which no one's exactly stated yet, is that the Clinton 90s were by and large good times in foreign policy -- cashing in the peace dividend to balance the budget, brokering a road map to peace and Palestinian statehood, international coalition intervening in the Balkans (too bad about Africa). Obama is right to tap the (Bill) Clinton team.

Meanwhile, Hilary has been not much better than a co-conspirator in the Bush-Cheney f*4kups, Iraq, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Lebanon, the whole frikin sh*tstorm.

OK, with a plus or minus 3.3 percent confidence interval, it could be that Obama, Edwards and Clinton are tied. It's just as likely, however, that Obama leads Clinton by 13 points. People who use the phrase "statistical dead heat" when their candidate is polling twice the margin of error behind are having it both ways -- hoping their candidate is going to get 3.3 percent more votes and the other guy is going to get 3.3 percent less.

I look at trends. The Zogby poll is a three-day blended average, I believe. Every day they poll some more folks and throw out the responses from four days ago, leaving the last three days in the mix. The late movement toward Obama tells me it's likely he'll beat the projections, because those people responding yesterday must have been more likely to support him than those answering three or four days ago. This is the statistical version of momentum -- if your guy's surging in the last poll, the effect is likely to be even bigger than what gets measured in a three-day blend.

Of course, the wild card is where the Richardson and Biden caucusers go after their guys don't make it out of the first round. My hunch is Obama picks up most of them once those caucusers see he's legit after the first ballot. Likewise for the independents in New Hampshire. From my view, it looks like 40% Obama, 30% Edwards, 25% Clinton in Iowa, with Obama at 45% in New Hampshire and close to 50% in SC. We'll see if I'm right.

Come on, Barack Obama has more "stature" from his days at Harvard, as an activist in Chicago and in the Illinois State Senate than Joe the-Neil-Kinnock-plagiarist-Anita-Hill-harrasser Biden will accrue in a lifetime of sitting on Senate committees. Stature is something you grow into, not a quality you get just because you've been running a losing presidential campaign since 1987 or whatever.

She not only appears to say LBJ did more than Kennedy, but also that LBJ succeeded where JFK failed. She is comparing Obama to Kennedy, if you follow her logic, and saying Obama will not be as effective, like JFK was not as effective, that she is the true Washington power broker like LBJ.

Doesn't seem like a good campaign strategy, comparing your opponent to JFK, and inspiring orator, a young articulate telegenic candidate and an inspiring president. Yeah, his accomplishments might have been meager, but getting killed just as he had laid the groudwork for civil rights laws might have had something to do with it. Anyway, not too bright an idea to compare Obama to the still-beloved JFK, unless you are trying to help him get elected.

The more she tries to make her case by criticizing her opponent, the more she screws up. Hil's momentum will be short-lived. Make way for the new guy.

Persons with synesthesia experience “extra” sensations. The letter T may be navy blue; a sound can taste like pickles. Vladimir Nabakov and his mother were synesthetes; Kandinsky claimed to be; Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov disagreed on the colors of given notes and musical keys. For most people synesthesia is ineffable: that which by definition cannot be imparted to others or adequately put into words. It may be impossible for science to scrutinize such phenomena whose qualities must be experienced first-hand. As also with Love.

I.

Love: the fact of love,

the animal Love alone

distinct from its habitat:

its fur and fins and plumes,

appetites and scents, coloration

and camouflage, quaint rituals

and annoying habits

and odd and startling sounds;

its slippery roe and sticky afterbirth,

the way it glistens dewy

in the soft morning light

or is the dew itself,

condensation of exhaled dreams.

II.

The metallic sheen of L,

the smells and tastes of o and e,

the muscular feel of v,

oh the texture, the shape, of V:

arms upstretched or legs astride—

what colors do you see

in the field behind your eyes?

Do poppies bloom, do crimson fish

swim the blue-green sea?

The colors I see are not

colors of pigment,

they are light brilliant

and gem-like. I do not

have a true purple letter

or number

and I wish I did.

III.

Last year I discovered that H had under certain rare circumstances

the ability to become shiny brass.

And my plain gray X one day suddenly became a delicious salmon

when I saw the name of an English town, Ixworth.

IV.

Remember

when the north sky

thrummed green waves

of whalebone and bassoon

through our chests

’till our very bones buzzed

wintergreen?

How the cold starlight

sang spindrift and

menthol melodies?

The sweet vanilla

of Jeffrey pine,

the fresh spring wind

and melting snow?

Do you believe in love

at first smell?

V.

Last night I dreamt of mangoes

sweet-orange dripping down

your arms and chin.

In we dove

splashed and drifted

and walked the wave-worn beach—

kelpy tide-line snake

and white sand drying

on sunburned feet.

I still taste salt

air, still see

sets of waves rolling

’cross the page.

I still feel mangoey-orange

this blue-gray day.

VI.

Your name, Raymond, she said, tastes like chocolate.

VII.

I wake to starlight

after eight days

of snow.

Your name calls me,

Wendy, in the

northeast sky—

Cassiopeia—

two Vs joined

like you and I

hand in hand,

W that sings

silken purple.

So this is the color of Love.