Hillary Clinton won reelection with nearly 70% of the vote, but she spent 30 million dollars to do it.

Since 2001, when she took office, Mrs. Clinton has spent at least $36 million on her re-election. For 2005 and 2006 through Oct. 18, she spent $29.5 million; a final tally will not be available until next month.

At that level, she spent nearly twice as much as Senator Charles E. Schumer, her Democratic colleague from New York, did in his 2004 re-election campaign, when he spent $15.5 million and won 71 percent of the vote, four points more than Mrs. Clinton won this year.

For her money, Mrs. Clinton also won a slightly smaller percentage of the vote in New York this year than did Eliot Spitzer in his successful race for governor. Mr. Spitzer, who raised nearly $41 million for his campaign, won 69 percent of the vote.

To put it into perspective, HRC spent more than Rick Santorum (24 million) who lost anyways. The question everyone is asking is "why?"

Her current finances are no more impressive that John Kerry's and it begs the question of what the utility was for all those extra votes she paid for that she didn't need to be re-elected.

Some theories:

Hillary was doing a dry-run on the presidential election. Its not particularly well-known, but Karl Rove went to school on Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign and learned a lot about GOTV. I think its perfectly plausible that she was testing some new approaches and evaluating her team to see how they performed.

HRC needed a really big margin or victory to prep the state for a potential run against Rudy Guliani. If HRC lost New York state in the general, she would certainly be toast.

Her current financial state is probably nothing to worry about. Raising more money is not likely to be a problem for the wife of a guy who just amassed seven billion dollars for his NGO.

For the three of you in Timbuktu still wondering, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton finally makes known her intent to run for the White House.

Think she can win? Well, did you ever think we would be saying the Honorable Speaker Pelosi? – O.K. I only typed it; I’m still having a hard time saying it.

Ms. Clinton comes with a lot of baggage, but there is a silver lining in there for her – there are going to be very few surprises. And I predict zero bimbo eruptions.

She will be the one to beat for the Democratic nomination.

Meet me at post E4 on parking level 3...

It seems that the only person its really safe to poke fun at, when you're a politician, is yourself, or quite possible, an adulterous former president, but then again, maybe not

Clinton grabbed the mike and told the audience that the questioner wanted to know "what in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men." She then smiled, raised her eyebrows and nodded knowingly at the questioner.

Her nod and the ensuing eruption of laughter had rally-goers convinced she was talking about her husband, whose Oval Office affair with intern Monica Lewinsky exploded into the Sexgate scandal and led to impeachment proceedings.

"She was talking about Bill being a bad man. There was no doubt whatsoever," said Tyrone Williams, 55, an engineer from nearby Bettendorf, Iowa.

His sentiment was the interpretation echoed by many other attendees interviewed by The Post.

"That was good," Williams added with a chuckle.

Later, during an afternoon press conference, Clinton deflected questions about the intended target of her jab. But when told that her quip had left the impression it was Bill, she said, "Oh, come on. I don't think anybody in there thought that. I thought I was funny. You know, you guys keep telling me, 'Lighten up. Be funny.' You know, I get a little funny and now I'm being psychoanalyzed."

When lying is a reflex, its hard to remember what you said, when you said it and why you said it. Hillary Clinton is about to discover that 90s political revisionism doesn't work so well in the internet age.

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Iowa on Sunday President George W. Bush should find a way out of Iraq before he leaves office and called it "the height of irresponsibility" to leave the problem to the next administration.

"The president has said this is going to be left to his successor," the New York senator said during a jammed rally in a fairground exhibit hall in Davenport as she concluded a two-day campaign swing in the state that kicks off the 2008 presidential campaign.

"I think it's the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it," she said. "This was his decision to go to war, he went with an ill-conceived plan, an incompetently executed strategy and we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office."

You can understand why she said it--Democrats have been indoctrinated with a television drama sensibility, where complex problems are resolved on the half-hour, hour, or if they are really, really complicated, with two back-to-back episodes. Pelosi solved all the countries problems in one hundred hours, so quite obviously, wars shouldn't really last longer than a few months at best.

If you aren't fond of Hillary, it was a good day for you. Hollywood megamoguls Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg (the Jews really do run Hollywood...) hosted a big dinner for Barack Obama at 50K a plate, but the real news was Geffen's blunt talk on the Clintons as reported by Maureen Dowd who seems to have tired of psychoanalyzing the Bushes and has found a new ragdoll in the form of Hillary.

Joe Gandelman hits all the marks, reproducing all the salient quotes from behind the TimesSelect wall and offering some insightful commentary.

This interview is more of a warning sign. It’s a warning sign to the Clinton camp that they have not done sufficient fence-mending with longtime supporters, including some who perhaps gave their support while holding their noses. It’s also a warning sign that they may face another negative out there to confront — dynasty fatigue (Jeb Bush take note.)

Meanwhile, it’s also a warning sign to the media — and to bloggers on the right, left and center — that it ain’t over till it’s over. Especially given the fact that primary season has not even started yet.

I think the inevitably meme was mostly a mainstream media thing. Most bloggers I've read have been pretty dubious about forecasting any winners, including me.

John Dickerson thinks Hillary won the Geffen round with the Obama campaign.

So, who won this round? Sen. Clinton. The Clinton team got exactly what they hoped for. Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, responded sharply, alluding to the Lincoln Bedroom fund-raising controversies of Bill Clinton's presidency. "We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," said Gibbs in a statement. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln Bedroom."

The Clinton campaign responded on cue. "I would have thought that a campaign trying to change our politics would have disavowed those comments and moved on," said Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson.

Obama's other rivals took their chance to join in the fun. Asked at a Democratic forum in Nevada if Obama should denounce Geffen, New Mexico governor and presidential candidate Bill Richardson said yes and then gallivanted on the high road: "I think if we're going to win we have to be positive. If there is anything about Democrats in the last few years, being a governor I felt this, we just cannot criticize the president. There's plenty to criticize. … I think these name-callings are not good." Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack joined in, too. An operative from another rival Democratic campaign responded from the sidelines: "These are the two candidates who most need to project strength and dignity and presidentialness, and instead they're acting like children. Let's hope it keeps up for the next year."

What's missing here is an appreciation of the existing personal dynamics for each candidate.

Dickerson completely ignores a vital fact of political life--its not what you say, its what what you say in the context of people's expectations. The public perception is that Bush is dumb, so when he mangles a phrase, everyone is confirmed in their perceptions. If Al Gore where to mangle a phrase, it wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but the internet-inventor has no leeway for misstatements.

Obama isn't just running on the uniter-not-a-divider platform, he's leveraging an public image he fixed during the 2004 Democrat convention. Obama would have hit back very hard indeed for the public to perceive him as a partisan screeming meemie. On the other hand, Shrillary didn't get the nickname by accident. Sean Hannity still plays her paroxym on an almost daily basis. Anything the least bit immoderate or indignant is going to be seen as well, shrill.

Remember vast-right-wing-conspiracy?

Obama gets the Hollywood buddies, the money and gets to make Hillary look bad. A good week for him.

I try never to post on the same subject twice in one day, but I couldn't resist.

With a swift response to attacks from a former supporter last week, advisers to the New York Democrat offered a glimpse of their strategy for handling one of the most awkward chapters of her biography. They declared her husband's impeachment in 1998 -- or, more accurately, the embarrassing personal behavior that led to it -- taboo, putting her rivals on notice and all but daring other Democrats to mention the ordeal again.

"In the end, voters will decide what's off-limits, but I can't imagine that the public will reward the politics of personal destruction," senior Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson said Friday, when asked whether the impeachment is fair game for Clinton's opponents. Earlier in the week, Wolfson dismissed references to President Bill Clinton's conduct as "under the belt."

I involuntarily blurted a "ha!" when I read this. The irony was just so deliciously amusing.

In my view, what brought Bill Clinton down, what even today sticks in the craw of even many of his former supporters, was the fact that he considered the rules to be for other people. As president, he was entitled to sexual favors from White House interns, just as he was entitled to such fringe benefits as governor of Arkansas.

Clinton considered that he had a special right, a droit du seigneur (right of the Lord).

Now Hillary is asserting a similar right--the right to control the public dialogue if not the right to her party's nomination.

Droit du seigneuse.

Mickey Kaus sees it much the same way:

Does Hillary realize that this taboo-enforcement strategy plays into the worst aspect of her public image--the dogmatic PC enforcer whose loyal aides seem, at least in public, to live in zombie-like fear that too much candor could incur her wrath?

Then there was the thought that maybe its all part of her brilliant plan:

The more modern and effective alternative to suppressing nasty questions, of course, is to air them out--let the voters talk about them, "process" them and "move on," something that happens awfully fast now. Maybe Hillary's seemingly clumsy strategy of last week was perversely brilliant: By heavy-handedly trying to enforce a taboo on discussing Bill's misbehavior, she guaranteed that it would become the topic of widespread public conversation immediately--early in the campaign when voters have plenty of time to process it and move on before the Iowa caucuses.

Stone-cold Hillary-->

For more than a decade, I've intermittently heard about how Hillary's Wellesley senior thesis was under lock and key, ostensibly to prevent the public from learning something awful about her youthful political views.

Its not under lock and key anymore, even though you have to travel to the campus to view it, but the upshot seems to be--what's the big deal?

It turns out that the real question are those that surround the apparent paranoia of the Clinton administration in asking that it be sealed.

The Obama campaign states that they have nothing to do with this spot--"wink, wink, nudge, nudge".

Carla Marinucci gets credit for the title.

A recent Harris poll have already made up their mind never to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Half of voting-age Americans say they would not vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) if she became the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, according to a Harris Interactive poll released Tuesday.

More than one in five Democrats that participated in the survey said they would not vote for Clinton. Overall, 36 percent say they would vote for the former first lady and 11 percent are unsure of their top choice.

Forty-eight percent of Independent voters also said that they would choose another candidate over Clinton, the poll, which surveyed 2,223 potential voters, states.

Fifty-six percent of men said that they would not vote for Clinton, while 45 percent of women said that she would not be their pick. In addition, 69 percent of those 62 and older said that they would not vote for Clinton.

Nearly half of the respondents said that they dislike Clinton’s political opinions and Clinton as a person. Fifty-two percent of people also said that “she does not appear to connect with people on a personal level.”

I think that last statement is definitive. After a conversation last year with my very apolitical wife, in which she announced a distinct distaste for Hillary, I started randomly asking woman I met what they thought of Hillary Clinton. Overwhelmingly, and regardless of stated political affliation, the woman I talked to had a negative impression. Few were able to articulate what they found so off-putting, but the revulsion seemed to occur in the animal brain.

The Democrats have a history of nominating stiffs--Dukakis, Gore and Kerry come to mind, so I suppose its entirely possible that Hillary will win the nomination.

I sure hope so.

So states 71 year old Geraldine Ferraro, failed vice-presidential candidate.

"The only thing that can stop Hillary becoming the next president would be smears and dirty tricks," said Geraldine Ferraro, the Democrats' losing 1984 vice-presidential candidate. "I've told her I'll go anywhere and speak any time to make sure that doesn't happen."

Its nice to have someone to blame for your loss, even before the primary begins.

Ferraro has a history of blaming others for her own troubles. Her husband's dodgy financial history was a constant source of embarrassment and political vunerability--first in 1984 when she was on the presidential ticket, and then again in a 1992 primary.

In typical childish perception of Democrat politicians--the fault lies with opponents who bring up such obvious vulnerabilities, not with the candidates whose checkered pasts make them unsuitable for public office. Of course, its only morons who vote Democrat who believe this; politicians like Hillary are busy amassing filing cabinets of opposition research on their Democrat and Republican opponents.

Hillary's formerly sealed college thesis concerned the tactics of Saul Alinsky and was entitled "There is only the fight..." Alinksy was famous for two things--social activism and dirty tricks. The Clinton's entire political career has been based on these principles.

Newt Gingrich, who has the bona fides to back up his views, called Hillary a nasty woman who runs an endlessly ruthless campaign machine. I suppose its useful to deny it, just not particularly believable.

Hillary grabs the headline with the announcement that she raised 26 million dollars in the quarter for her war chest. With ten million transfered from her Senate campaign, she's sitting pretty on a pile of cash.

Nevertheless, her rivals aren't cowed, and neither should they be--the Edwards campaign raised 14 million, and while Obama hasn't reported, its likely to be in the 20 million range. The future also-rans are in the low single digit millions.

While the announcement helps with Clinton's strategy of "inevitability" (10 million was raised in the final 10 days of the quarter...), the reality is that there is a point of diminishing return for campaign money, where more money doesn't in fact get you more votes. I suspect that Clinton's prolifigate spending during her Senate reelection campaign was an effort to test those limits. Still--she had 10 million left over.

Considering her inherent personal and political deficits, all her rivals have to do is raise money up to the point of diminishing returns and they'll fight for the nomination on other grounds.

Not surprisingly, a relatively small proportion of Hillary's war chest comes from the little people. The Post reports slightly more than 4 million raised from the Internet in small donations. The news tracks with the perception that Hillary is tapping the well-developed Clinton network of high-rollers but isn't overwhelming popular with the rank-and-file. Nevertheless, as a portion of total funds raised, Hillary outpaced Edwards 16% to 10% in small internet donations. Edwards internet donations were assisted by sympathy contributions in the wake of wife Elizabeth's announcement of a cancer relapse.

The more interesting comparison will be with Obama's internet fund-raising totals. As the charismatic candidate, his small-donation totals are the one's to watch.

Not surprisingly, misleading poll questions only really get any attention when they target Democrats, but let's not quibble too much about how a we get to the problem and just be glad we're discussing it at all.

The poll Fitton commissioned, actually five questions added to a nationwide poll by Zogby International, was rather loaded in its language. "Some people believe that the Bill Clinton administration was corrupt," one question begins. In another question about Hillary Clinton, every answer included the word "corrupt," and the question was not asked about other candidates so that a comparison could be made.

The pollster, John Zogby, defended the questions as "balanced" -- a label Fitton made no attempt to earn. As he presented the results yesterday, he announced that Bill Clinton's financial conflicts of interest "make the issues of Halliburton and Dick Cheney . . . pale in comparison."

Pollster.com reliably amplified these objections and made some interesting points in the process.

But this episode also raises a second issue. How effective were these leading questions in producing the desired response? Put another way, did Judicial Watch get their money's worth?

Putting aside the obvious - that a 53% majority is not concerned about corruption in a Hillary Clinton White House - consider how the Zogby results compare to a set of balanced (though somewhat dated) questions about honesty and trust (via Polling Report):

ABC News/Washington Post (May 11-15, 2006. n=1,103 adults) - Please tell me if the following statements apply to Hillary Clinton or not... She is honest and trustworthy

52% applies
42% does not apply
6% unsure

CNN/USA Today/Gallup (Aug. 5-7, 2005. n=1,004 adults) Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please say whether you think each applies or doesn't apply to Hillary Clinton. How about...Is honest and trustworthy?

53% applies
43% does not apply
4% unsure

So a year (or more) ago, roughly the same percentage of Americans considered Hillary Clinton "honest and trustworthy" as expressed little or no concern about Clinton corruption in the Zogby/Judicial Watch survey. While the comparison is obviously imperfect, the lesson here may be that well developed opinions tend to be more resistant to manipulation by leading questions. If you are convinced that Hillary Clinton is honest (or dishonest), the leading language is unlikely to alter your answer either way.

There is another lesson here--whether the vote is held today, next year or in 2008, the way people feel about Hillary Clinton is cast in stone. As hard as Judicial Watch and Zogby tried to drive up Clinton's negatives, it will be just as hard, if not harder to drive up her positives.

A recent Harris interactive poll discovered that fully 48% of voting-age Americans would NOT vote for Hillary Clinton, including 20% of Democrats.

Fifty-six percent of men said that they would not vote for Clinton, while 45 percent of women said that she would not be their pick. In addition, 69 percent of those 62 and older said that they would not vote for Clinton.

Nearly half of the respondents said that they dislike Clinton’s political opinions and Clinton as a person. Fifty-two percent of people also said that “she does not appear to connect with people on a personal level.”

With numbers like this, Judicial Watch hardly needed to push the poll their way with loaded language.

The New York Times interviews Hillary's classmates and provides a fascinating glimpse into a generation of women who enshrined their victimhood and sense of entitlement.

Some of Mrs. Clinton’s classmates say they take personally criticism that she is “shrill” or “strident.”

“I hear these anti-Hillary attacks by men, especially right-wing men, and I feel like it’s just as much an attack on me,” said Cheryl Lynn Brierton, an in-house lawyer for the California courts. “It’s an effect of intelligence that you come across as intense, that you have strong views. I’ve always felt that the way she is singled out and attacked is very indicative of how society reacts to smart women.”

When she herself started working, Ms. Brierton said, she had to tone herself down and find a voice that would not be off-putting. So when she hears criticism of Mrs. Clinton, she said, “I’m constantly thinking, There but for the grace of God go I.”

I had to grin when I read this. As an ill-mannered lout from way back, I have valuable insights to offer on "shrillness and stridency".

Ladies, its not your sex, its your attitude.

No one likes insensitive, abrupt, condescending know-it-alls--its a simple fact of human sociality.

The difference is, people like me never had the ideological fall-back position of blaming it on my gender. After decades of remediation, I'm much less of a jerk than I started out as--largely because I had enough sense to realize that being a jerk was bad for the career.

Some people of course never quite catch on. They remain jerks throughout their lives because of other emotional dysfunction that doesn't allow them to acknowledge their own responsibility for how other people are reacting to them.

Feminists on the other hand, have an ideological excuse for their social pathology. With an ideology, even otherwise emotionally healthy individuals can justify egregious actions and attitudes. Just when you think it might be your problem, the "sisters" reaffirm your jerkiness.

As you read the article, their is the distinct sense that its simply "Hillary's turn", that its "time" for a woman president. No talk of merit here--its an entitlement; owed to woman for millenia of abuse at the hands of men. That may convince Hillary's classmates at Wellesley, but I doubt the country at large will buy it.

There is an unspoken expectation that Hillary will lock up the woman's vote, and supporting that view are all sorts of interviews with woman which highlight an alleged view that "its a woman's turn" to run the country.

Yet something interesting happened in France this week--Sarkozy won the woman's vote over Segolene Royal by a considerable margin-:52-48%

Royal had, in theory at least, all the right positions on "woman's issues", but she could not obtain a plurality of female votes. Add to this that she is personally an attractive and charming woman with an undeniable grace that generally appeals to other women (so much so that Hillary is beginning to imitate her posture and gestures...)

Granted, Sarkozy had a kind of "security Mom" thing going during the campaign, but I think that's too facile and explanation since just the French default for domestic conflict resolution is negotiation, not confrontation. French women were just as likely to believe that Royal's approach was the effective solution to France's "youth problem".

Perhaps the more genial and respectful conclusion is that woman are smarter about politics than they are generally given credit for and they aren't so naive as to entrust a nation's highest office to someone merely on the basis of gender.

Hillary is polling badly in Iowa and her campaign is sending up a trial balloon with a "leak" of a memo suggesting that she bypass the state altogether to concentrate on the big prizes down the campaign trail. Hillary denounced the memo--yeah right.

Frankly I think she should skip to New Hampshire. Iowa is Crazy John territory at this point and although she'll be criticized for bypassing it, a Hillary defeat there would give Edwards what he needs--credibility. Without her in the race, his win would be reported with an asterisk and the media would look to later races for the real battle.

"Whatever I've done, I complied with Senate rules at the time. That's the way every senator operates," the Democratic presidential contender said in an interview with The Associated Press during a campaign stop in Las Vegas.

The travel and consulting fees paid to Clinton's husband have come to light recently in a lawsuit against Vinod Gupta, a Clinton contributor and chief executive of the data company, InfoUSA Inc. (IUSA)

The lawsuit by company shareholders accuses Gupta of excessively spending millions of dollars, including $900,000 worth of travel on the Clintons.

Sen. Clinton, who complained about corporate America's largesse and skyrocketing executive pay during campaign events Wednesday, said she did not believe her message was undermined by her acceptance of the private flights. In line with Senate rules then in effect, Clinton's campaign has said she reimbursed Gupta at the cost of a first-class flight, typically a significant discount off the expense of a private jet.

"Those were the rules. You'll have to ask somebody else whether that's good policy," she said.

I'm not going to call this hypocrisy, because frankly its perfectly consistent with the Democrat cultural meme that principles are for Republicans. When Democrats like Hillary criticize private Jet travel, what they are really saying is that its a bad thing when Republicans do it. The Democrat elite are necessarily exempt from environmental restrictions because, well, they're important, with important things to do and they need to get places quickly to insure that people get universal health care, union jobs and equal outcomes.

Speaking of which, I loved this piece of pandering from Hillary:

"I know a lot of rich people. My husband and I never had any money ... now all the sudden we're rich," Clinton said. "I have nothing against rich people. ... but what made America great is the American middle class."

This is what I would call a convenient fiction. A large and prosperous middle class makes for political stability, but ultimately its rich people who made America great. Wealth is how real Americans are rewarded for outstanding contributions. How the Clintons got wealthy is more in line with the French model--kickbacks, favors, sweet deals, etc...

Suddenly I feel all slimy.

Howard Kurtz has made it in the blogosphere without actually becoming a blogger himself--other journalists could learn a lot from him. There is something very "bloggy" about his column, like this opening sentence.

Hillary Clinton is inevitable.

Its not Kurtz's view, but an artificial consensus among the chattering classes. Nevertheless, that apparent inevitability is tempered with deep dissatisfaction.

"The real problem many Democratic voters have with Clinton is the sneaking suspicion that with so much of the country against her, she can never win a general election. Clinton's fate may well come down to her ability to deal with a vexing question: what is it about me that so many people don't like?

I've written about this before, but this really is the bottom line--Hillary simply isn't likable.

She's smart, experienced and driven--qualities of leadership that serve the entrepreneur and military commander extremely well as the faint of heart look to strong people with a plan in times of crisis, but political leadership is a completely different animal. Its the search for a nurturing presence--paternal or maternal, older brother or sister. Respect in the context of love.

Its why Bill sought to "feel your pain". We want politicians to indulge our personal agendas and Hillary isn't the indulgent type.

Hillary can win her party's primary, because its a strategic exercise that rewards maneuver and logistics, but its hard to imagine her winning the general election. Barack Obama is where he is today because for a fleeting moment, he created that "wise, older brother" image in his address to the 2004 Democratic convention. His problem is that Hillary and her campaign is just so much better than he is tactically.

Its not so much that she's making mistakes than the fact that she is offering herself for leadership at a time and place that doesn't need or want her. The left wants an ideologue, and she is too smart for that. The center-right just doesn't accept her values and agenda.

I suspect the Clinton's learned the wrong lesson from Bill's election. His success led them both to believe that the path to the top was a matter of nuture, and not nature. How could the possibly ignore the accidental quality of their ascendancy? If not for Ross Perot, George H.W. Bush would have almost certainly have had a second term and its unlikely that George W. would have ever run for the presidency--perhaps never have run for political office at all. This in spite of Bill's copious political talents.

Both the historical and human realities point to the fact that the people pick their president according the strange attractor of our chaotic political geography. You stand on the political terrain and just hope that the votes flow your way.

To some degree, you can pick your spot, but votes are the result of more than positions, euphemisms and money. What makes us trust this person and not that one? All the while, you rivals are working hard to frame you negatively in the public mind.

Ultimately, inevitability in politics is a fantasy.

I'm hearing so many awed estimations of Hillary's destiny as Democratic party nominee, but no one seems to be stating the obvious--how would she fare against a strong rival?

There is no question that Hillary is a strong candidate--she's got the support, the money, the smarts and the experience. Would you say that any of her rivals is her equal?

The irony here is that the Democrats are fortunate this time around to have at least one strong candidate as opposed to the disaster of 2004, but is it reasonable to praise her performance because she is kicking Edwards and Obama around?

Edwards is imploding--the house, the haircut, the hedgefund and now the revelation that his poverty initiative was a thinly veiled scam to allow him to fund his campaign for the presidency without organizing and exploratory committee. His poll numbers are dropping like a stone and Hillary didn't have to make a move.

Obama is demonstrating--rather predictably--his inexperience. His campaign simply isn't reflecting the promise his convention address showed and then there is this:

Despite often-lofty rhetoric that he plans to bring the nation a "new kind of politics," Sen. Barack Obama has surrounded himself with operatives skilled in the old-school art of the political back stab.

Yet when Obama was criticized this week for opposition research memos critical of Sen. Hillary Clinton's ties to India and Indian-Americans, he was quick to blame his staff.

"It was a screw-up on the part of our research team," he told editors and reporters with The Des Moines Register. "It wasn't anything I had seen or my senior staff had seen."

That is starting to sound familiar. It was at least the third time since February the Illinois Democrat has blamed his staff for a glitch.

Very unpresidential Barry.

It will remain to be seen whether he has kept pace with the Clinton machine in the fund-raising effort. The way it looks though, the learning curve is just too steep.

The irony is, that a cakewalk to the nomination makes her very vulnerable in the general election. She will have won without the help of the revitalized left-wing of the party, which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because she can appeal to the moderates, and a curse because the left represents the dynamism in the party these days and is the Get-out-the-vote (GOTV) engine.

Hillary might be able to finesse the primaries in the absence of strong rivals, but she can never inspire love in comparison the hatred George Bush produces.

The last time the Clinton’s were running for president, William Safire called Mrs. Clinton a “congenital liar”.

I’m depending on those congenital lies for her to win the Democrat presidential nomination.

While leading Republican presidential candidates are serious about the war on terror the Democrat candidates aren’t - except Hillary. You can’t tell that from her actions right now, and she may even allow a Kossack moment as the primaries approach, but it’s a lie.

Bill and Hillary know terrorism isn't a fantasy conjured up by George Bush. They were the Presidents during the First World Trade Center Bombing, Kobar Towers, the Cole bombing, and the embassy bombings in Africa. After 9/11 I don’t expect them to go back to their old ways of (non) combating terrorism; especially based on the antics of Sandy “pants” Burglar where it seems the Clinton’s don’t want us to know what those old ways were. If she wins, they'll get their mulligan on the war on terror.

Hillary would be the least likely Democrat contender to screw up the war on terror. She won’t follow through on her promise to redeploy American troops from Iraq, at least not in the manner to meet the expectations of the nut-roots; and not in a manner to put America’s head in the sand.

Hillary's one vice larger than the lie is her ambition. The basic rule to understand is: If it's not good for Hillary, she's not going to do it. To get the Demo nomination she will need to come across as a pacifist – good for Hillary. Actually being a pacifist - bad for Hillary (or anyone). She seems to be the only one in the Democrat party with enough sense to understand this. That’s why this conservative is pulling for her nomination over the other demo candidates.

Hillary is behind in Iowa and so Bill's come out of the dugout.

Is this a good idea?

The media loves Bill Clinton, and he loves the media, but the reality is that Bill has no coat tails. I you love Bill, you always have, and if you don't, you changed your mind in 1998 or never did. How does Bill get Hillary voters that she doesn't already have? On the other hand, Hillary has been carefully crafting her own identity, building a reputation as a moderate and a thoughtful woman.

Does she really want to remind people of health-care Hillary?

I guess we'll see how she does in the polls after the Billary tour, but I'm dubious.

You might expect that Hillary Clinton would be the last person to criticize the president on commuting the prison sentence of Lewis Libby--after all, her husband's pardons are the stuff of legend--drug dealers (including Roger Clinton), exiled financiers with tax problems and a whole host of crooked businessmen who bought pardons through Hillary's brothers.

Well, she's behind in Iowa and that demands that some risks be taken, including the risk of throwing red meat to the far left that will recall the excesses of the Clinton presidency.

I'm guessing that she's guessing that people will forget all about Libby after the primaries, and consequently about her husband's egregious pardons as well as her own obstruction of justice during travelgate.

I think that's a mistake. So many Democrat politicians simply don't grasp that the memory hole is closed. The internet makes all the old scandals new again.

Don't remember Travelgate? One of the less memorable Clinton administration scandals, but interesting in that it featured the first lady--Ms. Clinton, lying under oath

As political payback, Hillary Clinton asked senior administration officials to fire the travel office employees so that their friend Harry Thomason could get the charter business for a company her partly owned and Clinton cousin Catherine Cornelius (25 at the time) could have a job.

The Clinton machine trumped up some financial irregularity charges against former director Billy Dale, who had served seven presidents in his capacity. He was charged with embezzlement and also had a visit from the IRS. They also looked into the financial records of his adult children. His youngest daughter was arrested and interrogated for 5-1/2 hours.

The IRS concluded that he had actually overpaid his taxes.

His trial on the charge of embezzlement returned a not-guilty verdict in under two hours.

Dale was left free, but hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from his legal defense. Even after his acquittal, Clinton apparachniks, including the DNC chairman, continued to smear Dale. When public reaction turned against the administration,