On #5, both Bill and Hillary must release their tax returns and Bill needs to fess up about the contributions to his Presidential library. The Republicans aren't going to ignore Bill's shady history with Mark Rich, etc. If the Clintons don't choose to do this, they have every right to financial privacy but they don't have a right to a third term in the White House.

As you say in point seven, winning the swing states is tactically most important. To win the swing states, however, you need to appeal to swing voters (point 11). Obama seems to appeal to a large segment of wealthier and better-educated independent voters. Clinton, however, seems to appeal to working class Reagan Democrats and Hispanics. If the swing states have large populations of wealthier, educated independents, then Obama is the best choice. If the swing states have more Reagan Democrats, then Clinton may be stronger. It's a tough analysis, though, because McCain also is likely to have a strong appeal to both the independents and the Reagan Democrats. My guess, though, is that McCain may be more attractive to the Reagan Democrats than he is to the types of independents that would vote for Obama. But this is just my hunch and I have no polling data to back it up. Comparing the results of the two possible matchups--Clinton vs. McCain and Obama vs. McCain--in important swing states is what Democrats really need to do to determine which candidate gives them the best chance of taking the electoral college.

Reed:

I think you made a lot of good points on a really important issue that will dominate the rest of the primary season - thanks for the post. Just to expand on your first point a little bit (and take it in a somewhat different direction): in 2002, Sen. Clinton stated rather forcefully that it was her experience during the time she was First Lady that led her to support the biggest foreign policy blunder in recent history. A point that is effectively captured in this "ad" that a friend emailed to me this morning:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hwLaCb07lAs

It seems to me that experience is only valuable if it helps you exercise good judgment.

Here's what would be a nice change of pace. Clinton will stop making vague accusations about Obama's relationship to Rezko without any evidence of corruption whatsoever.

Second, Obama can stop making vague accusations about what the Clinton's tax returns might hold.

However, the values of "transparency" and "accountability" must be upheld. Therefore, asking Obama to release records and answer some questions regarding Rezko is OK. By the same token, pressing the Clintons to release their tax returns, White House records and Library funders is well within bounds.

There. That wasn't so hard was it?

I find Reed Hundt's "vetting" questions for New York Senator You-Know-Her fine as far as they go. However, as a victim/veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-1972), I personally consider the woman-in-question a privileged pretender in a pantsuit whose lack of meaningful exposure to the central trauma of our generation -- namely, America's unprovoked and dastardly war of aggression on all of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) -- her most singularly disqualifying attribute. She simply slept through the one life experience that should have led her to vote with twenty other Senators and over a hundred Congressmen against a stupid repetition of the same needless disaster in the Middle East. Had she exercised historic memory and due Separation-of-Powers diligence (and not cravenly capitulated to a known Texas cretin with an adolescent, stud-hamster hard-on for Saddam Hussein) she would now face no competition whatsoever for her Presidential ambitions. Her own choices -- in her one-and-only elected office "experience" -- define her down to the disrepute she deserves. She has only herself to blame for that. Thinking voters know a feckless fraud when they flee one.

Or, as I put it in verse during You-Know-Her's twelve-month-long cruise to coronation last year (until the voting started):

"An Ersatz Commander in Knickers"

Before a mirror now she stands
Saluting with her two left hands
"Commanding" like some jaded Joan of Arc
A warfare welfare mother slick
Another monkey on a stick
She gladly held the match that lit the spark

She clearly failed to look and see
The dwarf dyslexic chimpanzee
Who made baboons of her and Bubba Bill
Attacking those upon the left
Who saw through Dubya's lack of heft
She now sounds less a leader than a shill

In thrall to medals on the chest
Not nearly brightest nor the best
She signed off on a jingoistic jaunt
No judgment did she bring to bear
Emitting only heated air
Her bad decisions have returned to haunt

And now with knickers in a bunch
She lives to rue the fateful hunch
She followed on her first blind date with war
It seemed like such a little thing:
A rapt submission to a fling
That's left her used again like Dubya's whore

Yet unrepentant at the ease
With which war caused her brain to freeze
Our You-Know-Her wants us to make her queen
She's got this urge to have a go,
She'd like us all to truly know,
In spite of all that we have heard and seen

She now says she would like to fight
And not just pander to the right
She says the middle finger them she'll give
But calculating cons and pros
She tallies up the "yea"s and "no"s
And then displays a pinky as her shiv

It simply doesn't seem to work
This "centrist" mush served by a jerk
Who likes the times that buy men’s souls just fine
For having sold her own soul cheap
She now can utter not a peep
When voters choose someone more genuine

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

A possible motivation for Reed's turning on the Clintons is that Obama would likely nominate Reed's former Chief of Staff as head of the SEC, while Hillary would likely nominate a rival.

Wired In Washington
Making Connections
By David Hatch
6 February 2008
CongressDaily/A.M.

With the winnowing presidential field and the dust settling from Super Tuesday, the race is on -- for a new FCC chairman.

Election Day might be nine months away, but the jockeying to replace embattled agency chief Kevin Martin as the foremost regulator of the communications sector is reaching a fever pitch.

The candidates don't talk much about telecom and media issues on the hustings, but if you peek behind the scenes, you'll find plenty of past and present FCC officials and congressional staffers dispensing policy advice and/or bundling donations.

At least three previous FCC chairmen and one former commissioner are aiding various campaigns, not to mention the dozens of industry executives and lobbyists throwing their weight and money behind candidates.

Why are so many techies lending a hand? "The issues are much more prominent now than they were years ago," said Blair Levin, a telecom analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. He should know: as one of several Washingtonians informally guiding Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's team, his name has surfaced as a potential choice for FCC chairman. Levin served as chief of staff to Democratic FCC chief Reed Hundt from 1993 to 1997.

Martin's second term expires in 2011. Both Obama and his top rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., would replace him, and while a Republican might keep Martin on, it's assumed that an incoming GOP president would install his own chief.

So far, the candidate with the deepest bench of telecom and media gurus is Obama, who has attracted a who's who of Washington insiders. "They find him the most inspiring political candidate they've run into since they were kids," said a starry-eyed source raising money for the senator.

Julius Genachowski, whose extensive resume includes stints as chief counsel to Hundt and senior executive with Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, is a top adviser who could easily step in to run the FCC. Some sources predicted he would take a high-level post elsewhere, perhaps the White House.

Karen Kornbluh, policy director on Obama's Senate staff and a key telecom and media adviser to the campaign, is often cited as a leading prospect for chairman.

During the Clinton administration, she was a top Treasury staffer and held several titles at the FCC.

Another possibility is Larry Strickling, previously the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau chief and now a full-time staffer on Obama's campaign team.

Democratic FCC regulator Jonathan Adelstein has close ties to individuals backing Obama, including former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., for whom Adelstein worked as a senior legislative aide.

Other supporters of the Illinois lawmaker include Hundt, his Democratic successor Bill Kennard and Don Gips, chief domestic policy adviser for former Vice President Al Gore, a former FCC official and a high-level executive at Level 3 Communications Inc.

Susan Ness, an FCC commissioner during Bill Clinton's presidency, is a strong backer of Hillary and widely viewed as the senator's top pick to head the agency. "I would think it's hers to lose," an industry source said.

The FCC's second Democrat, Michael Copps, often surfaces as a possible choice for chairman under either Clinton or Obama.

His office declined to comment. While his main political patron, former Sen. Ernest (Fritz) Hollings, D-S.C., is retired, Copps is popular among Democratic lawmakers.

But it's not just Democrats who have embraced the deep-pocketed tech community. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has several trusted advisers culled from his years running the Senate Commerce Committee.

Disney lobbyist Bill Bailey, Google Senior Policy Counsel Pablo Chavez, and FCC staffer Maureen McLaughlin are among the former McCain aides informally helping the campaign, sources said.

Bailey was a senior committee staffer from 2002 to 2004 when McCain helmed the Commerce panel. The senator even submitted his name for an FCC commissioner position and he's often cited these days as a frontrunner to replace Martin. Bailey insisted he's not angling for the job.

"I'm supporting him because I think he's the best candidate to become president of the United States -- not for any reason other than that," he said. McLaughlin is limited in her advisory role by a federal law that restricts the partisan political activity of government employees.

In a McCain administration, expect to see Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers named to a high-profile position -- perhaps Treasury secretary. The senator once joked that he might choose Chambers as his running mate.

Just last week, former FCC Chairman Michael Powell endorsed McCain, praising him for his "deep and principled understanding of how the digital revolution is transforming the social and economic landscape."

It's a little tougher to gauge whom former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would choose to oversee the FCC because of his lack of Washington experience.

A key aide on telecom and other matters is Brian Leske, formerly an attorney at MCI, now part of Verizon Communications Inc.

GOP FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell has an outside shot at the chairmanship under a Republican president, though on the downside, his ally Senate Commerce ranking member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, faces a tough re-election battle and is entangled in a federal corruption probe.

Reed makes perfectly reasonable arguments destor. How does making reasonable arguments make someone a "Hillary Hater"?

That's like labeling people who were against the war as "unpatriotic".

religious sect may degenerate into a political faction,' wrote James Madison, but the new American nation would nevertheless be protected against the ungovernable combination of religious fervor and political power as long as the Constitution prohibited the federal government from establishing any particular creed as preeminent.
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