I've spent far too much time reading Salon letters lately, and I guess I've come to a different conclusion than you regarding how many "Hillary get out now" letters came from Obama folks. Of course, it's hard to tell with all the anon. troll postings of the last few weeks. Most of those could have come from a Young Republicans spamming campaign.

I agree that Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island should be heard. This is indeed an epic campaign. I'm also trying to stay emotionally neutral so that I can back the winner, whoever it is. I could do with less of the "only MY candidate can save the world" postings. They are getting a little tedious. But there is a down side to continuing the campaign as the Obama and Clinton camps seem to be getting increasingly polarized. That's not good for the party and the november election and we should keep that in mind. Here's an example from earlier in this thread:

[...] tomorrow I hear you guys have the lead on the Messiah's big juicy dick story...thanks Salon, it's been great getting the unbiased views from you guys. Sure can trust you...noooooo...not like CNN or MSNBC...you guys aren't sexist...your female writers don't hate themselves like the feminists against Hillary or anything...you guys are different...right? right? right? You all need therapy.-joejoe

To me this is absurd. The ground game article makes a number assertions that can be factually proved or disapproved, or at least semi-rationally argued about. Unlike the 'OK to vote because he's black' article (I thought that was crap) or the 'Dudes' article (also thought was crap). Instead of looking at the campaigns, posters like joejoe seem to think it all boils down to sexism, racism, and the media. "We wuz robbed". These type of posts, for and against Hillary and Obama are not very helpful in the long run and they are also popping up on other sites like politico. That's a good way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. McCain looks less than invincible at the moment, but I see no reason to bail him out.

I remain puzzled about Hillary's campaign. She's had moments of brillance, but they are soon occluded. She's underperformed, and I don't know why. There's no do-over, but I would start by firing Penn, and maybe Bill. I don't think it's over for her if she doesn't get the nod. She'll have plenty of time to pull an LBJ and take over the senate if she wants to.

Thanks for the link, pretty interesting article(s).

Q: I think Hillary's campaign is underperforming. Why?

It's temperament. One of the best predictors of how elections have gone in the past and will go now.

Temperament is a little too sweeping for me, a little too high level, even though the article(s) contain much that reasonate true to me. It would also be more conclusive if they had a longer list of predictions that eventually came true. There's a lot of stock trading software backtested on historical data that isn't worth much.

For example, if Hillary is a 'Field Marshal' archtype, how come she's hasn't faired very well in the field lately? I can't see a Douglas MacArthur (another 'Field Marshal' archtype according to the articles) stopping his campaign on Feb 5th. That's what puzzles me. It's almost as if she is not calling the shots. But I can't believe that either. Thus my puzzlement.

DLF,

Here's what I've been using:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

State Date % Vote In Obama Clinton

Popular Vote Total - - 10,305,403 --- 9,379,822

Popular Vote (w/FL) - - 10,881,617 --- 10,250,808

Popular Vote (w/FL & MI)* - 10,881,617 --- 10,579,117

Sorry, I can't seem to get better formatting. The spread without FL & MI is about a million votes. Thank you DNC for screwing up FL & MI!

Initial paving for the landing strip of fame and fortune? Very possibly, even very likely.

And how is this different, than say, becoming the Senator from New York?

That's not to say that we feel he is a bad man, duplicitous or malevolent; the general consensus is simply that he (a) isn't well-qualified enough...yet, and, (b) speaks in grandiose generalities of feel-good aphorisms rather than in hard specifics with concrete solutions to the myriad problems facing us. Sorry, Obama supporters, thats how we perceive him...based on his persona, speeches and political ads.

[...] many of my friends and I are not willing to compromise our principles, though, to vote for Senator Obama.

If you think Obama is 'not a bad man' but not qualified or too-vague, don't you think people like you are better off using your influence on him rather than McCain? What principles of yours are so comprimised by Obama that you'd rather risk another 8-12 years of republican rule with all the attendant appointments to the executive branch, probably the SCOTUS, and the continuation of the Iraq war and crony captialism, and the continued erosiion of the constitution.

I must admit that I don't get it.