"Senator Gary Hart said today that Walter F. Mondale, as Vice President, was part of an Administration that was "weak," "inept," "uncertain" and marked by "days of shame" in Iran...

"Walter Mondale now promises an America that can and will stand up for its vital interests," the Colorado Senator told an ebullient crowd of hundreds of students at Texas A&M University here. "But Carter-Mondale actually gave us an America held hostage to the ayatollahs of the world."

"In national security as in domestic policy," he said, "we must not leave the American people with a bleak choice in 1984 between two failed pasts - that of Ronald Reagan and that of the Carter-Mondale Administration."

`Reagan's Favorite Opponent'

(a) as has been said before, Obama is pursuing a primary strategy but Clinton already has moved on (and probably began with) a GE strategy; and

(b) if she is the Dem nominee, she knows (and has known and probably focus-grouped this for years) that there will be particular issues that will be most difficult for many voters to overcome; and

(c) those issues may go against such ingrained attitudes in our country that they might not be overcome if she waits until the end of the convention -- Labor Day -- to start; and

(d) one of those attitudes that could be particularly crucial in a time when we are in two wars is whether we will be safe with a woman CiC.

Given that, she has to get started taking on McCain on this issue, saying that she can be the CiC as much as the GOP nominee.  And I do believe that on this very blog, there have been many calls for our candidates to start running against McCain.  And, frankly, Obama ought to be doing more of that, too -- but in this area, he has the weaker hand.  So of course, she is not supposed to note that and just let Dems lose the White House?

Shocking, but true: Most historical materials, primary and secondary, are not yet online.