So what could happen is if O doesn't have a woman on the ticket, it would leave a huge opening for McC to go after disaffected women by naming one to his ticket -- KBH being the most likely, maybe Gov Palin could do.  It would be the sort of non-insane bold stroke that could galvanize the Repub ticket in what's clearly a Dem year.

There is no picking of VPs right now, just talk on the internet and in the MSM.

O's team isn't stupid, and if they are leaning both against picking Hillary, which I think is almost certainly the case, and also leaning in favor of Sibelius, they know they'd have to carefully prepare the PR ground lest they offend Hillary and her backers with a shutout snub.

Clinton supporters are smart 'high information' people and won't be fooled by such amateurish tactics. If Obama thinks he can fool us with more of his BS for two months and then have us roll over he is the worst politician of all times!

As each day passes without him picking Clinton our disdain for him only grows exponentially - not vice versa.

Many people will be struggling wether it is the right choice for the country to put an inexperienced pol who is sort of correct on the issues, or put someone you know can do the job but is wrong on issues. We have a checks and balances government, in theory. So, in the past, people have voted for the person first and issues second for president.

KBH wouldn't be disqualified on the association score.

As for Christie Whitman, some of you folks need to get some fresh air.  Repubs aren't going to be too happy with a VP pick from the "librul" wing of their party.  Good grief.  

It is a grave misunderstanding of what wins campaigns if anyone thinks they are about fairness.

I know the Republicans are just throwing out the bait to see if they can take advantage of Obama's poorly executed strategy to alienate the base.  Obama's new-found respect for Clinton's supporters is the same thing.

Disclaimer: I'm not voting for McCain, no need to respond with all his sins and/or how disloyal I am.

Apparently not.  Apparently Hillary only opened the door for Hillary.  

I don't think though that she said that in her fine speech yesterday.

So don't be surprised of the cagey old guy wouldn't try to woo Clinton as his VP!

Now of course she would reject the offer and McCain knows that...

But as a political move it would be brilliant for him to offer Clinton the VP spot. Just think of the political capital it would give him with huge blocks of voters.

She's got enough exec experience, being a vy popular two-termer, to easily pass the threshhold question about qualifications, and has a family background on both sides in politics.

There are many more picks O could make which are far worse.

And maybe you weren't paying attention during the primary: a family background in politics was not viewed as an asset by many Obama supporters.

And I think it's quite sensible and necessary for our nominee to pick someone he's comfortable with, both on the campaign trail but more importantly in office.  

I agree he can not pick another woman.  It makes no sense that he would pick another when she is the most qualified woman in politics today.  

This one is shaping up, clearly, to be an election that turns on the sorry state of the economy, and one where wars and rumors of war are going to get far less traction than in the past.  Not unlike 1992.

Many people have their basic economic survival at stake right now, thanks in no small part to the incompetent and uncaring Bush admin.  

This cycle is somewhat similar.  We've had two long wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- and people are fed up.  O's position in 2002 opposing the Iraq vote should hold him in good stead as showing good judgment in FP.  McC still has his "100 yrs' in Iraq to defend plus the growing perception that he's (cough, cough) somewhat uninformed about the region.

And saber rattling over Iran isn't going to pull the Repubs' chestnuts out of the fire this time.

Obama has now said that we need to stay in Iraq indefinitely. Obama's judgement argument is completely shot. Is it good judgement to sit in the pews of TUCC for 20 years? To indoctrinate your children into that kind of theology?

He thinks a speech will solve all problems.

But it should never have been a squeaker. She should have won going away.

And since the final result was so close, it's natural to ask whether some different strategy or tactic would have flipped the outcome.

How did Obama manage to win?

Less MI & IA, NV, ME estimates: Obama +41,000

With IA, NV, ME estimates: Obama +101,844

With MI: Clinton +176,465

With WA, NE, ID primaries (Clinton +71,000):
                  Clinton +247,465

With MI Uncommitted by Exit poll (Obama +173,000):
                  Clinton +~74,500

With ALL MI Uncommitted to Obama (Obama +238,168):
                   Clinton +~9,000

My thesis is very simple: if you allocated a single MI Uncommitted vote to Obama, than you must in turn count all 3 nonbinding primaries in place of the caucus results in those states, with a corresponding vote gain for Clinton. If you accept the exit poll as an adequate measure of the popular will and voters' intentions, than you must to the same for the nonbinding primaries, all of which saw a far higher turnout than the corresponding causcuses.

I don't deride ABBA's hardcore fans. I generally don't eye-roll on what people put into their various holes -- eat! listen! enjoy! dance! live! bless you!

1.  Picking Clinton as VP all by itself won't unite the party.

2.  He could unite the party without picking Clinton as VP.

Choosing Clinton as VP doesn't, in and of itself, throw CDS under the bus.

After all, the dems have picked their candidate not based on who could win in November, not based on who has experience or who can be a great president and fix the mess we're in, but instead have based it on who they think the media likes the best right now. Same should hold true for the VP slot.

This troubles me. The problem I, and many people like me, have in supporting Obama has nothing to do with support for Clinton. It is this paranoid, conspiracy-minded, hateful element in the Obama "movement."

Obama is, more than any candidate in my voting lifetime (other than, perhaps, George Wallace or Perot), selling himself as the leader of a "movement" bringing all kinds of "new" people into the the political process and the Democratic party while promising "change" that "reforms" or weakens some parts of the party's traditional coalition.

But there appears to be evidence, from their own mouths, that many people attacted to this message and movement are voting on the basis of hatred, paranoia, resentment and exclusion (as the Wallace people were), and, often VERY forthrightly and unapologetically, on gender and class prejudice, rather than on a new, positive, more expansive and eqalitarian view of politics and the party.

I'm deeply uncomfortable associating myself with such a movement. It goes against every principle I've stood for over a lifetime.

I know other Obama supporters will point out that not all Obama supporters can be judged by the haters. But when will they, and Obama, stand up to and condemn the haters?

Will Obama's campaign continue to ignore this dangerous and ugly element in their movement, or even encourage it, because they believe they can continue to exploit these people, and their prejudices and resentments, for their candidate's benefit?

Man. And only a couple of months ago I was saying that I would happily vote for whichever one got the nomination.

I wish I thought he would never even consider doing this, but it's all of a piece with what I've been hearing from him and his campaign.

The plain fact is that this is how his core constituencies were composed and disposed for the greatest portion of Obama's political life -- namely, while he was a State Senator of the Hyde Park District in Chicago.

This really is the inescapable implication of his 20 year involvement in the The United Church of Christ. I don't think any of us have seen more obvious hatred and demonizing of the Other in a public venue than was in unabashed display in that "church".

For all his talk of unity, his history is one of courting and empowering some of the most divisive, paranoid elements to be found in American society. It's been his real power base throughout his political career.

WTF? I imagine they think that Hillary will angle for VP and have Obama secretly taken out, only to be revealed after two years have passed, so Hillary can then run for two full terms afterwards, thereby maximizing her time of 10 years as President (unless, of course, she uses her scary mind control to repeal the 22nd amendment).