For everyone out there that thinks it’s easier for an African-American to get elected than a woman; for all those who think Barack Obama is evidence we’ve reached some post-racial state of nirvana; and for those of you who still believe Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were not subtly injecting race in this election, I strongly suggest you read this article in the WaPo today.

Key line:

While about half of whites regardless of education level said the
nation is "definitely" ready for a woman president, just a third of
whites without college degrees were that sure the country is prepared
for a black president and they were almost twice as likely as college
educated whites to say the nation is not ready for an African American
chief executive.

Few local or national analysts have noticed (other than those over at the fine Calitics blog) that California still has well over one million votes to count — a number equal to over twenty-five percent of the total votes counted so far in the Democratic primary (4.4 million votes counted so far, give or take a few thousand).

Most of these are vote-my-mail ballots turned in election day at polling stations. There are also a couple of hundred thousand provisional ballots. As soem of these additional ballots have (slowly) been counted over the past week, In just the last two days of counting, Senator Clinton’s 10-point lead has shrunk to an 8-point lead.

State and county officials have 28 days from the date of the primary to finish the tally. That’s March 4. Same day as the Texas and Ohio primaries.

With one million votes still to go, Senator Clinton enjoys a 359,000 vote margin. It’s nearly inconceivable that the added votes would result in an Obama victory. But if the to-be-counted votes result in a much closer race than was initially forecast, and a much small margin of victory for Senator Clinton both in terms of votes and delegates, that would be important news indeed.

Has anyone else been amused that one of the new lines of attack by Senator Clinton’s supporters is that Obama’s not man enough?

Also, folks might want to cool the oh-so-tiresome “Obama-as-cult” obsessions.

I was particularly amused by this line:

The supporters of Hillary Clinton can’t come close to what’s being spread by Obama crazed fans. Anyone saying they are is uninformed, ignorant or not closely enough involved to know what’s actually happening. I am. You’re wrong.

Obviously Ms. Marsh does not read her own message boards, or those over at Hillaryis44.com.

Well, no need to look further than her own words to find signs of her particular brand of mania:

We’re nominating a president, not a motivational preacher, Elmer Gantry, or L. Ron Hubbard replacement.

Nice. Compare Obama to L. Ron Hubbard, and those who support him to glassy-eyed Scientologists.

If Hillary is ultimately the nominee, you might want to remember you’ll need us Obama supporters in the Fall. Last I checked, there are a lot of us.

After last night’s drubbing in the Potomac-Chesapeake primaries, Senator Clinton faces some tough choices.

Perhaps predictably, some advisors in the Clinton camp (it feels like her staff has been an anchor around her neck this campaign) are pushing her to go negative. Here’s Josh Marshall quoting from Ron Fournier’s AP piece this morning:

Two senior Clinton advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity to
discuss the race candidly, said the campaign feels the New York senator
needs to quickly change the dynamic by forcing Obama into a poor debate
performance, going negative or encouraging the media to attack Obama.
They’re grasping at straws, but the advisers said they can’t see any
other way that her campaign will be sustainable after losing 10 in a
row.

Her odds of winning are now slim, so if I were her, I’d focus on conducting a campaign that burnishes her legacy, and doesn’t destroy it. If she goes harshly negative on Obama, particularly if the attacks are groundless and not factually-based and Rovean in nature as they were before South Carolina, it would dim her chances and Obama’s chances of winning the ultimate contest in November, and destroy the incredible momentum that the Democrats are building this election with record turnouts in nearly every state.

Going negative would only be in her personal interest, her husband’s personal interest, and perhaps her staff’s interests; and not the larger interests of the Democratic Party or, arguably, the country.

It would be delightful if Senator Clinton surprised the pundits, and her detractors, by running an uplifting and positive campaign from here on out. Instead of attacking the other candidates, tell us why you’d make a great President. Unleash your sense of humor — your close friends say you’re delightfully funny.

Connect your list of initiatives with a grander theme of what you want this country to become and where you want it to go. Doing that, you’ll make the choice harder for voters in Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania. And we’ll all win, regardless of who wins the nomination.

This will be an interesting test of her character, and her moral core.

There has been no shortage of commentary about Paul Krugman’s highly original and insightful vacuous “Obama-cum-cult” line of analysis in today’s NY Times.

That column was stupid, as was Frank Rich’s silly anti-Clinton column from yesterday.

Now that Krugman has latched on to the meme, a good week or so after it started, we know it’s well past its shelf life. So all you bloggers and writers who think you’ve got a funny post (cue, yes that link is sarcastically made) about the “Yes We Can” video, keep moving. It’s been done, the joke is over, folks have moved on.

Why don’t you do a little investigation on the comparative accomplishments of the two candidates during their tenures in the US Senate. Still waiting for someone to take up that cudgel.

If you missed it, the meme  propagated by a number of media folk and a few prominent bloggers this past week has been: "I voted for Senator Hillary Clinton because she’s detailed and more substantive and has a better track record" and that "Senator Obama, while a good orator, is just not as substantive, and his supporters look like cultists."

The gist of their complaint about Obama and support for Clinton is best expressed by Joel Stein’s mother, as given to us through Mr. Stein’s column in the LA Times:

My mom, a passionate Hillary Clinton supporter, immediately attacked
Obamamania. "Some part of me wants to say, ‘People wake up. He has no
plans.’ I get frustrated listening to his speeches after awhile," she
said. …

In other words, Obama is all oratory, no accomplishment. And that the converse is true about Clinton; no oratory, all accomplishment. In Hillary’s formulation, that she’s a "workhorse, not a showhorse."

The thing is, when you look at Senator Clinton’s record, it’s just not there. The lack of any substantive, noteworthy accomplishments in the Senate is stunning.  Clinton supporters please tell me, what were her accomplishments? I mean, besides going on some trips with Senator McCain, making nice with Senator Lindsey Graham, and throwing a baby shower for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. I want to know what substantive legislation she shepherded through the Congress?

After you’ve done some digging, please compare her record with Senator Obama’s. Then think again before making any statements about how much more substantive your candidate is. Or any claims about the lack of accomplishments from Senator Obama.

That folks buy into the Clinton "workhorse not a showhorse" myth while in the next breath accusing the Obama campaign of being a cult and fluff factory is would be hilarious, if it weren’t for the fact that these are smart people who ought to know better.

Finally, for fun, watch these three videos from outside the debate in Los Angeles a week and a half ago. The first two with Clinton supporters, the last with an Obama supporter. And then tell me who the cultists are. I mean, really, what a farce this whole "cult" meme has been.