You might have noticed that despite the fact Obama supporters were treating the entire state of WV as racist and acting as if the people on that video were representative of the entire state, Obama performed BETTER in WV than did Al gore or Kerry. Not just because there was higher black voter turnout. He did better with white voters overall. Maybe if he and his team respected them enough to actually campaign for their votes Obama could have won there.

This despite the fact that the man spent 3 hours in the state talking about the military and didn't campaign on a platform of economic justice in the 49th poorest state in the nation. Jesse Jackson managed to campaign in WV (and did fairly well) by traveling into Appalachia and treating people respectfully.

You want to focus on the 5% of racism rather than the vast majority of folks that aren't racist. What is the point? Seriously? They are dinosaurs and their mindset is dying. But I guess those are the only people an obnoxious ass like you can feel morally superior to, so I guess I do kind of understand why this obsession persists.

1. Paterson is unpopular. No duh. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out. He faces pressure already within the NY Democratic arty. If he is still unpopular and he decides to take a kamikaze run, he will lose a primary badly.

2. Paterson just endorsed the Democratic candidate for mayor, Bill Thompson against the sitting Republican mayor Bloomberg. Even after that, Bloomberg's response to Obama's public pressure for Paterson to step aside was supportive of Paterson and also Cuomo.

3. Find me an example of another president who publicly pressured a sitting Governor of his party not to run for election not due to criminal investigation or scandal. My sweet Hillary loving eyes found nada. And I actually looked. Obama's using the bully pulpit to be a bully, not a leader here. If he wants to try to be a leader of the dem party he might start with health care and EFCA and cap and trade and civil liberties. The Gov of NYS is pretty small potatoes in comparison.

4. New Yorkers asked Hillary to run, not the other way around. So she didn't insert herself into NYS politics, she was invited. And thanks to her, we didn't have a Senator Giuliani. Who asked Obama for his opinion about our Senator or Governor? NYers like making their own decisions and don't like being told what to do.

5. Where the fuck have I been? I've been in New York and I don't take kindly to ignorant asshats like you presuming that you (or the President) know what is better for my state than New Yorkers do.

That said, I see some parallels between the hyperventilating of the Obama admin about a primary for the Gov of NY and the calls for Hillary to exit the race before Obama won the nomination. Last time I checked this was a democracy and the voters should make their own choices for who represents them, not have those decisions made by the party machine.

What would be even better is if a certain number of spam votes are received, it could be automatically removed pending review & taken off all lists.

Yes this has potential for abuse, but that can be solved by subjecting those who abuse spam ratings for content or personality disputes to electroshocks or something. Or maybe having their spam rating rights taken away.

Even putting aside the anti-War marches that way outnumbered the opposition, did you forget about the Democratic primary and the general election campaign altogether? Obama was packing the house with rallies where ever he went. McCain, not so much. Maybe it's because in the campaign there was a solid vision on health care for all WITH a public option as essential, not to mention transparency and challenging the lobbyists and bringing back the rule of law. There was talk about help for homeowners being foreclosed upon and instituting strong regulations so we don't have another financial armageddon.

Maybe the reason progressives are less willing to get out and march is because there's very little clarity from the President and Congress about what we are fighting for. We already showed up in force on Election Day. Mandate. In June 70% of folks wanted a government run public option. And what did Obama and the Democrats do? They invited in the lobbyists for back deal negotiations. They didn't even allow advocates of single payer a seat at the table. They turned health care reform over to the Gang of Sucks and Olympia Snowe. Oy. Talk about demotivating. I can be ignored from the comfort of my couch. I don't need to travel to DC for that.