But I got bored and didn't read past the first half dozen paragraphs. Did he ever make up his mind or does he need us to talk about him more?

1) When it's Clinton vs McCain, moderate Repubican women (and suburban women) go to Clinton.

When it's Obama vs McCain, moderate Republican women (and suburban women) go to McCain.

2) When it's Clinton vs McCain, Latinos go overwhelmingly to Clinton.

When it's Obama vs McCain, Latinos are more evenly split. Or they stay home and don't vote.

So your arguments go both ways.

Electing a man who has little experience, who will not inspire moderate Republican women and Latinos, is not a strategy for winning the White House.

The Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot.

How does Obama create a coalition to win? And no, just winning over independents is not enough. Not when you lose Latinos and part of the Democratic base.

Ignoring this is like preparing to cross the mountains on foot and neglecting to bring tents, clothes, avalanche beacons, etc.

2. When the GOP says "we'd love to run against Hillary" you shouldn't trust them. IF they really wanted to shey'd shut up about it. What you think they're dumb?

3. Obama supporter being compared to Mormom cultist:

right on.

Krugman says this today, after Referring to Nixonland and how some Obama supporters are falling into that territory:

"most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. ....many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the ...way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
[such as Whitewater] ...Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.
.....MSNBC, .....….asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” .....I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign.... if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do. ....…..progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.
…..I’d like to see ...strong assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their opponents and would support them in the general election."

Here on Slog we have Obama supporters who :
1. laugh at penis jokes ("cock is bigger" = "caucus bigger") in favor of Obama and derogatory to Clinton
2. Accuse Clinton of stealing the nomonation if superdelegates (ie the existing rules, to which Obama never raised a complaint until lately) put her over the top
3. Accuse Clinton of cheating if she wants FL seated ALTHOUGH neither she nor the people of Fl nor the other candidates EVER agreed that they wouldn't try to seat those delegates and it was Obama who cmapiagned in FL by showing TV ads not Clinton.
4. Obama supporters at my precinct said Cllinton's health care attempt in the 1990s failed because she was so in bed with the health care industrty. These types of total lies or inaccurate statements are all too common.

I've said many times Obama is a great candidate and agreat leader and I hope he's on the ticket, but since I believe he may go into free fall under a real (GOP) campaign, I think Clinton's more electable. But I hope both are on the ticket.

So Obama supporters, how about it?

ARe you all descending into Nixonland when you accuse Clinton of stealing a nomination ?

Do you in fact disrespect Clinton, the choice of roughly half the party?

Do you all feel venemous as Mr. Krugman says?

What exactly distinguishes the hope-will-conquer-all-therefore-R's-andI's-will-suddenly-realize-for-the-last-50-years-they-were-tragically-mistaken-about-their-own-vies-and-really-they-actually-want-super-liberal-policies-enacted-like-Obama-wants projection from the typical LaRouche, Leninist or Naderite projection?

That's it isn't it-- that Obama's going to charm all those folks into becoming progressives.

Isn't that your theory of how he will win and magically get everything passed?

And that the GOP won't attack him or it will just slide off?

Please tell how we get there. You're relying on his charismatic personality, right?

That sentence really hit the nail on the head in terms of how I felt -- even though I spend way more time reading and thinking about this election than probably 95% of Americans, I was undecided between the two for a long time (I had planning on voting for Kucinich to weasel out of it).

The thing is, with the amount of time I devote to the election, I highly doubt that I would have been swayed by a couple of neighbors' two minute speeches at a caucus (I live in a primary state). So, I still don't see the point of caucuses...

Also, yes a few Republicans support Obama. But it is at the expense of the Democratic base. Look at states that are a deep shade of blue. With the exception of Washington, they mainly voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. Obama wins big in states that he cannot win in November -- Idaho and North Dakota for example. Not a good general election strategy.

Obama does poorly amongst the Democratic base. He might win some independents and some moderate Republicans but he will lose some Democrats as well who will stay home and not vote.

@1 - It's not that all republicans support him (they don't - although today's column by William Kristol has me a little spooked), it's that he has a chance with smart, non-ideological republicans (yes, there are some) who can think for themselves, even against someone like McCain. Theoretically, anyway.

Julie, do you realize that ever single sentence you just wrote is a statement about yourself? Read what you said again. The reason you can't decide is that you can't stop thinking about you. Think about the candidates instead and see if that gets you anywhere.

passionateJus, I think you're having trouble recognizing something known as "winning." When voters leave their party and join ours, that means we are "winning." It's what non-Democrats know as "victory." It's strange, but you do get used to it and after a while, being a winner starts to feel good. Fear not.

The main difference between R's and D's in this presidential primary is total privatization vs public private partnerships, unilateral vs multilateral militarism, market over environment vs market-based environmentalism. Most of these debates are expressed through pure identity politics, which candidates use while accusing their opponents of being "divisive." Outside these debates over the form and not direction of American society, those who really want a radical change in American foreign policy or who want to challenge corporate power are almost totally marginalized even as their language of social justice is coopted to promote "change."

But ok, sure, I'll vote for the Dem nominee to stop the right, will even support Obama cause I think he has a better chance with independents and Republicans. Voting is about compromise, right?

I apologize for the fact that I voted based on my opinions that I hold about the candidates. Also for the fact that I used the first person in a comment on a blog. Whoops.

This is getting silly. Obama doesn't have support amongst faithful Democrats? You're seriously going to argue that?
And how has Obama's wooing of voters outside the base actually compromised liberal principles? Don't just point to rhetoric - point to action. His voting record is hardly that of a conservative.

We had this fucking bitch who seemed to only be there for the purpose of degrading Hillary supporters. When it was obvious that Obama held the court in our precinct, she displayed the ugliest smile I've ever seen and marched out of the room.

Everything about her made me want to slap her in the face. She obviously doesn't care that she's being inconsiderate and rude to her party members, as well as her neighbors.

I have one neighbor that I hate now.

I heartily encourage everyone to read Stanley Fish's piece in the NYT, a follow-up to the one he wrote last week. As another commenter on the original post points out, and I agree with, choosing Obama because the Republicans say they'd rather run against Clinton (as opposed to choosing him based on his stances or voting record or character or myriad reasons), is voting out of fear. I defer to Mr. Fish:

Electability (a concept invoked often) is a code word that masks the fact that the result of such reasoning is to cede the political power to the ranters. Carolyn Kay (456) makes the point when she observes that if you vote against Clinton because you fear the virulence of her most vocal enemies, “you have allowed the right-wing hatemongers to decide who our candidate will be.” Underlying this surrender of the franchise to those least qualified to exercise it is the complaint (rarely overtly stated) that the Clintons have had the bad taste to undergo the assassination of their characters in public and have thereby made us its unwilling spectators. This is of course the old ploy of blaming the victim, and Ava Mae Lewis (16) is at least explicit about it. After deploring the “wild accusations” and “rabid hate”, she declares herself “disappointed that the Clintons force us to make this final and public rejection.”

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://flickr.com/photos/rakka/2251527504/sizes/l/

& @10 you're a first class asshole. but hey, your crusade against people that use the word "I" or "me" sure is interesting. especially during an election when people deal with issues that matter to them. hearing people speak at the caucuses must have drove you bonkers!

[UPDATE: I just looked at your blog. speaking of being self-centered!! I, me, I, ME! memememememe!]

And retreating to your cocoon so you can get on the Internets and whine that somebody else didn't take care of the rude person for you is beyond sad.

I happen to think that Obama is the best person for the job and that he's more electable. It is possible to believe both things at once.

What we learned is: Democrats aren't good at figuring out who is electable to non-Democrats. Caucuses only magnify this information deficit further.

And sure enough, an undecided voter comes along and says next to nothing about Clinton and Obama, but rather wants to get us to hear all about herself. Which was exactly my point.

As far as my blog, I'm not undecided and my blog isn't a blog about how I'm undecided. It's a blog about me. If you read it, it's because you're interested in me. If not, browse on, baby. Browse on.