There is a reason why I don't read the comments 90% of the time in dailykos.

He'd just been chiding Democrats for various failings like not taking people of faith seriously, and being too divisive.

Then comes to a partisan website and essentially shushes the unruly blogger hordes as if they were responsible for the sorry state of political reality. There was plenty of reason for frustration with Obama.

Things were pretty damn ugly out there before one word was ever blogged about politics.  Bloggers' anger is largely a reaction to the poisonous partisanship fostered by years of Republican strategies ineffectively answered by Democratic countermoves.

I like a lot about Obama, but that was a case of not knowing (or possibly caring) who your audience was, and what their concerns were.  (Which is not to excuse the inevitable rudeness that some commenters are prone to.)

Bpasrtisanship with Karl Rove is like giving the school bully your lunch money.  

Jeez, I guess Obama has to go to the polls with Democrats he has instead of the Democrats he wishes he had.  Poor, poor Obama.  Kossack citizens and voters were dicks to him for no reason.  Just because they didn't like the Supreme Court being turned into a right wing regulating machine was no excuse to tell their party to step outside the beltway and get a clue who is who. Those damned Kossacks are such heathens.  Of all the Kossack termity to object to the corporate owned DLC and to take an elected official to task for wanting to negotiate with an enemy that would make Dahlmer look like a boy scout.   Bad Kossacks!

Elizabeth Edwards showed up on MYDD once to set a diarist straight about here husband.

All I remember thinking was wow, she used her own name.  Nonpartisan must have really struck a nerve.

I laid it out a little more extensively further downthread.

By creating a common infrastructure it reduces the start up costs for candidates, particularly those downticket.

ActBlue doesn't charge to process credit card transactions, candidate running their own fundraising ops do have to pay a processing free.  Also they do the work of programming the page to process applications.

So let's say it would cost a campaign $1,000 to set up a webpage that has the form to process credit card donations.  And they have to pay a staffer $200 week to go through the forms and report to the FEC, and the credit card company takes maybe 2 cents of every dollar.  

It adds up quick, and makes it impossible for small campaigns to pull off.  With ActBlue, it's all done for the campaign, they get the whole donation, and put out no money to do it.  ActBlue lives off free will tips from donors, and they assume the cost of setting up the website, and the processing fee with credit card companies.

This is an infrastructure that isn't going to have to be torn down, and built up every cycle.  It helps lower level candidates raise online.

And there is this:

The early deployment of Mr. Clinton highlights the continuing concerns in the Clinton camp about the strength of Mr. Obama's candidacy and his fund-raising prowess. The Clinton camp has tried to stop any drift of Democratic donors to the Obama camp, since the campaign finance reporting period ending tonight is seen as a huge test of the campaigns' money-raising abilities as they gird for a crush of early primaries.

One donor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he said the Clintons would not like his speaking openly, said the Clinton campaign had been trying to lower fund-raising expectations because of a concern about a surge by Mr. Obama, who has shown broad appeal among black, female and young Democrats and has captured some big-money donors like Orin Kramer, a former Clinton supporter.

The Clintons thought the nomination would most likely be theirs, barring some major disaster, and they are having to work harder and earlier for the nomination than either Clinton expected," said the donor, who said he had talked about Mr. Obama with Mr. Clinton. "This was not how things were supposed to go, and they are obsessed with beating Barack in fund-raising."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/us/pol itics/31clinton.html?ref=politics

Who the heck is giving Mitt Romney THAT MUCH MONEY?

He recently announced that he would give back the General Election money if the Republican nominee agreed to spending limits, but he joined Clinton and Edwards in raising for both elections almost immediately.

so that Obama and Edwards are the last two standing.

If one of them drops out before the primaries, Hillary will be in contention longer.

The system in Iowa with viability is likely to mitigate the effect there, and afterwards people voting specifically anti-Hillary (which I don't think is that great a proportion of the primary electorate) will naturally drift towards whichever one is doing better.

I'm not African-American, but so far as I can tell most of them has Clinton and Obama as their top 2 choices, and they're a very large share of the primary electorate.  In general, Clinton comes in at #2 as often as Obama or Edwards among Obama/Edwards supporters.  The "anti-Hillary" vote seems mostly contined to the blogosphere at this point, and there aren't all that many of us.

(For the record, Obama is my #1 choice, Edwards my #2.)

If he had it right, then why did he vote against Kerry Feingold with Clinton in 2006?

Started off right, and then turned wrong.

He explicitly supports the withdrawal timeline. Don't stoop to lying about candidates.

I completely agree (though my chatter has come from circles outside of Iowa) with these impressions of Obama. Which is why I think come debate time, or when the electorate actually begins making nuanced observations outside of general impressions, Obama may tank. Not that he will necessarily tank--he might surprise me and articulate an agenda that is distinct from Hil's & John's--but that his policy solutions won't seem to glimmer as much as his current image.

When you first saw it.

I'm telling you , and I can care less whether anyone believes me or not, it started at ZERO. But, it's going to be so fun watching how surprised people are when it all get's laid on the table.

;p

That he's got richer donors?

I'm sorry, I don't understand why they would encourage any donors to date checks April 1.