The purpose of the 50-state strategy is not to try to win all 50 states immediately. Nobody ever held such a "stupid" idea as its motivation. No, the purpose of the 50-state strategy is to stop letting wide areas of the country be completely neglected by the national party, and thus let them be cakewalks for the Republicans.

Furthermore, the 50-state strategy is not simply something that Obama thought up for the Presidential election. It has been around for a couple years, and the purpose is to strengthen the party in regions of the country and make competitive races all over the nation. Hence you see people like Jon Tester, the Democratic Senator from Montana. If people like Schaller had their way, Tester would never have gotten any national support, since Montana is "obviously" never going to elect a Democrat to a statewide office. Nor would Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas.

For an example of the purpose of the 50-state strategy in action, consider the state of Indiana. Indiana votes Republican consistently every election. And yet, Senator Obama opened offices in Indiana early in the season, while Senator McCain virtually ignored it. Over the course of months, Obama's presence in Indiana led him to cut into McCain's lead, eventually leading to him even leading in some polls. McCain has been forced to spend time and money defending Indiana - time and money he would prefer spending in traditional "swing states" like Ohio and Florida.

I'm not saying Obama is going to win Indiana. But what is going on here is basic to any kind of tactics of any kind of competition. You do not ignore undefended fronts.

Thomas Schaller thinks this is "stupid". One wonders why he is employed at all. I suspect it's because his writing is "thought-provoking", which is considered by Salon to be more important than "intelligent".

That is so unimportant compared to letting the American public be saddled with hundreds of billions of dollars of bad debt. I personally don't care if Bank X overpays executive Y by 500%. What's important to me is that, if executive Y drives Bank X into the ground with bad debt, they shouldn't be able to tax me to pay for their mistakes.

The fact that the Democratic leadership is considering this to be a fair trade-off indicates to me that, yet again, the party is being run by morons. How about just saying 'no' instead of getting a tiny, unimportant 'concession' in return for letting the American taxpayer be raped?

Does he have a first name? What is his job?

These are things we don't learn from your little column.

I think if I'd written this for my high school newspaper, I would have been scolded.

The purpose here is not to provide "leadership". It's to avoid the debate.

McCain really has no interest in debating Obama, who is a much smarter man and, more importantly, is considerably taller.

Is it worth saying that if Obama had taken this step, Elephantman would be decrying his cowardice? Nah, I suppose his blind partisanship is obvious to everyone.

McCain has been ignoring his Senate duties all year. Now, two days before he's supposed to debate Obama, he pulls this stunt? It's not like he has any important duties, is it? He's not even in the majority party in the Senate.

It really isn't like this credit issue is a problem that needs to be dealt with RIGHT NOW, and certainly McCain personally is not needed.

He just doesn't want to debate Obama.

You're going to have to do a bit more than assert that voters love a weak female candidate solely because she's Republican.

A lot of people in the Republican party know that Palin is not qualified for the position of VP. I know it seems like all Republicans are kool-aid drinking idiots to you, but while there is a certain kind of Republican who prefers women to be dim and non-threatening like Palin, they do not constitute of majority of Americans.

That's how Palin sees the world.

That's how a lot of people see the world.

Call me "elitist", but I don't think that kind of black-and-white thinking has any place in our foreign policy.

And yes, it wouldn't be a Salon comments section without a conservative troll who doesn't know how to spell. ("Studders"?)

It doesn't seem to me like the problems described have anything to do with the user's age. Believe it or not, there are users over the age of 40 who are computer savvy and do not accidentally forward videos to loads of strangers that they do not know well.

Indeed, it is hard for me to imagine how this happened.

There are real issues about privacy at Facebook, but they have been adressed by software changes. It is hard to see how it is fair to blame the software when a user is intentionally using Facebook as a professional network (not the purpose of Facebook) and then makes mistakes about how the software works.

Some passages of this article reveal a rather parochial attitude on the part of the author. For example:

Younger people are blasé about such humiliations. But to older people who aren't used to making themselves vulnerable online, even minor goofs can be painful and lingering, akin to getting caught naked in an unfamiliar place in front of a crowd.

Oh? The author appears to be younger than 30, since the article contains stories about "old" people who are all in their 30s. As a recent 40-something, I can assure Mr. Martin that back in the 80s, Usenet featured newsgroups where, dear me, people discussed their sex lives!

As a recent 40-something, I've seen that most 20-somethings are far more uptight about how society views them than older people are, who have gotten more secure in who they are.

Oh well.

I understand why an author like Michael Martin can have strange biases about people based on age. I don't understand why Salon publishes this.