I find it strange and suspect that so many of the letter responses (at least the Editor's Choice letters) defend Ferraro, but are completely blind to Hillary Clinton being white and the importance of her whiteness to her candidacy.

Honestly, what were the odds that a black man might make it as far as Obama has? In whatever small ways it may have benefitted him, even to the extent that the idea of the first black president may captivate some Americans, being black had to work against Obama in a thousand different ways on his path to this point in time. So to say that overall Obama's race has benefitted him is absurd.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton certainly would not be where she is if she were not white. And should certainly would not be a former first lady if she were not white. No one ever mentions her whiteness. Long before Ferraro ever opened her mouth, this was apparent. Obama has been frequently subject to a pseudo-feminist critique, in which he was portrayed as ultimately just another man, even if he's black. But no one ever portrays Hillary as just another white person running for president.

And yet to this day, white women in the U.S. make more money and hold more positions of power, by far, than black men. Who is really the privileged one?

There has been so much discussion of the sexism that Hillary Clinton has suffered in this campaign, of the off color and inappropriate remarks made by so much of the media. All this is true and deeply important.

But at the same time, Clinton has done a real disservice to American culture by working so hard to place the focus exclusively on gender. She's managed to turn Obama's legitimate win into not the remarkable achievement of the first African American to win the Democratic nomination, but rather into the occasion on which a woman couldn't (yet) win. There's something deeply problematic about the way gender has been allowed to steal the spotlight from race in this campaign. And Clinton worked hard at the end of her campaign to make this happen.

Indeed, in some ways it's a sign of the relative privilege of gender, that Clinton can speak so openly about the sexism, to which she has been subject on the campaign trail. In comparison, race is practically a taboo subject. Obama's nowhere near as free to talk about the racism in the media potrayal of him.

What's more, Clinton has this way of talking about gender as if it's the only issue on the plate. And implicitly, she treats Obama as just another man. Obama of course could never treat her has just another white candidate for president. It's like Clinton's whiteness is invisible and irrelevant to the campaign.

Ultimately, I think in this campaign, it has been impossible to invoke the gender issue, without at the same time implicitly also invoking the race issue, and vice versa. But Clinton just gets a pass on this and that says something about the state of racial politics in the U.S.

I expect more from Salon. Don't you realize that the media obsession with these stories, does as much to further the rumors and seed doubt in peoples' minds, as those who actually pass on the rumors themselves? Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator and do some real reporting.

I can't believe how many supposedly serious political bloggers are buying into this "horseshit" idea. McCain clearly says "course not," if you spend anytime listening to it. Salon should not be a source of such ridiculous and infantile misinformation. It's just like you want it to be true, so your ears actually stop working properly.

According to Politico, in a post that War Room itself is linking to in it's own post on this, 100,000 is the estimate of the St. Louis Police Department. So this is not just the Obama campaign's claim.

Read this post at a Princeton blog on meta-analysis of Electoral College data:

http://election.princeton.edu/2008/08/04/on-a-flaw-in-fivethirtyeightcom/

They point out that FiveThirtyEight's attempts to predict the outcome in November are closer to hocus pocus than meaningful information. Generally, FiveThirtyEight's calculations introduce uncertainty to the data, rather than come to useful conclusions.

Since when is Governor Jim McGreevey's revelation that he's gay not something you can talk to your children about?

Frankly, I hate it when people invoke children as an explanation of their political inclinations (a la Prop 8 proponents). It's always an excuse to cover up something someone doesn't want to admit to. In the case of the Jim McGreevey reference, apparently it's just plain old homophobia. I like to say: When people start talking about the children, you know your rights are being violated.