It makes sense for the Florida and Michigan delegations to be sanctioned by the DNC, as has now happened.. If the Democratic Party is going to win elections, you can't have states capriciously violating agreed-on rules.  But an equally critical reason to dock the states delegations is that for a relatively unknown challenger like Obama, taking on someone as massively visible as Clinton, in-person campaigning is essential, and he had no chance to do it there. Obama's campaigning has played a critical role in every contested race in his once-underdog fight, both those he won, and those where he closed the gap, though lost.

Obama did the right thing by praising Clinton following the Oregon and Kentucky vote, and working to reweave the fabric of Democratic unity. And I'm delighted that Clinton said, "No matter what happens, I will work as hard as I can to elect a Democratic president this fall."  But then she insisted once again, that "we are winning the popular vote." This lie undermined every word she said about coming together.

With Hillary Clinton rejecting the compromise that Michigan Democratic leaders just crafted, the Democratic Rules Committee has a dilemma. Clinton keeps demanding that Michigan's delegates be apportioned according to the January 15 vote, where she was the sole major candidate on the Democratic ballot. But there's another twist that no one has raised--the impact of a Rush Limbaugh-style crossover on the Michigan vote. Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" quite likely gave Clinton Indiana, provided much of her 4-point Texas margin, buttressed her Ohio win, and decreased Obama's margin in Mississippi.

I'm back on the phones again, calling for Obama, and I'm glad that I am. It's tempting to do nothing but endlessly following the news, clicking on blog after blog as I root for Obama like I root for my local baseball team. But that doesn't actually change anything. My donations do more, and I love being able to match the contributionsof new donors and even hear from them by email--I've done that a dozen times. But what's really great is talking with ordinary voters.

North Carolina activist David LaMotte just got a push poll call from the firm of Geoff Garin, the new head of Hillary Clinton's campaign team. It wasn't as bad as asking "would it change your mind if you knew John Kerry actually bought his Vietnam medals off E-Bay." Or "How do you feel about John McCain's illegitimate black children?" But it was a push poll nonetheless, even if it also had elements of information gathering and message testing. This isn't the first time that the Clinton campaign or their allies have had pollsters offering positive information about Clinton and negative information about her opponents--they did it on the eve of the California primaryand in South Carolina.  (And firms linked to the Giuliani campaignmade highly negative push poll calls against Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire) But it's a disturbing practice precisely because it tries to spin the recipient under the pretense of merely asking about their views.

Dear Hillary,

Reasons abound why you should do all you can to defeat John McCain--but for you, it should be personal. Maybe you've forgotten in the heat of the Democratic contest. But remember McCain's cruel joke about your daughter, when Chelsea was 18 and vulnerable. This alone should give you every reason to stand against McCain--and nothing to boost his chances.

Obama's supposed evasion around "NAFTAgate" played a key role in Hillary Clinton taking Ohio. If there's any justice, her Bosnia fabrications should now bring her down in the remaining states.  Repeatedly this spring, Clinton described sniper fire, evasive maneuvers, a cancelled greeting ceremony, and having to run "with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."  But the pilot who flew Clinton into Bosnia, Colonel William Changose, said there were no evasive maneuvers, just some steep hills surrounding the landing strip. There was no sniper fire, or "we wouldn't have landed." "There were no bullets flying around, there wasn't a bumblebee flying around." His words confirmed the video of an 8-year-old girl handing Hillary flowers while Chelsea looked on from behind. Hillary got caught, to put it bluntly, in a lie: not "misspeaking."

No matter how well Clinton does in the remaining primaries, her future is going to be in the hands of the superdelegates.  It's time for them to exercise their power to rein in scorched-earth campaigning.

Suppose someone in the North Korean government released a false story that shifted a key American election. If Bush were negatively affected, we might be bombing Pyongyang by now. But this just happened with what Hillary Clinton called "NAFTAgate" Without it, she might never have won Ohio, or her margin would have been minuscule. But as a Canadian Broadcasting Company story reveals, practically the entire story was a lie, one that played so central a role in Clinton's Ohio victory as to thoroughly taint any claim she raises about a swing state mandate.

I don't know when Hillary Clinton and her advisors started channeling Karl Rove, but it's happened and it's ugly. If you want to stop them from tearing the Democratic Party apart, then get on the phonestoday and volunteer to turn out the Obama vote in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

If we ignore global warming much longer, we'll face a world of perpetual disaster, so there's no larger question for presidential candidates than who is more likely to tackle it successfully. Although Obama's and Clinton's positions are similar, he seems far more likely to. The key difference is their ability to mobilize a grassroots base to demand that the necessary changes get passed.

I admit it. I'm addicted. Since the primaries and caucuses began, I've spent practically every free hour reading article after article, and poll after poll, charting the shifting sands of the Democratic presidential race. As I've become inspired by Barack Obama's potential to engage ordinary citizens, and its roots in his organizer past, I've written articlesI've hoped would help, talked incessantly about the campaign, and donated repeatedly--most fruitfully in a program that's allowed me to encourage other new small donors by equaling their contributions. But as I've cheered each successive victory and each new gain in the polls, I worry that my stance is just a bit too reminiscent of rooting for my favorite baseball team. It's time to do something seemingly more mundane, but always a bit nervous-making, and that is to get on the phone.

In the wake of ten straight losses, Clinton's going to need some miracles to win, and Mike Huckabee's already ahead of her in line for divine intervention. But the question is how much damage she'll do to Obama and the Democratic chances before she quits.

If the fight goes to the convention, we know the answer: Unless she totally routs Obama in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, her sole remaining path to the nomination depends on convincing the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, and convincing the credentials committee to honor the problematic Michigan and Florida elections. So she'll have to practically destroy the party to save it, or more accurately to save herself.

I know it seems a geological eon ago, but remember the resignation of Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle? And how Doyle never told Clinton about the campaign's massive hemorrhaging of cash, while Clinton kept Solis in the dark when she took out her $5 million personal loan? I couldn't clear my mind from  the endless tape loop of "a candidate ready to lead on day one," and started wondering what that incident reveals about Hillary Clinton's competence, transparency and trust.

In fact, I wonder whether she specifically surrounds herself with people who are so intimidated they can't even stand up and disagree with her, or tell her bad news. Personal loyalty is fine, but we've had plenty of that in the current administration, with disastrous results. The charges and counter-charges around Doyle's departure suggest either that Clinton's built a team that is sharply lacking in basic skills, like high school math, or that she has a character that makes people afraid to challenge her.

In a race where Clinton seemed to have every advantage, why has Barack Obama now won eight primaries and caucuses in a row? If you look at the rhythm of the campaign, this is the first point where most of America's voters have a chance to consider him as a candidate with a serious chance of victory, and to genuinely engage his message.  Democrats passionately want a candidate they can believe in, but also one who can win--and reverse the Republican disasters. As the presumed nominee, Clinton did everything she could to play on this, proclaiming herself as tough, experienced, and capable of taking everything the Republicans could throw at her. She lined up massive insider support, including commitments from 154  superdelegates (versus 50 for Obama) before a single vote was cast.

In their focus on the electoral horse-race, the media have ignored a key difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- the positions of their foreign policy advisors on the Iraq war.  As political scientist Stephen Zunes points out in Foreign Policy in Focus, Clinton's key advisors overwhelmingly supported it, while Obama's opposed it. The differences in their positions on whether to go to war mirror those of the two candidates. They also give a sense of how Clinton and Obama are likely to deal with the immensely difficult foreign policy challenges they'll face if elected, including dealing with Iraq.

Zunes's article, revised and shortened for posting here:

The president makes the decisions, but who advises the president? We know Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle insisted to Bush that American forces would be treated as liberators if we went into Iraq. McCain has surrounded himself with people likely to encourage him to follow a similar disastrous path if he becomes president. But what about Obama and Clinton?

Commentators are talking, and rightly so, about how young voters are flocking to Barack Obama. Their overwhelming support gave Obama his Iowa margin, kept him just a few points behind in New Hampshire and Nevada, and contributed to his massive South Carolina victory. Young voters haven't always turned out historically, but they're responding to Obama's message, and together with his equally massive support from African Americans and strong appeal to independents, their passionate enthusiasm could help him expand the Democratic base enough not only to win in November, but to win decisively.

I gave John Edwards more money than I've given to any candidate in my life, and I'm glad I did. He raised critical issues about America's economic divides, and got them on the Democratic agenda. He was the first major candidate to stake out strong comprehensive platforms on global warming and health care. He hammered away on the Iraq war, even using scarce campaign resources to run ads during recent key Senate votes. He'd have made a powerful nominee—and president.