Haah, haaaa... oh, Vox, that's a good one. The voters don't care about the clock, they care about the important issues facing our great nation.

What a load.  I am tiring of your constant sniping, Vox.  You are doing your candidate Edwards a huge disservice with your comments here.  

It is obvious that hwc disadvantaged himself with the timing of the diary.  Another diary is already ahead of this one.   Your comment is way, way off.  

Are you in kindergarden?  Grow up!

I take this as evidence that you have no valid criticisms of Sen. Clinton.

Vox--Hillary has been in the lead since February.  The polls have not changed.  Hillary is the real thing -- the American people know it and support another Clinton candidacy because they know that Americans will no longer be invisible if she becomes President.  Its just that simple.  

If you find links to the roundtables or to the CNN interview, post 'em and I'll edit the original diary.

I can tell you haven't been listening to the Republican candidates on Iraq. They are all committed to the Bush policy of keeping 100,000+ troops in Iraq until hell freezes over.

No serious Presidential candidate would make a cheap promise to board up the embassy and have all forces out of Iraq by 2012. For one thing, that would mean no humanitarian refugee support.

stephen -- Are people in the red states declaring bankruptcy and losing their homes?  Have people in the red states lost their healthcare, do they have kids serving in Iraq?  Think 1 billion a week for a pointless war then think what could be done with that money if our troops were out of Iraq.  

There is a big distinction between Dems and Repubs on the war in Iraq.  Dems say bring em home and Repubs say we need to be there for 60 years.

No way the Republicans want to run against the strongest candidate the Dems can offer. They want to run against a campaign that makes mistakes. Not a candidate who can do five Sunday interview shows in a row without a hiccup.

Look at the way the Clinton campaign has orchestrated wall-to-wall coverage for the past seven days. Nobody wants to run against that.

It would seem that if the Republicans were ready for Hillary there would be one candidate running who actually is interested in the issues.  This is not an election year in which you can find some silly wedge issue such as Gay Marriage and win. The country is now aware that the reason Republicans hate government is because they cannot govern. They have gotten us into 2 wars. Tax cuts for the rich have all but bankrupted this country and now the Republican candidates are doing everything they can to avoid the electorate. The Republican Party as a whole looks tired and I believe most Americans are politically savy enough to see through most of their tricks.  The Republicans would gladly sit this one out because they want Hillary to be a failed one term President, who has to raise taxes and cut services while she struggles to end 2 intractable wars. The extent of the damage Bush has done to this country will only be known once Hillary takes over and they will sit back and blame everything on her.  

So Rovian don't you think???

Bob,

Just look at the flak that comes at HRC already, and I think you'll see that the Repulicans are hitting her with all they've got.  They've been hitting her forever, in fact, with all they've got, because they just can't stand her.  But...

1.  Why can't they stand her?  Because she and her husband beat them, and they can't stand being beaten.  Nothing gets the Right foaming at the mouth more than a Lefty who starts speaking out, acting strong, and WINNING.

2.  Even though they criticize her viciously every chance they get, it's like water off a duck's back to her.  You have never seen anyone with more calm self-assurance than her.

3.  Even though the worst they can do doesn't ruffle her in the least, she's fully prepared to gut them, filet them, and slice them up like a sushi chef.  Except that they'll end up smelling like dead fish, and sushi generally doesn't.

Honestly, I know that they want her, and I know that they think she'll be the one that galvanizes the Right Wingers, but she is one of the LAST people I'd ever want to cross.  It reminds me of 1979, when Ronald Reagan was a joke, and Carter's people thought it would be a cakewalk if he were nominated.  Guess what?  Reagan turned out to be an extremely talented politician, with a charming manner, able to fend off seemingly difficult questions with a joke and a smile, calm self-assurance (as opposed to the truculent attitude that W projects) and excellent message discipline at all times.  Also think about Nixon's people in 1960, who were facing a kid with little experience, and a Catholic to boot -- but found themselves checked by his calm, self-assured, charming, joking manner.

I myself am an Edwards supporter, and if I could wave a magic wand and make him President, I would do it in a heartbeat.  But face it:  this nomination is now Hillary's to lose, and the odds of her losing it are pretty slim.  And if she is the Democratic nominee, then you'd better think long and hard about whether you'd rather go sulk in a corner because your candidate couldn't beat her, and help elect Rudy Giuliani and his criminal cronies, and whether you think that America can survive someone like him.  I don't think so, and I will support Hillary, or Obama, or Richardson, or even Gravel if it somehow turned out to be him, rather than let the Corporatists destroy what's left of my country.

The Republicans will attack anyone who runs.  Case in point Max Cleland who lost 3 limbs in Vietnam.  The problem with Republicans is they have run out of gas.  They can only offer -- more of the same. If you want war and recession -- if your happy not having healthcare and are thrilled you cannot sell your home.  If you think that running up the largest deficit in history is a good thing--then you should vote Republican if not, the swiftboating propaganda is not going to work this time.  Pocketbook issues trump wedge issues.

I'm all for Hillary, but it is a long road to Iowa caucuses and NH primary. But if she can keep up this kind of performance without gaffes, she will be our next president.

areyouready--I agree with everything you said.  Our only problem now is complacency.

Bingo.  I liked Bill Clinton a lot, but he was weak in some areas.  Hillary Clinton was clearly his progressive side, so as a progressive I am extremely pleased with how well this is going.  

She will make a better President than Bill Clinton. She won't spend the first two years making the rookie mistakes that plague most first-term Presidents and certainly plagued Bill Clinton.

I actually prefer Hillary's style to Bill's. To me, she is more charismatic.

That is nonsense.  A lot of pundits don't like her.  Huffington hates her guts, and she does the circuit.  Look at Tweety.    What drives Clinton's campaign is the massive support she gets from rank-and-file DEMOCRATS.  Of course, she is doing a great job winning converts (look across the blogosphere and read the writings of the known bloggers.)

It's the excitement that draws those numbers for Obama. The excitement is dwindling, so is his numbers.

You got that right.  The voters are WAY ahead of the pundits.  They are making clear who THEY want to see win.  Crystal-clear. Whether the pundits want to have it or not.  They'll just be dragged by their ears to "see the light" soon enough.  As will you, joachim.  :-)

If your jobless husband was one of the most popular politicians of the last century, why WOULDN'T you schlep him around to events?

I have been to 3 Hillary events which drew thousands.

"I no longer call myself a Democrat. The Dems are f'ing stupid, and it looks like they'll blow it again."

NICE.  And we are supposed to take your posts seriously....WHY?  

Who is "attempting to win" before election day?  

Polls have been conducted for decades.  Gallup, Harris, AP, et al have been around for a very long time.  Polls COULD be showing Obama ahead.  Or at least a mixed picture (like the GOP.) They don't.  They show Obama consistently far behind.  Polls are a snapshot in time of what the voters prefer.  You don't like it, but it is there.  But, the key here are not really the horse race numbers but the other internals, which are much more interesting and telling.  You can't win if your favorable/unfavorable NET amongst your base is much weaker then the frontrunner's.  You can't win if you are not considered tops in any of the salient categories, as they are "best dealing with Iraq," "best dealing with health care," "best dealing with education," "has right experience to be president," "has best chance to win in Nov. 2008," etc.

The Chris Wallace interview cracked me up.  He thought she would hem and haw when he asked her to agree with him that her healthcare requiring indiv to be covered was gov't coercion.  The calmness and depth of her answers made his questions seem ridiculous and obnoxious.

I think Obama has run a better strategic campaign than Edwards has. I mean, with no record to run on, Obama really had no choice but to go the "believe in me and hope" route.

Edwards should have leveraged being the white male in the race by running as a DLC southern centrist, painting Hillary as the New York liberal. Edwards undercut his demographic strength, and his own authenticity, by running as a lefty left.

I am a Hillary supporter too but I think Bush will throw her a huge curve before he leaves office.  He will leave this country broke and the Middle East in chaos. He is so obsessed with the Clintons and Bill's successful presidency he wants to make sure she is a failed one term president.

The Clintons' huge mistake in 1993 was not in compromising too much on health care, but in their stubborn refusal to even consider compromise.

BTW, the most powerful political rhetoric that Clinton unveiled yesterday (the first time I've heard it), was her direct challenge to the Republicans to quit squawkin', join a real conversation, and offer their own health care proposals. She tagged their current offerings as "just say no!"

I hope to high water that the other Democratic candidates pick up on this Democratic versus Republican framing of the health care debate. If the Dems will help Hillary make this stick, right now, the Republicans will be be devastated by the health care issue going into the general election. Force these old white dudes into offering real policy positions.

Here's the kicker. The plan to offer the Congress' plan to all who want it is the cornerstone of all the Dems' plans. It came from a Republican think tank offered as an alternative to Clinton's plan in 1993. It's a politically brilliant framing of large, government-bid health care pools. "The same insurance as Congress gets." How do Congressmembers tell their consitutents back home they are voting against that?

I think Hillary's healthcare plan is brilliant because it includes the drug companies and insurance companies, which the 93 plan did not.  Would I prefer single payer -- damn right.  But in this climate single payer has no chance of passing and this one might just do it.  Alot has changed since 93.  At least 12 million more people are without healthcare and industry has discovered that we cannot compete in the world with the industrialized nations that cover all their people.  

Also there is money to be made in covering these 47 million people.  This might appeal to insurance companies.

What I would like to know is why Republicans hate to see all Americans with healthcare.  It makes no sense to me.  To them, only the rich have the right to healthcare and a good education.  Why then, does Joe Six Pack vote Republican?????

Give people a chance to digest her healthcare plan before you attack her for not having an education plan.  I'm sure she has a good one but timing is everything.

dex--I think the reason that Edwards hasn't gotten any traction is that the media has completely ignored him unless they do a "pretty man" piece.  They decided that Hillary and Obama would be the story.  Hillary would be attacked for being a Clinton and Obama would walk on water.  Well the water Obama is supposed to be walking on is drowning him and Hillary has shown that being a Clinton makes her a great campaigner.