The 2008 election cycle was endless, at times exhausting, and often exhilarating. It had no shortage of surprises, twists, and turns. Before it starts to recede in our rear-view mirror, let us take stock of some of the lessons that we learned from it.

1) The pollsters were right. Before I get to the accuracy of the public polls, let me toot my own horn for a moment, and remind readers of my own projection from the previous blog entry:

...here is my fearless prediction for 2008. Obama will win the popular vote 53% to 45%, with the remainder going to Ralph Nader and Bob Barr...The final electoral result will be Obama 353, McCain 185.

The final vote total was Obama 52%, McCain 46%. As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!" In terms of the electoral vote, the count now stands at 349 for Obama, to 163 for McCain. Once you award Obama North Carolina's 15 votes (he currently holds a narrow lead) and award McCain Missouri's 11 electoral votes (he currently has a narrow lead), the final tally becomes Obama 364, McCain 196. What that means is that out of the 50 states, I called only one state wrong: Indiana, which Obama won 50% to 49%. Since my arm is aching from patting myself on the back, let's look at the professional pollsters:

The final realclearpolitics.com average of all the professional polls was Obama by 7.6%. Obama actually won by six per cent. With all the tricky variables at play--new voters, young voters, early voters, African-American voters, weather issues--the pollsters have good reason to feel proud. That is an excellent result. Particularly noteworthy among the pollsters was the Pew Research Poll, which called the election at 52-46, and for the second straight presidential cycle, nailed it perfectly. Rasmussenreports.com also called the race perfectly, at 52-46. An honorable mention must be given to the CNN Opinion Research Poll, which forecast a 53-46 result.

People love to bash the pollsters when they're wrong, accusing them of incompetence. They also love to bash the pollsters when they're right, accusing them of sucking all the romance out of politics. In this election cycle, the pollsters get nothing but serious props from me.

2) Our voting process is a disgrace. In the presidential campaign of 2000, had either Gore or Bush won handily in Florida, no attention would have been paid to the atrocious "butterfly ballot" in West Palm, the punch-card voting system with all its hanging chads, nor the problem of voters being illegitimately purged from the rolls. It was the closeness of the race that magnified these issues. Conversely, Obama's comfortable victory in this election has hidden the fact that our election process is still in a shambles, with intolerable lines, non-uniform procedures throughout the country, machines that break down, large numbers of votes that can't be recounted because there is no paper trail, and uneven distribution of machines that disfavor and burden poor communities.

Can somebody please explain to me why designing a voting system that works is so damned complicated? After all, every day millions of people use ATM machines. You walk up to the machine and it asks you, do you want $20, $40, or $60? You then make a choice from these "candidates," it completes the transaction, and produces a paper record of your decision. Millions of these transactions are carried out, error-free, every day. If people had concerns that the transactions were not secure, or that they would be recorded inaccurately by the bank, the system would collapse immediately. For decades, it has worked smoothly. Why on earth can't this same technology be replicated for elections?

Some analysts have suggested that paradoxically, early voting may have had the effect of actually lowering voter participation. This is because many people who observed three hour waits during the early voting period, may have become fearful about going on election day. The Atlanta Journal Constitution suggests that this dynamic occurred in Georgia:

It's possible that the 4- to six-hour lines many voters epxerienced during advance voting scared some people away from the polls on Tuesday, some country officials said. Both Fulton and Gwinett Counties said they saw an early push of voters on Election Day, but lunchtime and after work crowds never materialized. "Could it be that people were afraid of the long lines they saw? said Gwinnett County spokesman Joe Sorenson."We definitely expected the polls to be full all day long."

It is estimated that once all the votes are counted, voter participation will be at 64% in the 2008 election, the highest percentage since William Howard Taft beat William Jennings Bryan exactly a century ago in 1908. Surely, however, we can do better than 64%.

3) How (not) to pick a vice-president. Much has already been written about the strange process by which John McCain picked Sarah Palin: He had met her only twice, and there was virtually no vetting of her before the choice. Robert Draper offers an anecdote in his article in the New York Times Magazine that shows just how bizarre and impulsive the choice of Sarah Palin was:

After that first brief meeting, [top McCain advisor Rick] Davis remained in discreet but frequent contact with Palin and her staff — gathering tapes of speeches and interviews, as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on “The Charlie Rose Show” that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn’t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, “I’m undecided.” What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P.”

It is this kind of sophomoric thinking that led to the disaster that was Sarah Palin. Only now that the election is over, are we learning the full story of just how dysfunctional Palin was. FOX News reported yesterday that she had repeated blow-ups and temper tantrums, and thought that Africa was a country rather than a continent. Further, a staffer who leaked information supportive of her was fired, then rehired, to avoid publicity. Other outlets are reporting that her shopping spree was far greater than originally reported:

According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

But the real problem with Sarah Palin is the same one that she would face in 2012: She's not very bright. Palin's problem was not one of experience, it was one of intellect. Who in their right mind would babble incoherently to Katie Couric that they had an understanding of Russia because Vladmir Putin flew over Alaskan air space? From the first day of her introduction in Dayton, Ohio, Palin was little more than Dan Quayle with lipstick and panty hose.

There is a simple but profound lesson to be drawn from the choice of Sarah Palin: When picking a vice president, imagine them being interviewed for a full hour on Meet the Press. If the image doesn't work, strike that individual from the list immediately. The notion that Palin was ready for the presidency, but not ready for Meet the Press, was one of the most preposterous ideas of the campaign.

4) Miscellaneous. A few quick notes. As inspiring as Obama's victory gathering in Grant Park was, I was a little disappointed, for two reasons. First, Obama's tone seemed jarringly somber for such an upbeat occasion. Likewise, it was disappointing to me that when they cued the music at the end, Stevie Wonder, a staple of the Obama campaign, was nowhere to be heard. I think that the Obama team forgot that the Grant Park audience was there not to hear a ponderous speech; they were there to celebrate the election with a great party! And no scene would have been more perfect than 100,000 people dancing while Stevie Wonder sang that Obama's election was now "Signed, Sealed, Delivered."

Finally, I suspect that I am only one of thousands of people who would stop at various points during the campaign and say to themselves, "God, I wonder what Tim Russert would say about that," or "I wish Tim Russert were here to see that." Russert's absence changed the campaign season in ways both big and small. His loss was yet another bittersweet reminder to all of us how life moves on even after the most talented among us have gone away. Rest in peace, Tim.

John McCain and his surrogates have been crisscrossing the country, gamely predicting that they will pull off a "Truman beats Dewey" shocker in the election tomorrow. That seems highly unlikely, for three reasons: 1) In the 1948 Truman/Dewey election, when the polls proved so wrong, the science of population sampling was in its infancy, and was far more primitive than the sampling techniques of today; 2) In 1948, pollsters Roper and Gallup were lulled into complacency themselves, ending their polling a week before the election; 3) The sheer number of polls today, and the subsequent averaging of them, is a significant check on sampling error in any given poll.

As I write this the day before the election, three pollsters have just issued their final reports of the campaign:

1) Gallup predicts that independents will break significantly for Obama, with the final result being Obama 55%, McCain 44%. In 2004, the final Gallup Poll showed the race a tie at 49% for Kerry and Bush.

2) The final Pew Research Poll has the race 52% Obama, 46% McCain. In 2004, Pew predicted a 51-48 margin for Bush, nailing the outcome exactly.

3) The final CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Obama with a 53-46 lead in the election. Four years ago, the final CNN poll showed Bush with a 2 point advantage. Bush eventually won by 3 per cent.

At the statistically rigorous website, fivethirtyeight.com, numbers-cruncher Nate Silver lists the 14 most recent, major, presidential polls. All of them show Obama winning, ranging from the CBS/NYTimes poll, which shows an edge of 13% points, to the IDB/TIPP poll, which gives Obama a 2% national lead. It is noteworthy that the polls which incorporate cell phone sampling in their methodology give Obama the greatest leads. This is presumably because contacting cell phones expands the sample to a younger group of voters, who overwhelmingly favor Obama.

Before I give my own prediction of the popular and electoral outcome, I would be remiss if I didn't give some props to the poll which has predicted the winner of the presidential race accurately in 12 of the last 13 elections, stretching back 52 years: The Weekly Reader Poll. Every election cycle, the Weekly Reader asks the views of its readership, school children from K through 12. The only election since 1956 where the Weekly Reader Poll erred, was the Clinton win in 1992, and that was probably because they left Ross Perot off the ballot. Otherwise, the Weekly Reader's national poll of students has been uncannily accurate. In 1972, the Weekly Reader Poll accurately predicted that Nixon would carry 49 states to only two for McGovern. In 1980, while some pollsters had the race close between Reagan and Carter, the Weekly Reader predicted a blow-out. This year, the kids predict a similar Obama blow-out: 54.7% for Obama, 42.9% for McCain. The other 2.4% went to other candidates. This result is almost identical to that of the Gallup Poll. On the electoral front, it was even more lopsided,as The Weekly Reader forecast a 420 to 118 electoral rout.

One last piece of data: A look at the offshore betting shops shows that they have made Obama a 10 to 1 favorite in the election. This means that in order to win $100 betting on Obama, you would have to risk $1000!

So with all of that data to build on, here is my fearless prediction for 2008. Obama will win the popular vote 53% to 45%, with the remainder going to Ralph Nader and Bob Barr. In the all-important electoral count, Obama will eke by in Florida, and Virginia. Obama will also hold on to Pennsylvania, overcoming a surge of white, working class support for McCain. By virtue of superior organization, Obama will also squeeze by in Ohio, with comfortable wins in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and of course, Illinois. Early voting and a massive turnout by students and African-Americans in North Carolina will give Obama a win there. McCain will take Georgia, hold on to Indiana, and will nip Obama in Missouri. Out west, Obama will triumph in Nevada, New Mexico, and gain a sweet victory in Colorado. McCain will escape humiliation in Arizona, and will win Montana and North Dakota. McCain will make no inroads in New Hampshire, and Obama will make no inroads in Nebraska. The final electoral result will be Obama 353, McCain 185.

I invite all readers to show some cojones, and make predictions of your own in the comments section!

Finally, many have told me that they fear a withdrawal phase once the election is over, a letdown from all the campaign excitement. Not I. Personally, I can't wait for the real business of governing to begin under an Obama administration . And don't try to reach me on Wednesday morning; I'll still be out celebrating!

The other day in my car, I was listening to my favorite radio station, XM-radio's POTUS '08 (Politics of the United States), dedicated entirely to the 2008 political cycle. A media consultant named Thom Mozloom happened to be on the air analyzing the race. Mozloom wondered how a race with such an enormous gap in spending between Obama and McCain could still be close. His point was that given the money gap between the two candidates, Obama should be looking at a landslide victory. According to Mozloom, it was the campaign's media failings--questionable ad decisions by Obama and more importantly, gaffes by Joe Biden--that were keeping an election close "that should shake out to be a blow-out." 

I beg to differ with Mozloom's analysis. We live in a country that has been culturally and ideologically divided for decades. Barack Obama is a 47 year old African-American, who, when he first announced his candidacy in February of 2007, was given virtually no shot at winning the nomination, let alone the presidency. In small town America, journalists have repeatedly shown us that there are significant pockets of resistance to the idea of a president of color. The mere fact that Obama is poised to win this election is amazing. Blow-out? Possible, but unlikely. 

Just this week, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus visited a Walmart in Logan County, West Virginia, to examine citizens' views about Obama. Here is a sample of what she found:

"If I do vote, it will be Republican," said Charles Mount, a 31-year-old mechanic and registered Democrat. "There's just something about Obama. You hear so much about him being a Muslim. I don't personally believe that but I don't know that. I'm not going to take a chance on the leader of our country." "

"If Barack Obama gets in, it basically will be giving our America away to whatever . . . ," said Jamie Willis, 42, who voted for Clinton in the primary. Her husband, Brent Willis, 37, a contractor and registered Democrat, filled in the blank. "To be brutally honest with you, if Obama goes in there the [blacks] are going to go crazy -- and I'm not a prejudiced person."

Terry Sanders, a court clerk, said he "wouldn't vote for Obama if he was running for dog catcher. His values are completely different from mine. Why's he got a problem with the flag? He wouldn't put his hand over his heart. It casts a lot of doubt about what kind of man is this fellow."

Even more striking is Marcus' comment about these quotes:

These are not incendiary quotes cherry-picked from among multiple interviews or cajoled out of people reluctant to express a view. They came from the first eight people who stopped to answer my questions -- of whom just one said she supported Obama, citing the backing of the mineworkers union.

Obviously, Obama has had to face hurdles that no white presidential candidate would have to confront. If Obama were not black, the internet slurs--"he's a Muslim," "he doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance," "he doesn't respect the flag," or more generally, in the parlance of Sarah Palin, "He doesn't see America the way we do"--would never have gained any traction whatsoever. The fact that two years into Obama's candidacy, these myths still exist, is best explained by Obama's wry comment, "I don't look like the other presidents on the currency."

Thom Mozloom's criticisms notwithstanding, for almost two years, Obama has run a terrific campaign with virtually no margin for error, no easy feat. To drive home this point, let's try a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that Obama carried with him the following baggage:

1) He finished fifth from the bottom of his class in college (McCain).

2) His spouse previously had a drug addiction that led her to steal drugs from her own medical foundation (McCain).

3) He has a daughter who is pregnant out of wedlock (Palin).

4) He has a spouse who for years belonged to group that advocated the secession of his home state from the Union (Palin).

5) He played an unethical role in a previous financial meltdown that cost the taxpayers billions (McCain).

Can you imagine what the right-wing attack machine would do with these facts? FOX News would be beating these issues to death. Well, actually they wouldn't, because no black candidate could survive a presidential race for five minutes with such baggage. The pregnant daughter alone would have people saying, "He's devaluing the presidency with his hip-hop values." That is why I would never saddle Obama with the expectation that "he should win by a landslide." If Obama gets 270 electoral votes, it will be the most remarkable accomplishment in American electoral history. It will be a seismic paradigm shift. The good news, however, is that once a new paradigm is created, it is amazing how we as a country adapt to it, even to the point of forgetting—or perhaps repressing—that the old paradigm ever existed. Let me expand on this point with a brief story:

In 1939, two African-American men, Clarence M. Davenport and Robert B. Tresville, entered West Point, among the first black men to have done so. Their presence evoked outrage. After all, who really believed that black men had the courage, intelligence, values or patriotism to assume such roles? While it was standard for cadets to be assigned roommates, Davenport and Tresville were not only not allowed to room with white cadets, they were also not allowed to room with each other. So each roomed alone. For four years they endured a form of treatment called "silencing," in which white cadets would not speak to them unless for official business. Even in the chapel, white cadets would not sit with them. When Life magazine came to take a picture of Davenport's graduating class, he was excluded from the picture.

Both men became model soldiers. In the 1960's, Davenport was given the Legion of Merit for his command of the 10th Artillery Group, 32nd Army Air Defense Command in Europe. and retired from the Army in 1972 as a full colonel. And Tresville? He became the commanding officer of the Tuskegee Airmen's 100th Fighter Squadron, and in 1944, was killed on a mission off the coast of Italy.

I mention these men for two reasons. The first reason is that they are great heroes, unsung heroes, men who created a new paradigm, a new narrative about our military. The military is now perhaps the most integrated institution in our country, and many Americans cannot even remember a time when blacks were shunned at West Point, and seen as lacking "good American values." The second reason is that Robert Tresville was married to my mom when his plane was lost over the Mediterranean Sea. It is because of the exploits of men like Tresville and Davenport that we now take for granted the Colin Powells of our nation.

Speaking of Powell, I agree completely with his assessment on Meet the Press that an Obama presidency will be "transformational." A world wide Gallup poll recently showed that three-quarters of the citizens in the 70 countries that they polled are hoping for an Obama presidency. This was true from Asia to Africa to Western Europe. In fact, Gallup only managed to find two countries where McCain was preferred: Georgia, and the Philippines.

This leads me to conclude that--in contrast to the overwrought warnings of Joe Biden--Obama will actually get the benefit of a global honeymoon period once he is elected. Temporarily at least, Al-Qaeda will be defanged, because it will become much harder to recruit terrorists when the American president is a role model in both developed and developing nations. When Obama is elected, black kids will start sitting up straighter in the classroom, and the notion that being studious is somehow "acting white," will lose all its destructive power. And instead of hearing the cynical and confused slogan, "I am Joe the plumber," we will hear children of all colors and creeds from all over the world saying, "I am Barack Obama, I am Barack Obama."

John McCain likes to use words like "duty," "honor," and "putting America first," to describe the heart of his presidential campaign. It is clear that McCain sees himself as a lonely island of principle surrounded by a sea of corruption. And there have been occasions--as McCain will be quick to tell you--when he has taken difficult and principled positions on issues: originally opposing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, standing up for campaign finance reform, and taking, by Republican standards, a humane position on immigration.

But a look at John McCain's career reveals that all too often, he has failed to live up to his own billing. The problem for McCain, is that all too often in his life, when political gain and principle have collided, it is the principle that has been thrown aside. In life, even the highest ideals often give way to factors like stress, ambition, and greed. For all his high-toned rhetoric, John McCain is a classic example of this. Let's look at some examples of McCain's lapses of honor:

1) The 2000 South Carolina Primary. In January of 2000, George W. Bush and John McCain were locked in a battle for the Republican nomination. The stakes were particularly high for Bush, who had just lost to McCain in New Hampshire by 18 percentage points. Bush badly needed a win, but McCain had the early momentum. The Bush team responded with a new campaign strategy. In 1993, Cindy McCain had traveled to Bangladesh and adopted a Bangladeshi child named Bridget. Bridget had a cleft palate which needed medical treatment, and she had dark skin. The Bush partisans saw an opportunity there. During the campaign, South Carolina citizens suddenly began getting phone calls at dinner time, asking:

Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?

Other calls mused about Cindy McCain's drug use, and referred to McCain as the "fag candidate." The view of those on the ground in 2000 is that these calls were the work of Karl Rove, and of Charlie Condon, a Bush supporter and former South Carolina Attorney General. Not surprisingly, both men deny involvement in the vicious and well-orchestrated campaign, but here is what Condon had to say when asked about the smear campaign:

Our primaries have a way of doing that. There is a tradition of it, it is accepted behavior, and frankly it works. There are no regrets about 2000. To this day I don’t have one. If someone did those things, shame on them. But I did see that there was a need for bringing up issues.

So, under attack in South Carolina with poll numbers dropping, what did McCain do? He suddenly became a supporter of the confederate flag. McCain dropped his previous opposition to the confederate flag flying atop the Statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina. Asked by a reporter about his position on the flag, McCain expressed a newfound openness to it:

Personally, I see the flag as symbol of heritage.

McCain went on to lose the South Carolina primary by 11 points. By April of 2000, Bush had become the presumptive nominee. The campaign now over, and nothing at stake, John McCain had yet another change of heart about the confederate flag. In April of 2000, he returned to South Carolina and apologized for his support of the flag:

I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles...I believe the flag should be removed from your Capitol, and I am encouraged that fair-minded people on both sides of the issue are working hard to define an honorable compromise.


This is the quintessential John McCain: No one issues a more remorseful apology than John McCain. The problem throughout his political career is that when he is confronted with the prospect of losing, his principles collapse like an old lounge chair. Shortly after the South Carolina episode, McCain commented to an interviewer that there must be "a special place in hell" for those who had perpetrated the smear against him and his family. Remarkably, however, after blasting the villains who had sabotaged his campaign, McCain had another change of heart, and hired Charlie Condon, the likely culprit in the affair. Ann Banks describes it best in her article in The Nation:

Seven years later, who is running McCain's South Carolina campaign? Charlie Condon, the former State Attorney General who in 2000 helped spread the innuendo targeting [McCain’s daughter] Bridget. If you can't beat them, hire them--even if they've launched racist attacks against your own daughter.

Hiring the guy who smeared your own daughter with racist phone calls, ranks pretty high on my scale of dishonorable acts. The frightening thing about McCain, is that he apparently believes that if the apology is contrite enough, it wipes the slate clean on the bad act that preceded it.

2) The Keating Scandal Take the case of the Keating Five. McCain, along with four other senators, intervened with regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, a man who bilked investors out of billions in the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal. Keating was a friend and contributor of McCain, who had given him over $112,000 in contributions, and $13,000 in free trips to the Bahamas. (McCain reimbursed Keating only after Keating became a target of investigators). The intervention of the five senators kept the regulators at bay for two years, allowing the fraud to continue, which of course worsened the financial loss for unwitting investors. Predictably, here is the McCain mea culpa:

The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do…. It was the worst mistake of my life.

He gives great after-the-fact apologies, doesn’t he?

At the Rick Warren values forum, McCain was asked to describe his greatest moral failing. He responded:

My greatest moral failing, and I have been a very imperfect person, is the failure of my first marriage.

Of course, what he really meant by this, is that he had taken up with a hotter, richer woman, after his wife had been seriously injured in a car accident, had spent 6 months in the hospital and had 23 surgeries.

Based on this, I’ll make a wager right now: After he loses the presidential election, McCain will offer a full-throated apology for his campaign’s use of words like “socialist,” “terrorist, and “celebrity” to describe Barack Obama. But I guarantee that it will be a good apology. That’s what McCain does best….

In this election cycle, the conventional wisdom about the presidential debates is that they have been forgettable, poorly moderated, and gave us little new insight into the candidates. After last night's third and final debate, NBC's Tom Brokaw commented, "It seems unlikely that anything we heard tonight really did move the needle." Many pundits have suggested that the debates have been an irrelevant sideshow that has not told us much about the candidates. I beg to differ.

Regardless of the format, or quality of the moderator, debates always serve as a kind of trial by ordeal, an inkblot test for the candidates to reveal who they really are. In this regard, the three presidential debates were a tremendous success. When people criticize the debates, what they usually mean is that this or that debate didn't meet modern standards of entertainment; it didn't divert us in the manner of CSI, Dancing with the Stars, or for that matter, WWE wrestling. Such critiques miss the point. I would submit that along with the economic crisis, historians will look back on the debates as the most decisive factor in the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

The question going into the first debate in Oxford, Mississippi was, would Obama show the maturity and command that we look for in a president? Would McCain show the grace under pressure and independence from George W. Bush necessary to right the wrongs of the past eight years? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Barring any gross factual or rhetorical flubs--like Gerald Ford liberating Poland in 1976, or Bob Dole complaining about "Democrat wars"--style, or more accurately put, character, trumps substance every time.

And during the debates, character was revealed in spades. From the first debate to the last night's final one--ably guided by Bob Schieffer of CBS--there was utter thematic consistency: Barack Obama was even and reassuring, John McCain was seething, angry, and yes, erratic. There have long been whispers from McCain's fellow senators about his temper, his tendency to lose control, diss, and berate his colleagues. Before the debates, however, it was easy to dismiss such charges as hype and political jockeying. But the John McCain who couldn't bring himself to look at Obama in the first debate (something he categorically denied when asked about it by George Stephanopoulos afterward), the John McCain who contemptuously referred to Obama as "that one" in the second debate, and the John McCain we saw last night, were all of a piece. This is a man whose emotions are barely in check, who at times looked like he wanted to take a swing at Obama rather than engage him in debate.

McCain was not helped last night by the abundant use of split screen, repeatedly showing McCain while Obama was talking. The television audience was treated to a succession of blinks, eye rolls, flushed faces, and looks of pique from McCain that did nothing to comfort the viewer about his self-control. He looked like the principal of a high school in one of those teen movies who had been challenged by one of his know-it-all students, and was now caught between his desire to maintain his dignity and his desire to strangle the student.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the flash polls showed Obama winning the debate by upwards of 60-30. The situation set up perfectly for him. Obama is far more comfortable as the counter-puncher than as the aggressor. While some pundits judged him as too passive last night, what Obama did was employ a classic rope-a-dope technique: Allow your opponent to keep punching until he becomes increasingly tired, frustrated, and reckless. By the time McCain launched into his pre-scripted speech about William Ayres, millions of viewers, fresh off the latest stock market 700 point downer, were asking, "What's this got to do with the price of tea in China?"

It is ironic that John McCain experienced the same frustration with Obama as did Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Just as Hillary complained repeatedly about Obama being "just speeches," I knew that McCain had lost it last night when he started referring derisively to Obama's "eloquence." And when McCain groused about Obama's "eloquence" just after Obama had stood up for the right of a woman to have a late-term abortion if her health were imperiled, McCain seemed particularly churlish.

The bottom line is that it is now Obama's race to lose. CNN has him ahead by a staggering 10 points in Virginia, a state where Bush defeated Kerry by 9 points. Obama is ahead by 4 points in Colorado, which hasn't gone Democratic in 16 years. And the Democrats are poised to get some sweet revenge in Florida where Obama has opened up a 5 point lead on McCain. And all of this is partly due to what the three debates revealed: Barack Obama is one of the most reasoned, steady, and disciplined candidates in our lifetime.

Back in the 70's, the tongue-in-cheek, anti-war question was, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" In an embarrassing variation on that theme, the question from last night's vice presidential debate was, "What if they gave a debate and the moderator didn't show up?" Simply put, moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS was missing-in-action.The rhetorical battle between Biden and Palin was so unusual that it may have changed the nature of debate as we know it. Palin's strategy was ingeniously simple: If the moderator asks you a question about which you know nothing, simply refuse to answer it, and instead answer one of your own making. The Palin strategy produced a bizarre back and forth in which one never knew what Palin was going to say, because she paid so little attention to the question at hand, preferring instead to simply recite pre-rehearsed monologues. As a result, it wasn't long before the inmates, or should I say the inmate, was running the asylum, and the moderator had abdicated control.

I would grade the participants as follows:

Biden: B+ Biden was as disciplined and on point as I've ever seen him, making his points with a crispness and seriousness befitting a vice-presidential debate, even while Palin tried to distract him with a procession of winks, quips, jokes, shout-outs, and misstatements of fact that sometimes came so fast and furious that it was hard to keep up with her. Biden's grade would be higher if he hadn't seemed so nervous through much of the debate, leading to occasionally garbled sentences.

Palin: C Just for showing up and surviving the ninety mintues, Palin gets a C, though her survival depended largely on being able to dismiss any question that did not conform to the talking points that she had previously memorized. Early on in the proceedings she gave warning that the debate questions were in her view, an evil creation of the mainstream media, and that answering the moderator's questions was optional:

I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record...

Toward the end of the debate, in an oblique reference to her disastrous Katie Couric interviews, Palin continued her criticism of the mainstream press:

I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they've just heard. I'd rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.

Ifill: F I'm not sure I've ever seen a debate in which the moderator was as docile as Ifill was last night.There are three basic tasks for the moderator of any major political debate: 1) Set an agenda by raising serious and relevant questions 2) Keep the participants on task so that they follow the agenda at hand. 3) Highlight any lapses of clarity, factual accuracy, or candor with follow-up questions. I don't believe that Ifill managed to accomplish any of these tasks last night.

Ifill was almost certainly affected by pressure from conservative groups, who viewed her upcoming book, Breakthough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, as a serious conflict of interest. In the view of Ifill's critics, her book, due to be released on inauguration day, would obviously be more relevant and more financially successful if Obama won the presidency, than if he did not. There is some truth to this complaint, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Ifill felt the need to overcompensate during the debate by giving Palin free rein to pick and choose which questions she would answer.

Early on in the debate, I knew that things had gone awry when Joe Biden, in responding to a question about the subprime mortgage crisis, described John McCain as one of the biggest advocates for market deregulation. Ifill offered Palin a chance to respond to Biden's criticisms, and here was Palin's response:

I would like to respond about the tax increases. We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans so that jobs can be created here. Now, Barack Obama and Sen. Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history. Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people's side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times.

For a moment I thought I was losing my mind. Tax increases? Who said anything about tax increases!? Am I already losing my memory at such a young age!? Clearly, tax increases were the first line on Palin's list of talking points, and she was determined to raise the issue, come hell or high water.

One of Ifill's many shortcomings during the debate was her inability to ask a question without simultaneously providing multiple choice answers. So she couldn't simply ask something like, "Who was at fault in the subprime mortgage meltdown? Instead, Ifill coddled Palin with this formulation:

Who do you think was at fault? I start with you, Gov. Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?

Every time she got such a multiple choice question, Palin breathed a sigh of relief, because she then knew that she could circle "all of the above." Likewise, Ifill didn't ask how Palin would facilitate peace in the Middle East; instead, she threw her a lifeline by suggesting "...is a two-state solution the solution?" Was anyone surprised by Palin's response: "A two-state solution is the solution." Bravo!

In the category of dumb questions, Ifill asked Biden about his statement that he, "would not be vice president under any circumstances." The problem with this question is that Biden said that when he was still a presidential candidate. Show me a presidential candidate anywhere who would say, "Yes, I'm willing to take the second job." It was later, after he had ended his campaign, that Biden told Brian Williams on Meet the Press that he didn't want the job, but if asked, he would accept:

SEN. BIDEN: Unlike most other people, I'm being straight with you. If asked, I will do it. I've made it clear I do not want to be asked.

MR. WILLIAMS: Do not want to be asked. But if asked, the answer, of course, would be yes.

SEN. BIDEN: Of course it would, because the--if the president--if the presidential nominee thought I could help him win, am I going to say to the first African-American candidate about to make history in the world that, "No, I will not help you out like you want me to"? Of course, I'm--I'll say yes.

I watched the interview live on July 22, and found it to be a candid and sincere statement by Biden. Palin was apparently referencing this comment by Biden in trying to defend her own statement that she didn't know what a vice president actually did:

In my comment there, it was a lame attempt at a joke and yours was a lame attempt at a joke, too, I guess, because nobody got it. Of course we know what a vice president does.

Huh? Biden's comments to Brian Williams on Meet the Press were dead serious. This is just another example of Palin winging it with no real knowledge of what she's talking about. Conservative writer Kathleen Parker put if perfectly when she wrote: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself." By the end of the debate, when Palin had relaxed a bit, she started to tap into her inner Tina Fey, getting more cutesy and folksy by the minute. I hope I never again have to watch a debate where I hear a "shout-out" to the third grade of Gladys Wood Elementary School. I hope I never have to hear canned lines again like "say it aint so, Joe." I hope I never hear the word "maverick" again. And I hope that the Commission on Presidential Debates thinks long and hard before giving another debate to Gwen Ifill.

In his piece yesterday about Barack Obama in the Washington Post ("Too Cool to Fight?"), columnist Richard Cohen said something profound. While discussing the concept of "swiftboating," Cohen pointed out that swiftboating isn't merely about smearing one's opponent; nor is it merely about spreading falsehoods. The essence of swiftboating, Cohen wrote, is taking your opponent's greatest strengths, and turning them into negatives, liabilities. John Kerry, for example, was so dumbfounded that someone would challenge his stellar war record, he felt it was unnecessary to vigorously defend himself against the charges--a decision he now sorely regrets.

Likewise, who would have thought that the McCain campaign would treat community organizing not as something that embodies basic American virtues like duty, self-sacrifice and commitment to justice, but rather as something worthy of contempt? Who would have thought that inspiring millions of Europeans to once again believe in the U.S., would be treated by McCain and company as somehow un-American, and evidence of empty celebrity? And who would have thought that the candidate who excelled at Harvard and became president of the Law Review would be seen as "elitist," while John McCain, who finished fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, and Sarah Palin, who went to six different colleges in six years, would get a free pass?

In considering this Orwellian state of affairs, one has to conclude that swiftboating works not simply because of the virulence of the swifterboaters, it also depends on the passivity of the swiftboatees. It is for this reason that Cohen takes Barack Obama to task for a disappointing, namby-pamby performance on George Stephanopoulos, during which Obama seemed to lack any fight, any passion, regardless of how outrageous the smear against him. When asked whether McCain had picked a running mate who was "capable of being president," Obama could only muster a wan, "Well, you know, I'll let you ask John McCain when he's on ABC." Even Obama's strongest backers have to admit that this is pretty mealy-mouthed stuff. Cohen reached the same conclusion that I reached in many previous blogs, that Obama relies far too heavily on his trademark "cool," and is too slow to anger, too reluctant to fight. Come on Barack, where's the outrage?

There is an interesting parallel between Barack Obama and the great tennis player and humanitarian, Arthur Ashe. Ashe grew up in a very segregated Richmond, Virginia, and as a promising teenage tennis player, wasn't allowed to play at many of the clubs in Richmond. When he was allowed into tournaments, Ashe knew that he could not engage in any racquet throwing, arguing over line calls, or moments of petulance--standard etiquette for his white counterparts. Ashe knew instinctively that he had to be the perfect gentleman, lest he give the good ole boys reason to kick him out of the tournament. As a result, Ashe became, throughout his life, a model of comportment, and diplomacy. These traits, combined with Ashe's intelligence and empathy, were integral to the humanitarian work that Ashe did in South Africa and elsewhere.

All too often, however, people who are thoughtful, reflective and empathic are mistakenly seen as weak. Even Ashe's contemporary, Billie Jean King, an otherwise very wise woman, once said derisively about Arthur Ashe, "I'm blacker than Arthur is," perhaps the dumbest thing she ever said. My point is this: calm and diplomacy are great traits to own, but there are certain times in life where it is passion and fight that carry the day. I believe that Obama is currently in the fight of his life, and he needs to recognize this and squarely engage the opposition.

Since the early days of the primaries, I've maintained that the most significant moment of the campaign was the heated argument Obama had with Hillary on stage in South Carolina. People have forgotten that before that memorable moment, even the black community had not fully gotten on board the Obama campaign. But Obama finally reached the boiling point in South Carolina, after Bill Clinton called Obama's opposition to the war a "fairy-tale," and after Hillary put out an ad claiming that Obama supported the policies of Ronald Reagan. Losing his temper in the South Carolina debate was the best thing that ever happened to Obama. The public got to see that he did have some fight, some fire, and it made him all the more human and authentic. That moment was a game-changer for Obama.

The problem is, we have not seen enough of this. The only other time during the entire campaign that I can remember Obama rising to anger was when Hillary, after repeatedly refusing to say that Obama was ready to be president, suddenly decided that the "dream ticket" would consist of her as president and Obama as veep. The raw cynicism of this got Obama's dander up once again, and he mocked Hillary's flip-flop beautifully. He needs to display more of this kind of passion.

So where should the campaign go from here? First, Obama/Biden should absolutely refuse to be boxed in by the fact that Sarah Palin is a woman. They should go after Sarah Palin in the same manner that they would go after John McCain. Yes, temporarily Sarah Palin has rallied the McCain troops. But in picking someone so manifestly unprepared to be president, McCain has created a vulnerability for himself large enough to drive a truck through. Obama and Biden have simply been slow to exploit it. The notion that Palin is ready to be president, but isn't ready for Meet the Press, is another one of those Orwellian absurdities that should be trumpeted by Obama, Biden, or both, every five minutes. I can hear Palin apologists already, saying, "But she's being interviewed by Charlie Gibson!" Fiddlesticks, that's a far cry from maintaining a daily dialogue with the press and with the voters, something one would expect of any candidate.

In keeping with this, the Obama campaign ought to start keeping a daily tally of the number of days that the McCain is hiding Palin from the Sunday talk shows. They should make a big deal out of it, declaring in a daily press release:

"It's been 10 days and counting since Sarah Palin has been in the McCain 'witness protection program.' When will she come out of hiding?"

The Obama campaign should beat this issue like a drum, because Palin's lack of readiness to be president is the ultimate issue, more important than her support for the "bridge to nowhere," more important than her faux opposition to pork barrel projects, more important than her denial of global warming. Smoking out Sarah Palin, and by extension, John McCain's judgment, should be project number one for the remainder of the campaign. And it's become fairly clear that Hillary won't do it. Hillary is content to continue her perfunctory, joyless, I'm-only-out-here-because -I-have-to-be style of campaigning. Now that Hillary has opted to stick her thumb in Obama's eye by professing such loyalty to the "sisterhood" that she can't take on Sarah Palin, the time has come for Obama to move beyond "nice." He needs to find his inner toughness.

As more information surfaces about vice-presidential choice Sarah Palin, it has become increasingly clear that Palin was a last-second choice on the part of John McCain, and underwent virtually no vetting prior to her selection. Multiple reports have indicated that McCain wanted Joe Lieberman for the position, but encountered such stiff opposition from party regulars that he was forced to drop that option. Another prospect, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, was was also unacceptable to the party base, due to his pro-choice position on abortion. That left Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, sorely lacking in both charisma and depth, and Mitt Romney, with whom McCain's relationship is strained at best. It is also clear that McCain was influenced by the tremendous success of the Democratic Convention, and was pessimistic about his chances were he to make a predictable, ho-hum choice for veep. That is why, at the 11th hour, he chose Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, hoping that she would lend a new vitality and pizzazz to the ticket. The problem for the McCain campaign is, the pick was made with such haste, the McCain campaign knew little about her.

Since then, information has emerged which suggests that Palin is a lot longer on drama, and shorter on gravitas than McCain would have hoped. Let's take a look at what we now know:

1) The New York Times reports that Palin has hired a private lawyer to deal with the investigation into whether she improperly used her office as governor to try to get her ex-brother-in-law fired, during his bitter custody battle with her sister.

2) It has come out that during the 90's, Palin was a member of the "Alaska Independence Party," one of whose goals was the secession of Alaska from the United States. Can you imagine if Barack Obama had belonged to a group which advocated the secession of Hawaii from the Union? We'd never hear the end of it!

3) Palin campaigned against her own mother-in-law, who was attempting to succeed Palin as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Much of Sarah Palin's disenchantment stemmed from her mother-in-law's pro-choice views. Her mother-in-law, Faye Palin, who lost the mayoral race to the candidate that Sarah Palin backed, told the New York Daily news that she is considering voting for Obama.

4) While McCain praised Palin during his introduction of her, for rejecting the infamous "bridge to nowhere," it has since come to light that that before it became a national scandal, Palin was a staunch supporter of the infamous bridge. Further, in direct contradiction to what Palin said during her introduction, Alaska never gave the $400 million back to the federal government; rather, they simply transferred it to other projects. Simply put, during her debut in Dayton, Ohio, Palin fibbed when she said she had returned the money.

5) Depite the reformer label that Republicans have enthusiastically pinned on Palin, we now know that while Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, she brought in 27 million dollars of pork barrel spending, for a town with a population of 7,000. That may be a national record for pork barrel abuse per capita.

The McCain campaign has issued a series of statements purporting to show that they did a serious job of vetting Palin before choosing her. However, the statements raise more questions than they answer. Staffers first told the Washington Post that the FBI had fully investigated her; the FBI, however, denied this, saying that they perform no such function for the candidates. Further, the New York Times found that the McCain campaign never bothered to talk to Palin's associates in Alaska. Here is Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Palin served as mayor:

They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community.

Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, questioned whether any serious vetting had been done on Palin, given the universal surprise in Alaska over the choice:

I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called. I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.

The fact that the McCainites knew so little about Palin diminishes her as a candidate, but it diminishes John McCain even more, making a mockery of his bromides about judgment, experience and leadership during a time of great national uncertainty. The selection of Sarah Palin was clearly an amateurish, slapdash process that resulted in a pick that may now blow up in McCain's face.

Of course the most lurid fact to emerge since the choice Sarah Palin is that of her daughter Bristol's pregnancy, a pregnancy putatively in its fifth month. This information was disclosed to the press in the wake of rampant internet speculation that Bristol, now 17, had been the real mother of Sarah Palin's fifth child, Trig Paxson Van Palin. While I am aware that the internet is rife with false and slanderous rumors, many of which have indeed targeted Barack Obama, the facts surrounding the birth of Trig Palin are so bizarre and unlikely, that they bear further discussion:

On March 5, 2008, Sarah Palin announced at a press conference that she was 7 months pregnant with her fifth child. The reaction to the news was universal; everyone was shocked because she didn't look remotely pregnant. A month later, while presumably 8 months pregnant with a child that she knew would have Down's Syndrome, she attended a conference in Dallas, requiring significant travel by air, itself a bit unusual for someone with such an advanced pregnancy. As Sarah Palin tells the story, she was in Dallas on April 17, when she began to leak amniotic fluid. Whether her water fully broke is, I suppose, a semantic issue. Despite this sign of impending childbirth, and accompanying labor pains, she decided to give her keynote speech at the energy conference she was attending. Then, rather than simply check herself into one of Dallas' fine hospitals, she went to DFW airport, bought a ticket, checked her bags, dealt with the hassle of security, and made a 9 hour trip back to Anchorage (with a stop in Seattle), while not disclosing anything to Air Alaska, and while apparently leaking amniotic fluid. So Palin's version in a nutshell is that she got pregnant at age 44, and at seven months, wasn't showing at all--itself highly unlikely. Then, at eight months, her water broke, and she chose not to go to a hospital in Dallas, all the while knowing that she would be delivering a "special needs" child that could come at any moment. Instead, she decided to return to Alaska, the rationale apparently being that she wanted to have her child in Alaska. To say that this scenario strains credulity is the understatement of the year.

It is also important to note that during this time, Bristol had been absent from school for eight months with "mononucleosis," and that some of her schoolmates had reported seeing her looking pregnant. We are now told that Bristol is 5 months pregnant, which would put Bristol's conception at almost the exact time of Trig Paxson Van Palin's birth, conveniently knocking down the notion that Bristol could have given birth at that time. If indeed Bristol is five months pregnant, she could not be the mother of Trig. However, we have to take this on faith; if this was all a deception, why would we get the truth now? If Sarah Palin's version of events is true, it is the coincidence of a remarkable series of unlikely events, whose collective probability is close to zero. A few more troubling revelations about Sarah Palin could doom her to the same fate as would-be attorney general, Harriet Miers, and would-be vice-president Thomas Eagleton.

Finally, in conjunction with the Palin selection, let me say a few words about Hillary Clinton. Regular readers of this blog know that over the course of the campaign, I have regarded Hillary Clinton as a cynical and somewhat destructive figure. It was for that reason that I was overjoyed at the level of unity reached during the Democratic Convention. I said to myself, "Great, now I won't have to talk about Hillary anymore!" Well, with the selection of Sarah Palin, it looks like I spoke too soon.

John McCain's attempt to attract and co-opt former Hillary supporters with Palin is a gamble, not so much because of Palin's experience deficit, but because the success of McCain's strategy depends on Hillary being an accomplice to his plan to drive a wedge between Hillary's past supporters. The fact is, Hillary could put the kibosh on McCain's use of Palin as a champion of women's interests, by simply standing up and saying firmly:

She is a woman, yes. But she stands against all the important things that animated my campaign: Universal health care, the protection of a woman's right to choose, the establishment of a living wage for working families, a progressive tax system that doesn't favor the rich, a major move toward green, renewable energy, and an immediate end to the war in Iraq, with an emphasis on regional diplomacy. Sarah Palin stands against all of these goals. She is no more a promoter of my agenda than Clarence Thomas has been a promoter of civil rights. I strongly urge any supporters of mine to see through this cynical ploy by Senator McCain, and support Barack Obama for president!

Barbara Boxer and others have already said words to this effect, but the person who really needs to speak out on Sarah Palin is Hillary Clinton. McCain apparently believes that if he can appeal to Hillary's narcissism and continuing sense of victimhood, that she may simply sit on her hands while he siphons off some of Obama's support. Who knows, McCain may be right. So far Hillary has issued only the most tepid, innocuous statement about Palin. Over the next 65 days, I'll be watching to see how Hillary handles the Sarah Palin issue, and you can bet that Barack Obama will be watching as well.

It is fascinating to observe the latest criticisms of Barack Obama. From conservatives and liberals alike we have begun to hear a new mantra, "he's too arrogant, he's being presumptuous." Let's be frank about what is really going on here. It is a new racial code.

Virtually everything about the Obama campaign has debunked the conventional wisdom: He outperformed and outstrategized Hillary Clinton in the primary season, and vanquished the Clinton machine. Goaded by John McCain to travel overseas, Obama toured the Middle East and Europe in a manner that was successful beyond all prediction. Despite the wishful thinking of Republicans that Obama would be snubbed and rebuffed by our troops in the Persian Gulf, they mobbed him with joy and excitement. France's Sarkozy and Britain's Gordon Brown treated Obama with uncommon fanfare, and Sarkozy offered that the French would be "delighted" if Obama won the election. The 200,000 cheering Berliners who listened to Obama's speech symbolized something that I blogged about back on May 19, after John McCain's invidious comment that Obama was the "candidate of Hamas":

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.

Finally, Obama has led John McCain in almost every poll since the he became the presumptive Democratic nominee. I list these accomplishments not to sing Obama's praises; I do it rather, to point out how improbable and singular Obama's success has been. Barack Obama's candidacy has been the ultimate "man bites dog" story, an African-American candidate who has garnered a mass following. This is unheard of in American politics, and we have now begun to see the blowback. It comes in the form of "Who does he think he is!?" To be blunt about it, Obama is now being criticized for things for which no white candidate would ever be faulted. Let's take a look at some Obama's presumed offenses:

1) He's an Ivy Leaguer. The last three presidents, Bush junior, Clinton, and Bush senior, all had Ivy League educations. Clinton also spent time at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. When did you ever hear carping about their Ivy League connections? When was it ever suggested that any of the three must be "elitist" because they went to Yale, or Harvard, or Oxford? Indeed with George W. Bush, the criticism was precisely the opposite, that his grades may not have qualified him for so fine a school as Harvard Business School. But there was never any hint that the three presidents' backgrounds were in any way disqualifying. But we do hear that about Barack Obama.

Just yesterday, when Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's name emerged as a leading veep candidate, one writer suggested that because both Obama and Kaine went to Harvard Law School, the combination might be too "elitist" for the electorate. Huh? The sad truth is, Americans have gotten so used to the idea of African-Americans as underachievers academically, the image of Barack Obama becomes a little unsettling for some. Hence, in the minds of some voters, he becomes "elitist."

2) The "bitter comments." Obama's comments that small town America, when experiencing economic distress, clings to "guns and religion," caused a firestorm. And while it is easy to see how the remarks could be seen as patronizing, I believe that there was more to the reaction. Throughout history, we have gotten used to whites being patronizing and paternalistic toward the black community. What we don't often hear is a black man saying condescending things about the white community. So Obama's comment stood as another man bites dog story. And once again, the reaction of the blue collar community was, "Who the hell does he think he is!? This black guy thinks he's better than we are!"

Yes, Obama's words were ill-chosen, but it was his race that added the extra sting to his remarks. And the sad truth is, Obama's statement that things like guns and religion were hurting his prospects with blue-collar workers was baloney anyway. After all, those issues didn't hurt Hillary Clinton. The real problem that Obama had (and still has) in the hinterlands of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, is that he's black!

It is to his great credit that Obama has learned that the best way to deal with this issue is to address it head-on, rather than tiptoeing around it. That's why Claire McCaskill (still number one on my wish list for veep) introduced Obama this way in front of 2000 cheering, white, Springfield, Missourians yesterday:

They said a young black guy named Barack Obama couldn't get elected to the United States Senate from Illinois. They were wrong... They say he's arrogant, not patriotic, blah, blah, blah...The truth is he's humble, he's patriotic, and he's a devout Christian.

Obama, for his part, added:

Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.

When Obama made the comment about the dollar bills, the audience (mostly rural and white) chucked heartily en masse: They knew damned well what he was talking about.

3. "I am a symbol..." In one of the most ill-conceived and reprehensible columns I've seen in a long time, Washington Post writer Dana Milbank bends over backwards, trying to make his case that Obama has gone from the "presumptive" nominee, to the "presumptuous nominee." Milbank starts out with this curious indictment:

He (Obama) ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.

Let's be blunt. This is disgraceful stuff. Does Milbank seriously object to Obama meeting with economic advisors such as Paulson, Bernanke, Rubin and Volcker? Bernanke briefed John McCain in March on the potential rescue of ailing firm Bear Stearns, but apparently, Milbank thinks that was fine. Milbank's loopy column notwithstanding, we should be concerned if Obama did not meet with such advisors, not that he is meeting with them. Further, note the language that Milbank uses: In Milbank's parlance, Obama didn't "take part" in a teleconference with Paulson; rather, he "ordered up" a teleconference, as if by a snap of his finger. Obama didn't "confer" with the Pakistani Prime Minister; rather, he "granted an audience to the Prime Minister." I'm surprised Milbank didn't take it a step further and say that Obama "deigned to speak with" the Prime Minister."

But the worst of Milbank's shameful piece is yet to come: Milbank writes that Obama, while meeting with "adoring" congressional Democrats, declared:

I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

This is the quote that launched a million conservative bloggers, each complaining about Obama's arrogance. The problem is, Milbank butchered Obama's real quote:

It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

Obviously the real quote conveys a completely different meaning, but not the one that suited Milbank's purposes. My question is two-fold: First, how does Milbank sleep at night? And second, does the Washington Post have any editors?

It has become clear to me that over this campaign Obama has been held to a different standard than that of white candidates. What passes for confidence--or even acceptable puffery--among white candidates. becomes unacceptable arrogance if done by Obama. And even the term "arrogance" is a euphemism. What they're really saying is that he is "uppity." My advice to Obama? Keep being uppity; they'll get used to it.

With the Democratic Convention approaching on August 25, and the Olympics running from August 8 through August 24, many are predicting that Barack Obama could make his vice presidential choice any day now. With that possibility in mind, it seems appropriate to take a look at the major players in the Democratic veepstakes. Rather than looking at the strongest prospects first, I prefer to do the opposite, using a process of elimination to rule out the also-rans. With that in mind, here they are:

1) Hillary Clinton. The most obvious rule-out is Hillary Clinton. News reports have suggested that the vetting process for Hillary never even got started, as Bill, understandably, was loathe to turn over information about the contributors to the Clinton Library. Such a list of names would almost certainly be controversial, with many of them international billionaires and potentates, and I suspect that neither Clinton wanted the humiliation of divulging that information and then not being chosen. Further, is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how peaceful the political arena has become since Hillary exited stage right? When Hillary was still in the fray, it was a little like having a drunk person at your party; only once they leave do you realize how noisy they were. The chances of Hillary being chosen? Zero.

2) Sam Nunn. Of all the serious veep prospects, perhaps the only disastrous choice for Obama would be former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. Never seen as a progressive figure during his 24 years in the Senate, Nunn would seriously antagonize the left wing of the party, as many of his past positions have not been in synch with those of Obama. Nunn was a homophobic and reactionary figure during the "don't ask, don't tell" debate in the 90's, he has fought to limit appeals for death row inmates, and voted in favor of school prayer. To pick a running mate so ideologically inconsistent with Obama, for the sake of trying to win the state of Georgia, would be a cynical return to the old politics that Obama has forsworn. The final problem with Nunn is his age. He will be 70 this year. The age issue is quietly one of the most powerful things playing in Obama's favor. To choose a running mate so close to McCain's age would be to undercut Obama's advantage. The chance of Nunn being chosen is small, but it is greater than zero. It would be a collosal blunder.

3) Kathleen Sebelius. Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas, is often talked about as the leading female vice presidential prospect. She's a popular governor of a midwestern state, and her father, John Gilligan, is the former governor of Ohio, leading some to believe that by choosing her, Obama might get a "two-fer," appealing to voters in both Kansas and Ohio. There are, however, two problems with Sebelius. First, she is viewed by many as a wooden, uninspiring speaker. Second, despite her support of Obama, she has been little seen during the campaign. I'm a political junkie, and I've barely seen her during the entire campaign. Given her minimal exposure, it is highly unlikely that she would be chosen..

4) Bill Richardson. Regular readers of my blog know that I've always felt that Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, would add something to the ticket. With his impressive resume (Secretary of Energy, Ambassador to the UN), and his status as a Hispanic, Richardson has some very desirable attributes, as states like New Mexico and Colorado have become important battleground states. While Richardson earned the enmity of the Clintons when he endorsed Obama, I wouldn't expect that to be disqualifying. However, Richardson's low profile recently suggests to me that he is not on Obama's short list. Perhaps the Obama campaign concluded that a Black/Brown ticket was more than the country could handle. I believe Richardson's prospects are currently small.

5) Evan Bayh. Evan Bayh, senator from Indiana, is also the son of legendary senator Birch Bayh. Before his election to the senate in 1998, Evan Bayh was a two term governor, an important line on his resume. Bayh, a strong Hillary Clinton supporter, is the quintessential moderate Democrat, and would be a classic veep choice, a solid, competent and unexciting individual who may not help you that much, but would never do anything to hurt you. It is questionable, however, whether Bayh on the ticket would make Indiana, a Republican stronghold, competitive for the Democrats. Bayh's prospects of being chosen at this point are, like his politics, moderate.

6) Joe Biden. Joe Biden, senator from Delaware for the past 35 years, recently caused a commotion when he said on Meet the Press that he did not want the job of vice president and had "communicated that to the candidate." He went on to say however, that if chosen he would accept the role. When asked about this seeming contradiction, Biden responded:

if the presidential nominee thought I could help him win, am I going to say to the first African-American candidate about to make history in the world that, "No, I will not help you out like you want me to?" Of course, I'm--I'll say yes.

Biden has much to recommend him. While he serves in Delaware, he was born in Scranton, Pa, and his ties to the Keystone State would be very helpful to Obama. Further, Biden has a tremendous resume, serving on both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee. There are two downsides to a Biden vice presidency. First, he is so influential in the senate that it would be a great sacrifice for the Democrats to lose him from that body. Second, Biden is so verbose, that it is almost guaranteed that at some point in the campaign he will put his foot in his mouth. After all, only Biden would be so loose-tongued as to describe Obama early in the campaign as "clean and articulate." His chance of being chosen is moderate to good.

7) Chris Dodd. Chris Dodd, senator from Connecticut, has served in the senate for 28 years. As head of the Banking Committee he has been a central player in finding a solution to the mortgage crisis, and he offers a progressive voice in the senate that is much in synch with Barack Obama. However, recent revelations that he received favorable treatment on his personal home mortgages from disgraced lender Countrywide, has tarnished both his image and his veep prospects. He took a hit when his hometown newspaper, the Hartford Courant, wrote that it was time that "Dodd got off his high horse, came clean and admit he screwed up." Dodd's chances, once good, are now only moderate.

8) Tim Kaine. It once looked like Obama had a bounty of riches to draw from if he wanted a veep from Virginia. At this point, however, former governor Mark Warner and Senator Jim Webb have taken themselves out of the running for veep. That leaves governor Tim Kaine as the only game in town. Happily for Obama, Kaine is the best choice of the three anyway. While now a Virginian, Kaine also has roots in the Midwest, havin grown up in Kansas City. Kaine is a first-term governor of Virginia, having succeeded the popular but term-limited Mark Warner. Prior to that, Kaine had been the Lieutenant Governor, as well as the Mayor of Richmond. 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. It is a feather in Kaine's cap that he was the first politician to endorse Obama outside the state of Illinois. On the stump, Kaine has been 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. The fact that Obama campaign recently opened up 20 offices in Virginia shows the priority they have assigned to it. Kaine's prospects for the veep are solid and strong.

9) Claire McCaskill. Claire McCaskill, first-term senator from Missouri, over the course of the campaign has been Barack Obama's most visible, and most trusted surrogate. It is also true, but not generally recognized, that she played a crucial role in Obama's success on Super Tuesday. As the evening wore on, on February 5, states that Obama had been hoping for--California, New Jersey, Massachusetts--began to fall into the the Hillary Clinton column. It was crucial for Obama's momentum to be able to claim at least a "tie" on Super Tuesday. A loss in the battleground state of Missouri would have given Clinton clear bragging rights for the evening. All night long he trailed in Missouri, but late returns that came in around midnight, allowed Obama to eke out a razor thin victory that nonetheless had huge symbolic implications. This was in no small part due to the efforts of Claire McCaskill. Of all the surrogates whom I have watched over the campaign, only McCaskill matches Obama on the charm scale. She radiates both intelligence and warmth, and is the prototypical modern woman: Divorced, successful working woman with six kids and step-kids, McCaskill is an attorney by profession. Before her election as senator, she served as a prosecutor and as the state auditor of Missouri. Her zeal and good cheer in debate with her opponents reminds me of a latter day Hubert Humphrey. Some have suggested that pairing Obama with a white female might cause some primal resentment in conservative areas of the country, something to be considered. In my view, she is the best campaigner of all Obama's veep prospects, and her selection would further energize the party. Asked about her prospects however by Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press recently, McCaskill smiled and said, "If I were betting, I wouldn't bet on me."

Who do I think will get the nod? Frankly, I have no idea. I'm open to suggestions.

The recent New Yorker magazine cover depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim and Michelle Obama as a gun-toting, Angela Davis style radical, makes one thing perfectly clear: As easy as it sometimes looks, creating a good political cartoon is a very difficult thing to do. The New Yorker cartoon fails badly, not because it is offensive, but because its satirical message is so unclear that it leaves the reader confused rather than amused. The cartoon is "too hip for the room," confronting us, jarring us, without conveying any clear-cut satire or humor. As such, the cartoon falls flat. The mere fact that the New Yorker editors were forced to run around all day trying to explain the cover, reveals how flawed the cartoon was.

As novelist-essayist Arthur Koestler pointed out years ago, all good humor works simultaneously on two levels, as two seemingly incompatible frames of reference collide to produce the explosive result that we call "humor." It could be as primitive as a dignified person slipping on a banana peel, that is, the high and mighty being brought down to size. Or it could be the woman, worried that her son is seeing a psychiatrist, who is reassured by a friend, "Don't worry, it will all work out as long as he is a good boy who loves his mother." When the psychiatric meaning and the everyday meaning of loving one's mother collide, we get irony and humor.

The problem with the New Yorker cartoon is that there is no second frame of reference to help us. We see the image and wonder, is the creator criticizing Obama? Is he sympathizing? Is he commenting on shameful rumor-mongering? With so little context provided on the cover, we are at a loss as to how to respond, and that is not funny. Indeed, when CNN did a man-on-the-street poll about the cartoon, virtually no one saw it as a hip, ironic statement on viral rumor-mongering during the campaign. Rather, they tended to see it as merely an insulting depiction of Obama. That's not funny.

However, the cover could have been funny: Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist Nick Anderson, the current president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists comments, "“I think, as a piece of satire, it utterly fails." Anderson goes on to say that a caption such as "The Politics of Fear," would have added some context and clarity to the image. He continues:

It would have been even stronger had they shown an enemy of Obama painting the picture, or imagining it in their head.

Personally, I would have tweaked the cartoon by showing two images, a wholesome image of Obama and family, juxtaposed with an imaginary voter's hostile "email" version of Obama. This would have provided context and humor.

Contrast the failed New Yorker cartoon with one by cartoonist Matt Wuerker of politico.com that covers similar subject matter. Wuerker's cartoon depicts four blue collar white males sitting in a bar watching Obama on an overhead television set:

The first one says: Ya know he's a Muslim.

The second one says: And refuses to say the Pledge!

The third one says: And took his oath on a Quran!

The fourth one says: And what's worse, he's an elitist who thinks we're gullible ignoramuses!

Now that's funny! The image of four blue collar whites buying into every scurrilous rumor about Obama, then claiming that they get no respect, is a sad, painful and hilarious commentary on one of the important dynamics of this campaign. As such, it speaks more eloquently about Obama's difficulties with working class voters than virtually all of the so-called communications experts I have listened to on this subject. It is easy for such experts to bring out the cliche that Obama "can't relate" to these voters, or that he "can't close the deal." The fact is, Obama is great with working class indidviduals; he was highly successful organizin g low income individuals on the South Side of Chicago. The deeper truth here is that Obama's problem with working class whites has less to do with him than with them; even the strongest message can be undermined by suspicion and racism. The New Yorker magazine was making a laudable attempt to address this issue, but failed.

On a related note, sometimes timing and circumstance determine whether something is funny or not. On Sunday, when CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked the Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford if there were any differences between the economic policies of George W. Bush and those of John McCain, here was Sanford's response:

Um, yeah. I mean for instance, take, you know, um, uh, take for instance the issue of, uh, of, um (drums fingers), I'm drawing a blank, and, I hate it when I do that, particularly on television....

If you saw this exchange live, it was excruciatingly painful to watch. Blitzer himself said afterward, "It was painful for me, and I was the questioner!" However, imagine a Democratic campaign ad in September, in which an ominous voiceover says, "Can you name any differences between the Bush economic plan and that of John McCain?" Cut immediately to Mark Sanford hemming and hawing without being able to answer. The voiceover then says, "Don't worry Governor Sanford, we can't think of any differences either!& quot; I can assure you, in this context, Mark Sanford will be hilarious! And I have to assume that the Obama staff is preparing such an ad even as I write this. And as for Sanford? You can bet that McCain scratched him off the veep list so fast it aint funny.

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.

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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.