So, John Edwards isn't coming to the Convention because he had an affair and lied about it.

How is that any different than the Keynote speaker? Bill Clinton had an affair, in the Oval Office, then lied to federal prosecuters about it. But he's delivering the Keynote Address.

Someone explain this to me.

Seems more like garden variety politics to me.

Obama and his surrogates have hit out at McCain as too old, too angry and even suggested that the McCain campaign would (gasp!) tell people that Obama is black. ("I don't look like all those presidents on our dollar bills.") McCain is waging a campaign right back and hitting at Obama on areas where he feels there is a soft spot that can be exploited.

Like I said, it's politics. It's a contact sport. Obama will need to hit back...but drop the whole race angle that he used against the Clinton's because McCain and his campaign will throw it right back at 'em.

The trend lines in the polls are worrisome if you support Obama, heartening if you support McCain. But then there are old Dems like me who don't want either one and think that no matter who wins, the nation loses. We'll see. If I were forecasting, I'd say that McCain wins this fall. The bloom is off of the Obama rose.

I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president

"At this point I think they need Hillary Clinton."

Me, too...so let the rant begin...

This campaign has not really even started yet. The VP choice and the convention may provide spikes, but even those don't have staying power. This election will come down to the debates. I, for one, still think Obama will clean McCain's clock in the debates. In addition, the Obama's money advantage will start to pay dividends post convention.

The ONLY reason he said that was to get quoted by you in Salon.

You are that easy and that predictable.

Props to Bill, even if it wasn't very gentlemanly.

I think Maher's comments were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But even if he was being totally serious about Hillary as VP, isn't he saying what you've been denying all along, Joan? That the Clintons bring a certain ruthlessness to the table in which no trick is too dirty, no attack is too slimy, and no potential political weapon goes unused?

The beginning of this post seems to chasise McCain for being slimy. Then the end seems to endorse an opinion that Hillary should get the VP not because she's the only one slimy enough to go toe-to-toe with McCain in a slime-off.

Hey, if giving Hillary the VP nod will win the election for the Dems, I'm all for it. I just feel like she would energize the GOP base in a whole new way - the incremental gains in votes she'd generate could be far outweighed by the incremental losses in votes she'd cause. But of course nobody has any way of knowing this.

It's symptom of psyhcopathy - hypocrisy.

The difference between Clinton adultery & Edwards adultery?

Crazed PUMA's threatening to martyr themselves at the Denver convention if they don't get their way. To them, Bill is off-limits casue he's married to their deity.

It's symptom of psych opathy - hypocrisy.

... his poll numbers would drop 10 points instantly and never recover.

She is now as despised in Democratic circles as she is in Republican ones.

Sure, that might (might!) help Obama get Joan Walsh's vote (provided he also pledges to never say or do anything unless it's what Hillary wants), but he'd lose the left, the right, and the middle.

I for one would run from the sinking ship in a heartbeat. Even if I stayed on board what would then be a completely dead Democratic Party, that ticket would lose to McCain in an historic landslide.

It would be unbelievably stupid.

Thanks for your vigor, Joan.

I don't agree about Hillary, even with the sage opinion of Bill Maher. Seems to me we need somebody as hard-boiled as Biden, without the recent aftertaste some people retain from the Clinton campaign.

No question, it's time for some righteous wrath to thunder forth from Obama.

Please keep calling out McCain.

I’m beginning to think . . . that, again, Obama just seems to be cozying up to their [Republican] way of thinking. "Oil drilling? Yes sure. I'm for that. Wiretapping? Like that, too. Religious nut? I can get onboard there."

I've been reading and hearing this line from the Democrats for about six weeks - since the "Paris Hilton" ad: John McCain has devolved into a typical mud-slinging Republican candidate. This column parrots that angle. But in all of the hand-wringing and bellyaching, I haven't heard anything to persuade me that McCain is doing anything wrong.

Obama went on his global tour, and McCain hit him for acting like a celebrity rather than a statesman. Reasonable minds can disagree, but it's a credible argument: lacking any substantive foreign policy experience or knowledge, the Obama camp decided to gloss it over with pretty pictures. The reality is that Bono knows more about global affairs than Barak Obama, but no one's calling Bono a statesman.

The other beef Democrats have raised is McCain's questioning of Obama's motives. Someone explain to me why it's dirty politics to question the ambitions of a man who emerged seemingly overnight from half a term in the Senate and started telling the country that he represents its future (I'm paraphrasing).

It seems to me that the Democrats' reaction, which amounts to whining that McCain's not playing fair, reveals a recognition that their guy really might not be ready for prime time. When McCain says Obama's nothing but a celebrity, Obama can't respond by pointing to substantive foreign policy acheivements (opposing the Iraq war from one of the safest seats in the Illinois legislature doesn't count). When McCain says Obama's just an ambitious empty suit, Obama can't point to a lifetime of public service (again, a few years as a community organizer (no one's really sure what that is, anyway) also don't count).

So the Democrats, and Obama, are left with the last page in the playbook: accuse the other side of playing dirty.

The way I see it, the McCain campgain has done an excellent job of identifying the aspects of Barak Obama that voters are most concerned about. If he wants to win, he should stop making silly demands that McCain acknowledge his patriotism, and start telling people why he's more than a pretty face and a bunch of speeches. If he cannot do that, then he deserves to lose.