I support Obama, but do not share many of my fellow supporters' dislike of Hillary. So let me make it plain: she's good too.

Further, by airing the argument about Obama's experience now, she's doing both the public, the Democratic party, and even Obama himself a huge service. Once rejected by the public, a frame almost never troubled a candidate again. So if you're going to have to counter a predictable line of attack, the best way is for your weakest opponent to do it early. Hillary pretending Obama can't face the specter of a terrorist attack in the spring, inoculates him against a more credible attack from a certified war hero in the fall.

Again, there is a time for candidates to step aside. That time is when they simply start losing everywhere. But until then, this is primary season. Some Democrats get to put out their arguments, others get to put out ours.

And whoever wins we all support in the fall.

Hillary Clinton no longer deserves the nomination or the support of the Democratic Party. If she doesn't even have the sense to figure out that Obama is a better option than McCain, and that in fact McCain's foreign policy experience represents advocacy for more war for more years, she has no business in this primary. She may claim to have America's interests at heart, but this disgusting display strongly indicates it's simply about her winning and gaining power. Fuck that--and yeah, I'll say it now.. Fuck you too, Mrs. Clinton. Your behavior disqualifies you.

Hello? A better title would be: why should we let Keith Olberman and an Air America host determine the standards by which candidates should be chosen?

On the experience in politics / experience in Washingotn dimension, Barack Obama clearly ranks third behind McCain and Clinton.

But that's not the only standard by which we choose our presidents.

"that's what you say when you want to be the GOP Vice Presidential nominee." That just idiotic.

There are many, many reasons that millions of Democrats support Hillary Clinton. i don't happen to be one of them, but unlike TA, I see no reason to follow the scorched earth strategy.

Experience only matters if you don't keep making the same mistake over and over again.

FWIW I just posted a more lengthy comment and it was flagged as spam for no apparent reason.

I hope the big tent here is big enough to include Hillary supporters - there are millions of us. You're never going to build an Obama victory by vilifying our candidate and ostracizing us.

the supporters are welcome--just not the candidate.

The person who should be embarrassed is Hillary Clinton. If she is so obsessed with becoming President that she'll smear her opponent and harm her party to do it, the epithet is well deserved. If Obama said McCain would be a better choice than Hillary, I'd be disturbed about that, too. I'll say it again: fuck you, Hillary. You are unworthy of the office.

By your own criteria you should reject Obama, torridjoe.

He began insinuating negative things about Hillary from the bigging - things like she's somehow totally contrived and calculating, or has to take a poll, or has been plotting a run for President for decades. These were not policy distinctions. These were negative character attacks, playing up themes that were originally authored by the right wing against a great Democratic woman, and they predated -any- negative statement about Obama by the Clinton camp.

I wrote a letter to the Obama campaign about it asking them to take the high road as he had promised, with the simple logic that we can't afford to play winner-take-all, divide-and-conquer in this party and sacrifice one strong candidate for another. It was the Obama camp that ignored those early pleas and continued to go negative against Hillary long, long before she replied in kind.

The result is just as I predicted: a bitterly divided democratic party. And your reactive attitude isn't going to unify us any time soon, nor are Obama's smug claims that he'll have all Hillary supporters in his pocket. Due to that insult alone, a great many moderate Clinton supporters will refuse to vote for him.

When you insult our candidate, you insult us. Good luck with that shrinking tent.

then I guess I'm insulting you, because there's no possible comparison that puts Obama on equal footing when it comes to poor and cheating behavior. this is simply the final straw from a desperate, selfish person. What could be more divisive to the party than saying the Republican is the better choice if not her?

If Obama is Mr. Clean, why is the Ohio Secretary of State (a Democorat) reprimanding his campaign today? And is that why his campaign is breaking rules in Texas by filling out caucus attendance forms early, which is in clear violation of the rules?

The latest.

The bottom line is that Obama's just as much a politician as Clinton, and you do not build unity by moral exclusion; you paint yourself into a corner that way. It makes no sense for you to support a candidate who claims openly to have Republican appeal and in the same breath vilify anyone who would vote Republican. Also, not supporting Obama does not necessarily mean voting Republican. I might just write-in Mike Gravel if the whole party takes on your tone; fortunately I don't think that will happen.

Hillary Clinton is a great woman and a great Democrat. She is better than Obama on environment, on health care, on LGBT issues, and yes, against McCain, on foreign policy. Go ahead and make your case, but stop trash-talking her unless you really want a rift in the democratic party. This isn't winner-take-all American Idol; it's coalition politics, and nobody's leaving unless they start to sense they're really not welcome. Show some love.

"Go ahead and make your case,"

I already did. Hillary Clinton lacks the moral character and concern for anything that might supercede her political career, that would qualify her to be President. Her behavior indicates she is not worthy of the office.

Bill R -- Mark Penn and Charlie Black aren't really "colleagues" in the "same" PR firm.

I have no love for either of the two men, but here's the facts: Mark Penn is the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a worldwide firm (2000 employees) that's gone on a spending spree to buy up lots of little firms. One of them is BKSH Associates, which is Charlie Black's firm.

It's more like Penn is Black's boss, except that Burson mostly lets those little firms operate independently.

From the WaPo:

Penn's firm, Burson-Marsteller Worldwide -- with 2,000 employees and $300 million a year in revenue -- owns BKSH & Associates, the major lobbying firm chaired by Charles R. Black Jr. That's right, Black, counselor to Republican presidents, reports to Clinton's top strategist. The connections get even more entangled. Burson-Marsteller is a subsidiary of WPP Group, a London-based advertising and PR giant that owns many of the biggest names on K Street. These include Quinn Gillespie & Associates, Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, Timmons & Co., Ogilvy Government Relations Worldwide (formerly the Federalist Group), Public Strategies Inc., Dewey Square Group and Hill & Knowlton. To be more precise, Penn's parent company employs as lobbyists and advisers an ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee (Edward W. Gillespie), a former House GOP leader (Robert S. Walker), a top GOP fundraiser (Wayne L. Berman), and the former media adviser to President Bush (Mark McKinnon). WPP's Democrats are just as well known. They include an ex-aide to President Jimmy Carter (Anne Wexler), an ex-aide to President Bill Clinton (Jack Quinn), an ex-Cabinet officer for Clinton and Bush (Norman Y. Mineta), and a former top presidential campaign adviser for Al Gore and John Kerry (Michael J. Whouley).

Katy, you have yet to respond to the actual words Hillary spoke. she declared McCain's experience to be more worthy of consideration that Obama's. Obama consistently tells his supporters how much better Hillary is than McCain; he simply believes he is better.

and she endorses McCain. do you mind actually speaking to what i posted, and not your own general objections to people supporting someone who is not Hillary?

4 years ago, i thought i'd be a Hillary supporter in 2008. she lost my support by her own actions -- above all else, by refusing to have the honesty to admit her vote on the war was wrong. my kid is going to Iraq in a year, Katy, and if you think i could possibly give my support to someone who made that possible....

i look forward to voting for more women in the future. there's no reason Obama cannot be succeeded by a qualified woman. i can think of several who would make great presidents and i'd probably be happy to vote for. hell, it may be a longer list than of men right now! but Hillary is no longer one of those, and it has nothing to do with gender. she's not qualified to be president, imo, but she less not-qualified than McCain, so if i gotta, i'll vote for her.

but i hope i don't have to. not when we can do so much better.

reply to the actual post, Katy. we're waiting to hear why her constant belittling of Obama, and now her reducing of him below McCain, is acceptable for a Democrat.

t.a.,

You want Katy to respond to "what you posted"? What did you post, a taken out of context quote by a trying to score points television blatherer?

You claim that you are far too high minded to post anything critical about Hillary Clinton, but it's ok to post a video of someone else equating her with the GOP vice presidential nominee?

Hillary Clinton did not rank McCain above Obama--that's what Olbermann claimed she did. Clinton's words are quite specific--McCain will certainly campaign on his lifetime of experience, his war record, and his record in the Senate. If, as an Obama supporter, you don't recognize that Obama's relative youth and inexperience is his weakest point in the coming campaign, you are in for a rude awakening.

But you go even further--you write that "she endorses McCain."

T.A. you know that statement is completely false.

Is this how Democrats will take back the White House in 2008?

feel free to take her words at face value -- just like she said she thinks Obama is not a Muslim "as far as she knows." she's been saying forever that she's more qualified to president for one reason above all: experience. experience is the alpha & omega of her qualifications.

and then she says McCain is #2 on that. not her fellow Dem, the person you would think would be her second choice. no, like Olbermann says, she says #2 is her alleged (political) enemy. ok, that's not an endorsement -- per se. but it's a sound bite ready for the eating: HRC says McCain more qualified than Obama. if experience is why you'd choose Hillary, why then wouldn't you use the same criteria to pick McCain over Obama?

the Dems will take back the White House by picking candidate who refused to go "kitchen sink", who did not get personal, who did not resort to plagiarizing Mondale's commercials in a rovian fear-mongering last-minute ad campaign, who stuck pretty damn well to the issues. Obama will take back the White House, and bring new voters and good new Dems with him.

Hillary may win the White House, but she'll have the same coattails as Bill: zilch.

I'd love to see a woman president. However, that doesn't mean I am going to support a candidate just because she is a woman. I look at their issues, what they've done, what they've supported/opposed, how they've run their campaign, etc. and make a decision based on that.

When doing that between Obama and Hillary, Obama won.

One of the things that really turned me off was the "traitor" remarks made towards people who supported Obama over Hillary (such as the Kennedys and Oprah).

There are just too many things that Hillary supported that I disagreed with. I think it's time for a fresh perspective in the White House.

Katy, considering i was the first to write for Obama in BlueOregon, and have done so more than anyone, i feel i can respond to your charges. i have written very little about Hillary. there's no need; she is simply not as qualified to be president as Obama, and so i speak of the candidate who is qualified. until recently, i felt perfectly happy to be ready to support her as my second choice. i have scolded people who said "anyone but Hillary!" reminding them of 2000 & 2004 and how very important it was to elect a Democrat even if that person wasn't our first choice. hell, John Kerry was my 4th choice, and i busted my ass for him.

Hillary changed all that. i didn't change. she started the smears, the innuendo. it was Mark Penn who went on the Sunday morning show and said "cocaine Obama cocaine" until Joe Trippi told him to knock it off. it was Hillary who resorted to belittling not only Obama but his supporters. it was Hillary who did the junior high mockery of Obama in Rhode Island. it was Hillary who plagiarized Mondale to fear-monger. it was Hillary who took her #1 criteria for being president -- experience -- and said the #1 Republican was better than Obama. Hillary did this, her and her campaign that had the arrogance to believe they would be annointed on Super Tuesday and then had no plan for dealing with the fact that Obama won that day. faced with desperation, they reacted with negativity and ugliness. that was Hillary, not anyone at BlueOregon, not anyone in the Obama campaign. Hillary.

but just as she refuses to take responsibility for her vote on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, you refuse to own up to what she has done. you point at one commenter in here and say, "that's the Obama campaign." yet i have done none of that; Jeff Alworth & Charlie Burr, big supporters and writers as well, we haven't done that. Bill Bodden hasn't done that. torridjoe did, but he was an Edwards supporter and he talks like that all the time (he says worse about Merkley). the real Obama supporters have been angry, have been vocal, have been unequivocal, but we have not been doing what you accuse us of. it's easy to pick one person and tar us all; it's also dishonest.

and having seen Hillary plagiarize "Yes we can" tonight as she gained nothing in this round of voting, having watched her dismiss Obama until her closing remarks — unlike he, who was gracious to her at the beginning (and scathing at the end) — i can tell you this: she'll get my vote if i have no choice. she has lost my respect. and if she's commander-in-chief when my son goes to Iraq next year, she will not have my trust. she will never have that.