You're giving John Kerry's opinion way too much weight. Do you really think there's anyone on the fence out there who would change their opinion because of what John Kerry says?  

campaigned for Obama over the weekend before the NH primary, Obama would have won.  I mean, all it would have taken was a few percent, and Kerry's very popular in NH.

Why didn't Kerry endorse Obama BEFORE New Hampshire?  Thoughts?

Because John Kerry has a horrible sense of...
...
...
timing.

Just look at how he handled the 2004 campaign.  Wind-surfing?  Delayed response to Swift Boat ads?

a negative.  I have trouble not finding a fellow Democrat who doesn't just shake his head in agreement on what a poor politician he was.  He just doesn't connect with people.  I'm hoping that Obama doesn't fall into that trap of talking like a college professor, like John Kerry does.  That just doesn't work, IMHO.

of the Democratic nominee for President in 2004 is a NEGATIVE?!?  Wow.

This isn't a negative.  Is it a positive?  Not really, no.  But a negative?  Hardly.  He's not really a controversial figure.  A poor speaker, but in no way "hated" amongst Democrats.

Remember how much Kerry's endorsement of Webb helped among Democratic loyals?

Just sayin' that you might be stretching a bit trying to call this a "negative".  A Libermen endorsement?  That's a negative.  Former Presidential candidate?  Hardly.

was a very big deal in the Democratic primary, which is what we're talking about here, after all. :)

...in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama campaign asked him to keep it under wings until the campaign needed a press boost.

You're right in that had Obama won New Hampshire, this race is probably his for the taking.  But I don't think Kerry would've swung that many people.  Leahy would've been far more likely to make a difference, but even that would've been miniscule.

Democratic Women in New Hampshire were simply insistent on Voting for Hillary.  You saw the exit polls; Obama lost the female vote by double digits.  Maybe the ONLY way Obama could've won is if more Independents had voted in the Dem Primary.

n/t

WHY do you think John Kerry didn't endorse Obama BEFORE New Hampshire?  Was that a strategy, a mistake, or what?  And if it was a mistake, who made the mistake?  Kerry or the Obama campaign?

The Obama camp say they were worried about the positive or negative aspects of a kerry endorsement and thought doing it before NH would throw too much of a wrench into the campaign.  Plus, why take that chance when they were leading by 7 points?

All evidence had Obama WAY up in New Hampshire.  I don't think anybody saw a need for the endorsement then!

Personally, I think the Obama camp got overconfident about NH.  I strongly believe a Kerry endorsement prior to NH would have helped Obama, possibly enough for him to have won that primary.

The focus group in question is myself, my wife and our two daughters.  My wife and eldest daughter are both intensely political and extremely, dogmatically progressive and rigorously feminist.   As to my younger daughter, well, blase might be the right word.

Not coincidentally, my wife is a refugee from the deepest of the Deep South.  Dr. Freud might even say her aversion to her roots fuels her politics.

My spousal unit and her chief acolyte, our eldest daughter, have been enthusiastic partisans of Senator Obama ... until the last New Hampshire debate.  My wife has long expressed some reservations about Senator Clinton, chiefly the Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton-Clinton issue.

But after what they saw as a sterling performance by Senator Clinton in that debate and the seemingly pivotal emotional moment in the coffee shop, they've essentially done a 180 on their enthusiasm for another Clinton presidency.

Knowing better than to personally push the issue -- I believe electing Hillary would prove to be disastrous for this country -- I've witnessed my wife twice now telling friends she was up in the air as to whom she will vote for in the primary.  What with their ideological positions being relatively similar, it's not that she doesn't like Senator Obama any less, but more that Senator Clinton has shown herself to be whip smart, strong and qualified and apparently capable of more than holding her own with a bunch of overbearing, domineering alpha males.

So, projecting from this small, but telling focus group, it's all about the sisterhood.

I suppose those three factors had Kerry and a lot of others confident that Obama would win New Hampshire and the nomination.  After Clinton won NH I think Kerry and others concerned about our Congressional majorities decided to come out to show Obama support.  I think a lot of people know what type of disaster it could be for down-ballot races with her on top.  Can you imagine what would happen in 2012 if people like Webb, Tester, McCaskill, and perhaps even Brown had to run against Republicans denouncing the "Hillary Clinton Congress"?  I could be wrong about this.  She could go on and be very popular.  She may not be as polarizing as president as she is now.

But instead I'm going to address the whole Hillary question. I agree with those who think she is a polarizing figure and is therefore unelectable.

Oddly, though, I've ended up defending precisely this person, whom I'm not supporting, so many times because so much of the objections to her have been phrased in ways, and with a degree of vitriol, that I've found offensive.

I honestly fail to understand what fuels that degree of passionate distate for her.  It goes beyond merely liking another candidate better or fearing her unelectability. In fact, I don't remember seeing such visceral dislike for a fellow Democrat in the presidential primaries in the recent past.  It's all the more odd considering that her actual policy positions just aren't that different from the other candidates.

Also, to the degree that she is portrayed as the Establishment candidate and mocked when she claims that she too is an agent of change, I really do believe it's sexist. That's because such mockery fails to acknowledge how much has really changed since women like Hillary came of age in the sixties and seventies.  It's a different world and they are largely responsible for that.

Take issue with what she stands for today.  Even take issue with the legacy of the Clinton administration.  But every woman of a certain age recognizes how much we owe women like her for forging the way.

To fail to recognize this is sexist myopia.  And I think it's going to have a polarizing effect among progressives, especially women, who are among the most reliable voters in the progressive Democratic base.

At this point, if it's turning me off, I've gotta tell you, it must be playing badly with other women who are far more committed femininists than I am.  I didn't like Hillary much even during the Clinton years but she may get my vote out of sympathy if John Edwards drops out of the Virginia primary.  And that's not because of Obama but his supporters who are frankly irritating me.  I'm starting to want to send them a message - hopefully, this post will do it and they'll tone it down and get back on a positive, inspirational message.

It would be a shame for Obama to keep losing support of older women because his supporters went overboard and continually offended us.

Who are you responding to here?  My diary wasn't an attack on Hillary Clinton in the least bit.  I greatly admire her, think she'd be a fine president, but simply believe that it's the right time for Barack Obama right now.  

If you're not talking about me, which I hope you're not, I agree with you that the tone on the progressive blogs with regard to Hillary has been HORRIBLE.  But it hasn't just been Obama supporters, it's been pretty much EVERYBODY -- supporters of Kucinich, Dodd, Edwards, Biden, Obama, you name it.  And it's from both men and women, btw.  I don't understand it, frankly; what do you think causes this?

of Establishment Democrats and Repubs, mentioned on WTOP today, asked each party (im)pertinent questions crafted for each party. Repubs: which will be more important in your primaries: Experience or Religion? (or something like that) and the answer was Religion because the evangelicals are the ones who vote in the primaries. For Dems: Which will be more important in your primaries: Gender or Race? and the answer was Race because race is still a crucial factor in the United States, like it or not.

That was the view of the insiders. However, I am not so sure about race trumping gender, because in my opinion the American male voter is far more ready to agree to a President of color if he is male (they accept Tiger Woods, Arthur Ashe, and other blacks readily enough in sports, and also black CEOs of major corporations don't they?) than they are to agree to a president who is female.

A Woman Commander in Chief? Hahahahaha rings through the lockerooms and country club bars all across the land, and not such in the Southland.

And it probably should simply have been a separate diary.  You have not been either sexist or nasty about Hillary.  Like me, I think you want a good discussion about all our candidates.

After that, I suspect that we agree that we would like to think that good Democrats will fully support whomever the nominee ultimately is.

I certainly would have no trouble at all supporting Obama. In fact, I was prepared to endorse him. But I've decided to make one last stand for Edwards.

I think I'm reacting to the general tenor of remarks and reaction that I've seen regarding Hillary across the progressive blogosphere, where a few bloggers and commenters seem to be unable to realize how much of a change agent she was in her time.

Times change.  I get that.  But those who would trash our history also deny our legacy and our very real accomplishments.

Anyway, that was not about you or your question.  Again, probably should just do a separate diary on it.

a separate diary, the topic deserves its own place.

I'll have to do it over the weekend but there's so much good material that I want to do it justice.  

Tomorrow, I'm out of pocket, so I promise for Saturday to put something up.

And thank you Teddy!

Hi, AnonymousIsAWoman,

Let me start stating everything that I agree with you. There is sexism involved in a lot of anti-Hillary attacks. I haven't seen it here, but I have seen it in other communities.

Some Obama supporters, especially the younger ones, seem to be a bit abrasive, and their behavior does hurt their candidate. Unfair? Yes, but a lot of politics is about people liking other people, and the supporters are, to put it in a corny way, ambassadors of each candidate.

Let me give an example. In an online forum that my wife visits, a person posted a thread congratulating Clinton for her victory in NH. An Obama supporter went off on a strong attack against the person who posted the thread. Then the original poster stated how she supported Obama as well. The attacking Obama supporter backed off and apologized.

That said, Hillary is the establishment candidate. The way that he can tell this is by looking at her campaign contributions. Whoever gets the most corporate money is the establishment candidate. So far that is Hillary, and that is an objective criteria.