After a few months of perusing the blogosphere during this campaign, I can't help but start to think that Hillary's campaign must send out some sort of missives about the latest line of attack against Barack Obama. One week, it's posts about all kinds of subjects that all end with, "he's just not ready for prime time." Right now, it seems to be "he's leading a cult." There was a period where everything was about him not being sufficiently "vetted." A couple of weeks ago, he was "too liberal."

So Hillary supporters, is it true? Is there an anti-Obama theme of the week? Is the cult thing this week's theme? What's coming next?

Looks like Obama will sweep the Potomac Primary. The only question is whether Clinton will still get a decent number of delegates. Clinton will be speaking in El Paso, Texas tonight, setting up shop for her last stand. Shades of Giuliani's Florida strategy?

Notwithstanding the vitriol going around between supporters of the two remaining Democratic candidates here and elsewhere in the blogosphere, recent polls of actual voters have found that 80-85% of Democrats would be "satisfied" with either of the candidates. Speaking for myself, I've donated hundreds of hours and dollars to the Obama campaign and yet, I still think Hillary would make a great candidate and President for our Party.

I believe that the moment is ripe for the Democratic Party to win in November. There are dangers ahead, however. The Republicans have selected their candidate, and he is a moderate war hero with a strong appeal to independent voters. We are more or less evenly divided between our two candidates, and neither is likely to win enough delegates to secure the nomination before the convention. The highly controversial issue of whether to let Florida/Michigan and/or the superdelegates settle the nomination looms ominously ahead.

With his comments yesterday downplaying Obama's win in South Carolina as a mere echo of Jesse Jackson's wins there in 1984 and 1988 (with the not-to-subtle indication that, "It's just because he's black"), Bill Clinton neglected to mention the 2004 South Carolina primary results.

In case we've all forgotten, that contest included six white men and a black candidate who is clearly "black enough" and has been on the forefront of black causes across America for the past couple of decades: Rev. Al Sharpton.

Do blacks in South Carolina always go for the black candidate, especially one with the racial bonafides of an Al Sharpton?

At last night's debate in New Hampshire, it seemed clear to me that John Edwards was going out of his way to criticize Hillary and ingratiate himself to Barack. Obama seemed to return the sentiment. Given that I'm an Obama supporter and also a big fan of John Edwards circa 2008, this makes me happy. The debate crystallized the issues really well: Barack and John represent change, while Hillary represents the status quo. It's not just the slogan; it's the fact that she is the establishment candidate and they are the challengers. It's the fact that neither of them take money from federal PAC's and lobbyists, and she does.

I hope that Barack wins, but I like Edwards and would donate, walk precincts and make phone calls and vote for Edwards if he somehow manages to pull off a miracle.

I also believe that if Obama wins the nomination, Edwards has made a great case for himself for Attorney General in an Obama Administration.

In the closing days of the Iowa caucuses and now in New Hampshire the national Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has been running negative ads against Barack Obama.

Obama, if you recall, was pilloried as "anti-union" for denouncing the use of "527's" (the same kinds of independent campaign groups who funded the "Swift-boating" of John Kerry in 2004) to do this dirty work.

Well, it turns out that not only do the ads not speak for the true sentiments of the union, but that union board members never approved them and consider the 527 as a renegade doing more damage than good to the union's cause.

Are union board members anti-union too?

According to Thomas Edsall over at Huffington Post, any further doubt about who is more progressive between Hillary and Obama has been convincingly answered by none other than Hillary herself:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/04 /new-hampshire-will-be-key_n_79873.html

After months of discussion, the voters of Iowa provided conclusive answers to many of the questions plaguing Barack's candidacy: Why argue, when you can look at facts?