The political stock of "progressives" (or whichever way you call that mass of people, loosely connected, that is for out of Iraq, universal health care, better working and living conditions for regular folks, etc.) today is significantly larger than in Bill Clinton's times. As a mass, we're more assertive and organized today than we ever were during the 1990s. It is a much more robust sentiment (if not movement) than anything existing in the 1990s -- even if you take into account the anti-glob crowd. Now, there's very little in Hillary's positioning, in her marketing proposition, suggesting to me that she gets it. Cynically perhaps and with a measure of soppyness that irks me, Obama seems to be tapping into real, deeper sentiments in favor of progressive change. Once you set your political profile at that scale, it's hard to recast it. It tends to crystallize into some kind of an objective reality that constrains your actions. Add to that the prospect of reelection. He's going to need that support base again in 2012, if he gets elected this year. Hillary will owe the left much less -- and will need it even less for reelection in 2012. That's why I think that the broader base of support has a greater chance of mattering.