Of the votes cast so far (imputing caucus participant preferences from state delegate allocation, a method that punishes Edwards because of Nevada), Obama has won 47% of votes, Hillary 32%, and Edwards 19%.

In other words, the gap between Obama and Hillary -- 15% is larger than the gap between Hillary and Edwards -- 12%.

Simply put, Barack Obama has utterly dominated the nomination process so far.

Of course, the delegate situation is slightly different. Of pledged delegates, Obama has received 46%, Hillary 35%, and Edwards 19%.

So even though Obama "stole" a victory in Nevada, Hillary is the one who has benefited most from allocation quirks.

President Clinton may try to argue Obama only won this election because of black voters, but his argument doesn't ring true: Hillary lost 2 out 3 white voters tonight.

Simply put, Obama put together a broad enough coalition to thoroughly trounce her. I have a feeling President Clinton's going to come to regret his strategy of divide and conquer.

I wish Edwards had gotten to 20%, but he did better than I thought he would after Nevada and he picked up delegates.

However, I am thrilled that Barack Obama won a clear majority. I am glad that South Carolina gave not just him that victory, but America that victory. I'm glad that he won just about every county, and I'm glad that whites voted for him in similar numbers as voted for Hillary or Edwards.

It is impossible now to argue that Barack Obama is the black candidate, or the candidate of blacks.

Barack Obama, simply put, is the candidate who has now won 47% of all votes cast thus far.

Hillary has won 32%, and Edwards 19%.

He is dominating this election, and while I have substantive questions about his policy framework, it is clear that he is demonstrating that America is moving past the racial and ethnic divisions of the past.

It's equally clear that Bill and Hillary Clinton have not.

I'm not calling them racist -- I'm saying that if they have any hope of winning this nomination, they need to come to grips with the fact that America has changed.

So Bill Clinton is making the rounds, trying to pidgeonhole Barack Obama, arguing that Jesse Jackson won the Democratic primary in South Carolina twice, in 1984 and 1988.

The implication, of course, is that Obama is nothing more than the candidate of black voters, who only vote for blacks.

It's an idiotic argument.

Al Sharpton was slaughtered in 2004 by both John Edwards and John Kerry, not just by white voters, but also by black voters.

From early exit poll returns, it looks like Obama got about a quarter of white votes, within shouting distance of Hillary Clinton.

Obama did particularly well with young whites.

I'm not thrilled with Obama as a candidate, but as far as his electability goes, his race -- if anything -- is a small net positive.

Bill Clinton meanwhile, increasingly overshadows Hillary.

If Obama's victory tonight had been close, I'm not sure how much momentum he'd have gotten. With his huge victory, I suspect he'll catch on fire, catching up to Hillary, and at least splitting Super Tuesday.

If they do split Super Tuesday, and if Edwards can continue to collect delegates, a brokered convention is looking more and more likely.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Post-partisanship is nonsense. Mitt Romney nails John McCain is this web ad:

So I've created some new YouTube videos to poke fun at Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. It should be obvious they are parodies, but some Rethugs are taking them seriously and generating hilarious comments like these:

liberals are pro-choice, mike isn't liberals don't talk about jihadists, mike does liberals want to pull out of iraq, mike doesnt

Your video on the Morning After Pill, are you saying that Mitt Romney supports the use of this pill? I think a lot of Conservatives would really be interested in hearing that.

Barack hearts Jesus.

Today's numbers, with change from yesterday:

Obama: 39 (-6), Hillary 36 (unch.), Edwards 22 (+10)

Update: ARG's final GOP primary numbers had Huckabee with 33 and McCain with 26; McCain won, 33-30.

Mostly, I think it's just confirmation of Edwards' surge.

...delivering this message.

Hillary Pollster Mark Penn: Bill Did Fundamentally Change The Country

...or not:

"[Hillary] and John McCain are very close,” he said. “They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history and they’re afraid they’d put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other." -- Bill Clinton

Watching channel 8 here in Vegas as the Monte Carlo burns. Turns out Fox was claiming that Bellagio and New York, New York were being evacuated. Local news anchor comes on: we want to report that Fox's story is wrong. There are no evacuations.

Hilarious. Fox can't even cover a fire without lying.

Totally bizarre. Now I wish I'd taped the GOP debate last night.

Zogby's first full three-day sample since Monday night's debate shows that John Edwards is now within 4 points of Hillary Clinton and second place -- inside the poll's margin of error.

Since Zogby's first tracking poll (released on Wednesday), Edwards has climbed from 15% to 21%, erasing six points from Hillary's ten-point lead. According to John Zogby, Edwards' growing support is coming from African American voters and from undecided voters. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has dropped five points, down to 38%

Only a fool would predict what's going to happen on Saturday, but this much is clear: South Carolina has an opportunity to be a part of something big.

According to pollster John Zogby (emphasis added):

The real movement here is by John Edwards, who is the only one who continues to gain ground in our three-day tracking poll. His increase appears to be coming from African American voters who are slowly making up their minds – he is up to 7%.

Whether motivated by a desire to stay in second place, or taking a shot at first place, Hillary did return to South Carolina yesterday. The Zogby poll's internal daily numbers hinted at the possibility of a late surge by Hillary, such as the one that happened in New Hampshire, but with the high margin of error for daily numbers (for example, Edwards has ranged from anywhere from 13% to 27% over the past 4 days), it could just as easily be noise.

The important point is that in just two days, Edwards has climbed six points.

Every vote Edwards wins on Saturday will be hard-earned, and the only thing we can be sure of is that after the squabble in Myrtle Beach, South Carolinians are taking another look at him.

He now seems to have a realistic shot at hitting 20%, which would be a far better performance than I thought possible after the letdown in Las Vegas.

Finishing second, however, would be a freaking earthquake. I don't think it's likely, but it's possible, and it would be huge.

::

Edwards excluded from two new general election polls (LAT/Bloom & NBC/WSJ)

Last night, Keith Olbermann reminded viewers of John Edwards' argument that John McCain is the Republican to beat in November.

Olbermann presented results from two new public opinion surveys -- Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll, the other the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

Of course, as you would expect, John Edwards was excluded from the general election matchups in both polls.

As this chart shows, the available polling data shows that John Edwards is the most electable Democrat.

Edwards' electability isn't just demonstrated by polling data, however.

It's also the fact that Edwards is the only candidate who has faced a tough general election opponent. He's also the only candidate who has beaten a Republican in a red state. (He beat incumbent Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth in 1998.)

Meanwhile, neither Hillary nor Obama have ever faced a tough general election opponent.

They say they know how to beat Republicans in red states. Edwards has actually done it.

After this week's debate, you don't need polling data to know that John Edwards is the only Democrat ready to take on whoever the Republicans nominate, but it sure would be nice to be able to make apples-to-apples comparisons using fresh polling data.

There is a reason that FOX News has never once -- not one single time -- included Edwards in a general election poll: Rupert Murdoch doesn't want want to let Democrats know that the most progressive candidate in the race is also the most electable.

About half of Democrats say electability is their top priority, yet only six percent think Edwards is the most electable Democrat. By excluding him from polls, the corporate media is deliberately starving the public of useful information.

By the way, can I mention what a refreshing alternative Olbermann is to hacks like Mrs. Alan Greenspan (aka Andrea Mitchell), who this week actually referred to Bill Clinton as the third candidate in the Democratic race. Just imagine if every member of the media were as open-minded as he is.

::

Finishing second would be a political earthquake

As I said above, a second-place finish by Edwards on Saturday would be an absolute political earthquake.

I don't want to raise false hopes or expectations; in fact, I think a second-place finish would be such a big deal in part because I think it is not likely to happen.

It would show that despite what all the pundits believe, you can't count the votes until they are cast.

A second-place finish would allow John Edwards to spend the next two weeks berating the media for having ignored him; he could say that he prevailed despite the media, not because of the media, and he'd be right.

If the media continued to ignore his campaign, they would have no credible explanation for excluding him.

Even if he finishes around 20%, I think he has a strong case to make to the media; but if he finishes second, they have no easy comebacks.

Edwards has won about one-fifth of the votes cast so far (Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada), but it seems like he gets about 1% of the attention.

There's a lot of reasons we're all rooting for him to finish second, not the least of which is exposing the media for being the corrupt bastards that they are.

Zogby's latest poll shows that the Edwards surge is real.

The numbers: Obama 39, Hillary 24, Edwards 19.

Although Edwards is still in third, he may be tied or even ahead of Hillary at this point.

Zogby now says Edwards was at 19 on Tuesday (yesterday, he said it was 18).

Wednesday, he says Edwards is at 27.

Keep in mind that single-day samples have larger margins of error, but it sure looks like some positive movement.

It would be enormous if Edwards were to finish second, because there isn't another primary or caucus (other than Florida, which the candidates are not campaigning in) until Super Tuesday.

If Edwards finishes second, he is in a much better position from which to attack the media if the media doesn't cover him.

Barack Obama took time off from the campaign trail this week to sit down for an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network's David Brody.

They discussed a wide range of topics, but for the politically inclined, the most important part of the interview was this statement:

"Once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now, the question is, can she get the people who voted for me?" -- Barack Obama, interviewed by CBN's David Brody

This seems to be a warning shot fired at the Hillary campaign, telling them to back off their attacks on Obama.

Implicit in his comment is a threat that he won't campaign for Hillary in the fall, helping turn out the young people and Republicans he brought into the party in Iowa and New Hampshire.

If I go down, she's going down with me, he seems to be saying.

Obama's most recent radio ad supports this theory. If it were to air in any competitive state, it would almost certainly hurt Hillary's chances of winning the general election.

"Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected...she'll say anything, and change nothing. It's time to turn the page." -- Obama campaign ad

Fortunately, South Carolina isn't a competitive state in the general election, so this ad won't impact much of anything but the primary.

Still, by demonstrating his willingness to fight back with every bit the nastiness of his opponents, Obama is reminding the Clintons -- who have attacked him with impunity, oftentimes using misleading and offensive tactics -- that he is still a force to be reckoned with.

Barack Obama has become a very powerful force in Democratic Party politics. When he signals his willingness to play hardball, it's important to listen.

That being said, although I'm impressed by the comfort with which Obama is exerting his influence, I find it disconcerting that with every passing day, this election becomes more and more about the candidates and their personalities, and less and less about the issues that matter.

(Updated, 8.40am)

(h/t sarahlane)

Zogby is out with a poll showing signs of a post-debate bump for John Edwards.

According to Zogby's numbers, on Tuesday alone, Obama had 39%, Clinton 22%, and Edwards 18%, with 21% undecided or supporting other candidates.

Based on Zogby's numbers for Sunday through Tuesday, we can figure out what kind of bump Edwards got on Tuesday compared to Sunday and Monday. Here they are:

Undecided/other: +6%
Edwards : +4.5%
Clinton: -4.5%
Obama: -6%

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to know if this is just a random blip or a real trend, but I have to think that between Edwards' debate performance on Monday, and the ensuing press coverage which has continued through today, his numbers will just get better and better.

I'd be thrilled if Edwards did better than 20%, and ecstatic if he actually came in second, but that might be asking for too much.

Remember when Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney mixed it up in late November during the YouTube debate?

It made Mike Huckabee and John McCain smile.

Hopefully Democrats will wake up in time to realize they need to take another look at John Edwards.

"I hope Democrats don't take another look at John Edwards"
--- The unspoken words of every political operative in the GOP

::

If the squabble in Myrtle Beach made just one thing clear, it is this:

John Edwards is the only Democrat ready to take on the Republican Party this fall.

Edwards jabs Clinton for leaving S.C. By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER - Associated Press Writer

BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. --
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards criticized rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday for leaving South Carolina in the run-up to the state's primary, saying residents should question whether the New York senator would return if she became president.

"After the debate she flew out and she's been gone and she won't be back until I don't know - later in the week or until primary day," Edwards told a crowd of about 150 people in this small city. "What are the chances she's coming back when she's president of the United States?"

:: snip ::

"I will not forget where I came from," Edwards told the crowd during one of three campaign events he was to hold Wednesday alongside a bluegrass band. He said he's not a candidate who "thinks of Bennettsville as some place you fly over on the way from New York to Miami."

New Edwards ad:

Pretty good video from somebody out there in the Internet...

Barack Obama's got a lot of good things going for him, but it's really dangerous for politicians to claim that they are above politics, that they somehow transcend the weaknesses of typical politicians. Why?

Because from time to time, all politicians are full of crap, even the best ones. Even John Edwards.

The thing that allows us to forgive them is that we knew they were flawed before they proved it to us.

When you set the bar as high as Obama has, however, you are forcing yourself to be perfect. When you lie, you pretty much destroy the entire rationale for your political existence.

Here's what's happening right now in the campaign: Clinton is starting the process of demolishing Barack Obama. She's finally doing it now because she think John Edwards is no longer viable. Until this point, she thought it was a three-way game of chicken, but because she's discounting Edwards, she's starting the process of eliminating Obama as an opponent.

Her goal? To sweep the Super Tuesday states and end the primary on February 5.

Today Hillary put out a brutal web advertisement (see below). It is brutal because it's honest -- one hundred percent honest. There's really no recovery from it.

During Monday's debate, Obama forcefully denied ever having advocated single-payer. He said that he supported it in theory, but only if he were designing a health care system for scratch.

As this web ad shows, Obama was lying -- completely, totally, unequivocally.

Now that he's been caught in a full-throated lie, he moves from being St. Barack to just another politician.

If he'd run on a progressive economic platform, liberals like me might have been willing to defend him, but I see no reason to. He's made his own bed.

As I said, this ad is completely, devastatingly honest. Here is the raw footage from which it was made:

Now, if Hillary -- or even Edwards -- were caught in such a lie (they've probably uttered them) it wouldn't be quite as big a deal.

Why not?

Because neither of them have made honesty or a new kind of politics the cornerstone of their campaign.

Obama has.

This ad also shows him flip-flopping. He's claimed never to have flip-flopped, making him more electable than either Hillary or Edwards. Well, now that argument is toast.

This comes on the heels of the effective assault on his opposition to the Iraq war. The basic Clinton strategy there was to concede that Obama was in fact against the war in 2002, but that he'd subsequently waffled (which he did), and voted to fund the war (which he also did).

I'm going to predict that as of February 5, it will be clear that Obama will not be the Democratic Party's nominee.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Updated at 12:30

Howard Fineman agrees that John Edwards one the debate on Monday. He also raises an important question: was the Republican Party also a winner? Perhaps voters should take another look at John Edwards before it's too late.

Here's reactions from a panel of voters from around the country assembled by the New York Times. In general, pretty positive reception for Edwards. Makes you wonder, when will people start voting for the guy they really support?

...Republicans are worse. By a lot.

Making coded appeals to white racism is nothing new for Huckabee. Indeed, well before he was a nationally known political star, Huckabee nurtured a relationship with America's largest white supremacist group, the Council of Conservative Citizens. The extent of Huckabee's interaction with the racist group is unclear, but this much is known: he accepted an invitation to speak at the group's annual conference in 1993 and ultimately delivered a videotaped address that was "extremely well received by the audience."

Descended from the White Citizens Councils that battled integration in the Jim Crow South, including at Arkansas' Little Rock High School, the Council (or CofCC) has been designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In its "Statement of Principles," the CofCC declares, "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races."

5 million people watched last night's debate, a record audience according to CNN.

I hope most of them were in South Carolina, because anyone who watched that debate who wasn't 100% committed to Hillary or Obama should be voting for Edwards on Saturday -- unless they want more WWE-style debates.

Are there three people in this debate, not two? This kind of squabbling...how many children is this going to give health care, how many people are going to get an education from this, how many kids are going to be able to go to college because of this. We have got to understand, this is not about us personally. It is about what we are trying to do for this country, and what we believe in. -- John Edwards, during last night's debate

Last night, while Barack Obama was going Wal-Mart on Hillary Clinton, and while Hillary was going Rezko on Obama, and while they were both looking for more ammunition to use in yet another personal attack, John Edwards did something extraordinary.

John Edwards stepped up and showed some leadership. He reminded his opponents that this campaign isn't about their personal lives; it's about the future of our country, and what we should do to make it a better place.

Edwards talked about the issues, and in the process he took a debate that was descending into meaninglessness and made it meaningful.

He probably gave a some of his opponents' supporters a serious case of buyer's remorse...and he showed why he still belongs in the game.

Watch for yourself:

::::::

The good news is that even though the media has decided it's a two-person race, the media doesn't get to decide a single damn thing.

We can see where this campaign is going. There's no doubt. And for now, the only person keeping the entire campaign from going thermonuclear is John Edwards.

At the very least, voting for Edwards will help him stay in the race, not only keeping the race focussed on issues, but also earning enough delegates to exert considerable sway over the the nomination process and allowing him to keep progressive issues at the center of the debate.

At best, he could win the nomination. Just because the pundits say it's impossible doesn't mean it can't happen. There are still 47 states left to go.

:::::::

If you're reading this, you're probably an Edwards partisan, or perhaps undecided. (If you're an Obamacan or a Hillaryite, you've probably just too much time on your hands.)

We are perilously close to this campaign becoming nothing more than a personality contest. And if voters in South Carolina and other states don't support John Edwards, the campaign will become a personality contest.

If that happens, the issues we care about -- the issues America cares about -- will get pushed to the side.

For that reason, please help spread this video across the net.

People need to see with their own eyes what will happen if John Edwards gets erased from this campaign. I think if they see what the stakes are, we can begin to wake them up.

How to share this video (for non-geeks):

1. Click the button labeled "Menu" on the video player.
2. Underneath URL, click the button labeled "Copy to Clipboard".
3. Open your favorite e-mail program. In the body of a new e-mail message paste the URL which you just copied. You'll see something like this: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-OuoLlds9o)

That's it! If you want to embed the video onto web pages or comments, simply click the copy to clipboard button underneath embed and then select paste when writing a post or diary or comment.

Campaigns have their highs and their lows. So far, Iowa has been our high point, and last weekend in Nevada was our lower point.

The vote next weekend is our next big opportunity.

I think that if Edwards does well, we'll look back at last night as the moment that put John Edwards back in the game.

Update: The front page of the Charlotte Observer captured the moment!

Update 2: I posted this diary at about 6am, a bit over 2.5 hours ago. Since that time, this video has been played almost 1,000 times. That's a damn good start to getting the word out about Edwards' debate moment!

Update 3: Now 9 hours after the diary posted, the video has been played almost 4,500 times, along with about 1,500 for an earlier first version! Given that there are many other more prominent sources of information about the moment (take, for example, the Charlotte Observer front page in the first update), I'm pretty confident this moment is going to sink in with the Democratic primary electorate!

Update 4: CNN people meter shows voters preferred Edwards as Clinton and Obama squabbled

Without John Edwards in the race, the Democratic primary would very quickly descend into a nasty, scorched earth campaign. If you think it's bad now, you haven't seen anything. Hillary and Obama stepped up to the brink, and I think the main reason why they pulled back was the presence of John Edwards.

Although Edwards has been marginalized as a candidate, he's still a serious candidate, and if Hillary and Obama were to engage in all out political warfare, there's a chance Edwards could actually win the nomination. Certainly, he could win enough delegates to effectively control the convention.

Obama slams mandating families to get health care once again. Why didn't anyone call him out on the fact that his plan mandates health care coverage for children?

Edwards still has a role in nominating process

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 21, 2008

(snip)

The mystery as to why Edwards' campaign hasn't drawn more support is simultaneously baffling and simple to explain. His positions on most major issues are similar to Clinton's and Obama's; often he has been the first to state a position only to have them follow with a similar policy.

His health care plan offers universal coverage where Obama's doesn't. Clinton's plan is similar to Edwards', and was released seven months after his.

This month, Edwards called for a quicker and more complete pullout of U.S. troops and training forces from Iraq than either Clinton or Obama. In 2002, then-Sen. Edwards voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, as did Clinton. Obama publicly opposed it.

Lost in Clinton's boasting of her political experience is that Edwards is the most experienced and vetted national candidate; he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee four years ago. Clinton has been pulling in strong numbers of working-class voters thus far, despite Edwards counting on the support of many major unions throughout the country - the folks experienced at doing the thankless grunt work of a political campaign.

He was among the first candidates to fully embrace online campaigning - even experimenting with new social networking tools like Twitter - yet he has only a fraction of Obama's presence on Facebook, the online tool that proved valuable in organizing young voters in Iowa.

Edwards has talked most aggressively about removing the power of corporate influence from politics, but voters have been telling exit pollsters that Obama is the candidate most likely to bring the amorphous concept of "change" to Washington.

Even Edwards' supporters admit that his problems have less to do with policy differences than with Edwards getting overlooked in the media's focus on the historic candidacies of Clinton and Obama, the best-funded woman and African American to run for president. Even after Edwards finished second in the Iowa caucus this month, he received only a fraction of the media coverage that Obama and Clinton did in the following days, and slightly more than former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican who barely competed there, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's campaign coverage index.

It's not just corporate media blackout of John Edwards.

It's also a big money blackout, and it's just as bad.

Maybe even worse.

(Note: The figures in this diary are somewhat out-of-date because the last Federal Elections Commission filing was on September 30. We'll have updated numbers in the next couple of of weeks. When they come in, expect the gap to widen significantly.)

In the 2008 fundraising battle, Hillary Clinton has outpaced John Edwards by $60 million and Barack Obama has outraised him by $50 million.

Edwards' fundraising disadvantage has served as a muzzle, depriving him of the dollars he needs to compete throughout the country. In Iowa and New Hampshire he was heavily outspent; in Nevada, where Hillary and Obama took over the airwaves (with an assist from Ron Paul) it was as if John Edwards didn't even exist.

In short, it's the big money blackout of John Edwards.

It's not just Hillary. It's Obama, too.

Edwards trails Obama by $50 million.

As with Hillary, most of the gap is from big money donors, even though Obama has raised more than twice as much as Edwards from small donors.

Combined, Hillary and Obama have a $110 million fundraising advantage over John Edwards.

$90 million of that comes from big donors.

Among small donors, just $789,000 separates John Edwards from Hillary Clinton. Yet among big donors, the gap is $57 million.

In effect, a relative handful of big donors has drowned out the voices of small donors who simply cannot afford to donate one thousand or two thousand -- let alone $4,600 -- to a Presidential campaign.

Out of all the presidential candidates, John Edwards ranks sixth in fundraising. Three Republicans -- McCain, Giuliani, and Romney -- have outraised him.

Despite the fact that these three Republicans have collectively outraised John Edwards by about $50 million, Edwards has raised more money than each of them from small donors.

It's the big donors that give them a bigger voice than Edwards.

Even though I might be jealous, I don't begrudge Hillary or Obama for having the support that they do amongst big donors.

I'm not asking them to tie their hands behind their backs.

Given their access to financial resources, they would have been crazy to participate in the hopelessly inadequate pubic financing system, which is proving itself to be even less useful than originally promised.

Even though Edwards and Clinton raised about the same amount of money from small donors, big donors have overwhelmingly favored her.

That's hardly surprising. She's a sitting United States Senator and as such, has more power than John Edwards. She's got a better fundraising network.

The same is true for Barack Obama.

As a result, Clinton and Obama have received 88% of big dollar donations. Just 12% have gone to John Edwards.

A lot of you who will be reading this have already donated money to John Edwards, just as I have. Perhaps you are one of the relatively few big donors to John Edwards.

Whatever the case, it's become very clear that is that there are precious few big donors who are enamored of a populist message.

Meanwhile, there are are plenty of big donors that like corporate-friendly messages, and to those candidates they offer their support aggressively and often.

As a result, my voice is has been blacked out.

Your voice is been blacked out.

It makes me angry.

We've still got freedom of speech.

We've still got the first amendment.

But even if we have all the freedom in the world, if we don't have a voice -- it's not enough.

Matt Stoler offers a good explanation of why Obama's Reagan comments we're wrong. Imagine if Bush said this:

We're still having the same arguments. It's all around regulations and smaller government and it's all ... even when you discuss traditional values the frame of reference is all around abortion. Well, that's not my frame of reference. My frame of reference is "what works." When I first came out against abortion, my first line was I don't oppose all abortions, specifically, to make clear that this is not a theocratic, you know, snake-handling prayer vigil kind of approach."

I think Lyndon Johnson changed the trajectory of the country in a way that JFK did not and Nixon did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of racism and anti-communism and government refusing to raise taxes to care for the poor and the elderly, I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was, we want a return to that sense of community and compassion that had been missing."

If you're a pro-choice Democrat, you'd probably be somewhat happy. If you're a pro-life Republican, you'd probably never vote for Bush in a primary.

(h/t TheShoveler)

AP is countering John Edwards' claim to be the Democrat most capable of beating John McCain by citing a poll which excluded Edwards.

Edwards has made the electability claim against McCain in campaign ads that are based on a CNN poll taken before Iowa's caucuses that had him as the only Democrat with more support than Republicans in head-to-head match ups. But since then Obama won Iowa and Clinton won New Hampshire. After the New Hampshire contest, CNN's polling showed Clinton and Obama lead GOP contenders in head-to-head matchups.

The problem? A month earlier in that same poll, Edwards beat McCain by 8 points in the same poll while Obama tied.

In fact, if you look at every poll (there's eleven) taken since July 1 testing Edwards, Clinton, and Obama versus McCain, John Edwards is the most electable.

Here's the numbers:

I think I'd better forgive Obama for this one. From ObamaBlog:

I haven't seen it, but I just read it, and it was fantastic. He rejected many of the things that I was worried his recent commentary in Reno had embraced, suggesting to me that he's just doing what politicians do best.

Now the only thing that I want to be reassured on is that he recognizes the limits of the libertarian approach towards dealing with social injustice.

The best recent example that pops to my mind of the limitations of this approach is typified in this NYT oped by his economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee.

Goolsbee's take is massively, terribly wrong, and obviously so, even at the time.

‘Irresponsible’ Mortgages Have Opened Doors to Many of the Excluded By AUSTAN GOOLSBEE

Almost every new form of mortgage lending — from adjustable-rate mortgages to home equity lines of credit to no-money-down mortgages — has tended to expand the pool of people who qualify but has also been greeted by a large number of people saying that it harms consumers and will fool people into thinking they can afford homes that they cannot.

Congress is contemplating a serious tightening of regulations to make the new forms of lending more difficult. New research from some of the leading housing economists in the country, however, examines the long history of mortgage market innovations and suggests that regulators should be mindful of the potential downside in tightening too much.

(snip)

...the mortgage market has become more perfect, not more irresponsible. People tend to make good decisions about their own economic prospects. As Professor Rosen said in an interview, “Our findings suggest that people make sensible housing decisions in that the size of house they buy today relates to their future income, not just their current income and that the innovations in mortgages over 30 years gave many people the opportunity to own a home that they would not have otherwise had, just because they didn’t have enough assets in the bank at the moment they needed the house.”

(snip)

For be it ever so humble, there really is no place like home, even if it does come with a balloon payment mortgage.

This was wrong in so many ways. To wit:

While homeownership rates for whites has gone up under George W. Bush, homeownership for blacks has barely increased.

As the mortage meltdown continues, I'd be surprised if it doesn't become a net decrease, further.

Ideas like the one embraced above are dangerous. They not only raise false hopes, they make an unjust situation even worse, while pricks like Angelo Mozilo make out like bandits.

Rather than focusing on exotic mortgage products as a way to achieve social justice, what about taking the real problem head-on -- rising income inequality, particularly by race.

One of Obama's current proposals is allowing non-itemizers to deduct interest payments from their income taxes.

That will be a nice little tax bonus to people who don't usually get them, but it strikes me as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

What we need to do is protect people from manipulative insurance brokers, mortage companies, and real estate agents with reasonable but strong regulations.

Just as importantly, we need to deal with the underlying issues driving economic inequality: poor education, poverty, the criminal justice system, and both sexism and racism.

Today, Barack Obama's speech suggested he recognizes that fundamental truth. I hope to see more of that from him in the years to come.

Senator Obama, congratulations on your big victory. It was hard-fought, and richly-deserved.

You've talked the talk about the importance of winning a mandate, and yesterday you walked the walk, winning a clear and resounding victory in the state of Nevada.

Although your opponent won 51% of the delegates, and was supported by 48% of caucus-goers, you pulled off a stunning win-while-behind victory with just 45% of the delegates and 41% of caucus-goers.

All week long, you've been battling for the important principle of one-person, one-vote, but today you celebrate, because winning is awesome, and screw what you said the day before yesterday.

Some people call it hypocrisy, but it's not. It's change we can believe in.

Senator Obama, the best part of your victory today is it reminds us of your bipartisan spirit. You won the support of rural Nevada by mythologizing Ronald Reagan, and today you take advantage of a delegate tallying system that would make George W. Bush blush.

The media has been treating you horribly unfairly by ignoring this historic win. In fact, it's part of a broader pattern of media bias.

For some time now, it's been clear that the media users state delegates to determine the order of finish in caucus states.

For example, in Iowa, the media declared John Edwards to be the second-place winner, because he got more state delegates than Hillary Clinton, the third-place loser.

Of course, the media ignored the fact that Hillary Clinton actually got more national delegates than John Edwards.

The fact is that Hillary was the true second-place winner in Iowa, and you defended her right to claim second-place as her own, speaking out her behalf, your voice ringing clear as a bell in the wilderness.

The same thing happened in New Hampshire.

On November 8, the biased media reported that Hillary Clinton had beaten you, but the fact is that you tied her.

It was outrageous then that they reported Hillary had won New Hampshire, and it's outrageous now that that are reporting she won Nevada.

Just like you spoke up passionately then to defend her second-place finish in Iowa, and to assert the fact that you tied in New Hampshire, today I passionately defend your crushing victory, in the face of great odds.

You won, fair and square, and deserve all the congratulations in the entire world, and you get them, from me.

I will stand with you, and demand the media recognize your awesomeness, even if that makes you the laughingstock of the world.

There is nothing more important than defending your right to claim victory here, at all costs, for if Hillary were to win a majority of national convention delegates, it would be nothing more than a tyranny of the majority.

Tee hee. Ha ha ha.

He's outdoing himself now.

Losing. Respect. Fast.