Being the leading edge it shows she will continue to fall in the polls and lose support. If the blogs are indeed the leading edge than, I foresee Hillary being in trouble in the future of this primary.
This is good.

You realize, don't you, that Yglesias was being sarcastic? You seem to be taking his "doomed" comment as if he was being serious.

How soon we forget... Remember the 2004 Iowa caucuses? Remember when Kos and the "netroots" invaded Iowa in their "people powered" revolution to elect Howard Dean? Remember how Iowa voters were repulsed when the netroots zealots knocked on their doors? Remember when out-of-state green-haired, tattood, nose-pierced people stood on street corners in Des Moines waving signs for Howard Dean? Remember how Dean finished 3rd 20 points behind Kerry and Edwards once Iowans got to know the "people powered" movement? You seem to forget that Kos, who worked for Dean, and Joe Trippie were responsible for the out-of-state freak show that landed in Iowa and helped destroy their "people powered" campaign with a little help from their hero Howard Dean. Were you even in Iowa in 2004?

William,
You seem to forget the fact that the progressive netroots is about 100 times as large as it was in four years ago. Comparing 2008 to 2004 just doesn't make sense anymore.

Gee – a lead in EVERY national poll ever conducted on the 2008 democratic primary, leading in 33 of 35 state polls and more money on hand then any Dem or GOP candidate in the race – bet every candidate would love to be this “doomed”. Stop kidding yourselves – Hillary Clinton is in a very strong position to win the nomination and is strong enough and smart enough to win the presidency.

As for the “net roots” their “Can’t Miss / Inevitables”have included Howard Dean and Snakes on a Plane so you have to consider their track record when accessing their influence!

The liberal blogosphere has changed infinitely since 2004 when dailykos was primarily an election site for particular candidates. The Koscommunity has grown to embrace all kinds of constituencies. You have your science bloggers, your healthcare bloggers, your energy bloggers, your high brow and low brow bloggers, your veterans, your union people. And you have people who think Kos himself is too moderate. But hey, democracy is messy. Almost all of these people live outside Washington in towns and cities across the U.S. They talk to their neighbors. They talk to their colleagues. Read Laura Flanders book "Blue Grit" of the people who are toiling away on the edge of democracy registering new voters and working on new coalitions.
Remember that there has also been a lot of migration. You have New Yorkers in Santa Fe and in Bozeman, Montana. You have Californians in Colorado. You have Chicagoans in Houston.

But, most of all, the times they are a changing. You can call us out here "early adaptors". I am one of them. But you can also look at us as akin to the French Resistance. When France surrendered to the Germans, pockets of resistance broke out. Some were renegades. Some were hungry farmers. Some were idealists, some were just brave citizens. In 2000 the Dems gave in. They declared a truce. They got their butts whipped. The Vichy Congress came into being. Well, the resentment, the anger, the pain was swallowed. Like Gwen Ifill said of the anger she felt when nobody stood up to Imus when 10 years ago he called her "a cleaning lady". "Silence is betrayal" said Martin Luther King, JR. But now that anger at our core has bubbled to the surface.
Well, now the silent majority is with those who saw the darkness ahead of time. We are the radical middle that Thom Hartmann talks about. The middle wants heathcare paid for as a right. The middle wants out of Iraq. The middle wants a stop to outsourcing of jobs. The middle wants control of our energy supply. The middle wants a living wage and affordable housing. The middle is pissed.

The only surprise is the cluelessness of politicians who still use pollsters, pundits, and consultants from D.C. (Edwards is not using pollsters). There is a sea change happening out here. Attention must be paid. Seems only Edwards is really paying any attention.

Really cute how F. Cat turned her pitch about how wide the reach of the almighty netroots is into a pitch about how Edwards is the people's candidate. Edwards is doing something different this time around because being the insider didn't work for him last time. I don't buy it one bit.

I think it's way too hard to tell what will happen. Obama has been able to ride safely above the whole thing so far while letting his attack dogs loose on the Clintons (web ad, Geffen, etc.). It'll only be a matter of time before the press breaks a story that will put some tarnish on the guy. Fox News tried and failed - but given the amount of coverage he's gotten regarding his fundraising numbers, the guy is bound to get hit by the media in a big way eventually.

As for Edwards, he's safely below the radar and appealing to the left of the party. With the Dems' obsession with electability, one has to wonder when concern will show that he's gone too far to the left.

And Hillary - is there anything outside of the Iraq war to attack her on any more? All three major candidates have the same position on the future of Iraq. So really, I don't see that fight gaining any more traction for the other candidates as soon as the first debate happens and they are asked to outline their plans for Iraq.

Actually William, I was in Iowa--working for Dean. If you bought in to the media crap about the volunteer "freak show" descending on Iowa, I have to assume you weren't.

Of the 600 volunteers I worked with in Des Moines--one had green hair. A nice young man named Ben, he admitted he'd gotten drunk at a party and done it. He kept it covered most of the time. I didn't see a single tatoo. Since it was -10 degrees on caucus day, it would have taken a pretty brave volunteer to flaunt that much skin. And I only saw one multiple piercing--mine. I was, at the time, 53 years old. And wearing, I hope, 3 rather tasteful diamond stud earrings.

Out of the 600 volunteers I worked with, most were professional people with an average age in the mid 30s. Our oldest volunteer was 82. I met 2 doctors and a few nurses. We had a dad, daughter, and granddaughter volunteer group.

People I canvassed with were respectful to Iowa voters, but excited about our candidate. So I saw plenty of people come in after walking for hours in the rain and bitter cold. A couple of young men went to help an elderly lady move a sofa off of her porch because she told them she'd vote for Dean if they did. I slept on the floor for a week. People drove overnight to get there to work on their days off. Folks paid their own way to get there from California, Texas, and Tokyo.

I remember one day, I stood next to Tim Russert of NBC as a reporter from Sky News in the UK asked him what he thought of "this Gen Y campaign." After Russert finished his answer, I tartly informed the reporter that "some of us youngsters resented that characterization." He looked at my bifocals and white hair, shrugged, and said, "Ah well." That was the day I realized reporters often report the story they went there with, and not the one that was actually in front of them.

So, whatever you read about the volunteers--and especially about the caucus-night "scream"--don't believe it. I was there, and it was what the media wanted to report, not what actually happened.

Having gotten that off my chest, I'd like to comment on whether the netroots represent voters at large. I don't think so. But I do agree with Ambinder that we're the leading edge of the base. And I think, as we did in the Dean campaign and others since, we can energize ordinary voters if a campaign uses us right.