If microbes are evolving at such breakneck speed, how would 1 or 10 or 100 or 1000 marginal human variations a year impact things?

What I find fascinating about this is that this vagueness seems to be part of the nature of a political campaign in the modern era. That is the front runners make vague appeals not grounded in policy but on feeling or a theme. Hillary Clinton claims experience, John Edwards claims a fighter's spirit and Barack Obama pushes hope. Drilled down, they're all vague. The question for Mr. Shapiro is why this meme is directed at a single candidate?

I think I got 3/4 through this mess. I don't know why it was written, I don't know what useful information or framework it provides...it's just a mess. I'm a strong Barack Obama supporter, not because of his skin color, not because he's tall, not because he's left-handed (yes I noticed all of these things) but because he frames his arguments and points in a way that cuts through the ever tightening gordian knot of post Reagan administration American politics. Unlike his counter-parts he appeals to the best parts of the American tradition.

After 8 years of a man who appealed to our darkest nature enhanced by our darkest fears, it's good to see someone who is challenging us to act on our "better" impulses. None of this has anything to do with Barack's race, it has to do with his intellect, the way he can effectively express than intellect and his ability to build excitement within the polity. It's a rare gift.

The first thing as the previous poster said was the way this campaign has been run. It has for the most part appeared seamless and reasonably well organized. They seemed to take a lot of time to get the infrastructure in place to reflect the strengths of their candidate. The second thing is to go back and think about how Ronald Reagan used his ability to rally the public to force an at first resistant democratic party to cave in to his demands. Barack Obama is building and managing that movement. It goes back to his roots as a community organizer. I have no doubt that he plans to take advantage of the infrastructure he has put into place during his campaign to exert pressure on balky legislators.

It's kind of funny. I tried to make a prediction of how Obama would work the powers of the presidency once he was in the white house...based on how he's run his campaign and by what tools he created...none of which he really had when he introduced the legislation that you were speaking about. Nor did I suggest that everything that Obama does is correct. However, I think my assessment was fair and rational based on what I have observed. You build the movement, you organize the tools at the grass roots and you use them to push your agenda.

Perhaps you could explain why that assessment would be in error.

Whether you support Senator Obama or Senator Clinton, it would be a disaster if this nomination is actually decided by the super delegates...and what I mean by that is that the super delegates voted against the popular vote delegate at the convention. If this happens the party would be almost irreparably split. I hope that Senator Clinton or Senator Obama both work to make sure that that doesn't happen. Given the hard feelings generated in both camps I fear that this won't happen.

The option? The Super Delegates would be smart to align with the candidate that has the highest popular delegate count absent extraordinary circumstances that could be sold to the voters. I don't think such extraordinary circumstances would exist here given that both are good general election candidates.

I think it's pretty clear that Senator Obama is positioned against McCain much better than Senator Clinton. First, Obama is better positioned to attack McCain's pro war position because he was almost prescient in attacking the decision to invade. Senator Clinton on the other hand will have to provide a much more complicated explanation of why she is opposed to an invasion she once authorized. Second, and perhaps even more important, McCain can attack Clinton up and down and all day long about earmarks. Clinton is one of the biggest earmark mavens in the Senate. McCain, on the other hand, completely eschews earmarks. Obama, while engaging in some earmarks is not in the same league as Clinton. Advantage on this score is Obama. Finally, I think Obama can compete far more effectively for the independent vote than Clinton. I think all of these things make Obama the more electable candidate.

I'll give you a similar story from a slightly different perspective that hopefully provides a bit of feedback about smiling at people of color while walking down the street. My future wife, when we were in the just friends stage, walked into my office door one day and told me the strangest thing happened to her. She said she was walking down the street and a black guy was walking in the opposite direction. She smiled and he thanked her and then he said "I'm thanking you because this morning I walked in the opposite direction of many white women and they either clutched their bags, crossed the street or looked frightened. you've made my morning." He walked on.

She was started by it and walked into my office to ask if I noticed such reactions from white women when I walked down the street. I told her I stopped noticing such things a long time ago because it only depresses one's spirit, however, I noted that I was not surprised by it at all.

Dragonlileth, your comment made my morning as well.