Ask Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, LBJ or any other charismatic candidate. Barack Obama is only where he is because he's:

1. the best speaker we've seen in 40 years

2. the first person to bother to appeal to young people (typically the more boisterous and energetic voters) in 40 years

3. ran one of the best campaigns we've ever seen.

It's simple Hillary Clinton had this nomination to walk away with. She has ran one of the worst campaigns in modern history. Barack Obama has run one of the best against we've ever seen. Hence he's winning. Whoever runs the better campaign does this. John Edwards suffers from what many candidates suffer from, having already lost once before. This is why Barack Obama will not "wait his turn" and "take the Vice Presidency." He knows a shot like this comes along only once in a lifetime and does not wait or take anythign for granted. Hillary Clinton, who could have easily run in 2004 and spared us all half of this misery, thought it was hers to walk away with, delayed too long and didn't bother to campaign. This is why he'll win and she'll lose.

Here's what Geraldine Ferraro SHOULD have said: Hillary Clinton is only in this race because her last name is Clinton. Any other candidate would have been out after 7, let alone 9, let alone 11 straight losses. That would have been a more apt and true comment.

This reminds me of the same inane, dumb defenses that allowed George W. to waltz into this war in the first place. We couldn't question the intelligence, whenever he said something that was wrong-headed we were supposed to sit down and be quiet.

She can say what she wants and so can all of you, but I'm done defending stupidity. It's what got us here in the first place.

Again JFK, Bobby, and even (unfortunately) Ronald Reagan all elicited the same type of excitement in their followers. Barack Obama's blackness has more to do with our own misguided notions as a society.

Hillary is getting overwhelming female support, McCain's support is overwhelmingly coming from whites. Yet where are the people standing up saying McCain wouldn't have gotten this far without white voters? Or Hillary is only where she is because of women support? No one because we all understand there are more complicated reasons behind this like maybe most Republicans are white, or most older women support Hillary because of her health care plan.

But yet when it comes to the black candidate, who just happens to be giving the best speeches and running the best campaign, we refuse to even consider that there might be reasons other than race for why he is where he is. He's only in this because he's running the best campaign, not because he's black. But apparently some people's minds are too small to wrap around this or accept that Obama could possibly just be the better candidate. Like he said the other day this is why we run campaigns.

But then of course he had a beard. So it could be just because of that. And JFK, who was also young and inexperienced, but of course he was Catholic and everyone was dying to vote for a Catholic in 1960 (yeah right) so that's why he was able to get so far.

Wake up people. And yes if this is honestly the dumb view of the older generation than I am more sure than ever that the younger generation or someone else needs to take the reins of power.

Charismatic candidates do better. People who run great campaigns also tend to do better. Barack Obama has done both of these. Any white politican who could give a speech this good (again see Lincoln, FDR, JFK or even Reagan) would have similarly gotten as far.

I couldn't agree more. And it's interesting to see Clinton supporters, like the very first post on this thread, suddenly saying they "can't trust Carville now" after all he is "married to a Republican." Geesh, have you guys and gals no loyalty at all.

Carville's right. This is what Obama correctly referred to as "silly season." Let's stop it now.

It's called, "Ferraro's comments about Obama were racist. Why can't we say that?"

http://www.slate.com/id/2186553

It's interesting and goes into the new dichotomy that now exists of any time someone says anything blatanly racist they stand up and decry, "I am not a racist" and everyone has to kind of agree with them.

She cites Michael Richards as another example of someone who literally stood up in a crowded theater and yelled "n****r, n****r, n****r, over and over again and was allowed to skate on the excuse they were not a racist. She also talked about Dog Chapman

She's right apparently harboring downright racist views is no longer enough to be called a racist. Apparently you have to be a skinhead and have tattoos. Otherwise no one is actually a racist any more, regardless of just how many racist views they might be dumb enough to hold.