In all fairness he had equally negative things to say about Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson.

with no FACT to back it up.  Just puttin' it out there.

So, opinion wise, Markos may have a point.  I always go back to our races in November, 2006.  A prime example, Claire McCaskill, running for the senate seat in Missouri.  You would think that Hillary, being a woman would be there.  She was not, in fact Barack Obama was there several times, and I believe, Bill Clinton, but not Hillary.  Why?  Missouri is a swing state, that is why.  

So, for Markos, opinion, he may be correct.  We, as a party, have to be ready for more partisian politics if she is elected, and if we loose any congressional or senate seats due to her.  But the worst scenario is us loosing one chamber of congress.  

I think one interesting thing about down-ticket races is that Obama has shown he can turn out huge crowds in places like Atlanta and Austin.  
This would be a huge asset in drawing even just media attention to Senate candidates in those places, let alone energizing Democrats in states where others fear to tread.  I think he's shown that he can campaign just about anywhere and be well-received.
Now, I'll admit that could change, and the size of his crowds could very well decline as time goes by and his newness wears off a little, but so far he's defied all of those predictions.

John Edwards
Some of you will shoot me for this, but the more time passes, the more his "haircut" deal pisses me off. Why? I see it as a stategic, tactical, and personal failure, and one that was so easy to avoid that it makes me question his judgment in a long, tough, presidential battle.

Strategic: There are two narratives Edwards' opponents are building against him -- one, that he's a "pretty boy", and two, that he's so rich he's out of touch with "regular" people. And in one fell swoop, Edwards reinforced both negative narratives!

Tactical: The only reason anyone knew about that haircut was because it was in campaign finance disclosures. Why was it in those disclosures? Because he used campaign funds to pay for the haircut! If he wants his pimp haircuts, I couldn't care less. But why do it in such a way that it's easy for your enemies to use against you?

Personal: I don't know Edwards' net worth, nor care. But he has a lot of money. I'm willing to bet that most of the small dollar donors Edwards has solicited don't have that much. For them, that $20 or $50 or even $100 contribution is a big sacrifice. Yet given the choice between taking out his own checkbook or having his campaign pay for the $400 the haircut cost, someone made the choice to put this on the contributors. More than anything, it's this that offends me about this incident. People expect their money to be well spent by campaigns, not used as personal slush funds for whatever luxuries they may want.

So as stupid and media-driven as that whole "haircut" mess may have been, it really was a disaster on way too many levels to completely ignore and shrug off

this argument is pretty simple.  think about how you feel about george bush.  or newt gingrich.  does they motivate you to elect democrats?  well, that's how hillary effects conservatives and republicans.  no one gets the visceral reaction that hillary does.

this also appears to be true to a lesser extent to independents.  hillary is seen as the quintessential partisan, part of the bitter divide.  her negatives are twice as high as anyone else's.  anyone else at the top of the ticket would be better for down ballot candidates than hillary...

That is a HOOT!

What makes him an expert?  Because he is up with his HTML he knows Presidential races now?

2 things.

One, people can seperate the candidates.  Why do you think over the years so many Democratic  Presidential candidates have won NY big, and Republicans have done well on the ticket also.  Why do you think that in NC the opposite is true (NC is an even better example bnecause Demopcrats win down ticket in metro areas and rural areas out east)?  

Secondly,  this Hillary as the boogeyman is total bs.  If Hillary wins it will be because she excites the base and attracts a lot of women and minorities to the polls.  If she does that Democrats down ticket will be more than just fine.

"Markos says Hillary has "Negative Coattails"

________

Wow!  You expected anything different from Markos?  Heck, he can no longer say Hillary's Iraq vote will crush her (because it didn't and it won't).  He can no longer say her unwillingness to offer a sobbing apology will crush her (because it didn't and it won't).  

For those who claim that polls are useless this early and don't mean anything, how about adopting the same philosophy when it comes to polls about favorables vs unfavorables.  Or is it just easier to support polls that bolster your animosity for Hillary, but disregard those that show your own candidates doing so poorly.  

While it hasn't even been that long since Giuliani entered the race, Hillary is now starting to catch up to him and, in some cases, surpass him.  But let's not give the woman an ounce of effin' credit for any of it.  It must be a mistake!  It must be the media!  It must be Penn!  Given the incredible progress Hillary has made this far in her campaign, with every single male in the race (on both sides) trying to keep up with her, I'd just like to congratulate the woman for her success against all of those so-called unfathomable obstacles.

She's got Chris Matthews spewing spittle; Sean Hannity throwing his arms all over the place; four suppoedly well-respected authors/journalists wondering if they wasted a decade of their meaningless little lives on their Hillary bios which, if anything, have only seemed to increase their target's lead, and you can be sure Karl Rove is at the drawing board wondering what to do.

So I log on to dailykos today and what do I see?

"Markos says Hillary Has Negative Coattails"

It just gets funnier and funnier around here.

on Hillary's electability, he can't really out anti-war anyone because he still did vote for it but him pointing out that Hillary can't even go into red america much less win thier votes is a devastating one.

ha ha ha

he tried to out flank Obama to become the HRC alternitive on the left and it's not working so I think now he might go hard on "electability" hoping to bring down Hillary's numbers especially in the early states where they are more likely to pay attention to such arguments this far out.

Markos has an ingrained bias. He's on the right of the Democratic party (see all his "Libertarian Democrat" bullshit) and afraid to endorse a real liberal. See his support for Jon Tester and Jim Webb, candidates who are much more conservative than the base of his readership. As he is himself, to be honest.

That's not to say he's hostile to liberal candidates. But he prefers "Fightin' Dems", who incidentally had a pretty awful record of being elected to office in 2006. Opposition to Hillary Clinton, who's both more liberal than he's comfortable with and insufficiently anti-war, is natural on his part (which is not to say that I don't think Clinton should be more anti-war, just that Markos is neither representative nor entirely neutral.)