The issue with Nevada is that it shows one issue with the PR system. No system is perfect but I am a firm supporter in the PR system because it allows voters in lower population states to have a voice over higher ones. So, yesterday would it have been ok for Seattle to determine the will of the rest of the state? In Nevada is it ok for Vegas to determine the rest of the state?

The other options are winner take all or base it on total vote. In a primary, there can exist a case where a candidate could get 1 more delegate and still lose the popular vote. It's not a hard scenario to come up with but it happened in Nevada because of the small number of delegates awarded.

That's how Obama got 1 more delegate. If you want to fight over that one delegate, that's fine but I'm not going to concede that it is as flawed a system as the superdelegates. It's not even in the same ballpark.

Cythera 45 wrote: "Only hardcore antiwar liberals care that Obama was opposed to the war from the start."

Where do you get that? What poll? What stat? I think a lot more people care about Obama's correct take on the war than you imagine.

Here you go in case amnesia (which seems to be afflicting a lot of Obama supporters) got to you. All I did was google "Iraq war poll" and found this among the very first hits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700296.html

As shown there, almost 70% of the public approved of the Iraq war. It was not until June 2005 (!) that the American public realized what a mess it was turning out to be. If that is not the will of the people, not sure what is.

And this debate (and Obama's candidacy) would have been moot if there indeed had been WMD in Hussein's arsenal. OR even without WMD's if the neocons had actually planned the occupation in advance.

I just totally disagree with you. The big states matter. Winning them matters. Winning Ohio by 9-10 points matters more than lapping somebody in Kansas.

Except it doesn't, certainly not when one compares the popular vote totals (which are rather close, in favor of Hillary when I last saw the results after Feb 5th, though its probably swung to Obama since last night), and certainly when the elected delegates favors one (which, at the moment, with the current results from yesterdays contest, is Obama).

And why is Ohio so much more important than the states (and one district), that vote on Feb 12th? Certainly, population wise, the aggregate total of those states challenges Ohio's size? In fact, combined, those areas eke out ahead of Ohio in population-wise. As I've said before, the aggregate of this months contests post 5th, delegate-wise, is more than Texas and Ohio combined, so why is everyone looking to those states, "to decide it"?

If he is able to open up a lead, it will be more problematic for Hillary to only do well in Ohio and Texas. She will have to resoundly wipe the floor with him in those states to get back the amount of delegates she could potentially bleed out the rest of this month. This is, indeed, possible. But does anyones campaign want to bet that big on that? And what if the races in Ohio and Texas are a draw, or at the very least, close by 5%? Certainly that will not bode well.

Them not wearing pins, not going out and arguing over it, and all of that.

Small problem, those guys also don't vote.

What we are seeing, are Democrats absolutely befuddled by an intense, competitive Primary season.

The front runner was usually established after the first few small state primaries.

By time the front runner hit Super Tuesday, it was pretty much all sewed up. Any heartbreak over a favorite was over with.

Moroever, I don't think anyone was really heartbroken over ANY of them, until maybe Howard Dean.....

Anyone in the front is accused of bad faith, dirty tricks. Maybe there is some truth to all that but most of the time it's just sour grapes. People have been so soaked with vitriol for so long, it's just permeated and corrupted our collective thought processes.

No wonder people don't vote. Some people can't even remember what elections are. WE THE PEOPLE desperately need to take back this process.

"I guess Franklin Roosevelt should never have been President

because his cousin Teddy already was. Give somebody else a chance, will you!"

Well kinda. FDR and TR were fifth cousins. Obama and Dick Cheney are eighth cousins. ;) Heck, Strom Thurmond was some sort of cousin to Al Sharpton! We're all related somehow.

Fifth cousin doesn't seem very close. In fact, ELEANOR and FDR were fifth cousins also (once removed), and they married! Eleanor's maiden name was also Roosevelt.

Eleanor was Teddy's niece! She was much more closely related to TR than FDR was to either of them.

Bill and Hillary, GHWB and GWB, those are close relationships. The Roosevelts not so much.

You didn't answer my question. Say we get through the Pennsylvania primary and Obama has more pledged delegates (say, around 100) but Clinton has won more votes (say, around 75,000-100,000) overall. Whose "will" should the superdelegates follow? Just curious to hear your thinking on this.

And that's because Obama's rheotric has no appeal at all to Latin voters, working class families or much of anyone besides unhinged neolibs and racist blacks. If Obama weren't black all he'd have is you neolibs.

Hey, I'm not a neolib, and I'm not unhinged, but thanks for thinking so; if Clintonites are the voice of sanity, yipes! And, for the record, I'm not a "latte liberal," either (don't even drink coffee). Just had to be said, since the talking points keep regurgitating that last one as an attack on pro-Obama folks. I don't buy your talking points, either, Anonymouseketeer, the usual venom spat by your lot.

The Blue Island strategy of the DLC is a defensive ploy that gives them (and not the Democratic Party as a whole) the most leverage, as the most turncoat-inclined of the Democrats who "mediate." It gives them a role as the power brokers between the true-blue Democratic minority and the red tide of the GOP, lets them turn the spigot on the watering-down of the Democratic platform, so they're invested in it, sure. Joe Lieberman is the ultimate DLC-type "Democrat," who took it to its logical conclusion by becoming "Independent" in the worst sort of way -- I'd call him "Independent in Name Only" because of his obvious love for the GOP. The DLC are full of those types, and as long as the blue state/red state narrative dominates discourse, they'll work hard to maintain that fiction, and nothing will get done, while most of the country turns purple (whether from a blending of ideologies and/or from rage will remain to be seen; maybe both, or one will feed the other, compelling change).

It wasn't blue-island Democratic strength that won 2006; it was voter rage at the GOP overreaching. And Democratic underreaching by way of a Clinton campaign is going to further enrage/demoralize/alienate voters. I like the idea of the Democrats playing offense, and moving past their blue islands and winning the White House by moving past the blue islands, and I think that's the only way it's going to happen, and the only way it'll happen is through Obama, who will outflank the GOP, who are historically weak going into 2008.