It's also sucked away a lot of money we could have been using for same, as well as fighting McCain.  She has every right to stay in, but these are the tradeoffs.

President Barack Obama!

Get used to it folks!

Todd,

I agree that the extended primary has ended up producing a lot of positive results, but could you please stop bashing anyone who was worried it wouldn't as "concern trolls?"  Predicting how things will turn out, in advance, is actually pretty hard to do.  I have no problem admitting that I was wrong to fear what a primary lasting this long would do to the party.  But my fears weren't feigned, or expressed in bad faith.  They were just wrong.  It seems a little excessive to intimate that anyone with such worries was simply in the tank for one candidate, rather than legitimately worred about the party's welfare.  

I always thought the long primary season could benefit Democrats, so long as Clinton didn't sling too much mud.  Ultimately, I think the benefits outweighed the mudslinging, in spite of Clinton spending two weeks in Pennsylvania campaigning on the twin pillars of Bitter and Wright.  Now she's having to defend defining hard-working Americans as white.  Fortunately, the response to this statement has encouraged her to back away, just as she did from her earlier statements that she and John McCain were the only two candidates qualified to be Commander in Chief.

Few things are all good or all bad.  There have been benefits to Hillary staying in the race.  It remains to be seen if that decision is a net benefit or not.  

I thought that the extended primary was good all along.  McCain has barely been in the news; he's practically an "also ran" at this point.

The problem comes in when the candidates start pounding on each other in ways that give Republicans ammunition against them in the fall... but even that can help in some ways by toughening up the candidates and preparing for the inevitable attacks.

I do think that Clinton has been running a largely Republican-inspired campaign, and I can't help but wonder if she and Obama didn't work this thing out in a back room to strip Republicans of their talking points in the general... while unlikely, it pretty much worked out just like that.

Looking back now, could anyone have scripted a better 50-state party building exercise than this primary has been?,

I decided on the day of the primary in MA that I would vote for Obama.  I liked both candidates, but liked Obama more.  As the kitchen sink strategy kicked in, I began to like HRC less and less and now I would not vote for her in the Presidential election or as VP (I'd write in a different Dem).  The primary has built up animosity and encouraged Democratic/liberal bloggers who support Hillary to support diaries and blogs that are frankly pathetic, ridiculously dishonest or just ugly and despicable.  

Turnout was always going to be high, look at 06.  This should have been an easy election.  It won't be because HRC has focused almost entirely on negative campaigning for months now (she's a "fighter"), the DNC has been starved of money and Obama has had to spend much of the money he would otherwise be able to use against McCain against HRC.  

The 50 State strategy is about building a party, not splitting it asunder.  

... and for three good reasons.

a) She still needs to pay down considerable debt.

b) Her campaign is likely shifting toward building the best case for Veep, and

c) Any exit strategy must be carefully planned*

I think Terry Mac is telling it like is when he said mid-June.

* My apologies to those here and overseas who are suffering due to no exit strategy and a train-wreck foreign policy.

George Wallace speak is only going to destroy the party.

Its tough to say.  In a way, it sort of reminds me of this 2006 election:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wil son_(Ohio_politician)#2006_Election

He forgot his signatures, so he wasn't on the primary ballot.  But b/c of that, he worked his butt off to build a support base that got him enough write in votes to win the primary.  Then he won fairly easily in the general.

Obama has a broader network of supporters now than if the challenge hadn't gone on so long.  Hopefully, that will offset the slug-it-out nature of the primary.

I want to see all 50 states have a chance to participate in this historic primary.  Montana is a state that has been very red in the past but has been trending blue.  An active, competitive race in this state could go a long way to building our democratic base and galvanizing the state party for the upcoming GE.

The activism and energy has been great. But at some point the race becomes a joke and Hillary becomes Huckabee. Note that Huckabee is STILL drawing about 15% of the vote. Why? Because he led his voters to believe that he could make it all the way, even after he knew he couldn't. His supporters have still not backed McCain. I wonder how long Hillary's supporters will take before they back Obama. If the Huckabee case is an example, it will take awhile.

May is May.

I am trying to figure out if anyone is concerned about this country.  Barack is not electable.  I am about to leave the party.  So let's see DKos , MSNBC, and kids who have not protested this war in Iraq.  These same do nothings are going to slam this person down my throat.  I don't think so.  How pathic to hear .. "Ohh my children brought me Barack".  Have these same children paid for a thing in their lives.  Like their own college education a car . a cell phone. If these same kids had spent one hour of their time doing anything for this country maybe.  We would never live in the mess that is about to hit when McCain gets elected.  Are these same 20 somethings the one who either DID NOT vote in 2004 or 2000.

I think most people were objecting not to Hillary's staying in the race, but the nature of her campaign after super Tuesday.  

Imagine if she had decided to forego the kitchen sink attack campaign she touted as "the fun part" and instead gave Americans a big dose of the real Hillary Rodham - the one who has done so much for so many Democrats and Americans?  A positive, uplifting look at a great lady should have been her theme.  She'd have done better, in my view.

Then we'd have two candidates with high positives, as well as all the benefits you mention.  

Yes, the party building has been good.  But we paid a high price for it, thanks to Hillary's advisors, and ultimately, Hillary.

I've always thought that the opportunity for voters all over the country to meet with our candidates and our future president (no one knew who that would be then) was the best thing that could happen for the Democratic party.

At our county assembly someone raised the idea of switching to a primary.  We voted on adding it as a suggestion and it won overwhelmingly.

Someone else suggested all primaries be on the same day.  I spoke up and said that would mean the candidates would not have the chance to go to each state and meet the voters in person.  We would have to rely on ads and mailers to pick our candidate.  We voted and the idea of single primary day was defeated.

"I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party," Feinstein said. "I think we need to prevent that as much as we can."

That's from Obamaniac Diane Feinstein.

Al Gore, on Fresh Air on Tuesday said he thought we'd know how much damage, if any, had been done to the party sometime over the summer.

The gains in registration are great, and they may end up being the difference in November. I think they will play a big part in gaining the White House. But I don't think they come without consequences. Pointing to only the positives without giving any credence to legitimate concerns about intraparty rifts sounds like declaring Mission Accomplished before the war is over.

Todd,

It strikes me that in this race we're seeing a continuation of a trend that began in 2006.  Let me explain.

In 2004, the consensus was it was a good thing to "clear the field" so that Democratic senatorial challenges could go forward and concentrate on the general election.  One could argue to a limited extent the same thing happened with the bandwagon jumping onto Kerry.  Regardless, it was a failure.

Then, in 2006, despite some objectives, we had real contested senate primaries in Virginia, Montana, Ohio, and Rhode Island (I can't remember if Missouri had one or not).  Though the field ultimately was cleared in Ohio, the contested primaries are widely believed to have been a good thing in retrospect, particularly in MT and VA, where the far stronger candidate won.  

In 2008, we're seeing what is going to happen if the same logic is applied to the national stage.  And I think it's been good overall, as we discovered Obama runs a better campaign, and his campaign has been forced to improve do to Clinton retooling her own as she tried to catch up.  

Hillary staying in is not, and never was, the problem. It's her reliance on the politics of destruction that has always, and remains, the problem.

This diary is an example of it as emulated by a few of her supporters. The writer could easily have tried to make his point without a provocative attack on Obama's supporters (concern trolls?)

These bitter dead enders are like the broken and defeated Messala in "Ben Hur"....

Messala: Triumph complete, Judah. The race won. The enemy destroyed.
Ben-Hur: I see no enemy.
Messala: What do you think you see? The smashed body of a wretched animal! Is enough of a man still left here for you to hate? Let me help you...You think they're dead. Your mother and sister. Dead. And the race over. It isn't over, Judah. They're not dead.
Ben-Hur: Where are they? Where are they? (shouting) Where are they?
Messala: (vengefully) Look for them in the Valley of the Lepers, if you can recognize them. (grabbing Judah's clothing) It goes on. It goes on, Judah. The race, the race is not over.

He dies gloating at Judah's horror, exacting some revenge for his humiliating defeat by revealing that Ben-Hur's mother and sister have been condemned to live among lepers.

But for Hillary and her dwindling band of die-hards, the vengeful gloating is that their own party has been condemned to the Valley of the Lepers with Obama.

Was over what tone the race would take after the conclusion was more or less forgone. Would the benefits of having competitive primaries outweigh the damage done to the nominee? The jury is still out on that one I think. On the whole I think the benefits outweigh the gains but time will be needed to tell for sure.

That's historical.

They'd much rather sit at home and let the party establishment pick their nominee for them.

But they always turn out in November, in huge numbers.

with the extended primary was the tone of how things would play out.  When Hillary uses bin Laden in a campaign ad, the same kind that we were furious over when the Republicans used it against Max Cleland and other Democrats, that's not helping.

And this latest stuff about white voters?  I'm sorry, she needs to be above that.  She should never have allowed herself to be drawn in to talking like that.

And some of her supporters threatening superdelegates of defections to McCain's camp if they don't support her?  YOU'RE NOT HELPING.

For me, it had nothing to do with the concept of an extended primary, but the tone in which it would be conducted.  And insulting every state you didn't win doesn't help either.

He needed two things to happen to win:

1. Disenfranchise voters from two of the biggest states in America

2. Convince African Americans that the people who have stood by them all those years were really racists.

Goal accomplished.

I can not and will not support Obama for his race-bating strategy. He personally attacked Hillary, not her record but her personally: "she will say or do anything to get elected". He also famously went after Bill Clinton (a man who's foundation has provided FREE AIDS medicine to MILLIONS of blacks in Africa and who set up his office in Harlem) and said his comments were racist. NOTHING CAN BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!!

I will not support race-bating, I will not support Obama.

Obama Now Leads in Superdelegates

For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton's support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate.

The tipping point occurred this morning, when New Jersey's Rep. Donald Payne defected from Clinton to Obama, and Oregon's Rep. Peter DeFazio, previously uncommitted, saw fit to join up with the Obama wagon trail.

By ABC's count, that gives Obama 267 supers, while Clinton has 256. Later this morning, Clinton edged back with the endorsement of Pennsylvania Rep. Chris Carter, so it looks as though she only trails now by 1 superdelegate.

UPDATE: Back up to a two-point lead. Obama nabs another.
UPDATE II: Make it a three-point lead courtesy of another California super, Ed Espinoza.

When Hillary Clinton lost the Iowa caucus, stories started appearing in the NY Times and similar outlets about how Clinton's campaign were going to regain their footing by racializing the campaign (eg. defining Obama as "the black candidate", relying upon the "Latino firewall" in states like California, and so on).

Clinton's campaign at this stage had every reason to get this information out, because their strategy, while not high-minded, was plausable, and what they were facing was the implosion of their campaign (if donors and other supporters weren't convinced she had a strategy the season could have ended just after New Hampshire).

Do Clinton supporters think these stories were plants?  Or are they willing to admit the obvious: Obama's campaign played no role in this, and the Clintons went in this direction because, in a Machiavellian sense, it was sound politics?

It's just human nature to magnify the virtues of your candidate and maximize the flaws of the one you oppose.  Those who think Obama racialized the campaign, though, are blind.  

There sure was a lot of hand-wringing back in March by Obama supporters unable to stomach the fact that Hillary Clinton would {gasp!} stay in the race and deny their candidate something he wasn't actually able to win outright.

This is an annoying characterization of those of us that wanted her to drop out.  We realized the polarization that a drawn-out fight could do to our party, as well as how it would strengthen the negative avenues of attack on our presumptive nominee.  It's worth pointing out that under the proportional representation system that we Democrats use, a candidate could win a 24-point margin in every single state and still be unable to win the contest "outright" -- there are THAT many SDs in play.

Also, I think it's dangerous to look at the numbers from our primary and extrapolate those into the general election.  Of course a lot of people participated in the most tightly-fought primary race in decades.  Of course the number of votes for the Democratic Primary dwarfed those of the already-decided Republican Primary!  That doesn't necessarily mean that those folks will be voting for the Democrat in the GE.

It certainly doesn't hurt, but just be careful in getting your hopes up too much.

There has been a negative impact which is not that there was a fifty State campaign during the primary. It was the fact that Hillary had to go extremely negative to get here, and to boot many of her loyal supporters are threatening and considering going for McSame in the Fall. Mrs. Clinton's campaign has not pushed for unity at all but rather for division and dissent to be able to stay in this fight. If the animosity sewn by the Clinton campaign remains it could mean a close race in November which means a GOP win (SCOTUS + Diebold + Close Race = GOP Win).

What will the MSM, particularly MSNBC, and other folks with CDS do when she does actually withdraw?  I think there will be a lot of pundits and poltical people going through withdrawal when there really isn't a Clinton around to bash anymore.

What am I thinking, no matter what happens, if its bad, It will always be the Clintons' fault.  Bush started it and I guess some people will always find a way and a reason to bash Hillary and Bill.  

Personally, I was a lot better off in the 90's.

Let's see, Obama supporters are "concern trolls."

Mmmm, yummy...sour grapes!  Hope you enjoy the taste.

Echo the many people above who point out that Clinton staying in the race per se isn't a problem, it's the attitude and tone her campaign is increasingly taking that's been a problem.  Increasingly there's been this atmosphere about the Clinton campaign that anything is justified.

They repeatedly point out that if Obama is nominated he'll be attacked by the Republicans (which is true), and then use that to justify themselves campaigning like Republicans.

They "know" that Obama can't win the general (never mind how they know, they "just know") and so therefore any attack against him is justified, even if it weakens him for the general election.

This all goes hand in hand with the "how dare he" attitude that a newcomer to the scene like Obama shouldn't be allowed to win the nomination over a longtime senior party member like Clinton, especially if he's doing it by bringing newer and younger voters into the party.  (viz President Clinton's remarks about how younger people don't really understand things well yet).

These kinds of attitudes would be grating and tiresome if Hillary were winning the nomination, but I think a lot of people would grumble quietly and put up with it.  As someone who's clearly already lost the race, however, all she's doing at this point is making enemies and preventing the party from coming together around the nominee.

and the Disenfranchisement of millions of voters in Florida and Michigan.

Good job Obama, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!

I will not support Obama, not this year not considering what he's done to "win".

Of course he probably won't win in November. We had a candidate who was capable of winning and moving the country to the left but some had other ideas.

Good luck in November! I will sit this one out and may leave the party. I can't support the incitement of racial predudice for political gain.

One thing we've learned here is that contested, close elections (Democratic primary in Texas in 2008) draw more voters than blowouts (Texas GE) or uncontested elections. Not terribly revolutionary.

We've registered a ton of new voters. That's genuinely a great outcome of this primary. But Obama's starting a huge voter registration drive anyway... if he'd been able to get started two months earlier, perhaps we'd be even better off. Who knows? Perhaps over the summer we'll learn about this.

Meanwhile Obama and Clinton have spent an enormous amount of money on ads that had the explicit purpose of damaging fellow Democrats: to say that these ads may have damaged Obama and Clinton's standing is hardly a stretch.

So, certainly the prolonged primary has not been the disaster that some predicted. The prospects for the Democratic nominee in the general election are bright. But was it better for Obama and Clinton to spend these months trying to beat each other, rather than focusing directly on voter registration, fundraising, attacking Republicans, etc? Of that, I'm really unconvinced.

To be fair a lot of us "concern trolls" didn't believe John McCain would suck so much at using his free time to boost his campaign. There are a lot of historical examples of long drawn out primary seasons helping to kill a party's chances.

As it happened I think we came out of this ok. Now if both sides can just stop being such assholes to each other (I've been an Obama supporter since Edwards left the race, but I swear to christ I'd love to be able to smack several people on both sides of the Obama/Clinton divide these days.)

How hard is this, Clinton gets to campaign as long as she f-ing wants to (I've always said that, just worried a long campaign could kill the party, and I was wrong) AND no matter who wins we all unite behind him/her. Really... is this so fucking hard???

This has been good for the party, but I swear it has brought out the inner child in way too many people in the netroots.  

In Indiana, the results have been spectacular.  Our Dem congressional candidate, Nels Ackerson, got more primary votes than 6 term incumbent Steve Buyer.  The people who picked up a Dem primary ballot (overwelmingly independent and Dems) also voted for the down ballot candidates.  GOP types intending mischief would not vote down ballot to make the local candidates look bad.  That did not happen.  Indiana has a huge number of military families and our Guard has been all over Iraq.  Buyer treated Vets like dirt when he was head of the VA committee, he treated the Farm Bureau with contempt and has been a Bush dittohead.  The last Dem polled under 40% in 04, but this time we have a decent shot at an upset.  If nothing else, Buyer will have to make a real campaign.  If the primary had stopped short of Indiana, none of this momentum would have happened.