6. Many Clinton supporters are just plain deluded. They either feel a misguided loyalty to her because of Bill, or they are too lazy to read anything beyond the headlines or look for information beyond the soundbites.

Welcome to the Obama echo chamber.

He's come at her with negative attacks? What the hell has she been doing for the last three months? Endorsing John McCain much? He only gave a speech in 2002? WTF is that?

This is a curious reason to stick with Hillary:

>1. Many Clinton voters, myself included, feel strongly that the Obama campaign strategy has been to amplify the "Clinton negatives". >

Hasn't a major theme of the Clinton campaign and of her supporters been that she is vetted and tested and that the Repubs will go after Obama with everything they can find, and therefore the questions they are raising now (like the CiC "threshold," Rezko, Wright) are actually good for the Dems because they get the stuff out now and show whether and how Obama can handle it?

If that's true about Obama, why isn't it equally as true about Clinton? Why isn't it a great thing that Obama is "focusing on her negatives"?

In fact, your points 1-3 really come down to the same point. I think it is a gross misreading of reality, but that's neither here nor there. I just don't get the cognitive dissonance aspect of claiming Hillary's attacks on Obama are necessary to test him, but Obama's "attacks" on Hillary are dirty politics.

Explain?

Number 4 is my big reason. I don't blieve he'll fight for what's right.

My joking number 5 is that I don't want Oprah Winfrey to get a cabinet post.

But that's only kind of a joke. My biggest concern is that Obama is a wimp.

Good spin Lalo, you didn't receive the email directly from Daou.

Hmm. I'm an Obama supporter, and I have major, major problems with Clinton. Here's what frustrates me about this post: it is possible that Clinton really IS calculating, disingenuous, divisive, dishonest, and will say/do anything to win, regardless of whether she ruins the Democratic party in the process. I do not believe this things because Obama told me to. I believe these things because I have watched this campaign very closely and have seen evidence of them with my own eyes. In fact, I believed these things about Clinton way back when I thought Obama didn't have a chance of winning the nomination.

To be clear, I support Obama because I believe that he is the candidate who can really change the way Washington operates, to inspire Americans to think differently and see past what divides us, and change how the world views us and who, most importantly, can win in November against McCain. It's not just that I'm anti-Clinton, even though I will admit unabashedly that I think she's an awful candidate who will lose in November.

So, what am I to do? Should I not believe these obviously true things about her because I want to be fair? I am a woman who is flat-out offended that Clinton expected me to vote for her simply because we are both women, but that she belittles African American voters who voted for Obama. I am offended by her assertion that, as one of the more than 13 million Americans who have voted for Obama, I am a brainwashed koolaid-drinker, seduced by a "cult of personality." I am offended by her assertion that states where Obama won somehow don't matter. I am offended that she said, in public, in a video that we will see again and again leading up to the general election if Obama is the nominee, that McCain is better prepared to be president than Obama. I am offended that she ran that fear-mongering 3 am ad that would have made Rove proud. It goes on and on.

So yes, Obama has used negative adjectives about Clinton. But does it really count as an unfair attack if it's true?

I call BS on your assertion that you're genuinely looking for thoughtful conversation, then blindly repeating Clinton campaign talkign points, most of which take on the Rovian strategy of taking your candidate's biggest weakness and accusing your opponent of it, then taking your opponent's greatest strength and claiming it as your own.

Other than that, then you should know that a) the "latest Rezko admission" is a blatant mischaracterization of the interview he gave to the Chicago Tribune. I suggest you read it in full. You also probably know that b) the "NAFTA" thing was actually your candidate having a much more deceptive and official conversation with the Canadians than Goolsby had. This is borderline fraud by the Clinton campaign.

I'm not going to bother with point number 3, becuase it's completely ridiculous. Even the firmly committed Clinton love-fest site "Broadsheet" at Salon said there was nothing to that "periodically" comment. Seriously, the way you folks have to twist and stretch these things for them to reach the level of being sexist must require some serious yoga. Ok, I guess I bothered with "point" 3 after all.

But it's point 4 that really gets me hacked off. Every time Clinton goes on about how she's a fighter, I can't help but finish her sentence for her by saying "....whether it's good for the Party or not...whether it's good for the country or not...whether it benefits anyone other than me or not..."

But where was this "fighting" spirit on the authorization to use force in Iraq? She paints herself as someone who will go to the mat for her convictions, where was she?

Why did this Edwards supporter choose Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton? Because Sen. Clinton offers more of the same triangulation and moving the party right of center. It has become nearly impossible to differentiate between a right wing extremist hack and a Sen. Clinton campaign supporter. Sen. Clinton has yet to win an election with a 68% total, yet that is what she would have to do in all of the remaining contests to just tie. She has been defeated yet continues to do the work of the GOP for her own personal ambitions. She is destroying the Democratic party with her bitterness and failure to accept defeat.

Lalo35adm, based on your list of reasons and their foundations in fact, it's easy to understand why Obama is not attracting some Clinton voters.

The most conspicuous fact about your list is that it suffers from confirmation bias, the tendency to let your beliefs inform the facts before you, not the other way around. Take the health care issue. You wrote:

"We think his healthcare plan is based on a partial mandate for the sole purpose of making it more acceptable to the Republicans in Congress. The fact that Sen. Clinton already paid an enormous personal price for trying to solve healthcare in the 1990s and yet she keeps trying, is an indication to us that she cares more about solving this it than the personal consquences this may have to her. We don't think she is a victim. We think she has the right priorities of a Democrat."

In 1992 this country was focused on health care reform. Harris Wofford's term as governor and special election as senator fueled the nation's desire for reform. This was probably the number 2 issue, right after the economy. I recall Bob Dole, then Senate republican leader, conceding in public that some sort of health care reform was inevitable.

Clinton's only formal service in her husband's administration was to take the enthusiasm for reform and channel it into a proposal the country could rally around. Reports about that time show that her secretive and controlling ways led to a laughable proposal that was easily attacked by republicans. She was the primary reason we didn't have health care reform then, including universal insurance. 18,000 or so people die each year because they lack sufficient health insurance. Her judgment then had real consequences.

The country, not Clinton, paid a heavy price for her health care reform efforts.

Much of your post suffers from this kind of misreading, letting your personal convictions color your view of the facts.

I am wondering how Clinton supporters rectify the words/actions dichotomy when it comes to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Since her action as a US Senator was to authorize the war, how can we believe her now that she says she is against it?

And, given that she's had 15 years or so to make good on the promise of universal health care, why should we believe that she will deliver if we give her another promotion?

Lalo35adm,

Here's a challenge for you:

Please post a video clip of a Hillary Clinton speech that you find to be inspiring, uplifting, and that gives you a sense of hope for the future.

Seriously. I would like to see just one.

This whole post is a fallacy based upon a collection of fallacies. Clinton voters ARE joining Obama. Unless, of course, someone really believes that Obama's entire base is composed of people who have never voted before, people who are just now elegible to vote, people who were once Republicans... As of 18 months ago, Hillary Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee. There was some excitement for Edwards. There was some excitement for Gore. Who is the presumptive nominee now? Surely Barack Obama isn't leading in pledged delegates and the popular vote because of Gore supporters, Edwards supporters, Republicans, "Young Folks", Starbucks devotees, and electric car owners.

You might also have mentioned that Clinton supporters have seen nothing to make them feel welcome in the Obama camp. There is nothing but scorn and derison for the candidate we (approximately half of the Democrtic party) have elected to support. Examples: the day after Hillary won New Hampshire the blogs were brimming over with post about the need for investigations because Clinton had "stolen" New Hampshire; comments during the South Carolina primary were taken out of context and twisted into some sort of wierd racist rant, not only by Obama suporters, but by the Obama campaign and the candidate himself; we are told that Hillary is still in the race for her own selfish purposes ignoring the fact that neither candidate will get to the magic nominating total before the convention as well as ignoring the disenfranchment of voters like me who live in Pennsylvania and the other states yet to cast ballots. I could go on, but I reckon the point is made. Simply put, there is no evil Hillary isn't capable of. Hell, they might as well drag out the Hillary murdered Foster story.

I might also mention that on numerous occasions Hillary has stated that she will support whoever the eventual nominee of the party is and that she expects her followers to do the same. To date, Obama has not explicitly said the same thing, indeed, he has gone out of his way to state that he expects his followers will not vote for Senator Clinton. Sorry but in my view that's not the position I want to see any Democrat taking.