My impression, which may be wrong, is that he's not interested in a vice-presidential berth ... I serious wonder if the Clintons would offer.

The VP end of the ticket is lose-lose for Obama. If Clinton actually wins, he actually decreases his chance of ever being Prez--only three VPs have ever been elected to the presidency outright since the 12th amendment was passed: van Buren, Nixon, and Bush I. Clinton loses, he's in Edward's unenviable position of being connected forever with a losing general election campaign. Americans can forgive those who lost in the primaries, but no one since Nixon has lost a general election and come back successfully. If you want to call it success...

Not to mention the fact that any credit he might have for being outside the DC machine would disappear in a flash.

Nope, the smart bet for Obama if Clinton gets the nod is to sit back and let what happens, happen. Perhaps go back to IL after a Senate term and do a stint as Governor there so he doesn't get too sucked into the morass of business as usual in DC, which is going to be the result no matter who else gets in.

...are a drag.

Then again, the need to criticize someone attempting something you can't do at all is central to human condition.

If I had an ignore list, Beeb wouldn't be on it. But a lot of the rest of you pedestrians would be.

Here's two bucks. I hope you and the other astroturfers on both sides leave after Super Tuesday.

--there's nothing like spamming multiple letter columns with the same cut and paste message to really impress folks and win people over to your side.

If you're 12.

As a friend of mine observed, no one on the Clinton team bothered to set up a strategy for the caucuses. The result is that she's been losing most of them, in many cases losing big. Here's supporting, if circumstantial, evidence: her campaign blaming Obama's wins this weekend on his outspending her on TV ads. Who goes to a caucus because of a TV ad? People go to primaries to vote because of TV ads, perhaps, but caucuses require a little more than that. They require enthusiastic people AND an organization on the ground to marshal them at the precinct level.

HRC didn't have that in all the caucus states. Obama did. Every state where you see a blowout, that's why. And those little blowouts add up to momentum, when combined with primary wins at the right time.

The end result? The very real possibility of Obama hitting HRC's "firewall" of TX and OH with ten wins in a row under his belt since Super Tuesday. Suddenly, as with Rudy and FL, the sure thing starts looking like a do-or-die affair.

Thus the exit of the campaign manager that didn't see it coming.

Martin van Buren

Richard Nixon

George H. W. Bush

Well, van Buren wasn't too bad...

Seriously though, forget any pipe dreams of an Obama/HRC or HRC/Obama ticket. Obama signs on to be the number 3 behind Billary, he loses all credit for being honest, forever. And if he's in the top bunk, why on earth would he want Bill hanging out all the time second guessing?

Nope, it's one or the other, this year. No consolation prizes, no copies of the home version of the game.

Even Michelle Obama said she would have to consider voting for Clinton if she were the nominee.

No, that's not what she said. She said she would have to think about working to support Clinton, not voting for her. Look it up on the War Room for Feb. 4.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/02/04/michelle_obama/?calendar=200801

You may not like her answer, but that doesn't give you the right to distort it into something very different.

ANONYMOUS POSTS IN ALL CAPS ARE POINTLESS

..that even Mark Penn calls HRC "Hillary" and Barack "Sen. Obama?"

I wonder if he's going to get a talking to like Doyle did...

is over in the War Room, where it was linked to already.

Let's put it this way: trying to make peace with Obama supporters by comparing "some of them" (the classic weasel shorthand for "most of them") to the likes of the dingus on MSNBC AND to Richard Frickin' Nixon is going to work REAL well at bringing us together in the fall.

You don't insult whole swaths of people the party needs to win. That goes for both sides, of course, but unlike Krugman, I've seen quite a bit of it from the anti-Obama folks here and elsewhere. You don't call them sheep, you don't allude to Koolaid, you don't call into question their sanity, their IQ, or their "real" motives for not seeing the Obvious and Overwhelming Superiority of Your Candidate.

You accept that smart people can disagree about methodology while they agree on goals. That's what we're talking about here.

Do they matter more or less than pre-scripted town halls? Where exactly on the hierarchy of staged spontaneous events do they fall?

...with the GOP and Nuke industry in order to increase the chances of SOME form of his bill passing now, as opposed to later. It's called the legislative process and incremental process. It would be nice if it didn't have to work that way, but with the current balance of power in DC, those are the facts on the ground. Exelon is a major employer in Illinois, btw, and it shouldn't be all that surprising that its employees would lean towards Obama.

Also, I believe HRC was a co-sponsor of the "watered-down" bill. I don't think I heard her mention that.

Everybody has one, and they all stink. :D Here's a rather different read on WI:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Wisconsin_Release_021208.pdf