I'm really disappointed with our focus right now. We've been talking for over a month now about how the primary race is over. Now that the media is final acknowledging this fact, we're celebrating our "victory".

Check out the Rec list. Six of the eight diaries are about Clinton/Obama, and the other two are meta stuff (Mojo Friday and Markos).

So bad that even a complete Republican head case like Peggy Noonan can hit the nail on the head regarding the Democratic primary! That should tell you its curtains time for Hillary. Excerpt and link below:

This comes from an interview with Morning Blow..er...Joe cohost Mika B-something.

I'm willing to bet my bicycle that he will endorse Obama because he mentions his name; in fact it seems as if it was at the tip of his tongue, but he was holding back because he just does'nt wanna do it yet. No idea why though!! Its over!!

As an aside: it appears to me that Mrs. Edwards voted for Hillary; I wonder how comfortable his couch is!!!!

Monty Python says it all here:

And for more Pythonesque comment on this contest, there's always the beloved "dead parrot" skit:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/...

Now all we need is a SNL skit of Hillary at the convention being dragged off the podium by security guards while yelling: "Don't tase me bro!"

It's sadly indicative of not only the current administration, but the prior near decade of complete Republican control over all government agencies, what it takes for any "progress" to finally happen for the average working American. It's tragically no different for our hard working military, in spite of all the "support our troops" rhetoric from those that do anything but...

Today is the Armed Services' Military Spouse Appreciation Day or Military Families First weekend as it's known in my District which includes Fort Bragg, where the Army just approved $2.9 million to fix the substandard living conditions.

I am always baffled by the Clinton campaigns ability to twist and turn from previous statements and positions. We of course remember the moving of goals posts that has occurred multiple times during this primary season, but a previous diary referring to Mark Penn's memo to "interested parties" stuck out to me this morning as I wait in the New Orleans airport for my flight back to Vegas.

One Particular section in Particular.

NYT editorial chimes in again. In yet another critique of the Clintons, the editorial board (which previously endorsed Hillary) lashes out at her on issues ranging from the negative campaing,

But we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones.

and, a bit more surprisingly, about Florida and Michigan recount:

We believe it would also be a terrible mistake if she launches a fight over the disqualified delegations from Florida and Michigan.  

Mrs. Clinton must drop her plans to fight to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan, which defied the Democratic Party and moved up the dates of their primaries. A lot of people voted in Florida anyway, but Mrs. Clinton should not pursue this nuclear option. It would make the Democrats look unable to control their own, just when they want to make a case that they can lead the entire nation

I found this rather striking: the first clear message to the Clintons to drop it.

Anyone watching John Edwards on MSNBC's Morning Joe?  He just slipped.

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No, I don’t have any photographic evidence to prove that Satan’s inferno suddenly has been transformed into a winter wonderland, nor am I meaning to suggest that the threat of global warming has abated.  But it’s evident to me that there has been a climate shift of cosmic proportions.

Let me explain.  My mother, an octogenarian who’s voted Republican her entire life except in 1960 when she elected to support JFK because he shared her Roman Catholic faith, revealed to me on the telephone yesterday that she’s voting in Kentucky’s upcoming primary for Barack Obama!

This is no minor transformation, and it began as a direct consequence of the Bush administration’s war policies combined with the emergence in power of the evangelical community.

Less than a month before the Democratic primary to represent Iowa's third district, Ed Fallon is trying to make Congressman Leonard Boswell either debate him or pay a political price for refusing to debate.

Join me after the jump for more on that and other recent developments in the race.

I'm covering this campaign more frequently and in more detail at the Iowa progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland.

Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Alter discussed whether Hillary is fighting dirty now because it is the only way that she will be asked to be Obama's VP. This line of reasoning, as best as I can remember it, is that if Hillary can't be the presidential nominee, she wants to be asked to be VP. That doesn't necessarily mean she would accept it, but she feels entitled to the respect and recognition of being asked.

However, Obama really wouldn't want to ask her and would only ask her if forced into it. The way she would force him into it is to play dirty, weaken him and create the implication that this is the only way that he can get a substantial portion of her voters.

A solution to this dilemma immediately occurred to me - Obama can select someone else as his VP now or in the not-too-distant future.

If you asked Al Gore what he considers the most pressing world issue, he would respond global warming.  He would be right but misdirected.  If you asked John Edwards, he would say poverty.  He would be correct but unfocused.  McCain, probably terrorism and Iraq war.  Right, but not quite on the money.

...if they're NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE!!

This weekend marks the kick-off of the Obama campaign's Vote for Change 50 State Voter Registration Drive. Have you signed up in your community? There are hundreds of events nationwide with thousands of volunteers looking to make hundreds of thousands of new voters for Barack Obama.

It's time to look towards November and how to beat John McCain. The Obama campaign knows it, John McCain knows it, and now even the media knows it. What better way to get things started than with a nationwide effort to recruit new voters for Barack Obama?

There were a couple diaries from yesterday discussing the Arizona Republic's article that Maverick (TM) John McCain isn't really an accurate picture of the presumptive Republican nominee. Conventional wisdom says brand Maverick (TM) is crucial to McCain's courting of independents in the fall, and if the value of the brand is diminished, so is his candidacy.

Follow that with my conversation Wednesday evening about Tuesday's results with my Terminix representative (necessary here in NC), who voted Hillary on electability.  Rory - now a citizen, but originally from Ireland - had an interesting perspective on McCain's VP choice. It is a perspective that brought up questions I thought might be worth discussing.

So, I've searched the site, and not found any specific diaries about this in the last 3 months so I decided to come out write my first diary. But I just joined three weeks ago and haven't mastered the search engine. How would Rudy Giuliani impact the election narrative, and McCain's chances to win in November?

I really hope we'll be hearing that from Hillary Clinton soon.  We'll be running out of time where that could possibly even matter before too long.  That same message with the names switched would unquestionably come from Barack Obama if he were in her position, but I'm unsure that Hillary is as big a person to speak them by July.

In light of the Presidential campaign's move to the great state of Oregon, I thought that I would provide some guidance (below the jump) on the state as well as how to campaign here.

I know Mitch McConnell is expecting a fight this fall, but he is already showing several symptoms of having taken too many shots to the head. (Besides the gnarly teeth). Yes, you can tell this is an election year for him, because all the sudden he can't remember what he's done, and remembers doing just the opposite.

I was reading this mornings' article in the NY Times, "Support for Clinton Wanes as Obama Sees Finish Line," by Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny, and then all of a sudden after reading this quote from Hillary, "I’m staying in this race until there is a nominee, and obviously I’m going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee," it dawned on me - Oh my God, she's taking one for the team!