Really?

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it remains to be seen if Obama can bear up under the mudslinging diversions her machine is spinning out at hyperspeed.

Get used to it. That's a game of beanbag compared to what the candidate TBD going to get from the GOP.

So perhaps we might have to live through four more years of nasty politcs, backroom corporate deals, and double speak in the White House after all?

I figure we'd get a large dose of that with Obama in the White House as well. Try explaining this to the saucer-eyed True Believers, though.

I was inspired by the audacity of hope, but to some people winning at any cost is the name of the game. That's the reason our country is crumbling.

Maybe it's not. Maybe it's the Audacity of Sheer Petulance like this: I think most of Obama's supporters will stay home or, as some have suggested, throw away their vote by writing in his name somewhere on the ballot in protest.

You sound like you're encouraging them, as you have been repeatedly hammering on this point at every opportunity since February.

It makes me cringe to think what slime is bubbling on the back of your stove right now.

Nice. So now Hillary is a witch? Or just some evil housewife?

Misogynist metaphor: Not just for men anymore.

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With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

I was inspired by the audacity of hope, but to some people winning at any cost is the name of the game.

That's the reason our country is crumbling. The American people usually get exactly what they deserve.

If dirty campaigning, negative campaigning, name calling, misdirection, and character assassination will lead to our nation crumbling, it's at least a very, very slow process. Dukakis in the tank, Willie Horton, Swift Boating, Obama's pastor and weatherman friends, and Bosnian sniper fire are penny ante, half hearted, softballs compared to the type of campaigning this nation was founded upon.

Look back to the first openly contested, two party presidential contest in our history. Adams vs. Jefferson - signers of the Declaration and both leaders and allies in the movement toward absolute separation from Britain. Jefferson supporters flatly accused Adams of treason, of being a monarchist eager to place the fledgling nation back under Britain's protective wing, or contrariwise, attempting to rule the nation as a king himself - especially through the powers of the alien and sedition act, which at least gave these charges a little bit of factual cladding. As I recall, some even accused Adams of being ruled by his wife (an unthinkable charge in that day and age). Adams supporters accused Jefferson of treason, of wanting the United States to sell out (to use a modern term) to France, and the Adams camp's rumors of pedophilia and other perversions regarding Jefferson are still repeated today (with some strong DNA evidence supporting the claim either Thomas or his brother fathered children through a Monticello slave). Campaigns are ugly things. There really isn't a "high road" just various levels of "low roads" to travel.

As for the type of government Americans get, we generally get the type of government enough of us want badly enough to insist upon loud enough and long enough to bring into being. Our system of goverance was deliberately designed from top to bottom and from the very beginning to squash radicalism and to make wholesale, sweeping changes of national direction nearly impossible to achieve. And every significant shift in one direction that is achieved is met by an immediate backlash and quite often entirely reversed.

What kind of government do we have? At the root of it, we have pretty much the type of government James Madison wanted us to have, since he essentially wrote our Constitution. To understand what kind of government that is, you have study who James Madison was as a person, what drove him, and what his vision was. Personally, I think it's hilarious our whole system of national governance was the vision of someone so "nerdy" that today he'd never stand a chance of being elected to anything.

Very short version, Carole, get a grip. We'll survive.

If Hillary should somehow pull the rabbit out of the hat everyone will be suspicious. I think most of Obama's supporters will stay home or, as some have suggested, throw away their vote by writing in his name somewhere on the ballot in protest.

Then shame on 'em. Regardless of whether you like Hillary or her campaign tactics, if you care about Obama's issues (rather than just Obama), you'd better vote for the Democrat, whoever it is.

McCain's not going to do better at delivering Obama-like policy than Hillary. Not to mention Supreme Court appts.

I have no patience with the "if my candidate loses, I'll take my toys and go home" crap, no matter whose supporters it comes from.