1) Hillary. Call me hard-hearted, call me mean, call me the last Hillary-basher, but very little that Hillary has done over the last month has given me any reason to cheer. I understand that now that she has lost, it's fashionable to take part in a pity party for Hillary. But you'll excuse me if I don't join in. Take, for example, her belated concession speech on Saturday. Media mavens fell all over themselves praising her effort. From the likes of Matthews, Russert and Buchanan I heard, "she knocked it out of the park," "she did everything Obama could ask," "she covered every base." In my view, all these bouquets were way over the top, for several reasons. First and foremost, Hillary was only giving the speech because a gun had been put to her head.

Earlier in the week when she spoke to her most stalwart supporters in the New York delegation, the head of the delegation, congressman Charlie Rangel knew that unless she acted quickly, not only would she permanently damage herself, she would take members of the New York delegation down with her. As powerful as Rangel is--chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee--he knew that it would stain his reputation to be seen as stiff-arming Barack Obama for a full week, as Hillary had originally planned. So he laid down the law, and pressured her to get it done by Saturday. Can you imagine? Hillary actually wanted to hold off for a week before conceding to Obama!

Why would she want to delay that long? Because she still harbored the warped view that she could call up super delegates, twist some arms, and get them to change their minds--an amazing feat of self-delusion. I truly believe that on Tuesday, June 3, the whole Hillary campaign experienced a kind of mass delusion. After all, what person in their right mind, on the very night that they lost the nomination, would have a former head of the DNC (Terry McAuliffe) introduce them as "the next president of the United States?" Further, if one really wants to be the vice-presidential choice--as Hillary apparently does--what sane person would simultaneously refuse to concede, insult the winner, and then dispatch surrogates (Lanny Davis and Bob Johnson) to start petitions and lobbying efforts on her behalf for the vice-presidency? This was truly crazy stuff.

The media, however, were happy on Saturday that Hillary had done something right, so they could heap praise on her and deflect some of the criticism directed at them for their perceived anti-Hillary bias. The media love-in notwithstanding, for me, it resembled the student who produces a well-written term paper, but turns it in a week late. Nice, but nothing to write home about. One final note about the speech. It was striking to me that when Hillary would toot her own horn, her eyes would light up and her face would assume that classic Hillary-frozen-smile. When she would talk about Obama, however, she never smiled once. Hillary's endorsement of Obama was an act of agony for her.

2) Sexism. One of the misguided notions promoted by Hillary supporters is that sexism played a significant role in the campaign. They point to the taunting sign at the New Hampshire rally that read "iron my shirt," and see it as a broad sentiment, rather than a couple of kids acting out. They point to some of the lines uttered on cable networks such as, "every time I hear Hillary speak, I involuntarily cross my legs" (Tucker Carlson), "she could say 'I want to give Glenn Beck a million dollars,' and all I'd hear is, 'take out the garbage!'" (Glenn Beck), "when she reacts to Obama with the look... looking like everyone's first wife standing outside probate court... " (Mike Barnacle), and "when that voice of hers goes up and hits the high pitch, brother, you know every husband in America has heard that..." (Pat Buchanan).

The problem with these examples is that they are not evidence of a broad antipathy toward women; rather, they are Hillary-specific. Does anyone really believe that if the candidate were Nancy Pelosi, or Claire McCaskill, or Kathleen Sebelius, or Diane Feinstein that Carlson, Barnacle, Buchanan, et al. would have said the same thing? Of course not, because those women are not seen as calculating, ruthless, or hostile in the manner of Hillary. On the very night that her opponent became the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton is perhaps the only politician on the planet who would have been boorish enough to insult him with this line about universal health care, "I have been working on this issue not just for the past 16 months, but for 16 years."

But the clearest indicator that sexism played little role in the campaign was that in West Virginia (as well as Kentucky) a place where you'd expect sexism to show itself, males supported Hillary over Obama by 60-30%. When exit pollsters asked men whether gender was important to them, those men who said "yes" supported Hillary 64-29%. Men who said that gender was not important supported Hillary by 59-31%. So men who regarded gender as important actually supported Hillary more strongly than their counterparts. No evidence of sexism there. And here is some final food for thought: Of the 22% of West Virginians who said that "race" was important in their decision, 84% voted for Hillary. Is there any doubt that racism was a far more potent variable than sexism? The difference between the two candidates, however, is that you don't hear Obama whining about it.

3) Media Bias. Perhaps the most wrongheaded, mythical notion in the campaign is that the media were allied against Hillary. In trying to make this point, typically some pundit will adduce a study by one of those media watchdog groups that says something like "Between Super Tuesday and May, the percentage of positive comments in the media about Obama was 65%, compared to only 40% for Hillary Clinton." This is usually followed by, "Aha! Gotcha!" Unfortunately, this is an unforgivably shallow analysis. Simply looking at percentages, without relating them to specific events in the campaign, has no value whatsoever. For example, let's look at what was happening between Super Tuesday and May: Obama went on a winning streak of 12 events. Hillary ran out of money. Hillary lent her campaign millions of dollars. Patty Solis Doyle was fired and Mark Penn was demoted. Of course Hillary was getting bad press. She deserved bad press! The premise that both candidates should get the exact same percentage of positive comments from the media is preposterous. Obama ran the superior campaign, which was reflected in the media commentary. That's not bias, that's called journalism.

4) The Veep Revisited. First, the notion of Hillary as veep is a non-starter. She dissed and attempted to undermine Obama at every turn of the campaign. Were I Obama, I wouldn't let her within 50 miles of the job. And the reason we know that she won't be chosen, is the amount of praise that he's been heaping upon her. This is Obama's way of setting up a "soft landing" when he chooses someone else.

Further, it is trendy to suggest that Obama needs someone to win back Hillary's female supporters. I have a higher regard for her supporters than to think that they would allow John McCain to name the next two Supreme Court justices, that they would imperil a woman's right to choose, that they would let universal health care go abegging, that they would let McCain veto an expansion of children's health insurance again, or that they would vote for a continuation of the war out of some misplaced spite at Obama.

To the contrary, the demographic that Obama needs most is that of white males. I have already given my list of favorite prospects in previous blogs--Kaine of Virginia, Rendell of Pennsylvania, Richardson of New Mexico, among others. But currently my favorite choices are: Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Joe Biden of Delaware, and Bill Richardson. My favorite of those three? Chris Dodd, who is totally simpatico with Obama, who radiates strength and intelligence, who has strong national security credentials, and also--and this is no small matter--speaks fluent Spanish. More on the veep in future blogs.....

As the primary season reaches its end, it is interesting to ponder why Hillary Clinton couldn't attract more super delegates to her campaign. At the time of Super Tuesday, February 5, Clinton led Obama by almost 100 super delegates (203-113). As I write this, realclearpolitics.com shows Obama with a current lead of 43 "supers" over Hillary (334-291). Even as Hillary has produced impressive victories in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico, her relative support among supers continues to decline. Since Super Tuesday, Obama has garnered 133 more supers than Clinton. So what happened? Here are my thoughts:

1) Hillary misjudged her constituency. Super delegates and average voters are two completely different breeds of cat. The Clinton campaign never quite grasped the fact that a pitch made at ordinary voters might have unintended effects on super delegates. As it turned out, many of the Clinton campaign tactics had the effect of alienating the very super delegates that she needed so desperately.

To give an example, for weeks Clinton has been making the pitch that "I'm ahead in the popular vote." The casual viewer tuning in to CNN, or the voter listening to her on the stump hears this line and is impressed by this new information. The super delegates, on the other hand, hear this claim, and understand it to be a fraud. Having followed this matter closely, they know that Hillary only leads in the popular vote if you award her every vote in Florida and Michigan--two primaries that didn't count--and award Obama no votes in Michigan, where he wasn't on the ballot, and no votes in the caucus states like Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington state, where raw vote numbers were not released. Here is Clinton making this claim in her victory speech in Puerto Rico:

We are winning the popular vote. Now there can be no doubt. The people have spoken and you have chosen your candidate. So when the voting concludes on Tuesday, neither Senator Obama nor I will have the number of delegates to be the nominee. I will lead the popular vote. He will maintain a slight lead in the delegate count.

To the average voter these sound like good selling points. To a super delegate these claims come across as tortured manipulations of the data. Michael Dobbs, the Washington Post Fact Checker, put it this way:

She seems to assume that if she says something loudly enough, and repeats it often enough, it will become true. Her victory speech in Puerto Rico was a minor masterpiece in carefully parsed self-delusion....After the Puerto Rico primary, and the rules changes adopted over the weekend, most estimates now put Obama within 45 votes of the 2,118 needed to secure the nomination. Clinton, meanwhile, is 200 votes away from the magic figure. That is hardly "a slight lead" in the delegate count.

Dobbs went on to award Hillary "two Pinocchios" for her popular vote claims. Clinton's artful use of the vote count plays very poorly with Democratic politicians, in part because it conjures up the image of George W. Bush's selective use of facts during his two terms. Honesty and straight talk are the currency of the realm in the Democratic Party, and when Hillary veers off of this path, her support among supers dwindles.

This same dynamic applies to the recent battle over the disposition of the Florida and Michigan delegates. On October 11, 2007, during an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio's Laura Knoy, this exchange took place:

Laura Knoy: "So, if you value the DNC calendar, why not just pull out of Michigan? Why not just say, Hey Michigan, I'm off the ballot?"

Hillary Clinton: "Well, you know, It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything."

By contrast, here is Hillary Clinton speaking to senior citizens in Florida 10 days ago:

....people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.... We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe...Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people...So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote. It is the single most important, privilege and right any of us have, because in that ballot box we are all equal. You’re equal to a billionaire. You’re equal to the president, every single one of us.

To the elderly voters of Sunrise, Florida, this is effective campaign rhetoric. To the super delegates, who are fully aware that Clinton originally fully supported the decision that decertified the Florida and Michigan primaries, this is outrageous stuff. Once again, Hillary's rhetoric smacks of the kind of manipulations that prevailed during the Bush years. An outlandish comparison between DNC policy and the Zimbabwe elections is a good way to energize your supporters, but it is not an effective way to woo super delegates.

2. The super delegates envision Obama as the better president. In the final phase of the primary campaign, Hillary Clinton's main theme has been that she is more electable than Obama. This notion has not gained much traction with supers for several reasons: First, as the polls constantly shift, the case could be made for the electability of either candidate depending on which poll you cite. At this moment for example, the realclearpolitics.com projection of the general election shows Obama with 228 electoral votes in hand, and Hillary with 229 electoral votes. Second, the fact that the general election is five months away makes all such polls fairly meaningless. It is mind-boggling to consider that the amount of time between today and the general election--154 days--is actually more than the time between the Iowa Caucuses and today--151 days. That's an eternity in political time! And finally, the super delegates all along have been concerned less with electability than they have a more fundamental issue: Who would make the better president?

Despite the fact that the stated policy differences between Obama and Clinton are miniscule, it is likely that each candidate would be dramatically different as president. That is because one's success or failure as president depends as much on leadership style, coalition building, atmospherics, and ability to inspire, as it does on one's concrete ideas for the country. And if Barack Obama sometimes seems too cool in his personal style, Hillary's problem is just the opposite: She brings drama and confrontation wherever she goes. The super delegates remember well why the phrase "politics of personal destruction" became so prevalent during the term of Bill Clinton. The world of the Clintons is filled with both victims and victimizers.

After claiming during the 1990's that she and her husband were the victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," Hillary has recently suggested that she is now the victim of a left-wing conspiracy, in which the media is complicit. Further allegations of sexism, and "disrespect" toward Hillary have raised the temperature even more during the campaign. While such claims by Hillary are once again effective in mobilizing her base, they have little purchase over super delegates. While Hillary was exhorting her supporters to attend the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on Florida and Michigan, in the hope that they would pressure the committee into awarding Hillary a bushelful of delegates, Obama was sending out a memo to his supporters urging just the opposite, good behavior and decorum. The petulance and unruliness of the Clinton supporters in Washington did nothing to win over super delegates.

Obama and Clinton have marketed themselves with quite different brands: Since the beginning of his campaign, Obama has claimed that he would offer a new and more principled form of leadership. Clinton has claimed she is tough enough, even ruthless enough to beat the Republicans at their own game. Interestingly, both candidates have lived up to their billing. But as five members of Bill Clinton's cabinet have endorsed Obama, and as Hillary has lost the endorsements of erstwhile friends such as Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Jay Rockefeller, and Chris Dodd, it has become clear that only one of those brands represents the change that the majority of Democrats so desire.

Despite all the ink that has been spilled over George W. Bush's remarks in Israel, nothing that I have read so far, captures what I believe happened during Bush's trip to the Knesset. Let me offer my view:

Unlike Dick Cheney, who wears his unpopularity with the American people like a badge of merit, President Bush, despite his game facade, is deeply wounded that seven years into his presidency, he is setting new records for disapproval. A recent CNN poll found that while Bush's 28% approval rating hovers slightly above that of Richard Nixon (24%) and Harry Truman (22%), Bush's disapproval figure of 71% surpasses Truman's all-time high of 67%, qualifying Bush as the most unpopular president since the inception of polling. Worse, our current president is increasingly compared, unfavorably, to his own father, a one-time president who is seen as a "wimp" by many in his own party. Such disapproval has to rankle the president, a gladhanding good-ole-boy known for handing out pet names to members of the press.

It is with this backdrop that Bush traveled to Israel, one of the few countries on the planet where he is still held in high regard. Instead of the usual protests and demonstrations, in Israel Bush was greeted with bouquets. Here is how the International Herald Tribune put it:

Israeli officials have heaped accolades on Bush during his time here, a pattern that continued Thursday when Dalia Itzik, the speaker of the Knesset, said Bush was "a great friend, one of the greatest we've ever had."

Understandably, when he gave his speech to the Knesset, Bush was basking in the warm glow of Israeli support, standing before a community that finally understood him, that realized that he was not stubborn, incompetent, or over his head in foreign affairs, but rather strong, tough-minded and visionary. So enveloped in the bosom of Israeli support was Bush, that he lost all perspective, and had what I call a "Dixie Chick moment," a sudden loss of perspective when one feels so in tune with one's foreign audience, that one forgets how one's remarks will be greeted back home. As the president decided to play historian, here were his fateful comments:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

In a matter of a few seconds, not only did Bush manage to stir up a hornet's nest in the U.S., he also managed to encapsulate in one paragraph everything that has been wrong with the Bush foreign policy. Let's look not at the politics of his comments, but at the merits:

When Bush refers to "some ingenious argument," he has already veered off track. Diplomacy does not consist of "ingenious arguments" that swiftly and magically win over the opposition. Diplomacy is a long, hard, incremental, adult process that takes place over time and is marked by peaks and valleys, periods of frustration and success. Bush seems to have a digital view of negotiation; it is a one-shot effort that either works or it doesn't. Throughout his two terms, the Bush approach to diplomacy has been marked by a kind of intellectual laziness. His initial conceit was that the Middle East region was going to be so overwhelmed by the "shock and awe" of American victory in Iraq, that democracy and American values would simply spread through the region like wildfire. Small wonder then, that we ignored the Middle East for most of Bush's presidency. Who needs negotiations when we can simply spread democracy through military means? Because of this naive fantasy, we wasted six years that could have been spent trying to improve Israeli-Palestinian relations.

A second problem with Bush-as-historian is his reference to "terrorists and radicals." It has become a standard ploy among politicians to play the "terrorist" card whenever they don't want to deal with a particular group or country. In fact, the use of this term has become an all purpose bogeyman. Was the Soviet Union during the Cold War any less "terrorist" than our adversaries today? Was it not state sponsored terrorism to have gulags in Siberia, to pervert psychiatry to the demands of politics, and to terrorize not only its own people, but those of the entire Eastern Bloc? Yet, in spite of this, we negotiated with the Soviets. Indeed, the whole notion of deterrence was based on such negotiations. Further, as a terrorist and radical, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is small potatoes compared to Mao tse Tung, who Nixon met with in 1972, the beginning of a new and healthier relationship with China. Currently, we've already negotiated with Libya's Khaddafi, formerly an avowed terrorist, causing him to foreswear his nuclear ambitions, and are knee deep in negotiations with Kim Jong Il. Given this, Bush's use of the "don't negotiate with the terrorists" line is preposterous and hypocritical.

The truth is, the entire Bush tenure has been marked by a phobia about diplomacy. Bush and company were dragged kicking and screaming into diplomacy with the North Koreans because of the gravity of Korea's nuclear development. and have recently only reluctantly and grudgingly started making overtures to the Iranians. The prevailing mindset in the Bush administration is that negotiation is for sissies. Real men get what they want by rattling sabers, or worse.

One of the most prominent conservative arguments against negotiating with countries like Iran is that high-level contacts between the two countries will only give the Ahmadinejads of the world more "prestige," making them stronger as adversaries. It is amazing how widespread this viewpoint is. The reality is just the opposite: We greatly enhance our own prestige by reaching out to negotiate with our adversaries.

The whole world looks to the US for diplomatic leadership, and is deeply disappointed when we drop the ball, as we have during the Bush administration. Further, critics of diplomacy with rogue regimes, ignore one of its most important benefits: When an American president, or high-level diplomat visits one of our adversaries, he is talking not just to the rulers of that country, but to its people as well. It is important to remember that one of our primary goals is to bolster the moderate elements that exist in rogue nations. Visiting a country and having tough, frank, and respectful negotiations with its leaders is a far more effective means of supporting its moderate factions than is standing on the sidelines engaging in name-calling. Memo to neocons everywhere: Regardless of how much the citizens of a country dislike their own leaders, they are still alienated and offended when outsiders mock, vilify, and demonize those leaders. They take it personally. That is why the Bush propensity for long-distance name-calling has been so counterproductive. That is why idiciocies like John McCain singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran," is so dumb and juvenile. That is why Hillary Clinton gratuitously reminding Iran that we can "obliterate" them, damages rather than furthers our interests.

Many commentators have already pointed out that conservatives have played the "appeasement" card during virtually diplomatic advance since the 1950's, from Eisenhower's first meeting with Khrushchev, to the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the SALT treaties and beyond. Unabashed by how many times they've been wrong, they continue to play this card, despite the obvious fact that talk not only is not appeasement, talk is the centerpiece of a civilized society

Finally, let me offer a few words about John McCain's toxic statement that Barack Obama is the candidate of Hamas. McCain intended his remark as a below-the-belt swipe at Obama's judgment and patriotism. It is the height of foolishness from McCain that American voters should base their decisions on what our adversaries say about our political candidates. If Al Qaeda issued a statement saying that George Bush was their worst enemy, would that mean he deserved a third term? Of course not. Whatever his intention may have been, whatever Osama Bin Laden might say about him, for the last six years Bush has been the greatest recruiting vehicle that Al Qaeda has ever had.

Moreover, in trying to tie Obama to Hamas, McCain completely missed the point. Hamas aside, Obama is the favored candidate of the entire international community. If there were a world-wide referendum on our presidency, Obama would trounce McCain. He would win in England, he would win in France, he would win in Canada, he would win throughout the world, precisely because he has had the same inspirational effect overseas that he has had at home. The international community is looking for diplomatic leadership. It is to Barack Obama's credit that he has had the insight to see through the "appeasement" trap.

I have to admit that at the outset of the Obama campaign I was wrong when I said, "Sure there will always be some whites who would refuse to vote for Obama due to his race, but those folks wouldn't vote for the Democrat anyway." I assumed that over the course of the campaign, within the Democratic Party Obama would receive if not universal support, at least universal respect. I was wrong. Increasingly, we have seen race and racism play a role in the Democratic primary season. An article in today's Washington Post offers disturbing examples of whites--typically from blue-collar districts--who all too readily admit that they will not vote for an African-American for president. As a prime example, the Post article provides a statement published in a local newspaper by none other than the mayor of Tunkhannock Borough, an area in northeast Pennsylvania near Scranton:

Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him. No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office.

How can anyone not be disturbed by the image of a public official perpetuating long discredited internet myths about Obama in a local newspaper? In another example, an Obama worker who was wearing an Obama T-shirt at a polling place near Scranton reports that a Clinton supporter came up to her, pointed at her T-shirt, and said, "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

Sentiments such as these have been heard by Obama campaign workers all too often in Pennsylvania, in parts of Indiana, and in West Virginia, and embody a kind of of paradox: As Barack Obama has become better known and more successful in his effort to secure the Democratic nomination he has engendered more resentment from certain segments of the electorate. Let us try to understand what is behind this dynamic:

In 1965, after the march on Selma, Alabama, Martin Luther King while standing on the Alabama Capitol steps, uttered these words, in a little remembered but profound speech:

The Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow... And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than a black man.

The need to feel that however troubled our own lives may be, there is someone or some group that is worse off, is an insidious part of our social and political fabric. Indeed, the tabloid press has built a billion dollar industry by exploiting this dynamic: By chronicling celebrity divorces, by detailing every drug problem of the well-connected, by showing us that acclaimed actresses have cellulite too, the tabloids reassure us that we're not so bad off, and society's luminaries are not so well off as we had thought, which makes us feel better. Conversely, Obama's success has left some people feeling theatened. The white worker in Kokomo, Indiana who has been laid off sees not only Barack Obama as rising to new heights, but the African-American community in general, a thought which may leave him feeling left behind and unsettled, regardless of how much he stands to benefit from Obama's economic reforms.

Even Obama's comments in San Francisco about working-class bitterness have been somewhat misunderstood. In trying to explain his difficulties with blue-collar voters, Obama was actually bending over backwards to dispel any notion that race was a factor. His initial discussion was a defense of blue-collar whites against any charges of racism. Here is Obama just before he made the "bitter" comments:

People are misunderstanding the way the demographics in this contest are broken up the way they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to white working class don't want to vote for the black guy. There were intimations of this in an article in the Sunday New York Times today--kind of implies it's sort of a race thing. That's not what it is."

It was only after this comment, that Obama got himself into trouble by trying to find an alternative explanation for his lack of support in the white, blue-collar community. Had he simply said, "Look, people simply need time to familiarize themselves with a black guy named Barack Obama," he would have avoided a lot of trouble, and would have said something true to boot.

Another wrinkle in this campaign however, is that Obama has been very successful as a post-racial candidate. His critical win in Iowa, his showing in New Hampshire, his impressive vote totals in rural Nevada, not to mention his wins in places like Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Utah, and Minnesota show that in much of America, Obama has managed to transcend race. So what distinguishes the places he's won from the places where he's struggled?

I would submit that in states like Utah and Wyoming that have virtually no black people, there is no sense of competition between whites and blacks, which minimizes the tendency to engage in racial scapegoating. As such, folks tend to see Obama just as he is, as an inspiring politician with a set of progressive proposals. Paradoxcially, in more multi-cultural states, ethnic groups are more likely to compete for money, jobs, and for social status. As a result, resentment and suspicion of Obama is heightened. The divide between blacks and Hispanics in California is another example of this.

In the 1950's it was a rite of passage for black jazz musicians to travel to Europe, particularly France, where they were thrilled to find a people who not only respected their craft, but who respected them as individuals. Jazz great Miles Davis wrote of his joy at being able to go to a restaurant in Paris without having to worry about whether they would seat him. The France of 50's was white, homogenous, and compared to the U.S., relatively color-blind. Since then, however, an influx of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East has transformed France into a multi-cultural entity, and we now watch it going through growing pains, as "Rightist Front" and anti-immigrant groups play upon ethnic divisions. Surely the France of the future will be a better, richer, more diverse and more interesting place; but it now has serious work to do to resolve the tensions of its multi-cultural population.

In a similar way, the Obama campaign has brought to light some of the fault lines of American culture, showing the work that we have yet to do. Having said this, having outlined what I see as the racial problems of the 2008 campaign, I still believe that for Barack Obama, the future is bright. Here's why:

1) In the primary season when both candidates had virtually the same policy agenda, it was easy for the folks in Altoona and Scranton to say, "Heck, they're both for universal health care, they're both against the war, they're both against the Bush tax cuts, they're both promoting 'green jobs,' they're both saying the same thing! I'm gonna vote for the white candidate!" The convergence of views between Clinton and Obama has fed the racial dynamic; when there are few policy differences, matters like character, leadership style, gender, and race, become paramount. Such a choice, however, becomes far more difficult when the voter is confronted with a stark contrast in policies between John McCain and Barack Obama. In the battle between Obama and McCain there will be real issues to sink one's teeth into.

2) In the general election, all of the political leaders--Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia, will be stumping for Obama, making it more likely that their blue-collar supporters will come around. Nor will we have Hillary, stoking racial divisions by implying that Obama can't win the vote of "hardworking... white Americans." Obama having the backing of the entire Democratic establishment will change the atmosphere in these states considerably.

3) Finally, I believe that this will be an election where Obama's vice-presidential choice will matter. His choice will have both practical and symbolic value in terms of muting the racial issue. A Tim Kaine, an Ed Rendell, a Ted Strickland will go a long way toward reassuring blue-collar white voters that "the blacks" are not "taking over." Ironically, however, Obama's most creative option would be to choose Bill Richardson, the hispanic Governor of New Mexico. This would be the equivalent of throwing a thirty yard pass downfield, scrambling the electoral map, and putting the Southwest, Florida and Texas in play like never before.

A black/brown/white progressive coalition? Heck, in this primary season of hope and surprises, why not?

Hillary Clinton's poor showing in both North Carolina and Indiana, virtually sealing the nomination for Obama, may actually have been a blessing not only for Obama and the Democratic Party, but for Hillary herself. Conceding the nomination to Obama sooner rather than later, might save Hillary not only millions of dollars that she will probably never see again from her campaign, but it could also save her reputation within the party. I say that because over the last several weeks the Clinton campaign has taken on a sour and cynical tone that could, if continued, create lasting damage for Hillary. Take, for example, the first Clinton conference call held after Indiana and North Carolina: Spinmasters Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson were reduced to boasting about how well Clinton had done with the "white vote" in those states (We were running even with white voters two weeks ago, but earned a significant win, 24 points"). Their numerous references to white voters, "swing voters," "blue collar voters," and "working class voters," were all designed to send one not-so-subtle message: We're the white candidate, he's black candidate, we can attract blue collar white voters and he can't. It is the toxic and desperate hope of the Clinton campaign at this point that there is enough resistance to a black candidate in the hinterland, that the remaining super delegates will come running toward Hillary. For a Democratic to base a campaign strategy on racism among lower class whites is one of several unseemly subtexts in the Clinton campaign.

Also, yesterday, Lisa Caputo, Hillary's former press secretary, was suggesting that Hillary might want to keep the nomination fight alive, just to see if "the other shoe drops," in other words, if they can find something damaging about Obama between June and August. The notion that Hillary would contemplate spending the summer rooting against Obama, in the hope that she might be able to ambush and sabotage the presumptive Democratic nominee, tells you everything you need to know about the Clinton campaign. It's far more about Hillary than it is the Democratic Party.

It is likely, however, that the elder statesmen in the party like George Mcgovern, who yesterday shifted his allegiance from Hillary to Obama, may bring this agonizing campaign to a conclusion. When even devoted Hillary supporters like Sen. Diane Feinstein speak out ("I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party. I think we need to prevent that as much as we can"), it would seem that the end of the campaign is near.

Once the nomination fight does conclude, the Democratic party, which has been holding its breath for the last two months, will be able to exhale, and will experience a tremendous burst of energy. For example, the choice of Obama's running mate will itself be an exhilarating event. It will be Obama's first major decision, and will be important both in practical terms, and in terms of symbolically unifying the party. Let's look at some of Obama's options:

1. Hillary. Obviously, there's already much speculation about the prospect of an Obama/Hillary ticket. I believe such a ticket would be a mistake for several reasons. First, I think that after such a bruising, exhausting nomination battle. Obama owes himself the kindness of picking a running whom he actually likes. After all, potentially he will have to work in close quarters with this person for eight years. There are many other players who would bring much to the ticket for whom Obama has far greater regard than Hillary. Yes, it would serve as an olive branch to Hillary's many supporters, but I've always believed that those polls suggesting that 30% of Hillary's voters would defect from Obama were completely bogus. Polls taken in May, in the heat of a primary battle, say nothing about the general election, in which an entirely different atmosphere will prevail. Also, by putting Hillary on the ticket, you may wind up with the worst of all worlds: You further unify the Republicans, and still have to worry about "friendly fire" from the Clintonistas. I would steer well clear of Hillary, who proved during the campaign that she is the true embodiment of the old politics.

2. Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia. There are many things to recommend Tim Kaine as Obama's running mate. Kaine is a southern governor, but grew up in the Midwest, having roots in Missouri, another important swing state. Virginia embodies the shifting demographics of the south, is a state that is solidly in play for the Democrats in 2008, and is a state that showed Obama much love during the primary season. Kaine is Catholic having done a brief stint as a Jesuit missionary in Honduras during his college years, and like Obama, is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Is it striking that he was the first politician to endorse Obama outside the state of Illinois, and on the stump, Kaine has shown himself to be an effective surrogate for Obama. Kaine's unique set of attributes--Midwesterner, southern governor, Catholic, progressive, embodiment of the "new south"--fit Obama like a glove.

3. Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania. One of the reasons that I strongly believe that the atmosphere in the general election will differ markedly from that of the primaries, is that figures like Ed Rendell will be backing Obama, rather than opposing him. Rendell, a staunch Clinton supporter during the primaries, always showed Obama great respect even while fighting against him, and stated numerous times during the heat of battle that if Obama won, he'd work his butt off for Obama in the general election. Rendell is the popular governor of a big state, he's Jewish, a demographic that Obama needs to shore up, and he has a military background. Picking Rendell would be a wiser way of extending an olive branch to Hillary supporters than picking Hillary herself.

In providing this short list of veep prospects, I have left out the politician who I have found to be the most compelling during the primary season, because the politician I have in mind is too new to the scene and is not the obligatory white male. But in an ideal world, I would like to see Claire McKaskill, senator of Missouri as Obama's veep. Mckaskill has perhaps been Obama's most visible, and most winning surrogate over the campaign, consistently making the case for him with great intelligence and geniality. Also, on Super Tuesday, McKaskill may have saved Obama's nomination by delivering Missouri to him in a cliffhanger. Just as Super Tuesday was starting to trend Hillary's way, the squeaker victory in Missouri gave Obama a tie in the battle of perceptions, that set the stage for the tremendous winning streak that followed Super Tuesday. A hearty tip of the cap to Claire McKaskill for her contributions! 

Are there obvious (or even "sleeper") veep prospects I have left out? Let me know.

The Debate. The morning after Philadelphia debate, I woke up and turned on my TV, only to find that a media consensus had already developed about the performances. On MSNBC, the anchors of "Morning Joe" were quoting--and agreeing with-- the New York Times' assessment that it was Obama's "weakest debate performance." Media groupthink was in full blossom. Other pundits suggested that Obama had looked rattled, weak, and unsure of himself. My reaction was one of surprise. Perhaps I had watched a different debate than did the vast punditocracy, but in the debate I watched, Obama had done quite well. Was I mistaken, or had the pundit class missed the forest for the trees? Let's examine:

On his MSNBC show, Joe Scarborough asked pointedly, "How could Obama not know that they were going to ask him about Reverend Wright and the 'bitter' comments?" Huh? Obviously Obama knew that he would be asked those questions. What he didn't know was that Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous would fixate on those questions for 52 minutes. It should have been clear to Scarborough that Obama had made a conscious decision to not get in a spitting match with Hillary during the debate; for that decision he has been pilloried by many in the media.

Just as he could have used his large financial advantage in Pennsylvania to blanket the airwaves with ads decrying Hillary's Bosnia fabrication, so he could have played attack politics during the debate. Obama simply chose to take the high road, understanding that neither he, nor the Democratic party would benefit from the tit for tat fracas that the moderators were looking for. He could have attacked Hillary on numerous fronts, but declined.

Take, for example, one of Hillary's favorite themes, the notion that all her "baggage" has been explored already, and that this has given her a kind of clean slate with the electorate; the idea is preposterous. It is precisely because of her baggage that Hillary would go into a general election with some of the highest negatives ever recorded by a candidate. Further, all of the many issues where Hillary has been accused of shading the truth--Travelgate, Filegate, her windfall profit in the cattle futures market, her knowledge of the Gennifer Flowers affair, even her fabrication that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary (he climbed Mount Everest five years after Hillary was born and was unknown before then)--are things that the Republicans would gleefully recycle during a general election, but which Barack Obama is far too principled to raise. Hillary's claim that she has been "fully vetted" notwithstanding, let me address one other issue that the Republicans would raise if she were the nominee:

Chelsea Clinton and 9/11. One week after 9/11, Hillary went on NBC's Dateline, and later the Today Show and claimed that Chelsea had been jogging near the World Trade Center during the attacks on the Twin Towers:

She had gone on what she thought would be a great jog. She was going down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She was going to get a cup of coffee and - that's when the plane hit!

The problem with this story is that Chelsea has subsequently written that she was at a friend's apartment, asleep, four miles from the World Trade Center, when the first plane hit. This fabrication has something in common with Hillary's Bosnia untruth; it is an unnecessary lie, told entirely for purposes of self-aggrandizement. Here is former Clinton associate Dick Morris on the 9/11 untruth:

So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely it was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voters’ affection), a real New Yorker, Charles Schumer (D), spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School, located next to the Trade Center, being at real risk on Sept. 11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene.

Once can only cringe when reading this story.

Who Won? From where I sat, Obama actually came out ahead in the debate, for two reasons: First, even during the debate, he objected to the tabloid nature of the questions, and earned the respect of the viewing audience by refusing the invitation of the moderators to engage in mud wrestling. In addressing Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, he reminded me somewhat of Joesph Welch during the McCarthy hearings, decrying the flawed nature of the proceedings. Second, the debate so saturated the electorate with tabloid issues, that it actually put to rest "bittergate" and allowed Obama to get back on his populist message. And for anyone who hasn't understood the meaning of Obama's phrase "a new kind of politics," the Philadelphia debate demonstrated it perfectly. As Obama noted the next day, Hillary "was in her element," being able to lob hand grenades at her opponent. There are, however, times in life when being "not in one's element" is a good thing; that tawdry debate was one such time.

Is Obama tough enough? Since the debate, Obama critics have been quick to raise the question, "How can he stand up to Kim Jong-il if he can't be aggressive during a debate?" The answer is a simple one, but one that the pundit class keeps forgetting: The reason that the Democratic race is so dominated by trivia, gaffes, and personality issues is because there are no serious policy differences between the two candidates. It is because there are no major differences between Clinton and Obama that the campaign has devolved into nitpicking and mudslinging. Indeed, those watching the debate the other night breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't treated to 15 minutes of argument over mandated versus non-mandated health care. We no longer care about such policy minutiae. Once the general election starts however, the vast differences between the Republican and Democrat will once again elevate policy to center stage, and the nature of the discourse will improve considerably. I will guarantee that at that juncture, we'll see Obama's full toughness.

Does Hillary still have a chance? With each passing day, Hillary's chances of winning the nomination get smaller. The flow of superdelegates declaring for Obama is slow, but inexorable, and yesterday's endorsements of Obama by ex-Senators Sam Nunn (Ga.) and David Boren (Ok) were profoundly symbolic, because these men represent the conservative wing of the Democratic party. Another symbolic endorsement was that of Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of Labor. Astonishingly, Reich becomes the 5th member of Clinton's Cabinet to endorse Barack Obama. The others are former Secretary of Energy and Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, former Commerce Secretary William Daley, former Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta, and Federico Pena, who at different points was Clinton's Transportation secretary, and Energy secretary. This speaks volumes about which candidate is the uniter and which is the divider. As I've stated before, Hillary's days are numbered.

One often sees in the music industry an artist who bursts onto the scene with an exciting and original new sound. Once successful, however, this artist who was so daring at first, begins to play it safe, zealously guarding his success. The musician who was once so dazzling and edgy, after tasting success makes a headlong dive for the middle of the road. I use this example because, as we wait out the seemingly endless span of time before the Pennsylvania primary, my worry is that Barack Obama has become the political version of our music star. The Obama campaign that once was so inspirational has given way to a politics of safety and centrism. Worse, the authenticity which catapulted Obama to success seems to be fraying around the edges.

To be fair, Obama is currently in a strange electoral limbo: Having a sizable lead in the race for the nomination, while at the same time not able to put Hillary away, his campaign has once again gone into a kind of prevent defense. The Obama we observe these days is more concerned about making a mistake than he is about putting out an authentic message.

Trailing in Pennsylvania by 5-10 points, Obama's principled view of campaigning doesn't permit him to exploit Hillary's Tuzla fabrication, or the fact that Bill Clinton received an $800,000 payment from a Colombian trade group that supports the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, while Hillary was arguing against it. Nor has Obama spoken out about Hillary's chief strategist, Mark Penn, who was also wallowing in hypocrisy, promoting the Colombia Free Trade Agreement though his lobbying firm, while the Clinton campaign purported to oppose it.

The problem with the Obama campaign is that such a passive strategy creates little opportunity for Obama to peel away the needed votes from Hillary in Pennsylvania. The very issues that draw voters to Obama--character, integrity, and the striking disparity in competence between the way the Obama campaign has been run, and the chaotic, dysfunctional Clinton campaign--seem to be taboo subjects for Obama. Simply put, Hillary has run a terrible campaign, a fact which speaks quite poorly for her executive skills. But have you ever heard Obama raise this issue in a campaign speech? Never.

Obama's lack of killer instinct may, from a character standpoint, be a positive. He is a nice guy. But from a political standpoint, it leaves him at great pains to close the deal with the American voter. Obama is apparently willing to take the risk that he can run out the clock on Hillary, and back into the nomination. But what worries me more than the timidity in Obama's campaign style, is the manner in which he has become risk-averse on the policy front. Let's look at two of the issues where Obama has recently forsaken principle for what is politically safe:

Hamas. Perhaps the biggest policy difference between Obama and Clinton is Obama's readiness to engage in dialogue with our adversaries. After seven years of a Bush administration that preferred name-calling and antagonism toward rogue regimes over diplomatic outreach, this is a welcome change. The prospect of real dialogue with the likes of Raul Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jong-il, is a major upgrade from the childish Bush doctrine. But when Jimmy Carter announced this week that he would go to Gaza to meet with Hamas, we suddenly found that Obama's pledge to meet with rogue regimes was not as iron-clad as we had thought. Here is Obama on dialogue with Hamas:

It is not a state and until Hamas clearly recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism and abides by, or believes that the Palestinians should abide by previous agreements ... I don't think conversations with them would be fruitful.

Huh? This is perhaps the dumbest thing that Obama has ever said. It contradicts the heart of the Obama doctrine, which maintains that dialogue with our foes is essential to the promotion of peace. Hamas is the democratically elected representative of the Palestinian people. It has not only the backing of the majority of Palestinians, it controls all of Gaza. The idea that Obama puts forth, that somehow Hamas exists in a special universe of malevolence as compared to Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il, is preposterous, and shows just how insecure Obama feels about his Jewish support. In fact, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, published a poll in February showing that 64% of Israelis support the idea of direct talks with Hamas. Even Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Advisor of George Bush the elder--along with numerous international experts--has expressed his support for negotiations with Hamas. Not only is such pandering to the Jewish community beneath the dignity of the Obama campaign, I don't believe it will win him a single vote. Obama would earn far more respect from both the Jewish community and electorate at large if he simply said the following:

A bedrock principle of the Obama administration is that we will seek dialogue with international groups with whom we have profound disagreements. Just as 50 years of antagonism toward Cuba did not advance the interests of either the US or the Cuban people, so the absence of a serious diplomatic initiative in the Middle East during the Bush term has neither served the Israelis nor the Palestinians in moving toward a peaceful resolution. The Obama administration will be far more focused on diplomatic surges than military surges. We will have careful, constructive dialogue with the leaders of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.

Obama's inconsistency on this issue threatens the intellectual integrity of his entire diplomatic approach.

Gays. When Obama gave that riveting speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, he invoked all the opposing groups that he hoped to bring together, rich and poor, red and blue, black and white, gay and straight. Yet, one rarely hears Obama use the word "gay" anymore. His avoidance of gay issues boiled over this month, as the Philadelphia Gay News, frustrated that Obama would not give them an interview, published on its front page their interview with Hillary Clinton, and left a blank space to signify Obama's refusal to speak with them. Here is the editor of the Philadelphia Gay News, Mark Segal, talking about their decision:

We don't put ads on our front page, so we didn't lose any money by doing so. Although, no publisher wants a blank space in their paper! Or as we call it, you know, creative white space! [laughs] We wanted to make it clear from the very start that we had done our research. And I think what is shocking is that the campaign has not been able to refute our facts. It has been 1,522 days since he's spoken to local gay press.

That goes back to 2004. That's not acceptable. I am the former president of the National Gay Newspaper Guild, and last week, during a break in the meeting, former publishers and editors were sitting around the table, and half of them were Obama supporters. And we all started discussing the fact that practically every one of them has gone after Obama for an interview — and they've all gotten the runaround!

And here is an excerpt from the editorial that the Philadelphia Gays News ran:

At this point in the Democratic presidential campaign, we're able to view the candidates by their actions. And we have found that Sen. Barack Obama would rather talk at the LGBT community than with them... The fact is that Obama has spoken with the gay press only twice, and one of those interviews...was in 2004, before he became a U.S. senator. The other limited interview occurred after controversy erupted when his campaign added an anti-gay minister to his tour of the South. It has now been 1,522 days since Obama has been accessible to our community.

My question here is simple: What in the world is Obama thinking? Does he really think it will cost him votes to sit down with a gay editor and reaffirm his support for civil unions, workplace anti-discrimination legislation, and the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell?" Yes, one should fault Obama here on principle, but one should fault him even more on his political judgment. These issues are simply not that controversial and polarizing anymore. I can understand why John McCain refused an interview with the Philadelphia Gay News. But for Barack Obama to be scared of talking to the gay press, while at the same time Hillary is holding an Elton John fundraiser is ridiculous.

Speaking of Elton John, I liked his first album, and hated all the rest of his stuff. Obama would do better to follow the example of the Beatles: If you want to make a lasting difference, keep challenging your audience and don't pander.

Hillary Clinton's vow to continue her candidacy all the way through August is giving many Democratic loyalists heartburn. Clinton ominously told the Washington Post on Sunday, ""If we don't resolve (the dispute over Michigan and Florida), we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for." The prospect of the Democratic race lasting until the Denver convention in August has caused scores of Democrats to break out in a cold sweat, as they envision open warfare during the late summer months. I'm here to reassure all the nervous nellies in the Democratic party that this frightening scenario will never come to pass. Here's why:

1) Money. One of the dirty little secrets of this primary season is that the Clinton campaign is broke. As of the latest reporting to the Federal Elections Commission, Clinton had 11 million dollars in cash, 9 million dollars in debts, and 5 million that she had personally loaned her campaign in February. When you do the arithmetic, that puts her 3 million dollars in the red. Worse, the website politico.com reported yesterday that the Clinton campaign has for the last several months resorted to a time-honored strategy of money management: stiffing vendors. Numerous vendors, from caterers in New York, to photographers and event planners in Iowa, to telecommunications companies all over, have reported that the Clinton campaign is simply not paying their bills. These vendors, terrified that they will never be paid, have gone public, warning other small businesses to get money up front from the Clinton campaign before providing any services. Here is how politico.com described Hillary's money crunch:

She owed Iowa’s Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees $3,500 for catering and venue costs, New Hampshire’s Winnacunnet Cooperative School District $4,400 in event costs, Qwest $24,000 for phone service, various branches of the Iowa-based supermarket chain Hy-Vee $15,000 for food, beverages and catering, and $7,700 to Ohio and Massachusetts branches of the theatrical stage employees’ union, for equipment costs.

In fact, about a third of the nearly 700 individual debts Clinton reported at the end of February were for various types of “event expenses,” including $319,000 for catering and venue costs, $420,000 for equipment, $11,000 for photography and $9,000 for security.

In addition to her many debts to the small businesses that set up her campaign events, it is now clear that many of her top staffers have gone unpaid:

Some of Clinton’s biggest debts are to pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn, who’s owed $2.5 million; direct mail company MSHC Partners, which is owed $807,000; phone-banking firm Spoken Hub, which is waiting for $771,000; and ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who’s owed $467,000.

Barring a major influx of cash, it is unimaginable that the campaign can continue to function carrying this kind of debt. It is certainly true that historically, many presidential campaigns have taken years to pay off accumulated debt, sometimes settling on pennies on the dollar, so the Clinton campaign is not unique in this regard. However, when companies become aggrieved enough to go public and label the campaign a deadbeat operation, it raises the specter of a public relations disaster. When your campaign is based on the notion of "getting America back to work," and that of empowering the little guy, it seems morally untenable to balance your books by stiffing the many companies that have set up your rallies and town hall meetings.

It is interesting to reflect on the source of Hillary's money problem. By conventional standards, she has actually raised a substantial amount of money during this election cycle. Further, there are many supporters who would like to contribute more to the Clinton campaign. They are prohibited however, by campaign finance law. Campaign finance law limits individual contributions to a candidate during the primary season, to $2300. Many of the well-heeled individuals who have supported the Clinton campaign would love to pitch in another $10,000--or more. Their hands are tied however, by the legal limits. The Obama campaign, by contrast, has a large army of small contributors--50 to 100 dollars--who are well below the legal ceiling and can continue to financially support his campaign.

As I have stated many times before, Hillary's threshold for embarrassment is astonishingly high, so she may decide that a reputation as a deadbeat is a small price to pay for the survival of her campaign. However, it is a difficult sale to make, to go into Johnstown or Altoona, preaching populism while refusing to pay your bills. Asked about the matter on MSNBC yesterday, Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson said artfully, "We're paying our bills in a timely manner."

Disinformation. As consumers, we are shockingly naive about accepting at face value candidates' statements about the future of their campaigns. The day before he dropped out of the race, John Edwards was telling us that poverty was the "fight of my life," and he would continue his candidacy until the convention. The next day, when he suffered another last place showing, this time in his birthplace of South Carolina, he was forced to confront reality and leave the race. And if I may digress for a moment, how can a man who has designated poverty the fight of his life still not have endorsed a candidate by now, any candidate? If John Edwards allows the North Carolina primary to come and go without making any endorsement, without helping the Democratic party move beyond its current gridlock, he will have left a lasting stain on his reputation. Mitt Romney, one day before dropping out of the Republican race, was assuring voters that he was in the race to stay. That was presumably before his wife got him behind closed doors and beat the daylights out of him for spending the family fortune.

What I am saying is that candidates' bold statements that they will "fight to the last day," should be taken in the same vein as the sports owner who declares that his manager's job is secure; usually that means that the manager should put a "for sale" sign in front of his house. And so it is with Hillary's recent statements. All of the bravado that we hear is for public consumption, to reassure potential contributors, and to maintain the morale of her supporters. Make no mistake about it, barring an exceptional showing in Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign is on life support. And the public is starting to recognize this fact, as the Gallup tracking poll shows Obama's national lead over Hillary ballooning to 10 points yesterday, and leveling off at 8 points today.

North Carolina. Even if Hillary manages to deliver a win in Pennsylvania, she is going to run into a buzz saw in North Carolina. The Tar Heel state is made for Barack Obama. With African-Americans making up half the Democratic electorate, and a significant number of upscale, educated whites in the "research triangle" of Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, it would take a miracle for Hillary to be competitive in the state. The latest Gallup poll shows her trailing by 18 percentage points. She will suffer a crushing defeat in North Carolina, not unlike her losses in Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina. And if she should lose in Indiana on the same day (May 6), her campaign will come to a screeching halt.

So the next time you hear a Democratic operative wringing his hands and predicting doom for the party, just think about the array of land mines that lie in front of the Clinton campaign. It won't be long now.

In the aftermath of Barack Obama's speech about race, Clinton supporter Lanny Davis wrote a short essay about the speech. After generously praising Obama for the "brilliance" of the speech, and reaffirming his great respect for Obama, Davis went on to pose several questions which he felt, even after the speech, still clouded the Obama candidacy. One of Davis' questions was the following:

If a white minister preached sermons to his congregation and had used the "N" word and used rhetoric and words similar to members of the KKK, would you support a Democratic presidential candidate who decided to continue to be a member of that congregation?

The question posed by Davis is an interesting one, but not for the reasons that he assumes. Transposing Jeremiah Wright's race to white in order to assess the objectionableness of his words, is in fact not a legitimate form of analysis. In situations where a black person's behavior is in question, it is typical for whites to pose the ultimate gotcha question, "what if a white person had done that!?" Let me explain why that analysis has little value:

Let's do a thought experiment: Suppose a white college student goes to his state university and tells the dean that he would like to start a "White Student Union," a club devoted to the cultural affairs of white students. The dean tells the enterprising student, "No, such a club would not be acceptable." Not to be deterred, the student writes a letter to the student newspaper, denouncing the dean's refusal, and states that he is a victim of discrimination. After all, the outraged student argues, "there's been a Black Student Union at this school for 20 years, and nobody has complained about that! I'm the victim here."

In lodging this complaint, the student has fallen prey to the widely held fallacy of racial symmetry. This view, held by many, but rarely examined, holds that all behaviors by whites and blacks are morally equivalent and should be judged through the same prism. Unfortunately, often this view often makes no sense.

The answer to our aggrieved student is, of course there's a Black Student Union! At our hypothetical State U., 90% of the facilities, resources and organizations cater--quite understandably--to the dominant white culture of the campus. When the African-American students set up their club, it was not a racist initiative; rather it was a support group that recognized that these students were a severe minority on campus, and benefited from bonding together to maximize their shared culture and experience.

By contrast, the proposed "White Student Union" would be a redundancy. Who needs a club specially devoted to white students' needs? That's what the school was set up for in the first place!

Just so that my point is crystal clear, let's look at a second example. Suppose a white businessman, a creative and enterprising fellow, decides to start a new cable channel. In seeking capital for his venture, he sends out hundreds of letters, telling prospective investors that his channel will be called, "White Entertainment Television." When the responses come back, universally telling him, "uh, no thanks, all my funds are already committed right now," our businessman is surprised. "Geez," the discouraged businessman wonders, "how could Robert Johnson do so well in setting up Black Entertainment Television, and I can't raise a nickel for my white channel?" The reason is simple, the two businesses have no equivalence either as business ventures, or as moral activities. When Robert Johnson founded BET in 1979, blacks were a grossly under-served population in the entertainment industry. By contrast, a new network devoted to whites, would almost certainly be an exercise in in-your-face bigotry, and would serve no marketplace niche. So once again, these two behaviors, by people of two races, are superficially similar, but are completely asymmetrical in terms of their moral significance.

In other words, given the vastly different histories of blacks and whites, simply switching the race of the actor for purposes of analysis can be perilous and even foolhardy, because one cannot presume a moral symmetry between the two sets of actions. Let's now go back to the example posed by Lanny Davis:

The first part of Davis' question--what if a white minister used the N word--makes no sense whatsoever. Reverend Wright wasn't using the N word as a term of abuse. Rather, he was pointing out in his sermon that unlike Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has never been called the N word. Now one can argue whether or not that fact necessarily gives Barack Obama any deeper understanding of race relations. That's a separate issue. But the use of the N word by Wright is quite distinct from that of a white minister using it in an abusive context. The comparison is absurd on its face.

The second part of Davis' question, "if a white minister....used rhetoric and words similar to the KKK," also seems to be a bit confused. While I myself found Wright's words to be needlessly inflammatory, he wasn't talking in the manner of a KKK member. Rather, he was likening the U.S. government to the KKK. While one might conclude that both forms of rhetoric are objectionable, they are hardly the same: If a white minister uses the language of the KKK, he is typically preaching hatred and violence toward America's minorities; what Reverend Wright was doing, by contrast, was scolding the U.S. government for not adequately protecting America's minorities. Again, when scrutinized closely, Davis' question is comparing apples and oranges.

Let me make it clear that I am no fan of Jeremiah Wright's sermons. Beyond the hyperbolic content, the belligerent tone alone would put me off. That said, it is still necessary to understand that the level of anger in Trinity United Church of Christ and in many other black churches has to be understood in terms of the historical context of the congregants, whose economic status, level of health care, and school systems would be seen as catastrophic if they were characteristic of the white community. One of the things I like about Barack Obama is that unlike Lanny Davis, he understands this fact. Here is Obama, talking about his church and minister:

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

Here's Obama on Reverend Wright:

He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

In answer to Lanny Davis, there is no comparable white minister out there to whom we can compare Jeremiah Wright. Please rethink your analysis.

The emergence of tapes of Barack Obama's minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, delivering sermons which harshly condemn the United States, and suggest that 9/11 reflected "the chickens coming home to roost," have created the biggest crisis of Obama's political career. Had the tapes comes to light earlier in the campaign, they might have derailed Obama's candidacy. Even at this late date in the campaign season they have put his campaign squarely on the defensive, and play into deepseated fears in the white community that a black president cannot adequately represent all the American people. They also feed the urban myth, spewed over the internet, that somehow Obama lacks patriotism, and that if in office, he would pursue a black, retributive agenda rather than one that seeks the common good. Such questions have been part of a whispering campaign against Obama since the beginning of the primary season, and are now being asked loudly by his critics.

An interview done on "60 Minutes" by Steve Kroft with citizens from southern Ohio, illustrates perfectly the unease that a segment of white America has had with the Obama candidacy long before they ever heard of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Here is Kroft, prior to the Ohio primary, asking one blue-collar worker who he planned to vote for:

Man: I'm leaning toward Obama. [but] there's a couple issues with him I'm not too clear on.

Kroft: Which issues?

Man: Well I'm hearing that he doesn't even know the National Anthem. He wouldn't use the Holy Bible. He's got his own beliefs, the Muslim beliefs. A couple issues that bothers me at heart...

When Kroft informed him that none of those things were true, the man seemed genuinely startled. While I would doubt that the interviewee actually voted for Obama anyway, the release of the Wright tapes will have almost certainly fueled his fears, as well as causing many serious individuals to ask how Obama could have associated himself with Pastor Wright for so long. A cottage industry has developed to explain this issue. Didn't Obama know that Pastor Wright's views were a ticking time bomb? Doesn't their relationship cast doubt upon Obama's judgment after all?

The worst analysis I've heard of the Obama/Wright relationship was the one put forth by William Kristol and Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday. Here is Kristol:

....he just joined the largest church in the area for political reasons, for opportunistic reasons....

Here is Juan Williams:

.... he joined the church to solidify his credentials as authentically black, because it is the largest church in South Chicago....he exploited it up to a point....it speaks to his character and his judgment.

These bits of analysis are well off the mark, for several reasons. First, Obama began going to Trinity United Church of Christ in 1987, before he had even gone to law school. At that time, Obama was hardly--as Kristol and Williams suggest--a politician on the make, but rather a young man searching to find himself and his place in the world. At the time, he was working as a community organizer, was dealing with many pastors in the Chicago area, and was preparing to leave Chicago for Harvard Law School. For Obama, Trinity was not a source of racial polarization as many now see it; rather it was a unifying presence in the community, a place where the black middle class sat next to laborers, where those who ran the school system sat next to those who struggled within it, where black intellectuals worshiped along with those who were still mastering their reading skills.

It was during one of Obama's first visits to the church when he heard Wright sermonize about a painting by British Victorian artist George Frederic Watts, called "Hope." The painting shows a bruised and battered woman sitting atop the globe with a harp that has lost all but one string. The world below her is in disrepair, and she has fared no better. After describing the many hardships that beset the many members of his congregation, Wright intoned:

And yet consider again the painting before us....a few faint notes floating upward to the heavens...She dares to hope.... She has the audacity....to make music...and praise God...on the one string... she has left.

Obama writes in his book "Dreams from My Father" about this moment:

As the choir lifted back up into song, as the congregation began to applaud those who were walking up to the altar to accept Reverend Wright's call, I felt a light touch on the top of my hand. I looked down to see the older of two boys sitting beside me, his face slightly apprehensive as he handed me a pocket tissue. Beside him his mother glanced at me with a faint smile before turning back to the altar. It was only as I thanked the boy that I felt the tears running down my cheeks.

This, not the crass political calculation proffered by Kristol and Williams, is the essence of Obama's bond with the Trinity United Church of Christ. For Obama, it is the fact that Trinity backs up its rhetoric with action. It provides care for the elderly, offers hospice care, money for college bound students, charity for historically black colleges (many of which have fallen on hard times), is an important source of anti-drug work in the community, and serves as a support and resource center for ex-prisoners trying to make their way back into society. That is what drew the then skeptical Obama to this place of worship. And it was this church that helped Obama find his identity as a black man in society. Wright became a mentor and a father figure for Obama, who had never really known his own father. And I suspect that if we knew the Wright that Obama knew, removed from the pulpit, rather than the caricature drawn from YouTube videos, he would emerge as a far more compelling individual than the ranting figure in the tapes.

My point is a simple one, that understanding the work of a church and a minister through a handful of YouTube excerpts hardly does justice to the entirety of the work of that church. Just as a Catholic can attend services and derive great spiritual uplift, while still leaving behind the messages of homophobia, sexism, and archaic views on sexuality, so I believe that Obama got the same kind of uplift from Wright, while forgoing the over the top rhetoric and appeals to race. It may be that Obama, like his Republican counterpart Mitt Romney, will feel obligated to give a broad address, explaining his almost familial closeness to Reverend Wright, explaining the overwhelmingly positive work of his church, while also explaining the ways in which Obama's and Wright's political views differ. If he does, he might want to start with one of the eloquent passages from his book "Dreams of My Father":

And if a part if me continued to feel that this Sunday communion sometimes simplified our condition, that it could sometimes disguise or suppress the very real conflicts among us and would fulfill its promise only through action, I also felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams.

"The audacity of hope!" I still remember my grandmother, singing in the house, "There's a bright side somewhere...don't rest till you find it."

1) Pennsylvania. As the democratic primary in Pennsylvania gears up, the latest electoral news has to buoy the Obama campaign: Not only did Obama win Mississippi by a 61-37% spread in popular vote, not only did he claim 17 delegates in Mississippi to Clinton's 11, but we now learn that Obama actually won the delegate race in Texas. According to CNN, when you combine delegates won in both the Texas primary and its accompanying caucuses, the latest estimate shows Obama with 99 delegates to Clinton's 94. As a result, between the states of Texas, Wyoming, and Mississippi, Obama has padded his delegate lead over Hillary Clinton by 13, and now leads by around 130 delegates (pledged and Super combined). This obviously puts extra pressure on Hillary to "run up the score" in Pennsylvania. The question is, is Hillary capable of a big win in Pennsylvania. In fact, is she capable of winning it at all?

While the demographics look favorable for Hillary--a larger number of blue-collar whites than the national average, a lower number of African-Americans than the national average, and a larger number of voters over 65 than the national average--discussions of the this primary typically omit one important wild card: Barack Obama has six full weeks to introduce himself to the Pennsylvania voters. In other words, this campaign may resemble the build-up to Iowa or New Hampshire more than it does that of Ohio or Texas. Obama will be able to hold his trademark rallies, but with a full six weeks, he will also have the time and space to do retail campaigning at business sites, at town meetings, and at people's homes. It is well established now that Hillary begins every state with a 10 to 20% lead in the polls; Pennsylvania is no different. But given the luxury of six weeks of campaigning, this could become a neck and neck struggle if Obama is bold enough to do the following:

a) First, he should completely rewrite his stump speech. Obama's stump speech, which served him so well in the early stages of the campaign, is now as stale as week-old toast. He needs to incorporate new ideas into his speech, ideas both big and small. The speech needs to be tailored to the specific economic needs of Pennsylvania, while still containing broad, visionary themes. In Pennsylvania, Obama should downplay slightly "the politics of hope," by this time a somewhat tired phrase. Instead, he should run aggressively against the politics of cynicism. Hillary Clinton made a colossal blunder in Mississippi by touting Obama as a "dream" running mate, because it completely undercut her dismissive "he's not ready" message, showing it to be just another Machiavellian tactic. Were I Obama, I would beat this like a drum in Pennsylvania:

Can anybody believe Hillary any more when she talks about "experience?" When she needs votes in Texas, she brings out the red phone; when she wants to siphon off my supporters in Mississippi, I suddenly become the "dream" vice president. It doesn't get much more cynical than that. If anyone ever needed a definition of the old politics, that is it!

Not a day would go by when I wouldn't mock her "dream team" statements.

b) In talking to workers, Obama should show something that we almost never see from him, anger, outrage, indignation. Being preternaturally "cool" plays well in academe, and it's fine in jazz circles, but if you're touring The Hershey Company, or Heinz, or Allegheny Industries, you had better show that there's some blood in your veins.

2) Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro's bizarre comments to the effect that Obama would not be where he is were it not for his race, tells us a lot not only about Ferraro, but about the country as a whole. Her comment is simply a cruder, uglier version of the position that numerous women have taken recently in interviews: They have come to believe that in politics, there is more discrimination against women, than against a black man. Normally I steer clear of foolish "my group is more discriminated against than your group" arguments, but the position taken by Hillary supporters is so flawed that it needs to be addressed. In the entire history of the U.S. there have only been four black governors. Since Reconstruction there have only been three black Senators. These facts hardly suggest a great receptivity to African-Americans in high office.

The notion of there being overwhelming resistance to a female president is actually a gross misreading of Obama's stellar political rise: He has been such a compelling candidate, his message and character have been so successful in drawing support, that bedazzled political observers have lost sight of just how singular and extraordinary Obama's accomplishment is. One year ago, the prospect that an African-American would be poised to win the Democratic nomination was all but unthinkable. It now stands as a profound irony that Obama has been so successful that all the Geraldine Ferraros of the world have jumped to the foolish conclusion that anyone could do it, or even more preposterous, that Obama's race actually helped him secure the nomination. The truth is, Barack Obama is the only African-American in the country who could have accomplished what he has done. He has outlasted a very deep and talented group of Democratic candidates, and he has done it in the midst of a scurrilous, guerilla email campaign that variously casts him as a Muslim, an Al Qaeda plant, and a foreign agent bent on destroying the U.S. By contrast, Hillary began the campaign as the candidate of inevitability, and at the outset of virtually every state primary she has had large, comfortable leads. The fact that Obama has won twice as many states as Clinton has nothing to do with any resistance to a female candidate; rather, it is because she has run at best a mediocre campaign, marked by shortsighted thinking, financial mismanagement, and organizational chaos.

When Ferraro's comments blew up in her face, Ferraro first accused those who criticized her as being "reverse racists." When that didn't work, she tried to backpedal slightly:

I said in large measure, because he is black.... let me also say in 1984 -- and if I have said it once, I have said it 20, 60, 100 times -- in 1984, if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have been the nominee for vice president.

Even when she tries to show some humility, Ferraro gets it wrong: Yes, her gender was one reason that Mondale picked her as his vice-presidential nominee. The operative word is picked. Ferraro didn't have to campaign for a spot on the ticket, Mondale simply picked her. By contrast, Obama has participated perhaps in the longest, most grueling primary season in history. His campaign has been a model of both grass-roots organization and of inspiration. Every vote that Obama has gotten has been well earned.

Finally, let's take a look at the respective responses of Clinton and Obama to Ferraro's statements. You be the judge. Here's Clinton

It’s regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides, because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal.

Here's Obama:

I just think that if somebody in my campaign suggested that Senator Clinton was only where she was because she's a woman, people would take great offense and rightly so, because she a very accomplished person, who is running a terrific and tenacious race.....

If anyone has any doubt about which candidate has the most grace and humanity, all one has to do is read these initial responses to Ferraro's rancid remarks. For Hillary, as usual, it's all about politics; the subtext of her comment is "his campaign does it too." For Obama, it's about principle; rather than taking the opportunity to attack Hillary, he goes out of his way to pay her a great compliment in the midst of this fiasco. Enough said.....

After having beaten Hillary Clinton in twelve consecutive contests, Barack Obama's losses in Ohio and Texas have halted his momentum, and have dealt a blow to his own aura of inevitability. As many observers have noted, last night's losses pushed the "re-set" button on the presidential race. Both campaigns must now start rethinking their endgame. This is especially true for Barack Obama.

On January 21, on the eve of the South Carolina debate, I urged Obama to respond forcefully to the Clinton campaign's charges that he had flip-flopped on the Iraq war, and that he had supported the views of Ronald Reagan. No presidential contender, I warned, could let such charges stand without losing the respect of the voters. To his great credit, Obama was thinking along the same lines that night, and confronted Hillary fiercely in that South Carolina debate. While pundits expressed horror at the contentiousness of the debate, I still maintain that the spat was transformational for the Obama campaign. The electorate at large, and Obama's African-American base in particular, needed to see that Obama could be a fighter.

Such confrontation however, does not come naturally to Obama. To be sure, his charm, warmth, and equanimity have put him in good stead in the presidential race. His personality has been essential in reassuring a predominantly white electorate that is always skittish about the prospect of an "angry black man." Obama has shown that he is capable of being a president for all the people.

The problem is, there is a flip side to Obama's vaunted cool and ease: He is somewhat conflict-averse. The same attributes that make him successful in one situation, can become a hindrance, crutch, a cop-out in other situations. There are times when Obama needs to confront, engage, and even attack, when he merely takes refuge in placidity. In the latter stages of the battle for Texas and Ohio, Obama was not only out hustled by Hillary Clinton, more importantly, he was out toughed by her. In the final days, he stood by and caught charge after charge, without adequate response.

Obama has relied so heavily on his charm and unflappability, that he has come to rely excessively on these qualities. When your opponent says, "With respect to answering the red phone at 3 in the morning, I have experience, Senator McCain has experience, and Senator Obama has a speech that he gave," you need to respond clearly and forcefully. Obama did not. Obama's disappointing showing in Ohio and Texas in part stemmed from Hillary's ability to cast herself effectively in the role of "Commander in Chief," while Obama was put in the role of the naive boy scout. Let me be blunt about it: By adopting a soft prevent defense in the face of withering criticisms from Hillary, by refusing to play any offense, by not punching back effectively, Obama has been placed in the position of--dare I say it?--a sissy. That is no way to win the support of a trucker in Akron, or a bricklayer in Sandusky.

And while Obama, perhaps armed with a false sense of security, had settled into a passive role, Hillary, with her back against the wall, has had both guns blazing. The amazing, even shocking support given Hillary by "Saturday Night Live" cannot be underestimated. Hosting the show, SNL alumna Tina Fey, did Hillary a world of good, by bringing to the surface Hillary's dirty little secret-- the fact that people view her as unacceptable because she's perceived as a bitch. Said Fey:

Maybe what bothers me the most, is that people say that Hillary's a bitch. Let me say something about that: She is. So am I. And so is this one [pointing at Amy Poehler]. You know what? Bitches get stuff done!

When Fey uttered those words, I imagined millions of women around the country--all of whom have felt the sting of being put down as "too pushy"-- jumping to their feet and cheering. The SNL skits were a major boon for Hillary, for three reasons: First, they gave a patina of "hipness" to Hillary, not often thought of as young or hip; second, they lampooned Obama as a goofy, grinning pet of the media; third, they made a virtue of something that was formerly taboo, being in touch with your "inner bitch." Clinton benefited from each.

So what should Obama do? Simply put, he should tap into his own wellspring of anger and indignation. When you are trying to establish a new, affirmative, principled politics, there are two ways that you can go about it: 1) You can simply refrain from attacking your opponent, a tack which is ultimately foolish and self-defeating. 2) Or you can hit back at an unprincipled opponent, as long as your criticisms are sincere, accurate and conscientious. For example, I heard Obama on CNN this morning answering a question about "the red phone at three in the morning." Obama responded that if it were a matter of one's resume rather than one's judgment, "then John McCain should be answering the phone." This is at best a weak reply. What he should have said is this:

Hillary still doesn't get it. If all we're doing is looking at resumes, why don't we nominate Dick Cheney? He's got more experience handling crises than anyone. Or how about Don Rumsfeld? Who has more experience than him? Her ad completely misunderstands what it takes to be president. Besides, even using her own criteria, Hillary fails the test. She has no such foreign policy experience, short of serving tea to foreign potentates!

One of Clinton's standard campaign gambits is to refuse to say whether she thinks Obama is qualified to lead the nation, implying that she secretly thinks he isn't, but is too nice and diplomatic to say so. Such statements should elicit sharp, consistent attacks from Obama:

Nobody with any intelligence and competence who serves with me in the Senate has the slightest doubt about my capabilities as a president: Chris Dodd, 27 years in the Senate, Ted Kennedy 46 years in the Senate, Jay Rockefeller, 24 years in the Senate, have all worked extensively with both Hillary and me. And you know what? They've each endorsed me. The message here is obvious: The odd person out here is Hillary; the fact that she can't acknowledge my qualifications is a tired campaign ploy, and tells you a lot more about her, than it does about me.

The tactical principle is very simple: Every time that Clinton practices the old politics of character assassination, Obama should make her pay a price. He should call her on it relentlessly. Take, for example, this gem from Hillary: "Barack Obama thinks that only your children should have health insurance."

Obama should hit back in this manner:

Beware of politicians who will say anything to get elected. Hillary knows full well that my health insurance plan is portable, cost-controlled, and available to any American who wants it. This is yet another distortion, another example of the old politics.

Or how about the consistent claim that Hillary makes, that she "won" Michigan and Florida?

You know, it takes a special kind of gumption to sign a pledge that the Michigan primary wouldn't count, watch your opponents all withdraw their names from the ballot, and then claim victory for yourself. The claim is no less ridiculous and unprincipled now than it was a month ago. As for Florida, in any state in where there is no campaigning, Hillary would win by virtue of simple name recognition. Had there been no campaigning in Virginia and Maryland, she would have won those states too. After we did campaign, Hillary lost them both big time. Given that, those Florida results mean nothing.

The controlling idea behind Obama's endgame should be that of unmasking Hillary's misrepresentations. A candidate who doesn't play straight with the electorate creates numerous vulnerabilities for herself, numerous points of attack. Obama's responsbility to his own campaign is to highlight those vulnerabilities. Hillary has found her "inner bitch." Obama needs to find his own.

Please Lord, make last night's debate from Cleveland the final Democratic debate of this election cycle! After having watched all 20 debates, and seen countless iterations of the "my health care plan is better than your health care plan" argument, I'm here to say that there is very little meat left on the bone. When two candidates have virtually the same policy prescriptions across the board, and still must distinguish themselves, it leads to minute, Jesuitical distinctions on health care and foreign policy that matter far more in the realm of political point scoring, than they do in the realm of real people.

To my great relief, last night's debate almost certainly signaled the end of this interminable campaign. If Hillary needed something dramatic to happen to change the dynamics of the race, she was sorely disappointed. Not only did Obama not make any major mistakes, it became clear last night that they could hold 15 more debates, and Obama would still not make a fatal gaffe. He is simply too smart, too poised, too disciplined, and too intellectually agile to make the kind of mistake that she so desperately needed. Indeed, during this "trial by ordeal" known as the Democratic primary season, Obama may have set a record for the fewest errors ever. The only significant mistake I've observed in the entire campaign was his unattributed use of Governor Deval Patrick's "words don't matter" language. And that issue was completely blunted by the fact that Hillary has borrowed language rather liberally herself. Otherwise, Obama has been an astonishingly consistent performer.

So who actually won the Cleveland debate? Obama did, not because his answers were better than Hillary's, but for another reason: Over the last two weeks as the race has intensified, major differences in temperament have emerged between the two candidates. I never thought I would say this, but as Hillary's position has gotten more dire, a note of hysteria has crept into her campaign as she lurches from persona to persona. It began when she tried to achieve a soft, warm moment at the close of the Austin debate by telling Obama what "an honor" it had been to campaign against him. The problem with her effort was that it worked too well. Many in the audience believed that it was a quasi acknowledgement that Obama would be the nominee. When the debate was over, and she huddled with her consultants, they almost certainly said to her, "What did you do!? You gave people the impression that we're giving up the race. You demoralized our supporters and contributors. Go say something to show that you're still in the fight!" What resulted was Hillary's unfortunate "Shame on you Barack Obama....meet me in Ohio!" speech. Watching the clip of Hillary scolding Obama like he was a seven year old child makes one cringe, and suggests a candidate who is not only losing her grip on the race, but on her emotions as well.

While Hillary has flailed around looking for a persona that can connect with the American people, Obama's unflappability has emerged as one of his biggest assets. His calm during the storm has served to completely frustrate her, as she searches in vain for a point of attack. This frustration has reached a point where she is now reduced to playing a victim role, blaming the press for her misfortunes. Hillary's latest theme is that press bias against her is the cause of her political failings. She knows this is true, because they said so on Saturday Night Live!

This notion of press bias, which has been accepted by some in the media, needs to be debunked immediately: To simply tally up the number of positive and negative press filings about each candidate to determine press fairness, is a misguided form of analysis. Instead of simply counting the number of up and down stories, one first has to determine whether those stories accurately reflect reality. For example, Hillary has gone from being the "candidate of inevitability" to the presumptive loser. As such, the press has had the role of explaining her decline. That means discussing issues like financial mismanagement, giving up on caucus states, not strategizing beyond Super Tuesday, not filing a complete slate of delegates in Pennsylvania, the misadventures of Bill Clinton, the inability to find a consistent message, the replacement of top staffers, and the loss of eleven straight contests. In explaining such campaign shortcomings, one has to talk in the negative. Obama has simply run a better, more organized, more farsighted campaign than has Clinton. Further, his trajectory during the campaign has been consistenty upward. Because of this, it is fitting and appropriate that more positive stories have been written about Obama.

As lengthy and exhausting as the primary season has been, it has accomplished its mission: that of revealing both issues and character. It is a sad irony that at its close, Hillary has transitioned from the strong, competent, "inevitable" nominee, to that of the self-pitying, victimized female from whom the mean media have stolen the nomination. I expect in upcoming polls we'll see more Clinton slippage. I further expect that Obama will win either Texas, Ohio, or both, and that this historic chapter of American politics will come to a close.

On the night of the Wisconsin primary, watching Hillary Clinton give her third straight "I won't admit that I lost" speech in Youngstown, Ohio, was an exercise in surrealism. In this era of cell phones and IPods, virtually everyone in that Youngstown crowd knew that the Wisconsin primary had already been called in Obama's favor, and that she was in route to a 9th straight loss. It had to be confusing--and depressing--to see Hillary, fake smile at the ready, behaving like it was a birthday party. To Obama's credit, after watching five minutes of Hillary's shtick, when it became clear that once again she wasn't going to concede, congratulate, or confront reality, he had seen enough. He started his own victory speech from Houston, Texas ("Houston, I think we've achieved liftoff here!") and summarily knocked her off the air waves, as every network switched to his speech. It was fitting karma for Hillary who is not only hemorrhaging votes every week, she's hemorrhaging class.

The latest parlor game among the punditocracy is that of giving Hillary Clinton free advice on how to salvage her campaign. Pat Buchanan says that she has to "drop a bomb," "go nuclear," in other words make her campaign even more negative than it has been. Chris Matthews says that she should pound away at Obama's perceived short legislative record. The problem with these suggestions is that they all miss the forest for the trees: What about the option of simply running an affirmative campaign, and if you lose, you lose, but you do it with class and dignity?

Yes, I understand that 2008 was supposed to be Hillary's turn. Hillary is frustrated, even offended, that her self-professed experience hasn't been embraced by the electorate. Experience!? If experience were really the critical attribute, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd would be competing neck and neck for the nomination right now. Indeed, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd both would have made terrific presidents. Imagine Biden's disappointment, given his real 36 years of experience in the Senate (as opposed to Hillary's "35 years" of pretended experience), to see his campaign gain no traction. Imagine how disappointed Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd was, to move his family to Iowa months before the primary, but to never rise beyond 1% in the polls? My point is this: When these two men, giants in the Senate, saw their campaigns begin to falter, they didn't start throwing brickbats at their competitors, they didn't start strategizing about which scorched earth tactic they would adopt. What they did was make an assessment of their campaign prospects, and bow out gracefully, without turning the race into a guerilla war.

Biden and Dodd withdrew in this manner in part because they are classy dignified guys, and in part because they might have been branded as boorish idiots had they not done so. Only to Hillary Clinton do we grant the option of turning the race into a nuclear war. It is only Hillary Clinton who would contemplate calling up not just super delegates, but pledged delegates, to try to get them to go back on their pledges. It is only Hillary Clinton who would lay claim to the Michigan delegates when the primary didn't count, and when other candidates had taken their names off the ballot. It is only Hillary who would claim that her opponent is in hiding, because he only wants 20 debates, not 23. In large measure, it is Hillary's very narcissism and sense of entitlement, her insistence that she is owed the nomination, that is turning off voters all over the country.

As Obama becomes the overwhelming favorite, his campaign begins to face a different type of scrutiny. It is not surprising when more media guns get turned in his direction. However, MSNBC's Chris Matthews may have outdone himself with aggressiveness last night. In a rather bizarre piece of gonzo journalism, Matthews was interviewing Democratic Texas state senator Kirk Watson, and asked Watson to name any piece of legislation produced by Obama. Here is part of the awkward exchange:

Matthews: You are a big Barack supporter aren’t you senator?
Sen. Watson: Yes I am.
Matthews: Name some of his legislative accomplishments.
Sen Watson: What I will talk about is more what he is offering the American people....
Matthews: Sir, you have to give me his legislative accomplishments.You support him for president. You are on national television. Name his legislative accomplishments, sir. Can you name anything he has accomplished, SIR?
Sen Watson: I'm not going to be able to name you specific items of legislation....

As the interview ended, and the camera came back to Matthews and Keith Olbermann, Olbermann was clearly embarrassed by the over the top interview, but the steroidal Matthews continued his assault: “He is here to defend Barack Obama and he had nothing to say. That’s a problem. Why do you think they call it Hardball?" Replied Olbermann, “But this isn’t Hardball. We are doing the election results.” The exchange between Matthews and State Senator Watson has gotten lots of air time simply because people love viewing a train wreck. But the implication by Matthews, that it tells us something meaningful about the Obama campaign, is preposterous. It tells us only that Watson came to the interview ill-prepared. Here is a primer for all the Kirk Watsons of the world:

1) In the Illinois state legislature, Obama sponsored tough campaign finance reform along with former Senator Paul Simon.

2) In the Illinois state legislature, Obama was an influential force in the establishment of a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. In line with this, he passed a bill requiring that all interrogations of homicide suspects be videotaped.

3) In the Illinois state legislature Obama pushed through both ethics reform and health care reform.

4) In the US Senate, along with Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (WI, who was surprisingly invisible during the Wisconsin Primary) Obama sponsored the greatest ethics reform package in the history of the Senate.

5) Obama and Republican Dick Lugar (IN) sponsored legislation that commits the U.S. to working toward the non-profileration of conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missles and anti-personnel mines. The legislation bears Obama's name.

6) Obama and Republican Tom Coburn (OK) sponsored the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act, which created a publicly accessible web site which lists every organization which receives federal funds, along with the purpose and amount of those funds.

This is just a small sample of Obamas legislative work, and two things are clear about his efforts: They are meaningful, and they are bipartisan. In other words, Obama's appeal to a post-partisan presidency wasn't something that he hatched yesterday. We can only hope that soon, Hillary will start accepting the idea of herself as a senator again, and become a partner in an Obama post-partisan presidency.

For all the progressive elements of the Obama campaign, there is one way in which he is a definite throwback: his ability to give a speech. No contemporary politician--with the possible exception of Ted Kennedy on a good day--moves an audience the way Obama does. The days of the memorable, stemwinding speech are long gone. If you ask individuals to name a great speech, they will either come up with MLK's "I Have a Dream," which was 45 years ago, or will reference a historic speech that they never actually heard. Modern politicians are expected to be smart and articulate, but they are rarely stirring. Even the speeches of the great orators of the past, a William Jennings Bryan or an Abraham Lincoln, sound quaint and over-the-top to the modern ear. These days, we prefer our political information to come in pithy sound bites, "McSpeeches." It is for this reason that Obama's ability to move the electorate with rhetoric has hit the campaign like an atom bomb.

Never has the oratory of a modern candidate elicited so much passion from his followers and so much envy and resentment from his opposition. I can't remember in my lifetime another example of politicians trying to discredit an opponent's rhetoric in the manner that we're seeing in this race. I'm sure that Hillary Clinton dearly wishes that she could take back that moment in the Manchester, New Hampshire debate, when she blurted out in frustration, "we don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered." That amazing line will continue to haunt Clinton throughout the campaign, as Obama still refers to it in his current stump speech. The idea of a Democratic candidate running against optimism is almost unthinkable; but there Hillary was in the heat of the battle, all but acknowledging that Obama's message of hope was driving her batty. Since then, pooh-poohing his rhetoric has become a fixation with her.

When I travel outside the Beltway, which I do frequently, I have the admittedly annoying habit of asking the political views of those with whom I come into contact. When I do, I'm constantly surprised at how little attention the average citizen pays to the 2008 race. I regularly run into well-meaning and likeable folks who have no idea which office Obama holds, what state he represents, or where he is from. As disappointi