because you have your opinion and only Jerome says what you want to hear.

anyone else who says what you don't want to hear doesn't get it.

duh

In the summer of 1992, Democratic leaders were thinking of staging an intervention, to go to Bill Clinton and to ask him to step aside. He was third in the polls. A woman with big hair gave a press conference and played tapes of him calling her and she said that she was his mistress for 7 years. His letter to the draft board surfaced. He said he "never inhaled." His state's politics was scrutinized and some things looked bad. The Republicans said he protested against his country when he was abroad and they raised questions about what he did when he went to Moscow.

Democrats were freaking out.

And then Clinton won.

Once there's a nominee, work your butt off to get us a Democratic president. Get it done.

Heh. I get a little wary once someone asks "Why is my guy the only one who gets it?" It tends to belie a giant case of cognitive dissonance. Because once you're convinced you, and only you, are correct and nothing else can be right... yikes!

You make some really good points, but I wish you hadn't used Lieberman as an example.

Lieberman may have won his election in 2006, but he is a disgraced man and now much more unpopular in his state.  He's supporting a Republican, for gawd's sake and he is heading straight down the Zell Miller path.  By November, I predict he will be completely out of this party.

That being said, the path that most of the big players in the netroots has taken is going to hurt us, IMHO.  There's little rational thought or reasoning.  With them as our public face, we are beginning to look like every stereotype the Republicans have used to paint liberals for the last fifty years.  They're screwing up, badly, just when they had gained the credibility and voice that we so craved for years now.  Crashing the Gates indeed.  This isn't the vision of Crashing the Gates that I had in mind.

"But just like half of all democrats, I fear & have accepted the very strong probability that Markos, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson is about to lead our party to another VERY PAINFUL November."

If you're looking for someone to blame for Hillary not winning the nomination, start with Hillary and work out from there.  Mark Penn, Bill Clinton, I'm sure you could come up with a few more names.

the idea that a politician like Hilary Clinton with the highest unfavorables of a major party candidate fr president in history is MORE electable is probaly the most delusional thing you could write. nearly 60 of the Ameican people ahve an unfavorable opinion of her, but she's going to be president. that sounds crazy!

please god let's get the hideous Clinton's in our rear view mirror and let some sanity come back into the party.

Actually, Obama is polling better against McCain than Hillary is. One thing Obama has going for him is he draws in independants that would otherwise go to McCain. He also brings in a lot of young voters who would otherwise be disengaged. And Hillary is like a lightning rod for the right-wing nutters. Nothing would mobilize their base (which is cool on McCAin) more than Hillary getting the nomination. So don't be so pessimistic. Just get out there and work for our nominee.  

lower income people literally live or die based on the decisions made by the president. upper income people, especially the netroots, view political elections as an occasion to pontificate about who's the purest candidate. they can afford to lose elections. they'll still have their jobs and investments and health care coverage and all the other things they take for granted. the lower income people can't afford much of anything, much less another four to eight years of republican slash and burn class warfare.

Even Newsweek has picked up this meme:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/132566

This comparison between Obama 08 and Kerry 04 is very compelling to me.  We even have the 'elitist', 'out of touch' and 'liberal' lables back in play.  Substitute Kerry's supposed affinity for the French with Obama's pro-Palestine policies, Wright for Swift-boat, and then substitute McCain for Bush.

It's basically an instant replay.

If she can't beat an inexperienced freshman senator from Il, how is she going to beat a more experienced than her war hero?

She has run a lousy campaign. She had all of the early advantages and blew everyone.

My guy, Edwards, lost. I will work for whomever the nominee is because we can't afford 4 more years of McSame. I don't choose to wait four more years for my chance to have everything. I try to do for today.

Sorry, it's incredibly solipsistic to suggest that the nearly 50% of Democratic voters to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton somehow all agree with you that Obama would be a disaster.

The only thing that that vote proves is that, given a chance to see Clinton or Obama in the general election, they would rather see Clinton.

Most Democrats are fine with Obama, too.  Most people typically don't even pay much attention to the primaries and just vote for the person with their favorite party's letter next to their name in the general.

I highly suspect that the 30% number of Clinton supporters that won't vote for Obama in the general no matter what is highly inflated.  The poll tracker on the front page has New York going for McCain if Obama is the nominee... I highly doubt that's going to happen, and it's a bit suspicious that New York should poll like that and be Clinton's home state simultaniously.

Relax for a minute and realize that the only way the Republicans can win this year is if we lose enthusiasm.  We've got the ground game, the money, and a whole lot of initiative.  The Republicans are only marginally enthusiastic about their candidate, and his gaffes won't go underreported forever.

who remembers Webb and Tester? They're too Progressive to be elected in red states, we were told, stop wasting your time. Same thing more recently with Bill Foster.

And look what happened. We won. DLC candidates like Harold Ford and Tammy Duckworth lost.

So, overall, the netroots have a much better track record than you assert here. Bluntly, the netroots made the difference in taking both chambers of Congress. And in the latest confrontation between the Beltway insiders and the people, we're on the right side too. Obama will be the next President, and he's going to win very comfortably. He'd win more comfortably if he weren't maumaued every day by his defeated primary opponent, but that's not anything he's responsible for.

LatinFighter,

Great diary.  My thoughts exactly.

Oh well, perhaps Markos can go back to being a lawyer after all this is done.  And anybody in the Oval Office will be a major upgrade over Shrub.

-Mike

I am pissed off that Obama has been foisted on us by this whole SC has to be first before MI and FL because we need the AA voters to have a say thing.  And how did he repay the party? He repaid the party, he and JJ JR and Donna B, by dividing it by race.

I appreciate that Jerome is unbiased and he should keep up the good work. He and Armando do a great job of being dispassionate even if they do have a preference.

I'm a Clinton supporter, but I'm not going to make a judgement on whether the Democrats face disaster in 2008, yet. In my opinion, 2008 is a lot like 1960, the last recession year, open seat election with a Republican incumbent. JFK won in a close election. JFK had the courage to heal the wounds of a tough nomination battle by choosing his main rival LBJ for VP. Perhaps, Barack Obama will find a way to heal the wounds of the Democratic Party.

Nevertheless, George W. Bush is even less popular than Ike, and John McCain's economic and foreign policy very much mirrors Bush's policies. The signs are good that the Democrats can achieve a rare open seat victory.

Dude.  Please.  If she's nominated, I'll vote for her.  Holding my nose, but I'll vote.

I'm don't think we're going to get the same reaction from the 60% of the American public who already doubt her truthfulness, before the right wing gets started on her.

And please don't kid yourself that she's already taken all the damage she can take.  Her negatives have gone up steadily during the primary.  Why, exactly, do you think that's going to stop once the general begins?

Unfortunately these people will never get it because they are elitists and think that everyone else is too stupid to understand things the way they see it.

The quote that "Markos, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson is about to lead our party to another VERY PAINFUL November" seems to be misleading  It is not like the party elite is ignoring the will of the people and choosing Obama over Clinton. to recap

Obama has more primary votes than Clinton
Obama has more Delegates than Clinton
Obama has more Elected Superdelegates than Clinton
Obama has won more states than Clinton

He has shown the capability of bring in thousand of energized new voters into the system.  He has literally crafted his own version of public financing with hundreds of thousand of small donors.  Is this bad for some reason.

This is a once in a lifetime chance not only to beat the GOP but to relegate them to minority status for the next generation.  

Against this possibility we are being asked to take seriously the issues of flag pin wearing, who is more bitter, and who knew what Weatherman when?

Listen to the other side of the aisle.  Do you hear their laughter, I sure do