I don't trust Obama either. If he gets the nomination (regardless of running-mate), I'm voting for McCain.

I like this column....There is allot of truth to that thinking. The same can also be said for sales and any negotiation. I think the first comment shows where the real weakness in the Democratic party lies. If your party is made up completely of marginal voters who will vote for the opposition of there is any questionability in the candidates. I think John Mcain is going to win...Not because I am going to vote for him, but because I am afraid not enough Democrats will unite after the slander of who will be the democratic nominee is over. I ask myself why my party couldn't put, first a woman and then a black guy or vise-versa to get the historical vote without forcing people to make two historic nominations against each other. The whole time Democrats are squabbling about who is gonna go against the republicans, the republican party is gaining momentum with it's voters to beat the democrats. It's a smart move for the other 3 candidates to have folded their nominations in favor of uniting the party. The republicans don't even like Mccain that much but they won't vote that way.

I don't understand why the democratic party has to be so thick about all this...."conquer the countryside and the cities will fall by themselves."

Let's admit it: Obama has the momentum that he has is because he's black. As "shocking" as this statement is, it's true. I believe it's a little more than coincidence that Obama has all the black votes and a lot of attention is being drummed up because of his race. Other than being a historic nomination, I doubt Obama has a lot to offer. His inexperience aside, he just doesn't have what it takes to run a country when he hasn't even had enough experience to familiarize himself with the politics game.

Obama talks a big game but I haven't seen any concrete evidence to back it up.

Your columns are great.
Obama's idea of unity is everyone agreeing with his ideas. He is not a moderate or someone who can bridge gaps (that would be more McCain territory). I have not seen any sign of moderation or compromise offered by him.

Also, I would say that Obama may come from a liberal background but one very important aspect of his candidacy is that he is empirical/non-ideaological(unlike Bush and his neo-con puppet masters) so he tends to view problems to be solved in terms of what will work and NOT does the solution fit in to my view of the world. So I think that the solutions he's proposing to solve problems don't fit neatly into the conservative/liberal labels we've grown accustomed too.

Ugh, the unapologetic racism in some of these comments is sickening; it appears I have stumbled upon one of the remaining bastions of bigotry in this country. Voting against someone on the basis of their skin color, gender, or any other physical factor is incredibly discriminatory and ignorant. Anyone who would do such a thing, much less brag about it in a public forum, should be branded across the forehead with "racist" so everyone in enlightened society can spit on them in disgust. You're no different than the Nazis. Are you going to tell me they were the good guys too?
Racism aside, people criticize Obama's campaign for drawing a majority of African-American support. They hold a double standard for Hillary Clinton - who overwhelmingly wins the support of white women. So Obama is only a viable candidate because blacks support him? But everybody loves Clinton? Hardly. Blacks make up about 10% of the population. White women, on the other hand, make up approximately 60% of the democratic electorate. If both candidates were to only appeal to their "group," then Obama would be destroyed by Hillary hands down. Reducing him to "the black candidate" is just a shorthand method for revealing your own stupidity. He is an educated man who graduated at the top of his class from Harvard law school. He wins virtually every demographic except for older white women, Latinos, and poor whites.
Obama is supposedly so helpless and naive that he managed to put together one of the most successful campaigns in history and overtake an "inevitable" nominee in Hillary Clinton, despite her prior double digit leads in popularity and her national familiarity. Never mind the fact that he brings together independents and even some Republicans - overwhelmingly dominating those numbers in polls compared to Hillary. If he can do that for voters, is it really so hard to believe he can't do that, at least in part to legislators. Even if you don't believe that, make no mistake - people HATE Hillary. Especially Republican legislators. Do you think she'll have a lot of success against the "vast right-wing conspiracy" in getting any of her legislation through? She'll do no better than Obama at BEST.
Finally, this article seems to suggest that we need a president who lives above the law, doesn't care for dissenting opinions, and will push his agenda at all costs no matter how unethical. Sounds to me like it is advocating for more years of Bush. Is the country really doing so well at this moment that's what you believe we need?
P.S. This is all from an objective white man, since apparently black people are incapable of thinking for themselves according to some posters.

Hillary Clinton has stated that there is a "vast right-wing conspiracy" pursuing an agenda of Clinton bashing for "personal power and profit." She is right about the conspiracy. She is right about the pursuit of power and profit. She is wrong about where it originates.

When Bill Clinton accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president he said that the man who started him on the road to his "New Covenant" was Carroll Quigley. He taught at Harvard. His book,"Tragedy and Hope",documents the existence of a powerful international "network" whose goal was "nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands" (see page 324) "able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole."

Quigley acknowledged the intellectual originators of the plot as John Ruskin of England's Oxford University and his pet pupil, Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes had some major league help from the Rothschild banking empire. He "left part of his fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford" to train young and ambitious students for the "secret society". Bill Clinton, a Quigley student, Rhodes Scholar, is following the Quigley blueprint. It wasn't sent to me in the vast right-wing conspiracy newsletter. It is in the book, "Tragedy and Hope."
Who better to know than Bill,one of their own. There you have it in their own words! Now you have this confirmation from their own mouth, which they'll deny, of course, just like they do the Protocols. "If we were really going to do such a thing," they'll say, "we'd certainly never publish a book on it, or allow one to be published on it."
Well, if you don't believe they're doing such a thing and you don't believe the book, just look around at the evidence that surrounds you, which is getting more and more obvious every day as they're getting more and more blatant!

Haha to the above commenter.
Also, I'd like to say that Obama is a level 1 newb. Seriously. Level up before you play with the higher level chars, dude.

Dear Rahul:

I am a Stanford alum and was very upset by your editorial. Is that all you expect of a leader: bad behavior and the kind of conviction that would lead one to "be so certain that what she is doing is right that she is willing to knock the opposition to the ground, and then kick them when they’re down"? Is that how you would tell your children, students, friends and/or family to behave? Is that what you believe is the right way to accomplish things, or worse, that it is the ONLY way that things get done?

I hope for more. I refuse to believe it and I refuse to accept leaders who will act this way. Obama is a strong man with conviction--he just doesn't play politics as usual and I commend and respect him for it. You don't have to get in the gutter to fight back--there are other ways, more respectable and effective ways.

I started out reading your article, hoping it was satire. But I fear you have just fallen for the notion that that is the way that politics always has been, always will be, and that it is completely natural for it to be this way. It is not. And as Americans we should not accept this any longer.

Gandhi said an "eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." I agree with that completely, and using Bush's tactics to defeat Bush is just begetting the same thing over and over and over again.

I hope we have a change and that Americans can see a new way for our country and not revert to the way it has been for decades....I also believe that in the end the nice guys win. Let's have some optimism for once, rather than constant cynicism and low expectations both for America and American voters.