thanks for the calm and friendly note, deloresflower. forgive any typing errors or nocap words, since i'm typing one-handed as my ancient cat sleeps on my lap.

What a question; it's THE questin, no doubt about it. My take tonifgt is this: if Hillary loses in Texas and scrapes by in Ohio and does well in r.i.--or does worse than that, even-- Richardson and Edwards and Pelosi will all endorse Obama. Hillary will "suspend" her campaign.

But. if Hillary wins the popular vote in Texas, wins by 6 or more pts in Ohio and RI, she will stay in the race, and probably should. or, not. very tough call. I think she believes deeply that she'd be the better president, and so do I, but she (and i) are better party loyalists than Obama and many of his folks are--he's very "post-partisan--so she may well swallow hope and pride and stop anyway.

who knows?? Ive been involved in Dem politics since Adlai, and nothing remotely like this year has happened before.

thanks again for the civility!

I envy you your ancient cat. I'm not allowed to own a cat where I live so I suffer from terrible cat envy. (although not catbox envy).

Thank-you for your comments. As for manos99 and his comment...

I find it contemptible but I'm not sure how to respond. What would reach manos99?

Joan Walsh is threatening to install reader response stars, so we could press zero stars over posts like that. But ignoring them also is a way of responding.

I hope you're wrong about Obama's supporters on the whole. I hope that this "movement" for "change" represents something deeper than what you suspect.

I also hope that the lesson people take away--should Obama win--is not that the woman never wins. Both of them have won extraordinary support. And whatever happens, it will be close. If there could be two winners, this would be the year. Neither of them wants to be VP though. So that wouldn't be the solution.

Hmmm. Well, I suppose I should go and do productive things with my day instead of worrying. I never thought that Obama would get this far. But I have to admit that I think (although I'm not without doubts) that it will be a good thing if he wins the nomination. And I think that, policy-wise, Obama would not govern so differently than the way Bill and Hillary did.

peace.

@ cecilbeanie

Ummmm - hate to quibble but McCain beats Obama or Obama beats McCain is not history - history happens in the past this will happen in the future.

Thanks for the revelation. What I said, however, was that "history predicts"... In other words historical trends are often used to forecast future events. For example, historically if A, B & C are true, D usually happens. Sorry if I confused you. Hope that clarifies it.

@little lord baltimore

...there is just no evidence to support the theory that Obama will lose against McCain. None. Nadda. Zip. In fact most polling indicates that Obama beats McCain and Hillary doesn't.

Regarding Polls:

In April 1988 Dukakis led Bush 50% to 38% (Dukakis lost 40 states in the general election)

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has this to say:

"Polls that test hypothetical general election matchups at this stage in the cycle are mostly wrong about who will win the White House. Early polling does provide a benchmark for charting trends in voter sentiment, but it probably won't be very predictive of the eventual outcome in 2008.... A review of polls conducted in the first quarter of the year preceding the election found many of them forecasting the wrong winner --often by substantial margins."

The current RCP poll shows Obama leading McCain by 4 pts. Statistically insignificant. And this is before the major attacks on Obama have even started. Here's an example of what is to come... and this is from MSM not the Drudge Report... yet

Reformer: Trial Will Reveal 'Cesspool' of Obama's Allies

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4365942&page=1

Will they find that Obama committed any crimes? Probably not. Will some people start to feel that he is not quite as "above all the old politics" as he claims? We'll see.

It is illogical to suggest that because Obama lost the primaries in CA, NY, NJ and MA that he will not carry those traditionally Democratic states in the general election. Even if every single primary voter who voted for Clinton stays home.... The idea that Democratic voters in these states would rather vote for, pro-war, anti-abortion, anti-health care reform, pro-Hagee, McCain just flies in the face of reason.

But what if they don't stay home? It flies in the face of your reason, but not necessarily in the face of history. As I said in my prior post, Hillary's base of support is what has come to be known as Reagan Democrats. It may seem unreasonable that these traditional democrats voted for Reagan (I bet there are a few choice adjectives you could apply to him too), but history shows that they did, and they voted for Bush 41 as well. Bill Clinton brought them back and Gore & Kerry, for the most part, held them.

But, as of today Obama has failed to win ANY large state except for Illinois (i.e., states with more than 15 electoral votes). I don't think it is unreasonable to say that Obama has, at minimum, shown weakness among the core democratic demographic. Will some cross over and vote republican if they are unhappy with the democratic nominee? It can't be predicted 100%, but history shows that it is at least a reasonable possibility. It's very good that Obama has attracted Independents and Republicans (not counting the mischief makers trying to throw the nomination), and if they were added to the democratic base he might have something there. But they cannot replace the democratic base.

I have posted here and in other threads what I consider to be logical, not emotional, reasons that I think Obama would probably lose the general election. I'm not going to repeat them all here. But let's just take 1 state and ask some questions. The state is Florida. and here are the questions:

1) Is it reasonable to say that in recent history Florida has proven to be an important "swing" state in the general election?

2) Should the Florida delegation be allowed to vote at the democratic convention?

3) Should Obama fight against seating the Florida delegation?

4) If the answers to #2 & #3 are no & yes respectively, is it reasonable to think that at least some significant portion of Florida democrats will be upset enough to either sit out the general or vote for someone else? (Don't forget the Nader factor is back).

There are, of course, many more factors that go into the calculation as to what is likely to happen in November. You can look at all of these factors and come to a different conclusion. But I don't think it's accurate to call my conclusion illogical or unreasonable. But we can agree to disagree.