This was truly the most impressive political performance I have ever witnessed, and the numbers back that up. We know that Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton and John Edwards combined, but he also beat the combined number of South Carolina votes for John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Simply incredible. From the Huffington Post:

In last week’s SC GOP primary, McCain and Huckabee (the top 2 finishers), got 147,283 and 132,440 votes respectively. That’s a total of 279,723. Obama just pulled down 291,000 by himself.

Obama is undoubtedly the most electable Democratic candidate. Hell, Obama personally received more votes than the ENTIRE 2004 South Carolina Democratic primary. While Hillary Clinton and her hubby will keep voters they’ve rubbed the wrong way — like me, for instance — at home, Obama clearly brings regular voters and new voters out in hoards. Even conservative CNN analyst Bill Bennett flat out said that Obama is “the stronger candidate” and other pundits alluded that many Republicans are rooting for HRC because they fear the movement rallying around Obama.

Thoughts like these are really starting to catch on, and they should — they make sense.

Beth Arnold of the Huffington Post — a self-proclaimed feminist and former Hillary Clinton believer — had some harsh words for HRC in her latest HP column:

I totally agree, and I believe if Hillary is the candidate, the Democrats will lose. The Republican candidate will thrash her, because of the hordes of Republicans, progressives, and Joes and Josephines Schmos who hate her for whatever reasons or have totally lost respect for her. Hillary Clinton cannot bring our country together. A vote for Hillary in the primaries will help a Republican get elected.

I am a feminist, and I was a Clinton believer. No more. I support the candidate who can transform our country at home and throughout the world. I support Obama now.

How many people must say this before the Democratic party wakes its ass up?

Look at the brand new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll results for yourself — Barack Obama is stronger than Hillary Clinton against the viable Republican candidates. He beats all four, and his margins are better for three of the four. Hillary fares better against only Mitt Romney, and by a mere three points. She actually loses to John McCain, while Obama is currently tied with the senator from AZ…

Judging from that info, a McCain or Mike Huckabee nomination would be pretty damn scary if HRC won the Democratic ticket.

Bill Clinton isn’t as sly as he thinks he is.

(By the way, how could someone who’s been linked to as many affairs as he’s been — Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Wiley, Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, at least — ever really think they’re sly? I’m just asking.)

It isn’t just Dick Morris, a former Clinton strategist, that sees what Bill’s doing. We all see it. Iowa threatened his precious “Clinton Restoration” dream down to its very core, scared the Lewinsky out of him. That’s why he came out guns a’ blazing as Hillary’s hitman during the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, and has played that same role ever since.

The Clinton camp thinks this strategy it’s working, but it’s not. They fooled us twice already, but this time it isn’t going to work. You see, Slick Willy is serving as a similar diversion to the one that his wife provided him in 1992. Bill thinks that if all of Barack Obama’s focus is on him that not only will it not be on Obama’s inspirational message, but the heat will also be off of Hill. I’ll give him some credit — it worked for a little while.

But Bill’s political thug tactics aren’t working any more.

Why not? There are several reasons.

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Here’s an excerpt from a piece on Barack Obama and the Clintons, from Yahoo!:

If the Republicans are moving into 2008 haunted by–and trying to forget–the Bush-Cheney legacy, the Democrats are being increasingly stung by their own previous White House incumbent. Bill Clinton’s recent finger-wagging tirades are unbecoming of a former president, and he is proving to be an embarrassment rather than an asset to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Bill Clinton is in a tough position. As one of history’s most skilled and effective politicians, it is understandable that he would campaign hard for his wife. But as a former president, it is also expected that he act with a certain level of decorum during his party’s primaries. His red-faced attacks on Obama and the press are undermining his standing within his party and perhaps especially with African-Americans, who truly revered him.

Hillary Clinton already comes to the table with high negatives in the national polls. Her husband’s actions may further diminish her electability in November by reminding voters that America was as polarized under Clinton as it is under Bush today.

Unlike Reagan, Bill Clinton never won the majority of the popular vote: In 1992, he received only 43% of the vote, and in 1996, he won just over 49%. By contrast, Regan won 50.7% for his first term, and a whopping 58.7% of the popular vote for his second term. If the Democrats want to win back the White House in 2008, they will need the votes of independents and even some Republicans. It is as yet unclear how Bill and Hillary expect to do this if she is the nominee.

On the other hand, what has been so enticing about Barack Obama–and so terrifying to the Clinton camp–is the Illinois senator’s potential to appeal beyond the traditional Democratic base.

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Beliefnet — the largest spiritual website not devoted to any particular religion — and TIME magazine currently rank Barack Obama first among Dems on the God-o-Meter. He trails only Mike Huckabee, a pastor, and it looks like all the fallacious Muslim rumors are starting to be a thing of the past. It also looks like he is disproving the notion that Republicans have cornered evangelicals. Be sure to check out the God-o-meter and the brand new Beliefnet interview with Obama about his religion.

“We tell them, you’re going to tell us what to do with our flag? We’ll tell you what to do with the pole,” Mike Huckabee

You have to go watch this video (yes, it is a conservative website) in which NBC anchor Brian Williams gushes over Barack Obama and the love affair America has with him.

I mean, how can you not like the guy? When I speak to staunchly conservative I-still-support-Bush Republicans about him, even they have nothing negative to say about Obama, save maybe bringing up his experience (this whole experience argument is bullshit, especially from Hillary Clinton). Bring up Bill and Hill, or even John Edwards, and you see rage in their eyes.

One point I want to make on the issue of likability, is that, yes, it matters. Especially globally. I wish I could find exact numbers, but I can guarantee you that a large portion of the world is going to start looking at us differently if Obama wins the election. He’s already Kenya’s favorite son, and he didn’t even live their for a day.

Also, this is a pretty big deal domestically as well. Nearly half of the country already dislikes Hillary Clinton. Do we really want to be divided for another four or eight years? After we’ve spent most of the last 15 that way? I don’t think so. Obama has the unique ability to bring together people behind his lead. Isn’t that the kind of person that we as a collective people can rally behind and start to put this country back together again? I definitely think so, and it looks like people all across the nation are starting to feel the same way.