The demos tell it all.

And the fact is we probably would have known this already if Michigan and Florida were contested.

Obama would have lost just as he did in Cali, NJ and Mass.

The idea that such a thing could exist, a failure to understand that being candid and unity are not complimentary, but at odds with each other, remains, I guess, the line of demarcation between the two campaigns and sets of supporters.

Again, either it's an attempt to sell a candidate to a set of voters who do believe being candid and unifying is possible, and the Obama folks, underneath the advertising campaign, are smart enough to know it as such.

Or you folks actually believe it, in which case an Obama administration will not be a competent administration.

I suspect it's the former.  

Anyway, I, for one, do not believe it under any circumstances.  There are many false choices in politics.  But candid unity is not one of them.  It is a real choice, and one, in my estimation, must decide at some point what is more important to them, if one values both as one says they do.

For my part, neither concern me that much.

There is no bias. There is an informed opinion that may be right or may be wrong.

Basically, the OFB is once again spreading the lie that Obama voted present as a part of strategy to give legislators in conservative districts cover for voting "present" rather than cast an anti-choice vote.

Here's the problem - most of the votes in question took place after the year 2000 and the woman in the campaign video who leads you to believe that she was president of Chicago NOW at the time of the votes is engaging in some chronoglogical slight of hand.  Lorna hasn't actually been a member of NOW since 1999 and was not in Springfield nor part of the campaign against the bills at the time.

Bonnie Grabenhofer who was president of NOW AT THE TIME OF THE VOTES says that they very much wanted senators to vote actively pro-choice.

Below the fold is the email that she sent out in response to the Obama campaign video:

I thought I'd take a moment to try to add some clarity to the anti-choice Present votes in IL.

Lorna Brett was president of CNOW from 1996-1998. She was not president at the time we were lobbying on these bills. Five of those votes occurred in the 92nd General Assembly session in 2001. NOW records indicate that she hasn't been a member since 1999. She was not there when we were lobbying against these bills. She is using her very old affiliation with NOW to try to validate her criticism of Hillary Clinton.

Voting Present on those bills was a strategy that Illinois NOW did not support. We made it clear at the time that we disagreed with the strategy. We wanted legislators to take a stand against the awful anti-choice bills being put forth. Voting Present doesn't provide a platform from which to show leadership and say with conviction that we support a woman's right to choose and these bills are unacceptable.

The Present strategy was devised to give political cover to legislators in conservative districts. Barack Obama did not represent a conservative district; he could have voted No with very little negative consequence in his district.

- Bonnie Grabenhofer
IL NOW State President

Yes, Obama can whip up a lot of excitement among young voters, as he did in NY, MA, CA. But as was demonstrated in those states, that excitement is not enough to overcome Hillary's solid base among women, older voters, blue collar voters, Latino voters. These constituencies are not nearly as volatile and available to Obama as you would need them to be for your argument to work. The Clinton organization can get out the vote, and knows that those voters are solid supporters.

It simply can not be better.

To wit, how cna Obama win Texas, Penn and Ohio?

Frankly, I was surprised that both sides dominated each other so thoroughly in their respective states that they won. Few states were even close (like within 10).