One of the true peculiarities of the American electoral process is the persistent insistence by pollsters and pundits, such as yourselves, on the power and importance of the candidates for public office, rather than the electorate who actually decide. Since almost every pre-primary prediction from the mouths of the experts turned out to be wrong in 2008, one would think you'd consider changing your tune.

Oh, I know why you don't change. It's part wishful thinking by people who like to think that their influence is great and expect the American public to be swayed by their words, like a field of grain in the wind. So, there's an identification on the part of pundits with what they perceive the task of the political candidate to be. It's also based on the realization (perhaps subconscious) that the audience for their punditry actually prefers predictions that turn out to be wrong, especially when it turns out that they themselves were right. And then, of course, there's the fact that it's much easier to make predictions than to report accurately on what's already happened.

Now for a couple of particular observations in response to your opining.
Mr. Brownstein, I find it interesting that you refer to the voters selecting Senator Obama as the Democratic nominee as "insurgents." It raises the question whether Americans who resist the traditional power structure are now to be identified with the Iraqi resistance to occupation, or if the Iraqi resistance is now going to be recognized as the indigenous Iraqi response to occupation that it is.
The core problem with your perception of reality, of course, lies in the failure to correctly identify who's doing what. When you speak of "Obama's magnetic appeal to young people," you are reversing the proper relationship between subject and object. The real subject is the young people who find the young Senator attractive. Ditto your observation that "Obama should also inspire a huge African-American turnout." Do you even realize how condescending that sentence is--assigning responsibility for the behavior of millions to one man?
But, when I come to your assessment that "Clinton, with her eight years as first lady, might have more easily crossed the experience threshold," I am left speechless. Did you not pay any attention to the campaign and realize that the majority of the voters rejected the hostess experience claim?

Mr. Schneider, your commentary is no less disappointing. But, let me just observe that exit poll results--indeed the results of all verbal polls--are heavily dependent on what question is being asked and, like the science of economics (which is also often wrong), focuses on a single point in time. So, it's unlikely that voters were even asked whether their selection was influenced by the strong possibility (given the trends in the early primary states) that they could vote for her now and him later--i.e. have their cake and eat it too.
Moreover, although you allude to the different approaches to selling themselves that were employed by Clinton and Obama, as "fighter" and "dreamer," it seems not to have registered with you that the promise to do FOR the American people is very different from pledging to carry out the will of the American people. Did you not notice that Clinton was about "I" from beginning to end, while Obama was focused on "you" and "we?" Did you not notice that Clinton's chanting of "Yes we will" was not only a crass immitation of "Yes we can," but a promise of a future for which there was/is no predicate in the present?
Also, as an older (67) white woman, I really find the effort to dissect the population on the basis of age just as offensive as ascribing behavior on the basis of gender, skin color and ethnic association. There's a long tradition in America of pitting diverse peoples against each other--appealing to false and irrelevant criteria in an effort to subjugate and manipulate--and we're getting sick and tired of it. Finally, in case you missed it, the Supreme Court, in issuing its ruling in Boumediene v. Bush, has asserted that even the most recent effort to differentiate between citizens and foreign persons is unconstitutional when it comes to the agents of government carrying out their duties and obligations--that what's determinative is what people do, not who they are. No doubt we'll all find it easier to focus on performance, if the fourth estate does its job and reports what people do, rather than who they are or would like to be.
Looking forward to a change, I am