Was this nomination Hillary's to lose? Perhaps early on in the race when she had all the polls going for her it seemed like it was hers to lose, but most people would agree that those numbers were mainly name recognition. So what did she actually do wrong? You could bring up the Bill Clinton attacks in SC, but I think she actually took care of that well. She also did very well in the debates even if some of those seemed biased against her. Her machine was working as well as it should. Her organization was pretty good and she outlined her positions well including being able to deal with criticisms of them. Her positions were very popular not only in terms of democrats, but also independents. However, after all that she has, for anyone that is honest about the facts, lost the nomination.

So what went wrong? How does Obama beat out Clinton when their positions are largely the same, Clinton has name recognition, and more resources than anyone in the race? I think what happened is that a great candidate in the traditional sense, of whom we've seen for 20 years now, got beat by the next generation political candidate. She made the case, he made it better. Her speeches got interest, his got inspiration. She made a campaign, he made a movement.

I think Hillary is falling victim to the changing winds of the political atmosphere. No longer do people want to vote against someone, they want to vote for them. Dole against Clinton, Gore against Bush, Kerry against Bush, Clinton against Bush/McCain? This is old, tired and uninspiring. People want to believe in someone again. They want to believe that their vote actually *does* make a difference. You experience this with the energy and excitement as you fill stadium with 20,000 other people like I did last week in Seattle; you feel like you are part of something you can believe in.

Voting for the establishment candidate won't work in this election. People are too tired to go back now. Hillary is not a bad candidate or someone who lost the nomination by what she did, she just fell victim to something bigger and ultimately better.

Pat Buchanan put this well last night. She needs to knock Obama down and knock the wind out of him. The only way to do this is to go negative because her positive "lovefest" display hasn't worked and Obama is getting away from her.

Yes, it's dirty politics and usually doesn't work well, it's the only option she has left. I would expect more of this to come.

..where's the contradiction?

On the issue, I don't see superdelegates going against the delegate totals. They *could* go against the popular vote but only if the delegate totals are not close. Ie, Clinton has a 100 delegate lead in pledged and she is losing the popular vote.

Of course, this assumes FL and MI aren't counted.

Apparently the Youtube generation hasn't figured out how much originality counts.

This is her only option though and it was a pretty good presentation. She hit all the areas that she could hit him.

The problem is that I'm not sure she estimates the power of his campaign. They've already begun talking about "solutions" because they know it's their weak spot as McCain alluded to on Tuesday.

We'll see how effective this is going to be. Might be too little too late for Clinton but it's classic politics and she's doing it the best you can.

That way you could get rid of cythera45's posts that have nothing of substance.

Yeah, I agree. The line about change is going to come anyway is pretty funny. Like he doesn't stand for anything else.

Obama is getting out there and doing things besides giving the stump and discussing his policy proposals. They know what Hillary was going to do, they are ready for this type of stuff. She's backed into a corner, only thing she has left to do is fight dirty.

Also, people might want to believe that going negative doesn't get you anywhere but at this stage in the game, it can give you a decent boost. People do respond to negative campaigning even though they say they don't like it normally. It is more effective than some give it credit.

Clinton has been in those states for months campaigning Obama hasn't. Polls three weeks before a primary can change drastically. Considering the time left, the 8-0 - probably going to be 10-0 win streak, and the money advantage Clinton is not sure to win those states. Of course, we'll know as we get closer to March 4th what will happen.

As far as voting records: These two sites have some stats. I'm not sure how official it is, but it appears to be. Clinton missed 6% since 2001. Obama missed 16% since 2005. Given that they've both missed more votes since the campaign (look at the graphs) Hillary's extra 4 years in the senate affect the difference. If you look at the times before they campaign, there is a pretty steady voting record from both.

In short, voting records are not really an issue either can run on. However, what they did *not* vote on could be an issue. For instance, the amendment to give telcom companies immunity (which was not the whole bill as others here suggested).

Clinton: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=300022

Obama - http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629

Yep, that's exactly the point people should remember here. He didn't wait 5 days to respond, it was right back at cha.

The response was perfectly balanced too. The problem with negative campaigning is that once someone starts, you almost have to go back at them with the same negative stuff. This add actually balanced it better than I could have thought to do.

This did seem kinda short though, was Hillary's ad 45 seconds?