Mr. Madden states that:

"Obama wasn't sticking to the high road, as he previously sought to do."

He supports this with the following quotes: "She is a hardworking public servant, but Senator Clinton does not understand the need to fundamentally change how Washington works," and "We can't have lobbyists and special interests setting the agenda in Washington."

Those are negative attacks??? Seriously?

Madden states that: "His campaign was running ads implying Clinton was using "fear and calculation to divide us" and making its own harsh phone calls to prospective supporters.""

Assuming the fear and calculation exist (and I think her 11th hour ad shows that that's exactly the case), how is it negative to point out that one's opponent is going negative? Isn't that just a statement of fact?

Where is the evidence of the "harsh phone calls to prospective supporters"? Nowhere in this article.

COME ON SALON! You continue to conflate journalism and editorializing. Admittedly, its the brave new world of internet news, but you do all of us a disservice by by not having a dedicated op/ed section, and by allowing your writers to put whatever the hell they want into their articles with what increasingly appears to be either no editorial oversight, or--worse--biased editorial oversight.

Mr. Madden's spin is completely unsupported by the evidence he sites. Shoddy. Despicable.

Increasingly unsurprising.

Calm and quiet are your words, Susan.

You, I assume, subconsciously read that into the article. What Ms. Traister wrote was, "Eck's words were not received warmly by the people standing around her; one man firmly told her, "His name is Barack Obama."

That does not sound to me terribly calm, or quiet. But I may be biased. I, for one, would have called that woman out for her blatant racism, and pointed out that that sort of slander is becoming the fall back position for a slew of Clinton supporters--most of whom have spent their lives fighting against just that kind of character assassination.

Forgive, them father, for they may know what they do...

Oh,

You also jump to the conclusion that the 'calm, quiet'(not) speaker is a Clinton supporter. It doesn't say that anywhere either. Isn't the point of an appearance to draw from all sides of the debate to influence the voters' decision.

Perhaps you would only go to see a candidate you knew you already supported; please don't presume everyone else is in the same boat.

I've read the letters, I've read the columns, the LATimes-WaPost had a piece on it this morning: Obama must continue to go negative! He's abandoned the high road!

Will someone, ANYONE, show me a single concrete example of these negative tactics by Obama? (not by his supporters--that is not the same thing, and y'all know it).

In my book, responding to attacks from from your opponent and criticizing their policies or tactics simply IS NOT negative campaigning. It's being responsible for defining one's own campaign and message. Honestly, that's all I've seen Sen. Obama do. He's not sitting on his ass when attacked (like Kerry re:Swift Boat), but he's also not initiating any of the mudslinging (like the Clinton campaign).

If I'm wrong, I'll admit it. But, at this point all I hear from Clintonites is hearsay. Show me the evidence, or shut the hell up!

This line of reason is so bogus it's hard to know where to begin. Unfortunately we hear it constantly in the media as well: "Obama didn't win -insert large state here- so he can't possibly win in November."

That is ridiculous on its face. ALL of these large states that he "didn't win" (in quotes because he still picked up dozens of delegates in every one of them) are solidly Democratic states. Period. Just as they all went for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, they will all go for whomever the Democrat is in November. And, based on Obama's success with Independents and moderate Republicans, he'll likely win with greater margins in ALL of those states than Hillary could with her substantial negatives.

Is this not plain to see?

As an aside, I think it is way past time for both Clinton and Obama to start campaigning against McCain and allow those of us who have yet to cast a primary vote to see who has the best strategy against the Republicans!!!

Hey Steve,

I really enjoyed your work here at War Room. In the past I had occasionally checked out carpetbagger when links showed up in the posts I read, but I'll be a regular visitor to your posts now after getting to know your work. Take care.