Democratic primaries (RAR!)

[Mr. T]

Right now I don't see any Democratic candidate I'd feel comfortable voting for.

Obama might do well but I'm wary of him becoming the next Howard Dean. He's gotten an awful lot of attention in the press and he's got a pretty strong campaign. But from what I've heard, admittedly not paying a great deal of attention right now, he's trailing in the polls behind Hillary for his own party and just might lose depending on the Republican.

I'd say theirs virtually no chance of that at all. First off, although the media was in love with both Howard Dean during the early stages of the campaign, and Obama now, they focused on these two for different reasons. For Dean it was because of his controversial at the time stance on the Iraq war, and that he had shattered fundraising records coupled with his tendency to run his mouth off. For Obama it's being black and being charismatic.

Obama has the benefit of having a tough fight ahead of him for the nomination where, even if he is the front runner in polls, the media is always going to focus on him and Hillary rather then just him. This subjects him to a bit less scrutiny then Dean. Also Obama as far as I can tell so far doesn't share Dean's tendency to run his mouth off and building a campaign with anger and outrage as its focus. All of Obama's messages are delivered calmly and cooly which translates in the media as more "Presidential".

The key quality Obama shares with Dean is that their will always be lingering questions of "electability" in the red states. For Dean he was deemed unelectable due to his firm stance against the Iraq war and being painted as a liberal, for Obama it will be because he's black.

The media is an important factor, I recall the week or two before the Iowa primary in 2004 TIME made an article talking about Dean's electability and singled out John Kerry of being able to communicate his opposition to Bush far better and being more electable as a result. Similar reports likely came out of the other media as well. A week later and Kerry beats out Dean.

[Mr Bean]

Your not saying that you wouldn't back Hillary even if she was selected as the Democratic candidate, are you? She's certainly not my first choice either, but given the option between her and an insidious snake like Romney or a zealous luddite like Brownback, I'd take the control-freak any day.

Know Evil VS unknown possibly worse, possibly less worss evil. Now I'd take her over Brownback any day of the week, but aside from Brownback the rest can be handled with the right congress and the right issues.

Devil you know VS the Devil you don't? Depending on the Devil sometimes that "other" is a tempting option.