1.  You should never exercise the "nuclear" option against a fellow Democrat in a primary -- In this case, the nuclear option is calling Hillary a racist, and implying via your media surrogates that she wishes you were assasinated.

2.  Make your media surrogates be more subtle.  If you want them to hate on her, make sure their hatred is not so vitriolic (opposite of Olbermann, Brazille, many of the DailyKOS surrogates) that it reflects on you.

3. Count votes, don't game the system.  And maybe if you've had every advantage and you aren't kicking her hiney, then maybe it's YOU who should be the VP.

Partisan voters almost always come home after their candidate loses. The problem arises when a candidate's supporters believe that their guy (or gal) didn't lose.

Partisan voters almost always come home after their candidate loses

Maybe - but that has always happened when one clear leader emerged and it was usually early. It never happened where the presumptuous nominee had run such a scorched earth policy and the media had been clearly in the bag for one candidate.  No one else could have survived what Hillary has to do in a campaign.

There is no doubt this has been a hard-fought contest, but the nomination is not the end of it, it's just the beginning of the hardest leg of the whole race.

I wish I could shake the feeling that Obama doesn't realize that putting McCain away is not going to be a cakewalk, that he has so bought into the gushing adoration and obsequiousness from the media that he's convinced they will be helping him win - that he won't really have to work that hard.

McCain will eviscerate Obama, counting on Obama pulling his punches lest he be called out for not being the "different kind of candidate."  Obama will try age-ism against McCain, and it will fail in the way that Obama's use of sexism should have.

Hillary, on the other hand, won't resort to age-ism, but she won't pull any punches, either.

But if the superdelegates insist on being completely stupid about the obvious truth that is right in front of them - well, we'll know who to hold accountable, won't we?

The DNC will gladly follow their narrative and Barack backers on TV will do the same.

The fix, as it were, is in and if he loses in the fall (doing my best to stay positive and not say "when" instead of "if") they'll blame Clinton in a way that will make the GOP '90s Clinton Derangement Syndrome seem as mild as a head cold.

I think that works up to a point, but I think they should be more concerned with the fact that Obama outspent Hillary 2x or 3x in Ohio, Pennsylvania,and West Virgina and she still spanked him.

The strongest voices against suffrage were, of course, other women.  They tended to be wealthy, well educated and well-married women.  In short, the type of women who didn't really "need" to vote to get rights, to get things changed.  They already had more power than most women of their time.  They didn't want to jeopardize their power--or dilute it--by giving other women that kind of access.

The tool they used to denigrate women of the suffrage movement was the press.  A lot of them were married to men who owned or edited major newspapers or were publishers (Houghton/Mifflin, anyone?)  The suffragists, on the other hand, were thought of as lower or middle class.  Susan B. Anthony (unmarried)  and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (unseemly and outspoken) had gotten down in the trenches and marched and rallied to end slavery.  They were considered common.  Too aggressive.  They didn't know their place.  Even within the suffrage movement, women who fought too hard were vilified.  Cady Stanton was left out completely toward the end of her life--until they needed someone to kick butt and take names.

Former Governor Madeleine Kunin spoke for Hillary and she was great.  As usual, even here in Vt, there were some boos for her speech (when she spoke about FL and MI and the voters in those two states).  And get this, the Obama campaign sent the turncoat, self absorbed Washington lobbyist SD from Indiana, Jim Andrew to the speak for him.

The Clinton delegation turnout surprised the organizers and we had to be moved from a smaller room to the lunch room (and it was near capacity).  All our Clinton delegates pledged to stay with her and follow her direction.  It appeared that there was pretty much parity as far as turnout for Clinton and Obama supporters.

Have to say, except for that one move and the boos by Obama supporters, everything else was smooth, orderly, and well run.  Leahy spoke as the key note and was not very impressive with only polite applause lines.  Peter Welch, our Congressman, got a couple of standing ovations and lots of claps - he was actually speaking more about the issues and even used Hillary's line about the Apollo Project for energy independence and job creation.  

• for a fully vetted McCain and Hillary
  
• for a Democrat in an anti-incumbent year (with an outgoing Republican president)

But if polls are all that matters, then nominating Hillary will put California in play ... for McCain.

LA Times

Overall, Obama led McCain 47% to 40% among registered voters, while Clinton led McCain 43% to 40%.

In Ohio, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 9 points.

In Pennsylvania, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 8 points.

In New Mexico, SUSA has Obama tied with McCain.

In these swing states I have Clinton leading the popular vote by 136,000, counting Florida and Michigan but giving Obama all the uncommitted MI votes. Using electoral votes (perhaps more interesting for electability arguments) Clinton leads  180 to 122.

"I think as this race has emerged each one of them has garnered a different constituency and different states, and therefore when you put the two of them together it forms, I believe, the strongest ticket," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

"Women feel very strongly about Hillary and African-Americans feel very strongly about Barack, and the election results show that, and the young versus old, the higher educated versus the working person. ... All these things are sort of separated out into one or the other so there is a logic in combining the two constituencies."