In more of those mind-bending inconsistencies for which Obama should be so famous, Obama is doing everything he can to use words to obscure and pretend that it is Senator Clinton who is the master of the Old Politics. Orwell would have been astounded to see such New Speak dominate the election in 2008 and befuddle the minds of educated Americans, with Howard Dean as the Mad Hatter of the Democractic Party.

This is so sad. Let Obama be the healer and uniter he claims and suspend his candidacy, support Senator Clinton and spend the next 8 years gaining some experience, holding some hearings instead of constantly campaigning, getting out from under the Rezko indictment, and maturing and teaching his children at another church where his pastor speaks neither hate nor anti-Semitism. Then Obama can be judged more fairly against the criteria he sets for himself: values, judgment and experience.

Senator Clinton is smart, funny, caring, tough and has a remarkable record of real accomplishments on behalf of the most voiceless Americans and people around the world. She will be an excellent President and will make us proud as we right the wrongs of the past 8 years and regain our moral leadership in the world.

What ARE we waiting for???

I hope you all remember to come back here November 3rd and re-read what you've just written. See if in the light of the coming events your fanaticism and tunnel-vision becomes more apparent.

Right now, the majority of letter-writers in this thread resemble nothing so much as the congregation at a tent revival - a congregation with a cherished vision of a singular messiah.

If, if, if--if humankind knew what was best, I would be King of the World, starting tomorrow at 9:30 am. Only people with clean underwear could hold office. Underwear would be worn on the outside, so we could check--

A mix of silly and valid points, though of course you wouldn't know it from the vast majority of the posts here, which prefer to ignore the valid points.

The silly? Several, including using polls to make an argument when

a) at this point they're relatively meaningless and

b) they're mostly within margin of errors anyway

Also silly, conflating the electoral college argument and the democracy argument. They're two separate points. One could (though I wouldn't) make a case that selecting the nominee via the same process that elects the President makes more sense. But the winner take all is clearly less, not more, democratic.

More silly? Discussing "probable" delegates based on upcoming states. Haven't we had enough of this sort of speculation? Just let the people vote. It won't kill us to wait until we actually know something rather than pretending we know something (though admittedly, such a policy would kill cable news)

Also silly, talking about all the big states in Hillary's pool as if they're hers exclusively. Many will go to a dem. no matter what--NY and Cal to name two. I think states like Ohio and Florida are much more problematic in that sense. Pesonally, I think Hillary is more able to win those two and I don't see states that Obama is more likely to win coming anywhere near those electoral votes.

Valid points?

That Obama's very slim lead in the popular vote and the main thrust of the whole "if the SD's vote for Hillary they overturn the will of the voter" argument is not as strong of an argument that pretend it is because

a) it is so slim

b) it ignores votes in two large states that based on previous (though flawed--Michigan's more so than Florida's) votes, demographics, and polls are much more likely to vote more for Hillary than Obama, though probably not by the same margin as those flawed votes. But any margin of victory makes that slim lead even more slim

c) it is not representatively accurate in that it gives more votes to Obama than Hillary via the caucus system. The proof of that, beyond the demographics, is that in both states that held both Obama's caucus margin of victory was not even close to an accurate measure of his popular vote support relative to Hillary as evidenced by the much more accurate (due to a much larger sampling) primary vote.

Many Obama supporters will, as always, pull out the straw man argument of "sour grapes" etc. But it doesn't detract from the valid mathematical logic that Obama's lead as it currently stands is actually somewhat overstated, a valid point to consider when someone makes the "my popular vote lead should make me the candidate" argument. Arguing sour grapes is, um, sour grapes.

Another valid point is the disconnect between Obama claiming "victory" in delegates from states where he lost the popular vote while simultaneously claiming the popular vote shouldn't be overturned by arcane rules that allow SD's to do so. You can't have it both ways.

Well, actually you can, but that makes you just like any other politician. Which is his problem. Since neither is going to get the magic number, it makes more sense to me that he simply give Hillary those small number of delegates. It makes him look confident, magnanimous, as "different" as he says he is, and more like the "reacher across lines" he says he is, while also and making his popular vote argument stronger rather than weaker as keeping those delegates does.

another valid point is that Obama does what he can to ensure victory (see above). That should be a no-brainer, but from the way some of the Obama people here speak, one would think only Hillary did all she could do to ensure victory (such as their argument that she's basically a cheater for "changing the rules" when the very rules they argue are sacrosanct allow for those rules to be changed. i.e.--the allegedly evil "changing of the rules" is no more ethical or unethical, legitimate or illegitimate, than keeping the rules as they are).

Thank you, Sean, for writing a brilliant article. It should be published

on the front page of The New York Times, but, of course, it won't be.

Most of the media, including journalists, are rooting for Obama to win

and nothing will change that. After reading your words, any voter supporting Mrs. Clinton

can take comfort in realizing that she is the candidate who actually has won the most

popular votes and is truly the Democratic choice for the next president.

Your clearly reasoned essay should be must

reading for all Democrats in order for them to work to change a system

that is so obviously convoluted and archaic.

I hope to read more posts

by you in the future.