In 2004 maybe we did need a Clinton to mop up after another Bush. In 2008 we're just hoping for something new and fresh and possibly amazing.

Proverbially, all political careers end in tears. Part of that is being unable to know when the blow will fall. The other part is knowing when it will fall, and not being able to do a thing about it. If neither of those conditions is met, it's not over, and the crying is still to come.

Is this in response to some particular incident, or just general goings on?

I really do think Obama is the most-likely-to-get-elected candidate in this race. I've been seriously underwhelmed by Clinton's record as a legislator.

And today the Senate voted on the telecom bill and Clinton abstained from voting while Obama voted to keep the telecom immunity provision and extra added spying goodness.

That strange new pop song you hear wafting through the ether is the sound of me screaming while I rhythmically beat my head into the desk.

DC will almost certainly go for Obama, but it and Maryland haven't closed polls yet.

Isn't she still a US senator, even if she loses? At least for the next four years? And even if she loses that seat, won't she still have a lucrative career ahead of her as a lobbyist, or a speaker? Won't she still be able to write (or maybe even have ghost-written and just sign her name on) a book and get an advance that's more money than most of us will see in our lives?

And won't she and Bill still have enough wealth and connections to work powerfully for political change outside of the DC Beltway, as Al Gore did?

If that's failure, who needs success?

Jim Macdonald and I have been exchanging notes on the waves of misinformation you see when you're moderating a major site.

Zack, you're still wrong. Obama voted today, and he voted against telecom immunity.

How many people will now have read your 100%-backward first comment, but neither your followup nor mine? How hard would it have been to look up the facts before you propagated a complete whopper?

Having said that, I don't think the Democrats can afford to write off FL and MI. The bad will generated from not seating those delegates will hurt whoever becomes the Democratic candidate. A Washington Post commentary suggested that they vote again in June. (I'm not sure that's really any better...)

(Of course, as I wrote this, washingtonpost.com called VA for Obama...)

I totally agree with Teresa about the Clintons though.

And I don't agree that it's not Senator Clinton's job to spot what's in front of her, however unprecedented. The difference between a Chamberlain and a Churchill is just the ability to see what exactly is going on around you, precisely when it is unprecedented.

In 2002 I knew with better than 80% certainty that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction in any meaningful sense, that Iraq was not a threat to US national security, and that George Bush would rush to war given the tiniest glimmer of opportunity. The facts were available, even to a private citizen, with no staff. Hillary Clinton had staff, better tools to sift information, better sources of information, and far better and more personal reasons to fact-check the hell out of any claim coming from a Republican, yet still claims not to have known that Iraq was not a threat to the US, or that George Bush would take the authorization of force as a functional declaration of war. I see that as a failure of due diligence, a failure of clarity, and a failure of vision. This woman wants to be President of the United States. It damn well is her job to see and evaluate the facts on the ground and make good choices based on them. It certainly is her job to do due diligence.

Instead, she has a pattern of not doing it when it matters crucially.

Also, I don't notice Obama or Edwards getting a buy on graceless behavior under pressure. Why Clinton?

I read early this morning that Hillary Clinton would be available for the FISA vote "if it was close." It wasn't, not even a little bit. So she did what the candidate who's trailing always does - she campaigned today. Nothing unusual or sinister about it, and no slap in the face of the Constitution. She would have been there for the vote if it mattered.
John Kerry did this all the time when he was running. The only people who complained about it were Republicans.

I'm not inclined to go ripping into her every ten minutes the way that some other Obama supporters are--If she wins the nomination, I'll happily vote for her. But if Obama has a majority of the pledged delegates and the super-delegates hand it to her over their heads, I'm worried that the bad aftertaste of the 2000 Florida fiasco is going to have a lot of people too busy spitting to show up at the polls.

It looks like the article was updated. Plus I'm starting to think that I got the incorrect version from a commenter somewhere. I read it first thing after getting out of bed and it was something of a spike to the forebrain.

Direct quote from the article:

"Neither Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York) nor Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) voted on the bill, though Obama did vote earlier in the day to support removing telecom immunity."

It's a campaign. Mean things get said. The Clintons aren't growing fangs and spitting venom, they're playing (fair, within-the-rules) hardball. Obama isn't exactly sitting back beatifically either.

Consider me well and truly shamefaced over it. It was extra dumb on my part, and dumb in a way I've specifically been trying to address in my political views.

Feinstein Amendment:
To provide a statement of the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance and interception of certain communications may be conducted.

Obama: Yea; McCain: Nay; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion failed, 57-41. (60 votes were needed.)

Feingold Amendment:
To provide safeguards for communications involving persons inside the United States.

Obama: Yea; McCain: Nay; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion failed, 35-63.

Dodd Amendment:
To strike the provisions providing immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance provided to the Government.

Obama: Yea; McCain: Nay; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion failed, 31-67.

Feingold Amendment (another one):
To modify the requirements for certifications made prior to the initiation of certain acquisitions.

Obama: Yea; McCain: Nay; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion failed, 37-60.

Specter amendment:
To provide for the substitution of the United States in certain civil actions. (I gather this means suits would be possible, but would be redirected to the US govt instead of the telcos.)

Obama: Yea; McCain: Nay; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion failed, 30-68.

Feinstein amendment (another one):
To provide for the review of certifications by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Obama: Yea; McCain: Nay; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion failed, 41-57.

Cloture motion:
To end debate and bring the bill as a whole to a vote.

Obama: Nay; McCain: Yea; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion carried, 69-29. (60 votes were needed.)

Finally the vote to pass the bill:

Obama: Did not vote; McCain: Yea; Clinton: Did not vote.
Motion carried, 68-29.

Source: The US Senate "recent votes" page at

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/a_three_sections_with_teasers/votes.htm

(Hit "more" to see past the latest 2 votes. You can also see how your own state's senators voted.)

But the Republicans need to be dislodged from their infectious niches. Even with Bush gone, his agenda would continue to propagate.

I have been trying to avoid the fine points of distinctions between Democratic candidates because then I would have to tell you what I think is wrong with them. The Democratic party is just not going to deliver me a candidate wholly to my liking. In rough outline, both Obama and Clinton are about equally acceptable.

But to recycle a phrase in a different context, their issues are not the issues. Matters like military privatization should be central issues to this campaign, but past a certain point, no one wants to talk about that because using PMCs is so expedient, and no one wants to completely ditch that option. Getting us out of this war is considered radical enough.

This isn't to say that the candidates have taken no positions on this subject. Obama, for example, has apparently said that the presence of "contractors" in Iraq raises the risk to US troops, something I agree with. But it is possible that I could have asked around my household and elicited that opinion from my 10 year old son. I was hoping for something more advanced.

I am not impressed by the rumor mongering that Clinton is in bed with Blackwater via her campaign strategist because I am familiar -- through a completely bizarre connection -- with the PR firm. But neither am I satisfied that she won't make a lot of use of PMCs.

But the key point is that I am not the audience for either candidate.

Now, superficially it might seem like there is really very little difference between candidates, but I don't really think that is the case. But I have my priorities.

Forgive my density, but I'm genuinely uncertain what "historic freight train" you consider hit Bill Clinton. I can't think of anything remotely comparable to the groundswell of support for Obama.

I am not the same color as Mr. Obama. I am not the same gender as Mr. Obama. I do not believe in the God that Mr. Obama believes in. I do not even belong to Mr. Obama's political party -- I'm the loyal opposition. But if he makes it to the ballot in November, I will vote for Mr. Obama. He sold me with the speech he gave some time ago on the role of faith in public life. (It's here if anyone's interested.)

Name me three political figures who, once positioned as an enemy, Hillary (not Bill) has subsequently allied with again. I'd settle for two even...

I'd also be very surprised to find many people who think the race baiting, attempted delegate jury-rigging in MI/FL, and religious rumor-mongering is "fair, within the rules hardball".

I guess maybe if your viewpoint has only been shaped by the last two election cycles this one could be deemed "fairer" than those.

That said, a quick language note:
When talking about the Senators/candidates, it's really only equitable to refer to them as Clinton and Obama or Hillary and Barack. Both first names or both last names.
At least one commenter referred to Hillary and Obama, which is... disempowering to the woman by treating her more familiarly.

It's a tough habit to break, particularly given media coverage, but it's also an insidious bias.

Chris, I meant that I'd require full martyrdom, bank balance and all, and done for the right reasons, before I'd call anything that happened to members of this administration a tragedy.

I'm sure George has long since decided that he's a tragic hero. I can live with that. It's part of his individual pattern of brain damage.

Now, the fact is, she'll still get my vote come November, because I'd rather not plan on sending my (currently very small) boys off to hold down the glorious empire in Iraq. But right now, Democrats are getting a lot of turnout and Republicans aren't, largely (I think) because Republicans are disillusioned by the way their party has governed for the last seven years, many feel alienated by the party, and the candidates don't really inspire a lot of them. Disillusioning a whole bunch of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents with that kind of gaming of the nomination decision sounds like a hell of a good way to hand the white house back to the Republicans for four more years.

Lance (33), legit points, but there's no need to state them that harshly or adversarially.

From a Greek Tragedy, or from Molière?

You think George would knowingly associate himself with anything French (except Sarkozy?)

Okay, thanks. I was thrown by the gross dissimilarity in popular support between the attempted impeachment and Obama's run. Given that the coup failed, I wouldn't describe it as "historic" so much as "operatic."

BSD: The tone and tenor of my comments were completely unwarranted. I apologize for the character of my response. I have no desire to spark a flame war so please don't let my comments affect your future posts in any negative way.

Bush obviously views himself as a tragichero "traj-er-chair-o", a tex-mex treat known for it's malleable doughy texture and dull yet tongue-numbing flavor.

Don't see how, actually. But I wouldn't bet against it. And I am an Obama supporter.

It's that kind of year.

If she does set that bomb off she will have validated some of the bad lust-for-power things people have said about her. It would be a naked anti-democratic power grab. I hope she will choose the higher road and prove her worst critics to be the gibbering monkeys I suspect they are.

You know what I'd like to see either of them do... the sort of thing which would make me a stronger believer that they understand the sort of fight we need to have?

I'd like to see them force real filibusters. This, "60 votes are needed to pass" bullshit, needs to be dragged into the light.

It doesn't have to be a complete stoppage, but everytime they want to pull this crap, make them hold things up for 24 hours. Because right now, the republicans aren't being made to stand up and be counted. They get to win all the fights, and blame the Democrats for it; accuse them of not doing anything.

(FWIW, I voted for Obama but I'd be happy with either Obama or Clinton as the nominee.)

Interesting, I wasn't aware it was so arcane. I'll have to read up on it. Thanks.

So, what is the result? From what you showed, it looks like the bill was passed, giving retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Am I missing something?

(Perhaps we should nationalize those companies next year. On what basis would they complain? That we weren't following the rule of law? That we were letting political expediency override peoples' rights?)

I have no pertinent comment to add except for [glyph of 1.3 terabytes of bellowed obscenities].

As the old joke goes, if you don't like this policy and would like to let the NSA know, just pick up the phone, dial your mom, and tell her how you feel.

Of course, all this will change with a Democratic president, and a larger Democratic majority in Congress. What could possibly raise any doubts about this in my mind?

On MSNBC tonight, we cut from Senator Obama's soaring speech to an arena full of 17,000 of the young and young-at-heart, to Senator McCain sing-songing his speech to what seemed like the Rotary Club gathered in the banquet room down there to the Holiday Inn off the interstate.

Okay, it means nothing. I keep telling myself that. It means nothing. It means nothing. It means nothing.

Nobody's dragging anyone out to be tried for treason, war crimes, corruption -- nothing.

Whoever sits in that Oval Office isn't going to make a single effort to turn back the incroachment upon Constitutional rights (and anyone who dreams that HRC of all people will do that, puleeze go and look at her own record of behavior when Bill was sitting in that office).

And Edwards -- he's mia -- guessing, to hark to another topic here -- his wife's health.

If we're lucky, the best we're gonna get is Obama with Richardson as VP.

I know a lot more about Richardson up close than I do Obama. But it's pretty clear from the broadcasts that about now the Big O's starting to believe his own hype. Time for the Fall.

Love, C.

These things are relative. If I were to become a Hugo-award-winning editor at Tor, my life would be such an abject failure that I would probably have considered suicide before succumbing to such a fate.

To be a more-than-reasonable presidential candidate with a real shot at winning and have it slip away...that would be torture. Especially with all that burden of history.

Pointing out that children are starving in Somalia etc. may be very reasonable perspective, but it probably wouldn't help Hillary feel better in the short term over the failure of a lifelong dream.

I hope that a President Obama can find a good job for Bill. There are a lot of posts where he'd kick ass.

Wesley Clark as veep could give the Democrats serious appeal to the rightier variety of independents, as well as military folks disgusted with Bush.

I thought digby had some very important things to say about the superdelegates here. She points out that it is very hard to determine the will of the people if you're a superdelegate. e.g. Do caucuses count - they're rather undemocratic?

As for FL and MI, I don't think Clinton broke the rules she'd committed to - she didn't campaign in either state. And there's nothing wrong with asking to seat the delegates. If she wins the nomination, the delegates are moot. If she loses it, her opponent will not ask for them to be seated.

About a year ago I was with friends in Hyde Park, Chicago, when somebody mentions that this local guy everybody loves was probably running for president. I'm not originally from Chicago and I didn't ever get into the local political scene while I was there, so my ideas about who he was were a bit vague. Two weeks later I knew a lot, and in front of the same group of friends went, "You know, I'm disgusted by both major parties, and I've been disgusted by the democrats longer, but I'd actually cast a vote that matters if he's at the top of the ticket."

"But you don't agree with his policy," says a friend.

"I don't care. I'm not going to get a candidate with a policy I agree with. I like his style, I approve of his methods, and at this point, I'm willing to vote for style and methods."

A room full of people started nodding and agreeing. Other people, other rooms, more head nodding. "But he'll be running against Hillary Clinton," somebody points out. "Nobody outside of Illinois knows who he is."

So I call my parents, life long Republicans from Virginia who quit voting when the party went south, and mention that I'm thinking of hopping into the mainstream to support a local guy nobody's ever heard of. "You mean Barak Obama? Lot's of people know him. I've been thinking about him too."

People knew. It's been a really fantastic year for those people.

You're missing the problem. What if, as seems quite possible, the MI and FL delegates are enough to swing the delegate lead from Obama to Clinton. Sure, it doesn't matter if the delegates are seated if the margin between the candidates is large but if it's small enough, those delegates are the difference between victory and defeat.

You might want to consult (1) the U. S. Constitution, for its provisions about the term of U. S. Senators, and (2) the historical record of exactly what year in which Hillary Clinton ran for re-election.

"These things are relative. If I were to become a Hugo-award-winning editor at Tor, my life would be such an abject failure that I would probably have considered suicide before succumbing to such a fate."

Wesley Clark for SecDef.

I think the fact that Hillary is originally a surname makes a difference here. If you stick it in the middle of a list of candidates-- McCain, Obama, Huckabee, Hillary, Romney, etc-- it doesn't look out of place. That's probably why most people aren't even thinking about it. It's just 'right, Hillary, that's her name.' If her first name were Emily or Samantha, I'm guessing it would be an entirely different story.

I think that Nancy @ 63 left a "not" out of her last sentence: "By _not_ running in 2004, she kept that promise, and I respect her for it."

That makes more sense as a reply to Nathan @ 2, who gave 2004 as HRC's optimal time to run and speculated as to why she didn't.

Of course, I could be wrong.

I believe that Sen. Clinton has made a serious error by choosing to campaign under her first name, for exactly the reason stated by Lis in #34. By encouraging the press, and hence the populace, to use her first name while the other (male) candidates are addressed by their last names, she is running up against a well-entrenched cultural stereotype: higher-status people get last-named, while lower-status ones get first-named.

This is not just a gendered issue. It comes up in any situation of hierarchal power -- teachers vs. students, doctors vs. patients, execs vs. employees, anyone vs. service workers. Like it or not, in our culture there is still a very strong meme to the effect that calling a person who you don't know well by their first name is putting them in a one-down position.

In particular, it lends itself to Verbal Attack Patterns which are impossible for the victim to object to without looking unreasonable -- things like the tone of voice which says very clearly, "Don't worry your pretty head about that, little lady." Every woman knows that tone, and knows how difficult it is to raise a fuss about it... because after all, he didn't SAY anything like that, so why is she upset?

Perhaps more to the point: our actions are not constrained by what the media does. It doesn't matter whether the newscasters call her Hillary and him Obama; we can set a better example. And I think it behooves us to do so.

Tragedy? He thinks he's a character from Sophocles or Aeschylus? Yeah, right; the man's straight out of Aristophanes. A frog, not a prince, nohow.

In every job and workplace I've had since college, everyone in the office was on a first-name basis, from the summer interns to the most distinguished researchers to the boss, unless there was strong reason (usually namespace collisions or unpronounceable-to-English-speakers first names). So while this pattern exists, I wonder if it has the same impact across different groups/people.

Do you think Ike or Honest Abe were also putting themselves below their opponents verbally?

One of the more interesting things going on in this election is that there are people who won't vote for a black guy or a woman for president. It's interesting to ask whether that set of people will be large enough to cost the Democrats the election, which centers mainly on what fraction of those voters would have voted Democrat in any event, and how many more voters the first serious black or female candidate for president will bring in.

Just as an aside, whatever happens in this election, my older son (6) is absorbing the idea that you don't have to be an old white guy to run for president. He doesn't know what the presidential race means with any detail, but I recall pointing out the campaign signs to him at a parade, listening to a couple speeches on the radio, etc. This will happen with lots of kids throughout the country, and it will have a huge impact on the future.

Even without the tonal cues, I'm inclined to suspect that Teresa was employing Irony.

Certainly that's what I would do, if I were a Hugo-award-winning editor at Tor and somebody wrote the sentence you wrote.

How about "histrionic"?

It actually sounded pretty nasty to me, which I find an odd response to being used (at one remove, anyway) as an example of widely-respected success.

Sorry, but I read your comment as very nasty, rather than sarcastic. It doesn't make sense as sarcasm. Given your tone AND the words, I think Teresa's response was nicely measured.

Yeah, uh, just a guess, but it seemed to me that if Susan wanted to make a "point about conventional definitions of success", and wanted to actually have that be the point people took away from her remarks, she might have picked something better than what would obviously be taken as a personal dig at one of the hosts of this place. Something like, I dunno, winning Miss Congeniality or something.

I'm not sure that anyone has commented on your original post's sentiment. As someone who has watched with a bit of anxious glee at Obama doing well (though I have no particular animus or anything towards HRC), I think you're right that more empathy would be useful.

Of course, if/when she pull it out, then what? Vindication?

And now I'll ruin the effect by saying wheee! One doesn't often get the opportunity to set those up.

I count Nixon's life as a tragedy in the classic sense.

The Clintons, if anything, are not legitimately damnable for holding lifetime grudges, but rather for being insufficiently vindictive: Gingrich's fall is somewhat attributable to Bill drawing his venom, they were both entirely socially polite to Scaife during and after his attempt to criminalize them both, and Hillary went from an originally contentious relationship with most of our delegation to the productive one she has now. Whatever else they are, they are pragmatists.

And yes, I think their behavior is legitimate in this campaign. As usual, the media is bringing the Clinton-Hate, but I don't think it's appropriate. A bit of sleaze and needling has always been a part of politics, and in after the last 15 years, their behavior is STILL comparatively clean and conscientious (comparatively).

One of the reasons I respect the Clintons so much is that even when the baying for their blood was at its worst, there was no enemies list, no abuse of their office for vengeance.

I'd rather someone not fight than fight like Karl Rove.

Brooks at 78 and Juli at 79 have it right; I left out a not in the original sentence, which was a response to Nathan at 2 saying that 2004 may have been the best time for HRC to run for president. The sentence should have been:
By not running in 2004, she kept that promise, and I respect her for that.

Sorry about that.

While I'm fixing things in 63, here is the link to digby's blog which I was talking about.

I'll make a note for the future that using the example that's right in front of me (in the context of this blog) as an exemplar of success is not a good idea.

Sheesh.

In 2004, Clinton did not quite have enough experience to start a serious campaign. She's done a good job as senator since, building connections that may become useful in passing legislation in the future.

My concern continues to be that Republicans will be willing and able to capitalize on Obama's negatives if he becomes the Democratic candidate, and that he doesn't have a record of turning ideas into results.

Obama is a first term Senator and he's clearly mounting a serious campaign. If Clinton wanted to make a go of it in 2004, I don't think the experience issue would bother her much more then than it does Obama now. (However, Obama has experience as a state legislator which Clinton does not. Maybe that makes a difference?)

Also, as much as I like both of them, neither of them exactly has a long track record of turning ideas into results. In terms of withstanding the Republican attack machine, Clinton may have an advantage in that we already know her negatives all too well. OTOH, Obama is more charismatic than McCain, who looks to become the Republican nominee. The more charismatic person tends to win the presidency.

I will punt on the question on the question of whether Obama is more charismatic than Huckabee. The latter has the annoying gift of being able to say utterly hateful (or violent) things in a way that people find palatable. Obama has attacked Clinton in ways that draw undue notice, but he hasn't tried anything like that.

I'm not against charisma, merely its abuse. I don't think Obama has abused his charisma. However, I do wish some of the more excitable Obama supporters I've heard on the radio would realize that antagonizing Clinton supporters is counterproductive in the long term. If Obama should become the Democratic nominee, he will need those Clinton supporters to vote for him.

If either Clinton or Obama become the nominee, I will vote for them in November. But I don't like the fact they aren't in the Senate doing the job they were elected to do just because they have to campaign.

Right now, if it weren't for the fact I don't want a President McCain or Huckabee, I'd give the back of my hand to both for failing to lead by example.

Yeah, big time. Check out Melissa McEwan's round-up of the misogyny.

People are perfectly capable of getting "their brains around the idea that one person's success is another person's failure". C'mon. We all have that experience every day.

You made the mistake of saying something in a socially incompetent manner. This is hardly a mortal sin, especially in this place which is full of fannish types and thus absolutely overflowing with social incompetence, into the middle of which herd of nerds I fling myself.

You don't have to get all "Sheesh" about it. Just, you know, next time preface saying something like that with "Even though I understand the Hugo award for being an editor at Tor is a signifier of hard work and accomplishment (or whatever), receiving such an honor would gross me out."

Having said that, I'm guessing all this bugged other people more than it bugged Patrick.

And having said that, I can't count the number of times I've seen this "you said it in a socially incompetent manner"/"No, I did-dunt"/"Yes, you did" discussion in the years I've been on the intertubes. Must be the places I hang out.

I think you should consider the idea that your writing was not nearly as clear as you think it was. Because, even after all this back and forth, I still have no freaking clue what you were trying to get across in the original message. I mean, I assume you were making a point about different definitions of success, but I still don't see how you get there from what looked more like a snide attack.

Get your cogent explanation on how the Texas primary/caucus stuff works right here. I've lived in Texas for 31 out of the last 39 years, and until I read that, I had no idea.

What was that old SNL skit/persona, where the guy (Al Franken?) would always end up saying something like "I'm just gonna go out on a limb here, and call for the violent overthrow of the United States government." Or Reagan's microphone test line about "We've signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union; we start bombing in five minutes." You could either take it as a joke, or as a deadly serious, but wildly inappropriate comment in that context. That's part of why it was funny.

And when that kind of humor falls flat enough, you get massively offended people, right? (We got moderately irritated people here, but then, nobody called for nuking or overthrowing anyone.)

No, that's actually not what I meant. If I ever did anything Hugo-worthy (unlikely, since I don't do any of the things they have Hugo categories for), receiving a rocket would be nifty.

I'll spell it out once, and then I am going to drop this topic entirely.

(1) I have dreams and goals of my own, which are unconventional, but they're mine and I value them. They are, quite frankly, really the only thing I have to live for, and the major reason I deviated from my original plan to be long dead by now.

(2) Giving up these goals and diverting to a different career, even one which much of my social group (and, I assumed, everyone on this blog) would regard as grandly successful, would be an admission that I am essentially a failure at the one thing in my life I value. (I may, in fact, end up a failure at it, but I think success is not impossible, and I am certainly not giving up.) At that point, I will be essentially a hollow shell of myself, and might as well be dead, and probably would manage to arrange it, since I can't see any other reason to go through the motions of living. (And no, I'm not interested in going through an argument over the standard platitudes about why live is worth living. Heard 'em all before.)

(3) In order to express this, I needed shorthand for a clear-cut example of grand success. I suppose I could have used "made a bazillion dollars", but I don't actually regard money-for-money's sake as a good definition of success, possibly because certain elements of my family so define it and thus consider me a failure, which opinion I am not inclined to go along with. So I used what I thought of as something that would be both blindingly obvious and would be agreed upon by pretty much everyone here to indeed be success.

(4) The connection to the actual topic of discussion was that I found Avram's comment:

Isn't she still a US senator, even if she loses? At least for the next four years? And even if she loses that seat, won't she still have a lucrative career ahead of her as a lobbyist, or a speaker? Won't she still be able to write (or maybe even have ghost-written and just sign her name on) a book and get an advance that's more money than most of us will see in our lives?

to be an astonishingly callous dismissal of what failing at what I suspect is a lifelong goal, whether through her own shortcomings or via historical freight train, would mean to Hillary Clinton. For all her flaws, I don't think she's in this for the money, and I really don't think she'd consider becoming a rich lobbyist an adequate consolation prize for missing the big one. If I'd worked on something for 40 years and fallen short, and had someone tell me "too bad, but you'll still have lots of money", I sure wouldn't feel particularly consoled. More like insulted.

Having said that, I'm guessing all this bugged other people more than it bugged Patrick.

One assumes. I've said nearly the same thing straight to his face in person and he didn't seem either confused or upset by it.

David:
what looked more like a snide attack.

If I were attacking Patrick, it (1) wouldn't be misinterpretable and (2) wouldn't be on ML.

Okay, I can see that. It's quite a bit for us dopes to tease out of a much shorter original post, but I can see it.

And I'd also like to say that if I were a Hugo-award-winning editor, I would DEFINITELY consider it my duty not to run for President. The (Hugo) voters would have made it clear what job they wanted me to do, and I'd feel an obligation to keep doing it. But even if my enthusiasm for the job flagged, I would still not run for President. I respect Patrick for refraining.

If I were a much-sought expert in many kinds of period dance, I would ALSO not run for President, nor would I attempt to become an editor, much less a Hugo-award-winning one. To do so would smack of greed, if nothing else.

And here is a supply of nots, in case one is missing from the above, or anyone needs one: not, not, not, not, not, not, not. Not. Not; not.

So are you seriously saying that because of your particular hopes and dreams, you'd rather die than end up like Patrick? How is that not an insult?

I'm not saying we should all aspire to the same things, but it's rude to point out that you don't want the things that other people have sweated for, particularly if "fate worse than death" is how you really feel about it. And in this instance, a hypothetical like "win an olympic medal" would do, anyway, without bringing a real person into it.

And I still have empathy for Hillary Clinton.

Me too. I also know what being a sellout feels like, because I'm not doing what I dream of; I'm doing what I can succeed at. Which works for me but I'm not saying I recommend it...some days, life tastes ashy. So I do empathize with Hillary, and I hope she'll rebound well if she doesn't get the big prize.

(I'm still pulling for Obama)

I don't know. Losing sucks. I hate it.

But if Hilary Clinton is anywhere near the caliber of person who should even consider making a bid to do something as big as, say, running the US government, I've got to figure that she has the inner resources to deal with the failure of her campaign, revise her goals, and move on. If she doesn't have that kind of emotional and intellectual maturity, rather than empathizing, I'm just going to be grateful that she didn't win.

I was following you okay until the end, where your point got all knotted up....

I remember seeing the 2004 Obama speech. I went in to work and made some people listen to his speech "because he's going to be the first black president." I just did not bargain for it to be this soon. And at a time when we need one, maybe he could be an FDR. Maybe she could, too ... but only one of them will have to try.

I should also have noted that in any venue perceived as a community (of which ML is certainly one), the universal-first-name basis is likely. But then, that's because there's no hierarchal power distribution here; even the moderators are still perceived as part of the community, and our peers.

One of the more interesting things going on in this election is that there are people who won't vote for a black guy or a woman for president. It's interesting to ask whether that set of people will be large enough to cost the Democrats the election, which centers mainly on what fraction of those voters would have voted Democrat in any event, and how many more voters the first serious black or female candidate for president will bring in.

Repeating the whole paragraph because it's too key to cut. Yes, that's exactly the question, isn't it? It's rather like the calculus of whether or not to bring in a media guest to a SF convention -- will the presence of said media guest draw enough more people who would not otherwise have attended to cover the expense involved? I would like to think that Obama will draw in more new voters on the basis of leadership than he'll lose on the basis of race, and that's the way I'm betting... but I could be wrong.

Re children noticing, and the impact of that on the future, I'm with you 100%. Hmmm, side thought: I wonder how many of the people who are unsurprised by Clinton's campaign were just old enough to notice Mondale/Ferraro?

Susan, #99: FWIW, I understood perfectly well what you were trying to say, but I was still taken aback by the (perceived) tone. I don't know how I'd have said it instead, but I think your phrasing was less than successful.

Xopher, #117: I bow to the skill with which you hitch your arguments together.

I appreciate your bowline, above. I'll keep you in the loop about my techniques; come over for a bight sometime and I'll bend your ear about it.

First, the absolutely historical groundbreaking thing about Hilary's campaign is that she's a woman with the first real shot at ascending to the presidency. Using her first name to emphasize her unique quality (that she's a woman) isn't un-empowering when it could in fact cause more people to vote for her.

Second, given the uncommon and non-Western origin of Obama's names, I usually have to think about whether "Obama" is his first or his last name. To me, I relate to both "Hilary" and "Obama" as though they were the first names of the candidates, regardless of the actual situation. I suspect I'm not alone in that regard.

Thus, I think that your argument that reference to her as Hilary is degrading disregards the reality of the situation.

Some may have more of it or less of it than others. But you can't acquire it.

Love, C.

Considering the unspeakable things that Rove and Bush did to McCain in South Carolina, and that he still ended up campaigning for the guy...yeah.

(Sandra Bernhard did a show here last week and really ripped McCain a new one for being that shameless in his pursuit of the conservative electorate.)

Oh, I am so afrayed of the direction of this thread. In fact, I'm going to have to splice the main brace in order to get up the courage to join in. What's the hitch? The last time I tried, I ended up belaying it and then I came to the end of my rope.

Better than being at the end of your trope?

"Cringe, you hapless weaklings! Cringe, and tremble, as you finally behold -- JANUS, the Mega-man!"

I'd say that this Jack Kirby villain doesn't have charisma. For some reason though, this makes me think of the current White House occupants.

Well, just so long as we're square on that....

Say, aren't you one of those string guys?

"When former presidential candidate and Clinton-administration energy secretary Bill Richardson declined to endorse Hillary Clinton after dropping out, the candidate's husband, as Fornier notes, placed an angry call to the New Mexico governor.

"What," Bill Clinton asked Richardson, "isn't two Cabinet posts enough?"

"

The really telling one for me, though, was that when dealing with senior financial industry VPs in New York (from the *major* companies, JP Morgan and Salomon Smith Barney and Merril Lynch, 1996-2000) it was *still* first names, even for a technical guy from a small contract company.

I now think that, maybe, there's a reservoir of formality hiding down in the South or something.

At the Australian Open last month, the great Roger Federer wasn't playing at his best so there was room for someone else to get by him. Since last year, the main underdog has been the flashy (and charismatic) young Serb, Novak Djokovic. But in the last few rounds, an astonishing *new* underdog showed up, seemingly out of nowhere: the young black Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who had never won any tournaments at all before reaching the Aussie final. (It helps that he looks a lot like the young Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali, if without as much swagger.)

During that final match, the crowd was so obviously rooting for Tsonga that Djokovic got quite peeved (you could read it on his face: "I'm supposed to be the underdog, dammit!). Though he may have gotten a bit grouchy, he still won.

(End of irrelevant anecdote.)

I think maybe George is the abominable snowman, but am not 100% sure on this pressing issue.

Because of the similar qualities of their shooting skills? There the similarity stops. Meanwhile, a couple of years ago, I caught a TV special where Richard Dreyfus was giving a tour of DC's various moments and I found it eerie to think how much he's starting to look like Richard Cheney.

In fact, our country's Strategic Courtesy Reserves are kept just outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

I thought that this had been well refuted for Obama. From the LA Times:

The conservative Chicago Tribune endorsed Obama in his 2004 Senate run, praising his "significant accomplishments" and "shrewd negotiation." The Tribune credited Obama with "legislative feats," including laws requiring that police videotape interrogations in murder cases, laws creating tax credits for the working poor and "laws to track racial profiling by law enforcement, prohibit public officials from accepting lobbyists' gifts [and] expand health insurance coverage for children of the working poor and their families."

Not exactly "no record".

Alex@100: Obama has a slight lead in delegates. This game is not over.

Well no, but even we foreign folks can look at www.electoral-vote.com and tell that both candidates are rapidly running out of states. We may well see some sort of tie, even.

And as for tragedies, I think George is surely straight out of Brecht. This cannot be real and yet he is taking everything you hold dear.

Actually, my fantasy is to see Huck run as an independent and let the Cons see what it's like to be Naderized...

And while I'm falling off-topic... Remember everyone... go to www.naderexplore08.org and tell him to keep his nose out of it this time!

From what I remember, early in their marriage, she kept her last name by birth, but changed it when it proved to be a political liability - not worth loosing elections over, and a distraction during campaigns from actual issues of merit. Along with other changes in her lifestyle that were (unreasonably) political liabilities, such as not bringing books to read at baseball games.

Campaigning as "Hillary" is a way of campaigning as herself, rather than as her husband's wife.

I'm talking China. Saudi Arabia. Russia. Europe. The Republican leadership. His own cabinet.

I want a President who knows how to deal with people who aren't impressed by speeches.

I like Obama, but I will vote for Hillary.

If he can't handle something, he would likely find someone with experience who could.

Which comes off sounding much more nit-picky than I intended, for which apologies.

I refuse to say anything bad about them, naturally.

My vote, however, will of course go to the candidate I believe is best-suited for the job, period.

yes, and the similarity of their sartorial elegance, general wakefulness, and over-sized bald headedness.

Also here is a picture of Dick Cheney singing Kill the Wabbit: http://thephoenix.com/OutsideTheFrame/content/binary/55_cheney.jpg