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I think the Other Klein's impassioned analysis of South Carolina is pretty good. You should read the whole thing, but I was struck by the conclusion:
It may well be true that any Democrat is going to have to handle that sort of sewage in the general election, but I've now--belatedly!--figured out that the real audacity in Barack Obama's campaign--far more than his positions on the issues, which almost seem an afterthought--is his outrageous belief that the entire country, not just Democrats, wants to see a straight up election; that the entire country is tired of the pestilence of tactical tricks that the Clintons learned from their co-dynasts, the Bushes. (The latest example being their sudden, sociopathic emphasis on the importance of the Florida primary, a contest all three candidates had agreed to eschew at the behest of the Democatic National Committee.)It is a hell of a bet Obama has made. And nearly 40 years of political, uhm, experience tells me that it isn't a very wise one...but I must also say that it is truly sad to see Bill and Hillary Clinton on the wrong side of it.Quite true. And this is the bet that made me doubt his candidacy for so very many months. It seemed evidently foolish, obviously naive. And maybe it is. But Obama's running a self-fulfilling campaign. Every time he brings in an extraordinary number of voters, every time his naivete changes the electoral map in an Iowa or a South Carolina, it makes it a little less likely that Obama has simply misunderstood the central facts of the various smear machines populating the political landscape, and more likely that he and Axelrod have instead sensed their weakness: The disgust and exhaustion of the American people. Am I totally convinced of this? No. But, increasingly, there's genuine evidence for the proposition. At this point, there are two main electability arguments in the primary. There's Clinton, who assures us that she understands the smear machine, and can match whatever it throws at her, and there's Obama, who assures us that he can make Americans understand the smear machine, and condition them to reject whatever filth it generates. It's hard to believe the latter is viable, but it's certainly better. And, in South Carolina, it appears to have happened.
