Yawn. Hillary is just out on the campaign trail, pandering per usual. I'm not sure how this is any different than whiskey shots in PA, riding around in a pick-up truck in IN, dropping her G's in the south, pushing a bogus gas tax scheme in NC and IN, carrying on about shooting guns in Scranton, sitting down with Richard Mellon Sciafe in Pittsburgh, teasing Rush Limbaugh in NC. She goes to a state, sizes up her odds, looks at her internal polling, appeals to the voters she thinks she can win, and then moves on the next state and applies the same formula. Simple. (And it doesn't seem to matter to her supporters that these state-to-state changes require adopting completely different personae - making her look fragmented and unstable.) The difference now is that she's running out of groups to pander to, so she's been forced to become more direct and explicit. Thus invoking the word "white" a couple of times (it wasn't just once) in a state that is - surprise! - 97% white. And it will work for her because the only real value in mentioning race at all in WV is to underscore the race of her non-white opponent. The polls there already have her through the roof. This will only help.

What's left out of the discussion is not that Obama has a problem with whites (exit polling shows he's actually made gains there since Ohio) - he doesn't - it's that he has an issue with blue-collar voters. That's the issue, so it was certainly curious that Clinton had to qualify that by invoking race while sitting in WV. Again, you be the judge.

Can we hopefully get beyond this stuff soon? I get that Joan will support Hillary to the end, even it if means making stuff up and searching for trumped up equivalents between Clinton's appalling racially-tinged pandering (in a state, WV, where voters still believe Obama is a Muslim - thanks, Hillary!) and Obama's week-long series of interviews praising Hillary, her toughness, and commitment to the party. I'm just not seeing the sexism - unless you count commentary on blogs, in which case you must also include racism. This business of anyone "owing" Hillary anything is depressing. Hillary ran her own campaign, the way she wanted, saying the things she said, and it didn't deliver the victory she had hoped for. Sometimes that's just how it goes. Can we please move on now?

http://www.ta-nehisi.com/2008/06/the-damage-done.html

How about instead of putting the burden of converting all of Hillary's supporters (many of whom, btw, have already crossed over. That 18 million is already down 50% and quickly falling) on Obama, you maybe ask the remarkably ungracious candidate herself to do a little water carrying?

And since you're once again all huffed up about sexism and women, please explain the total absence of any African-American women on this website. It seems they would have been an interesting group to check in with in this campaign. What happened? They stand at the intersection of sexism and racism and yet...nothing.

Clinton supporters who insist they will cast their votes for McCain must realize they sound seriously wrapped up in a cult of personality. Voting for McCain actually demonstrates the degrees to which they do not support Clinton. That they would throw away everything the woman has worked for over 35 years from a policy perspective has got to be about the strangest way imaginable to show "support." In fact, it's the opposite of support; it's contempt. The bitter irony? If they do follow through on these threats, it will be the ultimate act of negation of the person they allegedly revere.

I'll give the Republican trolls one thing: they are tireless. Every single marginally positive Obama reference, wherever it turns up, is pounced on with the speed of light.

But it becomes more clear with every poll that these trolls are most definitely Republicans. Yesterday a poll revealed that 83% of Democrats would vote for Obama in the general election, while only 75% of Republicans would vote for McCain. This data point alone has surely energized the trolls like nothing else. Without the fantasy narrative of "legions" of Hillary voters swinging to McCain, what do they have left? With the fractious Democratic primary season over, Democrats moving to Obama and the party platform, and even some Republicans talking about crossing over to Obama, dark times have befallen the Republican party.

To Camille's point about right-wing talk radio, character assassination is all they've got. Expect more of it.

Sexist and racist attacks on Michelle Obama are hardly new (although it's refreshing to see Hillary supporters finally acknowledging them). This has been a pillar of Obama-hatred from the very beginning. The only thing able to rouse Victor Davis Hanson at National Review to consciousness since January has been the discrete satisfaction of smearing Michelle with a conspicuously revealing level of vitriol. Fox News, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, and co. have been tireless in their smears. For Obama supporters - and presumably Michelle Obama herself - this is business as usual. What to watch for? With Cindy McCain getting a comparative free pass, how will the MSM report on the treatment of Michelle? That will tell us everything we need to know.

I'm not much for tea-leaf reading, but I'm surprised everyone and their grandmother is falling for the Kaine/Bayh tease when there are indications that Hillary may still be the favorite:

- Patti Solis Doyle is managing VP affairs for the Obama campaign

- Hillary has committed to "aggressively" campaigning for Obama in August

- Hillary's split-the-difference FISA vote

- Hillary's close relationship with Axelrod (and her early support of his family's epilepsy foundation)

- Obama met with Hillary privately yesterday