But her statement is about as big a vanilla cookie cutter statement as you can get.

Not sure what you thought she should say. Why does her cookie have to be bursting with flavor and sprinkles. She didn't have to say anything at all.

What did Bayh say? What did Edwards say? What did Kaine say? What did Dodd say?

There's no reason to believe this was intended as a snub to Hillary.

But Hillary is no lightweight or embarrassment.  In an O admin, she would have (in the not unlikely and worst case scenario which I've brought up here before many times) been deemed (along with Bill) as too much of a headache to have hanging around the Oval -- more like Lyndon to Kennedy in that sense.  LBJ was increasingly given fewer private meetings w/Kennedy as the years went on, and was largely given frequent and lengthy overseas duties.

O would have likely found himself in somewhat similar uneasy circumstances with another highly intelligent, experienced and ambitious VP, and being human and not liking how he would have been forced to take her on the ticket like LBJ forced Kennedy, would have likely found ways to have her be somewhat less of a full working partner than she should have been given her qualifications.

Clinton/Feingold in '12.

In passing, Obama's comment about seeking a "sparring partner" bugged the p!ss out of me.

I've met sparring partners. I've had my delicate @ss kicked by sparring partners. I've BEEN a sparring partner (of people's worst nightmares) -- and Biden, suh, is no sparring partner. He's just another tropic creature following the glare of camera lights and workin' the teeth, as usual.

Don't care if this is written off as Sour Grapes of Bitter Knitting.

I didn't like hearing Sen Obama dismiss Sen Clinton -- who was tied or ahead at that point -- as a good "workout" for him;  his "Spring Training" (while fauxgressive @ss-kisser Jon Stewart fawned and nodded agreeably on The Daily Show).

Of course it was a media-given the Silly B!tch should and would quit, as helpful women who are more qualified, more experienced, and earned more votes would do the right thing.

If it's Obama, there's no way Hillary gets that job.  The last thing the Obama Fan Club in the Senate will want is the vanquished opponent in there to make trouble for the brilliant and transformative agenda that will be coming out of the Obama White House.  Pelosi will call in as many chips as she needs to with her Senate colleagues to convince them that Clinton would be a speed bump on the Obama Highway to Nirvana.

I think Clinton's survival in this campaign has enhanced her gravitas to a remarkable degree.  I'm sure she'll use that as she sees fit.

Joe Biden is the required adult presence in the car with the rookie driver

Written by a solid staffer who churns this stuff out just as I used to do.

The "popular vote" thing I know is a rallying cry, but she only won that if you look at it from a very particular angle.

I really will mow the grass at some time today but I found this on The Corner:

"I remark in passing there that Biden used to be pro-life. I'm traveling now but somewhere in my files I have a copy of a 1982 letter the senator sent to a constituent bragging about voting for a constitutional amendment to reverse Roe."

This all brings back so much for me that makes me so angry that I barely can type.  And from me, that's saying/typing something. :-)

But -- a classic starter for the reading list on the hearings is Phelps and Winternitz's Capitol Games.  And for less than a book, see the relevant reading in the book with the better title: Hull, Smith, and the great Ann Scott's All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave.

Only after this, did things begin to get nasty...and Hillary supporters hunkered down and began stating that they wouldn't vote for Obama.

I was hoping it would all work out for Senator Clinton to be the VP, but for reasons that we don't know, it didn't.  Could be taking on a partner who's spouse has recurrently strayed, and may do it again (and has been rumored to do it since leaving office).  Could be that the spouse wouldn't release all his financial records.  Could be that it was just too much connection to a previous administration (imagine a new CEO taking on the spouse of a previous CEO as second in command).  Could be that too non-white-men on one ticket wasn't polling well.  Could be that a lot of people just really don't like Senator Clinton and she was deemed to ultimately be a liability (Republicans and some independents, but still voters).  Could be just too much bad blood after the primaries.

I don't know.  You don't know.  No one here knows.  

I do know that if Senator Clinton had been elected in the primaries, I would have liked to see Senator Obama as VP, but if it didn't happen, I wouldn't personalize it like some here seem to be doing.

But my main point would be there is a big picture, and it's about Supreme Court nominations, reclaiming the power of the government from the corporate contractors, bring sanity and science back to governing, working with the rest of the world if for no other reason than that we literally can't afford not to.

Senators Obama and Clinton are very similar in policy preferences.    McCain wants to end abortion.  You may not remember the time before Roe v. Wade, but it is one justice away from being that time again.  He is also a part of the system that has given away billions upon billions of dollars to war contractors and wants to keep it that way.  I'm not talking about being hawkish or a strong defender, I'm talking about outright and pure corruption of all that used to be America.

listen to McCain's speeches. is that what you want for this country ? that's your choice. you either vote for McCain or you vote against him by voting for Obama. no other option helps keep the GOP out of office. no other choice helps advance the things the Democratic party stands for.

This is not a football game, real issues are at stake here.

indeed.

President McCain.

And he seems to be trampling all over the concept of party unity

the day after the election, ever Democrat will be unified in saying "I never really supported him...."