McCain could beat Hillary. The war may be unpopular, but voters know that it still needs to be prosecuted even in the drawdown, and McCain will argue that his push for the surge both decreased U.S. deaths and showed independence from Rumsfeld/Cheney.

If casualties stay low, the war will stay off the voters' radar and Clinton and McCain can duke it out over recession relief. I give him 50-50 odds.

Stop writing premature obituaries and premature self-congratulations. There are no guarantees here.

... is that there was sexism in the media, especially among certain journalists like Chris Matthews, would couldn't stop salivating at the thought of Clinton losing.

But it is also true that Clinton was too overconfident, did not plan for after Super Tuesday, was bankrupt half the time due to financial mismanagement, and frankly... she ran at times a dirty campaign.

This is not an either-or thing. Both of these facts can coexist in the same universe. There WAS sexism, and Hillary did NOT run a very good campaign.

As for whether or not Clinton supporters will "come back to the fold," I don't know the women in this forum, but I do know the women in my own life, and based on that flimsy anecdotal evidence, I believe that most Hillary supporters will not vote for McCain. He is anti-abortion and the living embodiment of the kind of patriarchal entitlement alot of the posters here seem to hate so much.

Hey PUMAs: did you read about McCain's first wife? How she got in a bad car accident while he was a POW? How he took one look at her when he got back and then, while still married to the former beauty who waited for him all those years... ran around the country, chasing her nubile young replacement Cindy.

Yup, he cheated on her.

Obama's not perfect, and I'm no Obamaton, but McCain's behavior, past and present, shows he doesn't give two licks about women, their feelings or their concerns.

Sincerely,

Diomedes

...to what I just wrote, while I believe there are many genuinely aggrieved women writing in here, expressing their anger and frustrations, there are undoubtedly some Republican trolls as well.

Some of the language they use that has "given them away" has already been mentioned, but for the next troll who comes along, here are a few tips:

1) don't call Obama "too liberal." That's Republotalk straight out of Crawford and we don't talk that way. We're Democrats, and even those of us who aren't that liberal don't use that word as a weapon any more than moderate Republicans throw around words like "neocon" or "President Dumbass."

2) don't bring up Chappaquiddick when you mention Ted Kennedy. This is a favorite Republican crutch that they (you) have been leaning on for 20 years. Ted Kennedy is rather well-liked in our party, thank you very much, and we'll vote him out of office for his past mistakes when you vote Senator Ted Stevens out of office for building his Bridge to Nowhere. Deal?

I have to be honest with you, I don't think you're really doing our side any favors.

We can't write off every.single.woman. posting her frustrations with the campaign as a troll.

Our party is basically a fragile coalition, and we don't win without women over 40. Period.

Name-calling and finger-pointing is obnoxious coming from them and we're no different. So unless you have some reasoned discourse or set of facts that you think might help sway some of them to come over, the VERY BEST thing to do, frankly, is to leave them alone.

As I've said, some of these folks are obviously trolls, but frankly most of them are not. They are, rightly or wrongly, fellow Democrats and they are going to need to be won over if we want to win in November.

I think my post above sums it up.

As for how to distinguish who is a troll and who isn't, I don't claim any above-average intelligence or enhanced "troll-dar," but I've heard the Republican talking points enough to recognize them when I see them in print.

That's not to say the majority of women posting here are trolls, but they're definitely in the mix.

Wait, are you seriously saying you'd like a definition for "troll?"

Ha ha, I'm sorry... sometimes I assume everyone is equally up-to-speed on the idiotic language of InternetSpeak. Sometimes I forget other people have lives!

"Trolls" are people who hang around Internet boards like this one and say deliberately inflammatory things.

Common cues include:

1) Inability to speak to people with a differing opinion like he/she is a human being.

2) WRITING IN ALL CAPS AND LOTS OF !!!!!!!!!EXCLAMATION POINTS BECAUSE NOW I'LL SHOW ALL OF YOU HOW ERUDITE AND PROFOUND I AM!!!!!

3) long, rambling posts that go on for page after page without end that pretty much gets tuned out, like the homeless guy ranting about the End of Days in the subway.

Hope that helps.

Sincerely,

Diomedes