Thanks eeka, I found myself nodding in agreement with most of his points.

And then I saw this piece of idiocy on the BBC. Somebody here, I think it was danf, said a while back, "I'd rather see Hillary lose on the high road than win in the mud." If win she does, she'll be practically submerged in it.

Is this campaign over yet? Can I just go to sleep and wake up after the convention?

Honestly, neither campaign is pristine. When we're relying on Drudge Report rumors to start and judge political fights, then no one's really the victor. But for some reason, Obama's got much better PR.

I like Obama fine -- I'll vote for him. (I gave money to Edwards and voted for Hillary after Edwards dropped out.) But I don't really get the Obamamania. It's a weird feeling. All of these people (including many of my friends) so excited and enthused and energized, and I'm sort of on the side, not getting it.

It's true that he's run a much more efficient campaign; Hillary should have dumped Penn after 2/5. Her campaign has been mismanaged - this was hers to lose, as Rich points out, such a heavy front-runner so early on. With decent strategy and some new tactics better attuned to the zeitgeist, she'd have taken it handily.

Rich's comments about the campaign offices and on-the-ground work is very interesting, and very important. Watching the intense activity here just prior to the NH primary gave a good sense that the on-the-ground operation of each campaign was quite different. Obama's was focused on getting a lot more time on the ground, crossing i's and dotting t's. A couple friends in the media complained that there were absolutely no non-pre-packaged opportunities to talk with Hillary; she made an appearance, spoke her piece, then got back in the vehicle - didn't linger to answer questions or pass the time with the press, aides strictly controlling access. The Obama campaign ran differently - with a priority on face time and conversation as well as speechmaking. That's his secret for winning the grassroots support, and that's also a lot of the reason why she really doesn't have it - she didn't ask for it, relying a lot more on her longtime supporters and donors. The "Hillraisers" controlled all her candidate appearances in my city and were the only ones who got real access. She did quite well in this state, but it was in spite of, rather than because of, her methods.

There's some argument for seeing campaign management as a mark of general management and leadership skill in the candidate - running the campaign is something of an indication of how they'd run the country. The local version of the shoddy campaign work was this story about a landlord who rented out a space to some Hillary workers for a few days - he didn't get paid, contacted the campaign, didn't get paid, finally took it to the newspaper, finally got paid...and donated the rent to Obama.

Yeah it was me. I am somewhere in Ross's grief cycle in my support for Hillary.

Barack my yet be revealed to have feet of clay, but the writing is on the wall, and I hope that his campaign is tough enough to withstand what the Repubs will throw at him.

(Do you think for a minute that, if veiled, non-attributed racism will gain them a few percentage points, that they would shy away from it?)