting Clinton), but not out of the realm of possibility.

The big problem for Clinton, though, is getting enough super delegates to wait a couple more weeks before endorsing Obama (that, and getting a big enough turnout.)

My, my, my -- the residents of Hillaryland seem to be moving from delusional to being outright bitter. I think some of them must be from Pennsylvania.  But this is all part of the road to recovery, I suppose. What are the stages? First denial, then anger, then depression, then acceptance of reality -- something like that....

sleepy, if you persist with the Peron analogy, I have to say that I still doubt that Michelle will have a Andrew Lloyd Webber musical written about her.  But you never know . . .

sleepyavl, "anointed"????  The only one in this entire mess to claim that was Hillary!  Get a grip.

West Virginia, to put it mildly, is Arbus country. The prom dresses are made by tent makers.

By the way, all of these postings referring to Obama as a messiah are telling. Limbaugh introduced that word, Hannity picked it up, and it's being used on the most scurrilous right-wing, racist blogs. Very odd to see it here. Wonder where this "messiah" business will lead....it's disturbing.

Isn't the real test of a leader's influence over her supporters her ability to persuade them to do something they otherwise would not be inclined to do? So if Hillary wants to prove her indispensability to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign -- and therefore position herself for a cabinet position or Senate leadership -- then she should "suspend" her campaign this weekend and urge her supporters in WV and KY to ratify Obama's nomination on Tuesday. If Obama wins WV and KY, and with them the nomination, Hillary will have proven her influence over the constituencies that support her and established herself as an arbiter of downscale white Democratic politics. If Hillary's supporters in WV and KY vote for her anyway, they will have proven that they're voting for Hillary, not following her.

Well, then apologies Clifton, but then that article by Cost, cited in the TNR blog "Is it really over?" is ridiculous.  It makes assumptions that, collectively, have to be about 3 standard deviations away from the mean.  For one, it projects even wider margins in WV and KY than the polls show, and not be a little.  It then understates Obama's OR margin.  Then it assumes a huge margin and turnout for Hillary in PR.  One of these things MIGHT happen, but not all of the statistical outliers are going to happen at the same time.  On top of that, you have to add the FL vote etc. etc.

While Hillary winning the hypothetical popular vote in this way does not violate any law of physics, it is wildly improbable.  Also, even if you bought all of this, Hillary would not be ahead after WV and KY.  

Fougasseu: Spoken like a snooty elitist. God knows I am elitist enough. But Arbus country? Diane Arbus was a piece of work, a voyeur of the first magnitude.

Roidubouloi: We've got it, it is over. You can go back to doing the dishes. The Republic is safe now.

Sleepy,

"CommuNazi"--bravo! Touché! Brilliant! With that one inspired and highly original flourish of wit, you have exorcised Obama from my soul and made me see by the glare of my own shame that Hillary and her supporters appeal to reason and conscience and never to mushy emotionalism or tribal fears. Thank you.

There should be a warning displayed on TRN.

Reading the post comments on TRN can be insulting, display the unsavory attitudes of your fellow Americans and drive one to Independent voter status.

The endless screams from the Obama campaign and it's supporters in the blogosphere for Clinton to just bow down to the inevitability of Obama's victory demonstrates very clearly how his whole campaign has nothing to do with real life politics and everything to do with the mores of a reality TV show. It's about the contest and not the policies as can be seen by the ceaseless bitching about the opponent and the opponents supporters, the glaring absence of policy discussion and the beatification of ones chosen (seriously flawed) candidate.

More eloquently put - anglachelg.blogspot.com/.../revolution-of-saints.html

Furthermore even if Obama ends up as the nominee it has been a marginal victory built on a huge advertising advantage (yes kudos to Obama for raising bucketloads of money but before the 'great campaign = great president 'bleating starts I have one word - Bush) , a mesmerized media ( anyone who denies that the vast majority of the non-conservative media have been in the tank for Obama or at least highly anti-Clinton is in denial, again kudos to him for being so fresh, new and attractive and spinning the media so successfully but watch the mendacious munchers turn on him in the fall), race baiting www.huffingtonpost.com/.../obama-camps-memo-on-clin_n_81205.html and a highly convenient reading fo the rules which encourages voter disenfranchisement (no re-vote for FL and MI because they broke the rules but super-delegtaes must follow a non-existent rle and vote with the pledged delegates...or else...blackmail and bullying form the 'clean' campaign.)

This isn't a victory yet, and will never be the landslide Obama supporters seem to believe it is and the whole campaign has proven beyond doubt that Obama's primary message , the ability to bring unity- is simply horseshit as his own party lies in tatters and he really wants us to believe he can unify the whole country and around supposedly progressive ideas at that!! Roll on the floor funny if it wasn't so tragic.

"How dare you say that?! Since you say that, why do you think you are any better than the Republican fuckers who did not want votes counted in Florida 2000?"

Anybody really rooting for a Celtics Lakers final? I think that would be awesome...classic dynasties...great players...man that would be cool. Looks like the hornets will save us from the spurs!!

"The endless screams from the Obama campaign and it's supporters in the blogosphere for Clinton to just bow down to the inevitability of Obama's victory demonstrates very clearly how his whole campaign has nothing to do with real life politics and everything to do with the mores of a reality TV show"

Folks - if you're ever in DC, check out the Italian Store in Arlington. Best Pizza in the city.

"West Virginia, to put it mildly, is Arbus country. The prom dresses are made by tent makers."

LOL. I don't get it, but it sounds funy.

Horse bleep BrotherFromAnotherPlanet,

You make up a lot of totally ridiculous claims, put them in the mouths of Obama supporters, and then point our how ridiculous they are.  

No one claims Obama has a landslide.  The sentiment has not been for Hillary to bow out so much as it has been for her to stop flinging mud, doing the Republicans work for them, legitimizing their sordid campaign tactics by adopting them as her own, and damaging the party's chances in November.  I have read very, very little that has argued that if Hillary were willing to run a la Huckabee, without disparaging the overwhelmingly likely Democratic nominee, that she should none-the-less drop out.  The point has always been, do what you want, but don't damage the party for your own miniscule advantage when you no longer have a realistic chance to win.  And don't seek to win in a manner that makes the nomination worthless by destroying the party in the process.

In other words, Hillary, run if you want, but put the party's interests before your own.  Not that complicated, Brother, is it?

To suggest as you do that Obama was somehow the candidate with all the advantages going in is even more ridiculous.  Hillary had name-recognition, 35 years of experience, a long resume of foreign policy achievements, most notably in Bosnia and Ireland, she was tested, vetted, and ready day one, she had crossed the commander in chief threshold, she had the party establishment behind her, a headstart in time, 135 super delegates at the gitgo.  Despite all of that, she was such a thoroughly awful candidate that she managed to lose.  The more the public saw of her, the more desperate it became for an alternative.

Finally, as for the nonsense about "highly convenient reading of the rules," the ONLY reading of the rules is that there are no delegates from FL and MI because that is what the DNC decided well before the primary season, with the support of Hillary Clinton.  It is not some "convenient reading."  It is absolutely unambiguous.  No, Saint Hillary, patron saint of connivers, liars, and bullshit artists, who never saw a rule that she didn't want to twist to her own advantage, wants to change the rules after the fact to her own advantage.  Conversely, there is not now and has never been a "rule" about how the super delegates should vote.  Lots of people have opinions.  The opinion of many, including Obama, is that they should follow the outcome of the delegate races and popular vote.  If there were a split decision by those two measures, the disagreement gets sharp.  But Hillary's position has always been clear.  "The super-delegates should just vote for me."  Why?  Because I am Saint Hillary, patron saint of connivers, liars, and bullshit artists.  That should be reason enough.

Finally, an end to partisan bitterness is Obama's aspiration.  It goes without saying that with enough people like Hillary Clinton around who are more than happy to stoke any and every kind of social animosity for their own advantage, it is going to be very hard to achieve that.  But don't lay it at Obama's feet.  The creepy, grasping, uber-partisan, race-baiting, faux-populist. self-serving, ego-maniacal, sniper-fire fantasizing destroyer in this case is your own Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Take your sour grapes and shove 'em.

liberal,

Glad you finally got it.  There are a few stragglers left to mop up.

Brother, sleepy- I don't seem to remember you guys moaning about "counting every vote" when Edwards dropped out.  I'm sure roi could back this up with a mere flick of his brain, but I am sure it was within the realm of math that he could still win.  Right?  Why didn't we count every vote?

And sleepy, before you go off with another deeply insulting and palpably dishonest screed about CommunNazi bullshit, don't contrast it with "count every vote" pablum when, in Michigan, Obama wasn't even on the ballot.   That seems more like MessiahAnnointedOneKISSBOOT garbage, and one-party misrule, than anything Obama has ever done.

And Jesus Christ on the cross, sleepy- CommunNazi rallies?  Don't give me a cult of personality garbage argument.  If anyone here has one, it is Hill, who thinks she is the the Solution to all our problems.  Obama is an organizer who, if you bother to learn anything about him, has always felt deeply that everyone needs to get involved for anything to happen.

ANd no, I am not comparing Hillary to a CommuNazi, which is rapidly becoming my new favorite word.  Just showing how absurd it is to say the same of Obama.

Finally- this is not a general election.  This is a way for a party to pick a candidate.   Stop confusing the two.  THis has nothing to do with the Florida clusterfuck of 2000.  

Roid, Blackton, VirginiaCentrists, GSpinks, and other rational-seeming Obamaphiles,

At this point, it seems almost impossible for Clinton to get either the nomination or the VP position.  This fact, rather than encouraging a welcome tone of magnaminity on your parts, seems to be triggering the reverse -- more of the same Hillary-bashing vitriol.  This seems counterproductive if the objective is to heal the Democratic party and encourage Team Clinton to adopt a nicer tone of voice.  

So what's up with the hostility to her continued run?  

First argument, that it hurts Obama, seems manifestly false.  As many smart and reliable Democrats have pointed out, the coverage and enthusiasm and money for Obama (and Hillary) continues to roll in.  Yes, that crowds out some opportunities to blast McCain, but McCain already has a nationally-known brand.  Far better for the Democratic nominee to have a chance to define himself in EVERY state in the Union rather than having the GOP do it for him.  

Unless, of course, you think that Hillary is going negative, or driving her supporters away from Obama, or "doing the GOP's work for them."  My friends, you seem like a very intelligent and extremely well-informed bunch, but all your contacts and inside tips must come from the Democratic side (and you seem to be forgetting recent history) if you think that Hillary's campaign is ANYTHING like what the GOP is going to trot out.  Her very worst negativity against Obama pales in comparison to the tactics that primary opponents have used against each other in the past.  The worst stuff that's come out (say, the Wright stuff, the Rezko stuff) is WAY better for Obama to come out now than in September or October (remember the effect that Gennifer Flowers had on Bill Clinton by coming out during the Democratic primary).  By the general election, this stuff is old news.  Indeed, the fact that the media has (until recently) totally taken a nap on Obama is all the more reason for Hillary to go on -- far better for the media to "discover" the anti-Obama story now than in a few months.  The GOP had a game plan for Hillary, of course, relying upon old brands and legacy hatred, but they feared her.  The also fear Obama, but they have plans for him as well.  

As for the motivation for Hillary (weakening Obama in '08 for '12, or whatever), you might want to try, just as a thought experiment, to view the world without the grassy-knoll conspiracy theory lenses.  There are very reasonable posts from very smart folks like Ellen Malcolm ( see www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902298.html) as to why it's Hillary's obligation to take it to the end.  

Sleepy, Brother FAP, other Clintonistas,

You guys are a bit hot and heavy for my tastes, but your histrionics seem to bring out the lengthier and better-reasoned posts from the Obamaphiles, which is not the response I would have predicted.  I guess I have the same reaction to your posts as I do to the rise of the net-roots: even though you are a bit nuts, at least you're balancing out the debate, because previously the screaming nut-job posts were all on the other side.

Sleepy - Hillary lost so long ago  It's disappointing as hell, but she did a poor job and lost - denying it or blaming it on anyone but her and her poorly run campaign is solipstistic nonsense, bizarre.  We ask our kids to aspire to integrity, to own their own mistakes with dignity even if it burns like shit, to display good sportsmanship, maturity and yet - cannot find a way to embody it ourselves.  Hillary has evoked nothing less than the Bunny Boiler archetype at this point, a disgraceful performace for any girl or woman to have to digest.  This is entirely HER DOING, HER choices.  At what point do you accept that she's accountable for her own poor performance?  Is everything the fault of the Nefarious Other that seems to magically answer every problem that has happened to her?

The worst part of Hillary is how she drags her supporters through her melodrama, making them into desperate, lashing out martyrs who have little, if anything positive or even substinative to say about Hillary for months now, just lots of hectoring at the wind about the unfairness of life and the wickedness of a manifestly flawed, but really good man who simply ran a better campaign and won.  Its beyond undignified.  If Hillary had any class at all, she'd think of them - instead - she bleats for more money from them!  

She's not inspiring, she's pathetic and it does make me sad - I did not want this for this smart, if flawed person.  Calling the millions of people who support Obama a cult is just projection of your own impotence in the face of losing - so obvious, so pitiful really - nothing positive to say, just bilge.  You're giving this loss power, no one is doing anything to you - you're doing it to yourself in the name of someone who doesn't deserve it.

Dmelhorn - I think you're right in terms of Hillary's continuing run, at least I think Obama thinks so too, no harm done, its best for her to burn her own self out, no use poking a stick into that cage, it will only make it worse.  

It appears to be just sour grapes though, just wanting to underscore how those white people don't like the Muslim guy, nya nya.  It just looks like vindictive Hillary behavior, which is impossible to feel compassion for.    I wish she would display one morticum of graciousness and class, just one.

Demlhorne- my big problem with her going so negative is that it is cutting Republican ads for them.  Why pay money to craft a message.  Show Hillary speaking- "Even other Democrats don't think BARACK HUSSIEN OBAMA" has crossed the threshold to be President.  Why should you?"   "Barack Obama's connection with Bill Ayers is too radical for even Hillary Clinton- it is too radical for America".  "Obama is too elitist even for BILL CLINTON.  Does he speak for any Americans, or just eggheads and blacks?"  

Thanks, Hill!

Great stuff, wandrey.

Yo Bone - you too as always!

The point, dmelhorn, is that Hillary does continue to damage the Democratic party.  "hard working people, white people" won't vote for Obama.

As long as Hillary engages in her wretched, race-baiting party-wrecking campaign, I continue to regard it as the solemn duty of every good Demcorat -- including her erstwhile supporters -- to trash her, early and often.  When, if ever, she starts behaving like a Democrat, there will be no more reason even to notice her.

As for you and the other Hillaristas, you seem to regard "magnanimity" as a shield behind which you can continue to engage in the same obnoxious name-calling that characterizes Hillary's campaign itself.  To this day, I can barely recall ever reading Obama supporters talking about how nuts Hillary's supporters are for wanting to nominate her.  Nuts for claiming that she is winning when she is losing.  Sure,  That's a fairly objective matter, not one of political taste.  Yet, even now, you Hillaristas cannot refrain from lobbing silly little assaults.  And the appropriate response to those assaults is to remind you and the world what a pathetic thing Hillary Clinton is.

I don't care whether she continues to "run" if you want to call it that.  She can run until she drops.  It will only make it that much clearer to the world that she lost, that no one pulled the rug out from under her.  I want her to stop the race-baiting, stop undermining the Democratic party.  If she would for one moment put the party's interests ahead of her own ego-gratification, fine.

What you also seem not to understand is that what Hillary is doing is taking hostages.  Threatening in various ways to undermine the Democratic party unless she gets bought off somehow.  I cannot EVER recall a losing candidate in either party engaging in such behavior.  That's our Hill, scum to the end.

There, did that make you feel better?  You have lots of justification for considering yourself the terrible victim, just like Hillary.

Read that ridiculous load of tripe from Ellen Malcolm in the WaPo that you cited:

She says:

"So here we are in the fourth quarter of the nominating process and the game is too close to call. Once again, the opponents and the media are calling for Hillary to quit. The first woman ever to win a presidential primary is supposed to stop competing, to curtsy and exit stage right."

The game is too close to call? Come on.  Plus more of the pathetic victimization shtick.  Almost NO ONE including Obama is urging Hillary to quit.  That is the victimization strawman for the nth time.  People just want her to stop being a nasty bitch carrying the Republicans' water for them, Southern strategy and all.  If she could comport herself decently, no one actually gives a damn whether she continues to run.  That's the part that really stings, isn't?  That no one is getting hot and bothered urging her to drop out because she is irrelevant. So you have to gin up this phony claim that everyone is desperate for her to quit. (I am sick of looking at her and hearing about her, but that's a rather different issue.  If she wants to turn Clinton fatigue into Clinton exhaustion, she is welcome.  She is already galvanizing people here in NY to try and get rid of her in 2012, so that's good.  The more annoying she is, the better our chances of dumping her.)

What is truly pathetic are the women like Malcolm who need to adopt this absurd pretense that "the game is too close to call" so that they can continue to enjoy this vicarious fantasy with Hillary.  Dozens of other candidates in dozens of other elections have dropped out once it was evident there was no point.  Does Malcolm think that this is going to impress the world with the leadership skills of women, that fantasies of power are more important than reality?  It sure as hell doesn't impress me.

I guess this is just repeating what everyone else has said better -- including me -- but it seems that it must be obvious to anyone with some objectivity left over (even a committed Hillarista) that the biggest mistake Clinton made was a dangerous combination of two assumptions, (1) that Iowa was hers and (2) that it would all be wrapped up anyway on Super Tuesday.

These massively wrong bets have dogged her campaign ever since January, and to me at least they strongly suggest that if an accusation of hubris is to be leveled at anyone, it should be Hillary.  She has been the one who was so convinced that the party owes her the nomination, and no questions thank you, that her whole theory of the primaries was a royal tour culminating in a majestic assumption of the Democratic candidacy.

The scream of frustration and anger at the "unjust" turn of events is what we've been hearing ever since.

Hillary's strategy - in West Virginia especially - reminded me of something Gore Vidal said when I was a kid.  When asked what he thought the Republican electoral strategy was going to be that year, he said: "Wave their arms and scream, N***ger, N***ger, N**ger."

Ugly, but undiluted.

I just read a piece that told me something I didn't know, that Ed Rendell is Jewish.  Shut my mouth.  Obviously, he is not a self-righteous publicly pious type like Joe Lieberman.  That's a good thing.  We don't need Jewish politicians aping the Evangelicals, wearing their religion all over.  Affiliated Jew though I am, Lieberman has always given me the creeps.

Having read that, and about Rendell's political career in PA, I'm going to take a little jump and say that he is the VP pick.  I've thought about Biden for his policy cred, Richardson for his Hispanic cred, but Rendell seems to me to be A) a very experienced and successful campaigner, B) someone who will surely nail PA for Obama, C) someone who has a good chance of pushing neighboring OH into the Dem column which would likely be the end of McCain, and D) someone who could even help in FL, or at least make McCain spin his wheels there.

So, I am predicting that Rendell will be the VP pick and that he will spend an inordinate amount of time in PA, OH, and FL, with some time in IN, MI to boot.

Roi - I could not even bring myself to read past the first paragraph of that godforsaken article.  I'm on a mission to be a proudly feminist voice who finds that stuff particulalry embarrassing, cloying, insulting so I was determined to gag through it and refute it line by line.  But I could not keep my lunch down and finish it, I just couldn't.

Holding someone to lower standards of decent or competent behavior because of their gender or race is patronizing liberal sexism/racism in and of itself, as if we poor dears are morally and structurally enfebled by the oppression of it all, so we can't be judged.  I am, in fact, still accountable for my choices and behavior no matter what - we all are. And I am proudly part of WE, thanks.

Sexism is a problem in the world, all the more disgusting when it is used to justify  poor behavior in a rich, entitled member of the elite who did a poor job.  It's the worst kind of using - a sin.

Yeah, the Malcolm piece was pretty bad.

You know wandrey, I have wondered whether Hillary will be a setback for equal rights and status for women or a boost.  On balance, I think it will help by discrediting, finally, the boomer brand of feminism and getting it offstage.  The victim bit has run its course.  Upper class women lamenting their stunted lives (lives that would be the envy of 99.9999% of the world's population) are over.  Goodbye Ferraro, Goodbye Gloria.  Goodbye Hillary.

I have many, many women friends and confidantes (far more than men).  Many of them, I think most in fact, share a sense of melancholy about having felt compelled to pursue a set of goals set by feminist ideology that in the end did not serve them as people.  I am hopeful that the type of feminism that arose in the 70s is having its last hurrah with Hillary Cliinton and that this will make it possible to move forward and create a set of relations that will work, in the workplace and the home.  I would certainly not want my children to have to repeat the same emotional struggles, the same bewildered feeling of "What happened?  Why are our relationships so fraught?" that afflicts so many of my generation (that is, the ones who are not just busting their asses to get by which is a far graver problem in this country than any other).

Roid.  Dept of Labor today shows wage gap between men and women's pay worsened last year.  which feminism would be ok with you to tackle that?  is that victimization?  By the way, my February book is titled Neither Villain nor Victim.  

I'm so tired of the Hillary bashing here.  Never anything positive about here. Nothing.  I embraced Obama last week, but tnr anti-hillary blogs have blunted my enthusiasm.  Obama people: time for reconciliation with the other side.  I'm one of them.  I'm ready now.  Are you?  

Tammya: Bashing is largely a testosterone thing.  Reconciliation doesn't come easy. But I am all for it.

Oh sure, tammy,

No, it is not victimization.  It's a form of market failure plus a lot of sociological factors regarding women's and men's choices that are ignored by Gloria Steinem feminism.  If we just pretend that women and men are identical, why they will be, except that is when women require some special consideration to meet their needs.  Other cases are actionable as a civil rights violation.

How about we start over and recognize that the civil rights movement is not a very good analogy for women's and men's rights for reasons that are both numerous and obvious.  Or at least I think they are.  The relationships between men and women don't really resemble those between the races.  For one thing, if we could overcome our legacy of slavery and racism, there isn't a reason in the world why race could not cease to matter and become as unimportant as the color of people's hair.  The relationship between men and women, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, sisters and brothers are not now and never will be for the next million years indistinguishable from any others.

I'll be happy to discuss it with you sometime, but I have no time right now.  One might just take notice of the fact that relations between the sexes have never been about power exclusively on one side and that the work structures that are now a problem were not until industrialization changed the nature of work.  It is not that the system became more oppressive, it became obsolete.  The history of the world is one of families and work adapting their structure to suit the needs of women and childrearing given the exigencies of the age..  Its just that that is not static.

tammya writes:  Dept of Labor today shows wage gap between men and women's pay worsened last year.  which feminism would be ok with you to tackle that?

Hm.  How about an active labor movement that looks to improve workers' wages and salaries in general?

There hasn't been much positive posted about Hillary around here lately because she hasn't done anything positive lately. It's pretty simple.

I'm all for reconciliation, myself. I'm tired of this needlessly prolonged primary season - when it's all over and done with, anyway - bringing out snide comments from the likes of me and insane rantings like those above from sleepy. (And I am not using the phrase "insane rantings" lightly.) So while I don't for a moment doubt tammy's sincerity, for example, how exactly is reconciliation gonna progress as long as HRC continues her quest? There's been talk that at this point she might start to wind things up and accentuate the need for Dems to come together and focus on hitting McCain, but it's not happening and she's still out there bashing Obama. tammy has embraced Obama, but HRC surely hasn't.

So what on earth do you expect of Obama supporters - you know, us naive, foolish dreamers who are trying to fill massive voids in our pathetic lives by worshiping this god who walks amongst us - when it comes to reconciliation? To stop saying bad things about her when she uncorks an offensive "hard-working Americans, white Americans" comment? To refrain from criticizing the constant trial balloons and loony rules-gaming strategies that are part and parcel of her kitchen-sink strategy to get the nomination?

Believe me, I would like to "reconcile" right this very moment. Hillary won't let me.

sleepy:

What is with you? I've read your posts for the past few months and am simply appalled by the vitriol you spew at Obama supporters. Why is this race so personal for you? Defending her is fine, but spare me the "shes-the-salt-of-the-earth" pronouncements. I'm sympathetic . Hillary feels she's been blind-sided by this upstart, Obama. But vho voted and argued persuasively (in the case of the caucuses) for him.? Answer: The voters. You may think Obama's selling them snake oil, but Hillary isn't purveying the same product?  Obama and Clinton are--politicians, after all.

The fact is that Hillary is a divisive figure. Is that entirely her fault? Of course, not. There is a Right-Wing Conspiracy("RWC"). I'm not one to swoon over politicians, but I admit that some of the ambivalence i feel toward Hillary is a result of the conservative noise machine and the stream of negative press. Oh, yes. I'll admit that media folks evince a strong antipathy towards the Clintons. Why? I haven't any idea. (I yell at the t.v. in defense of them all the time.) Though I find it strange that they tend to view the Clintons as more calculating than other politicians. Aren't they all? And aren't many of them more unctuous than Bill Clinton? Definitely. They just aren't as quick-thinking (meaning of "is", "is"), articulate, charismatic, macking ( swallow Monica!),  winners (two prez terms, govt shut down victory, impeachment/trial) as he is.

But let's face it. Hillary thought the nomination would be a cakewalk. It wasn't.

Second, Hillary was, until three-four months ago, a relatively poor campaigner. (Bill is a natural, and he has that congenital, ineffable quality--charisma. Though, unlike the imbecile WASP/pseudo cowboy in the White House, she has proven that she can learn.)

Third, some Dems and many independents simply don't like her. She has high negatives. It could be the RWC and media or simply Clinton fatigue.  Fair or not, that is the case.

Fourth, Hillary hasn't apologized for supporting the Iraq 2 fiasco. I don't agree with her vote.  I knew why she did it. I voted  for John Kerry and I knew why he supported the invasion. But Hillary had an opportunity to fashion an apology. She refused. The WaPo, NYT, and TNR  and Peter "Yellow Streak" Beinart have apologized. Why doesn't she? For Pete's sake, she should say she made a mistake and move on. The GOP can't say she is soft on the GWOT (a false pretext for invading Iraq) because she vote for it. What's more, with the post-"mission accomplished" period an ignominious failure (not that our guys aren't making small cups of lemonade out of the Iraqi lemons, unfortunately, when given shit, the result is baked shit, not chocolate cake) and two-thirds of the country opposed to the war, what's to lose? Talk about alienating the base.

Last, the mechanics of the Democratic primary is such that more than a month ago, Hillary was mathematically unable (barring Obama being found in bed with a live former Mark Foley intern and a dead Ann Coulter--ick!) to catch up to Obama.  Fine, it is difficult for her to concede, especially after working so hard (and thinking you were a shoo-in) for a once-in-the-lifetime prize. But She and Bill subtly injected race into the campaign, (as if white voters didn't notice Obama is black) and she an her campaign  people made comments that one should have expected to come from the GOP and its ilk. Too much. To the extent it toughened Obama up, great. However, her campaign has skipped over the line too many times.

Moreover, the pettifogging and voodoo arithmetic is irritating. Hillary lost,fair and square. Remember, Obama didn't knee cap her on his way to rolling up victories. His major points of contrast (i.e. attacks)  Change and the Iraq war vote. No other Dem primary candidate pointed that out?  C'mon.

If the scenario is win West Virgina and Kentucky, okay. But don't tear down the guy. Fairly or unfairly, the Clintons are accused of caring more about themselves than the party. If Hillary a) refused to bow out after Kentucky and b) continues o campaign by strongly attacking Obama, the critics will be proven right.

The white-working class mess  matter was going to come up, anyway. That doesn't mean Hillary should have ran with it. As for the misogyny issue? Spare me.

As a man, who, when I view one of those rabidly anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum types, asks why don't those cunts stay home and "bake cookies" (remember that Hillary utterance that erupted into a (contrived) mini-scandal) and leave politics and public policy to the men, reject that rationale as a major factor.  Another point of proof is the strong support Obama receives from young people. Do you really believe most of those guys and girls reject the notion of voting for a woman? or car, for that matter?

As a Gen-Xer, I've worked with and for women.  It's not abnormal to me.  Since March of this year, my navy reserve squadron is commanded by a women (CO) and the second in command , (the XO) is a women. (Both pilots.) The reserve master chief (senior enlisted and aircrewman) is a woman. I'm sure the subject came up, but I don't recall anyone pointing out the matriarchal domination of our squadron's leadership. Military members, as you know, skew young. So no one really gives a shit.

What is strange is that the press plays this older women voter narrative, yet chicks are the ones who tend to vote against female candidates. Even in what we would consider conservative states, such as in the West, men--and I don't mean Jane Fonda fans--elect women in significant numbers.  The older white women vote is somewhat bogus. Those women didn't want to vote for a "brother" and were just looking for an excuse.

The same goes for the "experience" nonsense. What experience did Dubya have? A two-term governor in a weak-governor system and whose legislature meets every other year and its lieutenant governor is arguably more powerful the the governor. (The Texas Lt Governor is the president of the Texas Senate and "President of the Texas Senate. By the rules of the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor establishes all special and standing committees, appoints all chairpersons and members, and assigns all Senate legislation to the committee of his choice.") Moreover, most Texas Democrats are ideologically in tune with the GOP.

What job really prepares on for the presidency of the U.S.? An mix of experience is great. But the proper temperament and the ability to learn and intellectual curiosity or being the Un-Dubya are arguably quite important. Obama is young. So what. He's in his forties. Sacre bleu!  What is that? The new tweens? George W. reportedly (the jury is still out) grew up and stopped drinking at 40.

Tammy - I hate to upset you and I mean it, you should check in despite it all - you help your cause so much.  You are a good person.

I have alot of anger towards Hillary Clinton and her campaign, I wish I did not.  i wish it was different.  When she concedes, stops the attacks and stops handing Repubicans ammunition for a nominee who won fair and square and who is a good man, a flawed but inspiring man who does our country proud, I will rethink and re-evaluate myself these last several months.  

I try to listen and sometimes fail, often I guess.  

I disagree with you but I respect you - it sounds flimsy now, but it is something to work with moving forward.  

Obama can afford to ignore West Virginia, just as Hillary ignored a number of states where she knew she would fare poorly after the South Carolina primary. He needs to focus his time and energy on consolidating his lead in Oregon. The media have exaggerated Obama’s “weakness” among older white voters with less than a completed college degree so that we all expect very little out of West Virginia and Kentucky. Expectations have been lowered, and even if some people are a little rattled by a substantial win for Clinton in those states, Obama will recapture his momentum, and firm up his status as the inevitable nominee, by winning in the double-digits in Oregon. It will fit the Obama narrative that he can put states into play in the general election that haven’t been in the Democratic column for over 40 years. Hillary Clinton cannot make the same claim.

Tec - best post of the season.

ps please justify Hillary's race baiting and/or tell me its all a conspiracy.

Thank you.

Wandreycer1: Thanks. A couple of errors. . .

Seriously, Hillary should bow out after WV an KY. If she were ahead, I'd want Obama to concede.  

I share the position the husband of a white couple in their sixties who Bill Maher interviewed. The wife was a Hillary supporter and the husband supports Obama. (Though I was agnostic from the outset of the Dem prez campaign.) Maher asked the Husband if he would vote for Hillary if Obama lost, and he said yes, after seven years of Bush, the Dems could nominate a dogcatcher, he didn't care. I second that.

As a fellow member of the naval service I have some affection for McCain, but he lost all most of my respect after he accepted Bush's sleazy South Carolina tactics (or whomever; the point is he didn't demand Dubya and Cheney denounce it). Plus, McCain is running as little Shrub. I didn't even know that was possible. What is he? A lichen?

Wandreycer1: Was that post script directed to me? If it was, here is my answer: There isn't any justification for the "race-baiting."

Wandreycer1: agree with you that she's had lots of opportunities to be gracious, and she hasn't been.  I think that's hurt her more than anyone else, but I agree with you that it hasn't been appealing.  

boneill: I just don't think that statements from the loser, during the primaries, are ever effective in the general.  It's like the line "my opponent's deep pockets are making this race unfair" -- it seems like it should matter, but it never does.  To my knowledge, focus groups have NEVER been persuaded by recycled lines from a primary, and I don't think that they will this time.  

roid: I've re-read my posts, and I thought I conceded that the Obamaphiles like yourself are smart and well-informed.  My note about the nuts is about people like Peretz and Chait who are completely over the top -- not in promoting Obama, but in BASHING HILLARY.  I don't feel like a victim, I feel fine.  But on the TNR blogs I sometimes feel like the pro-Obama forces are a clannish gang that is unafraid to use invective and even curse words to villify Hillary and her supporters.  The first time I ever posted on TNR was when I was motivated to do so by someone calling her "shrillary," an epithet that OBVIOUSLY is based upon her gender -- something I think that Democrats should disown.  

As to whether her campaign is race-baiting, this is another one of those things where different people see different things.  For example, one of my friends who is a huge Obama supporter says that the "3am ad" was racist.  I've seen that ad a bunch of times, and studied truly racist ads (such as those run by Jesse Helms against Harvey Gantt), and that ad is simply no such thing unless you're engaged in far-left academic constructionism.  Similarly, I know that Hillary took massive heat for the "as far as I know" line about Obama's faith, but if you look at the entire interview (which never happens) then you'll see she devoutly and repeatedly insists that this should not be an issue and that Obama's Christian faith should be taken as a given, and only after the journalist repeatedly badgers her does she have the "as far as I know" tic.  In terms of the analysis of the vote, Hillary has been repeatedly attacked by folks like you when she and her campaign discuss the racial demographics of the vote -- but those same racial demographics are discussed CONSTANTLY by the pundits and the news media (left, right, and center), and the only overwhelming constant is the following:  most ethnic groups (white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever) are divided along economic lines (wealthy for Obama and less-wealthy for Hillary) EXCEPT the black vote, which is now running something like 10-to-1 for Obama.  The fact that Hillary and her staff sometimes mention this is not race-baiting; it is simply participating in the conversation that everyone else is having.  Race baiting would be saying, suggesting, insinuating, or hinting that race itself matters -- for example, by changing the "3am" to hint that the villains we needed to worry about were black (a la Willie Horton).   But I can't find a single instance of anyone on Clinton's campaign doing anything of the sort.  

Roid,

"I can barely recall ever reading Obama supporters talking about how nuts Hillary's supporters are for wanting to nominate her."

Please consider that statement and think about whether you want to retract it.  If you still don't know what I mean, try reading Marty Peretz, including his latest post.  Hillary-bashing and the bashing of Hillary's campaign and supporters has been a major indoor sport for the intelligentsia for months.  

This is illustrative of the problem here, we've gotten so far into these silos that we are not just interpreting the world differently, we're seeing and / or remembering radically different versions of reality.  

ironyroad:  you are absolutely right about the mistakes Clinton has made.  She ran a terrible campaign in many ways, especially in her strategic decisions -- the ones you mention and others.  

That doesn't mean she feels she was "entitled" to the nomination.  Instead, it means that she chose a strategy of "inevitability" so that she could train her fire on the Republicans, who were absolutely united in attacking her right back.  This obviously didn't work, but it was not a terrible idea and if it had succeeded would have enabled her to become the nominee without doing any damage to her fellow partisans.  It strikes me as odd that people somehow assume that McCain and Obama don't feel "entitled" to the Presidency -- isn't everyone running seriously for that office doing so out of a tremendous sense of ego and entitlement?  

The injustice that Clinton supporters point to is not that she's lost, but that she's lost in a campaign that was marked by two factors: (1) high levels of misogyny (people have used examples of the "iron my shirt" jokes and others which were used with impunity against Hillary, whereas analogous slurs about hispanics or blacks would never have been used in mainstream media against Richardson or Obama); and (2) the media was absolutely in love with Obama and very hostile to her for some time, so that they didn't do basic vetting and left the job to her.  

I am NOT claiming that Clinton would have won had she not faced those biases.  Obama is amazing.  He might have won anyway, especially given the mistakes she made.  What I am claiming is that those cries of injustice have a basis in fact, not just in general but on these TNR blogs specifically.  

ironyroad: an active labor movement is no guarantee of a close in the gender gap.  The labor movement was active in the past and the gap didn't much close -- indeed, the original labor movement had some awfully racist and sexist elements within it.  Maybe groups like SEIU will help, but the fundamental problem with the gender gap is that it applies REGARDLESS OF EDUCATION OR BACKGROUND -- no matter the job, women get paid less.  Unless you think the entire gap is because of maternity leave and children (which is an awfully conservative/liberatarian stretch), there's something going on here that's bigger than the problem of capital.  

WoodyBombay: to quote some wise folks, reconciliation can come if you criticize the sins instead of the sinner.  The "white, working class" comment was worthy of criticism.  But, if you note my previous post about the way she and her campaign talk about racial demographics, you might be able to say "that was an inappropriate / awful comment" without saying, as Peretz and Chait seem to always do, that she is an evil person surrounded by other evil people.  

tec619: good post in many ways, in fact I agree with almost all of it, but not the point about Hillary's Iraq vote.  Since you seem to be in the military I may not have standing to challenge you on this, but there's another possible explanation for Hillary's Iraq vote: she actually believed that when the commander in chief says he needs negotiating leverage, she should give it to him.  She saw her husband need and successfully use authorization for military force in Kosovo, and had an honest belief that the president should have that kind of authority.  Her mistake was in failing to recognize how massively incompetent George W. Bush is and was.  Big mistake, truly (and the same one Pete Beinart made, no need to slander him either, his book The Good Fight is exceptional), but an honest mistake rather than political grovelling.  

But, for roid and the others who may be reading this, I agree with you.  Obama seems to have won fair and square.  The injustices that the Clintonistas point out (at least the rational ones) were not Obama's fault at all.  

Melhorn,

Peretz is Peretz.  He is not indicative of anyone else in the world.  Hillary's supporters have been dumping on Obama's supporters for month -- "Kool-aid," they think he's the Messiah, and blah, blah, blah.  Obama's supporters have been dumping on Hillary and her campaign, as is their right.  She's a candidate, we're the public.

Do remind me again what the Obama supporter rap on Hillary's supporters was?  I don't recall any.  But I will grant you, the meme that there was still a race after Super-Tuesday got dumped on plenty.

Sorry, but I don't by the Hillary the victim of injustice meme either.  Obama was vetted plenty, he's just not as dirty as Hillary so there isn't as much to get.  That's not his fault.  While there are no doubt misogynists who won't vote for Hillary, no one in the campaign stoked misogyny as a campaign theme the way Hillary engaged in race-baiting.  As well, Hillary was happy to invoke "vote for me I'm a woman" to her advantage and it is all that prevented her defeat after Iowa -- playing on her sex and appealing to women on that basis.  If Obama had done the same thing, "vote for me to end racism" or some such, he would have been toast in an instant.

You don't want to accept that people have many substantive reasons for disliking Hillary (I wrote you a long list with 8 numbered paragraphs) having nothing whatever to do with your sex, you are missing the forest.

Above and beyond everything else, whatever misogynist attitudes Hillary had to contend with, the came from the public, not from her opponents.  It was Hillary, Bill and their campaign surrogates, directly, who have been trying to exploit racism to gain votes for Hillary.  That alone is enough reason not to vote for her.

Basically, you dismiss every substantive reason why someone might be adamantly opposed to Hillary, including the fact that she is a lousy politician with a track record of failure and nothing that she can point to as a political accomplishment.  You are wilfully blind to all of that.

Anyone besides me noticed pccostello's absence since Tuesday?

Two words: pink slip.

Ah yes, criticize the sin, not the sinner.  As in Hillary saying that Obama was not fit to be president.  I suppose then that the sin in question was unfitness for the presidency.

I think, in a similar vein, that Hillary's sin is being a graping, self-centered pol who puts her own self-interest ahead of the interests of the Democratic party.  That's not a criticism of Hillary, only of her sins.

Ah, who cares.  Hillary is not really of interest any longer.

'

Dmelhorn says:

"The fact that Hillary and her staff sometimes mention [race] this is not race-baiting; it is simply participating in the conversation that everyone else is having.  Race baiting would be saying, suggesting, insinuating, or hinting that race itself matters -- for example, by changing the "3am" to hint that the villains we needed to worry about were black (a la Willie Horton).   But I can't find a single instance of anyone on Clinton's campaign doing anything of the sort."

Well, candidates for public office do not get to "just participate" in the conversation everyone else is having.  If they want to be the public or pundits, then they have to stop running for office.  If you don't think that saying "hard working people, white people" prefer me is hinting that "race itself matters," there is nothing I can or would say to you.  You live in a separate reality.  Enjoy it.

All of this is just revisionist history.  Hillary ran a lousy campaign and a dirty one from the moment she knew she was losing.  She lost.  Lots of people don't like her.  I will certainly be working to defeat her in 2012 if she doesn't resign from the senate before then.  That's all.

aeorhead--

you truly are a stupid ass.

DMehlhorn writes:  "It strikes me as odd that people somehow assume that McCain and Obama don't feel "entitled" to the Presidency -- isn't everyone running seriously for that office doing so out of a tremendous sense of ego and entitlement? "

That's an interesting little slip.  I didn't say that Hillary Clinton or anyone else felt entitled to the presidency.  I said that Hillary felt entitled to the NOMINATION.  That's a different matter.  If you go for the presidency itself in the GE with the vibe that it's yours, that can mean potential disaster but it can also communicate that you have a confidence and a belief that you can do the job, that you have something to offer the American people.  But it's wide open, you don't know what will change overnight in people's perceptions, and I don't think either McCain or Obama (or indeed Clinton) believe that any kind of "entitlement" in the normal meaning of the word exists.

The nomination is an internal party thing, however, and is much more rooted in the cozy feeling that one is among friends and that ultimately we're all going to be on the same side after the Convention.  Years of service in the party in one role or another are often seen as a kind of "paying your dues" qualification that gives one a particular stature and, importantly, seniority.  This can lead to the assumption that one is the "natural" choice and in tune with the party's dynamic of the moment.  HRC thought she was, and then discovered that the dynamic was changing fast.

Indeed, perhaps thinking of November, ordinary Democrats all over the country have decided that seniority isn't the crucial factor this year.

I am concerned indeed with how Obama supporters are like - extraordinarily intolerant, demanding that everyone else gets out of the way. The argument that Hillary should get out is pretty unhinged - excellent for the Soviet Union circa 1980 or Syria 2008, but not USA.

If Hillary has lost, let her lose truly - don't tell her to get out of the way. This preposterous demand is not from today, this has been going on from when Obama just had 1,300 delegates. This demand alone should be enough to keep her fighting until the end.

Oh yes, how quiet you guys are now about superdelegates! It looks like Obama is about to overtake Hillary in superdels. Suddenly, no more talk about how superdels are bad. Hm... how principled this silence is.

I am, additionally, concerned with the lack of substance Obama has. Obama is a demagogue weak on program and startlingly bad in judgment - just look at what hair-raising advisors he has chosen. I also think he has high chances to become US president. I just think he will be a bad one. It will be Carter II, complete with Carter himself and his scoundrels (think Zbigniew) on the Obama administration.

I am not concerned at all with what people like WoodyBombay or AaronBBrown think, from whom whatever comes sounds like Communist Party USA.

Interestingly, tec619 thinks I wrote Hillary is the salt of the earth. No shit! Where did that come from? I'd be curious see where I wrote that.

When I refer to Obama as the Anointed One, I say because this is how you behave, as if he were a messiah and a king. You aren't really citizens electing a president - you are subjects at the feet of the king and savior.

But I have no fear that you will respond. Oh no, you'll be bothered by my tone or who knows that, while studiously avoiding to address the issues. As for my tone, I enjoy being the one who says no, especially in such a unanimous, no-one-can-think-otherwise crowd.  

By the way, I dislike Obama not because I like Hillary. She may or may not lose - she has a very low chance now ad se would be well advised to wait for another time.

But the point is not about her, it is about Obama himself. He doesn't hold a candle to someone like Al Gore. He has charisma, oh yes. Substance? Eh, who needs substance when the candidate looks good on TV?

His campaign is about how wonderful Obama and how there's going to be a change. Then another round of how wonderful Obama is. Then a round of applause!

pcostello, what did you expect? You're in the Soviet Republic of Obama.

Thanks, pccostello.  But you could think of many ways to flame me that would sting worse than "stupid ass."  

I may, at times, be an assHOLE, but I know I'm not stupid--and so do you.

And by the way, pccostello, are you capable of posting here about ANYTHING other than Hillary Clinton's candidacy?  This charter member of the Barack Hussein Obama Politburo/ Boot Lickin' Society wants to know.  For all my supposed worshipful obsession with Obama (Never mind that up until September I was hoping for Gore to gate crash the party and that my first actual monetary contributions went to Edwards), if you take a look around these boards you'll see that I have interests that have nothing whatever to do with my party's presumed nominee.  Can the same be said for you?  

Personally, I'd like to hear what "pccostello" thinks about universal health care, climate change, the war on drugs, same sex marriage, abortion, the death penalty, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the rise of China, or for that matter on the quality or lack thereof of Iron Man.  But instead, all we get from you is an endless stream of bogus talking points.  I mean, really, if you aren't a campaign hack, why do you act like one?  

Hey Tec - I was asking Tammy that question.  Love the lichen line - I think McCain seems exhausted and not serious.  I can't imagine that he believes what he is saying.  I love the man, warts and all.  

TAMMY - I'm all for reconciling and swallowing of some pride. I hear you that your expereince of Hillary's critics is that it is way too harsh, vicious even and that is your beef.  

People are furious, no question.  Once Hillary concedes, that dynamic will probably change. Just please see that it is next to ompossible to try to work up some compassion when you see someone as so vindictive and self-absorbed, kamikaze even.  I'm just not that evolved of a person.  I'm more of a Tony Soprano fan than a What Would Jesus Do type, my bad, no question.

DMelhorn - I enjoyed your posts, they take guts and you convince me.

The hard-core Clintonistas will never be loyal to Obama. There is no forgiving and then forgetting when it comes to the Clintons - nor should Obama simply shrug and embrace them.

The Clintonistas are a vast spider's web of arrogant Boomer apparatchiks, like Shalala and Carville, who need to leave the stage. Their brand of Crony Capitalism keeps us mired in the mess we're in.

Andrew Sullivan first, prescient article on Obama needs to read quarterly by everyone in the Obama camp. It's a generational conflict at its core.

Time for a Change.

Do you really mean "septic tank?"  Septic tanks aren't usually contrasted with toilets.  In fact, septic tanks are usually used in association with toilets.  Septic tanks hooked up to flush toilets are still quite common in the US, mostly in rural homes beyond the economically feasible reach of a municipal sewage collection and treatment system.  

I don't have any data whatsoever on the toilet facilities of Israeli Arabs, but I do wonder whether instead of "septic tank" the word you were shooting for was "outhouse" or "privy."

The majority of posts supporting Obama around here, like the candidate himself, are filled with preening self-importance and arrogant intolerance of other life experiences (e.g. foggaseu's stunning and disgusting suggestion that prom dresses in West Virginia are made by tent makers), There is a pervasive and false sense of personal superiority that is based on a moral or an aesthetic pose. It may be possible to win a nomination or even an election with a coalition based on these appeals, dolloped with a powerful dose of racial voting. But like George Bush, Obama has been a divider rather than a uniter of even his own party, and in his moment of probable triumph the nastiness that has characterizaed his campign continues to inspire the postings of his supporters.My sense of alienation from Obama and his supporters is so profound that you should count me as a life-long lefty Democrat who will  not vote for him in November, part of the 25-40% of Hillary supporters who won't support him.

Even more, as Donna Brazile and other Obama supporters have implied, the democratic party may be getting re-made in this election, driven by the net-based extremists toward a less embracing configuration as the republicans were driven by religious fundamentalists toward a narrower voting base. I have been moved rightward during this extended nominating campaign. I began firmly on the left. But I have stopped recording Olbermann and Matthews and watch Fox instead. I increasingly find Chrisotpopher Hitchens appealing. There is little at TNR, Washington Monthly, or American Prospect (all of which I have subscribed to) that I want to read or respond to. The Nation makes me nauseous. The range of articles offered by RealClearPolitrics is much more engaging, but I feel like I already know what the lefties are going to say, and it makes my skin crawl when I do read them. I like McCain's character, and I find myself trying to see a way clear to vote for him. I may just sit home on election day. This has somehow happened, in a way that I do not really understand, as a result of this current campaign, and it has a lot to do with Obama and his supporters. I think I am one of many who have had this response.

no one cares what you do pc.  

Tammy,

My angst will dwindle when HRC stops making it easy for me to get riled up about OUR party's nominee.

In the past 2 weeks the strategies used by the loser of the primary nomination have been...

1.  Pander about the gas tax holiday with a plan that NO economist will back

2.  Attack the pointy heads for pointing this out

3.  Talk about how her broad (though minority coalition) is based on hard-working white people to stoke the race issue once again.

4.  Focus on electability when all metrics go against her (using the strong argument that HRC can't win a majority of her own party thus it follows that this is  somehow a strength in the GE.

When HRC comes up with reasons why she should be POTUS that make sense and don't attack the winner of the nomination, my critiques will end.  She makes it so easy to keep piling on and then whines about how it is her right to keep on running (intentional use of whining on my part) which no one denies.  The question is what is the point of the continued run and whom does it serve.

Peace

Greg

"When I refer to Obama as the Anointed One, I say because this is how you behave, as if he were a messiah and a king. You aren't really citizens electing a president - you are subjects at the feet of the king and savior"

This is true to the extent that it has always been true..... to an extent. Believe it or not it is quite likely that you, sleepavl, have supported your chosen candidate for the same heroic imaginings that you accuse everyone else of entertaining. Your projections and investments of hope may have a different tonality to them but the music is the same. Are you sure there isn't a queen of some sort in your constellation? Has Janus become Hermaphroditus?

I like Obama on the whole of it. He does symbolically represent many flash points worthy of consideration for our collective ruminations. I believe he knows this and wears it fairly well. Should I trust this feeling that I have? Well... let's say I'll trust the potential for some resolutions toward those ends. If that makes me guilty of hope then so be it.

Sleepy. Your fear of collective amok is well considered. I hope as well that I am of the inclination to keep this well advised parrot on my shoulder. But I am pleased that he should whisper more often than scream.

Wow, pccostello, that's quite a tale - I'm sorry Obama supporters have made you so crazy bitter. I hope we don't drive you to suicide.

... or do I?

pccostello: Duck season!

The world: Rabbit season!

pccostello: Duck season!

The world: Rabbit season!!!

Don't let the door hit you on your way out laddie...

pccostello: Duck season!

The world: Rabbit season!

pccostello: Duck season!

The world: Rabbit season!!!

Don't let the door hit you on your way out laddie...

Roid,

I understand many of the reasons people hate Hillary, including yours.  Some of them, however, are themselves dependent rather than independent variables.  People uncork their vitriol on her for her stance on the Iraq war, for example, in a way that seems out of proportion to the vote itself.

But, again in the spirit of "it depends who's looking," look again at your comment "If Obama had done the same thing, "vote for me to end racism" or some such, he would have been toast in an instant."  Obama and his campaign have every right to invoke his personal story and indeed his color in their campaign, and they have done so.  The various cadences in his speeches about the "unlikely story that is America" draw upon his background as a black man.  His supporters, especially in the media, have overwhelmingly told the story about how Obama's race and name alone will be a major PR victory in the war on terrorism.  Obama has been much more graceful and sophisticated in his approach, but if you really believe that he hasn't drawn upon his race, you're being willfully blind yourself.  

pccostello, I think if you look back, you'll see that foggaseu's comment was on the lines of a satirical exaggeration.  A joke.  A witticism.  A comic jibe.  Not quite seriously meant, in other words.

But while we're on the topic of "preening self-importance and arrogant intolerance of other life experiences" I'd like to set down for the record that I'm also tired and sick of those phenomena.  I've had it up to here with the preening, and the arrogance too, to put it bluntly.

Get this:  in terms of education, culture, economic vitality, science, political thought, demographic diversity, civic-minded involvement, and not least of all nutrition, the cities of the east and west coasts are far more grounded, and have truer values, than much of the so-called "heartland."

If you're looking for American traditions of tolerance, humor, freedom, and a general optimism tempered by realism, that's where you'll find them.  No clinging required.

I'm afraid that in rural PA and such places, they are seriously out of touch with the real America.

Wandreycer1: agreed about the graciousness point.  She expects to win big in WVA and KY -- immediately after those two states would be a fantastic time for her to bow out gracefully.

I still have hope.  Both Al Gore and Bob Dole found previously unavailable grace and dignity when they finally decided to concede.  

roid, read fougasseu's post.  It has two things that highlight the problem, that you claim don't exist.  First, yet another slam at Hillary's supporters.  Second, an excellent reference to an excellent article by Andrew Sullivan which talks about Obama's credentials at least in part (not entirely in Sullivan's view, but at least in part) because of his race.  

Wandreycer1:  PS, thanks for the note.  This is my first time in the world of blogs (I was motivated to intervene by someone referring to Clinton as "Shrillary"), and only recently did someone advise me that I should do a better job of disguising my real name!  

No, dmelhorn,

I don't think that Obama has not drawn on his biography.  Every candidate who is worth anything as a politician draws on their biography.  But Obama's race is not his biography and Hillary's sex is not her biography.  When Hillary says, "I'm doing this for my daughter and your daughters" as an appeal to women to vote for her, she is not drawing from her biography.  If Obama said something analogous, I don't think he would have gone very far.  Indeed, I would have dropped him like a hot potato, because anyone who thinks the purpose of being president is to be a symbol for one or another identity group is going to screw it up badly.  Even if it weren't something the candidate believed, meaning it were just pandering, it would be enough to turn me off so long as I had any other viable option.

Some months ago, I had dinner with a couple my age, my oldest friend and his wife.  We starting talking about the campaign and, when I said I was supporting Obama, she practically jumped across the restaurant table out me, declaring that I "had to" support Hillary because I have two young daughters and "giving them" this opportunity was "the only thing that matters."  Now, leaving aside that my children are at zero risk for falling into the underclass or encountering anything other than the vicissitudes of life to which all humans are at risk, I asked, "What about other people's kids who are dying in Iraq?"  The answer she gave was, "They had a choice."  I understood her to be saying that the burden of being female, being both so great and a matter of no choice at all, was far more important than the burden of being poor, uneducated, or duped by your government into serving a terrible cause out of misplaced patriotism.  I don't see it that way.  Nor do I forgive Hillary's Iraq vote which I believe, although others may not, was unprincipled and cynical.  One has to make judgments about the meaning of a politician's behavior and character.  That is my judgment.

Hillary's appeals to her sex as a reason to vote for her are, for me, more than sufficient reason not to.  I'm not voting for a symbol of anything.  I'm voting for someone with a very critical and difficult job to do.

demel,

I don't think that fougasseu is referring to rank and file Demcrats who support Hillary.  It seems to me obviously to refer to the professional politicians who form her posse.  They are all fair game for bashing, the core value of the First Amendment:  We all have the right to bash our politicians.  That's why there is a whole separate doctrine of constitutional law that applies to pols.

I also make a distinction between what others say about a candidate and what the candidate (including campaign organization) says about the candidate.  The public is allowed to advocate whatever it wants.  If women want to say "vote for Hillary because she's a woman," I may not be swayed but I certainly would not vote against the candidate because of what any unrelated third party says.  But when the candidate says it, it is a different matter.  I am neither drawn to Obama, nor dissuaded from supporting Hillary, by what their supporters say about them.  It may interest me as a political phenomenon, but it weighs not at all.

It is for the same reason that there is a big difference between the pundits ruminating about the "white vote" and the candidate ruminating about the white vote, or supporters saying they want a woman, or a black, and the candidate saying vote for me because I am a woman or a black.  On this score, Hillary has offended my sensibilities often and Obama has not.

Great post on why Obama owes Hillary come November:  

www.nytimes.com/.../11leib.html

Why Obama "owes" Hillary? Seriously?

I have a friend who went through a near-death cancer experience and now is cancer-free. She feels that as a result of that fight she's a stronger person, she takes more time to enjoy life, she feels she has a better perspective on life. If you asked her, though, she would hardly say that she "owes" cancer because cancer made her a better person. She's certainly not grateful that she had it. And she'd still rather have not gone through it in the first place.

DMehlhorn, I do want to say thanks for being a reasonable Hillary supporter, we could have used you months ago, would have been far, far better than the loony pccostello. I am a swing voter who likes McCain a great deal, and feel Roe Vs. Wade was bad precedent, support the surge, etc. But the notion that that left wing Hillary supporters will vote for McCain out of pissy spite is truly hilarious.

All, I thought I posted a response last night when I got home (2am) from clubbing with my girls, but I can't find it here on this OUTRAGEOUS stream.!!  Now, it seems the points I wanted to make don't fit the subject matter and we're ready to start another week.  I'll check back in after the WV primary.  I'm sure there will be plenty of streams about that.  Oh how I wait with such eager anticipation.

Quick question for anyone whose blogging on a Sunday night: Can Hillary transfer her GE monies to Obama?  I think the reports are that she has $40+ million for it.  Obama has considerably less.  If so, is it possible they are gonna swap campaign dollars?  Now some of you likely think this is something Clinton would never do, but I have a theory... to be continued.  You know, academics ALWAYS have theories.  :)  

aahh, Blackton.  Where's the love?  I thought I was your favorite Hillary supporter?  :)

"All, I thought I posted a response last night when I got home (2am) from clubbing with my girls, but I can't find it here on this OUTRAGEOUS stream!!  Now, it seems the points I wanted to make don't fit the subject matter and we're ready to start another week."

Ain't that a bummer!  Honestly tammya, occasionally I've had the same feeling, that the great assembled TNR masses had been unjustly deprived of my razor-sharp insight and eloquent commentary.

But I like the "got home (2 a.m.) from clubbing" motif.  Here are some other possibilities, e.g.:

I realized I'd left my bouquet and the champagne in the limo, and I went out to check with the chauffeur, and when I got back I didn't know if I'd clicked 'submit' or not.

I was just spell-checking my post when the phone rang -- it was Joe Biden, so I felt I had to take it.  Anyhow, he was just wondering if I knew anything more about Obama's VP discussions.  When I got back to the screen the wi-fi icon was showing no signal, and I just got confused.

tammy was out doing what I'm told is called "having a life."

Prom dresses by tent makers? It's a play on the urban slang used for clothes made for overweight people..."looks like a dress made by Omar the tentmaker". Been in use for years, used by both blacks and whites, sometimes harshly sometimes in jest. Odd what offends some of the readers of these posts.

The posts calling me elitist is rather funny. Like Obama I was raised by a single mother. She raised four of us in circumstances similar to his.

What was going on with the monkey cam on Stephanopoulos' show yesterday? And those undertaker shots of Donaldson and Roberts? Ugh. While I enjoy watching Clinton's Rove plummet in the ratings and these desiccated pundits panic for insights - how did you like Cokie Roberts admitting, with derision, that she doesn't read the blogosphere!! - I do feel sorry for George Will. First his party and now his network gig going down in flames.

fog,

I understood the tent-makers allusion perfectly well. It is a disgusting thing to say about people who have not achieved your upper bourgie class purity, and it is stunning in its revelations about your heart and soul.. Most welathy republicans have more decency about other people than do you. (And your poor, sad upbringing doesn't buy you any excuses.)

John Kennedy spoke movingly nand with real emotion about the poor in West Virginia. Your attitude fits perfectly with Obama's take.

Garbage, pccostello.  How has Hillary envinced her concern?  By dropping her "g's" and talking about "real American values" of guns in the heartland, away from all thos effeminate and brainy city types.   In other words- she has run a Republican campaign.   That is what makes her so disgusting to me.

And sleepy- this is a nomination process.  John Edwards dropped out when he didn't have a chance.  So did Biden.  What makes Hillary so special?   I don't get it.  If Obama was this far behind I would accept his concession.  It is the way the nomination process works.  

Also: I fucking like his policies, his persona, and his mind.  That's why I am voting for him for POTUS; it has nothing to do with kings.

And, as someone else explained, if the supers had gone to Hillary without the votes or the delegates, than I would have been pissed.  We are touting the supers now because of mathematical improbability, and the ever-shrinking window of her viability.  Many people said if Obama won dels but she won the popular vote, the supers would be in a bind, and a justifiable one.  THis has been explained.  Don't keep repeating arguments that have been refuted.

No one pushed Edwards out. He CHOSE to do it. So it is with Hillary. Let her lose - or, more accurately, let your phenomenal guy actually win. My point is not that Hillary will win, but that pushing her out is wrong and undemocratic.

My larger objection about Obama rests on two things. First, he is a demagogue and cipher with vague and largely unknown plans. Being intelligent, as he clearly is, makes a demagogue evenb more dangerous. Second, is that a majority of his supporters seem pretty demented. That is true at his rallies just as much as it is true here on TNR. It is also true in the completely undemocratic demand that everyone gets out of the way so that The Great Obama (called sometimes Ol' Obama by subtle fellows here), gets ahead.

Predictably, whoever dislikes Obama is a racist. I've already heard this one - and I bet I'll continue to hear it. For Obama fanatics, disliking Obama is such a failure that it can only be explained by the vileness of the opponent. Such a mindset is great for Peronistas or Communists or whatever dictatorship you have, not for a free country. Such a mindset will continue to manifest itself. We'll see how much tolerance you guys will have when Obama is president.

pcostello, isn't it funny to see how intolerant these Obama supporters are? Herd mentality - you dare disagree, they jump on you.

Eh, you should see the light and worship the Anointed One.

And if you don't always respond to their imbecile rantings, you have a fuckhead like aeromonas say that you were fired. No worries, you're not alone: last December I had one of the pack, roidubouloi, wish me to drop dead, no less.

You're so literal sleepy.

Do you appreciate the irony of you saying that "a majority of Obama's supporters seem pretty demented, or complaining about "imbecile rantings?"  I would guess not, but then, irony has never been your strong suit.

Why don't you go back to sleep and and wake up in December.  You'll feel much better.

roidubouloi, you cannot have a conversation with me after wishing me death. Whatever you say, good or bad, will not be answered and will be multiplied by zero.

"The Great Obama (called sometimes Ol' Obama by subtle fellows here)"

Evidence?  From any currently accessible TNR thread?

I'll even give you a pass on the subtlety of the author, sleepy, I'd really like to just see an example.

Evidence? Have fun with Gavriel Meir-Levi, a typical Obama supporter, at least as they are on TNR.

This habitually deranged fellow talked about "Ol' Obama" with gusto.

"Gavriel Meir-Levi said:

Hey Sleepyavl, why don't you either get yourself a life or else go back to sleep?  Some of us here actually want to engage in an intelligent and informed debate!  Keep the tone civil or else GET OFF THIS BLOG!

I know that you may feel entitled to curse and use foul language to attack people after 7 years of Bush-Cheney, but on this blog we find it reprehensible and completely unproductive.

When your better half has mastered your knee-jerk outbursts of profanity feel free to check back and express your opinion.  Until then, keep your trap shut!

Marty - don't take things so hard.  Decent human beings have always had to take a lot of criticism for telling it like it is.  My feeling is that a lot of the anger and vilification that folks project outward often says more about them than it does about the object of their scorn.

Take a page out of Ol' Obama's playbook - he gets attacked all the time, but he keeps cool and settles his score at the time and place of his choosing.

March 30, 2008 7:08 PM"

OK.  Hmm.  So one odd reference by somebody who attacked you.  I understand that you don't feel particularly friendly toward this Meir-Levi, but I don't get why his use of "Ol' Obama" is pushes all your wrong buttons.

Your comments implied at least a continual use of the term with some particular meaning.  I'm still a bit in the dark as to what you're really talking about.  Why don't you just come out and say it?

Btw as a clarification, the use of "Ol' is usually a term of affection, e.g. "Ol' Blue-Eyes" for Sinatra, but in the context of a white person naming an African American there is a note of condescension there (at least potentially), as in "Ol' Jesse Jackson, oh my we know his tricks don't we!"  Meir-Levi's usage in respect of Obama seems a bit forced, to be honest.

But in any case thanks for the citation -- I didn't remember seeing anyone using that at all.

demagogue: 2. In bad sense: A leader of a popular faction, or of the mob; a political agitator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of the mob in order to obtain power or further his own interests; an unprincipled or factious popular orator. (OED online edition.)

Okay, assuming a rather broad understandin of the term "popular faction" maybe you can say that Obama is "a leader of a popular faction" but really only in the sence that any successful politician is "a leader of a popular faction."  And saying that Obama is a leader of "the mob" is just plain silly.   You can't argue that Obama draws a disproportionate and therefore problematic degree of support from highly educated, coastal elites and at the same time characterize him as a leader of the mob.  To do so stretches the denotation of "mob" beyond useful meaning.  

So now let's move on to the next portion of the definition: "A political agitator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of the mob..."  Just what passions does Obama appeal to?  A passion for cooperation?  A passion for tolerance?  A passion for conversing with our adversaries instead of bombing them?  And what predjudices?  Maybe you'll say he appeals to a predjudice against women as leaders, but please show me where Barack Obama himself--as opposed to the more benighted of his supporters--has ever made an appeal to sexist prejudice.

I think the reason you, sleepyval, think you can get away with the "demagogue" slander--and it is a slander--is seated in the last line of the OED definition: "popular orator."  It as been a while since a national politician made as much hay with his oratorical skills as Obama has done.  Soaring rhetoric makes some people uncomfortable; to some it seems phony on the face of it.  And it does open Obama to the critique that he's all style and no substance.  It is indubitably true that you can't be attacked for being all style if you have no style , but the converse, the idea that having style is automatically suspect, the mark of a deceiver, simply doesn't hold.  How is Obama "unprincipled?"  And how is he "factious?"  Factiousness is marked by the desire to set groups of people off against one another.  Obama's whole game has been an attempt to bring people together.

I don't expect to persuade you of anything, sleepyval.  For reasons that are beyond me, you have decided that Obama is the antichrist and that those of us who support him are recruits in his zombie army all sucking up in hopes of landing a leadership spot in Hell.  Whatever.  You think a candidate who can get people "fired up and ready to go" must be a demagogue.  I'm just glad that you and those you think like you are not the ones making decsions for the Democratic Party.  One thing you can sure as hell say in favor of Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry is nobody ever accused them of demagoguery.  The irony is that though it more typically came from members of the whacko right than from members of his own party, our last successful presidential candidate, Clinton, was accused of just that.

aeromonas says of sleepyavl:

"You think a candidate who can get people "fired up and ready to go" must be a demagogue."

Aeromonas, don't you think that ascribing thinking to sleepyavl's ranting is a bit over-generous?

And here's the great part, I can now say whatever I want about Ol' Sleepy because he as promised to ignore everything I say and "multiply it by zero."  How fabulous is that?