I tend to agree with the posters here - I think the campaign has dealt with the attacks very well. As someone pointed out, it has played exactly into his line about being a different kind of politician. That line goes: the attacks are more of the same, and he is different.

So yes, the Kerry campaign analogy is spurious - Kerry was just a bad DLC politician; Obama is taking a different tack entirely. Let's not make the traditional mistake of constantly rerunning the last election here.

Let me also add, outside of what I think this campaign or that campaign should do - I am so glad that someone isn't appropriately "aware" or whatever of the criticisms that Republicans will levy. (Although I think the whole country is sufficiently aware.) Glenn Greenwald puts it very well - these attacks and the stilted, poll-tested, safe, triangulated soundbites they generate from Democrats are the main reason our dialogue in the U.S. is so distorted. Almost 70% of the electorate is not proud of the political decisions the U.S. has made in the past eight years! Thank god someone can finally say it!

Maybe, just maybe, if we treat these attacks with we the respect and awareness they deserve, we can start having a real dialogue in this country about the momentous decisions that have been made in our name, without comment! That's the kind of change people want. It's why McCain is the Republican nominee, agree with his policy decisions or no. And why the attacks won't gain much traction against Obama.

But then, what on earth will the Politico write about?

Can't we let this primary race die? I know Joan's thought is that it's good for both candidates to be "battle-tested", but let me present the opposite - the thought of seven more weeks of election makes me sick to my stomach. And I live in DC, where politics live on indefinitely. It's as if the candidates woke up yesterday morning and saw some sort of mutant groundhog shadow.

I cannot help but think if Clinton were the one with a near impossible-to-overcome lead in the delegates, who had won "impressive" victories in the great majority of states and sizable majority of the popular vote but still had not delivered the knockout blow, the chorus for Obama to withdraw would be deafening. His presence in the race would be deemed "bad for the party" by all those media outlets who are of course uniformly anti-Clinton. And his increasingly nasty tactics, whether or not they were par for the course in politics, would be thought of as a heresy.

I am also pretty sure, that if Clinton had a near-insurmountable lead in delegates, she would not be in favor of any of the proposed "options" that you suggest are the only ones available - let the superdelegates override the popular vote or re-seat Florida and Michigan. I'm pretty sure she would want the primaries to run their course and want the candidate with the most delegates to be chosen by the superdelegates. Makes sense, right? I'm sure she would have thought so a year ago.

I used to feel this way. However long ago I dealt with this malaise, this anxiety, and tried the aimless wandering thing. Kind of the same thing they talk about in the book Into the Wild. This worked for a bit, and then stopped - it seemed so, so, self-involved. But I had to do it first to believe that.

So I quit traveling aimlessly by going to work for a non-profit NGO that specializes in conflict zones. I could translate my not caring into something valuable. I could redeem myself. I went to Lebanon, Iraq. But it ultimately didn't work either - the development world - which to be fair, I still work in - is full of risk-takers, people who like to pretend they're helping by living out their suicidal fantasies and congratulating themselves afterward.

So what to do? I dunno. Don't have any real answers. But I will say that with so many people who work so hard to survive, to throw it away so casually seems wasteful at best...and isn't being wasteful what you're afraid of the most? I mean, the stuff that feels really dangerous to you is clearly not what puts you physically in harm's way.

The relationships that you build, that you have right now, seem to be what matter to people when everything else is taken away. I have at least learned not to let those be taken for granted, and maybe to open myself up to the possibility of more.

Here's to hoping you learn before you get your wish.

I have to agree with the Politico (ick) and the posters here - undoubtedly the media is holding off calling this race. The one poster on here who seemed to disagree unintentionally only proved the point - the media was quick to call a favorite like John McCain dead, even when he wasn't. So why not here?

Rather than read any pro-Hillary bias in the media, which seems unlikely, I imagine it has more to do with man-bites-dog angle that is so often defined as "news". Back when there were a zillion candidates, predicting when someone will drop out is news; when there are only two, one of whom will inevitably drop out, thinking of all the ways they can come back to life is news.

Otherwise, what to do until August?