Obama '08?

Unless the superDs give it to Hillary at the convention. They'll stay home then.

She still hadn't finished a full term as Senator which she had promised New Yorkers she would do. George Bush's poll ratings were respectable at that time and it was still too close to the Clinton administration. I imagine she campaigned hard for Kerry--the least attractive Democrat candidate--to be the the nominee in 2004 and didn't do anything at all to help him win and probably even sabotaged him a bit to help George Bush win a second term.

Now it is HER turn. She stood by her man, she's played by the rules, she has done everything the party asked of her. And she fully expected what she took as a pledge that she would be the Democratic nominee in 2008 and had high hopes of being President.

I'm pretty sure she feels like her party and many prominent Democrats have stabbed her in the back and I'm even more sure that she does NOT want Barack Obama to be inaugerated as president in 2009.

Fer sure, JPB.

I'm starting to actually believe Obama will be the nominee! Rasmussen is going to stop the daily Clinton/ Obama tracking because there's no point (extreme paraphrase, see nimh's "Polls" thread for details). Obama picked up 7 (7!) superdelegates today to Hillary's 0. I'm seeing postmortems all over the place.

It ain't over 'til it's over but...

Edwards says Obama likely nominee!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7392969.stm

Won't endorse tho... hmph.

Forgot to comment on george's post... yeah, figured you'd be a Noonan-admirer! :-) Funny that your son brought it up too... is he also an Obama supporter?

Down .5 S-D's now.

Cycloptichorn

Ooh! Who's the latest? (Mazie someone from Hawaii is the last I know of -- her or someone newer?)

That's the back room not speaking.

It's DNC member Joe Johnson.

One more and I'm getting drunk tonight!

Cycloptichorn

Coooooooooooooool!!!

JPB, I can't quite figure out Edwards. I don't know if it's a back room thing or an Elizabeth thing. (It looks like Edwards voted for Obama in NC, and Elizabeth voted for Hillary. Nothing conclusive.)

Back room... bedroom... one or t'other!

Pretty easy to understand. Edwards could never have voted for or endorsed the leader of the DLC without coming off as a total hypocrite.

Elizabeth, on the other hand - well, maybe it's demographics, maybe it's health care. It's not hard to see why either one would get Hillary a vote from her.

Cycloptichorn

I get why Elizabeth would vote for Hillary, and why John would vote for Obama -- lots of reasons in each case. I'm not sure why John Edwards hasn't endorsed Obama, though.

I think it might be a weighed-by-circumstances Elizabeth request -- but I dunno.

Edwards was interviewed on NPR. He claimed that he is focussing on some specific issues. And, he claims, he can advance those causes by remaining neutral re Clinton/Obama. Could be or could be waffling. I'll bet he is on the short list for VP for either one of them.

HE'S the one waiting for the VP offer!

Haha, he has to live with his wife; adds another dimension...

Cycloptichorn

Only Geraldo Riviera has predicted Hillary will win (a position from which he has now backed off), but isn't there something wrong with the Media, seemingly as a monolith, announcing it's over?

If I were a big Obama supporter I'm sure that the Media wave to put an end to Hillary The Pretender and annoint Prince Barrack would please me, but it really should not be that hard for Obamaniacs (and I use the term with affection) who hold it gospel that they own empathy to imagine how they would feel if the Media was annointing Hillary or McCain.

The Media wants Obama to win, and they are not going put up with Hillary unless she can actually deliver the goods: Making a Story of it, because it is true that while The Media is politically biased, they are far more biased towards The Story. No Story? No coverage.

They have now determined that no matter what, Hillary cannot win, and therefore they would prefer she just move along and let them get to the next Story.

I am convinced there is a liberal bias in The Media, but this is more because it seeps in based on the personal belief systems of its members that on any sort of organized plot.

Hillary would have been their darling if she trounced the young upstart Obama -- good Story.

But it's still all good for Republicans:

Obama is a weaker general election candidate than Clinton. Hillary might have provided conservative Democrats with a safe haven in November, Obama will not.

Obama comes to the general election with unscabbed wounds.Hillary has tough scar tissue.

Avid Clintonistas are not going to be quite so able to ignore the diss of their hero as party officials hope.

In an election year when it was supposed to be all Democrat; all the time, Republicans can have the audacity of hope.

The Media has been making this seem way more competitive than it's actually been. The Media went ahead and trumpeted Hillary's wins in Ohio and Pennsylvania as major comebacks -- when they were enough to keep her alive but weren't nearly as much as she needed. The Media likes a competition better than a foregone conclusion.

So it's significant that The Media finally has no place else to go. It ain't competitive. A miracle may yet occur, but failing that, Obama has the nomination -- and that can't be spun.

Some people are more inspired by deeds than words - particularly actions that are difficult, taken under conditions of extreme stress and involving high consequences for the person himself and for others as well. Such deeds that may, in particular, be indicative of traits (say of courage or the ability to deal in a principled way with critical and important issues) have great power to inspire others -- particularly in challenging times.

His comments about "message" suggest that Cyclo may be of another type, or guided by different things = one who most values words and statments of somewhat abstract values and principles, and one who, perhaps due to a lack of experience of the uncertainty of things in life and of the frequently encountered inability of gifted communicators to live up to their soaring words in the real world, undervalues the significance of challenging deeds that indicate the presence of precisely the character traits needed to accomplish the very same things Cyclo has in mind.

The ability to persuasively articulate a needed political message is rare enough. The strength of character to persist in the things required to bring the message to life is even rarer - and sadly does not often corelate well with the ability to communicate it.

I'll grant that communication skills are important in the political process, and that Obama has also shown other traits, notably a degree of wisdom and restraint that are very important as well. However as Nicias spoke to the Athenian electors at the start of the Third Peloponesian war, -- "It generally is not wise for the fathers and guardians of the state to put all their trust, and the fate of the city, in the hands of a young man in a hurry, even one so persuasive and gifted as Alcibiades here."

Wrong, but no more so then most of what you write.

Cycloptichorn