[started as a response to Barefooted's "Hillary Clinton's New Progressive Alignment"]

1) I think we're seeing a Clinton thing where she also doesn't do well unless under pressure and in trouble. Sure, organized and all that, but not inspiring.

2) In the case of Bernie, he's had the message, something of the synthesis without the details. Hillary's been the opposite - all the tools in the toolkit, but no obvious picture of what the job is, who the customer is.

3) People are confused about Obama because he's a Rorschach test - they see what they want to see, which meant he was a progressive and an establishment Democrat at the same time. Only in practice do we get to see what that actually is.

4) Much like Obama proposed the Grand Bargain, reaching across the aisle, Bernie's crew is suggesting he represents a revolutionary fire that will sweep the grassroots with it. Except Obama's bargains always left him sitting alone at the table, and even the inspiring #OWS movement turned into a mocking #OccupyCityParks. The only revolution has been the Tea Party, and it's still raging.

5) I'm more like Lennon's jaded Revolution - "I hear what you're saying, but.... it's gonna be alright"

6) The synthesis this article suggests is "it ain't alright... but we're moving in the right direction". 

7) Hillary sucked hind teat for 8 years, taking it for the team. These days that *is* her strong suit. The crowd chose in 2008 and she sucked it up and dealt with it, built her brand, built the party's brand. The brand's a bit run down and tarnished these days - it needs a makeover - but it's still our brand.

8) BTW, Bernie's not part of that brand, even though he's a friend of the brand. Maybe a subtle difference, but it is a difference.

9) The compromise, the synthesis, is "Obama was a good start, but not enough... while Bernie's in the right direction, but too far". Meet Hillary Goldilocks - "this one is just right"

10) The funny thing is I don't know if this is Hillary's meme or one that's building around the internet/media chamber, but there's kind of a fatigue I sense among a lot of people - "enough's enough, we've played this game before, time to get serious".

11) As important, I see the Blue Dogs as history. For a long time we've been fighting the conservatives inside the party. I mean people like Ben Nelson - D who fought abortion in Obamacare and almost derailed it, or Rahm Emanuel, who not only became the poster child for Democrat union-hate, now is a poster child for mayoral-police chartered black-abuse. Or Joe Lieberman, who's been dancing with the Republicans a long time, and has been a major thorn over every negotiation in the Mideast. With friends like these, no wonder the GOP can sit back and wait for drifters and compromise. 

12) So with progressive ideas back on the table, and not ham-strung by internal gadflies, we have an opportunity to revise "the perfect is the enemy of the good" into "the better's almost up there with the perfect, and not nearly the cop-out of the merely good"

13) Hopefully this becomes heavily revised and up-lifted over the next 10 months to become really inspiring in November.

14) The nice thing is that it seems to be turning into an optimistic message, and even though we as a nation are completely crazy, self-deluded and self-serving, we like pretending we're all optimistic and shit. So here's a double-entendre kinda cynical but optimistic slogan for them - "Hillary - as good as it gets".