I understand this is a politically sensitive issue and I know Obama and congressional democrats aren’t about to start a fight over gun control. Still, I’m always a little surprised that the progressives who can don’t more often advocate for the repeal of the second amendment.

The text of the amendment makes the founders’ intention clear. It reads “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The logic – placing the right to bear arms after “a well regulated militia” was intentional. The second amendment was designed to ensure that Americans would be able to protect themselves from foreign invaders. It had nothing to do with hunting or sport or even self-defense. The second amendment is archaic and obsolete. It has no relevance in today’s United States, the greatest world power with no threat of invasion.

According to the Brady campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 30,000 people die every year from gun violence. 85 people die every day, 56 of them teens and children, 35 of them murdered. Every day, 191 people are shot and survive. Herbert wrote eloquently about the numbers in April.

This is the American way. Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country’s attention understandably turned to terrorism, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in nonterror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it — 120,000 dead. That’s nearly 25 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the most part, we pay no attention to this relentless carnage. The idea of doing something meaningful about the insane number of guns in circulation is a nonstarter. So what if eight kids are shot to death every day in America. So what if someone is killed by a gun every 17 minutes.

The second amendment does not protect a basic right, it places a privilege on a pedestal. How can we argue that the right to own a gun deserves constitutional protection while the rights to quality health care or education do not? The right to bear arms deserves its own amendment about as much as the right to posses marijuana. (Both can be great tools for recreation, but have the potential to do harm) Repealing the second amendment would not amount to a ban on gun possession. (Yay the 10th amendment) It would simply level the playing field for debate. Rather than simply invoking the 2nd, pro-gun groups would have to engage in a substantive debate about the impact of guns on our country.

Part of the problem, and the reason this issue never seems to gain much salience with liberals, is that so many people with money and privilege and power live in safe communities and don’t see the devastating impact of guns in America. What gun-control advocates need is something like the anti-tobacco Truth campaign, a grass-roots effort to bring this issue to the forefront of political and social discourse.

But fear not progressives! – The 71-member Congressional Progressive caucus has called for a “robust public option” that “must not be conditioned on private industry actions” and “ must be available to all individuals and employers across the nation without limitation. They are joined by the Congressional Black Caucus, which together with Hispanic and Asian Pacific American Caucuses (Together called the Tri-Caucus) plans to release its own healthcare reform plan in the near future.

With strong progressive support for a public option and the Blue Dogs fractured, I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll end up with a strong public option on the House side. On the Senate Side, it could be much more difficult. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee did not include a public option in a draft bill released Tuesday, apparently in an effort to appease the Republicans opposition. Nonetheless, President Obama remains steadfast in his support for a strong public option, which he expressed in a letter to Senator’s Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus.

There is the possibility of compromise. Blue Dogs have already demanded that any public plan negotiate rates with providers, rather than mandate them Medicare-style. At this point, I have faith that the final bill will include a public plan. What it looks like will depend largely on the success or failure of grassroots progressives as they take on the insurance companies.

Excluding the possibility that she’s totally delusional, Hillary must have some sense that it’s over, so why is she sticking it out until the bitter end? She’s not a Kucinich candidate. She has no radical agenda, no interest in using the presidential race to shift the dialog. Does she honestly believe, as her campaigning might suggest, that she has to stay in the race to represent the disenfranchised minority that is white working class voters. Hillary’s rhetoric, and her campaign as a symbol, now serve no purpose but to deepen the racial divide. The results of the rest of the race are predictable. She’ll win overwhelming majorities in Kentucky and West Virginia, lose Oregon and fall far short of the 68% of all remaining delegates she has to win in order to gain the nomination. By proving that Barack Obama is not the candidate of white working class voters, she will accomplish one thing, stabbing the democratic party in the back.

Hillary is clearly not willing to give up, so it’s up to the superdelegates and the party elders. Al Gore and John Edwards should endorse Obama and lead the rest of the superdelegates to rally behind him. If Hillary succeeds in killing Obama’s candidacy, the lesson would be profoundly depressing: in America, race makes progress impossible. It is possible to end this now. It’s all up to Howard, Al and John.

After losing 11 primaries in a row, Hillary finally manged to pull off a set of victories yesterday, winning big in Ohio and Rhode Island and edging out a four point lead over Obama in Texas. How did she do it? There’s the possibility of the New Hampshire effect. Lots of voters, particularly women, may not have wanted to see her out just yet, even if they weren’t sure she would make the better candidate. There’s the demographics – Three groups with whom Hillary has consistently done well, women, working class people and Hispanics, made up a large chunk of last night’s electorate and she won them all handily.

Still, perhaps the best indicator of what happened yesterday is how the late deciders made up their minds.

According to Texas exit polls, those voters who made up their minds in the last few days went for Clinton 2 to 1. I find it hard to believe that these people had a sudden epiphany about the necessity of having an experienced commander and chief, or the superiority of Hillary’s “universal” health care plan. So what really happened? Hillary went negative and it worked. In one of her campaign’s lowest moves, Hillary aired a shamelessly fear mongering ad which shows a mother with sleeping children and has an ominous voice asking who you want answering the phone in the White House at 3am in the event of a national security crisis. While Obama is not mentioned in the ad and the Clinton campaign would most surely claim it merely emphasizes her experience, there is no doubt that the intention of the ad was to get voters to question whether that young black rhetorician can keep you save from the terrorists. “Who do you want answering the phone at 3am” became a common line in Hillary’s stump speeches the last couple days before the election. It was this kind of fear mongering, combined with an aggressive smear campaign focusing on the Rezko and Canada/NAFTA scandals that pushed Hillary over the edge and let her stay in this race at least through Pennsylvania.

So if by these same tactics, Hillary wins the nomination, what becomes her strategy in the general election? She’ll be running against a 72 year old veteran who has served in congress for over 20 years, so her experience argument becomes null and void. What of her image as the tough policy-wonk who will protect us in a time of crisis. This image will be turned on it’s head by the republican attack machine. The republicans will portray John McCain as a strong grandfatherly protector figure, someone who has served in the US military and has extensive experience in congress. They won’t hesitate to use Hillary’s gender or her past to call into question how she could destabilize and weaken America, how she could provide an opening for the terrorists looming around every corner. Her original position on the Iraq war undermines what should be the biggest advantage for any democrat running for president this term. If Hillary was willing to give the war a shot, John McCain’s argument that it was mishandled and an honest, militarily experienced man like him could make it better becomes much more credible.

She still has domestic issues to run on and if she can keep the election focused on health care and the economy she could still win. But the Republicans will do everything they can (and that most certainly means an aggressive fear campaign) to keep the focus on national security and who will keep us safe. Ultimately, if she does win the nomination, Hillary’s success will depend on providing a counter-narrative more compelling than the experienced protector model that will be presented by the McCain campaign. The only sentiment powerful enough to counter fear is hope. Essentially, if Hillary wants to win the presidency, she will have to become the hope for change candidate, the Obama candidate. Can she become someone she has spent the last six months attacking and degrading? Won’t it seemed contrived – disingenuous. Can she really inspire the American people to look beyond the immediate sense of security they might get from grandfather McCain. I have my doubts.