Because there's two things I'm noodling on:  1.  Bill Clinton is still loved, and older aa's haven't forgotten what the Clintons did for them--and the voting booth is private.  2.  Maya Angelou has been working her butt off (no kidding; she actually looks thinner) for them in NC.

I think both these points are big factors.  I think the aa vote will be depressed, and show a few percentage surprises that the polls aren't predicting because people lie to pollsters.

Today I was at the market getting a few things for dinner and lunch this week.  Two young people (I would guess 20 yr old tops), were petitioning for dry areas in the Metroplex to allow liquor sales.  As a proud HRC supporter, I had on my America con Hillary button.  The young woman sitting there praised my button and admitted she was an HRC supporter as well, and asked if I had another button.  (I carry extra buttons and stickers for just such an occasion)As I was signing the petition, we were confronted by a self-professed "Obama delegate".  She started quizzing the young couple as to why they like Hillary Clinton.  The young lady said that she felt that HRC wielded a certain amount of influence in some of the decisions made during Clinton 42's administration.  The Obama supporter went on to say that Hillary had to help run the country because Bill was too busy messing around.  She then turned to me and said "Yeah I see your Hillary button in Spanish but I don't care."  "The Clintons are pigs."  I didn't respond.  She goaded me again by calling them names referring to their ethnicity.  I told her I wasn't going to engage in her Republican talking points.  AND that she couldn't discuss issues but rather try to engage in character assasinations.

The young couple were pretty offended because, well, they were white as well.  A passer-by in the market heard her comment and asked her, "why is it okay for you to say what you said about Hillary but if we said the n word about Obama we would be attacked and called racists?"  She then said we were all racists.

I think that if Obama and his supporters feel that this type of rhetoric will help him in the fall if he wins the nom he is in deep doo-doo.

That Obama supporter was venomous and didn't care who she offended.  After I passed out some bumper stickers and buttons, she flipped me off and the young petitioners as well.

Last I checked, HRC talked about policy directly and clearly (unless it involved foreign policy, i.e. Iran, but that's obviously rhetoric in context).  Obama talks about change, about we are the ones we've been waiting for and paints himself as an outsider and victim of attacks. He forgets when he heard negative preaching, when he was opposed to the war, and paints clinton as bad even when they hold the same position.

So HOW, other than misogyny, is clinton viewed in such a negative manner vs Obama/McCain?  She has the clearest policies of the three and doesn't usually have to repeat/qualify what she says.

So I wonder: what do they know that we don't?

He exaggerated his "I was solicited in a public bathroom by a gay man" story and was forced to retract it (kind of), he said Hillary's voice makes him want to cross his legs, and he lost his freakin' show that nobody watched, YET HE IS STILL APPEARING ON THE BROADCAST AIRWAVES.  

For those who can't bear Lekking Post these days...the punchline

Barack Obama received all the benefits of the Reality Gameshow style of coverage in January and February, when Hillary Rodham Clinton was the frontrunner and he was the obvious challenger to test her fitness for victory. In April he suffered the downside in spades--setting us all up for Tuesday's contests in North Carolina and Indiana.

I wonder who will get thrown off the island.

Will the Obama Doll of tomorrow be the action figure we bet the pony on today?

What of the national sales day? Will his image sell solar panels, antigravity toilets, fleur de lis...?
Will his shoes be enshrined or his teeth a model for children of all ages, "Daddy, Daddy I can't stop smiling!"

Will there be a holiday? Can it be brought to you by your friends; "The Barack Obama Bowl sponsored by the Walmart Family of stores."?

He tried to do a riff on party unity for the fall, but he just couldn't do it.

Yet, Hillary looks more vibrant and energized by the moment.

It appears that Politico played a  seminal role in setting off this whole latter unfortunate chain of events. It started when Ben Smith posted the gun mailer image on his blog: at 12:16pm, 5/04/08. That Politico headline was: "Clinton Mailing Attacks Obama on Guns". The pretext of Smith's post was to turn the critique around and suggest that Hillary, herself, was being 'hypocritical' as both a proponent of gun-control and the 2nd amendment.

However, I suspect Smith's real intent was to incite the ensuing notion that 'Clinton is trying to get Obama killed'. Indeed, at 12:49pm someone named Maria obligingly posted the following response to Smith's piece:

"Is anybody else disturbed by the image? It looks like a subliminal message to shoot him. Am I being paranoid? Why would they choose to design the ad that way?".

That first comment then generated many more responses of this kind at Politico. By 4:30pm that afternoon, a video response to Politico's gun-mailer story was posted on YouTube: "Hillary Clinton is Trying to get Barack Obama Killed".

Was there some degree of coordination between the people at Politico and the trolls who proliferated the subsequent video?

Interesting too, that Smith posted yet another story on the gun mailer later that evening at 7:25pm. The title seemed fairly innocuous: "Clinton mailing's gun gaffe". This time the pretext was about the 'inauthenticity' and 'elitism' of the gun pictured in the original mailer. However, the post served to generate many more comments advancing the meme that Clinton was posing a threat to Obama's life.

Question: How complicit was Politico and Ben Smith in the launch of gun-mailer-gate?

Senator Obama wants to sit down with an Iranian leader who is dedicated to wiping Israel off the map -- his words," McCain told reporters on his campaign bus. "I don't think we should give him that kind of prestige. Senator Obama obviously has no national security experience, and therefore that's reflected in his judgment on a number of those issues."