Still Unable To Connect
by Steve Soto

It’s very possible if not certain that a larger and larger part of the Democratic establishment is increasingly uneasy with Barack Obama’s chances this fall. They can point to a range of reasons, from his inability to connect with the general electorate on real issues of concern especially economic anxieties, to his inability to define John McCain, and to his dismissal of any effective Tier Two and surrogate effort. Some are troubled that Obama still seems too focused on image and pandering instead of connecting effective campaigning with substantive politics. That is how we find ourselves with two flawed candidates tied in some national polls, even though the GOP brand is very unpopular.

There should be little surprise with all of this, although I was hoping against the facts before me that Obama would be ahead in the national polls by 6-10 points by now. Yet Obama seems to be banking on a good convention and football stadium acceptance speech to give him the large bounce that will then withstand a nasty GOP convention containing non-stop under-the-radar racism. I don’t think it will work.

We may have to accept that Obama will never connect with everyday voters, as he doesn’t take ownership of pocketbook issues and hammer 3 to 4 main tangible reasons for his presidency. We will have to accept that he hasn’t defined major differences with John McCain on the economy, taxes, trade, global warming, health care, and the rest because he is fixated on running to the center. Unfortunately, because Obama refuses to run a Tier Two campaign through an effective surrogate operation, he finds that McCain already operates in the center after redefining himself as a moderate and not as a Republican without an effective effort by Obama to define him first. Why? Because Obama disdains the politics of the present and wants to get us all to that happy place of the politics of the future where everyone gets along and gets a pony.

When Clinton tweaked Obama’s style, shallowness on the issues, and inability to connect with the general electorate on real pocketbook issues, she was branded as running a racial campaign and eagerly trashed by his supporters and the media because she was a Clinton. That was, and is the Obama campaign’s answer to all criticism that he cannot connect, or is too focused on his image at the expense of delineating a campaign of differences: my opponent is running a racist campaign through old-style politics.

Well, now we are heading into the conventions against a guy who was allowed to define himself as anything but a Republican, while he defined Obama as a lightweight elitist celebrity more in love with his image than with real issues. We can’t say we couldn’t see this coming, because it has already played out in the primaries. Nevertheless, many of us were all-too-ready in our swooning to honestly accept that it wasn’t racism to point out Obama’s shortcomings, but simply a preview of what was to come with Obama in charge of the party. Since it was Hillary saying these things, it was easy for the Obama supporters to dismiss it and chalk it up to racism from a bitter bitch and her overrated husband. However, that didn’t make her criticisms untrue.

In my day job, I am actively campaigning to become recogznied as The Official TPM Celebrity.  This takes time, my friends, but, like Paris, I'm, like, totally ready.

So it's in the rare breaks that I get to look around the Internets for insight and insipiration for my Quest. I will admit, I read Josh Marshall more and more often, because he rarely disappoints.

I noticed that for almost a week Josh has been very angry. Happily for me, his anger only amplified the weight of this wisdom.

On the one hand, his anger is easy to understand and I am honestly and truly sympathetic. John McCain released a layered commercial in which he portrayed Obama in a way Josh finds offensive. McCain's surrogates and campaign staff took the ball and ran with it.

Racial stereotypes.

Sexualized jokes.

Copious ridicule.

Josh concludes that McCain has stooped to denigrading an opponent. This is unsavory, despicable and deplorable.

To add insult to injury, Josh believes that the media is ignoring McCain's own very obvious shortcomings. So he decided to document these shortcomings himself.

Fine. But there are two problems with his wise approach.

The first is that his compilation looks like blooper reel put together by a really angry teenager. And all he can come up with is a series of gaffes which (however damning) don't amount to a dismissal of McCain as someone who's capabable of being a President. 

The second problem is larger than the first. Josh is angry with the race because he thinks it hit a new low. Denigration is deplorable and unacceptable. Unfortunately, Josh decided to respond in kind. 

Josh's response today is nothing but a "fuck you back" denigration of McCain. The same kind of denigration he just decried. He's only true point is that McCain is senile, "dazed and confused". 

So now, Josh has re-framed the choice for voters. You can decide if you want a sick old man or a healthy alert "on" dude.

I know that Josh considers himself a progressive. That only puts more emphasis on the fact that he has come down to level that McCain had invited him to. 

He has essentially allowed McCain to change the conversation. And, clearly, he has been baited and he took the bait.

And now you look like this is all you have, and you are simply a vindictive angry little boy.

Because the average American voter (especially the low information kind, the one that elects the next President) doesn't see things the way Josh does, and Josh doesn't and wouldn't move a finger to understand them.

The average American voter in fact disagrees with Josh quite loudly. They consistently kept McCain close enough to Obama in the polls. They have never put Obama over 50% mark. And as the recent polls reveal, there are more of "undecided's" now then in 2004 at this point in the campaign.

So my message of the day to Josh is my favorite quote from my all-time favorite man, Clyburn - "Chill out". If this makes you angry now, you'll need a doctor on stand-by around November, because this is only a beginning. Did you honestly think that after Hillary was done the rest was going to be a drive right into the White House???

If you want your guy to win, that's not how you respond. You go back to explaining the choice voters can make. And you do it in a way that drives your point home without an open denigration of an opponent. Unless of course you want to energize McCain's base in the same way you energized Clinton's.

Peace.

Josh invites us this morning to stop whatever we're doing to check out the new campaign insight from New York Magazine.

http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/48928/

Here's the distillation of the article:

"But with the weeklong string of attacks uncorked by the Arizona senator and his people during Obama’s trip abroad and in its aftermath—some brutal, some mocking, but all personal and focused on Obama’s character—we now have an inkling of just how deep in the mud McCain and his people are willing to wallow in order to win in November: right up to their Republican eyeballs"

As always, Josh Marshall is high on kool-aid and cannot see past the, er, talking points memo from the Obama campaign.

Here's a message to Josh Marshall: your subtle, manipulative and suggestive moral indignation is not worth the key strokes.

You and others like you (formerly known as progressives) have led and clapped at the attack on the wholesale character assasination of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Remember that? Say anything to win, et al?

Sorry, Josh, after what you and your candidate did to a fellow Democrat, your tsk tsk outrage has ZERO credibilty.

If it was OK for Obama to campaign this way against someone, then it's OK for others to do the same.

You should really be focusing on helping Obama focus on economy, jobs, gas prices and national security. Not on explaining the details of poor blond girl/horny black man stereotypes.

But this is not the first time you completely miss the point.

1. If you run for the nomination and don't win, expect everyone to kick you in the gut until you crawl away, sufficiently humiliated and shamed. CNN is good, MSNBC is great, supporters of your opponent are a league of their own.

2. If you finish the race so close to the winner he can feel your breath on his neck, expect to be accused of dividing the party. Credit is not due to losers. See (1) for what happens next.

3. If you decide to run, always remember: for one dream to become true, another dream must die. The dream you represent just won't matter. See (2) to learn your proper place with Democrats.

4. If you lose, remember a proper way to celebrate what you accomplished - getting on your knees and unzipping winner's pants. Kos, Sullivan, Huffington, Olberman, Russert and their crowd won't settle for anything less. There is simply not enough respect and dignity for everyone in this party, so the winner takes it all. Read (4) again, to learn your proper place with blah-blah-sphere.

5. If the above seems a tad depressing, don't despair. There will be plenty of very loud uplifting talk about unity, bringing the country together, American Dream, freedom, democracy, human rights, civil rights, respect, hope and change.

So unless you cackle, pimp out your daughter and have a nutcracker made in your image, go for it. We are Democrats after all.

Rev. Pfleger:

"I don't really want to make this political, 'cause you know I'm very unpolitical, but when Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don't believe it was put on. I really believe that she just always thought: "This is mine. I'm Bill's wife; I'm white; and this is mine! I just gotta get up and step into [sic] the plate." And then outta nowhere came: "Hey, I'm Barack Obama." And she said, "Aww, damn! Where did you come from?! I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!" Waaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaah! She wasn't the only one crying; there was a whole lotta white people crying!"

What's the difference between him and the vast majority of its readers?

Microphone and TV camera. The rest is identical.

What's the difference between that church audience and Josh Marshall's "progressive" team? The audience clapped and cheered, Josh Marshall has nothing to add.

The icing on the cake? Obama's unbearable "blah blah blah" apology that surely goes a long way towards attracting women voters.

I found this diary on the TalkLeft blog. It goes to the heart of the argument of whether or not popular vote matters in the nomination primary that is so close. It has been discussed to death on TPM, but here is a post that puts real facts and numbers to back up any assertions. The link to the full report is at the end. Please recommend this if you think it's worthwhile.

Note: I'm not advocating to discount caucuses or change any rules now. I'm only reposting this to show the value of the popular vote argument.

====================
Here's an interesting report on the differences between primaries and caucuses and the impact in the 2008 Presidential nomination. I am reprinting it with the permission of its author, P. Cronin. It addresses:

• Voter Suppression in Caucuses
  
• Disenfranchised Voter Groups & Statistics
  
• Differential in Voter Turnout Rates
  
• Popular Vote Disparity
  
• Estimated Voter Suppression in 2008 Caucuses
  
• Caucus Systems Distort Election Results
  
• Vote-spread Differences
  
• Disproportionate Votes-to-Delegates Ratio
  
• More Math of Electability
  
• Other Primary versus Caucus Considerations
  
• 2008 Democratic Election Snapshot
  
• What IF: Florida & Michigan

Some highlights are below, but I recommend reading the entire report. [More....]

Here are some stats:

• By the numbers, in 2008 primaries have averaged 400% greater voter turnout in eligible voters than caucuses.

• Of the 33.5 million popular votes in the 2008 Democratic Primaries, caucus voters have
  collectively cast only 3.2% of the total or 1.1 million votes.

• the 13 caucus states have 23.2 million eligible voters. The average Democratic voter turnout in 2008 caucuses has been 4.5% versus 19.92% in primaries.

• 42% of Obama’s wins are caucus states, 95% of Clinton’s wins are primary states.

Three states have both caucuses and primaries. Take a look at the different results as to voter turnout and preference in the Democratic race:

• Washington: On February 9, Washington held its statewide caucus and an estimated 245,000 caucus-goers – 5.3% of eligible voters – chose Obama over Clinton by 67.5% to 31.2%, a whopping 36-point margin. Ten days later, WA held a primary attended by 691,381 [15% of eligible voters, ie, almost 3 times the caucus turnout] and Obama won by 51.2% to 45.7%. [Citizens of WA voted-in a State-run Primary. However, the Party-run caucus results are still the legal results.]

  The impact:

  Washington allocated its 78 pledged delegates at a ratio of 2:1 [67% to 33%] and Obama got 52 versus Clinton’s 26. He gained 26 delegates. If the pledged delegates had been allocated according to the primary results, Obama would have won roughly 41 delegates compared to Clinton’s 37. He would be gained only 4 delegates. Bottom line: The caucus vs. primary election benefited Obama by a net 22 delegates – 14.5% of the 152 pledged delegates separating the two.

• Nebraska: On February 9, Nebraska held a caucus and only 3.04% of the 1.3 million eligible voters participated. Those 38,571 caucus-goers chose Obama over Clinton 68% to 32% and he won 16 of the 24 pledged delegates. In stark contrast, on May 13th, Nebraska held a primary where nearly 94,000 voters [7.5% of eligible voters] chose Obama by 49.4% to 46.6% ,– only 2.8% instead of the 36% vote-spread recorded in the caucus. If delegates were allocated on the results of the primary instead of the caucus, Obama and Clinton would have received 12 pledged delegates each.

  Bottom line: Obama’s 13,700 vote victory in the red-state Nebraska caucus netted him 8 pledged delegates. Compare that to Clinton’s 204,000 vote victory in the battleground state of Ohio which netted her only 9 pledged delegates.
  

The third state is Texas, and the report has a section on that aw well.

The report asks, "which states are more important to win in the General Election? Which are a stronger indicator of candidate strength and offer a better barometer for voter preference for the Democratic nominee?"

Obama’s 138 pledged delegates lead derived from the 12 caucus states he won is only 18 less than Clinton’s 156 pledged delegates won from all of these hard-fought, primary states: California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, West Virginia, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

These Clinton-won states have a combined 220 electoral votes, 87.2 million eligible voters and cast a total of 18,400,000 votes in these primaries. Compare that with the Obama-won caucus states with a combined 69 electoral votes, 21.5 million eligible voters and only 944,000 total votes cast.

The stats show what happens when all states are weighted equally:

42% of Obama’s wins have been in caucus states wherein one-half have not voted Democratic since 1964, 70% voted Republican in 2004, 8 out of the 13 states had only 8,700 to 43,900 voters each and there is a total of 74 electoral votes for all caucus states.

In other words, a comparison of the two systems shows:

• suppressed voter turnout in caucus vs. primary states
• lopsided vote-spread differential between Obama and Clinton in the caucus vs. primary states
• relative impact of caucus elections on the allocation of pledged delegates to each candidate
• disproportionate impact of caucus votes in relation to convention delegates

On the lopsided vote apread differential:

In 2008, the 34 primaries [excluding MI & FL] have produced an average .8 percent vote-difference between Obama and Clinton. By contrast, the 13 caucuses have had a 28 percent vote-spread.

Why?

Because of the restrictions inherent in the caucusing process, participants traditionally include the most motivated voters, party partisans & loyalists and voters strongly committed to a candidate and/or the voting process itself. Since this is generally a relatively small subset of all voters, true voter preferences can be skewed.

The result is "a disproportionate allocation per candidate of the 498 pledged delegates allotted to the caucus states [including TX caucus]".

35 Primaries w/FL :
33,832,107 total votes
Clinton + 35,387
Clinton + 62 delegates

13 Caucuses + TX :
1,057,137 total votes
Obama + 299,768
Obama + 193 delegates

In other words:

35 Primaries with 33.8 million voters have Clinton leading in both votes and delegates.

Caucuses with 1.1 million voters gave Obama 300,000 more votes and 193 more delegates.

....After 47 state elections to date, Obama leads Clinton by 152 pledged delegates. 97% of the difference – 148 delegates – is directly attributable to lopsided victories in caucus contests.

As to the disproportionate impact of the caucus results:

Though voters in all 13 caucus states have cast only 3.2% of the total 33.5 million votes so far – those votes control 15.3% of the pledged delegates and 16.4% of the Super delegates sent to the DNC Convention – average 15.5% of the total delegates [626 caucus / 4047 total]. After all remaining primaries the total votes could easily top 36 million, dropping the caucus vote to 2.9% of the total. In that event, 1 out of every 34 votes will determine and control 1 of every 6.5 delegates.

Bottom line: caucus voters will have a grossly disproportionate role in determining the 2008 Democratic nominee.

Put another way:

• 34 Primary States -32.4 Million Votes
• 13 Caucus States -1.1 Million Votes
• 3.2% of the vote controls 15.5% of the delegate selection for the 2008 Democratic Convention.

Still More:

97% of pledged delegate difference between Obama and Clinton is directly related to the caucus victories, caucus delegates’ account for 1 in every 6.5 DNC delegates and nearly 2/3 of those delegates will vote pro-Obama essentially giving them substantially more clout in determining the 2008 Democratic nominee.

On the impact on the electoral math and map:

21 of Obama’s 29 states won are either caucus states or Red states – including 80% of the deepest Red that have not voted Democratic since 1964 to 1976. With a win in SD and MT, he will finish with 230 Electoral Votes –121 of those from Red states.

Notably, if Obama is the Democratic nominee, he will start the race for the Presidency with 109 Electoral Votes from blue or purple states. That’s 40% of what he’ll need to win in November.

For Hillary:

In contrast, only one of Clinton’s 20 states won is a caucus and only 26% of her total Electoral Votes are from Red states. Further, 227 of Clinton’s 308 EV are from blue and purple states meaning that she would start the Presidential race having won states that account for 84% of the EV needed to win the White House.

Consider this:

The 13 Caucus states comprise 26% of all states voting in the 2008 Democratic Preference Election but account for only 74 of the total 538 Electoral Votes in the General Election.

....70% of the caucus states -- – 9 of 13 -- – voted Republican in the 2004 General Election. Those states held 45 of the 74 total electoral votes for all caucus states. In 2000, 8 of the 13 states [62%] voted for Bush.

....There are 185.7 million total eligible voters [VEP] in the 47 state contests held so far. Clinton has won states with 104.9 million eligible voters and Obama has won states with 80.8 million. Moreover, based on VEP, the average Democratic voter turnout in Clinton’s states was 20.1% compared to 15.4% turnout in Obama’s states [17 primaries @ 19.4% turnout and 12 caucuses @ 4.4% turnout]. MI & FL are excluded.

....The United States has a total of 538 electoral votes and 270 are needed to win the Presidency. Clinton has won 18 states with 264 electoral votes versus Obama’s 29 states with 224 electoral votes. MI & FL are excluded.

Page 11 lists a host of reasons caucuses are less representative and fair than primaries. It then finds:

When the results of all 34 primaries are totaled and averaged there is only a .8% vote differential and .8% difference in total delegates –Obama is ahead by 259,000 votes out of 32.4 million and Clinton is ahead by 24 delegates out of 3,114.

When Florida is added in, Clinton leads by 62 delegates and 35,387 votes. These dead-heat Primary results closely parallel national polls in the two candidate match-up since Super Tuesday.

On Florida and Michigan:

Since the DNC stripped Florida and Michigan of their delegates, results from these primaries have purposely been omitted from most discussion till now. No Democratic candidate campaigned or ran political ads in either state. However, since both states conducted a legitimate Primary election and posted certified results and since the states have a combined 44 electoral votes and nearly 20 million eligible voters that cast a cumulative 2,345,000 votes [twice the number of all caucus votes and roughly 7% of total votes] readers may want to consider the voter preferences expressed in order to assess candidate electability for the General Election.

After several graphs of number-crunching, the report finds:

If Florida and Michigan are added to all election results, Clinton would gain another 27 and 17 electoral votes respectively and would have a total of 308 – 38 more than the 270 needed to win the Presidency in the General Election. Obama’'s 29 states won have 224 electoral votes which would be 46 short of the 270 needed to win.

Finally, if Florida and Michigan are added to the 47 state elections already concluded [34 primaries + 13 caucus states] there are 205.5 million total eligible voters [VEP]. Clinton has won states with 124.7 million eligible voters and Obama has won states with 80.8 million. In this instance, Clinton would have won 19 primaries versus 17 for Obama.

On the topic of built-in voter suppression, the report explains how and why these groups are not fairly represented:

• Elderly / hospitalized / ill health
• Military oversees or on out-of-state assignment
• Voters out of state
• Voters with kids – especially small children – who can’t get or afford a babysitter
• Workers who can not get time off work, or who can’t afford the time off
• Citizens with limited English proficiency [estimated at 8 to 10 Million voters nationwide]

In conclusion, the report quotes "“Has America Outgrown the Caucus?”" by Tova Wang, a Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation:

Caucuses, as opposed to primaries, by their very structure violate fundamental principles of voting rights. Their time-consuming, inflexible, Byzantine procedures discourage broad participation, presenting substantial barriers to the right to vote. It is not that the caucuses violate the Constitution—they are run by the parties, not the states, and do not violate voting rights as a matter of law. Rather, because of their exclusionary nature, they go against some of the core values we express when we talk about voting rights, such as the fundamental nature of the right, equality of opportunity to participate in the process, and fair access to the ballot.

Regardless of what reforms are considered, it is clear that the caucus is a deeply flawed method for selecting a nominee, and this problem can no longer be shunted aside.

.... Caucuses, as they are currently conducted, do not respect those rights and should not continue in their current form going forward.

The report concludes:

[I]t'’s been shown that caucus elections not only suppress voter participation but also literally systemically disenfranchise voters such as people with disabilities, military personnel on assignment, those physically incapable of participation and all other would-be voters who can not meet the “exact time and place” physical
attendance requirement. Likewise, it’s clear that caucus elections skew overall voting results and have a disproportionate impact on selection of the Democratic nominee for President at the DNC convention.

From a voting rights standpoint the questions become: When millions of Americans are filtered-out or systemically lockedout of the caucusing process, how can we say we have a nominee who is chosen democratically, by the will of the people? When so many citizens are excluded from the voting process how can we trust the outcome of elections?

....[I]t seems clear that the voter preference of the 34 million citizens who have voted through the open, inclusive Primary system should receive the more serious consideration. Their voices have shown a near-tie race between Clinton and Obama, with Clinton having an edge in both delegates and votes.

While this is the system we have, and in 2008 it's not possible to change the rules in hindsight, we have more than 800 superdelegates who can change their mind up until the convention. The questions they need to ask themselves before making a final commitment:

Which candidate has the best overall education, experience and skill-set to prepare them for the Presidency? Which candidate is better suited to withstand the Republican attacks and unrelenting scrutiny? What core constituencies does each candidate draw? What is the size and voting record of those groups? How marginalized would each group’s vote become in their state’s overall election results in the General Election? How many voters will be lost if “their” candidate is
not nominated, ie, will not vote at all or will cross-over and become the 2008 Reagan Democrats? Which future, powerful voting blocks are at stake, eg, Latinos and youth and would they vote for McCain? Which states are “must wins” for the needed electoral votes? In this Democratic Preference Election, which candidate emerges having won most of those “must win” states?

The superdelegates can decide that all delegates and states won should not be weighted equally in selecting the Democratic nominee. Will they? Probably not. But the system does need to change for 2012 so we don't go through this again.

Update: Several commenters have asked for more information about the author of the report, P. Cronin. Here it is:

Peniel Cronin is the President & CEO of Global Basics and eNameWiz.com. Cronin holds a B.S. in Accounting from Arizona State University and has 16 years experience as an accountant and Director of Marketing for several SMEs.

Cronin directs all strategic development and product/market research and developed the algorithms and database that power the eNameWiz multilingual domain creation and search system.

Representative clients through Global Basics have included the Arizona Office of Tourism, the Nevada Commission on Tourism, the Arizona Shopping Consortium, Shop America Alliance, America West Airlines, Southwest Airlines, AeroMexico and numerous other travel and domain industry organizations. Cronin holds three US & German Patents, several trademarks and numerous copyrights.

Cronin suffers from a disability resulting from a car accident 40 years ago at age 12 which left her "wheelchair bound" for two years, at a time when there were no curb cuts or ramps and nothing was accessible. This is what fueled her passion about the caucus information. She knows what it's like to be locked-out of the mainstream and to be excluded from full participation in what others take for granted.
=======

Full report is here: http://www.talkleft.com/media/2008caucusreport.pdf

What do you think will be the official reason he'll decline?







- scheduling conflicts
- busy talking to voters
- (voters) tired of debates
- ?


Can't think of anything else reasonable he could say, unless of course he comes up with something funny like "preventing further divisions in the party" or would rather play hoops or practice bowling.

What do you think will be the official reason he'll decline?

- scheduling conflicts
- busy talking to voters
- (voters) tired of debates

Can't think of anything else reasonable he could say.

Superdelegates "have every right to overturn the popular vote and choose the candidate they believe would be best equipped to defeat John McCain in a general election," DNC Chairman Howard Dean told the Financial Times.

Said Dean: "If it's very very close, they will do what they want anyway... I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else."


http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/25/dean_says_nominee_will_be_chosen_in_last_races.html

http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/45604/

This is so disgusting. I'm not voting for this crook, ever

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

http://thepage.time.com/clinton-camp-memo-on-obamas-embellished-words/


But, of course, no ABC video :-(

It seems that most if not all prominent progressive bloggers have now taken sides in the Democratic nomination process.

Most have stated their preferences either openly or by presenting the desired outcome in a way that leaves little doubt as to what they are.

Inevitably, the postings on campaign fights became colored by these choices.

Personally, I feel that as a result of these endorsements the blogosphere has descended into meaningless flame wars, but I recognize that many would find it fair (and I'm as guilty of flaming as the next person). It's certainly the right of every blog site to interpret things as they see them.

But given the fact that the blogosphere represents the voice of the progressive community, and that voice has now spoken, I think the question of the endorsement raises important questions of ideology, principle and vision the movement has for itself.

1. What would the voice of the progressive community say if Clinton somehow gets the nomination (let's say the superdelegates)?

Will they encourage or condone a "civil war" (as Kos seems to be doing by repeatedly talking about a coup)?

Will they rally around the nominee and urge their readers do the same because the interest of the party as a whole is more important than one person?

2. What will the voice of the progressive community say if Clinton wins the nomination and the election, despite the lack of its support?


You can ask these questions in an even more stark way: will progressives support or fight Candidate Clinton? Will the movement be in opposition to President Clinton?

To make it even more personal, where does Josh Marshall really stand: support Candidate-President Obama or reject and denounce Candidate-President Clinton?

I think the answer to this question is critical to understanding how the blogosphere fits into the Democratic Party. It's important because the sides were taken before all voters have had a chance to cast the ballots and so far they seem just as undecided as we all are.

So, it seems that thinking about this can go some way towards providing perspective and diffusing the tension, at least somewhat.

I'm sure many will dismiss these questions as hypothetical, if only because the collective mind of blogo-media has already decided that the race is over.

If, however, the impossible happens, won't the blogosphere have to make a choice, a much bigger choice, again?

Joshua Marshall continues to bridge the divide caused by the emotional infantilism.

He shares a "most feared scenario" offered by a reader, which concludes with the same question heard over and over again: how can we get Candidate Hillary to go away?

She could start winning big time in this home stretch and make a convincing case the superdelegates.....

Hmmmmm.......   What to do??

I don't speak for Sen Clinton or her campaign, but I believe your candidate, his campaign and his supporters have brought it on yourselves.

Time and time again, he failed to seal the deal with the voters.

Now we have the Wright problem to worry about.

Day after day he continues to alienate core Clinton support, because short of attacking her character he has nothing left to run on.

It started long before Iowa but it rang the alarm bells with "You are likeable enough". And we are now starting to see it on full display.

We tried to spin it using the pledged delegate lead as the key metric. When ignoring the nomination rules didn't help dislodge the evil lady from NY, we tried the opposite, urging the utmost respect for the rules for the MI/FL issue. 

Now we have the latest idea: let's pressure the superdelegates to come out in droves for Sen. Obama, that will surely finish her off!

Let's go back to our premise: it would be better for Sen. Obama if Sen Clinton ended her campaign, effective immediately.

I have a suggestion: instead of trying to help Sen Obama by looking for ways to push Clinton out of the race, why don't you think if you are actually asking the right question.

Also, some thinking about emotional infantilism will go a long way.

And you could always check with John McCain about his answer to the famous question: "How do we kill the bitch?"

Short of all that, ricin could be an option.

Joshua Marshall continues to bridge the divide caused by the emotional infantilism.

He shares a "most feared scenario" offered by a reader, which concludes with the same question heard over and over again: how can we get Candidate Hillary to go away?

She could start winning big time in this home stretch and make a convincing case the superdelegates.....

Hmmmmm.......   What to do??

I don't speak for Sen Clinton or her campaign, but I believe your candidate, his campaign and his supporters have brought it on yourselves.

Time and time again, he failed to seal the deal with the voters.

Now we have the Wright problem to worry about.

Day after day he continues to alienate core Clinton support, because short of attacking her character he has nothing left to run on.

It started long before Iowa but it rang the alarm bells with "You are likeable enough". And we are now starting to see it on full display.

We tried to spin it using the pledged delegate lead as the key metric. When ignoring the nomination rules didn't help dislodge the evil lady from NY, we tried the opposite, urging the utmost respect for the rules for the MI/FL issue. 

Now we have the latest idea: let's pressure the superdelegates to come out in droves for Sen. Obama, that will surely finish her off!

Let's go back to our premise: it would be better for Sen. Obama if Sen Clinton ended her campaign, effective immediately.

I have a suggestion: instead of trying to help Sen Obama by looking for ways to push Clinton out of the race, why don't you think if you are actually asking the right question.

Also, some thinking about emotional infantilism will go a long way.

And you could always check with John McCain about his answer to the famous question: "How do we kill the bitch?"

Short of all that, ricin could be an option.