is that whether she goes negative or positive, the instinctive perception of the public is that she is insincere. It seems like any comment she makes during debates or on the stump has been vetted by focus groups and paid consultants. As a lifetime Democratic voter who would love to see a woman president and who would vote for her in November if she's the nominee, I frankly have a very hard time believing that she actually has any convictions or an ounce of sincerity in her. If Hillary becomes president, I have little doubt she would capitulate to corporate pressure and interests and would be at best a status-quo president that will change nothing vis-a-vis the control the corporate oligarchy maintains over our gvernment.

Hillary Clinton is the most knowledgeable and informed candidate running for president on either side, probably the smartest as well. However, even if we set aside her apparent belief in an American empire and her far too republican and corporatist voting record, she shouldn't be the Democratic nominee. We have come as a nation too close to having dynastic presidencies. After the Bush dynasty which will hopefully come to a permanent end a year from now, we shouldn't have a Clinton dynasty, and I'm speaking as a two time Bill Clinton voter. We are a republic and should stay that way.

HRC may be the most intelligent and qualified candidate to serve as president, but she's not a good candidate. Just like Kerry and Gore, who would've made excellent presidents, she is unable to get elected, and in her case even nominated. In the US, it's all about image, and her image, deservedly or not, is of an insincere, overly calculating and overly cautious panderer. Her collapse isn't due to the Iowa defeat, but to her image problems, some it deriving from her personality, which seems to be conservative, very cautious and unspontanous. In the US, very often, the best person for the job doesn't get it- just remember Gary Hart, Bill Bradly, Al Gore and John Kerry.

Hillary Clinton voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq not because she believed Iraq had posed any real threat to the US, she's far too intelligent for such nonsense, but because she believed that New Yorkers, in the aftermath of 9/11, would be supportive of such an invasion and that it would score political points for her. Her Iran vote has also been a self-serving cynical move. She believed that pro-war votes would endear her to men and to more conservative voters for a future presidential run. It was a self-serving, cynical move, and she shares responsibility for this horrific war. For this alone, although I think she is a good person and I voted for her husband twice, she must be defeated tonight. It's clear now that her campaign will be virtually finished after tonight's results, even if she stays in the race for another month.

If the Clinton campaign initiates a scorched earth campaign against Obama, as apparently some in that campaign suggest, it would be a terrible and historic mistake. The great affection the African-American community has for the Clintons will be badly, perhaps permanently, damaged, and if anything, it would hasten Hillary Clinton's candidacy collapse. The Clintons are very smart people. If Hillary loses tonight by double digits points, she will not win another state, not even NY. If she loses big tonight, she should face reality, terminate her campaign gracefully, and put all her energy into helping elect the Democratic nominee in November and becoming the best and most effective US senator NY ever had.

I was going to vote for Edwards in the California primaries, believing until last night that by then Obama wouldn't need my vote and I like to support the underdog. It's great that the women of NH gave Hillary a stunning victory last night, but it doesn' change the fact that Hillary is a corporatist/ pandering/ conventional beltway insider/ cozy with the neocons Democrat who could easily have been a moderate Republican. She still doesn't deserve to become the Democratic nominee.

Despite being the first woman with a chance to become president, Hillary Clinton is an uninspiring, conventional beltway insider. If she ends up beating Obama for the nomination, most of the young people Obama has inspired would stay home in November and most of the independent voters will vote for McCain, therefore handing the White House to the Right wing for another 4-8 years with what it entails. The older people and women who gave Hillary her surprise win in NH might want to think about that.

John McCain's greatest claim t fame, on which he bases his phony claim that he's qualified to be president is that he served as a pilot in Vietnam, captured and tortured. In reality, McCain cowardly butchered civilians from high above, never seeing the face of his victims. According to his own words, he should be considered a war criminal. War criminals who firebomb civilian villages and incinerate their poor habitants are in no way qualified to be heads of state. The cowardice and cruelty McCain had exhibited in Vietnam, by not even having to courage to face his victims up close has been evident throughout his political career, where he was all talk but no action and never meeting a war he didn't like. He was extremely lucky to be only tortured by his capturers, when he should've been executed by them like the mass murderer he really was. Our pathetic media loves criminals, just look at the pass they have gven Bush/Cheney for 8 years, why shouldn't they go gaga over a war criminal like McCain?