Is Hillary's nomination a sure thing? Six months ago, it was almost a certainty. Global name recognition combined with a campaign war chest she's had no problem filling seemed like it would be enough to make other potential nominees wither.

Then in comes Barack Obama.

If she's the insider that sounds like establishment, he's the newcomer that sounds like an outsider. He has the kind of political star power that we haven't seen since John F. Kennedy. And his foibles have, at least so far, worked in his favor.

His limited experience draws parallels to Abraham Lincoln. An admission to once using cocaine has made him human. People hardly seem to notice he is black. Even a name with an eerie resemblance to the world's most notorious terrorist doesn't seem to be enough to contain the public's enthusiasm for him.

 In a word, Obama is hot.

And, well, Hillary is not.

She has her base. But, unlike Obama, she's had to isolate each of her image problems and build walls around them. She's a woman. She's too liberal. Her focus has been on domestic matters. And we haven't even begun to see what baggage her marriage to former president Bill Clinton will bring. Many women still haven't forgiven her for forgiving him.

But her biggest obstacle is her record on the war in Iraq. Clinton and Obama seem to line up fairly compatibly on big domestic issues like health care and education, but Clinton voted to authorize Bush's attack on Iraq. And she hasn't found a credible explanation for her decision anymore than Bush has been able to find a way out of the war.

Obama, who says he is most concerned about "the smallness of politics," has been wearing his anti-war stance like a campaign button. But he wasn't even in the Senate at the time the vote was taken, a point usually overlooked.

Still, Obama made his announcement yesterday to form an exploratory committee on the internet. Clinton has been on primetime and is holding a press conference today to talk about her recent trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.

What kinds of questions has she been asked? You guessed it. What does she think of Obama?

Ever the strategist, she reminds us the election is a long way off.

Anyone remember Howard Dean?