risk alienating voters in those states that have yet to vote, especially Pennsylvania.

Because Pennsylvania voters are badly in need of remedial math courses?

This is the second comment from Obama himself that calls on Hillary to quit, but does not use those exact words. By saying that the race has gone on too long Obama is saying that it should end. And to end it one of the candidates would need to resign. Unless Obama is suggesting that the one to resign should be himself, he's saying Hillary should quit. Maybe Obama supporters can quibble over whether or not Obama is suggesting directly that Hillary should quit, but every Hillary supporter hears the message loud and clear.

By the way, today's ARG Poll shows Hillary's lead in Pennsylvania has grown since their last poll three weeks ago.

No kidding.

Even more, it's like the preview that runs too long. I am ready for the feature film...and I want Barack Obama to be starring in it.

How do you gently end a divisive race between two competitive politicians and minimize the collateral damage? This really is the big question since neither candidate has a chance of winning outright (with pledged delegates).

I bet this is as far as Barak will push this idea--acknowledge that there is a movement to end this thing then move on to other issues. Hedging his bets by campaigning in NC and IA as well.

I bet we start seeing a drip drip of prominent SD endorsements for Obama now. Ending it slowly is probably the best way.

The political media frenzy today has focused on calls for Clinton to resign. That is why Obama and his spokesman made their respective comments today -- to fan the frenzy. However the next item to be hyped by the political media may well turn out to be the story about the "terrorist" who was tortured at Guantanamo. It's all about whatever keeps them tuned in.

CNN & WSJ Double Team: I can’t believe the CNN bias towards Obama. It is really interesting that both WSJ and CNN are taking shots at Hillary. CNN wants the liberal candidate - Obama, WSJ obviously has become a mouthpiece for the republicans since it was purchased by Murdoch. What this country really needs is a true crossover candidate. They both want her down because she is THAT candidate. All the calls for Hillary to step down need to be directed at Obama. He is the one with no experience and based on seniority he is the one who needs to quit if he can’t win the big states. Obama is a dangerous egomaniac and all he is doing is splitting the party by not seating Florida and Michigan. Obama wants to win at all costs. It is plainly obvious. If America wants a black candidate, it needs one who is not brought up with and does not embrace the Black Power movement which targets the extinction of the white race. Obama is not that candidate.

With Hillary almost gone, we can focus on other things, such as the news that:

Idiotic goes on business trips!

Woe -- Woe!!! -- to the hapless functionary who makes a stupid comment in an business meeting with Idiotic at the table!

so obama thinks the electoral process has gone on a half hour too long eh?

this smack of insufferable arrogance towards pennslyvania, north carolina, indiana, puerto rico..not to mention the giving the middle finger to michigan and florida voters.

it might be somewhat amusing once or twice but a few more episodes of begging and whining for this hard race to stop and its going to be nauseatingly tiresom

as banarana sang in one of my favorite 80s songs..its going to be a long hot summer let it simmer i cannot wait to see the frenzy that must soon overtake the overheated obama supporters

still and all, beginning to sound a bit smug saying it would be useful if one of the dropped out, useful indeed..we have a process let it go forward, address michigan and florida and see where the chips fall

but, obama does not want those two states counted, we must adhere to rules of fools...as the party of democracy, how dare we contrive to ignore two major states needed to win in november

the obamakin kids seem to think obama will give a speech and all these folks will get tingly in the leg like chris matthews, it must be a spiritual sort of thing

no, no such luck senator obama, you will have to continue to fight and the test begins...so far i am not overwhelmed

Lazy whiner just got back from the Virgin Islands.

He can't keep up with Clinton and is younger.

Saddle up Obama.

Has anybody on TPM noticed or mentioned the alleged claims by the HRC campaign that Obama was not a professor at the University of Chicago?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/28/university-of-chicago-ob_n_93896.html

If true then the HRC campaign has no understanding of academic hierarchy, or they assume we are too dumb to know any better.

With the recent "Bosnia-sniper" escapades, I would guess the latter.

Give me a break...forget the cheapshots and stick to the issues.

I'd just like to jump in, on a happy note, and brag about my niece in college -- in PENNSYLVANIA -- who not only switched parties before the 3/24 deadline, but joined Barack's College Town campaign headquarters. Seeing as how most of our family is Republican, I think this was a big step for my niece, and I'm damn proud of her.

Okay, carry on.

i just heard the clip on olbermann (sub lady, i dunno), and what obama said "some people think... [movie reference][faint applause]" he continues: "BUT this campaign has been a good thing bla bla bla" the countdown transcript isn't up yet, but check it out.

This has been a GOOD movie?

I just donated another $100 to the Hillary campaign. I can't afford it. But I don't care. I don't care if Obama supporters say I'm throwing away my money. I just read an AP story about Hillary in Indiana, and I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I love that woman. She inspires me.

Anyone interested can read the story. It's not long.

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080329/D8VMOHJG0.html

It's titled, "Clinton: In The Race For The Long Run.

I just donated another $100 to the Hillary campaign. I can't afford it. But I don't care. I don't care if Obama supporters say I'm throwing away my money. I just read an AP story about Hillary in Indiana, and I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I love that woman. She inspires me.

Thank you for being a true believer.
How would you like to have "tea on the tarmac for two" with me?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/186006.php

liberal historian,

I'd disagree in part with your hypothesis. While I do agree that there is a much higher standard for a black candidate (If the Rev. Wright BS didn't prove that enough), I think there is something else at play also: The Clintons.

Bill is the power of the party. Hillary, by association, also wields a lot of influence in the party. There is nobody within the party who can stand up to Bill and tell him to shove it and quit. Not one person. Not Gore, Kerry, Pelosi, Dean, Carter, Biden, Dodd, Leahy, or Reid. Sure if they all in unison got together they may be ale to shut him down, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Why? Because even though many of them may hate it, Bill is an asset. A big asset. They all want Bill and Hillary around for future battles. So, they have been hemming and hawing and trying to nudge Bill in the right direction and get her out without damaging Bill and Hillary. It's not easy.

And since nobody in the party is willing or is able to direct the Clintons off the stage and let Obama have it, it's a race. And the media covers it that way. Believe me, if the supers and insiders after Wisconsin decided to all declare it over, it would have been over. They didn't.

That's my theory anyway.

If you're going to make the intellectually lazy claim that Obama is "arrogant" (I'm looking at you, blackflag, maksutov66 and others) and that it's his "arrogance" standing between Hillary Clinton and her rightful place on the Democratic presidential ticket, I suggest you take a long, close look at the glass house from within which you're rock-lobbing. There are a few different ways to parse this claim, none of which -- in the final analysis -- are very flattering to Clinton or her backers.

(1) Obama is "arrogant" because he's young/inexperienced/etc.

- On Principle: If HRC were so experienced, what's with the obvious and embarrassing resume puffing and/or outright distortion surrounding her putative experience? It's not sexist to observe that First Spouses typically don't accumulate the sort of experience demanded of a President. The day Laura Bush is sworn in as commander-in-chief is the day I put a bullet in my brain.

- On Tactics: Does HRC really think she can beat McCain on the merits of her "experience"? As others have observed, all the GOP need do is run clips of her duplicitous claims of combat experience against very real footage of McCain's military service to his country. This is a non-starter for Democrats (remember: we had an actual war hero running in '04 against a draft-dodging rich kid and it failed miserably), which is precisely why the post-Boomer Obama has so masterfully framed this election in terms of new-vs-old, judgment-vs-tenure, unity-vs-division, and hope-vs-fear. He doesn't need to posture as a wannabe war hero because he isn't one and doesn't claim to be one. He's a statesman and he's poised to make the credible case that the last thing this nation needs in a president at this point is a military man bound to a cold war conception of the world at large. Hillary's strategy, by comparison, has been to try to convince the electorate that she's not just as "tough" as the Republicans, but tougher. Evidently, she finds the strategy plausible enough to justify falsifying her actual experience, such as it is. If you think Kerry got a raw deal in '04, just wait until you see the shitstorm an HRC-McCain match-up would provoke. Shorter version: McCain is both more experienced and older than Clinton. POINT: McCain

(2) Related to but distinct from interpretation (1) is the idea that Obama is "arrogant" because he's less qualified/capable/savvy/intelligent than Clinton.

- On Principle: This claim is prima facie false. Obama has accomplished more than Clinton as a legislator, has out-performed her in a host of the standard social metrics of capability and intelligence (e.g., academic performance, for starters; but more importantly: the success and competence with which he has guided his primary campaign, the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence as to the depth of his abilities as an executive). This is not to deny Clinton's formidable intelligence and ability to master policy nuances, BUT:

- On Tactics: Even granting a draw on this point leaves Obama with the advantage for the (misleadingly) simple reason that while Clinton knows her shit, Obama both knows his shit and can get others motivated to do something about it, be it his peers in the legislature or his people on the ground. Nominating a candidate with the sort of negative numbers Hillary "enjoys" is a return to Dukakisizing the party and a terrible, terrible strategic move. For all the noise Clinton makes about being a "fighter" she seems oblivious to the idea that, tactically speaking, the strongest fighters are precisely the ones who don't have to rely on talk about their pugilistic prowess. Just words, indeed. Obama's cool-headed and even-handed diplomatic approach to matters is a net postitive for progressives. He doesn't waste valuable time beating his chest, instead he motivates and mobilizes. The fightin' on this model, like much of his campaign, moves from the bottom up, not vice versa. Surely the party that championed the rights of labor can appreciate the wisdom of this approach.

(3) I hesitate to include this, lest I be accused of all manner of things, but: Obama is "arrogant" because, as a black male, he needs to shut up and wait his turn. Now, before anyone goes blowing this out of proportion or context, be clear: I'm not accusing all or even many, much less most of Clinton's supporters of acting on racist (or racially suspect) motives. But the tenor of the campaign at this point hasn't done much to assuage my fear that even the campaign itself wouldn't sink so low as to employ race-baiting against a fellow Democrat. When HRC backers start quoting Hannity and Scaife, I shudder for the future of the Democratic Party.

- On Principle: Unacceptable. No exceptions. We're better and bigger than this. If the only way for your Democratic candidate to win is to play to a portion of the electorate's irrational fears (be it race or religion or whatever), then it's game over: we've become what we set out to defeat.

- On Tactics: Do I really need to spell out why the Democratic Party can't afford to alienate its most consistently reliable electoral demographic to-date? Despite the ease with which the Clintons (behind the scenes) throw around the phrase "political suicide," that is precisely what we'd face in November if our candidate reached his or her position as a result of racial or religious insinuation. So far as I know.

I do give Hill props on her response.

To me it is "The Clintons-3". And everyone knows that sequels suck.

oh, jeebus. I *AM* a North Carolina voter, and I am so totally ready for this thing to be over. I want my primary to focus on our local races (amongst others, we have an important democratic senate primary, because we would really love to dump Liddy Dole in the fall). With the never-ending saga of the Clintonator, a lot the air gets sucked out of the theater of local politics, and some progressive candidates suffer because the increased turnout for the prez race favors the candidates with the greater level of "name recognition." In a less "important" primary, it's easier to turn out energized local voters in numbers commensurate with the resources those candidates can generate.

So before we go making broad claims of "disenfranchisement" for groups of voters, we might want to consider the fact that some of these late voting states had the opportunity to place their primaries earlier and chose not to, with the full expectation that the field might be - and indeed, based on precedent, most likely would be - narrowed to a single candidate by now. It's not like we expected to be the firewall.

I'm sick of this marathon too, it's just draining the party and its voters and making Limbaugh giddy. Can we come up with constructive suggestions to deliver the KO to Hillary?

We know she doesn't really care if Obama loses to McCain so to urge her from the perspective of the greater good for the Party's chances in November is useless. She's not even interested in going back to the Senate, what's the point when it was only a stepping stone to the beeeeg prize? So she will fight on, and on, and, on, and on like the Energizer Bunny.

Peggy Noonan warned about her Rasputin-like character a while ago. To Hillary, that is undoubtedly a prized virtue.

For those of us who are not fans of drawn-out bloodsport like Bill, can we think of a way out of this?

The only way to halt her in her tracks is if her own interests are at stake, so what may that be? We know what she is after, is there a way to let her know her own limits?

What about poll numbers? The Bosnia flap was a good start, what about her other gaffes and exaggerations?

Can we brainstorm some ideas to wrap this up?

Hillary can do whatever she likes.

The question is does the media, voters, supers, and donors want to join her suicide mission?

"I like long movies."
Clinton is like some of those people who sit through all the credits and continue to sit there and stare at the blank screen after the movie is over and has to be asked to leave by the cleaning people.

Who cares what Obama thinks?

There are lots of women who would make a great president and I don't think that the clintons' train wreck will have any impact on a woman president in the very near future.

O I agree with this. I can't say how badly I want to see a woman president before I die. But inasmuch as Hillary has gotten this far, I now believe my chances of seeing one is a lot better than it was and I think I will see a woman president before I die.

Just not this one. Look, I don't want anymore do-overs. I hate dynasties, I'm sick of the same dynamic running things - it's been like this since 1992. I honestly believe that it's gotten personal for the Clintons just like it was for George Bush and I want all of them to take their power struggle somewhere else besides my government.

Late Update: Hillary has responded by declaring simply, "I like long movies."

That's nice, dear, but every movie needs editing.

Qwerty said:

Can we come up with constructive suggestions to deliver the KO to Hillary?

Now this comment is (unintentionally) hilarious.

Because if Obama could deliver a KO, he would have by now.

But the painful reality—to his supporters, anyway—is he can't.

He can't beat Hillary Clinton by the party's own nomination rules.

Not without getting all of his surrogates to clamor to the media daily that Hillary should drop out, sounding a constant "drop out!" drumbeat in an attempt to influence public opinion (exactly like the Bush administration did to influence public opinion about going to war with Iraq).

Not without pressuring the party leaders and super delegates (and maybe even pledged delegates) behind the scenes to force or manufacture an end to the party's primary process.

Not without discounting two states from his own totals and blocking those states from having revotes (because he's at a disadvantage if he allows them).

Not without trying to call the game before he has the requisite number of delegates.

Not without minimizing a candidate who is at least as viable as he is.

Despite raising more money, running more ads, winning more states, leading in delegates and popular votes, having more cyber support, getting more positive press, capitalizing on the Clinton "negatives" and Republican-generated smears from the 1990s ad nauseam, Obama is behind Clinton by 16 points (av.) in PA. How is this possible? Because he can't deliver a KO.

He just can't.

If Obama can't deliver a KO to another Democrat without altering the standard accepted procedure created by his own party, he certainly can't deliver a KO to a Republican in the GE.

But good luck with coming up with "constructive suggestions to deliver the KO to Hillary"!

It was proven when Kerry was nominated because he was more "electable" in the abstract, obviously, since he really wasn't cause he lost.

Can you make a concrete argument in support of "electability" as something objective and measurable that can be agreed upon as a "standard"?

If you can do that, I'll talk to you. Otherwise, you missed my entire point.

Damn, that last comment was supposed to show up under djchapai's absurd "black power" comment.

Though I really AM looking forward to living in the United States of SHAFT.

As to the alleged "arrogance" of Obama somehow "blocking" the votes of MI and FL being counted - first off, that's a lie, the DNC "blocked" the states...secondly, even if it were true, it would certainly be no more "arrogant" than suggesting that half of the states in the country don't matter, even when they've held primaries/caucuses in accordance with party rules, and last of all, this bullshit about how the "disenfranchised" voters of MI and FL may just decide to sit it out in November has historical precedent in all those states who, for the past 35 years, have sat it out in November because their primary votes didn't even count since the nominee was decided before they went to the polls. Yes, we are all familiar with the zero Democratic Party turnout in the 40 or more states who have had absolutely no say in deciding the nominee for the past 35 years...one wonders how a Democrat has ever won anything when all the Democrats except for those in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and a few other states stay home on election day. It becomes an even greater wonder when you consider that three of the ten states where Democratic primary voters have not been routinely "disenfranchised" - those named above - have voted Republican in almost all presidential contests in those same 35 years.

I suppose this is what Hillary bases her "states that don't matter" theory upon - the fact that Democrats have won the presidency 3 times in 35 years by winning only 7 states, since Republicans won 3 of the 10 that decided the Democratic nominee and no Democrats voted in the other 40, so great was their anger at being "disenfranchised" by a primary system that allows states that usually vote Republican to choose their nominee.

See? Repeating stupid arguments thousands of times does not make them any less stupid. It only makes them more tedious.

"Obama's attempt to oust Clinton and
block voting is undemocratic:

"As sure as Democrats know all about 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,' if you Obama elites keep trying to push Clinton out of this primary race you're going to end up with a much bigger problem. Clinton's voters will dig themselves in and protest your undemocratic actions by either staying home or voting for John McCain."

This was the dumber than playing the race card for his radical pastor.

"As sure as Democrats know all about 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,' if you Obama elites keep trying to push Clinton out of this primary race you're going to end up with a much bigger problem. Clinton's voters will dig themselves in and protest your undemocratic actions by either staying home or voting for John McCain."

So you want another do-over - you want to do-over 2004. We nominate the creaking old machine politics Democratic candidate - Hillary - and John McCain is the 44th president.

That's exactly the thinking that lost '04. The progressive wing of the party has had it with you losers. Terry McAuliffe - loser. I could go on and on.

You keep pushing the Old Guard, Republican Lite bunch and it's Repugs forever.

Make no mistake, to stop the insanity in Iraq and economic downturn, it is up to us to vote and elect a Dem President.

I will never vote gop and if Obama is the nominee, I will vote for him.

I hope Obama supporters will do the same if Clinton is the nominee.

I can't argue about Kerry's "electability," especially after the fact, nor do I wish to because I'm not interested in researching it.

Give me one concrete way you can argue about "electability" before any election. Just one.

The only way you can talk about is After the Election. It is a bullshit argument during the primaries.

Somehow like a word that is repeated over and over and loses or changes its meaning, idiotic's standard post no longer seems ironic. It's started to sound like it is accurate and means exactly what it says.

Florida will be seated as is.
Michigan will be split 50/50.
Clinton will have more, most or perhaps all victories in the remaining primaries.
Obama will have new scandalous revelations.

Down the stretch it's...it's...the filly "Hillary" beating the lame gelding "Obama the Deceiver" at the wire.

That was exciting!

Sorry, I can't even understand JennofArk's comment.

LOL! O yeah, I buy that. Jenn is one of the clearest writers I know, and I've been reading her shit for 5 years.

LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!

What if Clinton wins PA but loses the next several states in row, all by big margins. If she were to lose in NC and IN, the pressure to bow out might become overwhelming. The next few states are crucial.