You know, a lot of conservative sorts of political observers have had a lot of fun watching Obama make a series of gaffes and get caught up in ill-considered personal relationships.

However, as long as these things are coming out in the primaries, they'll be old news by election time, and if Obama ends up the nominee, I think a long, bruising primary battle will have given him some inkling of what he'll face in a real election, so he'll be better equipped for the real election than if the Democrats had just crowned him early.