nor was I alone in saying there (isn't) wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Obama's positions and Hillary's positions. Hillary talked issues and solutions. Obama talked the nebulous "hope and change", or at least that's all that came through.

Although I may appear "partisan" to people here, I am essentially about who can win. My passion for Hillary was all about the fact that she was essentially the same as most all the other candidates on policy (except for Kucinich) and that I felt (and still do) that she could win in November. So I support who I think can win in the GE. My "partisan" view is never about "my candidate has a better ideology than your candidate" unless your candidate is a complete nut. I'm driven by getting a Democrat elected.

Prior to our primary, I had a conversation with a woman who is an African-American state legislator and a long time friend. She was trying to win me over for Obama. I asked her, "How do I choose? They're essentially the same on policy so how do I choose? Either way we go, ground-breaking history will be made. So how do I choose? A Black man on one hand and a woman on the other." She replied, "I know, isn't it great?!" I said it was fantastic. We never thought we would ever live long enough to see it.

But, I was completely disgusted with the local Hillary vs. Obama infighting this year which very much mirrored DU. (I got to see the usual snakes in the grass at their finest and found a couple I didn't realize were there.) Disgusted is a kind word. The only reason I even went to our state convention this year as a delegate was to help a couple of friends (one an Obama supporter, one a Hillary supporter) get elected to the positions in the party they were seeking. I pissed off my a lot of my county delegation which was overwhelmingly Hillary to get an Obama person elected, and we won it. I split off enough of the Hillary delegates that we were able to get this person elected. This person deserved to be there, had been there for a long time, and it wasn't about Obama vs. Hillary, it was about the party.

I got a bad impression about Obama from the very beginning of his campaign because it appeared (and still does) that his primary campaign was long on rah-rah and short on substance that was over and above what his other opponents had to say. The rah-rah kind of fluff doesn't cut it in the GE. Personality cults don't cut it in the GE. And a freshman Senator who was a state senator not that long ago would be chum in the water for the Republicans in the GE.

But Obama is now showing me he can articulate the policy message that most all the candidates in the primaries supported and he can do it very well and in an unwaivering way. He's showing that his leadership ability can command attention on the world stage.

I don't know if Obama has matured in this race or if he's being extremely well coached. Maybe both. But you reallly can't coach charisma and he has tons of that. Always has. And now he's looking better and better for the GE.