Are they so mad because none of that stuck? They literally wallowed in every tid bit they could find. I have absolutely no doubt that they'll continue their quest for more and dirtier--anything they can find.

As I said yesterday, it says far more about them. "By their works, you shall know them". Sound familiar?

Clinton is facing long odds, but not quite as long as the Obama cultists on Slate's staff want people to pretend she's facing. When people are required to put their money where their mouths are, on the political futures market (as opposed to just spewing disingenuous propaganda for their favored candidates), her odds are hovering around one in ten.

Regardless, I'm unaware of any precedent for a presidential candidate with as many votes as Clinton has withdrawing. It would be a bizarre decision and a betrayal of her supporters, at a time when she's still got a realistic shot at winning. She and her many, many millions of supporters have won the right to fight on to the convention, as every other candidate with such support has done. Once there, there's no telling what might happen.

There's also the fact that Clinton differs with Obama on key issues. For example, she favors universal healthcare, while he favors driving our health insurance system into unmitigated disaster. I'd like to see her stay in the campaign to give her as much of a voice as possible in injecting those issues into the ultimate contest.

There will be time enough to focus on McCain after the convention. The whole damned reason for a convention is supposed to be choosing a nominee. It's only very recently that they were transformed into these ridiculous coronations that nobody watches. No matter who emerges as the nominee, we'll have months to come together after the convention. What's the rush?

Where Clinton would pick up a net gain of a million or a million and a half votes over Obama is if the Florida and Michigan votes were actually held. First, remember that turnout in Florida and Michigan had their turnout suppressed by the scheme of disenfranchisement the voters in those states knew to be in place. If turnout were closer to what it was in other high-profile large states that weren't going to be disenfranchised (Pennsylvania and Ohio, for example), the numbers for Clinton and Obama would both rise... but would rise more for Clinton assuming they remained pro-Clinton states in the re-vote.

If you assume Florida breaks again according to roughly the proportions it had the first time around, and that Michigan breaks according to the proportions indicated by the pre-election polling there (which asked how people would vote if all candidates were on the ballot), then we'd be talking about a net pickup for Clinton of enough to give her the overall popular lead.

That's why Obama's so intent on making sure the voters in those two states remain disenfranchised. He only gets to claim to be the popular choice if we avoid actually measuring the choice of the people.

What about Bill Clinton's comments upset you? I mean, I get why Hillary Clinton supporters are taking stuff personally, since the whole theme of the Obama campaign is that she can't be trusted. That's a personal attack on her integrity, and it's only natural to take that personally. But the attacks on Obama have mostly been that he's less electable, has bad taste in spiritual advisors, has gotten kid-glove treatment from the media, and is under-experienced. I don't expect Obama supporters to be pleased with his opponent pointing out those weaknesses, but it's not terribly personal compared to the attacks on Clinton, is it?

see my top tier post "Question for Democrats" for one of the sources of familiarity...

"the whole theme of the Obama campaign is that she can't be trusted".

No, Arkady, that didn't come from Obama's supporters. That came from every poll I've seen. Her Bosnia flap didn't help.

As for the media or Slate or whoever, it's been humorous to watch Hillary's supporters down any media that says anything negative about Hillary and flip to the next and then the next and then the next until they find what they want to hear.

Hillary, in her own words has 35 years experience so it stands to reason that she has a longer history than Obama.

Know what I resent the most? You who support Hillary wallowed in trotting out every single day the Rezko deal When Patrick Fitzgerald found nothing wrong on Obama's part, they moved on to the next tidbit they could find--enter Rev. Wright and wallow in that, his church and anything that could possibly cast dispersions on Obama, put Wright's words in Obama's mouth. The lastest one is a supposed hit on possible corruption between Obama's rise to power with the benefit of the Chicago machine. Never mind that the Chicago Sun-Times is a Republican rag that's been on its way down for years. The corporation that owns them and the Gary Post Tribune got dropped off the stock market today.

You want the skinny, Arkady? Hillary's supporters, you included, for months have scoured every possible source to find anything you could against Obama but yet you can't handle it if one word is said by Obama supporters against Hillary. Doesn't work that way. You can't have it both ways You have consistently referred to Obama supporters as followers of a cult, less than intelligent but millions of American voters don't agree with you and the past elections have proven where his support has come from.

It is what it is.

Obama's been pushing the "you can't trust Hillary" meme shamelessly since the start of 2008. The obvious implication of the "change we can believe in" slogan is that you shouldn't believe Clinton, and that has become his campaign's centerpiece. If you work long enough and hard enough at calling someone a liar, and you spend enough money on it, the public's stupid enough that they eventually figure that where there's smoke there's fire. Obama learned a lot from Rove's campaign against Gore in 2000, which likewise focused on making people distrust the candidate. Obama had the unprecedented bankroll to make the same sordid strategy work again. I just wish he'd had the moral fiber to resist that temptation.

You want the skinny, Arkady? Hillary's supporters, you included, for months have scoured every possible source to find anything you could against Obama but yet you can't handle it if one word is said by Obama supporters against Hillary.

I've followed Arkady's posts over the past couple months, and I think he's been pretty circumspect about trotting out or making hay of the various Obama scandals. He said the Rezko matter wasn't all that important. Arkady's line has been that Clinton is the more experienced and qualified candidate and that Obama and his supporters took the gloves off with the "trust" issue. I think these are fair positions.

You should not confuse Arkady with folks like MaryAnne.

I will concede that point, Genedio. Usually Arkady is the more cerebral than the others and more fair minded. I'm just tired of hearing the same old, same old branding Obama supporters as less than intelligent, cult-like followers and some of his other ill-chosen remarks.

As for the others, I'm through playing their game and will no longer participate in them. This back and forth does nothing to unite behind whoever wins the nomination.

To be clear, I've never accused Obama supporters of being less than intelligent. Given the stats about education levels of voters for each candidate, it might be fair to assume that Obama supporters are probably more intelligent, on average, than Clinton supporters. However, I do see an element of a cult of personality built up around Obama, which is not true with Clinton. Very smart people can have a cultish devotion to a cause, so that's not an attack on their intelligence, but rather an attack on their wisdom. That, to me, explains the bitterness I keep hearing from Obama supporters, at a time when likely impending victory should be making them all sweetness and light. When you have an ecstatic religious faith in something or someone, you get pretty resentful when anyone attacks it.

I think for many of the same reasons Hillary Clinton has her own cult, and if you honestly assess what her mostly female supporters have been saying lately, I think you'd find just as much defensiveness.

Ferraro said that Obama wouldn't be where he is if he weren't black. The same might be said of Clinton, except this time there are two qualifiers: a woman and a spouse of an ex-president. She is not the most qualified or experienced Democrat who could be running; she just happens to be the wife of a very popular ex-president.

Clinton and Obama certainly are both the beneficiaries of special circumstances that helped them leap over much more qualified individuals. If Clinton didn't have ties to a wildly popular former president, her name wouldn't have been so high on the list. The fact she's a woman may or may not also have helped her. With Obama, his race was a huge factor. However, given that Obama has much less big-time political experience than Clinton, his "special circumstances" seem to have been the much more powerful ones. He didn't even bother to get half way through his first term in major political office before he started jockeying for a big promotion.

With Obama, it's easy to draw a comparison to Edwards in 2004. Edwards was more experienced, but otherwise they were very similar. Both were smart young liberal lawyers who became Senators. Both were charismatic populists, and each had a schtick promising change. Each was also up against a more experiened and centrist Senator, who had a big head start in superdelegate endorsements and fundraisers. But Edwards got creamed by Kerry, while Obama, with less experience than Edwards, is probably going to beat Clinton. Don't you think race is a real factor in explaining the difference?

One way or the other, I just don't see cultish behavior around Hillary Clinton. Her people support her -- even to the point of irrationality -- to be sure. But it's no different a level of devotion than one sees in any major campaign like that. There seems to be a readiness of Clinton supporters to regard their candidate as a flawed person, rather than some sort of Messiah. She's championed as the pragamatic choice for beating McCain in November, not as someone who can magically change the rules of politics and bring us all together.

I can't end up not at least partially agreeing with your arguments. There is that rock star or even "Messiah" element about Barry, I must admit. People are hungry for a more radical change after 16 years of Reaganomics and failed empire. They see Clinton as compromising. They don't really know about Obama's policies that much, but are prepared to believe--much as they believed Jimmy Carter when he said he wouldn't lie to the American people. I think Carter made pretty good on this vow, btw. Carter was one of the most truthful and decent presidents we've had, but was ultimately seen as vindicating Nixon (he may have been a tricky bastard, but could deal with the Soviets and other U.S.foes). There is the real danger that Obama, if elected, will turn out to be the next Jimmy Carter--and for many of the same reasons, chief of which is a booby-trapped economy. The next president must make very tough choices.

Dianne Feinstein has much more experience than Clinton, and is a woman. She also represents California, the largest state.

Edwards got creamed by Kerry, while Obama, with less experience than Edwards, is probably going to beat Clinton. Don't you think race is a real factor in explaining the difference?

No, and here's why. Being perceived as black (he's half white, remember), he loses the Latino and white vote to Clinton. This makes up for his getting 90% of the black vote. Obama is really only doing well with college educated and young whites. It is his youthful appeal which is the real factor, and the reason he has gone so much further than Jesse Jackson.