Closer

They always said to watch out, that Obama is a brilliant closer. And in business as well as government, if you're on a good strategy, it's the only thing that really matters.

She had her moments, but he was just brilliant tonight. I can't predict the final vote but certainly hope it goes his way if for only one reason: I want to be in a civic dialogue with President Barack Obama for the next four to eight years. I want to hear his voice coming out of rooms with TVs, computers, car radios. I don't want to hear Hillary Clinton as often, although per his brilliant closing tonight, she deserves her high position in the public discourse. Maybe even (especially if she were to separate from Bill) Vice President.

She so knowledgeable, she's so good on so many issues, but Obama has beaten her in the topmost leadership issue: strategy. He's just brilliant (that word again) on strategy, like a smart smart war gamer, so sober even with his far-reaching mind. It's a word he keeps returning to. It's the secret word, waiting there right behind change and hope, giving them substance. And it all wouldn't matter if he hadn't delivered a strategically successful campaign.

But not only has his campaign had a solid strategy and strong execution, it was a Herculean task to start and, when you think back to maybe July 2007, even ridiculous, impossible. But not only is that success itself, thus far, proof of his strategic soundness. He's succeeding with 20 and 30 point margins, an 11-state streak since eking out his win on Super Tuesday, he's got one million people giving his campaign our money to manage as he sees fit -- it's a wild success.

There's another interesting post (besides the one linked to above) on Kos, "Hillary's Retrograde Problem":

Ask yourself this question: When was the last time America replaced a presidency by choosing a President or Vice President from the preceding administration?

Arguably:

Richard Nixon in 1968 (previously VP to Eisenhower, elected after 8 years of Kennedy/Johnson)

Grover Cleveland, non-consecutive terms in 1884 and 1892

(I'm not counting John Quincy Adams)

Our elections have had a tendency to move forward with new faces rather than reach back to a past administration, even a successful one. Where an administration has been particularly unpopular, the urge to move in an entirely new direction is even more keenly felt. Hillary may have had no real chance in this election from the beginning. Not because of her policies, but because she has been flying into the wind without realizing it.

And we all know how well the Nixon Presidency went.