"I know how much you like to call people dishonest and liars. But New Jersey is NOT a lock in the general with Obama the nominee. Neither is Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Iowa, or several other swing states. And you know it."

I cannot believe that you are raising New Jersey. In the last 4 elections in NJ, the Republicans looked like they were 2-4 pts down. In 2 senate races and the governor's race, the pundits all said "Could NJ go repuke?" Well, in each case, the Dem won BIG BIG BIG.

OH? It's VERY BLUE right now. Ever hear of COINGATE?

PA? Dem

NM? Barack is actually winning there, or is very close to winning.

He already won in IA? Don't you remember the IA caucus?

You people are just pitiful. You are so desperate, it is just painful to watch.

And besides, Hillary's negatives made all those states dicey with her as well. You continually ignore the Hillary dislike out there. She has a HUGE RESIDUAL WELL of dislike.

So, nope, you ain't convinced me. NY and CA will not go REPUKE.

Some of us would appreciate it if you too would stop feeding the energy children like dataxguy. Not only are they vulgar and obnoxous with nothing of substance to offer, but they are truly vacuums draining the collective iq of the discussion with each of their horrible slurs and tantrums.

I will not engage the little bozo again. Good advice.

Iowa went to John Kerry in 2000 and to Mike Dukakis in 1988 and neither of them won the state or the election. I'd hate to think anyone is dumb enough to think the Dem primary in Iowa in any way predicts a national winner.

But underestimating the Republicans is a classic liberal flaw. And they've done it big this time. Ann Coulter and the ever reliable Rush Limbaugh (credited by Newt Gingrich as the singlemost person to help the Republicans win Congress in 2004) are willfully making noise about McCain to HELP him look more moderate. (Everyone knows by know that Repubs have to run to the right in the primaries and to the center in the general).

But these same people here deluded themselves that Bush was a dumb hick that couldn't win and that Gore would crush him in the debates. Didn't happen. These same people let the press tell them that Nader had a viable candidacy (no 3rd party can ever do more in our political system than serve as a spoiler).

They inisted there was a huge resevoir of untapped liberal voters out there who would rush to the Nader camp as soon as there was a leftwing alternative to Gore. Didn't happen. In 2004 they let Moveon.org run the whole party to the left of Lenin, and raised unprecedented money from George Soros, and can be credited with not one win. Not one. (Barrack Obama about the only good news in the 2004 for the Dems did not get money from Moveon.org nor campaign with them). Needless to add, Soros has never put any more money into that black hole.

They let Rove lead them astray each and every time and are doing it now. And I'm tired of it.

you wrote:

"The party is just something to ride his own ambitions on and discard at will."

Do you not remember Clinton throwing Kerry under the bus before the midterm elections for his stupid "get (us) sent to Iraq" joke? Ya know, when the Republican Noise Machine was trying their damndest to turn that into a wedge issue and squeak out a victory? Remember how she demanded he apologize to "the troops"? Sure seemed like she was "discarding the party at will" there doesn't it? That maybe she was only thinking about her image as a staunch defender of the military? It was pretty despicable...but you forgot that episode didn't you?

But New Jersey is NOT a lock in the general with Obama the nominee. Neither is Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Iowa, or several other swing states. And you know it."

Well, we just saw it. Not only will NJ,Ohio, FL, PA, NM, AZ, IA go McCain, but quite possibly Mass, NY and California .

The Republicans knew what they were doing when they put up McCain. They've been on a losing streak with Latins and in the western states for the past six years. Their strategists are the best and they know it.

They HAD to put a candidate for the west that Latin's hadn't been painted into baiting from anti-immigration rants. That left them with McCain.

He will assuredly pick up AZ,NM,CO,NJ and I'll say also California if his contestant is Barrack Obama.

Whereas Hillary would win CA,NJ and NM, and quite possibly even Colorado (I doubt she'd win McCain's home state of Arizona).

The neolibs, as always, have left their iq's in the basement.

Pretty silly and sad. Hillary was mean to Kerry because he said something incredibly dumb! Wow, that's "despicable"! LMAO.

It's called Party Loyalty...look it up sometime. Where I come from Party means something, you simply do not do that...ESPECIALLY when an election very well could've hinged on that stupid joke.

I was replying to a specific comment that was disingenuous at best, but thanks for the snark...it was much appreciated.

Has anybody read "When Women Rule" in today's New York Times?

I am thrilled to see this. It provides evidence of the ingrained sexism at work right now.

Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10kristof.html?em&ex=1202792400&en=503ca9e755178d46&ei=5087%0A

BTW: I am not saying here that sexism is ALL that is working against Hillary Clinton, but it plays a much greater role than we are willing to acknowledge and address. What bothers me about this attitude toward women is its insidiousness, even within our own party and among progressives. That we will not stand up to it and call it tells me there's a lot of work left for feminists.

I didn't need to read Thomas Franks to know what was the matter with Kansas. I was born there. (Although I did read the book, and had to chuckle when he characterized my hometown as "western Kansas." It's smack in the middle of the state. Dude's never been more than 40 miles west of Kansas City, apparently.)

Yep, Sebelius won over a lot of GOP moderates, but she didn't win over 450,000 of them.

There were 38,000 caucus voters in Kansas last week. In 2006, the losing Dem candidate in *one* congressional district drew 37,000 voters.

There are more than 38,000 Democrats in Kansas.

The numbers don't back up your argument.