Obama has clinched the nomination according to the Associated Press. (not that we didn't already know it was over - but it's nice to make it official)

Here's what I'd like you to do with this thread:

1. Tell me what you're going to do between now and November 4th to make sure that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States.

2. Click here to show John McCain and the the GOP how difficult it's going to be to campaign against Barack Obama.

3. Tell me which TPM blogger avatar will be picked as Obama's VP nominee.

Yes We Can!

One of the things that kept occurring to me this Saturday during the RBC meeting was how fortunate the Democratic Party is right now. The RBC meeting of the DNC was uncomfortable in many ways, what with protesters inside and outside. People squirmed a little here and there. But overall, it was a fairly painless affair.

But imagine for a moment what it could have been: what if Hillary had done better in the primary and caucus elections? What if she won 2-3 more delegates per state contest? Ok, winning another 100 or more pledged delegates is harder than it sounds. But just imagine for a moment a scenario heading into Saturday in which Clinton was not behind Obama by 150 pledged delegates - but instead was behind by less than 20.

Now what does the RBC do? And try to picture the protests and counter-protests that could have been this Saturday. It could have been really ugly.

The Democratic Party has to undertake a major reform of the primary process for selecting their nominee for President.

A start for the reforms would be:
- Abolish the superdelegates
- Hold only primaries - no caucuses, no hybrids,
- Each state mandates that Republicans are not allowed to vote in Democratic primaries
- Come to an agreeable compromise on who will be the early voting states (I'm in favor of rotating regionally). 
 
We can't risk this sort of debacle again. Ewspecailly when you consider the alternate reality of an even closer election. 

Let's fix it before we regret it.