I appreciate your response and its reasonable tone, but as a hardcore Hillary supporter I do not agree with your thinking. Really, other than Joan, I'm about as pro-Hillary as you can get. Window sign, car sticker, several t-shirts, went to see her, went to see Bill, dragged my kids, gave $$, cheered (and ponied up) every time she hung in there for another round.

You said "It doesn't even make sense that voters who bought into those storylines earlier would simply give up their perspective b/c somebody told them they now have a different candidate."

But I've liked her for years. My support for Hillary had absolutely nothing to do with Obama. I didn't dislike Obama, I just liked Hillary more. And just because I like Hillary doesn't mean I fall for the Rove crap.

And what did I do in June, at the end? I went online, donated to Obama, and ordered a bunch of car magnets, which I put on my car and gave to friends. I would have ordered a T-shirt but they were out. I like the guy fine. Believe me, I'm really wanting to love the guy. I want him to win.

As for being disappointed with some of his votes and positions -- that again has nothing to do with Hillary. In fact, it is a reaction to the image built up by his own campaign and supporters. Hardcore Hillraiser that I am, I was actually hoping to believe at least some of the change stuff, because we do really need it. But then he crapped out on FISA, offered up some oil drilling, talked religion and family values (please -- will any candidate promise NOT to talk about their "faith"? Thanks!) and apparently is looking at some of the most boring VP choices around.

Obama has my vote, no question there. I would be thrilled if he won and turned out to be a great president. But like it or not he does not have much of a record, so he needs to earn the victory and show us what he can do, and that has nothing at all to do with Hillary. His campaign better not lose sight of that.

I think she will do fine continuing in the Senate or maybe running again in 2012. If she does, that racist crap won't work anymore should Obama choose to compete again.

What racist crap? Please cite your source, and please link your source to the Obama campaign.

You can only cry wolf so many times.

Who specifially is crying wolf? Please elaborate, and please cite your source.

Yes, of course his supporters labeling the Clinton's racists helped him early on.

Who specifically has done this? Citation please.

It was not about his black voters. It was about white racial guilt. He needed to rally white liberals. It didn't become a disadvantage to him until he had to compete in those states which were much less liberal.

Really. We didn't just vote for the guy because we liked him better and/or we liked his positions better. We coudn't possibly be *for* Obama, we all had to be *against* not appearing racist and appeasing some vague "white guilt" that we all apparently have apparently. Hmm, interesting. Are you a psychologist? I wasn't aware that I wasn't in control of my own thoughts and emotions, that I am an automiton riddled with "white guilt" or something and will always vote for the black candidate every time because of this. Interesting.

I know that politics can be a blood sport, but generally between the parties. We don't often go after one of our own. Even now, there is no end of vitriol on the part of Obama supporters against the Clintons, and their supporters. It turned me off to Obama frankly, at a time when I was still making up my mind. I began to hope that Obama was above that sort of thing, but then came his silence during the "fairytale" fairytale. I found it shockingly opportunistic, and very disappointing behavior from a man and a campaign from which I was lead to expect more civility. Now with his vote on FISA, and his stand on offshore drilling, I find that more than ever I will have to hold my nose when I vote for him. Not a promising beginning for a man who supposedly has so much promise.

It's incumbent upon Obama to figure out how to bring the party together. I hope he's not of the mindset that if he loses, he still wins because he broke a barrier. I also hope he doesn't think that the women who are upset with how the DNC conducted the primary will just fall into line because they have nowhere else to go. Dream on. The party won't come together without some act on Obama's part. At this late date, the party should be unified.

On another note, I think it was ridiculous that Bill was smeared as a racist. When Joe Biden was wrongly accused of racism, Obama stated that he didn't consider Biden racist, and the issue was resolved. Why won't Obama do the same for Bill Clinton? Such a conciliatory gesture would begin to mend the rift in the party.

I don't consider these PUMAs post-meopausal freaks, as Joan puts it, but I do think they are sore losers...Post menopausal freaks, no; impossible persons, yes. It is not the way Obama won, but the fact that their idol lost that alienates them, and I doubt any conciliatory move Obama might make at this point will spare him the electoral consequences of their self-righteous embitterment.

You nailed it.

Now the Obama campaign is genuinely worried, with Hillary projected to win big in Florida in ten days. They HAVE to win South Carolina, and according to some sources they make a conscious decision to play the race card against the Clintons before the January 26 primary there, releasing the infamous "lower staff" memo. This was days before Bill Clinton's "Jesse Jackson" remark.

It was Obama who injected race into the campaign, and he did it for cynical reasons.

Right. It was the so-called "accidentally" released "lower-staff" memo that was the real dog-whistle. That was Axelrod's best Astroturf moment. All they wanted was deniability. Then they could have Obama -- or rather Axelrod on Obama's behalf -- renounce the memo and stay above the fray, pretending to be "post-racial." Huffington ran the memo. Huffington was so in the tank for Obama, so anti-Hillary.

But the memo was a damned road map. It showed Obama supporters exactly how to attack the opposition. Brilliant move really.

Ever read about Axelrod's other business? Axelrod is an Astroturfing genuis. He turns astroturf into grassroots. Obama supporters played their foaming-at-the-mouth role obligingly. No one on the Obama campaign needed to explicitly call Bill and Hillary Clinton racists. The netroots and the pundits did it for them.

I could look up posts right here at Salon of people calling the Clintons racists. There are even posts claiming that Hillary wishes Obama dead. Some of these people have "disappeared" but others are now saying so very coyly: "But of course Bill Clinton isn't a racist ... but ..." -- some of the same people who flat called him one.

Now that we are in the General Election and they want to thoroughly distract from racial themes, we are supposed to forget all about how they acted before.

The Clintons are more forgiving than I am.

For all those assholes who called me a racist in argument here at Salon, I have two words for you: Cynthia McKinney.