The Dish

This could become a death match:

With every delegate precious, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers also made it clear that they were prepared to take a number of potentially incendiary steps to build up Mrs. Clinton’s count. Top among these, her aides said, is pressing for Democrats to seat the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan, who held their primaries in January in defiance of a Democratic Party rules.

If Clinton were to win this way, she would, I believe, guarantee the Democrats will lose in November. A bitter, polarizing, divisive battle for Michigan and Florida with the result being a Clinton nomination would prompt large numbers of independents and Obama Democrats to stay home or even vote McCain. Would the Clintons sacrifice their party for their own ambition? You bet they would.

An interesting poll finding:

Barack Obama (D) currently holds a seven-point advantage over John McCain (R), 46% to 39%. However, if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, McCain will begin the race with a fourteen point advantage, 49% to 35%.

Sixty percent (60%) of Colorado voters currently have a favorable opinion of Obama while just 36% hold an unfavorable view.

McCain earns favorable reviews from 55% and less flattering assessments from 42%

Clinton is viewed favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 54%.

Obama’s negatives will doubtless rise. But there really is no contest with Clinton. McCain’s emergence as the GOP candidate makes Clinton a disastrous pick for the Democrats.

By far the best piece I’ve read on Obama’s views about the Iraq war – which will be one of the central issues in this election – is Michael Crowley’s in TNR. Painstakingly putting together the full record, Crowley shows that Obama was clearly opposed to the war before it began, but cannot be described as a candidate immune to changing exigencies, trade-offs and practicalities. He is no anti-war ideologue. Absolutists on Iraq may think less of the man after reading the piece. It made me more comfortable with trusting him with national security. We need a president able to adjust to changing circumstances, able to conduct nimble diplomacy and unafraid of military action. Obama is no Jimmy Carter.

A reader writes:

The reason Obama is winning and will win is so simple. Americans want to believe in themselves again.

And that’s why, I think, the criticism of Obama as a messiah figure is misplaced. It’s not about believing in him. It’s about believing in our own capacity to act as newly reasonable democratic participants in an age of extreme danger. I don’t think of him as a messiah. Mine has already come. I don’t believe this world will ever be heaven on earth. I don’t need or want another person to give my life meaning.

But I have been deeply, deeply demoralized about this country for the past few years.

McCain goes part of the way – these primaries have ensured that the U.S. will not be torturing after the Bush-Cheney years. His election is a defeat for the insular, toxic forces that have taken over conservatism. But Obama is a deeper solvent for the Bush stain. His election would be a statement not about him, but about Americans themselves. About how they do not recognize themselves any more. And want to again.

Republican voter mail and list consultants. His campaign is helping the Rovites to figure out where the Christianists are. All the easier to pander to them.

Attagirl:

The old-guard feminist establishment has also rushed out of cold storage to embrace Hillary Clinton via tremulous manifestoes of gal power that have startlingly exposed the sentimental slackness of thought that made Gloria Steinem and company wear out their welcome in the first place. Hillary’s gonads must be sending out sci-fi rays that paralyze the paleo-feminist mind — because her career, attached to her husband’s flapping coattails, has sure been heavy on striking pious attitudes but ultra-light on concrete achievements.

The smoke filling it up can no longer be deemed a reason for arrest in Canada:

"The smell alone can’t constitute the grounds because the smell of burnt marijuana – as opposed to raw marijuana – gives an inference that the material is gone, it’s dissipated into the atmosphere. So how can you say you’re in possession of something that doesn’t exist?" said Ronald Piche, Janvier’s lawyer.

"Last week, in his 10-thumbed attempt to prevent his wife’s Louisiana loss, Bill Clinton said that Obama has made "an explicit argument that the ’90s weren’t much better than this decade." The phrase "explicit argument" was an exquisitely Clintonian touch, signaling to seasoned decoders of Clintonisms that, no matter how diligent the search, no such thought could be found, even implicitly, in anything Obama has ever said," – George Will, on good form.

Without him, GOP fund-raising would be far behind the Dems:

In the fourth fundraising quarter of 2007, Republicans finally outraised Democrats among individual donors — but only based on the strength of Paul’s donors.

Without Paul’s $20 million raised from individuals, Republicans would have totaled $45 million for the period from October through December, compared with Democrats’ $58 million.

Paul also set the standard among candidates in both parties last year for tapping into average Americans. He raised 61 percent of his funds from small-dollar donors, defined as those who gave $200 or less, compared to just 14 percent of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s funds, 12 percent of Mitt Romney’s funds and 8 percent of Rudy Giuliani’s 2007 campaign funds.

After eight years of big-spending, nation-building, torturing, phone-tapping, and debt-acquiring, it doesn’t surprise me that most small conservative donors would rather give to an old-style Taftite than to the new authoritarians.