I, like you, was a Hillary supporter, but she lost the nomination.  I listened to her, and put my faith in her recommendation.  She said support Obama, so I have.  Now, a week out, I am hopeful that he can actually win the White House.  I have watched him grow and learn.  I am impressed with his performance so far.  I think that Hillary helped to make him a better candidate, and I hope he will be a great president. I could have never supported McCain, and with his pick of Palin the deal was sealed for me.  Being a life long democrat, there was no real internal battle for me, but at first I was only a tepid supporter, but now, I am fully on board.  He is a very impressive man.  He has stood up well against all the negative attacks.  Of course, there are those bigots that will never support him, but I pray that they are in the minority.  I have to laugh at their clumsy attempts at calling him a socialist, or a communist.  These words are so 20th century!  Most don't even know what they really mean.  Even so, those who don't support Obama for more basic racial hatreds, use these words because they know they can't say the other word, the one that is lurking in their brain, that N word, so they hurl these other words with the same venom, but they just don't seem to work as well.  With the demise of the USSR and the softening of our stance against China, the word communist is just out of time.  The socialist word means a whole lot less after the republican president just bought American banks.  So the people who are still so angry, these folks will never support Obama, but this is just noise.

Still, I am afraid because republicans know how to steal elections.  They keep people from voting, they mess with the machines, they don't provide enough machines in democratic strongholds, they do anything they can because they know that without these measures, they cannot win.  This is what worries me in these final days.  When you hear tails of the machines in W.V. changing votes from Obama to McCain, I worry. When you hear that the republican sec of state in CO has purged 30,000 voters from the rolls and you find out he is running for congress, I worry.  I think the only way for us to win is to have an overwhelming vote for Obama, due to cheating, voter suppression and all the rest.  I worry, but I am still hopeful.  I so badly want Obama to win.  He does deserve to win, after all, he beat the best political machine, before Obama's any way, in beating Hillary.  So he must be the one.  

What I noticed in the video was McCain blinking his eyes too much.  That is a sign of a liar.  McCain is a liar, that is what he has become during this election.  His lies against Obama have become so bad that I question every thing the man says.

McCain is also a fear monger, and is trying to arouse the bigot vote.  Of course, we know that all bigots will vote against Obama, they are not even really voting for McCain but rather just voting against Obama.  All thinking people must stand against this kind of mindless hatred and lies.  I have noticed many republicans coming out to support Obama, this is in direct revulsion to the McCain/Palin tactics.  McCain stands for nothing, he is merely the against candidate.  This is no way to win. He does not deserve to be the president of all the people, since he rejects all minorities, does not support woman's rights, and is against workers rights.  This man is just not a real leader at all.  the only people left in his camp are those who are far right wing nuts, and the prejudiced haters.  With this coalition, how could he ever govern?  All the things he claims he would do, he would not be able to do with a democratic congress.  His claim he will make the Bush tax cuts permanent is never going to happen.  For them to be made permanent the congress must vote for that.  I doubt they will ever do that.  Our govt is starved for funds because of those tax cuts.  It will never happen.

This race was bound to tighten, but there is a hidden vote out there.  That is those who see the ugly nature of the hate filled rhetoric of the McCain/Palin crowd and finally reject it.  there are reasonable republicans, even conservatives who have the courage to come out and support Obama.  then there is the hidden vote, people who will not say that they will vote for Obama but actually do on election day.  We always knew there were haters and bigots that would never ever vote for Obama.  There will be those who will look for any reason to not vote for Obama, but there are a lot of new voters, younger voters, and those who will reject the hate that will in the end vote for Obama.  If he is really at 50% now, then he only needs 1% to win.  So even if most of the undecided go for McCain/Palin and their hate rhetoric, there will be at least 1% that will vote for Obama.  This is the hope of our entire nation.  We cannot be ruled by hate and lies, like the trash that is coming from McCain/Palin.  Sure there is the Rush Limpball crowd, but then those people were never going to vote for Obama anyway.  Keep the faith, work for Obama, get the vote out and pray that we can finally get rid of this republican philosophy that has so damaged our economy.  Remember that even Bill Clinton only got 38% of the "white" vote and won the White House.  Of course, he had help from Perot, but I still have faith that there will be a youth vote and a larger than expected AA vote to compensate for the haters and the bigots and those who chose to believe the lies promoted by McCain/Palin.

Maybe that is why Palin scoffed at the notion that Biden said paying taxes could be seen as patriotic in the sense that those companies that go off shore to avoid paying taxes, when our taxes are suppose to support out troops and our military, build our roads, pay for schools and to not pay taxes or try to get out of paying a fair share while at the same time reaping the benefits of the spending of those funds could be considered a lack of moral responsibility.

This is a moral issue.  It is also a moral issue when you have a woman, such as Ann Coulter, who in my opinion, going around saying the most disgusting things, or that low class trash talker Rush Limpball, those people are seeking the lowest common denominator, but to have a vice presidential nominee saying such low class things, like the trash talk she said today concerning the nominee of the other party, claiming that he is palling around with terrorists, is just such a show of classless lack of morals as to make the woman not only unqualified, but morally bankrupt.   The McCain campaign continues to lie about the positions of Obama, claiming things that have been proven over and over again to be false.  That makes them liars.  so here we have a candidate that cheats on their taxes, tried with the most low class kind of aw shucks, and the fake pretense of the common woman, which is really an  insult to the middle class in this country.  Her fakery of the common person by such transparent device, so this woman is a proven liar and faker and now the evidence is that she is a moralistic, but not moral person saying such demeaning things, does  not bring into question Obama's character but hers instead.

The claim that paying taxes is a redistribution of wealth is the old lie that republicans have told for years.  Since the abolishment of welfare that they successfully got rid of, the spending of the republican administration and republican congress has resulted in the ballooning of the federal budget.  spending included paying for the military that republicans support, driving on roads they and the products they buy use these roads to deliver them to their local stores, their children go to schools that are paid for with tax payer dollars, the courts that they want more and more of and incarceration of the "criminals" that they want so much, all take money to do.  You might call republicans the borrow and spend party.  Democrats wish to pay for these things with tax payer dollars, and they want the wealthy to pay a fair share of their income, which the republicans have so successfully managed to keep the wealthy from paying.  They have built up tax shelters, they have put tax exemptions for big corporations, they have rewarded companies for taking their jobs overseas, and they think that they are patriotic?  While they continue to claim that Obama wants to raise taxes when in fact Obama has proposed middle class tax cuts.  it seems to me that republicans are not moral at all.  Our tax code used to reward work in this country but now it only rewards wealth.  As Warren Buffet said there is something wrong with a tax code that makes his secretary pay more in taxes as a share of her income than he pays as a share of his income.

They are now doing push polling in Fl to Jewish voters, claiming that Obama has ties or worse to Hamas.  Lies!! He is not tied to Hamas in any way, but prejudiced people want to believe the worst of Obama.  He needs to cut an ad disputing this nonsense and denouncing this lie.  He must do that, they are also push polling in NJ and Penn.  It is disgusting.  They are pulling out all the stops to try and desperately cling to power.  This must not happen.  McCain is a disaster for this country and Palin?  Armageddon. This is what she wants.  To start a global war so that all the Christians will be lifted up, as if GOD would lift up a bunch of haters, judgmental fools and war mongers.  If GOD wanted a war, he wouldn't have allowed the Soviet Union to collapse.  That was the only way, and it has already gone.  That war was supposed to happen by 2001 at the latest.  Now these crooks just want it so badly they will try anything to make it happen.  Very scary folks, to say the least.

This is an effective ad.  Hunters recognize that this is not hunting.  Scientists realize that this is not predator control.  This is joy riding with guns and killing without merit.  

In fact, it has been shown that caribou are being affected more by those oil pipe lines, dividing herds on either side, and other human encroachment than by wolves.  This is disgusting practice, and typical of that monster Palin.  She is a wolf killer in lipstick.  UGH!!!!  She would eat her young to win, she is vindictive, self serving, practices the worst kind of cronisim, she is bad news for this country.  If they win, they will start out with an investigation and never get out from under it for the whole time.  They will have a democratic congress, and McCain couldn't get himself out of a paper bag.  He would be very ineffective, at least for the first two years, but he could stack the deck in the courts.  He and Palin are very bad news for this country.  His campaign is trying to win with lies, he is a LIAR!!

Peggy Noonan is a despicable human being.  She has a poison pen, and a nasty attitude.  She supports conservatives and trashes everyone else.

McCain is a loathsome nasty old man.  This country would be in very bad shape with him as president, not to mention the wrong choice for VP an unqualified harpy with a voice that sounds more and more like fingernails on a chalk board.  Palin does not relate to me, I don't care if she totes a gun or dresses moose, those skills are not needed at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Instead what is needed are serious people with serious plans, not the trash talk and accusations of McCain/Palin.  These two people are a disgusting reminder that republicans fight dirty, but govern badly.

Perhaps my comments here were not long or involved enough, but I wanted to give others space to comment.  I am a veteran, who has been closely watching things in Iraq for some time.  I recall that Biden's plan had the backing of 75 senators.

There were reasons that Biden saw to propose such a thing.  Biden's experience in the Balkans informed him on the issue of trying to stitch together different ethnic groups in an unnatural forced "country" and that the best way is to call for a federation of states.  sort of like in America when we had such big differences in the colonies, therefore a federation of states, later called the United States.  In fact we still have these regional differences, this is why there is such a difference in voting in states like Miss. and Calif.  The mind set of the south is such that it is very difficult to move these people into the 21st century in their political thinking.  It is also why they will refuse to vote for a black man.  They view him with suspicion, believe the worst of him, and believe the best of McCain even when presented with facts to prove otherwise.

The differences between Sunni and Shea and Kurd in Iraq means that a strong central government will continue to have these problems.  Only a strong man, such as a dictator like Saddam, or a federation of stronger states is going to actually work.  This insistence that these people can live in a perfect democracy is a fallacy and will in the end not actually work.

I think that Obama or his campaign did this hiring as an insult to Clinton.  I find it very arrogant of Obama to hire his VPs chief of staff anyway because surely whomever would have their own staff.

As for Clinton being his VP pick, he is much too  full of himself to think he would even need her help, but he just might find that he does in the end.  So far, his fans really showed their ass in Mich by booing the governor, and I was appalled that they were so very rude.  If Obama hopes to win this election he better find a way to stop that kind of insulting behavior, as if they have contempt for Clinton.  that is the biggest reason that this party might not become so unified, it will be because of things like that.  Not too welcoming for Clinton supporters.

I thought that the black community got what they wanted, but obviously what is wanted is some chip knocked off someone's shoulder.  I for one am just about sick of hearing about the feelings in the Black community.  The truth is Obama went around in Carolina, saying, don't let the
Clinton's bamboozle you, etc.  This was related to me by a black woman who saw the writing on the wall with these and other subtle and not so subtle comments done in a very racial way.  As for the Clinton's doing or saying anything racist, it was and is a very insulting lie that has been spread far and wide in the black community, but it is a lie.

Bill Clinton was supporting his wife, and defending her, but that is not O.K. He did not make any racial insults and it galls me that you would forget all the work both Hillary and Bill Clinton have done for and with the Black community and black leaders and others whom they hired and encouraged.  And the venom is unjustified and unworthy of a long record of these facts.  Bill Clinton was hurt very personally by these scurrilous charges.

Some countries are using nuclear effectively.  France 80% or so. I think in the near future there will be safe micro-organisms that will digest nuclear waste, but I am not sure of the source but think it is so.  There is research going on with this I think I read it somewhere,  certainly couldn't make that up.  In Chernobyl, there are sun flowers that are cleaning up the site, thriving on the water there.  

Corporate media can be controlled by targeting their advertisers, that is the best way to have an effect.

Sensationalism sells, when it is not profitable, they will quit doing it.  Till then, maybe shame them, but bet that would only egg them on.  Trash talkers, stir up nonsense, but do bring the discourse down to the most common denominator.

Factually she was in the basement which had no cell service and she did not know at the time that he was claiming going "over the top"  which I still think is not technically the case.  Else, why even have a vote at the convention.  The only way to claim the delegate count is with pledged delegates, the only way he goes over the top is with super delegates, so technically he is still not "over the top" and won't be till the vote is taken in Denver.  For people who are constantly reminding folks of the "rules, the rules" they are sure ready to throw those rules out when it suits them.

The false claim that somehow all Obama short comings are Hillary fault.  The nonsense that if Obama loses that will somehow be Clinton's fault?  That is to deflect any blame the MSM might find at their own doorstep.  If Obama loses, it will be Obama's fault, and no one but the media will share the blame.  Obama supporters are not even gracious as the winners, but continue to trash Clinton.  They cry unity unity, but they still demand that her face be shoved into the dirt.  That her supporters unite, that she is at fault, even when he clearly is the one to have the responsibility to crate that unity, his supporters refuse to be gracious.  Oberfart is full of crap.  if Obama loses, it will be his own fault.  After all he has all those supporters who continue to fall in line, continue to insist that Clinton is a bitch, that she is at fault for anything that goes wrong for Obama.  That is so much garbage. If I were her, I would not be anxious to get on his ticket.  That way, if he loses, he will be the reason and not her.  I say stay away from his ticket as much as possible, this is the doing of the DNC, the party elites, they deserve the blame, his supporters deserve some of it, but Clinton has no responsibility for his winning or losing.  That is no way to get unity, but alas, its not unity they really want, it is complete humiliation of Clinton, that is their goal, always has been.  Many Obama supporters are actually just Clinton haters.  Now she is out of the race, I suspect that some of that will go away.  Haters need an object to hate, they need an enemy to trash, and they need someone to blame, someone to project their own faults on, Clinton should stay away from all those people.  They don't need her, remember, they don't want her, they don't deserve her help either.  They don't want it anyway, so why force herself on him?  

"On balance, I don't think either sexism or racism substantially affected the outcome of this particular nomination process."

Well, I completely disagree with this statement.  Not only was sexism a very real part of this nomination, all the good old boys in the democratic party were voting for the Man, when both senators from WV for example endorsed Obama even though their state voted 41 points for Clinton, add to that fact that Byrd used to be a member of the KKK, that has to be sexism at work, because he went against his whole state.  Didn't want the woman.

As for racism, why is it the case when 91% of a voting block votes for Obama that isn't some form of racism.  The AA vote is a perfect example of racism, black hatred of the "white woman" as expressed in Obama's church.  Now you can disagree with that but it is clearly a racial vote.  They chose to support Obama and mostly it was because of race.  It was not because he was the more qualified candidate, or the more experienced, it was because of his skin color.  Call it pride, call it what you will but it was clearly a racial thing.  They rejected the woman who had a proven record working on issues with their community and voted en masse for Obama.  Her record meant nothing to them, they deserted her in droves, the accusation of racism was a ploy promoted by the Obama campaign but I never believed that Clinton was any kind of racist.  The vile hatred coming from the AA community was way over the top, and why was that?  Did she do something against them?  No she was merely running for the nomination, but they hated her for it.  They are still hating her, and it was a drummed up charge that had no basis in reality.  They threatened saying that they would never vote for her, but before Obama they did in fact support her, but after that white priest strut on the stage and the reaction to his rant was shown, I realized just how much racism was a factor, right now in Obama favor, later, perhaps not.  One thing is for sure, there has been sexism, and racism and there will be more.  

Personally I found the party elites to be the most disgusting thing about this process.  They didn't want the woman, they wanted Obama, and not because he had a few more delegates but in my opinion because they did not want a woman.  These mostly men made their choice, this fall, I will make mine.

Seems to me that about half voted for Obama and about half voted for Clinton.  I wonder how many Clinton voters will now vote for Obama in the GE.  Perhaps those voters will "just get over it" and fall in line with Obama, but I really wonder about that.

Some Obama supporters have been really nasty toward Clinton supporters and Visa versa, so will those wounds heal?  Well only if the O supporters begin to get off their own nasty high horse, and I don't see that happening any time soon.  Without that, I can't see how this party will heal enough for Obama to actually win this fall.  Many Clinton supporters didn't care for the cult like atmosphere of the Obama support.  Perhaps that is one reason that it will be difficult, even if Clinton wants to bring all those voters to Obama.

Many older voters who don't blog, don't feel the rock like impulse, don't find that to be sufficient. I do know that it is the older voters who actually elect presidents.  If Obama is going to win, he will have to find a way to get those voters.  At this time, he doesn't have a clue how to do that.  Big rallies will not work.  Those voters are actually turned off to that kind of appeal.