Also, this just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Hillary's internals must be really bad.

If the fact that Obama has not held a hearing on his subcommittee on Europe is contrasted with Hillary's tenure as chair of Superfund committee, then the "experience" and "ready to lead" narratives that Hillary has been trying to push could become more effective. But I don't think any reporter wants to mention that. Too much important detail. Just my haunch.

When do I vote in the national primary? I need to put the date in my calender so I don't miss it.

GQ:

What hearings do you think should have been called?

Helter wrote on December 17, 2007 5:40 PM:

When do I vote in the national primary? I need to put the date in my calender so I don't miss it.

February 5, 2008 a.k.a "Super Tuesday."

DemAC & dcshungu...I'm glad you're back. I've been defending our candidate from the ugly, vicious attacks on her

BluePuppy,
Yes, every now and then the “Hillary haters gone wild” infests the comments section here at TPM. We only get to sleep when they take a break to worship at the feet of the great and infallible “O”. :-)

jb,
The national numbers are, in fact, a rather good measure of the overall situation in the February 5 states. Besides, even as a few thousand Iowans decide for us, in a democracy it’s sometimes kind of interesting to know what the majority of voters think.

If Obama had gained six points in a national poll, it would be heralded as an important surge. When it's Clinton, it's just a blip -- and the Obama crowd complains that national polls don't mean anything. They meant something when it looked like your guy was gaining, didn't they? The simple truth is that Hillary has more support ... because she has more experience and would be a more competent leader.

I worked for Bob Kerrey in NH in '91. That wasn't a Penn attack (and I'm sure the Clinton team didn't like it). The man is famous for saying whatever he wants--and he's most definitely not a hateful person. I would take that comment on face value.

Of course an 18 point lead is consistent with her overall lead in the RCP average (as of my writing this, RCP has the lead at 17.8 points). Interestingly though, it does seem like Clinton's share in the national polls may have stablized recently, whereas Obama's share is still steadily increasing. But it is still a little early to make a call on the current trends.

And naturally, the usual caveats about these polls not being strongly predictive of final results apply.

GQ:

I'm interested in what you think, not Steve Clemons. If European issues are important to you, that's great. If this committee's alleged inaction is a hot button issue for you, I'd love to hear more of what you have to say. What specific issues have suddenly gone neglected since Obama became chairman?

How many times have you written Senator Obama demanding that hearings be held on specific issues? Democracy after all is not a spectator sport. I write elected officials with some frequency when I don't feel they are adequately addressing issues that are important to me.

Have you written Senators Dodd & Biden about your concerns? In addition to running for President, both are members of the U.S. Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommitte on European Affairs, although neither appears to have mentioned the shocking absence of hearings of this subcommittee.

So we can truly assess the damage done by Obama's inaction, can you please list what hearings you think should have been held and what the substantive outcome of those hearings would have been. We see how things have turned out without Obama calling hearings - how would things have been different if he had called the hearings you think should have been called?

And the reason I'm asking these questions is that your posts give me the distinct impression that this "no hearings" issue is simply an Obama criticism that you found on the web and is not the result of any deeply held convictions on your part. Before you found out this line of criticism existed, I doubt you much cared what hearings this subcommittee held.

Obviously, I could be completely wrong. But I get the impression that if Obama weren't running for president, you wouldn't be aware of the lack of hearings, or care. True?

For my part, it's not clear to me that any great harm has resulted from the lack of hearings. The post you linked to seems to imply that more hearings is always better - I'm not sure that's the case. Neither you nor Steve Clemons appears willing to point out a specific negative outcome from the lack of hearings - you both just appear happy to find a new stone to lob Obama's way.

With respect to your candidate, my criticisms tend to be deeply held and I can point to the negative effect of Senator Clinton's actions. She voted for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq and unwittingly enabled the start of this war. Had she and many of her colleages opposed the authorization, this war may well have been averted. She voted for diminished civil liberties in the form of the Patriot Act, along with every U.S. Senator except Russ Feingold. Had a majority of senators voted with Senator Feingold, the Patriot Act could not have become law. These are, of course, but two examples. And they're not issues that I adopted just to bash Hillary Clinton. They're issues that were important to me long before this election came around. I know who was on the right side of these issues, who was on the wrong side of these issues, and how the outcome could have been different if Hillary Clinton and a whole host of other senators have voted differently.

Perhaps this lack of hearings is just as despicable as enabling a war and giving a big thumbs up to putting the bill of rights through the shredder, but neither you nor Steve Clemons has really made the case. Not in my opinion.

And lastly, if this is a real concern, he should be asked about it. It would be a hell of lot better than asking about what he wanted to be when he was in kindergarten.

For now I'll take anything from USA Today with a grain of salt being that they are owned by the same corporation as the Des Moines Register.

Actually, BJ, I watched Kerrey defend his statement about Barack today on CNN. He was saying that he likes Barrack Hussein Obama very much and that he thinks that, if Hillary were to lose the nomination, Obama would make a great president -- especially due to the fact that many people, here in America and abroad, would be proud to see a man of such a rich heritage win the candidacy.

At least, that's how I read his statement.

Go look for it on CNN.

2008 Presidential Election Weekly Poll

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Results Posted Every Tuesday Evening.

With 6 weeks to go, Hillary's lead in South Carolina still looks strong. Her strength most other places has grown. This makes it increasingly difficult for Obama to use Iowa and New Hampshire as any sort of springboard.

Regarding Europe, I really can't say what use it would be to do any work on NATO and other important issues as long as W is in office. To date it looks like W just does what he wants, and if no one's going to impeach, fretting over committee actions seems increasingly irrelevant, majority or not. Witness Bali (I guess Obama could have dropped by the environmental conference with Gore since he's got such good roots in Indonesia ;-)

"With 6 weeks to go, Hillary's lead in South Carolina still looks strong."

South Carolina is less important than Iowa or NH. Regardless, Hillary is also slipping there. Her numbers are basically flat, but Obama's are rising somewhat.

Again, if Obama takes Iowa, where he's presently ahead, Hillary's veneer of inevitability shatters. From talking to people who support Hillary, I'd say that's a lot of her support, and if it cracks, she could slip into free fall.

Iowa for example has shown women voters aren't that loyal to Hillary as was expected. And she and Bill have not done well on the campaign, contrary to all expectations. It's been one way: down.

We haven't had a lot of polling in SC, but the RCP running average has Clinton at just +2.2, down from around a 13-14 point average lead until just recently.

Maybe I'm getting poll fatigue but I think one has to look beyond the headlines on a lot of these polls particularly the state ones for NH and IA which really only tell you who is in contention because of the electoral process in each state. If you take a look at the fundamentals of the national polls when they start addressing actual policy issues like Iraq and healthcare and who is best able to handle them, or attributes like experience and electablity, the fact is Obama's numbers are fairly bad. The ABC and CBS polls both out a week ago did a lot of this analysis and bear looking at. In a sentence her numbers were all in the fifties, sixties and seventies while his were maily in the teens, a couple in the twenties and some actually in single figures. These numbers are to me a measure of how voters feel in their gut about the candidate. They're not what would I like to see they go to the heart of perception and I just don't see how Obama bridges a gap like this, in fact it's a chasm. Call me stupid if you like but I just don't see him overcoming this gut feeling but we'll see soon I guess.