I don't think the Clintons grasp that they're not running in the 1990s

They seem to think that the times haven't changed- well except for 9/11. It simply won't work to attack Obama for being too liberal in the democratic primaries. It won't work to belittle his message of hope; particularly when Bill Clinton was the man from "hope". And as for running as a twofer, no matter how popular Bill Clinton was, that simply makes Hillary look less like her own person.

I just don't think they get it. To me it simply looks like the times have passed them by.

the moves they have made in the last few weeks just boggle my mind.

They seem to have lost their feel for the mood of the public. That or the polsters they are using suck badly.

in places like this and how quickly opinion can be mobilized against them on the ground. They've always been prone to talk out of both sides of their mouth; Google is not their friend.

The Internet was never a factor in Bill's runs for the presidency, and they haven't even used it as an effective fundraising device, preferring big check writers to small donors.

It looks like they wanted not just to win, but to win in a top-down, anti-Dean fashion that would validate their whole pre-21st century approach to politics.

they looked great standing together with Chelsea and Madeleine Albright.

But it felt like nostalgia.

It does seem that time may have passed them by. It is such a different world now that we have experienced the reactionary politics of Bush and Cheney. Hillary Clinton has a very serious problem in that she now appears to be uncertain of her own identity, making her look unprincipled. (Which I have come to believe is the case.)

She really does not seem to get that a lot of Dems are furious with the failure of the congress to live up to it's progressive promises in the 2006 election. The problem (IMHO) is not that he is too progressive - it is that she is a total "progressive" failure. I just wish more (Pelosi, Reid etc) understood that

disadvantages. It can be summarized in a sentence or two. That is the problem. The vast machinery of her very powerful candidate presentation takes time to examine, but it all falls rigidly and inescapably into its own contradictions and traps. Cali could be wrong but in reality it is the past she needs to propel her so any judgment to "reinvent" and update is practically impossible. Fixed GOP negatives and fixed anti-war Dem opposition are just part of this rigidity which can go into total lock down simply by presenting a more charismatic, unfettered alternative, against whom the old machinery alone gives any hope of countering.

The logic of the past, especially past triumphs can keep her from asking the one question. Now that the jig is up this early should she risk our party in the fall with this Gordian Knot of power and weakness when she has no ability or inclination to try to match her rivals outside her magnificent constructs?
However you approach it, the candidacy looked great on paper and needed reality not to simply light a match to it. Sorely tempting, irresistibly so to any big political leader, and logically doomed if reality nibbles.

Better now than too late.