Obama is surging and whether you like him or not his charisma is generating a lot of excitement. Independents and young voters are flocking to his banner in very impressive numbers. There is definitely a growing enthusiam for him that is indeed reasonably comparable to JFK's. South Carolina will show if Obama is gaining support from blacks--he is already showing poll numbers in the 40s. Young voters are almost exclusively for Obama.

Hilary is getting rocked by her downward trend and is stumbling in trying to find a way back. Rumors of Carville and Begala being tapped to step in and the increased presence of Bill show the Clinton Machine is very much alive. The turn seems to indicate that the guns are coming out and Obama is about to really get tested. hilary is crying and saying she is a "real person", She pulled the GOP card and hinted that AlQuaeda is watching and we need a leader to be ready for anything. Bill has begun his "we're being attacked unfairly" defense.

QUOTE

In 1968, supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy and Senator Robert Kennedy never forgave Vice President Hubert Humphrey for winning the Democratic nomination. The bottom line was that supporters of McCarthy and Kennedy felt their candidates had been new-wave politicians that were going to bring about change. Humphrey represented to them the same old political establishment and status quo. And no argument about what a Richard Nixon presidency would mean would dissuade many of them for voting on Election Day.

If Hilary attacks and manages to regain her lead and be the nominee will it hurt the chances of the Dems to take back the White House?

Will the loss of the excitement over Barak Obama drain the support away from the Dems as Hilary's negatives become the GOP wet dream and Independents probably swing towards someone like McCain?

Would offering Obama the VP slot help heal any hard feelings or would the loss of the seduction of "change" remain the same?

If Hilary attacks and manages to regain her lead and be the nominee will it hurt the chances of the Dems to take back the White House?

Hillary can attack all she likes. She's not going to regain her lead. The Clinton campaign raised over $100 million dollars but according to The Huffington Post is down to $15 to $20 million and there's talk that Hillary may skip the South Carolina primary and put all her marbles on the Super Tuesday sweepstakes in February.

Will the loss of the excitement over Barack Obama drain the support away from the Dems as Hilary's negatives become the GOP wet dream and Independents probably swing towards someone like McCain?

Watch what happens in New Hampshire tonight. Independents make up 45 percent of eligible voters. If they go for Barack Obama in a big way that will cut into John McCain's appeal to independents. Many independents have turned away from McCain since he has become the number one cheerleader for the war in Iraq. His recent remark that it's fine if the U.S. stays there for "a hundred years" is not going to win him any fans.

One thing is clear, Hillary Clinton does horribly in attracting independent voters. Obama has far more appeal to independents and some Republicans. If this continues in New Hampshire we are witnessing a paradigm shift in American politics and the beginning of the end of The Clinton Machine.

Would offering Obama the VP slot help heal any hard feelings or would the loss of the seduction of "change" remain the same?

Don't you mean if Obama offered Clinton the vice-president slot would it help heal any hard feelings? She has nothing to offer Obama. He's the frontrunner, not her.

I don't see a scenario where it helps Barack Obama to put Hillary Clinton on the ticket. New York is a blue state so he gets no regional boost from her and one of the reasons Hillary is doing so poorly is she is being repudiated and rejected by young people, progressives, independents and anyone else who isn't longing for a return to 1999. Obama would be better served to choose someone who addresses a weakness in his coalition and tab Bill Richardson. Richardson could help Obama with Hispanic voters and possibly deliver a red state, New Mexico, to the Democratic column.

There may be a resurrection of Hillary Clinton's chances, but the odds and the momentum are not in her favor. Change is coming in 2008, but she may not be a part of it.

If Hilary attacks and manages to regain her lead and be the nominee will it hurt the chances of the Dems to take back the White House?

I think that whoever is the Dem's nominee is in good shape to win the White House. Whether its Clinton or Obama. If Clinton can actually regain her lead, she should have considerable momentum.

Will the loss of the excitement over Barack Obama drain the support away from the Dems as Hilary's negatives become the GOP wet dream and Independents probably swing towards someone like McCain?

I'll let you know in a few hours. I don't see the excitement over Obama going away. As I said in my previous post, Obama has that quality that Reagan had. Agree or disagree with either of their policies, they have that quality that makes you proud to be an American again. I like Obama's foreign policy and charisma, don't like his domestic positions. But he is very appealing.

Would offering Obama the VP slot help heal any hard feelings or would the loss of the seduction of "change" remain the same?

I agree with nighttimer, I see little chance of a Clinton resurgence.




I agree 110%. Richardson is the best choice for VP. The only problem for Obama I think is the danger of Richardson appearing more presidential than Obama. He is a smart guy and would be a strong candidate for a post-Obama White House.

well there goes this thread.
I'll admit I find the discrepancy strange. the polling for edwards and Obama was pretty close BUT some how everyone was off by 9 points on Hilary's?
Where there diebold machines perhaps?

well here's to hoping that she still won't win and the Clinton/Bush nightmare can finally end.
"My name is Barack Obama, I am never a front-runner. I am always the underdog."

1.) The Democrats want power, they can taste it and it's in their line of sights, so I think we'll see a grand pulling together for the '08 election despite who the nominee is in order to make the push to the Executive Branch.

2.) I don't think we have a lot to worry about by way of Obama's star shining a little less brightly. So he lost the first primary. Iowa and New Hampshire add up to be a grand total of less than one half of one percent of this nation's voters. It's not likely the media or voters themselves will stop swooning unless Super Tuesday treats him very, very poorly.

I can only predict that Indepdents will wind up siding with McCain.

3.) Would Clinton's offer assuage bad blood? He has already come out and said in no uncertain terms he would not accept the nomination as Vice-President, however, that could have been in context of her being her party's nominee for President. Now, if Edwards shocks us all on Super Tuesday, perhaps his tune will change, it's very unclear at this time.

Even though I believe Obama will actually pull it off, I still wonder after seeing some early Ohio and Penn polls if somehow Hilary can make the comeback.
Again should she do so and take out Obama in 3 big pushes would this actually harm the Democrats.
People who support Hilary do so because of her supposed 35 years of experience?and that she is "vetted".
People love Obama.
He is the JFK of the Latter Day Progressives, the "Legions of the Blissful".
I suspect that if he is not at the top of the ticket the support from the youth vote as well as the Black vote will go away and I have not seen much support for a Hilary ticket from Independents whom I suspect will turn the other way and vote for McCain.
I think he is smart enough to know that if he finds himself in the VP slot he will never be president. The tarring from association with Hilary will end him as he will forever be associated with the Clintons and same old same old politics of hate and division.
I suspect he would run instead for Governor of Illinois--which he would walk into probably in the biggest landslide of political history-- and remain the Aurthur in waiting of the political world. Can you imagine if JFK jr had not died? Talk about the real Democrat dream ticket.

In a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain, I would pull the lever for Obama.

In a choice between Hillary Clinton and John McCain, I would pull the lever against McCain.

There is a vast difference between those two words.

As time goes by, I have begun to wonder what Hillary and Bill Clinton won't do or say to get back in The White House. Though Bubba has been somewhat muzzled and leashed since his Barack bash-fest in the wake of Iowa, he is still portraying himself and his family as three Charlie Browns being mistreated by the mean old media.

For example, Bill couldn't resist whining about how mean and nasty MSNBC's David Shuster had been with his clumsy "pimping out" remark regarding Chelsea Clinton calling and taking Democratic superdelegates to lunch.

Of course, the former prez took Shuster's malaprop and turned it into an example of the media's double standard when it comes to The Clintons.

On WMAL-AM yesterday in an interview with Chris Plante, former President Bill Clinton implied the media has been unfair to his wife, stated that she was standing up to sexism when she took on NBC, and -- when asked about MSNBC's David Shuster's comments about his daughter, Chelsea -- said there was a double standard.

"If he had made a racial slur against Senator Obama, he would have been fired," Clinton said.

Of his wife's recent travails, he said, "the caucuses aren't good for her. They disproportionately favor upper-income voters who, who, don't really need a president but feel like they need a change."

"I think she has been the underdog ever since Iowa," Clinton said. "She's had, you know, a lot of the politicians, like Senator Kennedy, opposed to her. She's had, the political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I've never seen this before."

He said they'd done well considering their slim budget. "We've gotten plenty of delegates on a shoestring," he said.

He did not mention that his wife's campaign has raised more than $140 million.

link

Poor Bill. When in doubt play the victim card and send Hillary out to squirt a few tears and raise another million dollars. In their ceaseless bid for power, there seems to be no heights and no depths Bill and Hill won't rise or stoop to.

As I said, I still plan on voting Democratic come November, but the longer The Clintons whine about being "underdogs" now that the "inevitability" plan fizzled, the less this becomes a vote for instead of a vote against. Hillary keeps saying she's best prepared to withstand the negative campaign the Republicans will wage against the Democratic nominee. Now I'm wondering will John McCain be able to withstand the negative campaign The Clintons will wage against him?

For the first time, I've begun to understand why people don't like The Clintons.

Well, I am a subscriber the theory that "all's fair in love and war," but I have to say that dirty politics is no way to win an election, despite the fact that it's becoming all the more common a practice in our cycles.

If Hillary wins, I couldn't see a scenario wherein it wouldn't be through a barrage of negativity. I think she has to scare people into voting for her more than inspire.

I keep hearing about 35 years of experience as well... How come nobody ever calls her on this?

Can somebody break down where these 35 years of elected office experience are coming from? As far as I know the only elected office she has held is congress for the last 6 years.

Is she claiming she has experience because her husband was Governor and President? By that logic a Doctor's wife should be able to perform his next surgery because she has the same experience he does.

Good lord America Just Say No to Clintons.
4 more years of them whining about the conspiracy against them and how its all just not fair we don't do what they want and 4 more years of the Limbaugh/Hannity's screaming Clinton Do That!
4 more years of NOTHING but hate and deliberate attempts to do nothing but vote against what the other side proposes.

anything would be better.

Well i'll be... we agree!!!

Obama has more time as a elected official than Hillary. What exactly is it that makes people say... Hillary has more experience... people brains on spin cycle I guess.

If Hil[l]ary attacks and manages to regain her lead and be the nominee will it hurt the chances of the Dems to take back the White House?

Obviously Senator Clinton is attacking in an effort to regain her lead. While it is looking increasingly unlikely that she will regain that lead, this particular campaign cycle has proven time and again that outcomes aren't that easily predicted. I for one am glad that this has been a real contest and not a coronation, as the news media termed the GOP nomination process in 2000.

Many people really like to bash Hillary Clinton. Obviously people who have issues with her are not going to vote for her; hence it will hurt the chances of the Dems to win. However, there are still people who remember the better economic times when Bill was President and the fact that he was a more competent president than Bush, Jr. even as he was being serviced by one Ms. Lewinsky under the desk. At least when he was "taking liberties" in the Oval Office, they didn't include our civil liberties.

I like the fact that Senator Clinton has shown that she is for health care for all Americans.

As disappointed as I have been with Senator Clinton for stepping in line behind Gee Dubya on the war in Iraq, I would still vote for her before I would for Senator McCain in a skinny minute. She's not the one who suggested "a hundred years" for the continued occupation of Iraq.

I do not blame Hillary Clinton for being as much a politician as any of the boys are. What do we want from this woman, anyway? Can we blame her for her husband's indiscretions? Should we hold it against her that she did not divorce her husband, when it would have been like biting off her nose to spite her face?

The Clintons both love power more than just about anything else. This works for them; this keeps them together. Whatever floats their boat. It's real.

The Republicans have been bashing the Clintons for over sixteen years--so what else is new? If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee and later the POTUS, it will be mainly in reaction to the miserable, incompetent, dishonest presidency of the current occupant of the White House and the mess that he is leaving behind.

The Republicans seem to worry more about how gay marriages would affect heterosexual unions than how many dead and seriously wounded soldiers are being shipped home from Iraq and Afghanistan or how many Americans are unemployed and losing their homes. They are really good at saying things like, "People should be married before they have children," as though people are going to change their behavior just because the Commander-In-Chief said so. It's always easier to pontificate moral/religious values than to legislate measures to bring positive change that benefits the majority of Americans without pandering to religious groups.

Will the loss of the excitement over Barak Obama drain the support away from the Dems as Hilary's negatives become the GOP wet dream and Independents probably swing towards someone like McCain?

(I like Senator Obama. He was against the Iraq war from the get-go. But, back to the question...)

I don't see any loss of excitement over Senator Obama. He seems to be well-positioned to win the Democratic nomination. But even if he doesn't become the nominee, the GOP nominee isn't going to get my vote. Something about waterboarding...

EDIT: As far as Independents go, they will swing toward McCain if they prefer the status quo to the prospects of getting the troops out of a protracted occupation, if they have relatively secure employment and sufficient health care for themselves and their loved ones, if they actually feel that the government is doing enough to combat global warming, etc. Those who feel they have it made tend to go for business as usual.

Would offering Obama the VP slot help heal any hard feelings or would the loss of the seduction of "change" remain the same?

There are going to be hard feelings, regardless. In an ideal world, Obama would accept the position of running mate and bide his time should Hillary Clinton become the nominee. That's up to him and his wife.

But it is obvious that many, many people have decided that the label "Conservative" doesn't necessarily mean a better President any more than the label "Liberal" means a worse one.

Following her 17-point loss in Wisconsin, things are looking a bit grim for Hillary Clinton.

She has two weeks to turn around the political tsunami that threatens to overwhelm her and make talk of superdelegates irrelevant. It's now not enough for her to merely win Ohio and Texas on March 4. She has to win BIG.

Count how many times over the next two weeks you're going to hear or read these words: You can never count The Clintons out. There's some truth to that, but another truth is Obama has money and momentum going into Clinton's "must win" states of Ohio and Texas. She has virtually no margin of error. Losing one or both of those contests would make her chances of winning the nomination almost non-existent even if Obama doesn't have enough delegates to clinch.

Hillary almost has to come out swinging in the two debates and hope she lands some solid blows and Barack makes a major mistake during that time. This campaign has been full of surprises and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Obama could stumble.

But it's a bad position for any politician to be in when they have to depend on the other guy making a fatal error or you have to go postal on them to try and drive up their negatives (while trying not to drive up your own negatives as well).

It's going to be a nasty bit of business in the Democratic Primary for the next two weeks. Before Obama gets a chance to show John McCain that in 2008 this is No Country for Old Men, he will have to face the fury of an unleashed Clinton machine and There Will Be Blood.

As for the Superdelegates. What do you think would be the outcome if Obama wins the delegate count going into the convention, wins the pop vote, and the majority of states, but the Clinton Machine manages to give Hilary the win through the superdelegate count?

To me, it depends on what she attacks. If she goes after his experience and highlights how his attack of her positions aren't what they seem, then I think people can handle it if she is the nominee. If she tries underhanded tricks, such as what her staffers did by putting out hoax e-mails intimating that he's a Muslim, that he is a speech plagiarizer and that the campaign HAD nothing to do with it, and misrepresenting Obama's record, then I think it would hurt the chances that the party would retake the white house. Let's remember-thousands upon thousands show up to see him, not her. If he's out of the picture, so are they. Why would they show up to vote for some middle-aged politician who in destroying the Obama campaign, typifies what young people and most citizens for that matter, dislike about politics in the first place?



I for one, would have a hard time accepting it. It would be a clear case of the slickest and most amoral politican in regards to running smear campaigns and doing anything to get elected, getting the nod over the most deserving. However, having that candidate turn their guns on the GOP would perhaps convince me to be more supportive. The Clintons, unlike most democrats, are good democrats to count on in an electoral knife fight.

I think people are starting to get this fact, Sleeper.

She cites her work on healthcare reform in the '90s as part of her experience.

Paging Mrs. Clinton: You failed! Failure isn't something to brag about.

Also, her "experience" starts when she worked as a Congressional page and campaign worker. That must've been some very politically-contested coffee she fetched for it to qualify as experience.

I wouldn't be so sure about that NT. This election has stumped the best of analyst on a number of occasions. Its done so with me as well once already, three months back I said McCain was likely out of the race, but I was wrong. What I think will happen is that she will regain a marginal lead over Obama on the 4th, if she wins both Ohio and Texas by even a small margin, those are big states with many Delegates and it should put her within a 20 delegate spread of Obama. If she wins by a considerable margin (10% or more) in either state, or both states then she will no doubt have the lead again.

He may very well win one or both of those states, it wouldn't surprise me although I'm thinking that wont happen. Now the problem for Democrats right now is not necessarily having a candidate that comes out with a few more delegates than the other, they really need one of them to pull away from the pack and get a considerable lead over the other. The question is, is there time for that? The momentum may be with Obama, but Clinton may put up enough road blocks to prevent him from gaining any considerable lead. If this happens there is talk of a heated convention where one of the candidates may just end up stepping down to prevent dividing the party. Ive also heard that there may not be enough delegates to get either candidate to that 2025 delegate mark. If Hillary manages to stay close enough to Obama in delegates they may end up even seating the florida delegates to settle the race, Ive heard some people suggest that.

I think Obama has a good chance of getting the nomination, but its so close right now that I'm not even going to attempt to call this one.

I had planned to cast my vote next Tuesday in the Ohio primary, but after Hillary Clinton's latest misadventure in scorched earth politics, next week is too far off. I need to vote now.

Apparently, after the debate in Austin, Texas ended with her not laying a glove on Barack Obama, Team Clinton has decided to pump up the volume and try to rip Obama a new hole going into the final debate before next week's crucial primaries. It's the oldest trick in the game: if your positive aren't selling, see if they'll buy your opponent's negatives.

The Drudge Report published this photo of Obama wearing traditional Somali clothing during a trip in 2006. The implication is clear as glass: reinforce the "Obama is a Muslim" rumor and make them react to it. Mission accomplished.

“On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world," said David Plouffe, Obama campaign manager.

Apparently, The Clintonistas have decided warm and fuzzy didn't work, so now it's time to feign anger, bring on the sarcasm, compare Obama to George W. Bush and take a trip through the sewers.

How pathetic these people are when denied what they feel is theirs by divine right.

The sad thing is that despite Hillary's lack of applicable experience, Barack Obama's resume is even thinner. Their ideas are very, very similar although Obama does not carry the baggage of the Clinton administration.

I've heard rumors that Clinton will fight on, but with increasing calls for her to withdraw from the race if she doesn't take both Texas and Ohio, I doubt she will last much longer than next Wednesday...

Its just like today's horror flicks. Just when the monster has been put down it lunges forward with a shriek and tries to tear out the throat of the surviving cast members.

Republicans are almost so happy they could pass a gay marriage amendment condoning it.

I see this going downhill for the democrats if they are not careful. The press was hugely embarrassed by the SNL skit and are going to overcompensate and try for blood from Obama, and Hilary will take that as permission to go VERY negative.
Both their crews hate each other pretty fiercely and are probably going to make mistakes in the next few weeks trying to trip each other up.
I won't say the party will be split but I do see the independent and youth vote walking away from Hilary if she gains the top spot. I just don't see them supporting Hilary ever. I know a lot of people who would vote for the first time in years to vote against her. Many people HATE her passionately. Plus you just cannot keep Bill quiet for that long or out of trouble.

I just don't see Obama as VP. He has to know he will never be POTUS if tarred even for just 4 years with association from the Clintons. I predict he will instead leave the Senate and run for Gov of Illinois.

I would say that Hilary could be the candidate to actually blow what up until now has been almost a Sure Thing for the Dems in Nov.