Elizabeth, that’s for sure…thank you.

Renata—FYI…I don’t have a hubby. And no one is going to decide anything for Senator Obama. I think he is wonderful because he is such a brain, open, searching and then making the ultimate decision. And I’m sure as most presidents have said, their wives are usually their greatest sounding boards. BTW re the RFK piece you mentioned in VF, I read it too. I met RFK Jr at Stanford during parent’s week (his daughter attends.) Great down to Earth guy. I said “I named my son after your father.” He chimed back, “So did my mom!” Funny.

Diana, Bill Richardson seems to be universally beloved. Since the world is on edge, and he is so brilliant on the environment, my wish is that there is a new cabinet level position (EPA is already cabinet) much more expansive EPA, renamed, beyond ‘protection’ with really Teddy Roosevelt-like environmental sense. The time is ripe, and Bill Richardson would be the absolute perfect person.

Maurine. Love Richardson as well and have no doubt he will be an important player. Perhaps as head of EPA with a much expanded scale to match the times, and the powerful contribution he would make in that areana. ‘Environmental protection agency’ is passive. What is needed, given the situation is a bold new name and approach. BR is the perfect person for that I think. Yes, Webb is fantastic and hardly anyone better than Wes Clark. The point is to win and so McCain has to be counter-acted….these are the folks to do it….and who will make change when they get in the WH….they will bring plenty of energy, and plenty of diversity and women with them. Michelle Obama, Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver…that’s an exciting starting cast right there. And they’ve got George Clooney and all the heavy hitters from Hollywood. And Arianna Huffington’s new RIGHT IS WRONG which will be a big seller and help push Fox a little more over the cliff. Awwww. Too bad, so sad, buh-bye. It’s beyond exciting…it’s thrilling!

Kay, The “Minority” is the rich, white, entitled GOP Boys Club that has been given a pass to commit daylight rape of the planet for it’s own personal profit, and in collusion with the Bush cabal. They are not an administration but a criminal enterprise: Halliburton-Exxon-Blackwater, etc,.the whole obscene, conflated cabal. You think the blogosphere is “harsh and gossipy”? Given the vast scope of the Internet—that’s quite a generalized pronouncement. Especially when the culprit is the megaphone disinformation machine financed as the propaganda arm of the radicalized RNC, i.e, Coulter-Savage-Limbaugh-O’Reilly-Hannity et al where they ACTUALLY foment physical violence as Limbaugh did when he recommended Operation Chaos riots in Denver. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYPQq3r3-4&feature=related There’s no more Fairness Doctrine, no more real FCC that would have taken away a license for the above. Rush is a paid instrument of the right so he is free to suggest riots to Freeper Nation—the knuckledragging hordes who ACT on Mr. Oxycotin’s words. Read RIGHT IS WRONG. The Internet is an amazing tool for change. It provides open entree to the entire world and beyond. Anyone is free to find anything that’s been digitized in seconds from a data base of hundreds of billions of pages. It is a COMPLETELY level playing field. People personify it from their OWN perspective and ability to harness it. There are brilliant people and ideas on the Internet as well as the misanthropic, ill-informed, criminal and unimaginative. Just as it is in life. People find, see and reach things from their own perspectives, just as they do in life. Yes, the oil and arms dealing dinosaurs of the Right are going to react to change. In all times in history when the people assume power the plutocracy responds. Anything that comes out of Fox News ditto-heads collective mouths comes straight from their Murdock script [see former Fox producers tell it how it is on the clip below]. Hannity has already telegraphed their message in their typically thuggish Mafia-hit style, “We need a new Contract ON America.” Get the emphasis. Not FOR, but ON. It isn’t a mistake. They deal in fear to get folks shaking in their tighty-whities. I suggest people watch this documentary and understand the locus of our societal problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvSLNSn5swk The world changes when people ban together and quit feeding the monster, stop buying their stuff, their ideas, their notion of how to shape the world, their stratospherically high mountain of tacky chotchkes that nobody needs. Somebody said the Internet is like the wild west. No more than the world scene. The difference is that individuals have the ability to help change the world with a click of a mouse. They can go anywhere and do anything according to their OWN ability to be informed, connect, think, see, and act….or disempower themselves by their own fearful mindset.

Phyllis-I’ve read Zakaria…and it is scary. While we still produce 25% of global emissions the emerging economies with their massive populations, are duplicating our patterns. Key is getting the 18 countries producing the 80% of the emissions online first, and like Al Gore says in the above clip…the cost of doing is far outweighed by the urgency, the benefits, and can be done at a sliver of the cost of the phony war. Another good book that Oprah featured in a 10-week online ‘learn-in’ is “New Earth.” While things are on the edge, I think there’s tremendous energy being awakened in the right direction. Because Senator Obama is running his campaign only on individual contributions (whether those individuals are on Wall Street, as someone pointed out, is beside the point) and building an unbelievable nationwide coalition—he owns that list. He’ll put it to good and multiple effective uses. Of that I am absolutely certain. [thanks, re my Dad]

Thank you, doll lady.

Yes, there’s nothing FREER than the blogosphere. The whiners don’t have the chops or mettle on their own to dive in so they have to stand on the sidelines and cry, ‘unfair’ when there are no impediments AT ALL but their own weaknesses. Tough luck.

Renata—I know—we’re having some fun. Senator Obama will make a clear, reasoned choice as he has in this campaign all along. But I still will hope it’s one of the three above—even while liking others. On the national scene I can’t personally fathom others who would more balance the ticket and assure his win. And at this point, that’s the laser focus for me.

Renata- I read Barbara Ehrenreich’s piece. It wasn’t enough for HRC to polarize her party with her vote for the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. She followed that up with saber rattling against Iran. “Far from being the stereotypical feminist-pacifist of your imagination, the woman to get closest to the Oval Office has promised to “obliterate” the toddlers of Tehran — along, of course, with the bomb-builders and Hezbollah supporters. I was a long-time Clinton supporter. Unlike my unswerving devotion to JFK, the Clinton allegiance is all swept-away. And it wasn’t the bombardment by the press that did it, but HRC herself. She was tone deaf twice on wars and again on race-bating. For millions of us, the late senator, Paul Wellstone, who was so passionately opposed to the fake-war, and his brethern in the senate like Russ Feingold and Robert Byrd, remain the moral center. Obama won 70% of the vote in Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Franciscp—HRC’s district to lose. Not all of us are flexible on the organized mass murder of innocent civilians under the ‘brand name,’ as Andrew Card termed it, “Shock and Awe.” We weren’t then, we aren’t now, and the race-baiting has lost the tenuous shreds of support she had left. Get off the stage HRC. It is an unrecoverable loss, barring a miracle. She knows it. Bill knows it. And she is stringing it out, further dividing the party for her purposes. Clinton detractors are right. Like the Bush cabal it’s all about them. They are no JFK. And we—and the world that is watching—know who is.

Christina—Yes, I am a former HRC supporter, a San Franciscan that USED to be a Clinton town, and a ‘white’ voter, and for Obama too. From reading all the really petty remarks about Senator Obama on this thread I am happier than ever than I am his supporter and wish he’d sell that horrid state of Texas, with GWB in it, back to Mexico. We could use it to pay back some of the debt we owe Mexico due to Cowboy’s blowing $3 trillion on his phony Halliburton war.

Cynthia, I know the feeling my Dad’s been in ICU for the last week, really is more than unsettling when parents aren’t well. Hope you mother will be much better soon.

No, Mugsy-I’m not interested in a “Woman’s Agenda” you little cry babies go do that—take what’s her face with you….the Freeper. Auntie em can’t even start a new thread without crying. What? Did these folks just get out of knitting booties at a PTA meeting? Bingo season’s over so they thought they’d try something new? Thanks, I’ve seen the “Woman’s” contingent. You guys have fun. Stock the kleenex esp for Auntie em and her little dog Freeper too!

JJ GB— Exactly. I live in San Francisco in Nancy Pelosi’s district that was solidly for Bill Clinton. It’s a well educated, affluent area with 50% white, 25% asian, 15% hispanic and 8% african american and it went 70% for Senator Obama when it was HRC’s to lose. Which she did. I also think it is petty beyond belief re the state # thing. He probably is exhausted, distracted, whatever…..he’s an extremely intelligent Harvard Law School grad. I’m sure no one else ever misspeaks.

Dora…Yes they REALLY are….just like their leader. Who I am soooooo glad I’m not voting for.