Hillary in Charge?

Has Barack's convention been kidnapped by the Clintons? CNN's Jack Cafferty says yes.

The Democratic National Convention is shaping into quite some party for Hillary Clinton.

Her name will be placed into nomination. She'll give a prime-time address, introduced by her daughter Chelsea. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will get his own plum speaking slot on a separate night. She will also have her own production team to create the introductory video that precedes her speech – the same people who produced Bill Clinton's biography video "The Man from Hope" in 1992.

Dick Morris can't understand why Barack has allowed this to happen.

And what leverage did the Clintons have to achieve all of this? None! Hillary could not have taken the convention by storm and any show of party disunity would marginalize her forever in the Democratic Party. Had she or her supporters tried to pull off distracting demonstrations or to recreate Lafayette Park in Chicago in 1968, she would have paid a permanent price among the party faithful for sabotaging Obama's candidacy.

Michael Barone disagrees.

Here's the problem the Obama campaign faces: Nearly half the delegates on the floor were picked by Hillary Clinton. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that many of these Clinton supporters are unreconciled to the Obama candidacy. As are many Clinton voters: The recent Pew poll showed only 72 percent of them are supporting Obama against John McCain. A large mass of unreconciled delegates can be a problem for a presidential nominee.

Either way, Tony Harnden says this spells trouble for Barack.

Even the plan for the former First Lady to cast her own vote for her erstwhile rival and direct her delegates to swing behind the Illinois senator - being spun as a magnanimous gesture of unity - risks undermining Obama. Despite the closeness of the primary battle, he won the nomination; the image of Mrs. Clinton graciously anointing him is exactly what he does not need.

Michael Goodwin writes:

The substantive problem for Obama is that he is already underperforming against John McCain. He limped across the finish line in the primaries and, since Clinton conceded in June, his poll numbers have flat-lined.

In the face of that lackluster showing, his choices have been curious.

Virtually everyone writing on this subject concludes in a manner similar to Morris.

If he does so poorly in negotiating with the Clintons, how will he do with the Russians?