Best analysis so far.  If you look back at his career, he's had no choice but to run as a Democrat because when there was an open office it was in a Democratic stronghold and the Senate seat was going to go to a Democrat.  He is so affiliated with U Chicago and that place is way conservative.  He struck me as a person who felt completely uncomfortable with Democratic values and ideas because he's really a conservative.  Maybe that's why he was chosen to rip the Clintons, he's not a traditional Democrat so he really doesn't like them.

But now the problem becomes, if he rejects everything Bill Clinton did, then what exactly is he going to do?  That's been my question all along.

Also... you don't trust Obama on questions of economics? Do you trust McCain on issues of economics? Good heavens... I don't trust either of them on issues of economics, but I trust McCain a lot less as my posts over the months have shown.

McCain has admitted that he knows nothing about economics... so... who do you think is running his economic policy team? Who do you think? You might want to look into that.

Also look into who is running Obama's economic policy team.

This is why the likes of Dean, Daschle can't stand it.  They can't even come close to the man in the ability to get people excited about doing good stuff for the country.
And the pundits.  Bill hits every guilt button for them.  These guys who have trashed him publicly for his private life would be dead in the water if their private lives were on display; these guys, especially the KO type, pretending to be progressives, live lives of decadence and then pretend be something they are not.

What really matters here?  Is it where the speech is given, or what the stage looks like?  How the candidate enters?  I have to tell you that when Hillary was speaking last night, she could have been doing so from the back of a pick-up truck in the middle of a field, or from an upended fruit crate in the middle of the Farmer's Market, or in the middle of a city street, and it would not have mattered to the power of her words and her message; it fell away as it should have because the woman delivering the speech did not need a grandiose setting to make her more than who she is - who she is was already big enough and strong enough to be able to stand on her own.  

Does Obama need the optics of a Hollywood sound stage-movie set to elevate his speech?  Will it mean more delivered from a replica of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of MLK, Jr.'s famous speech?  Does he really want people to be talking about the theatrics - or the words?  

What Obama does not seem to appreciate is the power of humility.  Do not be fooled into thinking this is about opening up the event to the common folk; this is about making sure that the common folk understand the awesomeness of Barack Obama.

Second, either you inserted the word "not" by mistake, or you are sadly mistaken that no one is going to argue that the party was "not" well served, because arguing that it was not well-served has been and continues to be a big issue for many of us.  There are many of us who see a very strong connection between the election and the DNC, and believe a loss for which quite a few of those DNC poo-bahs can be held responsible may very well mean they get tossed out on their collective ears - something that would be a step in the right direction.

As a Democrat, I have standing to make changes, or to argue for changes or to work for changes within the party, regardless of whether I did or did not vote for the person you term "the standard-bearer."  In fact, it is that standard-bearer's "principles" that many of us see as part and parcel of the problem, and giving them a seal of approval is not the way to ensure that they do not take root.

I don't care if I am blamed for Obama's loss; what other people think of me, or how they choose to rationalize something is not in my control.  If he loses, it will be because he failed - you know, just as Hillary's loss has been blamed on her failures.  It is not my job to protect Obama from failure when he seems indifferent to doing the work he needs to do to get votes from loyal Democrats like me; he ignores me, he abandons the core principles I hold dear and he fails to keep his word at his peril.  I cannot continue to keep voting for people who want the easy, fall-into-line-like-a-good-little-Democrat win; I will not be taken for granted anymore.

Should Obama lose, it will be up to the Democratic majority, the men and women of the U.S. Congress, to fight for the party's agenda, to hold the line against John McCain, to work and act in the spirit of Hillary Clinton's call to arms.  Are they up to that task?  Hard to predict, and I am not even sure they are up to it even with a Democratic president.

Not many posters have said they won't vote for Obama.  Many of us will - I am in Illinois so....

How much more convincing does anyone need that McCain is a bad choice?  No way I'm going to apologize to anyone who can't see that he's a bad choice and that HRC was right in her speech.

Hillary Clinton did a good job of telling us what needs to be done, and that McCain is the wrong choice to accomplish those things.  

What she didn't do was present anywhere near a convincing case that Barack Obama is not also a bad choice.  

The reason I wound up supporting Clinton was pretty much based on the question of experience and leadership.  At that point, I assumed that Hillary would not take the country where I wanted it to go, but do what her husband did -- fix the country so that actual progress is possible later.   Obama lacked the necessary experience to lead, but more importantly, he was promising something that he'd never delivered in the past.

Keep in mind that despite those reservations, at that time I still planned on voting for Obama were he to be the nominee.  It took me a couple of months of watching him to conclude that he was a bad choice -- that he exhibited the kind of personality traits (hubris, willfulness, petulance) that combined with inexperience could easily be disasterous.

Given that I can't support McCain either, under ordinary circumstances I'd probably still vote for Obama out of a sense of party loyalty.  But the actions of the party leadership have cancelled any obligations I felt toward the Party.