The biggest source of plaintive "It's not faaaiirs!" I've encountered, thus far, is from Obama's supporters.  It's not faaaiiir that Hillary may use all means available to her (i.e., the superdelagates) to win the nomination.  It's not faaaaaiiirr that she's still trying to win!

Your first instinct was right, JMU Duke - you shouldn't ever look to Will for insight on anything related to Democrats.  Also, you used the words clarity and objectivity in connection with something George Will wrote.  It must have been a mistake.

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Hillary's going down, all, and she's doing a fine job of doing that to herself.  I think we'd all be better served by aiming at a more useful target - McCain.  You want to see things that aren't faaaiiir?  Wait for him to get going.  You'll start missing Hillary's lobs then.

Obama's supporters are a far cry from what you describe.  You dismiss the complaints (that have largely surfaced from the grassroots--bottom up!) as sour grapes?  They are legitimate.  It is Hillary who is actually trying to bend the rules agreed upon to seat delegations that have absolutely no basis for being seated.  It is Hillary's campaign itself who just days ago indirectly implied it would be playing hardball with pledged delegates elected by people to elect Obama.

This is hardly illegitimate concern, and your ease in brushing it off is disturbing.

By and large, the sour grapes are actually coming from Clinton's campaign itself.  By and large, the Obama supports are reacting to a movement spawned by him that represents something far greater about this country than anything the Clinton campaign could hope to create.

It's not about either candidate, it's about the people taking back control of its government, its nation, and its national priorities.

Regardless of what George Will writes, you clearly don't get it.

if you choose not to understand the plainly written word.  Nowhere did I even come close to implying anything arose from "sour grapes."  What would Obama supporters have to be sour over?  Their candidate whomping Clinton in 10 out of 10 contests?  Yeah, that makes sense.

No, I came closer to calling some Obama supporters (and since you've already shown that things need to be made explicit, please note the modifier "some") whiners.  Depending on the speaker, I think that its grounded in either naiveté or disingenuousness.

As far as my ability to not take seriously the "indirect impli[cations]" of an imploding campaign in the heat of battle?  I'd find more important things to be disturbed by, if I were you.

Hillary Clinton's campaign DID NOT imply, indirectly or otherwise, that it would go after pledged Obama delegates.

Roger Simon writing in Politico cited an anonymous source who said something to the effect of this would happen if the race were deadlocked. Even allowing for the validity of the source (though I don't think Roger Simon deserves the benefit of the doubt on this), it wasn't even clear whether the source was saying the Clinton campaign planned to do this, or whether that would be the logical result of a deadlocked race.

Anyway, the Clinton campaign clearly and on the record denied that they had any intent whatsoever to go after any pledged Obama delegate, and the Obama campaign made the same pledge with respect to Clinton delegates. So your statement in that regard is not correct.

makes a good piece of Hillary's case when it comes to the Automatic Delegates -- namely, that the caucuses in which Obama won many of his delegates were less democratic, in the sense of representing the wider electorate, than primaries.

As the Clinton camp sees it, this undercuts the argument that the pledged delegate count necessarily reflects the majority of Democratic voters. Thus, the automatic delegates need not simply and mindlessly follow the pledged delegate count, but perhaps there are other factors to use to determine the will of the majority of Democrats.

Now, that all said, the results in the last primaries, particularly the Potomac primaries and Wisconsin, show that Democratic sentiment has strongly swung in Obama's favor. Texas and Ohio will b the real tests, however, and frankly, I don't think they will save Clinton's candidacy. But, as they say in sports, you never know -- that's why they play the game.

I have a question for the many Obama supporters here: If Clinton wins both Texas and Ohio by, say 10+ points (I'm not predicting this, I'm merely suggesting it as a hypothetical), demonstrating considerable support among voters, even though she may still trail in the pledged delegate count, should she still concede the election?

After all, such victories would mean that the total vote among tens of millions of Democrats was basically equal, wouldn't it?  

by wide margins, she will be right back in the thick of things.  If she loses one or both states, however, she's pretty much out of it, as even Bill Clinton admitted yesterday.  So, that's it: Texas (and Ohio) showdown, March 4, for all the marbles.  Oh yeah, and tune in for the big debate tonight, that should be interesting.

and from all indications, I think at best, barring some major change in the race resulting from an Obama gaffe or bad disclosure, neither of which there is any reason to believe are at hand, Clinton wins by only a small margin -- not good enough for her.

But based on what I've been seeing here, I think you're in the minority. Many Obama supporters think even if Clinton wins Texas and Ohio by a wide margin that her continued candidacy hurts the party, and seem to think that the votes of millions of democrats don't matter.

More accurately, I don't think these people see it quite that way. I just think it is an inevitable inference to be drawn from their positions, especially their insistence that Clinton ought to drop out now.

I'll be very disappointed if Clinton gets really petty tonight. And I'll state in advance that any insinuation by Clinton that Michelle Obama lacks patriotism will result in my dropping support for her.

the voters by telling them they should "get real?"  I don't know about everyone else, but I really could have sworn that I thought long and hard about who to endorse in this race.  Frankly, I was leaning Clinton all summer and fall.  Ultimately, though, I decided I wanted someone who inspired me AND who had the competence to be "right on day #1," and Obama was that person. Now, he's just a Texas or Ohio victory away from the nomination, but of course 2 weeks is a lifetime in politics so we should take nothing for granted.

Check out SurveyUSA's new poll from New York:

41% McCain
52% Clinton

36% McCain
57% Obama

That's Clinton +11 points, Obama +21 points in New York State. Wow.

I want to see what's up in Texas and Ohio!!!!  Come on, SuSA, get to it!

They just released it yesterday or the day before.

Clinton 50%
Obama 45%

That 5% spread was down from a 17% Clinton lead in the previous poll.

Obama is going to win Texas, and win it big.

That poll was taken before Obama's huge wins on Tuesday, also before Obama had campaigned in Texas.  I have a feeling that Obama's going to win Texas by a nice margin on March 4.

I had a feeling Obama was going to win big in New Hampshire.  I was wrong.

Texas/Ohio is the knock-out punch, but so was New Hampshire.  And Obama whiffed.  Call me nervous, but every time Hillary is up against the ropes, she pulls a Rocky and somehow gets back up.  And we all know that (except in the first and last movies) Rocky wins in the end.

I think it's a street fight, and she is the better street fighter.

Yes, she has been the more negative of the two. To an extent, that results from their relative positions in the race since Obama took the Iowa caucus.

Back in the latter half of last year, when Clinton was way up in the polls, I don't recall her being negative at all. It was Edwards and, to a lesser extent, Obama who went after her.

As for her telling the voters to "get real," I think it is counterproductive. It is insulting to tell voters they are being duped, and that is not an effective way to win votes.

Whoever is advising her to do this is, to be blunt, a complete idiot.  Just as the "customer is always right" if you're in business, you never ever EVER insult the voters if you're a politician.  This is Politics 101 pretty much.  Yet, so far, the Clinton campaign has insulted:

*"Red states"
*States with caucuses and not primaries
*States that aren't "significant" (e.g., Virginia)

That is NOT the way to build your support base, nor is it the way to build the Democratic Party for November.  I just can't understand how someone as smart and savvy as Hillary Clinton is could fail to see this.

I'm quite confident that Obama can win a street fight.  Look at how he's pummeling Hillary; and looking good doing it.

If you come out on top after a year of this, you definitely have showed that you're tough enough to face the Republicans. Of course, there are no guarantees, as John Kerry -- with 30+ years of experience in public life -- demonstrated during 2004.  Still, Obama looks like a Chicago scrapper, and a damn good one at that, to me.

You can't really compare Kerry's primary victory to Obama's challenge this year. Kerry won in a field of candidates where none had a strong national identity by winning one single state where he greatly outspent his opponents several times over by loaning himself money. And he got an assist from two of his challengers destroying each other. Obama, on the other hand, has faced fight over fight against a giant establishment candidate - and until recently presumed nominee - and in the process has faced negative attacks of all sorts, raised unprecedented sums of money from an unprecedented number of donors and, obviously, has never dipped into his significantly smaller warchest to finance the endeavor.

Obama has indeed proven his ability in this process. Kerry's primary? Clearly not so similar.

And in addition, Kerry's campaign was abysmal and for that a lot of the blame can go to the poor campaign strategy of Tad Devine, Bob Shrum and Mary Beth Cahill, all of whom didn't even realize how important it was to respond to the Swiftboat attack in a timely manner.

It's a mistake no Democrat would repeat.  And Obama will come out of this primary season just fine.