Sorry, but Obama does NOT have a baritone - who are we kidding here? At best, he's a strained tenor whose voice is already sending me around the bend. He sounds like the kid on the debate team who's been told the judges always sit in the most remote balcony seats. After nearly 8 years of plugging my ears every time Bush's voice materializes...please, nooooo!

It would be nice if Walter Shapiro and whoever wrote the headline for this piece could manage to get on the same page next time. Twilight? Why not just stick "Clinton Dead Again (Read No Further)" on any and all accounts of the senator's campaign?

Why do I have this strange feeling that so many of those who post on this and other sites, claiming to have been former Clinton supporters who have Seen The Light and Been Saved By Obama, are nothing of the sort? Sorry if I'm insulting anyone, but I've yet to see a post claiming the opposite - and I've been doing way more than my share of reader comment sampling this past month. This just seems very odd.

You said: "They [Clintons] shamelessly injected race into the campaign and are now reaping the benefits of dirty politics."

Sorry, but many millions flatly disagree with you on this, including me. Those millions believe it was Obama who did the maneuvering. Yes, Bill Clinton perhaps should've kept his mouth shut in SC, but his words were subsequently twisted and misrepresented beyond all recognition, almost undoubtedly with a mighty shove from the Obama campaign. This shameful passage has subsequently left me with very little regard for your candidate who, finding himself with an incredibly lucky opening, went for it and never looked back.

Also: due to an almost complete lack of MSM vetting of Obama, I've done a fair amount of reading about his history, following online links to reputable sources. My conclusion, and not a difficult one to reach: Obama is NOT a new kind of politician in any way, shape, or form. The idea that he is, IS a fairy tale. Obama is right out of the Chicago mold (having lived there for some years, I can indeed recognize the type). There's no way you can live in that city and run for office - any office - without having a rhino hide and the ability to quash rivals like so many roaches.

You also said: "Also, having read your previous posts, I am left with a sad feeling that you are dismissing Obama just because of the color of his skin. Maybe, if you can somehow look past that, you will find that Obama has more character than both the Clintons put together."

Well, save the sadness, because I'm not now, nor have I ever been a racist. BTW, this 'closet racist' gambit on the part of Obama supporters is not doing your candidate any favors, and the concomitant and apparently bottomless assumption of moral superiority is getting really wearing. Do you really think you'll get to heaven on the strength of "I voted for Obama in '08'? Best of luck with that.

Sorry for the snarkiness, but I'm simply out of patience with the whole Obama deal.

The history of Obama's sudden rise in Illinois and national politics is readily available, if you simply look. It's a history which involves cunning, calculation, and ruthlessness, all of which have been documented in detail.

One of my major problems with Obama's supporters is their near total refusal to take a closer, more objective look at him. If you still like the guy warts and all, fine, I have no problem with that. But conspiring to create a god where none exists is not fine; I have no desire to be at the mercy of someone else's myth.

Okay, I took mercy on you and dug up a link - too tired to copy and paste any more at the moment. BTW, this is a very liberal alternative paper - the reader comments are worth a look, too:

http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/full#comments

Sorry about the url getting cut off - just type in '#comments' at the end.

More than one study has been done on the subject of media bias - for Obama, against Clinton. Conclusion: it's verifiable. I can't remember the source (a highly reputable media watchdog), but stories and analyses and TV commentators critical of (not to mention cruel toward) Clinton were running three to one in Obama's favor as of a few weeks ago. I'm sorry, but the bias is SO blatant that it's making Clinton supporters really dig in their heels. Obama's cool condescension towards her doesn't exactly warm the heart, either; he comes off as a real chauvinist at times.

I'm afraid the damage is already done: it's entirely possible that Clinton partisans will just stay home when the general rolls around. That's how offputting this whole charade has become.