What Senate accomplishments? I don't see anything by Hillary that matches up to Obama-Coburn or Obama-Lugar. Nor do I see any foresighted but unsuccessful attempts like the Stop Fraud act, which would have stopped the mortgage bubble a year earlier than it stopped on its own and saved the country hundreds of billions in bad mortgages.

Put serious lobbyist restrictions in the ethics reform act last year, considered the most ambitious and effective reform since Watergate

Set up a program (Lugar-Obama) to buy up and destroy weapons with WMD or terrorism potential (like shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missles)

Online database of all nonclassified expenditures (Obama-Coburn)

Audit procedures for Katrina

Proposed a bill to define and prohibit mortgage fraud (it's good too)

Got a bill passed in the Illinois Senate to tape all interrogations

He has done a LOT. More than Clinton, in spite of his shorter term in the Senate.

She has to win the states favorable to her by the landslide margins Obama's been getting and that she no longer gets even among women or the elderly. Essentially impossible barring a dead boy/live girl moment.

Negative campaigning will ruin what slim chances she has, as well as any chance to be a party leader in the future. If she attacks Obama and Obama attacks McCain, who will Democrats vote for? Since they are quite close on issues and both well-liked in the party negative campaigning backfires. You see the effect in how her favorables plummeted and negatives soared in WI. That's what negative campaigning against Obama does to her.

A Progressive also would bring in regulation to stop predatory lenders as well as restructuring predatory loans.

You mean like Obama's STOP FRAUD Act?

Still waiting for something from Hillary on mortgage fraud.

A year or more ago, when Hillary was the prohibitive favorite, it was Hillary that got the crazy comments ("just a Republican", "bad as McCain", "conservative", etc.). Now Obama gets them ("empty suit", "cult leader"). It seems people who are losing start throwing out all kinds of crazy ** in hopes something sticks, or maybe out of frustration. I wish people would realize that kind of thing helps the target.

Fascinating. And how exactly is Clinton proposing superdelegates respond to the will of the people?  I so love consistency.

What plagiarism? You can't plagiarize an idea, only specific and relatively long series of words. The world would be a much sadder place if only the originator could advocate for an idea. Hillary's plans would be a lot shorter too, because her proposals aren't generally original to her. And they shouldn't be! Presidents are implementors, not think-tank employees.

I though the first ad was very effective. On all the issues mentioned - out of Iraq, personal privacy, limiting spending - Paul is in tune with the American public and the rest of the Repub field is not. He has kooky stands, but they're not mentioned.

I would have thought that progressives judged political campaign on issues, not the clothes people wear. I guess Hillary made the right choice to wear sharp if age-appropriate clothes and obfuscate on the issues.

On domestic issues he's not very different from Clinton. Now, on foreign policy he's obviously less hawkish by temperament, and that is a big deal. A lowered chance of another disasterous war is a big plus.

My main interest is Obama is that I think he's the man to strike at the bases of the right-wing - perversions of religion, division, and racism. He's openly religious but with a good heart and he's the man to point out how the "Christian" right isn't very Christian. He's known to be very deft at defusing us-vs-them, which is essential to right-wing fears. And finally, racism underlies much of the current Republican political strength and a brilliant, unifying black President is just what we need to show a few more percent of Americans that blacks are people too.

I think Hillary would do a pretty good job of running the country. But I think at the end of her probable 8 years the RW machine would still be in perfect working order and still a threat to the well-being of our country. I want the monster staked.

Nobody's saying she's a far-left Marxist, but you did say she's far-left - which she isn't. There's nobody even remotely far-left in the Senate, and one of the things we need for fair politics is to put paid to these RW media "smears" of center-leftists or even moderates as "far-left".

The ideometer you link to does not explain their methodology and must, based on the data, be biased to calling Hillary "radical". The fact is that she and Obama are very, very close on votes - as indicated by the 00.4% difference in the score you linked to above. Finding a meaningful difference requires either bias or a very small set of "relevant" votes.

Clinton and Obama are both part of the Democratic Senate Consensus (and both in the middle of that, even) and as such finding meaningful differences between their voting records requires a very sharp razor blade and a good eye.

Perhaps I should let Shaun speak for himself, but to me it's absolutely clear that his concern is that Hillary would simply not have acted in a similar situation. I'm inclined to agree actually; Bill certainly wasn't often willing to do something unpopular because it was right. Bill isn't Hill, of course, but she also works hard at compromise and getting along with the other side. Why they do it after 15 years of constant, venomous, and unjustified hatred is beyond me but that's what they do.

Hillary is part of the Democratic Senate Consensus, a large group of Senators (about 20-25) with very similar voting records. "Far" means much more than typical, and she's an entirely typical, ordinary Senate Democrat. In the context of the Senate, she's a moderate leftist - there's nobody you could call far-left even within the confines of the Senate. In the context of overall American politics, she (along with the rest of the DSC) is center-left - not nearly as left as the progressive caucus in the House (genuine moderate left) and certainly not far-left.

Comparing Eisenhower's deployment of the military to support civil rights to Hitler's holocaust is an remarkably ludicrous Hitler comparison, BTW.

Single-payer health care - which she's not supporting - is moderate left. Other moderate left positions are aggressive carbon taxes, equalizing primary school funding, and real pro-union laws - none of which she supports. Far-left would be things like removing "person" status from corporations. Nothing you mention is even remotely far-left except in Fox News propaganda. Hillary is a center-left politician emphasizing the left bit for the primary before a hard move to the center in the general.