Much of what these "experts" and some of the letters posted have to say is beside the point.

Re this election season...

I keep thinking of what my ex-husband said to his mother once when she was nattering on to him about my failings. He finally said, "Mom, as far as I'm concerned, you and Dad represent the past and C and the children represent the future and if you make me choose I have no doubt what I'll do." (To her credit she shut up and never said anything else to him about it.)

So much of this and other discussions are rooted in the past. But this is a new political world. First, which of these "experts" or any of the rest of us foresaw, even 6, much less 12, months ago that Obama and Clinton would run neck in neck for 5 months and that Obama would prevail? (Clinton too being part of the past rather than the future.)

McCain - he's OLD. I'm 65 and he thinks like a generation before mine. McCain did not "win" the Republican nomination. His weak opponents, Romney and Guiliani, were felled by their own incompetence and lack of general appeal even to Republicans. And now he's caught between a rock (not to say also Iraq) and a hard place. The Republican machine doesn't trust him and Bush is unpopular everywhere. He really isn't a maverick who can carve out his own campaign. Even he admits he's clueless on the economy. On the foreign policy side he doesn't get the difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites, what al Qaeda is etc. It has been FIVE years since we invaded Iraq and almost 7 since 9/11/01. His campaign adviser Charlie Black voiced what is not supposed to ever be mentioned in public, that nothing would boost McCain's candidacy more than a major domestic or foreign disaster that would prompt many people to vote again out of sheer terror.

The discussion by the "experts" does not take into account that Obama has a 50 state strategy and that, despite inevitable voting irregularities and Republican vote suppression in November, many many more people will be registered to vote and will vote than in past elections. Young people have mostly been written off in the past, but the evidence from the Democratic primaries is that their participation will be much greater this year. How many are inspired by McCain? Blacks too. Maybe no southern states, except perhaps Virginia, will go to Obama, but for sure it's going to be a different world. One of the benefits of Obama's 50 state strategy is that he will have political support everywhere should he become president. Bush rejected the idea that he was president of all the people, not just his supporters.

Also see Maureen Dowd's column in Wednesday's NYTimes - "More Phony Myths." (I composed my letter before I read her column this morning.)

While I agree that Barack Obama is a unique and terrific candidate, let's not lose sight of the fact that it's not just Obama that is causing red states to turn blue (and by the way, Hillary would have done so also). It is because the American people have woken up and realized we can no longer afford to let the Republicans run this country. The last eight years have been a horrible blight on this country's history and the people realize we can NEVER allow that to happen again. Unless the Republican party begins to listen and respond to mainstream America and stop catering to the conservative right wing of the party and the few that finance the party, they may never recover.

The panelists were overly pessimistic about NH, mostly because they had to find SOME state McCain could pick up...They didn't talk about the down ticket races in NH. Governor Lynch (D) leads the republican in polls by 40 points, ex Gov Shaheen consistently leads Sununu in the Senate race by over 10 points. In 2006 every major race (and most minor) was won by Dems, including Carol Shea-Porter's upset win over Jeb Bradley. NH republicans may like McCain, but the war is extremely unpopular, and considering the rest of the state slate, there should be a lot of straight ticket Democrat voting.

-- Semiodd

FYI: straight-ticket voting was eliminated last year in NH:

http://www.nh.gov/governor/news/2007/050407voting.html

While McCain received GOP votes in the NH primary (which he won), he received substantial support from undeclared/independent voters. The "traditional" GOP base tended to prefer Romney:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/08/politics/main3689561.shtml

With Obama running for president, it will make things much easier for Mary Landrieu in my state.

She's already had the good luck to have Kennedy as an opponent. And now her biggest base of supporters - the Black voters - will be out in record numbers in November when she's up for re-election.

Will Obama get the nod in Louisiana? Hard to say, probably not (although that won't keep me from voting for him) although I expect he'll win the election. But just by being on the ticket, he may hand the Little Mary her re-election.

Thank God.

While I agree with most of what was said regarding the 2000 election debacle, where one candidate won the popular vote and the other the electoral college vote, I'm inclined to believe that if it did happen during this election it would be the end of the electoral college vote system.

It was great listening to the podcast and I look forward to listening to some more in the future. Great job!

If Salon had more articles like this and less of the "What's wrong with Obama blah/Are Hillary supporters willing to forgive yet blah" I think Salon could pull a Lazarus. Joan and Company have to do the transition from primary to general election mode. Hopefully, that will come soon.

Thomas Schaller runs a great roundtable. These things can be so boring, full of bloviating and rambling that no transcript editing can help, but in this case Schaller keeps it tight and never lets the discourse run out of steam. I read the whole thing and wasn't disappointed for having done so — and I normally have no patience that sort of "what if" discussion.