he is going to claim that he has won more than half of pledged delegates, and that no candidate who has won more than half has never not gone on to be the nominee; I guess he will allow the rest of the country to supply the "ergo" to his syllogism.

So even the declaration of victory--the one that's been talked about for the past week or so--will wind up being an implied argument rather than an explicit one.

Obama is going to do what he always does when he's in trouble: distract and shame.  People will think, "Gosh, no one has ever been denied the nomination before in his position and if the Democrats do that they'll surely be racists!"

The "Mission Accomplished" speech could be just the shovel he needs.

He is going to be picketed and booed at with angry voters next week in FL my neighbors are promising me in Miami Beach.

Did he really think we were going to welcome him as a conquering hero?

Even though I've been a Democrat since 1977 I might get angry enough to actually vote for McCain in protest, too.

If he actually does this, it HAS to backfire.

But my problem with Obama from Day One has been his tremendous potential to become another unpopular, intensely disliked President like Jimmy Carter, who will lose his clout to continue to make good things happen, will go down in resounding defeat in 2012, and will prove to be an albatross around the neck of Democrats for many cycles to come.

To me, the question of voting for and supporting Obama is akin to the question of whether it would be right to vote for Jimmy Carter, anticipating the damage he would do to the Democratic brand years hence. From my point of view, the certainty one might have that Obama will prove out as a very destructive President for the Democratic brand is vastly higher than it might ever have been for Jimmy Carter before he was elected.

While I disliked the nature of Obama's appeal very much from the beginning, I hardly expected that it would be demonstrated so concretely and vividly in the Democratic nomination process. The rejection of the Reagan Democrats -- a constituency that will continue to dominate Presidential elections for decades, given their location and numbers -- has been simply stunning.

Obama might manage to ride the now ascendant Democratic brand to the Presidency (we'll see). But his perceived elitism, and the distrust of the man by working class voters, I do not see going away. I can't think of any politician more lacking in the "common touch" than Obama. When the Republican brand starts itself to resurge -- as it will when they are no longer in power, and can do what they do best, throw firebombs at the powers that be -- Obama's inherent faults will be entirely exposed, just as Bush's were when the 9/11 effect finally subsided.

What evidence do we have that he is capable of either? We have plenty of evidence that he is not, or does not care to.  He has displayed arrogance over and over and I, for one, doubt the word humility is in his vocabulary.  He does not seem able to admit mistakes or take responsibility for them. He whines about racism when he loses and has a highly disturbing habit of blaming everyone but himself. (Whom does this characteristic remind you of?)  

He's a guy with no accomplishments to his name (other than winning elections) running an incredibly destructive, divisive campaign (and blaming it on the opposition) for the Democratic nomination based on the idea that he's a unity candidate who is post-partisan and will bring us all together.

I'll tell you what - If you had asked me, before Obama came along, to tell you what a narcissistic personality disorder candidate's campaign would look like, my answer would have been pretty much the above.

I think, in this case, maybe it's what's really happening: Obama isn't uniting - tieing together - the party, he is untieing it in a very systematic way: he first sorts us into our various groups by gender and race and class/economics - and then he pits us against each other.  Then he promotes himself as the only one who can bring us together, the whole time hoping that no one notices that he's the one who has pulled us apart.

Unfortunately for Obama, he's got the pulling-us-apart thing down cold, but he does not have what it takes to put it all back together again - these divisions, which people have spent decades trying to narrow, will, as a result of one man's massive ego and the complicity of the media, be wider than ever and will stay that way for a long, long time.

In my so-called "progressive" state of Wisconsin, Roe v. Wade barely exists; we get an F in "report cards" on reproductive rights, such as the one from NARAL.  And when even NARAL traduces us, I'm done defending the movement or the clinics.

The Republicans need the remnants of Roe v. Wade -- as that's all it is, anymore -- as a rallying cry far more than the Democrats do.  We have seen that a court decision can be ground down into nothing.

I have already written and made it clear I hope his coattails disappear, if they ever really existed in the first place.

Let's play where-will-the-rally-be when he reaches three-fourths of the pledged delegates?  Or, heck, he bores easily, so there could be an interim rally when he reaches five-eighths of the delegates.

The possibilities are endless for this ploy -- and he really is in trouble with rural voters, so I think it's just a fine idea for him to hold "got to another fractional if fast-moving goalpost" rallies in cornfields everywhere. . . .

Do we risk Obama winning and let him have a democratic congress that doesn't provide a barrier to his incompetence? -or-

McCain, whose already smacked him down once with just a letter??

What a joke of a story that was -- and pulling the trick of posting it from Oregon, with that dateline, to make it seem like that's where the event was . . . well, as one who has taught journalism, you can trust me in saying that a look at this reporter's transcript and grades could be revealing.

The only number that counts is the number balloted at the convention in August.

Eliz announced months ago she would not make an endorsement.

And this:

Edwards: Obama is totally committed to UHC.

He's totally sold out if he's saying this publicly, because it is obvious from Obama's plan and his comments and the Harry and Louise ads, that Obama is in no way, shape or form committed to universal health care.

And I would bet my last dollar that Elizabeth Edwards knows that, but I guess she cares more about her gig at the Center for American Progress and her husband's own fortunes than she does about advocating for the one candidate who actually is committed to UHC.

My understanding is that it runs on percentiles and not necessarily exact vote counts...unless the vote is a tally style vote.