What you're seeing in the, so called, press is the fact that little serious journalism exists anymore. The press has become extremely sales & profit driven, which means they have to grab our attentions.

How best to do that? By mixing news with entertainment. Its much more entertaining to be told what you want to hear rather than the truth. I don't know how we will fix this serious problem in our democracy.

I suppose the problem ultimately is, us. The media will continue doing what they do until WE remove the profit incentive by not giving them our attention. This has a parallel in how we reward pandering politicians.

Do you remember right before the March 4 primaries, the angry Clinton showed up, "meet me in Ohio!" then the sarcastic Clinton appeared in Rhode Island "the sky will open up" then at the debate "I am honored" then finally she became the fearmongerer with the 3 am ad.

MassDem,

I definitely see the abrupt shifts. Of course, I remember when African-Americans were central to Senator Clinton's base and we expected her supporters to tilt younger than average.

My read is that there are two things fracturing her approach.

One is microtrend politics: what Mark Penn does for the campaign is look for new angles that will pick her up a few points in a selected demographic.

The other is the chaos of her campaign team: people come up with lines to try out and she takes too many of them. The big example to me is when she accused Senator Obama of "change you can Xerox." She didn't notice that she was dating herself terribly, and she didn't notice that doing that and then saying that she was so proud to be there with Senator Obama was pretty much Jeckyl and Hyde stuff.

I contrast that to how Ronald Reagan drew support: he radiated core convictions that no one could shake. You could disagree passionately (as I did) or support him down the line (as a voting majority did). But you had an unusually firm sense of who and what was on the ballot. From the first speech you heard him give to the last quip on the way back to the ranch, you thought you understood his fundamental intentions.

Senator Obama seems to me to be operating more in the Reagan line. The 2004 convention speech gave many people a first, very strong impression. The books back it up. The later speeches and the town hall comments do as well. The unity thing is in the tactics as well as the talking points. Speak to Senator McCain's patriotism. Don't speak to Senator Clinton's ties to scandals when she speaks to yours. Run a campaign where Samantha Power knows, without being told, that she's crossed a line so important that she's got to resign.

Senator Clinton's approach does, in contrast, to resemble an early teen's experimentation with possible identities. I still think there's a coherent, mature person in there, but the longer she campaigns, the less sure I am that I understand who that is.

(Did I dream it, or did she switch to brown and yellow for Texas, to scarves in Pennsylvania, and to pink for North Carolina?)

It's more than a campaign strategy. Hillary has never taken responsibility for her own actions, and always needs some "enemies" to blame for her troubles. I think this comes from having a somewhat abusive father and being a nerdy unpopular young lady. All those years of Bill sexually abusing various women is written off as a "rightwing conspiracy" to hurt their political career.

I bet if Hillary ever was honest with herself, she'd crumble. Too much baggage for her to bear, so she blames everything on other people and admits to no errors.

So why do you think the Repubs are spending so much time, money, and attention on trying to nail Obama, and so little on Clinton? It's because they know that Obama truly does pose a threat to them. Clinton? She has so much baggage they can hit her on, that she'll fold in an instant.

Blaming everyone else for the debacle of course.

There are a few personalities missing--gun toting duck hunter; shot drinking Rocky Balboa/Norma Rae; the little girl her daddy took behind the summer cabin on Lake something or other; the young woman who worked in her daddy's small business somewhere in Chicago (this personality only surfaced once she began campaigning in Indiana; anyone notice the slight southern drawl once she got to NC?

I hope the grammatical blunder ("different than") was not an attempt to sound less "elitist"!

MassDem, this is very easily explained. Multiple Personality Disorder is usually caused from an intimate trauma in which the victim splits the various parts of their personality into more compartmentalized sections - giving an entire identity to each personality trait that enables them to cope. Maybe the campaign knows the Senator better than we think....

Ironic: Obama wears the same five suits all season with or without a jacket and he's called an elitist. Hillary must have thousands of those d**n pant suits. There may have been a repeat once in a while early in the season, but for a long time now, it seems to be a new one every day. How many of us "regular folks" have a new outfit every single day? Will the real, rich elitist please stand up?

On the personality disorder and weekly outrage issue: Hillary fights. That's all she does. She is an angry, edgy, outraged person who is also and always absolutely positive that she is the one and only person who is "right" and therefore, she must force everyone to do everything she says. I read a quote from Bill Clinton's White House years where he said he could just as likely pick up the presidential desk and throw it out the window as he could change Hillary's mind. Her inability to negotiate or play nice with others is a frightening thing to contemplate---but only if we ever let her live in the White House again----so let's don't.

Great article. Thanks.