Mr. Obama was supposed to be a transformational figure, with an almost magical ability to transcend partisan differences and unify the nation.

Hasn't anyone copyrighted this sentence yet?

According to many Obama supporters, it's all Hillary's fault. If she hadn't launched all those vile, negative attacks on their hero -- if she had just gone away -- his aura would be intact, and his mission of unifying America still on track.

Anymore straw in that man and he'll start singing "If I Only Had a Brain".

If the relatively mild rough and tumble of the Democratic fight has been enough to knock Mr. Obama off his pedestal, what hope did he ever have of staying on it through the general election?

Well, at least he didn't say that Tony Rezko gave Obama that nice marble pedestal.  Although he didn't say that Rezko didn't give it to him, either.  Intriguing.

Krugman goes on to point out that Obama's "soaring rhetoric" essentially doesn't resonate with Reagan Democrats the way, say, knocking back a boilermaker does.

And then, incredibly, Krugman finds the real way forward for Democrats:

Democrats can justly portray themselves as the party of economic security, the party that created Social Security and Medicare and defended those programs against Republican attacks -- and the party that can bring assured health coverage to all Americans.

"There he goes again" (Roaring laughter).

Amazing that Krugman, one of my heroes, can devote so many electrons to repeating strawman arguments and not-so-subtle digs at Obama.  And then closes with advice for Democrats that is nearly as old as I am.

In that sense, he makes probably his strongest case for Hillary as President:

She will provide the continuity and bureucratic competence craved by so many boilermaker-swilling lunchbox union workers in economically depressed areas around the Great Lakes.

The 30-second ads practically write themselves.