What surprises me about Obama supporters is a kind of tone deafness? As if you were unaware that there are effective ways to win converts and extremely ineffective ways to win converts. To say "go ahead" is really just another way of saying that I'm not going to moderate my tone when I'm lambasting Hillary (even though she lost and my guy won) and if you don't like it you can go....You see where I'm going.

Being on the losing side in this contest, I find this almost universally blithe attitude of "I don't care" coming from Obama supporters to be astonishing. If Hillary had won, I would have been posting all the time (criticizing intemperate statements from my side and coaxing those from the other side to reconsider by stressing our commonality of interests). Instead, Obama supporters have gone out of their way to pour salt in the wounds of those who didn't support their guy.

Unless I'm mistaken, Obama supporters probably want Obama to win in November, which is going to require a subset of the 18 million people who voted for Hillary in the primaries to vote for Obama in November. The problem for Obama is that Hillary supporters are NOT invested in him the way you are, and even more problematic, you are not helping him to close the deal. You may not realize this but people make decisions on the basis of policy, party, rhetoric, feelings, grudges, appearance, race, religion, attitude, etc. As I read responses from Clinton supporters here and at Salon as well, I can relate to the anger that Clinton supporters feel when they continue to be dismissed as racists, whining babies, fools, faux Democrats, rednecks, etc. If I were you, and I'm not, I would attempt to salvage this election by treating my fellow Democrats with respect and encourage them to support Obama. You might even want to have some talking points. I mean you're the guys who want Obama to win, right?

I think some of the bloggers on XX Factor may have had an epiphany in the last day or so in which a realization has dawned: be nice, play nice. For example, I would hope that any mothers reading this post would be teaching their children a different way to resolve conflict than the model that has been employed by the winning side since Hillary's concession.

It's up to you. I think deep down some of you believe that Clinton supporters threatening to go over to McCain or sit out the election is just a gambit. That would be a tragic misunderstanding of the current situation. It's not too late, but it requires a certain maturity on your part to break with old habits that are obviously not getting you where you ultimately want to end up, which I suppose is with Obama in the White House.