Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson opened the call by saying "what a great night this is for Democrats" given the "strong turnout" in most states. "We want to congratulate Sen. Obama and his staff," Wolfson said.

Campaign strategist Mark Penn then hailed encouraging results in Northeastern states, especially a surprise win in Ted Kennedy's Massachussetts, as well as victories in "red states" like Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arkansas. The best news from exit polls seemed to be that "people who decided on the last day tended to support Sen. Clinton," Penn said. They said they were hearing encouraging news from California but it was still too early to talk about it, and wouldn't comment on early Team Obama claims that their candidate may well do better in the delegate count than he does in the popular vote.

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Like shepherds, organizers for each candidate gathered their supporters at cafeteria tables in different sections of the room -- and, even as Democrats were still signing in, the outcome seemed visually obvious. Like islands in a sea, lonely tables for the supporters of Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd (plus a small knot of Dennis Kucinich backers in the rear of the room) were a visual sign that these candidates would not make the 15 percent threshold to win one of nine delegates awarded here. (With a record 471 caucus-goers in Precinct 67, a candidate needed 71 supporters to be viable.)

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The Bush campaign is spinning his invulnerability myth. In fact he fears it will be a close race. The "liberation" of Iraq is turning into an occupation. As of June 6, 79 Americans had been killed in Iraq and Saudi Arabia since the statue of Saddam was pulled down in Baghdad -- almost as many Americans have died in peacetime as in war. On the homefront, there is no escape from budget crisis, unemployment, environmental rollbacks and fights over stacking the judiciary. If Bush wins the same percentage of votes in 2004 as he did in 2000, he would lose by 3 million votes, largely due to the increase in Latino voters.

Presidential elections are decided on character, theme, national security and the economy. Democrats will have to tie Bush on character, improve on theme, defend on national security and emphasize the economy. But Democrats can't expect the economy to eclipse the national security issue. Nor can they be credible sounding equally warlike with Bush. And they can't expect a national election to be determined by a narrow economic issue like prescription drugs for the elderly.

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Is Bush beatable? Sure. The pollsters who are saying national security is all that matters are wrong. By the time the election rolls around, the issue of jobs, whether or not you're able to pay your mortgage and send your kids to college, whether you have health coverage -- they're gonna be paramount. But you don't have any Democrat who has nerve enough to take Bush on and take him on consistently. Every Sunday talk show should have a Democrat forcibly taking Bush to task on all the lies -- the weapons of mass destruction, tax cuts -- whatever the lies are. They have to take him on in a dramatic fashion -- the way Bill Clinton would have. I mean, in 1992 we were in a time of great pleasure surrounding the defeat of Saddam the first time, by the first President Bush. But Mr. Clinton was able to defeat him.

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Can George W. Bush be beaten in 2004? Every one of the dozen experts Salon asked that question answered a resounding "Yes, but ..." There's consensus that the economy will matter more than Republicans want to believe, that Bush is vulnerable as long as Iraq remains unstable, that the growing controversy over the missing WMDs might finally hurt him with voters, that Americans would rather have Social Security and public education stabilized than a tax cut for the wealthy -- but the Democrats haven't found the message or messenger yet to make a persuasive case.

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"The Shame of San Francisco" missed some crucial points about Edison Schools, and topped that off by using inaccurate figures that erroneously show Edison getting less funding than other district schools.

The article mistakenly compared Edison's funding from the school district alone with other schools' combined funding from district, state and federal sources. Including state and federal funding, Edison received $5,836 per pupil in its first year, not $4,200 as reported in Salon. (Source: Appendix F of the Edison charter.) And the comparison with Twenty-First Century Academy was not analogous, as that school is a K-8 while Edison is a K-5. Middle schools receive more per student than do elementary schools.

Edison does indeed receive more money than other district schools. Other schools' district funding covers teacher salaries and educational expenses as well as administrative costs, transportation, security, food service, major capital maintenance and other services. But under the Edison contract, the money that the company gets per student does not pay for those additional services. It goes entirely toward salaries and educational expenses -- or whatever Edison wants to do with it, under the for-profit arrangement.

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Thank you for a very thoughtful and wise analysis of the situation. One can only hope that Justice Scalia's heavy-handed opinion has alienated him from the crucial swing voting justices (Kennedy and O'Connor) and that they might rule in favor of Gore, in part, to rebuke him and restore some credibility to the now-battered Supreme Court. We should know pretty soon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. "Daddy" may not have left the building yet.

-- Kirk Moon

Justice Scalia considers himself a strict Constitutional textualist, believing that the Constitution and its laws can be understood solely by reference to their actual words, rather than more modern judicial interpretation or shifting historical circumstances. In fact, in his dissent in the 1992 review of Roe vs. Wade (Planned Parenthood vs. Casey), he argued that a privacy-based right to abortion doesn't exist in the Constitution. Duh. Given his Baptist fundamentalist-like Constitutional reasoning, how, with intellectual honesty, can he possibly pretend to adjudicate issues concerning modern voting methods, such as Vote-A-Matics and optical scanners? They certainly weren't mentioned in the Constitution!

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You Gore fanatics just can't make up your minds! You chastise Bush for daring to begin to assemble a Cabinet. How dare he? Then, when he deliberately reduces his profile by delegating to his team, you say he's out of touch! What's the poor man to do?

-- R. Patrick Henry Jr.

It's certainly funny how two people can look straight at the same picture and see it completely differently. My view of Gov. Bush is that he is behaving with a measured wisdom and prudence befitting one aspiring to leadership of this nation. I have complete respect for his desire to stay out of the public fray while Cheney quietly carries out his directives. Bush is preparing responsibly to assume leadership on Jan. 20. His concern is for the American people and that the endless legal delays created by Al Gore not hamper this nation's highest governing office. I find the tone of Walsh's article to lack any charitably objective perspective and consider it unworthy of the true calling of journalism.

-- Valerie L. Call Jacobs

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The American people, evenly split over two uninspiring candidates, are desperate for one wise, patriotic statesman to step forward. What we get instead are the bickering forces of two weak dauphins. At the center of the controversy are candidates who look straight out of the Wax Museum, neither of whom can speak to the people without the aid of a teleprompter. Gore should have been able to muster some righteous anger and indignation at the shady dealings down in Florida. Why is the secretary of state able to rule on these matters when she is campaign co-chair for one of the candidates? With no fire in his belly, perhaps Gore is not the best man to face the coming years of struggle and debate.

-- Megan O'Hara

Unfortunately, for months the Bush campaign has been crudely mangling the truth, and the mainstream media has conspired to allow the drumbeat of falsehoods. Now the Republicans are accustomed to living in a make-believe world where "It's so because I say so." This delusional habit will be difficult to break when the Democrats lack an effective spokesperson and the media lack the courage to insist on the truth.

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The press and the politicians have gone to great lengths to point out that "now you see why voting is important" and "every vote counts." Yet partisan GOP members are so quick to dismiss 19,000 ballots that were tossed out and another 3,000 that were accidentally cast for Buchanan, because "the ballots were approved."

Are they saying that these people of Palm Beach County lost their right to vote by not being more involved in the ballot design approval process? That's ridiculous. No one is suggesting this was done on purpose. But it's obviously wrong. If we're to really believe that our vote matters, the people of Palm Beach County should be treated as if their votes matter. Otherwise, what we're all hearing is, Your vote only counts if you're voting for our candidate.

-- Michael Burdick

If Bush and/or the Republicans were so certain that they won in Florida, then they would not be pushing their "the ballot was fine" stance quite so hard. Obviously, there were problems with the ballot -- 19,120 people don't make the same mistake without a reason. If their confidence was so high, they couldn't possibly believe that having another chance to vote in West Palm Beach or all of Florida could hurt. I suppose they are thinking the end (unified government) justifies the means (ignoring the people whom they are elected to serve).

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Read Andrew Sullivan's story

I agree with Joan Walsh's assessment of the Gore campaign, Bush's underestimated skill as a campaigner and the left's self-destructive ("We must destroy the village in order to save it") vision of the future. I think one additional point deserves emphasis. The media has consistently drubbed Gore at every turn. Since the conventions, Gore has been set upon by a media determined to vilify him for every misstep, to the exclusion of his discussions of policy and principle. At the same time, the media has given Bush a virtually free ride.

Sure, Gore could have been a better campaigner, but when the media is hounding the issues off the front page with discussions of Gore's exaggerations (which we now learn were mostly either not exaggerations or misquotes by the press), and simultaneously ignoring Bush's whoppers, it's no wonder Gore has had trouble getting his message out. The third leg of the anti-Gore stool has been the media, and we can only wonder what the poll numbers would look like if Bush had gotten the Gore treatment over the last few months.

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