A few penséss that have come to mind as a result of the exchanges of the last few days:

1) When did "limosine liberals" become an epithet on the tongues of democrats?  I can understand why a republican like Spiro Agnew might use this sort of language, but what is this sort of rhetoric meant to achieve in the mouth of a democrat?

2) How is Clinton (or her supporters like Terry McAuliffe or Joe Wilson) any less a "limosine liberal" than Obama or (his supporters like Ted Kennedy or John Kerry)?

3) When did the Teamsters, the Boilermakers, the Service Employees, the Culinary Workers and the Food and Commercial Workers become something other than salt-of-the-earth blue collar types?  I can tell you that I have played bagpipe gigs at Teamster meetings and at Yacht clubs, and the two fora are not especially similar to each other.

4) If Clinton really does represent "the common man" while Obama stands only for "the liberal elite," then why is Clinton the one parrotting McCain right now?  Is McCain also the defender of the common man?  In a similar vein, why are the republicans training so much fire on Sen Obama but ignoring Sen Clinton entirely?  Are we seriously to understand that the Republican Party is become the party of the proletariat?

Well, everyone knows how I will answer this question.  I am a Kool-Aid drunk Obamabot.  Of course I think that Clinton is the bigger gamble.  It seems to me, however, that the "Obama cannot win" line is only half the story.  What about Clinton's prospects.
Recent poll results serve to confirm the anecdotal storyline that Clinton's support among black voters is soft and getting softer.  First came the Quinnipac study from last week which showed her favorable ratings among black voters down to 52% and her unfavorables up at 42%.  Now today brings us tidings from Rasmussen that Clinton only wins 59% of black voter support in a hypothetical match-up against McCain.
In other words, two independant lines of evidence suggest that Clinton can only expect to bring in about half as many black votes as democrats count on to win.  So, imagining that to be the case, what are the implications of such a hypothetical development.
According to CNN's results and exit polls from 2004, Kerry lost OH by ~119K votes. Black voters are estimated to have cast ~484K votes for Kerry in that election. In other words, Clinton would have enough trouble coming up with the 120K necessary to turn OH around if one assumes that every last Kerry voter shows up to vote for her. Assume, however, that only 60% of Kerry's black voters are inclined vote for Clinton.  Suddenly she needs not ~119K, but 409K to flip this state blue.
Kerry won PA by only ~144K votes. Black voters are estimated to have cast ~630K votes for Kerry in that election. Once again, imagine that just 40% of those voter decide to sit this one out and all of a sudden Clinton needs to replace ~108K voters in order to hang on to that which Kerry carried in 2004.
Kerry lost FL to Bush by ~381K votes.  Black voters are estimated to have cast ~785K ballots for Kerry in that election.  If only 60% of those voters show up this time around she needs 695K more voters than Kerry was able to dig up in order to flip this state into the blue column.
Even IL, a solid blue state, went for Kerry by only ~546K votes.  Black voters are estimated to have cast ~469K of those Kerry votes.  If 60% of those voters (and remember, IL is Obama's home state, so the folks in IL are disproportionately more likely than the national average to be upset by a hypothetical Obama primary loss) that would put McCain theoretically within ~734K of stealing IL from us, far closer a margin than any democrat ought to feel smug about.
With that in mind, does Clinton really look like more of a sure thing than Obama?