Just listen to his followers on this thread. They have no interest in commity, especially if you raise any questions, any at all, about their candidate. It IS like a cult. They will accept you so long as you genuflect to their idol. If not, watch out. Obama as President will be a duplicate of the last candidate who ran as a uniter, not a divider.

I am really sick of all of this b.s. on both sides. Please, vote for Hillary if you like her politics. Heck, you can vote for her if you want 1) a woman president 2) think she has more experience and is therefore a better choice 3) think she's hot. Just like I can vote for Obama because I think a man with big ears is dead sexy. If Obama supporters choose NOT to vote for Hillary (or vice versa) that's their choice as American citizens. If like susansunflower, you see Obama's campaign as divisive because it's not coming out and saying, vote Democrat not for Obama, then don't vote for him. Stop bad mouthing, characterizing, sniping at, making gross generalizations about, the supporters and what sort of people they are. Stop saying I'm following Jim Jones and am ready for my kool-aid and maybe I won't be so quick to call you all a bunch of shrill old douchebags. It's funny, but I thing people are getting so passionate about the whole thing precisely because their policies are very close together. So it's really come down to personality and experience, more than anything else.

And another thing; I think, AKA, we can all go through the letters section here on Salon and find instances of where Obama supporters are mean and where Clinton Supporters are mean. If you want to quantify it, then I expect you to do a percentage of mean to Obama vs. mean to Hillary with strict definition of what constitutes as "policy disputes" vs. "character assasination."

If you read Shapiro's letter thread, It starts out attacking Obama, and then, most likey, because his supporters started getting pissed, it evolved into a free-for-all. There was even someone who said they would vote for Huckabee if Obama became the nominee (though I think someone later on in the thread said they must be an Obama supporter in disguise...)

So there. Just drop it AkA. You are entitled to vote for whomever you want. If the women fighting for the vote let the fact that men were mean to them and made snide sexist comments stop them, then neither of us would be able to vote. If my foremother hadn't have fought for civil rights in the face of real threats of violence...you get the picture. This is going to be a dirty, knock down, drag out presidential race. It's a good thing.

Mr.Krugman, for whom I have great respect, can think what he wants. He seems to be missing the real point, which is that Hillary Clinton is a deeply divisive candidate. Not only for other Democrats, but clearly for Independents and Republicans as well.

A significant number of people, myself included, simply don't like her. We have our reasons, and they are as good as anybody else's reasons for preferring one candidate over the other. I'm not going to apologize for my candidate preferences, nor will I vote democratic if they field a candidate I don't like.

They are welcome to advance their arguments for the importance of party loyalty, but as an independent, those won't sway me. There is always a subset of the electorate who is not at play, and are going to vote for their party no matter who they nominate. They might be important in the primaries, but they never decide the general election. That is done by independents and moderates of both parties who are open minded enough to consider each candidate on their own merits and not to simply vote in a knee-jerk fashion.

Surely some of the enthusiasm for Obama is driven by a realization of who the alternative is. Some think they see a cult of personality developing, but for many of us he is the first candidate that we've seen in a long time who doesn't appear to be manufactured out of one of a few molds. People are legitimately excited by his candidacy, and to suggest that they are caught up in something and not thinking clearly is to give insult by questioning their competence as voters. It seems unlikely this approach will win Mrs.Clinton votes.

Obama is a chameleon. People see in him what they want to see. He has yet to explain how he will "change" this country. There are many people, myself included, who believe that there are natural tensions built into government. No one side is always right or always wrong. Parties havig strong convictions are not necessarily gridlocked. Clinton can work across the aisle. Heaven help us if Obama becomes president. The Republicans will mop up the floor with him. I heard one of his zealous pundits say he'll be ok -- he just needs to surround himself with people who will do the work while he "inspires" the country. That seems to be in keeping with Obama's perception of himself as chief executive.

Quoting random Obama supporters does not amount to an argument. I am pretty sure I could dig up plenty of Clinton supporters' nasty comments (MICKI comes to mind, and cythera, whom some people think is a Clinton supporter, but I don't really want to spend my afternoon scrolling through their posting history). I think we need to be careful about these little anecdotes - especially since paid concern trolls who are probably supporting NO Democrats come into open forums like these with regularity and try to do some free negative advertising against both Dem candidates. If they pose as Clinton supporters and say nasty things about Obama, or vice versa, they make both candidates look bad at once. I don't think anyone would argue that NO Obama supporter anywhere ever said a nasty thing about Clinton. I'm sure they have. I've read their posts myself. But some people need to check the planks in their own eyes. And since when do we let random "supporters" characterize a candidate anyway? There are psychopaths, trolls, and idiots of all political stripes. That kind of thinking means that the paid-concern-troll thing really could work, and I always thought it was a dumb idea - dumber than penis enlargement spam. Apparently, since both persist, they have more power than I thought.