I continue to think the ongoing Democratic race is good for the party whoever is the ultimate nominee.

If by "good for the party," you mean "offering the party another four years out of power in order to try to figure out how to win the Presidency," I agree.

Other than that, though, you're wrong.

Barry Obama lost working class voters BIG. Bigger than expected. Bigger than a margin that would allow any thinking person to believe he still stands a chance against McCain.

Barry lost every big battleground state.

Barry has already cast himself as the elitist, out of touch ultraliberal wimp. Worse, he did it to himself without the GOP's help.

The Democrats now have two choices: award the nomination to a certain general election loser or award it to a likely general election winner.

No, this is NOT "good". Not for the candidates, not for the party, and surely not for the country.

This protracted battle hasn't helped either side. Hillary (with a generous assist from the press) has successfully painted Obama as an effete snob, essentially destroying any chance he has of winning the rust belt in November. And by running the campaign she has, she's made sure there's no way on earth I could vote for her without getting a case of the dry heaves (I'd still vote for her, btw, but goddamn if I wont hate every second of it.)

Please explain again how any of this is "good". What new and perverse definition of the word are you using??

Random thoughts:

Her victory speech was quite lovely. Obama misspent time talking about "special interests." Too abstract for the moment.

Catholics really like Hillary much more than Obama; Jews are generally split between Hillary and Obama just like Democrats in general.

I wonder what Joan Walsh's take is on Hedy Lamarr -- I mean Maureen Dowd. Why doesn't the NYT get a real journalist one of these days? (Joan Walsh really should have that job and Dowd can do modeling or be on The View.)

"Seriously, at what point are these guys going to start holding their own candidate accountable for why this thing is still going on instead of complaining that Hillary is competing in contests that she is winning."

Yea, BILLARY Clinton survives another day, but she is merely postponing her eventual political demise!

Thank you for your reasoned and even-handed post. Sincerely; that's what I, as a Premium Salon customer, want to see out of my favorite web daily's editor. Your wrap-up was particularly thoughtful.

I will add only one thing to what you wrote, viz: "What I don't like about the current stalemate is that so many people who are not Barack Obama insist Clinton's victories have nothing to do with the real concerns of her supporters; they argue it's either racism, or just old machine politics, with Clinton wardheelers paying their dues and turning out votes. "

Respectfully, what I have yet to see you acknowledge is that this phenomenon, which I agree is unfortunate and even reprehensible, is mirrored on the Clinton side by Hillary supporters who insist that preferring Obama to Clinton can only be a reflection of sexism, cult-addled hypnosis, or both. In fact, you yourself have implied such things in previous posts. I would feel far more sanguine about your even-handedness as an editor (not as a person; you absolutely are free to have personal preferences, as are we all) if you could bring yourself to see the inconsistency there.

Keep it up. Thanks again.

Really. I expected a more thoughtful analysis of the Pennsylvania contest as it relates to the coming national race.

Saying that Barack Obama lost Pennsylvania because he lost White blue collar voters is simplistic. Moreover, Joan's latest post is filled with the predictably racist, ageist and mysoginistic stereotypes that, unfortunately, have permeated the discussion about the primary season and, frankly, diminished the whole process. Pidgeonholing Obama as the candidate of Blacks and Hillary as the favorite of senior White voters is intellectually lazy.

The Democrats always win the cities and elites. The Republicans always win the rural and working class. If Hillary supporters think she can wrench victory out of the hands of the Republicans in those constituencies in the general election, they're deluded.

Those very same people voting for Obama are the same people who are reliably Democratic, and will continue to be. Most rural and working class voters in the general election would just as soon cut their arm off than vote for a Clinton for President. She's not a winner. McCain is far more appealing to those people in the fall.

Personally, I wouldn't vote for her if she did win the nomination. I'd just stay home. She ain't Bill.

What Hillary won tonight is the legitimate argument to the supers that they *suggest* to Obama that she be placed on the ticket as VP. She'll say its because she sures up a difficult constituency for the party (and she would have a point). She will NOT have a valid argument for top of the ticket unless she surpasses Obama in pledged delegates. This is because the supers also realize that IF they award her the nomination despite lower pledged delegate counts she herself may become unelectable by not getting all the new voters (which she'll need especially if she's top of ticket - the repubs will love that) and the multitudes of new normally-low turnout AA voters backing Obama. The lattes will vote for her, more than likely though.

So you see, this is THE solution for the Supers and trust me this is what will happen.

Joan Walsh better than Maureen Dowd? The Maureen Dowd?

You must be joking. Like her or not, you can't possibly compare a NY Times columnist with a glorified blogger.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran...In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

This is the "good" that Clinton is bringing to the democratic party? Cheap pandering to the lowest of the fear-mongering low? Give me a break.