The news media as well as Hillary Clinton's own surrogate, Wes Clark, is now calling her campaign "tattered and disorganized."  The media has criticized her lack of a coherent game plan after Super Tuesday as shortsighted.  The AP says the Clinton candidacy is fading.  In less than a months time, the once thought impenetrable armor known as the Clinton machine has succumb to this young upstart with a funny name.

In one corner we have the old know it all from the dark ages, he was once considered a maverick until he succumbed to the conservative dark side of the right . . . the former loser to George Bush, John McCain.  In the other corner we have the young up and comer who wowed us with his great oratorical skills at the 2004 DNC . . . the man who is making the Clinton machine look like an old Apple IIe, ladies and gentle we have Barack Obama.

Pat Buchanan has been the biggest ass when it comes to Obama and the 2008 presidential race.  He has consistently tried to box Obama in under the label of the 'black candidate.'  This term negatively suggests that Obama does not have appeal outside of the black community.  On January 22 of this year, Pat wrote and said the following:

In three weeks, Barack has been ghettoized. The crossover candidate, the great liberal hope, has become a Jesse Jackson, who is ceded the black vote and a few states, then given a speaking role at the convention, as the party moves on to the serious business of electing a president.

One cannot deny that Bill Clinton was right. Nominating Barack would be a "roll of the dice." But nor can one deny that Bill and Hillary helped make sure the risk would be one the party would not take.

Ghettoized?  Pat's seriously flawed thinking after the South Carolina primary got a dose of reality on February 5th.

During a campaign event in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton decided to change her position on Iran.  She stated that she would negotiate with Iran without preconditions.  However, three months earlier during the CNN/Youtube debate she said that she would not meet with the leaders of Iran unless she knew what the way forward would be.

Thom Hartmann discussed on his Friday show the effect of media consolidation on presidential contenders.  The "Howard Dean" effect I like to call it, enables the corporate media to consistently pushed on the American public these contemporary, if not altogether boring  candidates like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton while the truly progressive and exciting candidates like Barack Obama are downplayed.  It is time for the netroots to take organized action against the true obstacle to democracy . . . the consolidation of free press.

Marc Cooper of the Huffington Post makes an interesting argument for why SEIU may eventually endorse Barack Obama.  In his article, Labor Pains . . ., he describes the union's hesitancy to repeat their premature endorsement "disaster" of 2004 when they chose Howard Dean.

The fight for the democratic nomination is going down to the wire and I am certain that Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are holding their best cards until the final stretch.  Barack Obama, in particular, is beginning this week on a high note.  He has recieved a union endorsement from the NYC Corrections Officers' Union which has over 9,000 active members.

The reason the media pushes inevitability and the false meme of experience regarding Hillary Clinton is due to her relative lack of enthusiam elsewhere.  The Obama campaign rightly points out that Senator Clinton has a "quasi-incumbent" advantage as result of her marriage to the former popular president Bill Clinton.  Those good memories regarding the Clinton administration, rightly or wrongly, are being associated with Hillary's candidacy.  However, Obama holds a trump card that, regardless of current polling, in the end will overwhelm Clinton's incumbent advantage and that is enthusiam.

Chris Matthews makes a good point about Obama today on Hardball by stating:

Speaking of democrats . . . Barack Obama?  He's still reluctant to attack frontrunner Hillary Clinton as we've seen.  And his campaign seems stuck in the mud.  The chicago tribune reports today that Obama isn't happy with his stalled campaign and he's bringing in fresh blood to fix things.  Well given his distant second place standing in the polls out there, one thing he needs is more people out there ready to fire away at Hillary since he's not prepared to do it himself.  He needs some surrogates out there.

Chris Matthews is bit off base when he says Obama will not confront Hillary, however, Matthews overall conclusion that Obama needs some surrogates should be an eye opener for the Obama campaign.

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After a lengthy email discussion with Markos and five months later I was fortunate enough to be reinstated.  I want to issue a formal apology to my fellow kossacks for my unbecoming behavior.  Daily Kos was like a second home to me and in the past I let my frustrations get the best of me.

John Edwards, who has been suggested by the blogger community as the experienced presidential campaigner in the field, has made another campaign gaffe.  There has been alot of talk in recent days about Edwards silly use of campaign funds to pay for his expensive $400 haircuts.

The "pretty" theme has been the unfortunate subject of right wing circles for some time now and Edwards blunder as a consequence may provide more fodder.  Even some late night talk show hosts have made fun of this.

Today is my off day for reporting Barack Obama news and commentary.  However, I wanted to leave daily kos with this nice treat I found on youtube.  It is pretty creative and kind of funny.  It is a cartoon of the Superfriends but the artist drew Obama, Clinton, Edwards and Gore as the superfriends.  Very well done.

Barack Obama has been running a very effective campaign to date and his latest initiative only continues this trend.  First he introduces himself to the country with the greatest patriotic speech in modern history, the 2004 DNC speech.  Then he goes on to center his platform on a theme that John Edwards coined during his 2004 presidential run:  Hope.  Unfortunately, hope did not take JRE to the white house, however, Obama's fine tuned version of it brought 17,000 people in subzero weather to his presidential annoucement speech in Springfield Illinois.  He also proved to Hillary and the media that he would be effective at garnering the Black vote as a result of his remarkable speech in Selma Alabama.  Then he won the first quarter money race.  So now Obama has set his sight on what could be the most crucial constituency in his quest for the white house.

A lot of noise has been made about Senator's Obama lack of specifics on healthcare reform.  Contrasts have been made between Obama and Edwards because JRE has provided his healthcare plan ahead of everyone else in the field.  However, therein lies the dilemma.  Edwards putting out his plan first does not mean that it is going to be the best policy proposal in the field.  He just gets the nod for being first.  No one else in the field has released specifics, however, they have all committed to healthcare coverage for every American in the United States.

Everyone knows John Edwards plan so let us look at the pros of Obama's approach.

Tucker Carlson just reportered the results of the Moveon.org virtual Iraq townhall debate and Obama won the vote of who is best able to lead U.S. out of Iraq.  1st: Obama at 28%, 2nd: JRE at 25%,  3rd: Kucinich at 17%, 4th: Bill Richardson at 12% and Hillary comes in at number 5 with 11% of the vote.  This is another victory that the progressive community is recognizing true leadership in Obama and not just pandering to the netroots or political winds.

Yesterday Moveon.org hosted a virtual town hall debate on Iraq between the democratic presidential contenders.  Most of the candidates took their usual stances on the issue with the notable exception of Obama suggesting a new plan to get Republicans on board and end the stalemate between the president and Congress (i.e. authorizing the Iraq apropriations in three month increments to allow time to build republican support and keep the president on a "shorter leesh").  However, John Edwards was just plain embarrassing.  This guy has no credibility to be barking at Congress whatsoever.