I believe Obama has yet to make his message clear. While he and Hillary are not too different in policy analysis, they are poles apart in philosophy of government, and the implications are huge. Her message is "I am ready to lead;" his message is "You can change America." She is top-down, he is bottom-up. He offers a radical departure from politics-as-usual, for transparency and citizen involvement in policy making are natural results. She pitches her policies; he is pitching bringing the best minds together to think of approaches no one has yet envisioned.

A drawn out race is a good thing. Media will be focused on Democrats -- and their issues. Democrats have a chance to choose the themes for the next few months. Will they be able to handle it??

It will hurt the Dem Party because Race is going to come up more and more.

When 80% of Blacks vote for Obama, you can bet that some folks are going to notice, as it is obvious it is based on his Race. And 60% of Hispanics voting for Clinton? All of this will be played up more and more as time goes on.

Yep, Race is going to rear it's ugly head before this is all over.

I don't quite understand why some people are offended because African Americans 80 % voted for Obama. Why is it that for years African Americans have voted for White People and nothing was said? Black people are now voting for the best Democratic Candidate for change. Stop trying to divide us. Obama is trying to bring all people together. You white people need to stop this nonsense!

"We'll have weeks, perhaps months, of media/blogosphere guesswork about the ulterior motives of Karl Rove's latest op-ed."

There are fair attacks on Obama and Clinton, and unfair attacks. Rather than obsessing over what Rove or anyone in the GOP wants, look at the sources. What we read here in Mother Jones is probably trustworthy. What we see in The Weekly Standard is probably a lie. Try to get past it and figure out who who really want.

Besides, sometimes primary campaigns do have the benefit of improving the candidates. Sometimes, though they spend money, they learn how to spend it and how to fundraise. They get to find the holes in their arguments and how to find the holes in the opponent's arguments. They get more press, which helps the winner's name recognition. We just have to be mature enough not to demonize the other side so we're not too divided for the general election. Yes I know, no guarantee of maturity.

I agree with Jonathan that the general take from lots of Dems is that either choice on our side has viability. I moved my support from Edwards to Obama but will not consider Hillary dog food by any stretch of the imagination. While their ideological approaches are different, I think they both have core Democratic values. Obama's just seem a little more Progressive driven and less Party driven, a welcome if subtle nuance. Parenthetically, I thought the speech Michelle Obama gave last Saturday night was vivid, human and really exciting to watch.