Obama got a wave of crap for his so-called enabling remarks over continued funding of the Iraq War that is almost entirely responsible for his drop IMHO. I don't think the criticism was particularly fair on policy grounds as it seems to focus almost entirely on 'framing' the Iraq War debate - a debate that is more about whipping votes from now until January '09 than it is political framing. Framing is most effective when people have low-information and poorly formed views on an issue. Iraq doesn't fit that model.

I think some of the dynamic of the Daily Kos polling is the refusal to acknowledge how the actual mechanisms of government actually work. If you take the Daily Kos leadership polls Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have flip flopped their approval ratings since the new Congress took over - with Pelosi skyrocketing from her days as Minority Leader and Reid plummeting since his days as Minority Leader.

Why? Reid was able to block bad things with 40% opposition in the Senate. Pelosi could do nothing to block in the House. Now Speaker Pelosi wins every battle with 50%+1 but Majority Leader Reid is hamstrung but the need to get 60 votes to accomplish anything in the Senate.

Obama gets creamed on Daily Kos and MyDD by some who refuse to acknowledge building support for legislation in the Senate is much different than building a 50%+1 strategy to win an election. Edwards has the strongest rhetoric on Iraq but does it have any chance of building a coalition to either A) gain 2/3 support to override a veto or B) prevent the likes of Pryor, Landrieu, and Carper from defecting to more of a 'clean' bill? Obama's 'short leash' funding which has not been fleshed out but is likely a hybrid of 1 quarter of funding with the Iraq Accountability Act pushed by the Blue Dogs (and Iraq vet Rep. Patrick Murphy) is compatable with passing Feingold-Reid. The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can have 'short leash' for 2Q and then have a great chance of passing Feingold-Reid or something similar this fall.

But Feingold-Reid just doesn't have the votes today. It might in 3 months, or 6 months, or 9 months but it doesn't today. Just look at the vote totals of the Gregg Amendment and Kerry-Feingold from last year. So what do Feingold-Reid supporters do when it fails by 15 votes around May? Blame Obama?

Edwards spiked in the Daily Kos poll because he doesn't have to deal with the rules of the Senate any more. IMHO Obama did well to hold his own in the netroots under heavy criticism.