Obama must go to the latinos and get to know them one-on-one as much as possible. Go to a farm and mingle. Be seen with as many of his new latino friends as possible. These interactions and his policies with respect to unions and workers should be broadcast wherever they will give the most exposure. He should also stress his superior electability against John McCain. It's not too late, but it will take a big push in the next few days.

It was Obama who choose to use the race card .. to be the victim and tap the sympathy of the black voters.

'Fairy tale' was never about race.

The media, Obama and everyone else call him a future black president ... a total slap in the face to his mother. Obama never corrected people when they call him the black man.. but they scream and whin when Bill Clinton call his voting record a 'fairy tale' and turn that into a racist remark.

Imagine if you are a white mother, you married a black man and have a son who call himself a 'black man' and ignore the origin of your mother ... and then you choose to use her in your advertisment when it will win you votes?

She would turn in her grave.

Ok, I'll take the bait.

I'm black, from Chicago, and live in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood. First of all, following your link to a myspace page suggests that you are in fact from Texas, so what do you know of relations between blacks and hispanics in Chicago?

What you wrote makes me sad. I've never experienced this animosity between blacks and hispanics you speak of, only good relations and feelings. Why do brown people (and I know you said there was a difference between brown and black, but looking at my skin now--it's pretty brown) in-fight at the expense of one another for white hegemony? Crazy bad. I extend my warm welcome and love to you brother!

I appreciate your comments too, but the funny thing is that people tend to perceive slights to their preferred candidate.

I appreciate the jab at my age (I'm pushing 40, so I take it as a complement). You were spreading the "dirt" on Obama "dissing" Clinton, when I don't see a slight there. I could imagine myself in a crowd, seeing that someone was reaching for the hand of someone else, turning to speak to someone behind me.

I don't see that as a slight. However, I did take the "fairy tale" comments to be a slight. This expression is a strong one, intended to put a person in their place--more strong than most put-downs I can think of. So maybe we can all perceive slights where the other side does not perceive them.

As for specifics, I wonder how you feel about the ethics and finance reforms. This is one specific difference where I find Obama's position to be more on-target.

I don't mean this to be just more warfare between supporters of different candidates--I plan to support Clinton is she is the nominee, and that's worth saying since so many here are complaining that they'll go home and not vote if their favorite doesn't make it into office. But I agree with you that Clinton's health care package--from reading it at least, seems more specific. But how do you feel about ethics and finance reform? This issue has pushed me toward Obama, although I suppose in a few days, whatever happens will make these questions about specific policy issues moot (unfortunately).

I am surprised that Joan has time to pen such essays.

Based on her multiple appearances on television, I just assumed she would be working full-time for the Clinton campaign by now.

Anonymous ... appreciate your comments. However, I may have spent more years working on Capitol Hill than you have been on earth.(just a guess) Ted Kennedy has always been spiteful and vindictive and is well-known to carry grudges. No question he has enormous power and influence, so the real Ted is seldom seen as he was in 1980 when he blew the Democratic Party apart. He slaps anyone down he chooses. He and the Kennedy family usually get a pass when there is a behavior problem, largely because of the many tragic losses in the Kennedy family. But don't think for a moment, they don't play dirty politics. If his reason for supporting Obama is really a grudge against the Clintons, then it all rings hollow indeed.

No need to give me any more "dirt" on Senator Clinton. We are supporting her because she is the best candidate and our support has been solidified enormously by the treatment she has received by the media and the effort by the Obama campaign and surrogates to taint the impeccable civil rights record of the Clintons. When Senator Obama comes from behind the media and surrogate curtain and talks specifics, perhaps we will give him a second look. We know the Washington terrain too well and how it operates. Therefore, can't buy the "I'll change Washington" theme.

I take it by relationships the writer means experience. So what's Obama's senatorial experience in Illinois, chopped liver? His political experience as an elected government representative is more than Hillary's. She tries to infer that she was the one elected to the White House.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/?hpid=topnews

Clinton's LBJ Comments Infuriated Ted Kennedy

There's more to Sen. Edward Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama than meets the eye. Apparently, part of the reason why the liberal lion from Massachusetts embraced Obama was because of a perceived slight at the Kennedy family's civil rights legacy by the other Democratic presidential primary frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act accomplished. Jealously guarding the legacy of the Kennedy family dynasty, Senator Kennedy felt Clinton's LBJ comments were an implicit slight of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who first proposed the landmark civil rights initiative in a famous televised civil rights address in June 1963.

One anonymous source described Kennedy as having a "meltdown" in reaction to Clinton's comments.