When I read this comment in Jack and Jill politics, I smiled to myself a little--a bittersweet smile of recognition. True, in the grand scheme of things, my enthusiasm or lack thereof for Obama's VP choice means very little. I'll still do what I was going to do (minus some money), and I certainly don't expect Biden to singlehandedly bring down the ticket or anything like that. But it did seem to me that my pro-feminist leanings, which were in some ways squashed when Hillary Clinton somehow became the one and only carrier of the feminist torch earlier this year, came howling back. Far be it for me to agree with Dick Morris (or perhaps it's more that he's agreeing with me), but I do believe that one available path to an Obama victory can come from thumping McCain extremely solidly among women. Obama has apparently not chosen that path.

A few weeks ago, I made a comment to the effect that "Obama supporters know he's not the Messiah, and that he'll do or say things they disagree with, but they are Ok with that".

Color me naive or too optimistic. So here's a little space for everyone to get off his or her chest what they anticipate being disappointed by. Because, even the most rabid Obama supporter will have it happen. I've even offered a poll to suggest some ideas.

So, Obama called into the WIP sports show in Philadelphia--he answered some questions, impressed the hosts, and all seemed to be well. Until...

I've encountered the idea that in 1984, Gary Hart had more pledged delegates, but Mondale won because he had more superdelegates. I just want to be clear that this is untrue and shouldn't be used to support your candidate, whoever that may be. The race between Mondale and Hart was close, but Mondale had a lead in pledged delegates BEFORE the majority of superdelegates jumped in.

If you've paid attention to my comments, the title of this diary may not make much sense. Obviously, JMS is for Obama, right? Well sure, at first a little reluctantly (I had not intended to support anyone this year), but with more rhetorical firepower as time moved along. But until now it's been blog-comment support, which is about the same as no support at all. Soon, however, I will join the trillions of small donors who have contributed to Obama's campaign, and thus, I suppose become a real-world Obama supporter. Why?

We have polls and we have polls. Boy do we have polls. I haven't seen this particular navel gazing poll, though, so I thought I'd put it out there. Here's the premise. Who did you support in the 2004 primary and who do you support in the 2008 primary?

I know there is a history of snatching defeat out the jaws of victory here. After a few elections of feeling good and predicting victory, only to see the victory fade away, a number of us were gun shy in 2006. As it turned out, we needn't have worried. I've decided not to worry about 2008, either. I think we're going to win. I think we're going to win regardless of what candidate the Republicans put up and regardless of who we run.

Hillary Clinton is popular among female Democratic voters. The polls say so. And yet, don't we all have anecdotal evidence otherwise? (Perhaps some of us ARE anecdotal evidence otherwise). I'm curious about how our particular population fares. With that in mind, take the poll, but ONLY if you are woman who could vote in the 2008 Democratic primary.

There has been a lot of disappointment, resentment, and perhaps even a bit of defection going on here lately over the latest development in the Democrats' and Bush's battle over Iraq. Yes, it's disappointing, but it should have been expected (for anyone paying attention). Really, the only question to ask is, now what? Giving up and washing one's hands in disgust is one option, but it doesn't change anything. In any case, I don't see Bush giving up, so why should you? Ah, but what should you do?

I was intrigued by this discussion comparing GOVERNMENT MANDATED paid time off for (I assume) full time workers. Obviously, we have no such thing. Just as obviously, at least some full-time workers in the U.S. do have paid time off. Some of us (including me) even have as much time off as the Europeans (37 days, thanks very much!), but perhaps that's no coindicence since the company I work for is based in the Netherlands. So anyway, with the usual caveats, and as we head into Memorial Day and "vacation season" I'm posting a poll.

I saw this tid-bit in the New York Times today. So, after being confronted with his past contributions to planned parenthood and looking at the primary schedule, and taking some heat for his performance during the debate, Giuliani is making it official--he's pro-choice again.

I've noticed as I read various Dem primary threads that certain usual suspects show up time after time, rather obviously supporting one candidate or another. This can be interesting information to note when interacting with these people, as one can otherwise find oneself banging one's head against a wall trying to "convert" someone who isn't convertible, or extra insight into why someone is constantly bashing a particular candidate. So, as an exercise in full disclosure...if you are supporting, working for, giving money exclusively to, or just like to spout your mouth off about a particular candidate or other, come forward. I'm too lazy to make a handy pocket guide matching names with candidates, but at least this is an attempt to keep track.

If you support ONE currently running candidate, name the candidate. If you are undecided, hate them all, waiting for Gore, etc. this is not your spot.

It seemed almost inevitable in the wake of the VT shootings that the topic of gun control would emerge again. Some have said that a tragedy of this sort should not be an excuse for debating politics and policies, some of which have only a tangential relationship to the situation at hand. And yet such a debate HAS emerged, and on a topic that many had considered "settled". So let's put aside that murderous spree killings on campuses are quite rare and THUS sensational and newsworthy, but not a great danger to most people statistically. What is the state of "gun control" and a gun control movement in this country?

It's a slow day for me, so I've been amused by the proliferation of "Ridiculous and Dangerous" Diaries. I think we've hit critical mass. Time to take the poll.

I admit it. I read Slate. I enjoy the pseudo-intellectual latte-swilling slightly left of center viewpoint. So I clicked on it this morning to see that Jacob Weisberg (Slate's current editor) has struck again. A few months ago I saw him extolling the virtues of John McCain and I rolled my eyes, but he's since been fairly quiet. Then this piece of garbage...

It seems that Armando's challenge has provoked quite a response lasting over several days. Good! I have only been skimming, and in fact not reading at some days so forgive me if this point was made somewhere in the thousands of comments that have since come up. I have a lot to say about the roles of "white liberals", "minorities", "bigots" and everyone in between, but I've said it before, and other people have probably said it better. So here's a point that seems to me to be underexplored, though fairly obvious. Most of our discussion has centered on the U.S. and the problems of race in the U.S.--but doesn't it seem that the relative stature of different "races" in the U.S. quite exactly mirrors the stature of those races in the larger global community?

Here's a nifty article in today's ScienceTimes. Committed supporters of Bush and Kerry were put into MRIs and shown doctored documents where either man was depicted making statements contrary to expected. When faced with the "disappointing" documents, the men ended up "purging" the information, and in fact got an emotional charge from doing so. The "reasoning" portions of the brain remained quiet.

I've been thinking about this, partly in response to Chris' diary, and also partly in response to an exchange I saw recently on TAPPED between Matt Yglesias, who wondered if race is still the issue driving whites away from the Democratic party and Garance Franke-Ruta, who was looking at the voting patterns of single women, white men, and white women, and why white women have turned away from the party, returned, and turned away again. She saw it as a matter of "security" (I think they're both somewhat right incidentally). But this leads to the question of who, or what, is the Democratic party?