Many people don't know HOW Obama got his state senate seat. Instead of letting the people vote, he got ALL his opponents knocked off the ballot, including a respected "elder stateswoman", Alice Palmer.

For many details, see a Chicago Tribune bio published in April titled "Showing his bare knuckles
In first campaign, Obama revealed hard-edged, uncompromising side in eliminating party rivals"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/polit...
<I>And he defended his use of ballot maneuvers: "If you can win, you should win and get to work doing the people's business."</I>

Why does everyone see this in isolation? Obama is 46 -- he can take his two terms later. Hillary and Bill are 60; if they don't take Hillary's two terms now, they may not want to commit 9 years of their life later. We need the proven winners to take back the White House and make the voting process fair, so that Obama CAN get elected later. This year, the GOP would destroy Obama.

As for the 'at large' caucuses, are they open to ANY voters that work within 2.5 miles, or just union members? And can a union member choose to caucus in the neighborhood where he lives (if he can disappear from work)?

As for HIllary being behind the lawsuit, I'm sure she was not; she would have known it would cause her bad publicity.

For those who don't know, here are some short highlights of Hillary's foreign policy experience, and a list of 32 ambassadors supporting her:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan...

Here is a neat list of some of Hillary's accomplishments before and after her time in the White House:
http://1950democrat.livejournal.com/2185...

And here is a longer piece quoting many sources about Hillary's accomplishments for women and children, much of it overseas:
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/12/18/...

What a very sensible article! This is really good journalism.

As to next year -- if a conventional primary is too expensive (or would be a problem for workers), then how about a vote by mail primary? Vote by mail is already the normal thing for general elections, in some western states. Ballots are mailed out to all registered voters and can be returned any time within a month. Counting can be done throughout the month, to head off crises like in the Florida 2000 election. If there are challenges, the paper trail is aleady there.

'Swiftboating' means dishonestly destroying someone's well-known strength: for example saying that Kerry, a known war hero, had behaved badly in the war and possibly faked his wounds! Or saying Al Gore was a pathological liar, or that Hillary has no real experience because she was not the person elected to the governorship of Arkansas (12 years) or the White House.