I think Hillary will respond to DFA in good time. Remember it is early in the campaign and there is no hurry. She may have wanted to wait until the other candidates made their statements, so that she knows exactly what they all said and can make her own case in the most informed manner. This is a logical thing for her to do because she is the frontrunner, and it is fair to assume that if she put her response up first, that other candidates would use their responses to attack her either openly or in an implied manner. Btw, Kucinich just sent his in, which you did not mention.

This does bring up the question though of whether or how the netroots is evolving into yet another powerful special interest group. Just as the NRA wants republican and other like minded candidates to say "how loud?" when they are asked to bark, some netroots groups are starting to do the same thing. When I saw the blistering, relentless pressure put on Hillary for months by Markos and others for her to apologize for her Iraq vote, I got the sense that this wasn't just about an apology over the war. It was about demands for respect, about wanting an act of ass kissing to show appreciation for the new power order. If the mods on Daily Kos or Progressive Majority say "jump!", is the proper response for a progressive candidate to make up their own minds and do what they think is right or is the proper response to say "how high sir?"

It was I think in a way a test of power. It was Markos and others saying, "if we got Edwards to apologize, and get Hillary to apologize, we'll really be strutting our stuff. We'll REALLY get respect!"

I think Hillary and her people probably concluded that she couldn't apologize for that vote, without being roasted the following year in the general for pandering to special interests. You can be a progressive without going to all the meetings and towing all the lines.

Back in the 80's, we all learned the dangers of special interest groups getting control of candidates and their agendas, to the detriment of anyone who wasn't in those groups. On the left it was Labor and women's groups for instance, on the right it was the NRA and the Moral Majority. Is the netroots, as it becomes more organized and demands more mainstream respect, evolving into its own niche special interest? This is the feeling I get particularly when I read stuff like the long list Liza posted itemizing things using words like 'we' and 'you' and here's what 'we' want .etc If so, it is counterproductive. Voters, particularly general election voters, want INDEPENDENT minded candidates, those who have not constantly gone out of their way to kiss one group of voters' asses and not others. They want candidates who will think for themselves and not take positions, or apologize for past positions, simply because Markos or ten thousand other bloggers tell them to do so.

I have been in DFA since the beginning, but I don't regard a candidate bowing before that group, or any other group I'm in or support, to be some kind of pre-requisite for my support. I am not looking to have my ass kissed, and I am not requiring some public show of respect. I will not base my support of Hillary or any other candidate on whether he/she posts something on the DFA site, or goes on Daily Kos and grovels. What are you are asking for, in insisting Hillary or any other candidate go to this or that site, is symbolism. What we need to ask for in all candidates is substance and independence.