But late last year I realized I had made the wrong decision. The opportunity for the Democrats to recapture the White House is real. The Bush administration squandered much of the goodwill toward America after Sept. 11, 2001, and, given the events of the past four years, it would be tragic if we selected a nominee who falls short in the general election. And Obama is still largely untested and inexperienced. Even looking at his success in Iowa, which should provide momentum in today's New Hampshire primary, I think that Hillary Clinton is more electable. Obama is attractive, but he would be the object of an unbelievably negative advertising campaign. Hillary has already been vetted beyond imagination.

Ever since he threw his hat into the presidential ring, some liberals have worried that Barack Obama is unelectable. This country, they say, simply isn't ready for a black president. Ultimately, the concern that Obama can't win because he's black says a lot more about the people who voice it than it does about the electorate it purportedly describes.

Party loyalists and insiders—of all races—are most likely to adopt this posture of cool-headed, pragmatic skepticism about Obama's chances. At first blush, the Obama-can't-win stance has a ring of gritty and pragmatic social realism: Let's get real—if we want to beat the Republicans, we can't afford to back a candidate with a built-in handicap.A black candidate would be great, but beating the Republicans is more important. This suggests that Obama supporters are starry-eyed dreamers, so caught up in Obama's mystique and the romance of the first black president that they'll wind up sacrificing the White House to their unrealistic fantasies.

The irony here is, of course, that one can as easily say the same thing about Hillary Clinton supporters—just replace Obama mystique with Clinton pedigree and black with female, and add that Hillary Clinton's liabilities go beyond gender to include a genuine lack of charisma and all the baggage of her husband's tenure as commander in chief. So, perhaps the greater irony becomes that in the name of ensuring competitiveness, these alleged realists would have us all support the hopeful who is currently running a distant third place.

The GOP Attack Machine Will Redefine the Democratic Candidate; Hillary Has Withstood That Process. As soon as the Democratic nominee is selected, the entire force of the GOP attack machine will bear down on that nominee. This attack machine has been built and honed over decades; it is formidable, and employs all forms of media, from talk radio to major newspaper columns to television, email, blogs, websites, direct mail, and extensive ground networks. It was able to skew public perceptions of two well-respected Democrats, Al Gore and John Kerry, creating impressions about them that were wildly out of step with reality. Hillary Clinton has withstood the full brunt of that machine and actually emerged stronger.

Sen. Obama's Negatives Will Rise; Hillary's Are Already Factored In. Sen. Obama himself has been saying that even after a year, voters in places like Texas and Florida don't really know him that well. So how much do independent voters know about Barack Obama, his voting record and his past positions? Even less than Democrats know. For example, he recently told voters in Idaho that he favors the Second Amendment - but he didn't mention that, in the past, he supported a complete ban on all handguns. If he were the nominee, the Republican attack machine would have immediately rolled out his full record - and his independent Idaho support would have evaporated. So far, the Republicans have been laying low. Sen. Obama has never faced a credible Republican opponent or the Republican attack machine, so voters are taking a chance that his current poll numbers will hold up after the Republicans get going. With Hillary, the GOP has already tried just about every attack and has failed. Those attacks are already factored in her ratings, where she remains competitive against Sen. McCain. But when it comes to Sen. Obama this is a big unknown, and the likelihood is that his negatives will rise.