Right on, this should no longer be framed as right vs left - that is too simplistic.

I am anti-gun when I am traveling in North Philly to pick up my wife from school, or when I travel through West Philly, or when some dude is being a jerk at one of the Old City bars.

I am pro-gun when I visit my in-laws, who are rural American hunters with large rifle collections.

What we need to do is stop the "all or nothing" debate that is largely the fault of the NRA and the GOP. We wanted to have our own gun laws in Philadelphia, ones that would not apply to the rest of Pennsylvania. The NRA came down in force to have the legisltaion overturned.

But the fact is, the GOP benefits from the debate - so they'll keep it going. In just the same way that they never seem to get around to outlawing abortion...the wedge issue is just too good to "win" on.

Lastly - most of America does not follow politics. At all. They do not vote in their own self-interest because they think government is for someone else's benefit. These people are front-runners. They vote for whoevere is ahead by a lot nationally. That is why there are few close elections. So, Obama is right to concentrate on the coasts and his base. Run up the numbers and the rest follow. They are like people at the track who bet on the favorite right before post at 1:5 odds (like those who bet on Big Brown, they just want to say they were with the winner).

It is that simple, really.

Read more carefully. The offending phrase was a quote from the 1940s. If you're still having trouble understanding the use/mention distinction, try mentally inserting "so-called" in front of the phrase that so offends you.

Obviously, there were strategic reasons for Obama to make limited efforts in WV and KY at this stage of the primary. He made a huge push in OH, PA and TX, and the Clinton campaign taunted him for spending so much money and losing anyway. So he was in a double-bind with spending a lot of time in two states where he was about to get whomped. I was disappointed that he didn't bother coming to Vermont, too, but I understand why. Everyone already knows how we're going to vote, so no one comes to Vermont (and we secretly like it that way).

I am looking forward to seeing him campaign in KY and WV - and OH, PA, NC, SC, VA, TV, etc. - with John Edwards and/or Hillary Clinton at his side. I really like this "poverty tour" idea that Edwards apparently proposed before dropping out of the race, and I have no doubt that Obama will show up in Appalachia. A LOT. In the general, I think Democrats will make a big push to win back rural voters. They have the economy on their side, and the fact that Republicans have worn out their welcome in most of Appalachia through the absolute worst sort of betrayal.

My father was a military man (straight out of his WV high school and into the army at age 17) and believed in honor and decency, and voted Republican. During the lead-in to the Iraq war, he formulated all sorts of excuses for why Bush was doing it. They must know something Really Big that we don't know. Otherwise, why would they be doing this? He was betrayed, and he knows it. Whether he can be convinced to vote for Obama I don't know. But I sure hope Obama tries to win him over.

I bet you were watching the same show I was last night!

I had the same thought, that rural Americans who benefitted from FDR's programs begat generations of Americans who hate social programs and government spending.

Nowadays the suspicion of government is too great. These same people would rather be out of work than turn to government for a solution.

How did this happen? Why the dramatic shift? Because the Dems pressed Civil Rights, and we lost them.

So, how am I not supposed to observe that race plays a factor here? Without being called an elitist?

He's starting to be portrayed as Jimmy Carter. He's sounding like him too. That's going to resonate around the country. And not positively.

Need to understand that they are moving towards the candidate who peaked months ago. The supers moving to him doesn't recapture his earlier momentum.

The problem as I see it is, people still can't believe that not everyone is excited or wants Obama as their president. I grew up in a small town and not all of us were backward thinking people. Perhaps many in Appalachia have a problem with Obama's stand on the coal industry:

I wish I could report that Obama was offering a more principled energy policy. Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at his record shows a politician at least as willing to sacrifice his lofty principles for political expedience.

Exhibit A is Obama’s enthusiastic support for “coal to liquid” technology, which allows auto fuel to be squeezed out of coal. Obama touts it as a way to free America from reliance on Saudi oil fields and to tackle global warming. However, coal-to-liquid technology produces twice the amount of greenhouse gases that regular old oil does; additionally, it’s so expensive that it’s unlikely to displace one drop of cheap Saudi oil anytime soon.

So why would he support it? What’s more, why did he vote for other anti-environment policies, such as President Bush’s 2005 energy bill, which funnels more than $27 billion in taxpayer subsidies to big polluters?

A huge factor in Obama’s decisions was his desire to support Illinois agribusiness (Bush’s energy bill contained massive ethanol subsidies) and the southern Illinois coal industry. His votes mean that he’s willing — sometimes, at least — to put these kinds of parochial interests ahead of the global environment and Americans’ health (pollution from coal-fired power plants kills more than 30,000 people every year, according to EPA consultants Abt Associates).

Obama has explained his positions by saying that sometimes you need to “trim your sails” — by which he means cutting back on goals to avoid becoming marginalized.

But it’s exactly that kind of political calculation — special interests versus doing what’s right — that Obama is promising to reject. Obama’s energy policy shows that so far he is at least as much a creature of establishment influence-peddling as Clinton is. From CommonDreams.org May 24, 2007

Perhaps, they do have they best interest at heart.

As an aside, my husband went with me to the Colorado Democratic Convention this past weekend and was amazed how smarmy and callow many of Obama supporters are. By reading some of you, he couldn't be more correct.