Here's the problem, as I see it, for Dems. There is NO doubt that the MSM hates Clinton and will do anything it can to destroy her. They were dancing on her grave after Iowa and before last night. They will continue to do this if she's the nominee, giving her no credit for winning a tough nomination contest but instead seeing her as the evil harridan who would dare to deprive a valiant war-hero maverick of his destiny. If Obama is the nominee, they won't have that narrative to tout and so won't be able quite as easily to tilt the media playing field. So this might suggest that, if you are willing eventually to vote for either candidate, you should just vote for Obama now to clear the path to the nomination and deprive the MSM of their anti-Clinton spin.

But.

Every time that Obama (as he did today) pushes precisely this story--I'm more electable, people hate Hillary, the Clintons are divisive, my voters may not vote for her--I have to admit come to despise him just a little bit more. He's using the Republican and media slime machine for his own ends. It's corrupt--and, worse, it's unfair. He's *legitimating* the MSM's tilting of the playing field.

Just as I supported Bill Clinton when he was being routinely brutalized by rightwing thugs in the 90s, I feel a reflexive twinge of support for Hillary when anyone (including Obama) starts pushing this media-driven anti-Clinton bias. It's as if he's saying Dems should not be proud of their first two-term presidency in the postwar period and should *agree with* the Clinton-haters--as if he's lining up with Ken Starr, and Dan Burton, and suchlike scum. Or, more likely, as if he's cynically exploiting their strategy throughout the 90s to advance himself now. It's disgusting.

Maybe what he ought to think of doing is coming up with ways to appeal to the blocs of Dem voters Clinton is holding (older voters, white women, Latinos, working-class voters) by selling his own policies instead of trying to tear Clinton down.

No one can seriously doubt Obama supports reproductive choice. I do have to say, though, that (as John Edwards pointed out in the South Carolina debate) if Obama is going to lambaste other candidates for their various votes, then he has to defend his own. And I also think he has to come up with a better explanation for the "present" votes than the weird hemming and hawing he stammered out in Myrtle Beach.

Gotta love ol' Axelrod, spinmeister extraordinaire. Looking at the exit polls, he really ought to be trying to figure out a way to convince older voters, blue-collar voters, white women, and Latinos to vote for his candidate. Just yelling "momentum!" at them hasn't done it so far.

when he says: "I just think there is a tendency for people to get all spun up about these things, and sometimes when that happens we need to take a deep breath and remember that the only polls that count are the ones that opened this morning." You'd think the press would remember that.

are reaaally paranoid.

Except for this: "[Clinton] also needs to develop a new rationale for her candidacy, since voters have not been flocking to the polls brimming with enthusiasm for the notion that she is "Ready!" or that she promises a third Bill-and-Hillary term." I thought Clinton got more votes yesterday overall than Obama, and those blue-collar and female voters are voting for *something*, surely...? In a largely substantive and objective article, this seemed like a gratuitous crack to me.

You Obamabots live in a parallel universe where your candidate is a flawless beacon of unsullied purity and others are flawed and evil. By the way, I voted for John Edwards today, in case you were curious. If you want to argue with Hillbots, I suspect most of them are running around inside your head.

resolution because he didn't have to. It was a misleading comment. He *has* voted to fund the war several times.

Got a quarter more votes than all the Republicans combined.

It's interesting.

I really can't stand the sight of his smarmy face. If he gets the nomination, I will hold my nose and vote for him. But he sometimes seems more eager to attack Democrats and embrace Republicans than vice versa--and it is turning off huge sectors of the Dem base.

Either Kennedy's nomination mattered (as all the Obamabots screeched when it happened) or it didn't. Well, it didn't. Humiliating.

No true Democrat would defend it. And I don't hear anyone here really defending it--just trying to say Obama isn't a demagogue. But the story is = his health care plan stinks.

Good job finding a negative to include about Clinton. You HAD to!

But what are his legislative accomplishments, again?

Who cares about issues?

Twelve?

According to Zogby, after all, John Kerry should be our President.

Great post--and I agree with you (even IF you are a Republican!).

For the Obamas, this has always been about THEM, not about the success of the Democratic Party.

The classless scoundrel. He ran off the field to hide like a beaten dog.

"I would guess that they would vote for McCain to keep Hillary out," Dixon says. "I don't know that they would do that for Obama. They don't know enough about Obama to hate him. They know enough about Hillary to hate her."

I'm not sure why this is news. Will it win the plastic people's vote?

Obamabots say: Who cares? Doesn't matter! Lalalalala! I'm not listening! Lalalalala!