By the way, this is precisely the kind of shit that is making this process so excruciating. Women cannot support Hillary without being told they’re brainwashed feminist zealots voting with their vaginas, and women can’t support Obama without being told they’re self-loathing brainwashed misogynists. Either way, women can’t actually have an opinion — they’re just political regurgitaters. What a bunch of fucking crap.

I also strongly disagree that Obama is the candidate of the Democratic Party Machine when Clinton is the one who began with more money, more establishment support, a sense of inevitability, last time I checked still had the lead in superdelegates, and has a name that basically amounts to American political royalty.

But you’re right that Obama hasn’t yet won it. And I believe that he can win it. The question is what this mess, as it is playing out, is risking us in the general election.

This is the only part of what you wrote that annoys me – and it’s not just you. It’s a lie promoted by the Obama campaign. If every superdelegate in every state that has already held a primary/caucus were to vote according to which of the two got the majority in their state, it would be over. Senator Clinton would have the nomination by a very comfortable margin. It isn’t going to happen. Senator Obama is the candidate of the Democratic Pary Machine and it’s not likely she will be able to overcome that disadvantage.

He won’t make a bad President. I won’t have any trouble voting for him come fall. But “different kind of candidate” he’s not – not even in your dreams. He hasn’t won it, and he should be made to win it.

Call me overly optimistic, but I still think they’re both decent candidates, and I think it’s cool that they both still have so much support. The pervasive idea floating around that Hillary should “step aside” and leave the race is so deeply offensive to me that I don’t even know how to respond to it. After all the service and hard work she has put in, and after receiving the votes of so many dedicated supporters, leaving the race just so we can have a candidate would be ridiculous.

Again, I in no way deny that I am biased in Obama’s favor. But like I said in the post and like Kristen said, if we could end all of this ridiculous ugliness right now by somehow determining Clinton to be the candidate, so be it. It’d suck, but it would make me feel a lot better than this. I’m still of the mind that either of them will be satisfactory, even as I’ve grown to like both of them less over time. I’d like to get that resolved before I lose that feeling . . . and since I know that I’ll vote anyway, definitely before other people lose that feeling.

I suppose that depends on whom you’re talking about. In the blogosphere, I’ve encountered people hurling insults, but I’ve also encountered people confronting their own privileges and honestly examining it and talking to one another. The TV pundits by and large are happily slinging mud, but some print/online journalists have begun to more critically examine issues (e.g. Rebecca Traister, Amanda Fortini – I have quibbles with both their articles, but they’re a start) even while others (about 1/2 of the NYT columnists) refuse to.