I'm sure many of you were absolutely crushed and devastated I didn't post anything today, and for that I apologize.

In my defense, I've got a pretty good excuse: I've been offline since shortly after waking up this morning. According to Embarq (my DSL provider), all of southern Las Vegas had an outage today.

So in case you were wondering why I hadn't made any posts today -- that's why. Don't worry, I haven't become a McCainiac or a Clintonite!

Although it really sucks being without the internet, I did manage to use the time offline somewhat productively, putting the finishing touches on a new video that I think you all will like. I'll probably be posting that tomorrow (Tuesday).

(I also saw the key parts of the Mariners' victory of the Rangers, and grabbed dinner with a friend in town for the wireless show, so I guess you can do some things without connectivity!)

Now I have the daunting task of catching up on everything I missed today. I'll do it triage style so I can get some sleep tonight.

Regular posting will resume tomorrow, and just to reduce the risk of another outtage, I decided to order cable modem high-speed service as a backup.

Tomorrow's Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)

New Backing for Obama As Party Seeks Unity

By JACKIE CALMES, March 31, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Slowly but steadily, a string of Democratic Party figures is taking Barack Obama's side in the presidential nominating race and raising the pressure on Hillary Clinton to give up.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say.

Helping to drive the endorsements is a fear that the Obama-Clinton contest has grown toxic and threatens the Democratic Party's chances against Republican John McCain in the fall.

How can you look at this and not see the strength of Obama's candidacy? It's freakin' March!

Today's headline in the WaPo: Clinton Vows To Stay in Race To Convention.

It was a beautiful thing to see -- because the moment a presidential candidate is forced to vow that he or she isn't quitting, you know they are toast.

Examples from recent history:

Feb 5: Romney Vows to Stay in GOP Race

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pledged to fight all the way to the Republican nominating convention this summer if necessary, despite being overpowered by John McCain in Super Tuesday contests.

Feb 4: Huckabee vows to stay in race

WASHINGTON -- Mike Huckabee hasn't won a Republican presidential contest in a month. The result: money is tighter, his staff is smaller and he can't seem to get the attention he once did. Still, he says he's sticking around for the long haul -- well past Tuesday's coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses if need be.

Jan 24: Giuliani Vows to Stay in the Race

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has staked his candidacy on the Florida primary only to see his standing in statewide polls slip, said here Thursday afternoon that he would stay in the race even if he loses on Jan. 29.

Jan 6: Edwards vows to stay in race to convention

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Democrat John Edwards said Sunday he will stay in the presidential race through the party's convention in late August, even if he fails to win any of the early presidential primary states. "This is the call of my life, and I have no intention of stopping," Edwards said on ABC's This Week. "I'm in this through the convention and to the White House." Asked specifically if he'd remain a candidate even if he failed to garner a win over the next month, Edwards said, "Absolutely."

I think breaking 50% in Gallup for the first time warrants a little celebration though, don't you? Especially when it's coupled with a sizable lead in the Rasmussen poll?

So the WaPo discovered an inconsistency in Barack Obama's personal story -- apparently his father came to America during the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower, not John F. Kennedy as Obama had previously stated (and apparently believed). In addition, the WaPo notes a well-documented anachronism in Obama's story. He's said in his past his parents met after Selma, but Selma was four years after his birth.

These are the kinds of things people get wrong all the time about their personal histories -- or at least I do. I can't count the number of homes I lived in before college, but I was born in North Carolina, and then lived briefly in Denver, followed by Bainbridge Island, WA, Seattle, WA, New York, NY, and then Philadelphia, PA. Throw in a month or so in DC, a summer in Spain, and an exchange program to Mexico and it gets confusing.

It's similar to Hillary's story about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first to summit Mount Everest. The problem: he did so a few years after she was born.

Just one of those things.

The article itself is very interesting and offers a window into Obama's personal story that make it worth a read, despite its emphasis on incongruities.

And don't get too frustrated with Michael Dobbs, who wrote the piece -- he's the journalist most responsible for exposing the Bosnia nonsense for what it was.

Links (via HuffPo): McCain story | Clinton story

The Huffington Post perfectly captures the essential feature of a couple of interesting stories with this image.

All three candidates actually have their weaknesses on subprime, but the key non-policy difference between Obama and McCain/Clinton is that the latter are surrounded by people whose financial incentives cloud their policy judgments. In the case of McCain, it results in a radical Hooverism; in the case of Clinton, it means that I don't trust a single promise she makes. The people around her are all tied to corporate interests. Moreover, her husband signed the legislation that McCain's guru helped pass into law.

Obama, on the other hand, is much more of an outsider. He doesn't have top lobbyists running his campaign. He has promised to keep them off his White House staff, and if he keeps that promise, he'll end up with a presidency that is much more responsive to the needs of average Americans than any president in recent history.

There's a lot of talk about what the Democratic Party should do in 2012 and beyond to avoid nomination battles like the current one. I actually don't think much needs to be changed beyond the elimination of superdelegates.

If it weren't for superdelegates, the campaign would have been over on March 4, if not earlier. People will suggest that the proportional allocation system is the problem -- it's not. It's actually a good thing. Winning 10 states with 60%+ is much stronger than winning California with 50%+1 and should be treated as such.

The problem we have right now is the possibility that superdelegates could overturn the results of the primaries and caucuses. That's the only reason this campaign is continuing. Without superdelegates, it would be over.

I'll also bet you that all the elected officials who are superdelegates wish that there weren't any superdelegates this time around -- the last thing they want to do is vote one way or the other in August!

A reader sent me this video, which I think is his first video ever, at least on YouTube.

It's a bit goofy in a good way and pokes fun at a slight little math problem that Hillary had the other day.

Is it possible this explains her campaign's delegate predicament?

Let me know what you think.

It's the netroots in action!

p.s.: If you like this homegrown video, be sure to digg it!

I have to admit to being overwhelmed by all the numbers coming out of the Texas conventions today, so I'll just settle for the bottom-line: Barack Obama continues to grow his lead. The Field, Burnt Orange, and turneresq at Daily Kos all have more and understand this far better than I do.

Is it okay if I change my mind? Gallup +7. Rasmussen +6.

Actually, I'll claim consistency on this: my concern was when both of those polls were moving in opposite directions. Now that they are both moving in the same direction, each with healthy leads, we could be seeing something real.

Then again, it could still be luck. I do live in Las Vegas after all...

Update: Obama has pulled ahead of McCain in the RCP average for the first time in quite awhile. Clinton still trails.

Ohio is a closed primary state, with a twist. Unlike some closed primary states, you can change parties on the same day that you vote -- but according to state law, you must pledge support to your new party.

The idea here is to deter voters from one party voting in another's primary purely to muck up the process. For example, since McCain became the de facto GOP nominee in late February, Rush Limbaugh has encouraged Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton to muck up the Democratic primary. In Mississippi, one-quarter of Clinton's voters were Republicans, and while there's some debate over whether Limbaugh was the primary reason for this, there's no debating that a large majority of Hillary's Mississippi Republicans had no intention of voting for her in the general.

Couldn't be...could it?

Yesterday, I noted a funny example of Hillary Clinton's pattern of prevarication: her campaign attacked him for lying, except the claim they made was false. They said:

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor.

The University of Chicago, where Barack Obama was a law professor, then released a statement defending him:

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School.

Today, I learned (via psericks) that the source for Clinton's claim was in part a Republican National Committee press release. Moreover, they did it in a cleverly dishonest way. Here's what their citation looked like:

[Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]

Notice anything missing? Like a link? Here's what the citation would have looked like with links:

[Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]

Now first of all, it doesn't really matter what your citations are when your facts are wrong, but least if rely on multiple sources for an assertion that turns out to be false, you have a strong claim to having made a mistake in good faith.

So I'll give them a mulligan on the Sun-Times article. But the Hotline Blog item is an entirely different matter -- because it turns out the blog entry was merely a regurgitation of an RNC press release.

April 09, 2007
RNC To Blast Obama As "Fabricator"

Barack Obama will guest on CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman" tonight. He "shares the star billing" with actress Halle Berry (Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times, 4/9).

The RNC will blast e-mail "Obama's Top Ten Fabrications" to the press later today. (We'll add that these are "alleged" fabrications, and some of them are... a bit of a stretch.)

They include: "#6: Obama's Campaign Only Had 'Very Attenuated' Ties To The 1984 Ad Creator"

#10: Obama Was A Constitutional Law Professor

Even: "#8: Obama Was Fluent In Indonesian As A Child"

The full release, after the jump. This might be the first RNC e-mail the Clinton campaign will applaud and file away.

Emphasis added.

Are journalists paying attention to this kind of stuff? They should treat this as an insult to their intelligence. And they should treat this as yet another reason to accept nothing that the Clinton campaign says as truthful -- unless independently verified by an third-party.

General George S. Patton:

Never let the enemy pick the battle site.

Senator John S. McCain (March 24):

General Petraeus is correct when he says that the central battle ground in the struggle against Al Qaeda is Iraq and Osama Bin Laden just confirmed that. So General Petraeus and I and Osama Bin Laden are in agreement. It is hard to understand why Senator Clinton and Senator Obama do not understand that. I don’t know if its naïveté or what the problem is, but it’s obvious that they are dead wrong.

::

Here's a new video I put together on McCain and bin Laden's trap:

Gov. Schweitzer with his wife

I got nothing against Bob Casey, in fact I'm thrilled he endorsed Obama, but I don't see him as a VP.

1. If we need him to win PA, we're not winning the general.
2. He's a junior Senator -- outside of PA, nobody knows him.
3. He's pro-life.

I could see Brian Schweitzer, though. It's not that Montana is necessarily a battleground state on its own -- it's more that Schweitzer (I think) compliments Obama in a good way. He's independent, just like Obama, but he's also got that swashbuckling, shoot-from-the-hip attitude that plays well in entire Mountain West, which collectively should become a battleground, if not this election then in elections to come.

Almost 1,000,000 views of my videos!

Pretty soon, there will have been more than 1,000,000 views of the videos on my YouTube channel.

When I started futzing around with YouTube last year, I never even considered the possibility that I'd be able to communicate with so many people. I think one of the first videos I put online was of a bird pooping on President Bush so that my sister could see the video. Not a bad way to start.

Starting last November, after the Las Vegas debate, I went about trying to create videos with a message -- and most of them sucked terribly. I'd never done any real video editing before then. After Thanksgiving, I bought Adobe Premiere Elements packaged with Photoshop Elements. Combined, I think I spent $99.

Other than that, I haven't spent a dime on video creation -- just used my existing PCs and video capture equipment (I've built several HTPCs, which are essentially glorified DVRs).

I've gotten a little better with video editing, though it's still hit and miss. I still put out my fair share of clunkers.

But it's still pretty exciting to think that for $99 (and a lot of time), I've been able to reach a pretty large audience -- as a citizen.

It gives me faith in our democracy, and hope for our future. I would never underestimate the obstacles we face to achieving the change we desire, but I'm starting to think: maybe Barack Obama really is right, after all. Maybe we can do it.

An accomplishment that's been a wee bit overlooked.

It's going to be interesting watching President Obama govern. I don't recall a presidential candidate with such enthusiastic supporters, both conservative and progressive. It's a great thing for the campaign -- but it could be a challenge once he's in office. The good thing is that I think most of his supporters are unified by pragmatism in the best sense of the word -- not Machiavellian pragmatism, but the pragmatism that recognizes we do need to do something about global warming, we do need to do something about health care, we do need to strengthen the economy -- and of course, we do need to end the war in Iraq.

Early in the week, under fire for her constant pattern of prevarication, Hillary Clinton's campaign attacked Barack Obama...as a liar:

Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama’s Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements

Exhibit number 1?

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor.

(Emphasis in original.)

Today, the University of Chicago, where Barack Obama was a law professor released a statement defending him:

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School.

Oops. Can you trust anything they say?

(h/t: chumley)

Coming soon to a superdelegate near you, Mark J. Penn presents another unbelievable tale from Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post says: "dubious...overstating her significance."

The UK Telegraph's Toby Harnden: "Give me a break...really pushing the blarney boat."

The sequel to Hillary in Tuzla.

Hillary in Ireland: "Peace at Last."

Opening summer 2008.

Pennsylvania's Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Casey -- now for Obama. Casey will join Obama on his six-day bus tour around the state -- his first stretch of serious campaigning in Pennsylvania.

I can't say how much this will mean at the polls, but when I used to live in Philadelphia, Senator Casey's father was very popular. More importantly, this is evidence of a growing trend of superdelegates closing ranks behind Barack Obama.

Chris Dodd takes it a step beyond Bill Richardson. We're still going to have Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Indiana, as we probably should. But once those contests are over, unless Hillary Clinton has won at least 60% of the pledged delegates it will be over. The superdelegates will end it. And even if she does get 60%, it doesn't mean she's won -- it just means she'll probably continue the campaign, albeit still as a huge underdog to overtake Obama's lead.

Update: Howard Dean chimes in, setting July 1 as a drop-dead date.

It's even worse in Vegas casinos, where I play. The Wynn supposedly has the cleanest chips.

When Cards and Germs Are Wild
One of the fastest ways to catch a cold? Your regular poker game.

No matter what version of poker you play, it’s a game where bluffers prosper. But some scientists have found that money isn’t the only thing people put to chance when they gather around the card table.

If you play the game regularly, you are likely to win an opponent’s achy, oozing cold. In fact, the sniffles are a more sure bet than going home with the most chips.

Lucky you. “Let’s say you’re sick, you cough into your hands, you pick up the cards and you shuffle and deal,” says Dr. Will Sawyer, of Cincinnati who has devoted his career to spreading the gospel of proper hand washing.

There's been no shortage of public handwringing about whether or not Barack Obama can attract support from white voters, particularly white men. Some of it has even been pushed by Hillary Clinton's campaign itself.

Most of the analysis has overlooked one important fact, however: Hillary Clinton has a bigger problem with white voters than Barack Obama.

New data from the Pew Research Center illustrates my point: although Hillary Clinton leads McCain among white women by three points, she trails among white men by twenty-three points. Meanwhile, Obama trails among white women by just one point, and trails among white men by fifteen. Obama's net margin relative to Clinton drops by four points among white women, but increases by eight points among white men.

Overall, that means Obama is doing slightly better with white voters than is Hillary Clinton.

And this is according to a poll conducted entirely after the Wright controversy played itself out.

Here's the data:

Update II: I neglected to make the point that that Obama's 43% support among white voters is actually strong -- especially in the wake of Wright. In 1992, Bill Clinton won 39% of white voters. In 1996, he won 43%. In 2000, Gore won 42%. In 2004, Kerry won 41%. So 43% is a pretty good starting point, especially with 7% undecided. (Obama currently trails McCain by 7%, while Gore lost by 12% and Kerry lost by 17%.)

Independents describing each candidate as:

• Honest: Clinton 44% - Obama 67%
• Phony: Clinton 49% - Obama 27%
• Hard-to-like: Clinton 50% - Obama 16%
• Inspiring: Clinton 49% - Obama 71%

(Pew)

Via Politico's Avi Zenilman, blogging for the vacationing Ben Smith, a newly released Pew Poll finds:

White Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to express less tolerant views on race. In addition, nearly a quarter of Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim.

And:

There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama's affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. While voters who heard "a lot"about Reverend Wright's controversial sermons are more likely than those who have not to correctly identify Obama as a Christian, they are not substantially less likely to still believe that he is Muslim. Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim.

Update: Here's a cross-tab focusing white Democrats and Democratic-leaners with racist, sexist, or blindly patriotic values, and of those who hold the false perception that Obama is a Muslim.

These voters are a substantial part of Hillary Clinton's base. One important question is whether this is serendipity for the Clinton campaign, or if she has actively shaped their unfavorable views towards Obama.

...to the daily tracking polls.

I know that Obama is leading Clinton in the Gallup Daily by four points. That's nice.

But it doesn't matter. a) Most voters have already voted and Obama has already won amongst those voters. b) Even if they hadn't voted, has any poll actually been on the money this entire campaign (only a slight exaggeration). c) Most of the changes we're seeing in these polls is purely random. Trust me on this point -- I live in Vegas and play poker. I know random, and I know skill. And this is mostly random.

There's been a surprising amount of buzz hinting at the possibility that Barack Obama might offer the VP slot to Mike Bloomberg -- speculation inspired by Bloomberg's introduction of Obama before today's economic policy speech in New York.

I'd bet pretty heavily against an Obama-Bloomberg pairing. For starters, the main thing that Bloomberg would bring to the table is the same thing that Obama already has: appeal to upper-income Democrats and independents. Geographically, Bloomberg has nothing to offer, and there's no indication that he'd be a great campaigner. I've even heard the idea that Obama ought to pick Bloomberg because he's Jewish. Speaking as a Jew, I can assure you that whether or not someone is Jewish is irrelevant to me -- and I think most Jews. I was not at all pleased with the selection of Joe Lieberman by Al Gore, for example.

Obama needs someone who will put a little pickup truck into his campaign. Names that come to mind are Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and Mark Brian Schweitzer. I'm sure there are others that would be good -- just not Bloomberg.

I could see Bloomberg as Treasury Secretary though.

Or is it just huge?

Here's why I ask. The Swamp reports that a new survey finds:

If the election were held today, California's likely voters would favor Obama over McCain by 49 to 40 percent, according to the survey. A Clinton-McCain match-up is a virtual tie: 46 percent Clinton, 43 percent McCain.

That's worth repeating: in California, "a Clinton-McCain match-up is a virtual tie."

The centerpiece of Hillary Clinton's Bosnia tale is that she was the first presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt to visit a war zone.

Problem is...it's not true.

It turns out that former First Lady Pat Nixon visited a Vietnamese war zone in 1969 -- a trip the Washington Post today describes as more dangerous than Clinton's "by almost any measure."

Clinton's "first since Roosevelt" story is not a new one. Here's the opening sentence of the Washington Post's 1996 article about her trip there:

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton invoked the memory of Eleanor Roosevelt as she visited U.S. troops in Bosnia today.

Now that Clinton is under fire for her umpteenth falsehood about the Bosnia story, her campaign is responding by arguing that contemporaneous accounts did not mention Pat Nixon's trip.

As the WaPo's Michael Dobbs argues, this is absurd.

Just because something has appeared in a newspaper does not mean that is entirely accurate. The Clinton camp has circulated a March 26, 1996, quote from a Post article describing Clinton's Bosnia trip as "the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone." The article went on to say that "other first ladies have visited troops abroad but never in front-line positions," citing the examples of Bush and Nixon.

How these factoids got into the Post story is unclear, but they offer a somewhat misleading picture of the relative risks being run by the three first ladies. By almost any measure, the Nixon trip to Saigon in July 1969 should surely count as the most dangerous of the three visits. Unlike Bosnia in March 1996 and Saudi Arabia in November 1990, South Vietnam was an actual, not "potential," war zone in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet offensive, according to retired Army Lt. Col. Gene Boyer, the Nixons' chief helicopter pilot.

You know, I went to Bosnia shortly after the peace accords were signed, when it was safe enough to go to our base in Tuzla, but not very safe to go anywhere else. I couldn't get into Sarajevo. But I was able to fly out of Tuzla into two base camps -- Camp Alicia and Camp Bedrock -- to visit with the men and women who were there on the front lines of Americas peace-keeping efforts.

-- Hillary Clinton, April 9, 1999

(h/t: Andrew Sullivan)

Some top-line observations culled from Chuck Todd's writeup:

• Clinton's approval ratings is just 37% (48 disapprove), her lowest since 2001
  
• Obama's approval rating is 49% (32% disapprove)
  
• The head-to-head matchups were essentially tied, 45-45 for Obama-Clinton, and Obama +2 against McCain, Clinton -2 against McCain
  

Todd concludes with some very good news for Obama (in the context of tough news for the party as a whole):

One thing about these head-to-head matchups: Our pollsters found that for the second poll in a row, more than 20 percent of Clinton and Obama supporters say they would support McCain when he's matched up against the other Democrat. There is clearly some hardening of feelings among some of the most core supporters of both Democrats, though it may be Obama voters, who are more bitter in the long run.

Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, initially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.

Considering the doom-and-gloom some predicted for Obama with regard to the Wright controversy, the overall tenor of the electorate appears to still be favorable for him.

I've lived in Las Vegas for the better part of 3 years now, but I don't think I'll ever get used to ~80 degree temperatures in March.

The good news is that I've successfully defeated the temptation to turn on the AC...

Or is it age? HuffPo:

Poll: McCain's Age Problem

A new poll from the NBC and the Wall Street Journal finds that voters have problems voting for a candidate of McCain's age, apparently far more than object to supporting either an African American or female candidate. MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell previewed the poll earlier today (the full results will be announced later tonight).

I just listened to a few minutes of Chris Matthews, Eugene Robinson, and Ron Brownstein discussing the Gallup survey showing more Clinton voters (28%) would support McCain in a general election than Obama supporters would support McCain (19%).

This is nothing new. It's a trend identified about a month ago by Pew. John Aravosis wrote about it in AMERICAblog earlier this month.

Implicit in their discussion is notion that Clinton's "downscale white voters" (as they like to call them) won't vote for Obama because Obama is black. But another explanation -- one that I find more plausible -- is that the reason why Clinton voters are more likely to oppose Obama than vice versa is that Clinton has been attacking Obama for longer than Obama has been attacking Clinton.

Now that Obama has started to return fire, the portion of his supporters who wouldn't support Clinton has increased -- from 10% in the Pew Poll to 19% today. (Clinton's numbers were virtually unchanged, 25% then, 28% now.) It makes complete sense that if one candidate attacks another, his or her hard core supporters will turn negative on the target of the attacks.

It's just a hypothesis, but I like it more than the other one.

I've had a couple of e-mails come over the transom that convey false allegations against HRC. From everything I can tell, the people who sent them weren't knowingly spreading false information, but the information nonetheless needs debunking.

The first false e-mail essentially states that one of the pastors of Hillary Clinton's church was just convicted of child molestation. The idea of the e-mail is to contrast HRC's exploitation of the Jeremiah Wright flap with her own pastor. Problem is, it's not true -- the pastor in question is the Clinton County pastor, not the Clinton family pastor. (Even if it were true I wouldn't think it should be an issue other than to point out Hillary Clinton's rank hypocrisy on the politicization of religion.)

The second false e-mail passes along a Dick Morris column claiming that Hillary Clinton made up a story about Chelsea Clinton's life being in mortal danger on 9/11. That's also not true -- it's something Morris has been peddling for some time now. It's important to keep in mind that you can't trust anything Dick Morris says about the Clintons -- they have a long and tortured relationship, and are currently on the outs. If anything, Dick Morris is a prime example of why Hillary Clinton shouldn't be president. Dick Morris is, after all, the guy who brought Mark Penn into Hillary Clinton's orbit; he's the guy who helped them perfect triangulation.

I'm not trying to call anybody out. It's just important to be accurate -- there's no reason to employ the kind of gutter politics that Clinton's campaign has been associated with. She has got more than enough legitimate targets for criticism anyway.

(Here's the inspiration for the title of this post.)

I don't say that in some sort of chest-thumping Lee Stevens kind of way.

What we do in this election will make a difference for the entire world. And it's not just pressing issues like our war in Iraq. It's also issues like global warming and our energy policy -- both of which in the long-run may be even more important.

Many Americans don't realize that if we paid as much attention to the rest of the world as they pay to us, we would be a hell of a lot better off as a nation.

Listening to HRC's press conference from yesterday and a reporter asks whether she'd consider Ed Rendell for VP. Answer? "Well, it would be premature to talk about something like that." Ha! It wasn't premature just a couple of weeks ago to condescendingly dangle the prize, but now it is?

Three things occur to me now that Hillary Clinton has decided to make Barack Obama's relationship with his pastor a political issue.

1. By criticizing the religious choice of a political rival, Hillary Clinton demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the concept embodied in Article Six of the United State Constitution which reads in part: "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

2. The reason why she tried to make this a political issue was to change the subject from the growing controversy about her pattern of deception on Bosnia, NAFTA, and everything in between.

Hillary Clinton's ongoing pattern of falsehoods is a serious issue. She's either lying or she has an overactive imagination and can't distinguish fact from fiction. In either case, she does not have staff willing to steer her back from fantasy-land.

As I wrote yesterday:

One thing is certain after George W. Bush -- we need a Commander-in-Chief who is firmly grounded in reality. When he or she makes a mistake, as will happen, he or she must also possess the type or personality and character that encourages subordinates to correct that mistake.

If the people around the President are afraid to speak truth to power, how will we ever get out of Iraq without making things worse than they currently are?

And if Clinton's statement turn out to have merely been lies, do we want another President in whom we can place not trust?

We know Clinton was wrong. What we don't know is whether she was lying or imagining things that were untrue. And isn't that the story of the Bush Presidency?

On Monday, The Columbian (the paper of record for southwest Washington State) ran a story that started filtering through to the national media on Tuesday.

Cantwell supporting Clinton -- for now

By KATHIE DURBIN Columbian Staff Writer

Sen. Maria Cantwell (Sen. Patty Murray and Gov. Christine Gregoire in background)

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, one of Washington’s 17 Democratic superdelegates, isn’t ready to shift her allegiance from Sen. Hillary Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama — yet.

But in an interview with The Columbian’s editorial board Monday, she said the candidate with the most pledged delegates at the end of the primary season in late June will have the strongest claim to the party’s presidential nomination.

“I definitely don’t want the superdelegates to be the deciding factor,” she said.

“If we have a candidate who has the most delegates and the most states,” the Democratic party should come together around that candidate, Cantwell said. The pledged delegate count will be the most important factor, she said, because that is the basis of the nominating process.

Emphasis added.

Barack Obama has a virtual lock on the pledged delegate lead. He's already won a majority states.

By those metrics, he will become the nominee.

The only way Clinton becomes the nominee is if superdelegates adopt hare-brained lead-counting schemes like the hilarious electoral college proposal floated by Evan Bayh.

Increasingly, it's becoming clear that the uncommitted superdelegates won't flout the popular vote.

And now -- for the first time that I'm aware of -- a U.S. Senator backing Hillary Clinton has publicly stated her commitment to the pledged delegate count.

It's not the most sexy of stories, but it is something of a political earthquake.

More photographic evidence that the Tuzla sniper was real

NBC: ...Mentioned her further clarifying about Bosnia trip. Russert weighed in, said Clinton woke up awash in Bosnia stories...

CBS: Led with almost sarcastic package on Clinton’s Bosnia comments saying her one “misstatement” wasn’t the only one. Showed video of her using Bosnia to boost her national security creds several times throughout campaign. Pointed to another discrepancy in her telling Philly’s Daily News that she greeted the girl and immediately left the tarmac, when video shows she lingered. Says voters may now question her trustworthiness...

ABC: Led with Clinton’s Bosnia “embellishment” and her brushing off pressure to drop out. Said “substantive policy proposals” are being “all but drowned out” by the damage control she’s being forced to do....Tapper weighed in, said “jury is still out” on the harm the Bosnia flap will do. Said she needs to worry about her biggest weakness (perceived trustworthiness) undercutting her biggest strength (national security). Quoted one Democratic operative saying Clinton only has “Tonya Harding option” left, which is to knee cap Obama.

(h/t: Al Giordano)

Follow the bouncing ball:

• Mar. 25: Hillary Wants to Flip Pledged Delegates?
  
• Mar. 15: Clinton's Ickes again floats strategy to poaching Obama's pledged delegates
  
• Mar. 10: Clinton spokesman -- We won't poach delegates
  
• Mar. 9: Clinton says poaching pledged delegates fair game
  
• Mar. 5: Clinton aide floats poaching pledged delegates
  
• Feb. 19: Clinton campaign rules out poaching pledged delegates

This is funny.

(h/t: DJShay)

Shuster concludes that the record shows that Hillary Clinton helped NAFTA become law despite her claims to have been a NAFTA critic from the very beginning.

The Hill:

Clinton camp in lockdown mode over Bosnia flap

“We’ve said all we’re going to say on that,” said Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters.

A video from CBS News had shown that Clinton’s version of having come under sniper fire was not correct. Her campaign chalked up the discrepancy between her account and the video as a case of Clinton misspeaking.

Meanwhile, KDKA Pittsburgh radio interviewed Hillary Clinton today:

You know I have written about this and described it in many different settings and I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign. Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else. The military took great care of us. They were worried about taking a First Lady to a war zone and took some extra precautions and worried about all sorts of things. I have written about it in my book and talked about it on many other occasions and last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke.

Oh really? For the first time? What about the new video showing that she made the same false claim in February?

It comes from a February 29, 2008 campaign stop in Waco, Texas during which she told this version of her sniper fire tale:

One of the great honors of being First Lady and of being a senator is the time that I was privileged to spend with our troops here at home, in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and places around the world. I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

This can't be explained away as a "minor blip" or a simple "misstatement."

What we're seeing is a deliberate pattern, and voters deserve a thorough and convincing explanation of what exactly was going through Hillary Clinton's mind.

Until she offers a thorough answer, the questions will continue to mount.

Did she know her statements were false? If she had a false memory, why didn't the people around her who knew the truth tell her? What does that say about the type of presidency she would lead?

You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.
-- Hillary Clinton's "explanation" of her false tale

Hillary Clinton made false claims about her trip to Bosnia not just once, but several times -- in at least three different months. That's not misspeaking, it's not an accident. It's a deliberate pattern. Let's review:

Jan. 2, 2008: HRC tells Vieira she was first American in post-war Bosnia

Bill Clinton was in Tuzla two months before his wife, on Jan. 13, 1996

2. February 29: Clinton said that during her trip to Bosnia the welcoming ceremony "had to be moved inside because of sniper fire," a claim we now know to be false.

3. March 17 speech: Clinton repeated the Bosnian sniper fire tale, throwing in some additional detail about running from the plane to the cars -- another false claim.

4. March 17 press availability: Clinton stood by her version story, even when pressed by reporters.

5. Also on March 17: Clinton twice used former Army Secretary Togo West to defend her version of events, first in the introduction to her speech and then during her press availability.

I don't know how anyone could look at that and say Clinton's excuse adequately addresses the reality of what happened. On multiple occasions during a three-month span, she made similar false claims about the same event -- and it's possible she made others of which we are unaware.

It's clear that her statements were deliberate, and her use of both Togo West and Lissa Muscatine as third-party validation of her version of events underscores that point.

That does not mean, however, she lied. It's possible that she essentially imagined a different version of events. She may have convinced herself her story was true and created a false memory.

At this point, one can only speculate what real story is. But it's absolutely clear that Clinton's spin yesterday about misspeaking was inadequate.

This is an important issue because it goes straight to the question of foreign policy experience and judgment that she claims to have in such abundance.

If she was lying, why was she lying? If she believed something to be true that was in fact false, did anybody around her try to refresh her memory? Both Togo West and Lissa Muscatine surely knew that Clinton's claims were false.

If they did say something to Clinton, were they rebuffed?

If they didn't try to correct the record was it because they were afraid?

One thing is certain after George W. Bush -- we need a Commander-in-Chief who is firmly grounded in reality. When he or she makes a mistake, as will happen, he or she must also possess the type or personality and character that encourages subordinates to correct that mistake.

If the people around the President are afraid to speak truth to power, how will we ever get out of Iraq without making things worse than they currently are?

And if Clinton's statement turn out to have merely been lies, do we want another President in whom we can place not trust?

We know Clinton was wrong. What we don't know is whether she was lying or imagining things that were untrue. And isn't that the story of the Bush Presidency?

What if Osama bin Laden publicly endorsed one of the central tenets of Barack Obama's candidacy?

What if this statement was made while Barack Obama was overseas?

What Barack Obama embraced that endorsement, and offered it as proof that his foreign policy views were right for the country?

What would the media say? Would they ignore it? Quote it approvingly? Or would they spend the next week endlessly looping video footage of bin Laden and Obama, joined at the hip?

What if John McCain did the same thing?

Well, as rawstory reports, it happened. Here's what McCain said:

As you probably know, an audiotape ... was released where bin Laden said, and I have to quote bin Laden: "The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine ... is the Iraqi field."

He urged Palestinians and people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to help in support of their mujahideen brothers in Iraq which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task.

Now, my friends, for the first time, I have seen Osama bin Laden and Gen. Petraeus in agreement, and that is, the central battleground in the battle against al-Qaeda is in Iraq today!

That's what bin Laden is saying, and that's what General Petraeus is saying, and that's what I'm saying, my friends.

My Democrat [sic] opponents, who want to pull out of Iraq, refuse to understand what's being said and what's happening, and that is, the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle against radical Islamic extremism.

So now John McCain is treating Osama bin Laden's words with more respect than the words of his Democratic colleagues. (Actually, he's treating Osama bin Laden with more respect, correctly pronouncing bin Laden's name while mispronouncing the proper noun Democratic -- and emphasizing that they are his opponents, rather than fellow Americans.)

Can you imagine if it had been Obama instead of McCain?

I've created a Hillary in Tuzla Video Archive Gallery of all the major video clips I can think of related to the Hillary in Tuzla tale.

At the gallery, you can see full-length videos from which the various news reports and web ads have been created.

I can't promise it is 100% comprehensive, but I can add new videos to it, so if you notice something missing or see something new, drop a comment in this post or on the pod itself, or just e-mail me.

Al Giordano:

False Claims of Combat Experience Normally Lead to Resignations

Americans – particularly combat veterans and their family members – are understandably very sensitive to false claims of combat experience by those that did not share those experiences.

Giordano goes on to cite the experiences of U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley, Toronto Blue Jays Manager Tim Johnson, and several others -- all of whom either resigned or were fired after making false claims about their military service.

What are the chances that Hillary Clinton will be held to the same standard?

(You'll notice his post also says some nice things about my video -- I promise, that's not why I'm linking over there!)

Reader TP writes:

Devastating

This quote from Hillary:

"I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I made a -- I took her stuff and then I left"

She's saying she ran away from an 8 year old girl in danger to protect herself.

It is just a devastating quote.

I can't wait to see what they do with The Tale of the Bosnian Sniper.

"It makes the case for Senator Obama that all this experience that she's been talking about is at least partly her imagination." -- Politico's Mike Allen

The quote comes from this definitive report by CBS Evening News:

"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told. I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac

From the CBS News
front page

but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I made a -- I took her stuff and then I left, Now that's my memory of it.

Bunch asked her if this story damaged her credibility on foreign policy:

"No, I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. you know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a mistatement."

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, the CBS correspondent who reported on then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's trip to Tuzla, Bosnia reports today:

Not The Safest Trip, But No Sniper Fire

[snip]

In reality, we had no known incidents of enemy fire on our aircraft. Mindful of the fact that we were with the First Lady, and that she was venturing farther inside Bosnia than her husband the President had ever gone, reporters kept a close eye to the crowds and never entirely went off-guard.

However, the mood upon first landing at the Tuzla airport was light. Children were there on the tarmac to greet the first lady, Chelsea was by her side, Bosnian dignitaries had gathered: It felt safe.

Emphasis added.

Articles:

ABC News: Clinton Bosnia Account Comes Under Fire

Washington Post: More Incoming Fire For Clinton

Associated Press: Clinton 'misspoke' on Bosnia trip

NY Observer: Wolfson: Clinton 'Misspoke' In Her Tuzla Account

NY Times: Clinton ‘Misspoke’ About Bosnia Trip, Campaign Says

Video:

CNN's Jack Cafferty: "Why would Hillary Clinton not tell the truth about her trip to Bosnia?"

MSNBC: Truth Squad Debunks Clinton's False Claims

ABC News Senior Correspondent Claire Shipman: Sniper fire claim will "get her into trouble"

Howard Wolfson, Clinton's PR flack, now says she "misspoke" when claiming to have been under enemy sniper fire in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Bluntly: that's bull. Misspeaking is the act of saying something other than what you meant.

On at least two different occasions -- one of them after being pressed by a reporter on her recollection, given Sinbad's different point of view -- Clinton deliberately said that there was no greeting ceremony due to the dangerous conditions and that she was rushed from the plane to waiting vehicles.

1. This wasn't a just a simple slip of the tongue. Her initial speech and subsequent discussions with reporters clearly reflect an effort to make her mission seem dangerous.

2. She repeated her remarks, even when challenged by the media (and Sinbad).

3. In defending her tale, she arranged for third-party validation from both Togo West, the Clinton Administration Secretary of the Army, and Lissa Muscatine, a Clinton speechwriter.

Only after video emerged disproving her assertions and threatening a political firestorm did she start trying to pass her false claim off as simply "misspeaking."

Watch for yourself:

Hillary Clinton's campaign has released photographic evidence of the sniper from the trip she took to Tuzla with her daughter, Sinbad, and Sheryl Crow:

I don't know the story behind that photo, but it's brilliant. I've seen it before on Obsidian Wings and today saw it posted at Democratic Underground by Ichingcarpenter.

No Response From Clinton

By Julie Bosman

When two more Democratic debates were announced this month, both Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama quickly accepted the invitation to meet in Pennsylvania on April 16.

But Mrs. Clinton, unlike Mr. Obama, has not yet agreed to participate in a North Carolina debate on April 19.

That debate, sponsored by CBS News, would be the first opportunity for Katie Couric to perform hosting duties. And if it happens, it will highlight the importance of North Carolina, whose primary will be held May 6. Mr. Obama is favored to win there.

I wonder if Clinton doesn't want to debate in North Carolina in order to maintain some wiggle room to to drop out of the race after Pennsylvania. After all, her campaign isn't just broke, it's in debt, and she must know that if she doesn't win at least 60% of Pennsylvania's pledged delegates, she's got no shot at the nomination. (In fact, she likely needs closer to 70%, but 60% would probably keep her in the game.)

Probably just wishful thinking on my part...

Side note: Couric would be the third woman to moderate a televised debate this year -- Campbell Brown and the Editor in Chief of the Des Moines Register being the other two. I think that Couric would be just the second woman to moderate one of the debates this year. (The Editor in Chief of the Des Moines Register being the other.)

Perhaps we can just start calling it "The Speech," as Frank Rich does in his NYT column today. In less than 24 hours, more than one million watched on YouTube. Now, we're closing in on 4 million. (This also includes the higher-resolution full-length speech.)

That means Obama's speech has been seen more times online than the original Wright clip -- by a factor of six. More people have have watched Obama's speech online than have watched every single clip on McCain's YouTube channel -- for the entire campaign.

It's just another confirmation of the fact that most Americans are more than satisfied with Barack Obama's approach towards racial reconciliation.

It's an unbelievable tale of heroism, written and directed by Mark J. Penn.

The Baltimore Sun calls it a "whopper."

"Four Pinocchios!" says the Washington Post.

"Requires enormous suspension of disbelief" raves the Huffington Post.

::

The Jed Report is pleased to release the trailer for "Hillary in Tuzla" to the public.

Please enjoy it at your own risk, and spread it wide and far.

Her false claim that she was a NAFTA critic from the beginning -- a false claim that was central to her victory in Ohio -- is also going to be a huge.

Let's be clear: if Hillary Clinton somehow gets the nomination, John McCain will use her lie against her; she won't be able to claim opposition to NAFTA like she did during the Democratic primary.

You should never say never, but she's got almost no chance to win Ohio. Sure, she does decently in polls now. But come November, after voters there learn the full story about Hillary Clinton and NAFTA, it probably won't even be close.

Here's the Digg It link for the NAFTA video.

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." --Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

Just one problem. Her claim was completely untrue. As Michael Dobbs wrote in The Fact Checker column for the Washington Post, Clinton's story is not supported by the facts:

The Pinocchio Test

Clinton's tale of landing at Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

I already knew that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama were cousins.

But I didn't know that Barack Obama and George W. Bush were cousins too.

(He's also cousins with Brad Pitt!)

This is post 1 of 5 posts on this topic:

Post 1: Suddenly, Pat Buchanan makes Bill O'Reilly look moderate
Post 2: Debunking Buchanan: Jeremiah Wright served in the Marines, but Pat Buchanan didn't serve his nation
Post 3: Debunking Buchanan: Taxing and spending edition
Post 4: Debunking Buchanan: False characterization of Barack Obama's speech
Post 5: Debunking Buchanan: Violent crime and racial fearmongering

::

Patrick J. Buchanan (h/t: D Wreck at Daily Kos):

What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

...

White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

...

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

(Emphasis added.)

MSNBC seriously lets this guy on national television? I wasn't a fan of canning Don Imus, even though what he said was offensive, but this crosses far past what Imus said.

Buchanan must go. He can leave the country for all I care. Let MSNBC know what you think:

letters@msnbc.com

Be sure to CC Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams:

KOlbermann@msnbc.com
dabrams@msnbc.com

(The Olbermann and Abrams e-mails I just sent bounced. I'm looking for new addresses.)

One of the most offensive statements in Pat Buchanan's response to Barack Obama's speech is this:

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

I'm sorry Pat, but Jeremiah Wright is a former Marine.

You, Pat, are a chickenhawk. You should get down on your knees and kiss Jeremiah Wright's ring for serving in the armed forces of the United States of America.

I hate to take something that a guy like Pat Buchanan says seriously, but it's important to do so in the following sense: offering a factually-based, well-reasoned response is more likely to have a positive impact on the debate than calling him the names he surely deserves.

That being said, it's still fair to characterize Buchanan's response to Barack Obama's speech as a racially divisive polemic. But it's also flat out wrong. Take this claim:

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. ...

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude? ...

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

So according to Buchanan, white Americans are footing the bill for social programs designed exclusively for black Americans to the tune of 40 trillion dollars.

Well that's just not true. In the last 40 years, the entire Federal tax burden on every single American combined has been $40.2 trillion. Even if there was a statistic on the amount of Federal taxes "white Americans" paid, $40 trillion isn't the right number. Presumably, white Americans have paid a disproportionate share of taxes -- but only because on average, white Americans have earned between $1.67 and $2 (depending on the year) for every $1 black Americans have earned.

Moreover that $40.2 trillion hasn't been used exclusively -- or even largely -- on the social programs Buchanan ticks off. During that same period of time, the Federal government has spent $45.2 trillion.

The central thesis of Pat Buchanan's response to Barack Obama's speech is that Obama's speech was really just a list of demands made of "white America."

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

This is a completely false characterization -- Obama's speech did not place the burden of racial division on any one racial or ethnic group. In fact, he treated the problem as an American problem, and identified areas where not just whites but also blacks had responsibility, at point point saying that black anger was often counterproductive. Obama made the case that there really is no such thing as black interests or white interests. For example:

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Now Pat Buchanan is not a dumb man. He knows that what he said was false. He watched the speech. He read the speech. And I fully recognize why it frightens him: the prospect of a coalition of black and white working-class Americans frightens conservatives to the core. Such a political alliance would absolutely wreck the Reagan coalition, as Obama suggested.

It's a reminder that in many ways for people like Pat Buchanan, racial division is not an end unto itself: it's a critical tool for preventing the formation of a durable progressive majority. In short, the prospect of racial unity is the biggest threat conservatism faces today.

In my fifth and final post today on Pat Buchanan's response to Barack Obama's speech, I'll address his assertion that the most pernicious form of racism is interracial crime and that black Americans are guilty of the vast majority of such racism.

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

First, Buchanan's central thesis is illogical. Interracial crime is not in and of itself racism. It should be obvious to a six year old that there is a huge difference between crime that happens to be interracial and crime that is racially motivated.

As it turns out, most crime -- including the two most heinous crimes, rape and murder -- are mostly intraracial. That fact reflects our society's racial divisions -- in a completely colorblind nation, interracial crime would be much higher. So actually, the relative lack of interracial crime is a manifestation of our racial problems.

So for the past week week or so, Barack Obama had fallen behind Hillary Clinton in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll -- but now he's regained his lead. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton today regained the lead in the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll for the first time since March 9. It's pretty funny and a reminder that the explanation for a lot of the "trends" we see in polls is the same thing that allows people to occasional beat the casinos: random chance.

Meanwhile, the so-called "honesty gap" between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, not to mention and Hillary Clinton and John McCain, is just enormous. If she were to manage to stage a superdelegate coup, her credibility crisis would pose a serious challenge for her to overcome.

What would Tom Paine think?

The issue? GOP Kentucky State Rep. Tim Couch wants to ban anonymous Internet comments. Now while that might protect us from the occasional comma laden troll comment from one of Mark Penn's minions...I don't think Tom Paine would've looked to kindly on the idea had the whole internet thing been around way back in the day.

According to the Lexington Herald-Reader:

A bill filed in the House would keep Kentuckians from posting anonymous comments to Web sites.

House Bill 775, filed Tuesday by Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden, would require anyone who contributes to a Web site to register a real name, address and e-mail address with that Web site. The person's full name then would be used whenever he or she posted a comment.

Web site operators who violate the disclosure law would be fined $500 for a first offense and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.

The legislation has no chance of actually becoming law. That's a good thing because as Couch says in apparent opposition to his legislation (sic):

"When you're anonymous, you can say anything you want to about someone, and nobody knows who you are," he said.

Exactly. I'm glad Tim and I could agree on something.

By the way, on a total side note, I think he's the father (or at least close relative of) Tim Couch, the NFL quarterback who comes from the same town in Kentucky. That probably makes him as American as apple pie, even though even though he has no respect for American Constitutional principles.

I just finished integrating the Disqus commenting system into the blog. It's got a ton of benefits over the old system, including threading and user accounts. User accounts are nice because you can have your own username on any blog that uses Disqus (such as AMERICAblog). The user accounts also cut down on spam and trolls (yes, I know Mark Penn is shedding a tear now).

A new CBS News poll conducted yesterday shows that 69% of registered voters thought Obama did a good job addressing race relations and 71% thought he did a good job explaining his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. 70% said it wouldn't impact there vote, while 14% said it would make them more likely to vote for Obama, and 14% said it would make them less less likely.

Keep in mind that quite apart from the substance of this issue, from a political viewpoint this was by far the biggest challenge that Barack Obama has ever faced. In fact, it's the biggest challenge any candidate has faced so far this campaign.

He not only rose to the occasion, but he did so in pretty spectacular fashion.

I have now talked to three former Clinton Administration officials whom I trust who tell me that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton opposed the idea of introducing NAFTA before health care, but expressed no reservations in public or private about the substance of NAFTA.

Yet the Clinton campaign continues to propagate this myth that she fought NAFTA tooth and nail because she opposed the substance of the bill.The campaign claims over and over that she did not support NAFTA. That may be emotionally and intellectually true -- but actions speak louder than misgivings.

Wednesday, Tapper's sources were anonymous. Today he has named sources from the meeting in question:

Julia K. Hughes, senior vice president of the same organization is likewise incredulous of the Clinton campaign's claims.

"This is such a non issue to us, because obviously it was a pro-NAFTA group and a pro-NAFTA event," says Hughes. "It was a 100 percent pro-NAFTA event. No one suggested any inklings of doubt since part of the agenda was to promote enthusiasm for passage of NAFTA."

Did that include then-First Lady Clinton?

"Absolutely. She was the highlight of the event. She was absolutely the capper to the event. It was a positive rally. I assure you if there had even been a hint of waffling from her -- because we were in the last days before NAFTA passed and it was a pretty hectic time -- we would have freaked out."

Now it's up to the media. Will they cover the fact that she won Ohio on a falsehood, or will they cover it up?

Well, they are proving that saying to be correct, finally recognizing that Hillary Clinton does not have a serious shot at the nomination.

It started in earnest yesterday, with Adam Nagourney's Political Memo in the New York Times. Last night, both ABC and NBC ran packages making the same case, though slightly different emphases.

Today The Politico jumped on board in two separate pieces, one by Ben Smith, the other by Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen.

And now Mark Halperin, sort of a self-styled cross between David Broder and Matt Drudge, is offering essentially the same message: it's all but over.

These are not brilliant insights. For weeks now, anybody who could add 2+2 could see that Hillary Clinton was almost certainly not going to be the nominee. But the press horde didn't want to do the math, despite the best efforts of straight shootering "geeks" like Chuck Todd to talk some sense into them.

I just took a look at the February FEC reports and one thing jumped out at me.

In February alone, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama raised $35.8 million from donations of no greater than $200. $12.2 million of that was by Clinton, and $23.6 million by Obama.

Compare that to John McCain. He's raised just $12.3 million from $200-and-below donors -- for the entire campaign.

Update: I should also add that with $55 million raised in February, Barack Obama raised more in the shortest month of the year than John McCan has raised during the entire campaign. (Kind of a nice bookend to the news that Obama's speech has been viewed more times on YouTube than every clip on John McCain's channel.)

Beyond its intrinsic value, the thing that makes this endorsement especially noteworthy is that it is yet more evidence that even former Clinton loyalists are seeing the writing on the wall.

Here's a transcript of Richardson's endorsement speech, which began with these words:

My friends, earlier this week, an extraordinary American gave a historic speech.

Senator Barack Obama addressed the issue of race with the eloquence and sincerity and decency and optimism we have come to expect of him.

He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths.

Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility.

For two or three minutes (it felt like more), Chris Wallace, the host of the conservative Republican FOX News Sunday show, attacked the hosts of his own network's morning program, Fox & Friends. Wallace lamented that the all-white panel had just spent two hours bashing Barack Obama on racial issues, distorting and exploiting his 'typical white person' remark.

As you listen to the exchange, you see that the F&F hosts are really obsessed with racial resentment and what they see as reverse-racism. As one of the hosts said:

If we really want to have a discussion about race, then let's have a discussion about how there is a double standard for certain phrases and words.

Huh? This is lunacy. If you want to have an honest discussion about race, the last place to start is with the proposition that blacks are oppressing whites.

Clearly, our discourse is screwed up. But blaming that entirely on bogus claims of reverse-racism? Absurd.

Case in point: if the double-standard truly does favor blacks over whites, why is John McCain allowed to utter the racist slur "gook" with impunity while Barack Obama can't even discuss the role of race in our society without being labeled by some as a racist?

You know a "news" program has completely gone off the rails when Chris Wallace has to step in and teach them a lesson about civics and responsibility.

Update: The lone F&F host refusing to engage in the Obama-bashing walked off the set. I don't watch the show so I don't know if that's part of his normal schtick, or if it was a genuine expression of anger.

Update II: The Obama campaign weighs in.

h/t: Ari Melber

Something tells me this isn't going to end well for the Clinton campaign.

In its first two and a half days online, Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech (including this version) has been viewed 2.7 million times.

Another contrast: the original Jeremiah Wright video from FOX News has been played 590,000 times -- and it's been up a week longer. During the time that Obama's speech generated 2.7 million views, Wright's clip generated less than 100,000.

Obama's speech has been seen about as many times as the five most viewed videos on Hillary Clinton's channel -- combined. Most of those clips have been up for more than a month.

Obama's speech receives a 4 star rating -- Clinton's most-watched clip, the 3am ad, received just 1 star.

The Democratic Party has never in my lifetime had a presidential candidate communicating directly to so many people, pushing the media aside.

It's what so many of us have been talking about for years. Well, we've finally got it -- and the superdelegates would be absolutely crazy to throw it away.

What if a major presidential candidate had uttered a disparaging ethnic slur, and when challenged on the appropriateness of that slur stubbornly said he would continue to use it?

What if a few days later he apologized and said he would never use it again?

What would the media do?

Turns out they were just rumors. Ben Smith says no endorsement. Phew.

I was an Edwards supporter until he dropped out. It doesn't make a difference to me if he endorses Clinton, at least not in terms of my support for Obama.

But I would certainly lose some confidence in my ability to judge politicians. I just don't think John Edwards will endorse Hillary Clinton -- ever.

He strikes me as more of an Obama guy.

This may seem a bit obscure, but until recently there was one measure of delegates upon which Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama. svotaw1992 describes it at Daily Kos:

One lead that she hadn't lost yet has been the total delegate count including supers as well as MI&FL in full (the count with Obama gaining essentially zero delegates in MI).

Mind you, this metric is so absurd that nobody treats it that seriously. But it was the one way in which Hillary Clinton could claim to be ahead. No longer. Even using her new politburo apparatchik rules, Clinton is not winning.

Hillary Clinton's entire electability argument can pretty much be boiled down to one four-letter word: Ohio.

As she said on the night of her primary victory there:

"No person has ever won the White House without winning the Ohio primary, in either party...Somehow the people of Ohio end up picking the winners."

Now, it's worth noting that her statement was completely false. The Ohio primary didn't exist until 1912 and since then five presidents didn't win the state's primary: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, and Nixon. Her statement is accurate for the last few elections, but it was nonetheless misleading because the Ohio primary hasn't played a pivotal role in the earlier part of the nomination process. As Ohio State University polisci professor Herb Asher said, Clinton "has taken a little bit of a liberty here."

It's a microcosm of Hillary Clinton's larger problem: credibility.

People just don't believe that she's honest and trustworthy, and now that she has misrepresented (a kind word) her position on NAFTA to the people of Ohio, she has shot her electability argument straight to hell.

It might not show up in the polls right now, but you can imagine the ads McCain will run against her in Ohio? The 527s will have a field day!

Here's a new web ad I just posted on YouTube about Hillary Clinton and NAFTA:

Say what you want about Hillary Clinton, but credibility is not her middle name. Just before the Ohio primary, she insisted that she has been a NAFTA critic "from the beginning" -- yet we have now learned that as First Lady, she actively worked to pass it into law.

I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that’s putting it mildly. I’m not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn’t see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there’s some justification for her camp saying, you know, she’s never been a great backer for NAFTA.

But now we learn from Clinton's recently released schedules that she actually hosted a meeting in which she pushed for NAFTA passage. And David Gergen was there:

It was a room full of women involved in international trade. David Gergen served as a sort of master of ceremonies as various women members of the Cabinet talked up NAFTA, which had yet to pass Congress.

"It wasn’t a drop-by it was organized around her participation," said one attendee. "Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time. Folks were pleased that she came by. If this is a still a question about what Hillary's position when she was First Lady, she was totally supportive of NAFTA.

Amazingly, the Clinton team continues to use the David Gergen defense.

ABC News Polling Unit on Clinton Pollster's Memo: 'Full of Overblown Claims'

Clinton senior strategist Mark Penn put out a polling memo today heralding a "shift to Hillary."

Peyton Craighill of the ABC News Polling Unit reports: "Mark Penn’s note is full of overblown claims based on current polling. He’s cherry picking numbers from recent polls. Much of his claim of a Clinton swing is based on the latest tracking data from Gallup in which Clinton is now ahead by 7 points. If you go back two more days Obama has a 7-point lead in a separate USA Today/Gallup poll. CBS has a new poll out today that shows a close 46-43 percent Obama-Clinton race. The CBS poll also has the match ups with McCain at 48-43 percent for Obama-McCain and 46-44 percent for Clinton-McCain. We see little indication of a shift to Clinton. Of the nine polls cited in his note, five of them are not airworthy."

("Airworthy" is a term our Polling Unit uses for polls so poorly done we are discouraged from mentioning them on air.)

McCain: Purim = Halloween

When McCain made a foreign policy gaffe in Jordan on Tuesday, it was Sen. Joe Lieberman who quietly pointed out the mistake, giving McCain an opportunity to correct himself in front of the international press corps. In Israel yesterday, NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum reports, Lieberman once again intervened when McCain made an incorrect reference about the Jewish holiday Purim -- by calling the holiday "their version of Halloween here."

One of the more interesting questions in the new CBS poll concerns superdelegates.

Obama supporters were asked how they would react if superdelegates were to overturn the judgment of voters and give the nomination to Hillary Clinton.

36% said they would be angry, and 56% said they would be disappointed. 8% said they would be satisfied.

This is just more proof that if anyone thinks the superdelegates can get away with handing the nomination to Hillary Clinton is crazy. Clinton and her folks love to suggest that Obama is alienating the Democratic base, but even if that were true, we haven't seen anything like the drama that would unfold if superdelegates were to overturn the vote.

CBS News is out with a poll conducted after the Wright story broke, and although he slipped a little ground, Obama continues to fare better than Hillary Clinton.

First, the toplines (but these aren't the really interesting numbers): Obama leads McCain 48-43, Clinton 46-44. Among primary voters, Obama leads 46-43.

Probably the worst single piece of news is that Obama now trails McCain by 8 points amongst independents. The news is worse for Clinton, who trails by 11.

CBS News poll released March 19th

The really interesting question though was the one about Iraq, which asked whether voters had confidence in the ability of the candidates to make the right decisions on Iraq.

Clinton ties Obama amongst Democrats, but trails him badly with independents and slightly with Republicans.

I think these numbers show that her "experience" line of argument has already boomeranged.

Even worse, it probably bolstered John McCain's standings -- amongst independents, he now leads all three candidates. I don't have trendlines for these numbers, but I can't imagine Clinton's copious praise of McCain did him any harm.

Just goes to show: Hillary Clinton has no clue how to beat John McCain. (Or Barack Obama, for that matter.)

Democratic Convention Watch:

The GOP is holding their convention from Sep 1-4, and the nominee normally gives his or her speech on Thursday evening, just after 10:00 EST. This is a big problem for NBC and the NFL. NBC pays a lot of money to show NFL games. But there's no way they would take the political heat and not show McCain's speech, and its unlikely the NFL would want to take the heat either. Yes, the speech would be available on the other networks, but the football game would attract a major audience, and the GOP, would, and appropriately so, raise a big stink.

In the above post, from Feb. 29, DCW considered the possibility that the NFL might not open on 9/4 in order to get around the McCain dilemma. But now DCW has confirmation that the NFL is opening on the same night as McCain's speech:

It just not politically tenable for a major network not to show the acceptance speech of one of the two major candidates.

And we now have confirmation that the NFL season is scheduled to start on September 4th, and that the NFL is aware that something needs to be done:

"We are aware of it and will be discussing it with NBC," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello (who grew up in Syosset) wrote in an e-mail.

All I know is that I'm happy the Seahawks picked up Duckett and Jones. G'bye, Shaun Alexander...

Adam Nagourney drops a bombshell:

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama’s association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election.

That argument could be Mrs. Clinton’s last hope for winning this contest.

The internet censored my initial reaction which went something like this: What the f*** is wrong with those m*th***u*k*** a**h***s?

Joe Sudbay has more, including a beaut from Lanny Davis. People at Daily Kos are also pretty outraged.

The NYT has a pretty cool interactive presentation of Barack Obama's speech, tying together the video with the transcript, allowing you to skip from section to section if you. Perfect for those with ADD.

I promise this will be my second-to-last post about the speech! (But I reserve the right the break that promise...)

I'm gonna' have to stop posting these updates at some point but I'm still absolutely floored. Since my post this morning, there have been another 700,000 video plays -- in approximately 11 hours.

Update: Obama's video has been played more times than the 20 most-viewed videos on John McCain's YouTube channel -- combined. Prediction: at some point tomorrow the video will have been viewed more often than every single video currently on McCain's YouTube channel (yes -- all 172 of them).

Via Ben Smith:

The headline from MIRS, Michigan's Hotline:

Ding-Dong, Do-Over Primary Is Dead "Time of death for the do-over Michigan primary? Call it at about 11 a.m. today."

Ben gets confirmation from a couple of different sources, so it does look like there will not be new votes in either Michigan or Florida.

Turnout in the Democratic primary in both Michigan and Florida was atypically low because voters were told no delegates were at stake.

In the past three hours, "A More Perfect Union" has been seen more than 250,000 times. The speech has now been seen more times than the #1 most-watched videos from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain -- combined.

Update @ 3:53pm - 1.7 million views -- in just a little over 24 hours. Incredible.

Let me give you some perspective on just how big a hit Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" was: in its first 19 hours on YouTube, it has been played three times as often as the most viewed clip on John McCain's channel -- and has received 170,000 more views than the most viewed clip on Hillary Clinton's channel.

By mid-day, "A More Perfect Union" will almost certainly have been watched more times in 36 hours than than the Clinton clip (her 3am ad) and the McCain clip (Bill Clinton praising his political skills) -- combined. Together, those two clips have been on YouTube for just a touch longer than 19 hours. (Clinton's two weeks, McCain's three months.) Obama's speech has already received twice as many views as the original video of Wright, posted on the web one week ago.

Another way of thinking about it: the most popular Clinton and McCain clips were both well under one minute long -- and neither candidate appeared in their own video (except for the obligatory "I approved this ad" message).

(Update: I should also note that while Obama's video is ranked at 4 stars and has 8,500 ratings and growing, Clinton's video was ranked 1 star and had 3,000+ ratings.)

The viral spread of Obama's address has blown away Obama's famous Ebenezer Baptist speech, which received 330,000 views in its first few days online. At the time, that seemed remarkable.

Now -- more than one million views -- in less than 24 hours? For a speech that itself was just over a half-hour long? Incredible.

When you hear people say that a Barack Obama presidency could be transformative, this kind of thing is what makes them think that. The amount of interest in Barack Obama's campaign is just staggering. I have never before seen a political figure establish the kind of connection with people that Barack Obama has been able to achieve.

An e-mail a friend of mine wrote me last night demonstrates what I'm talking about. As you can see, Obama's speech inspired him -- and his response to it inspired me.

Subject: Barack's speech

Admittedly, I live in a liberal city and work in a liberal area of Seattle (south of downtown). Today at noon I went to a bar/grill place to have lunch and Barack's speech was on a few of the plasma TVs at the bar.

I've got nothing brilliant to say about "A More Perfect Union" that hasn't been already said. The only thing I'd like to emphasize is this: if you haven't yet watched or read the speech, please do. Since I suspect most people visiting this blog have already done that, please take the next step -- encourage your friends and family to watch it too, so that they can make up their own minds.

The interest and excitement in this speech is just staggering. Within about six hours, over 200,000 people had watched the speech on Barack Obama's YouTube Channel alone. By now, that number must be much higher. We won't know exactly how big the number is for awhile, because YouTube only increases its counter every few hours.

It is clear though that this speech will be the single most watched speech in Presidential primary campaign history. Barack Obama is at the center of the political universe.

Case in point: my grandmother, a Barack Obama fan, missed his speech this morning and wants to watch it. She's got a Mac at home, but normally isn't that eager to use it. Well, my mom just called me and asked me to e-mail my grandma a link to the speech, which I did. I also added a link to this blog, so hopefully she'll stop on by to see what it's all about. (In case she does: I love you Grandma!)

A lifetime of experience?

McCain mistaken on Iran and al-Qaida
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, mistakenly said Tuesday that Iran was allowing al-Qaida fighters into the country to be trained and returned to Iraq.

McCain, expressing concern about Iran's rising sway in the Mideast, said, "Al-Qaida is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran." He made the comments Tuesday at a news conference in Jordan; he made similar comments earlier to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.

Iran is a predominantly Shiite Muslim country and has been at pains to close its borders to al-Qaida fighters of the rival Sunni sect.

This raises the question: when John McCain goes to war, would he do it against the right people?

I think the most important thing to say about the speech is that you should watch it, or at least read it, and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Don't form your opinion about it based on what the pundit class wants you to believe: the ultimate question most people need to answer is whether they think that as president Barack Obama would be a reflection of those video clips cable keeps on playing of Jeremiah Wright, or whether he would be a figure of racial reconciliation and progress. The only way they can answer that question is by hearing from Obama himself, and making their own judgment.

Update: Over 200,000 people have now watched some or all of the speech on YouTube. That's a pretty phenomenal debut. The most important thing here is that people watch this speech for themselves and make their own decision after watching it. I'd say we're off to a good start.

If you didn't watch Barack Obama's speech live, you can probably find it on YouTube soon. You can read a transcript here. I'd definitely recommend at least giving it a read before you listen to any punditry on the speech.

On a personal level, I found the speech reassuring -- and I think that was Obama's biggest challenge, both politically and substantively. The passage that struck me the most was this one, which I will offer without further comment:

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

Of course, it's true that leading in a poll is next to meaningless at this point in the campaign -- most people have already voted, and those who have yet to vote won't be voting for at least another five weeks.

Still, it's a very pleasant surprise. It was conducted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday -- after FOX started promoting the Wright videos -- and actually shows that Obama has gained ground from the previous CNN poll which he led 49%-46%.

It's also reassuring news heading into his speech later this morning in Philadelphia. One other thought: the nice thing about this controversy is that finally all eyes are once again on Barack Obama. Today, he will be setting the agenda and defining the terms of the debate. It's good to see him back in that position -- because it's a winning position.

The video on this page is of Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose from the middle of December, at the height of the first Clinton panic of the campaign. I suspect different people will see different things in the video, but the one thing that I think is unquestionably the case is in this interview Clinton lays out the entire campaign strategy that he and Hillary Clinton have steadfastly pursued for the last three months. They have not deviated from it one iota.

As you may have heard, Florida's Democrats have given up on the idea of doing a revote, which will no doubt give rise to renewed pleas from Clinton partisans that the only fair thing to do about Florida is to retroactively treat the state's January 29th presidential preference primary as if it were a delegate selection primary.

This idea is one great absurdities of the 2008 nomination contest. Seating the Florida delegation according to the January 29 vote would be unfair not just to voters around the country, but also to voters in Florida.

There have been a lot of very good arguments about why both of these things are true, but one that I don't think has gotten enough attention focuses on the atypically low Democratic turnout in Florida.

Michigan and Florida had unusually low Democratic turnouts because voters knew no delegates were at stake

It's hard to divine from that figure exactly how many of Florida's Democrats didn't bother to vote, but if there had been delegates at stake and if campaigns had been waged, there's no doubt the primary turnout would have been significantly higher, closer to the levels seen in other states. Certainly, we're talking about several hundred thousand Floridians.

It sounds good to say "the votes in Florida should count," but the fact is they have already been counted and reported -- that is exactly what the voters in Florida were told would happen. They were never told, nor did they ever have any reason to expect, that there would be any delegates attached to that vote -- and that's why significant numbers of Florida's Democrats didn't bother to vote.

It's got to be frustrating and maddening if you're a voter in Florida, and I actually share their frustration. (The Florida state legislature, which approved the bipartisan plan to move the primary up to January 29th in contravention of both Democratic and Republican party rules, deserves every bit of grief it gets for having caused this mess.)

I'm not a fan of a revoting, but it seemed like the best of a bunch of bad options, and I can't believe that Florida's Democratic Party couldn't come up with some sort of a revote solution.

But of all the options still on the table, perhaps the worst would be seating Florida based on the presidential preference primary vote. Doing so wouldn't be fair to those of us who live in states that played by the rules, and it wouldn't be fair to the hundreds of thousands of Floridians who chose not to vote on January 29, secure in the knowledge that the vote they were skipping was a meaningless beauty contest.

I took off much of the day to go hiking with some friends who were in town from the Bay Area. (Bet you didn't know Las Vegas has some pretty cool spots to hike.)

I've been getting caught up on the days news and I just had a laugh-out-loud moment. Hillary Clinton is attacking Barack Obama on Iraq? Saying that he isn't sufficiently opposed to the war?

NYT:

Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather than make an apology she did not believe in.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

ABC:

Clinton: Don't Like My Iraq Vote? 'There Are Others to Choose From'
February 17, 2007 12:23 PM ABC News' Kate Snow and Eloise Harper report: Just hours before a key Senate vote on Iraq, Sen. Hillary Clinton told voters in New Hampshire they have a choice to make about her Senate record.

Clinton, D-N.Y., again refused to apologize for her 2002 vote on a congressional resolution to authorize force in Iraq. However, she added an important new caveat in her remarks today: "I have to say, if the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from. But for me, the most important thing now is trying to end this war."

The blunt language was a veiled reference to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who was not in the Senate in 2002 and did not cast a vote on the resolution, though he was a vocal opponent of the war at that time, and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who has since renounced his vote and repeatedly calls it a "mistake."

How stupid does she think we are?

Today, Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote an article purporting to assess whether or not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could win the support of white men. Of course, the article was really more about Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton, as the headline reveals:

White Male Vote Especially Critical
Questions Remain Over Obama's Ability to Appeal to Demographic

Balz argues:

The results in Ohio in particular raised questions about whether Obama can attract support from this crucial demographic.

But in Balz's own article he refutes his own thesis. After FOURTEEN paragraphs, he offers up this this juicy morsel:

In 27 states where exit polls were conducted, starting with Iowa on Jan. 3 and ending with Mississippi last week, Clinton won the white male vote 11 times and Obama 10 times. In five states, they basically split the votes of white men. Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) carried white men in South Carolina.

C'mon Dan. You think we don't see how hackish your analysis is?

It would be nice if the WaPo hired reporters who either understand the subject matter they cover, or who weren't biased. Someone like Mark Blumenthal, perhaps. He wrote this in mid-February (before Ohio):

Much was made this week of Obama's performance among white men in Virginia. Indeed, his support with white men was seen as both the key to Obama's Potomac Primary victories, as well as a sign of broadening support to include those formerly in Clinton's base. Others are skeptical, even worrying that while male superdelegates might tip the scale toward Clinton.

In fact, Virginia was neither the first state (nor even first Southern state) where Obama bested Clinton among white men. Nor was it the state where he won this group by the largest margin. Obama has been doing well with this group since the beginning of primary season.

Below is a table of the Clinton/Obama vote among white men, from exit poll data from every contest thus far. The table is ranked in descending order, with the state showing the largest Obama margin at the top.

Moreover, if you include caucus states in the calculation, it's almost certain that Barack Obama has won the white male vote overall (for those who insist on slicing and dicing America like Mark Penn).

Perhaps it would be fair to ask if Barack Obama can win the votes of racist white men, but then again, the answer to that should be pretty obvious -- and it's not clear how many white man are that racist, and how many of those who are wouldn't also be sexist -- and vote for John McCain instead of Hillary Clinton. My guess: there's a lot of overlap.

And while Balz's article did touch on some issues related to that, he and his headline writer framed the article in a deeply dishonest way.

I guess the good news is that at least we can put to rest the silly notion that the MSM is biased in favor of Barack Obama.

(I'm sure Team HRC will disagree -- according to her new rules, the MSM showed its pro-Obama bias by reporting the fact that he had won eleven straight contests, building an insurmountable pledged delegate lead in the process.)

On Saturday, Mike Allen offered an article on politico.com arguing that the Jeremiah Wright's comments will prove to be a problem for Barack Obama over the long-run, not so much on racial issues but as a way of challenging Obama's patriotism.

For the most-part, it's a hackish run-down of conservatives pressing the guilt-by-association line, bashing Barack Obama for the statements of his former pastor. In the column, Allen quotes Bill O'Reilly, Newt Gingrich, and Tony Perkins (head of the far-right Family Research Council) in his column, but fails to quote a single pro-Obama source. C'mon, Mike. Do your job.

And it revived conservative chatter about Obama’s patriotism that has been fueled by rumors he does not put his hand on his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance (false) and stopped wearing a flag lapel pin (true).

Allen's statement about the flag lapel pin is so misleading that it almost appears to be a deliberate attempt to smear Barack Obama.

Especially in the context of this article, the clear implication of Allen's statement is that Barack Obama does not wear a flag lapel pin to express reservations about America. Allen, of course, saves his ass by not directly saying this, but what he leaves out (intentionally or otherwise) is just as important as what he lives in.

He doesn't tell the reader that Barack Obama has directly addressed the issue of why he does not wear a flag lapel pin. The reason, Obama says, is that he is offended by the notion that patriotism can be reduced to a button on a jacket. It in no way whatsoever is a slight against America or this country. He just feels it is important to express one's patriotism in more meaningful ways. You can agree or disagree, but you can't say that his reasoning is anti-American -- and that is the clear implication of Allen's irresponsible language.

Moreover, given the fact that Barack Obama has publicly addressed this issue, it's hardly fair to call it a rumor. Allen's job is words, so he ought to know the definition of the term. From Merriam-Webster:

1: talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source
2: a statement or report current without known authority for its truth
3 archaic : talk or report of a notable person or event
4: a soft low indistinct sound : murmur

You see, the proposition that Barack Obama "stopped wearing a flag lapel pin" is not a rumor. It's a fact, explained by Barack Obama.

The rumor is that Barack Obama is not sufficiently patriotic. The rumor is that the reason Barack Obama does not wear a flag lapel pin is to express his disdain for America.

Those rumors are false.

Allen's article smacks of McCarthyism. I expect it from right-wingers. But journalists?

Hopefully, Mike Allen was just being sloppy. Everybody has bad days. It's even possible he's getting swept up into the hysteria and will once again find his independent voice.

It's definitely worth keeping an eye out for this kind of stuff, though -- not just from Mike Allen in particular, but from all reporters.

I'm surprised by how much media coverage there was of Speaker Pelosi's statement that superdelegates should support the winner of the pledged delegate battle. (Pleasantly surprised, mind you, very much so.) David Broder talked about it on Meet the Press and NBC Nightly news even did a little story on it during their broadcast. You gotta' love how the superdelegate thing has really broken through if there are stories about it on the evening news.

Anyway, as I wrote yesterday, Pelosi's comments, combined with Iowa county convention results and the NYT article on superdelegates, show that a consensus is emerging within the Democratic Party: Barack Obama will be our nominee.

Still, there will be -- and should be -- more voting. Probably even in Michigan and Florida. The bottom-line though is that in order to win the nomination, Hillary Clinton will need to win at least sixty percent of the vote in just about every single contest from here on out.

Between you and me, there's no way that going to happen. But she's got every right to try.

The one thing that I hope is that when the Pennsylvania vote on April 22 roles around, the press keeps in mind that Clinton must win at least sixty percent to remain plausibly viable. (The attached chart should help make it clear why.) If she fails to hit that threshold, they need to take that into account in their ongoing coverage of her campaign. I'm not saying that they should stop covering her, but they need to start exercising better judgment when covering her attacks on Obama; otherwise, they will be at that point merely aiding and abetting the McCain campaign -- not to mention boosting Clinton's hopes for another shot in 2012.

I am operating under the assumption that Barack Obama's poll numbers are going to take a temporary hit because of the media's fixation on the incendiary words of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

What's weird is that today, Obama actually gained a point and Clinton lost a point in Rasmussen Reports' daily tracking poll, expanding his lead to three points. He maintained a three point lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll.

I still wouldn't be surprised -- indeed I sort of expect -- his numbers to go down for at least a little while.

Perhaps, however, most people really are looking at the issue as a question of whether or not Barack Obama actually believes anything Jeremiah Wright says. As Andrew Sullivan argues in this must read post:

The relevant - the only relevant - question is: are Obama's beliefs represented by the handful of video clips of the most incendiary of Wright's sermons? Or to unpack it a little further: Does Obama believe that black people should damn America? Does he believe that racial separatism is a viable option? Is he a black liberation theologian?

Seriously, I can find absolutely no evidence that he is, and if anyone can, I will gladly eagerly air it.

Please read Sullivan on this. Nobody is doing a better job of addressing the fundamental issues and questions raised by this story.

Is anybody aware of a good (and free, or nearly free) service that allows a website (hint: not this one...) to allow people to sign up for a mailing list?

Leave aside for the moment whether John McCain's religious bigotry is acceptable in modern America.

Instead, ask yourself what the media would have done if Jeremiah Wright had uttered those words, especially if he had been talking about race instead of religion?

What if Barack Obama himself had said them?

Yet when John McCain spews religious bigotry during the middle of a presidential campaign, the media barely paid his comments any attention whatsoever.

And then a few months later, when the conservative propaganda outlet FOX News plays old archive footage of Barack Obama's pastor (not Barack Obama himself) delivering a hateful sermon, all the sudden it's the biggest issue in politics.

That, my friends, is bias. There is a double standard -- and Barack Obama is not the beneficiary.

Now, to be fair to John McCain, subsequent to the interview, said that he would vote for a non-Christian if he felt that a non-Christian was in all respects the best candidate. But has not Barack Obama explained in no uncertain terms that he rejects what Jeremiah Wright said?

And unlike John McCain, Barack Obama repudiated all aspects of Wright's bigotry. McCain merely clarified the obvious: that his religious bigotry was just one element of his decision-making process.

Apparently, according to the media, you can partially reject your own words -- but if you completely reject someone else's, there must be a bigger, deeper story.

Does it make any sense to you? Me neither.

Something worth remembering:

No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

M.J. Rosenberg inspired me to share this short story. Twenty-something years ago, I was bar mitzvahed at an orthodox temple in New York. My rabbi, a wonderful man, was (and is) far more conservative than I am politically, yet I thought at the time and continue to think that he was a wonderful rabbi. No one should judge Rosenberg's political views, nor mine, nor Barack Obama's, purely on the basis of what our religious leaders believe.

Three things happened this weekend that might not get much time on cable television, but were huge developments nonetheless.

1. On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she thinks superdelegates ought to follow the results of the primaries and caucuses, specifically identifying pledged delegates as her key metric.

2. During yesterday's Iowa County Convention, Barack Obama gained total of nine additional delegates -- eight from John Edwards supporters, and one from Hillary Clinton supporters. This shows that Clinton's attacks are backfiring, and that the Democratic activist base is rallying around Barack Obama.

3. Finally, today The New York Times reports that based on dozens of interviews, undecided superdelegates generally agree that they should back the will of the voters.
   

These three things, taken together with the fundamental delegate math, suggest a consensus is forming: Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party's nominee.

Given the clarity of Speaker Pelosi's position, the trends revealed in the NYT article, and the Democratic activist base that is consolidating around Barack Obama, there is just no way Hillary Clinton will win support from enough superdelegates to overturn the vote.

More importantly, there's almost no chance that Hillary Clinton will win 60% of the remaining delegates. She's only broken the 60% threshold in three states -- Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. In all likelihood, she'll end up winning about 50% of the remaining delegates, perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more. At that point she will need to win such an overwhelming majority of the uncommitted superdelegates that she probably won't even contest the nomination in Denver.

To put her superdelegate challenge in perspective, according to Democratic Convention Watch, in the last month Clinton has gained 6 superdelegates -- and Barack Obama has gained 46.5 (some superdelegates only get half a vote). That means Barack Obama has won nearly 90% of the superdelegates over the last month. There is no way that Clinton can reverse that trend without winning huge pledged delegate victories -- and such victories are exceptionally unlikely.

Even if the Florida and Michigan situations were to be resolved with new votes in those states, Clinton's delegate hurdle would be all but insurmountable. The only chance she'd have is if she were to win 60% of the remaining delegates, and as I've shown above, the chances of that happening are remote at best.

Now, none of this means Hillary Clinton should be forced to quit the race. That's entirely up to her and her supporters. It's none of our business.

At the same time, especially given these numbers, Hillary Clinton does have a responsibility not just to the Democratic Party but also to the country as a whole to do everything possible to keep this campaign civil. That means no more "shame on you" moments, no more praising John McCain at Barack Obama's expense, no more mocking of Obama supporters, and no more equivocation when asked about false smears.

As for us, we should just keep on doing what we've been doing. It's worked so far, hasn't it?

::

Original post:

Well this is reassuring news (from Ben Smith at politico.com):

With three of the state's 45 delegates still unallocated, [Obama campaign manager David Plouffe] said, Obama stands at 21, Clinton at 14. On caucus day, the numbers were Obama 16, Clinton 15.

(snip)

The Obama campaign was spinning it as an indicator of where voters are going: "We did very well in the blue-collar areas," said Plouffe, who said Obama had vaulted from third to first in Wapello County.

But these aren't voters — they're activists. And I think it's probably a better indicator of where Democratic elites — read superdelegates — are heading, than of where voters are. And it seems to suggest that, at least in Iowa, Clinton's attacks — which are clearly having an effect in the polls and with voters — are hurting her more than they're hurting him with the activists.

It's also an indication of where former Edwards loyalists would like to see him go. I know that as a former Edwards supporter I hope he endorses Barack Obama. I also know that my closest friends who supported Edwards also now support Obama. Same thing for my family.

If you haven't seen this yet, it's worth watching -- and sending to a friend or relative.

Update: Here's links to the local coverage in the Indiana Star:

• Obama makes his case to Hoosier voters
  
• Speech impresses Hoosiers in attendance
  

From an old project of mine (now defunct)

It reminds me of how much more the Edwards and Obama campaigns have in common with each other than they do with Hillary Clinton's campaign, which is now leveraging the wealth of its top donors to intimidate the Democratic National Committee into adopting procedures that will allow Clinton to win the nomination.

At this point, Hillary Clinton's campaign is not about you -- it's about her. John Edwards' and Barack Obama's campaigns were and are about us.

David Mizner has a good diary at Daily Kos on what Edwards brought to the race -- and in my opinion, what he could bring to the campaign if he endorses Barack Obama.

I actually think that would probably be a good move. I think most people underestimated Romney's strength as a general election candidate.

Unfortunately for Romney, he fell victim to the Republican Party's overwhelming religious bigotry.

In defeating him, they overlooked Romney's eager embrace of every side of every issue, his robotic good looks, his toothy grin, and last, but not least, his abiding willingness to argue that the Democratic Party is a threat the safety and welfare of every man, woman, and child in the United States of America.

Mitt Romney is an articulate version George W. Bush -- I cannot imagine a better representative of the Grand Old Party.

...this morning, the more I think about the way the right-wing has manufactured the controversy over Jeremiah Wright, the angrier I get.

Barack Obama is not perfect; nobody is. But more than any prominent national politician, his rhetoric, message, and overall approach have been about moving past racial and ethnic divisions while at the same time recognizing the influence they have had on our history.

It's not that Barack Obama has been blind to identity politics; quite the opposite. It's not that he hasn't exploited them for political gain, when appropriate. He has. Don't forget, he's a politician. That's what politicians do.

But it matters what it is that he's exploiting, and why. As I've said many times, Obama is exploiting our hopes and dreams for a more united country and world. He hasn't exploited what makes us different. He has worked to embrace what makes us alike. And that's a good thing.

And as he has said many times, given the history of racial animus and segregation in this country, he would not be where he is today were it not for the civil rights movement and a generation of black leaders whose racial politics are rooted in an era when racism was a much more acceptable element of American society.

And now we have the political right feigning shock about the political views of Jeremiah Wright, and falsely assuming that there exists some sort of intrinsic transitive relationship between those views and Barack Obama's own. Worse, they ignore the history of why those views are different, and what that means about our nation and its possibilities.

Of course these leaders would have a different approach to racial politics than does Barack Obama. So much has changed in this country even in just a few decades, that it would be a great tragedy if Barack Obama did not have a different outlook. But that does not mean his views represent a reaction against what they represent. It means that he is the next generation of what they are -- and not just for African-Americans, but for all Americans.

And any fair observer would look at this and say Barack Obama represents great progress.

For my entire adult life (I'm 34, and, for what it's worth, white), I've had to listen to the reactionary right whine about reverse racism. Okay, fine.

But now here you have a guy who has done everything that they've asked, studiously avoiding racially polarizing rhetoric, never playing the victim card, managing to be racially aware without racializing every single damn thing.

And what is it that his political opposition does?

Attack him on race. For something that someone else said.

Give me a f&%!ing break.

Here's a message to Barack Obama's political opposition:

If you are serious about stopping him, fight this battle on the merits. Engage him on what he says.

Barack Obama is playing by all the rules that you set -- and he's winning. You don't like it. Well, grow up. Learn to deal with it.

This isn't a formal endorsement from Speaker Pelosi -- it's better. She's now saying that superdelegates should back whomever wins the most support from primaries and caucuses. As long as that happens, Barack Obama will win the nomination.

Pelosi's Delegate Stance Boosts Obama

"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections," said Pelosi, "it would be harmful to the Democratic Party."

Although Pelosi offered her assessment without directly referencing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., her comments lend considerable support to the Illinois Democrat.

(snip)

Political prognosticators give Clinton more of a chance of catching, or even surpassing, Obama in the national popular vote but Pelosi argued that superdelegates should follow the pledged-delegate, not the popular-vote, leader.

"But what if one candidate has won the popular vote and the other candidate has won the delegates?" asked Stephanopoulos.

"But it's a delegate race," Pelosi replied. "The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee."

(h/t: nevadadem at Daily Kos)

Ron Brownstein:

Both of their campaigns agree that even if Michigan and Florida hold do-over primaries, Obama is likely to maintain his lead in pledged delegates, albeit a relatively narrow one.

My (admittedly partisan) translation: By the only objectively available standard, Barack Obama has all but won the primary.

So how does Clinton think she has a path to victory? If she becomes the nominee without winning a majority of the pledged delegates, her claim on legitimacy will be tenuous -- at best.

Obama was strong in this interview. Not that it should matter, but I didn't realize that Jeremiah Wright is a former Marine. Isn't it interesting how conservatives who didn't serve in our nation's military love to criticize the patriotism of those who have?

I suspect that anti-Obama partisans who watch the interview won't change their mind, but hopefully the others who do watch it will appreciate his candor.

The most important point is that guilt by association is a logical fallacy -- and a dangerous political precedent. One can fairly judge Barack Obama on the basis of his record as a public official. The views of his former pastor, while perhaps interesting, are not proxies for Obama's own.

Andrew Sullivan responds to a skeptical reader with passages from Barack Obama's autobiography. He observes:

I don't know how you can read Obama's writing or listen to any of his speeches and believe that Wright's ugliest messages are what Obama believes or has ever believed. He wrote these words long before he was running for president. They struck me powerfully as I read them; because they helped me understand how hard hope can be for the very poor or those from broken families or gripped with addiction. I don't see how the impulse to listen to, bond with, and help those people is an ugly impulse, however ugly the anger that can come from those places sometimes is.

Sullivan's approach is the right one: if a skeptic wants insight into Barack Obama's thoughts and views, the best place to start is by listening to and reading what Barack Obama himself has to say. Certainly, watching highlight videos of his former pastor's most outrageous moments -- as prepared by conservative propaganda organs -- is not the right way to go.

In that spirit, in case you haven't seen it, here is Barack Obama speaking at Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church on Sunday, January 20th. It's a fantastic speech.

Barack Obama prays at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA on January 20 before speaking to the congregation

If our national discourse weren't so base, this is would be more than Obama needed to say, but given political realities, he had to make a strong statement, and I'm glad he did. Like most people, I agree with Obama's complete rejection of of Wright's comments, but it is worth noting that it has been obvious all along that Wright's words and views were...Wright's words and views. They were not Barack Obama's, no matter how big the frenzy conservative writers whipped themselves into.

On My Faith and My Church

The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He's drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.

As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.

With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.

John McCain presidential campaign advertisement

It's a John McCain ad that I saw on YouTube on February 28. It was in the sidebar area, to the right of where videos play.

When you clicked on the ad it took you to a page arguing that McCain was the most electable Republican, so nominating him would make sure that Hillary Clinton didn't become president.

That's a fair message, but I don't recall ever seeing a more offensive image coming directly from a major political campaign.

I wonder why Clinton didn't make a big stink about it.

Can you imagine the outrage if it had been an Obama ad? (Even I would have condemned Obama, and I'm not the biggest Clinton fan.)

From a Pew Research Center survey released two weeks ago (h/t John Aravosis):

• If Obama wins the nomination, Clinton supporters will vote for him 65-25
  
• If Clinton wins the nomination, Obama supporters will vote for her 86-10
  
• White Dems will vote for Obama 75-20, Clinton 87-10
  
• Black Dems will vote for Obama 96-1, Clinton 93-1
  
• Men will vote for Obama 84-14, Clinton 84-12
  
• Women will vote for Obama 79-15, Clinton 93-5
  
• 65+ will vote for Obama 68-22, Clinton 84-12
  
• Under $30k will vote for Obama 73-17, Clinton 90-7

These numbers show that it's Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, who would face a tougher challenge consolidating the Democratic base as nominee.

I suspect these numbers reflect the Clinton campaign's negative attacks on Obama. They don't seem to have moved that much if any of his support to her, but it has had an impact on how her own supporters view him.

From the perspective of the Democratic party, this is the worst of all worlds: one candidate is attacking the other in futile effort to win over new support -- and in the process, creating an ever growing challenge for .

Unfortunately, the Clinton campaign doesn't seem to care about the effects of their strategy on the Democratic party. Still, there's a lot of time between now and November, and Obama has a key asset that Clinton does not -- strong support amongst independents. Ironically (given the Republicans for Clinton trend), Obama has slightly more support than Clinton amongst Republicans who will actually vote for him this fall.

• Obama polls slightly higher against McCain amongst Republican voters than does Clinton. (8% versus 5%)
  
• Obama leads independents by 6 (49-43), and Clinton trails by 6 (44-50).
  
• Obama is especially strong amongst independent women, leading 57-37, compared to 50-47 for Clinton.
  
• Amongst independents, Obama's fav/unfav is 63/32, McCain's is 51/38, and Clinton's is 45/50.
  
• Obama's likability amongst independents: 51% very likable; McCain was 13%, Clinton 18%
  

From a Pew Research Center survey released two weeks ago:

• 63% of Democratic primary voters think superdelegates should back the candidate who won the most support in primaries and caucuses.
• Just 32% think superdelegates should use their own judgment to decide who they think is best.

The March 4 exit polls had similar numbers. Most Clinton voters -- 57% -- thought superdelegates should follow the results of primaries and caucuses.

Two questions asked of Democrats stand out from the NBC/WSJ survey released yesterday (3/7-3/10):

• 38% said if primary battle continued through June it would be bad for the Democratic Party, 25% said it would be good, and 31% said it would make no difference.

• 38% said that if superdelegates were to overturn the results of primaries and caucuses, the nominee would NOT be legitimate. 29% said the nominee would be legitimate, and 33% had no opinion or were unsure.

Victor Davis Hanson writing for the National Review Online:

And it won’t do to suggest that such worry is “guilt by association” or that Rev. Wright is analogous to other controversial religious figures endorsing other candidates. Wright baptized the Obama children; Obama belongs to and attends his church and has listened in the past without objection to these extremist sermons; and he took his “Audacity of Hope” book title from a Wright lecture. In that

incestuous context

, Obama’s weak disclaimer, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial, " is as disingenuous and ‘old politics’ as they come.

Hanson wasn't just talking about Barack Obama -- he was also talking Barack Obama's family, including Obama's young children. And that's really what is so disturbing about Hanson's choice of the phrase "incestuous context." Most normal people would never dream of using such vulgar sexual imagery to make their point, especially when kids are concerned. (And what is an "incestuous context" anyway? What exactly was going through Hanson's mind when he chose to use those words?)

It was totally inappropriate, and sadly typical of the types of attacks that continue throughout this campaign.

Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann was pretty tough on Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn for saying that Barack Obama "can't win the general election."

Overall, it was a damn good effort from KO -- worth watching if you haven't seen it already.

But there's one item I wish he had mentioned that he did not touch upon: Mark Penn's lobbying shop is headed by John McCain's top adviser. That raises a question: if, as expected, Hillary Clinton does not win the nomination, is Mark Penn more interested in electing John McCain in 2008 or Hillary Clinton in 2012? Whichever the case, I guarantee you this: if (when) Barack Obama wins the nomination, Mark Penn will keep on trying to stop him from becoming president.

As John Aravosis at AMERICAblog noted, Penn will have company: 25% of Clinton supporters will vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination compared to 10% of Obama supporters who would do the same if Clinton wins the nod.

A key statistic from the internals: Among Clinton voters, 39% agree with Geraldine Ferraro's comments about Barack Obama, while 47% disagree. Among Obama's voters, 93% of them disagree.

You know, I actually find these numbers reassuring (which in itself is sort of sad, I suppose). I would have thought maybe two-thirds of her supporters would have agreed with what Ferraro said. It's good to know a plurality disagree. (Rasmussen's polls are push button, so there's no reason to think the respondents were lying.)

During happier times...

Obama has also agreed to a debate in North Carolina three days later broadcast on CBS. Clinton, however, has demurred.

It's part of the Orwellian Clinton strategy of denying the existence of states where they don't have confidence in their electoral prospects. In their eyes, nothing but Pennsylvania matters. I'm sure that shameless pandering will help them, but meanwhile Barack Obama is running to be President of the United States of America. Meanwhile, Clinton appears to be running to be President of the Divided States of America.

Just for the record, in Pennsylvania, 158 delegates are at stake. In North Carolina, there are 115.

p.s.: I just thought of a tantalizing possibility: maybe Clinton is refusing to commit to debating in North Carolina because she might withdraw from the race after Pennsylvania. Wait. Who am I kidding? What a silly thought.

Until John Edwards dropped out of the race, I was a pretty much a die hard supporter. I still miss having him in the campaign. But recently I've been wondering what's taking him so long to endorse? I can't imagine that he would endorse Hillary Clinton -- and Obama could sure use Edwards campaigning for him in rural PA.

Do you remember the Democratic debate on October 30 of last year? The one in Philadelphia that where Edwards and Obama took turns sparring with Clinton?

The one that Hillary Clinton tanked, and then tried to play the victim card?

This was her campaign's take -- a video called "The Politics of Pile On."

Well, John Edwards had a different take -- he called it "The Politics of Parsing."

I just don't see John Edwards endorsing Hillary Clinton. And I think it's time that he stand up and help Barack Obama win this fight.

First Read:

You know, as I've said before, race and gender issues are very powerful in our society. They've been an organizing principle of our politics since the earliest days of our country. And so it would be naïve for me to think that we could just brush them aside. And I know that sometimes Sen. Clinton and others accuse me of being naïve, but I'm not naïve enough to think that we're going to solve the country's racial problems, and some of these other divisions in the span of six months or a year. What I do think is that our campaign has pointed towards the future, an era where these distinctions are less prominent in our politics.

The Clinton campaign continues to attack reality. Ana Marie Cox reports this tidbit from Clinton spinner Howard Wolfson (emphasis added):

And this, from Wolfson on "tactical voting": HRC's increased proportion of Republican votes is due to "her renewed strength among Republicans... due to more recent focus on issues like those being discussed on this call," the theory that Republicans are crossing party lines to sabotage the Democratic race "is an effort by the other camp to explain away our success."

Howard Wolfson is a funny guy...but could he possibly be right? Could the growing numbers of Republiclintons be a sign of Hillary Clinton's renewed strength?

The simple answer is no effin' way. New data obtained by Mark Blumenthal supports the proposition that most Republiclintons will vote for John McCain in November.

Blumenthal's data also challenges a one-size-fits all application of the Limbaugh Effect to Tuesday's results. It shows that at least some Republiclintons are motivated to stop Barack Obama. And if they continue to vote in the numbers they did in Mississippi, they very well could.

In his National Journal column, Mark Blumenthal reports some very interesting numbers on the Republicans who supported Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's Mississippi primary. (Since that's such a mouthful, I'm going to start calling them "Republiclintons".)

Blumenthal, who got his hands on exit poll cross-tabs, found that 85% of Republiclintons had a favorable view of John McCain. 58% had a strongly favorable view.

72% of Republiclintons said Clinton was not "honest and trustworthy." 62% said she does not inspire them, 56% said she has not offered clear and detailed plans, and even 41% of them would be dissatisfied if she were to win the Democratic nomination (!).

These numbers indicate most Republiclintons won't be voting for her in November -- they'll be casting their ballots for John McCain.

Obviously, Republiclintons are not the kind of voters we want picking our Democratic nominee. If they are not going to be with us in November, they have no business being with us now.

Any doubt whether there was a political motivation behind Geraldine Ferraro's racially divisive remarks on the 2008 campaign has now been erased.

Here's Ferraro last week.

When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro's comments took on a decidedly bitter edge.

"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

And here's Ferraro a little over a year ago, making the exact opposite claim in a New York Times article about whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had a realistic chance of breaking the mold of white male presidencies.

...for all the excitement stirred by Mr. Obama, it is much less certain that an African-American could win a presidential election. Not as many blacks have been elected to prominent positions as women. Some high-profile black candidates — Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat running for the Senate in Tennessee, and Michael Steele, a Republican Senate candidate in Maryland — lost in November. And demographics might be an obstacle as well: black Americans are concentrated in about 25 states — typically blue ones, like New York and California. While black candidates cannot assume automatic support from black voters, they would at least provide a base. In states without big black populations, the candidate’s crossover appeal must be huge.

“All evidence is that a white female has an advantage over a black male — for reasons of our cultural heritage,” said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the civil rights leader who ran for president in 1984 and 1988. Still, he said, for African-American and female candidates, “It’s easier — emphatically so.”

Ms. Ferraro offered a similar sentiment. “I think it’s more realistic for a woman than it is for an African-American,” said Ms. Ferraro. “There is a certain amount of racism that exists in the United States — whether it’s conscious or not it’s true.”

“Women are 51 percent of the population,” she added.

(h/t: Josh Marshall)

::

The point isn't to question which of her answers was right. (Personally, I think the question isn't the right one to ask, anyway. Sexism and racism are both horrible problems, and trying to figure out which is worse isn't a terribly useful exercise.)

The point that is that everything that Geraldine Ferraro has been saying -- that she's been persecuted for speaking the truth, for saying a fact -- has been complete, unmitigated bull.

Just fifteen months ago, she said the exact opposite of what she said last week. Her flip-flop won't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the Clinton campaign's ongoing pattern of self-contradiction.

But it is remarkable that our media -- aside from Keith Olbermann -- has largely accepted Ferraro's contention that she is a victim of racism.

The question I have is how so-called journalists managed to cover this story for the past 48 to 72 hours without once -- not one single time -- asking Geraldine Ferraro to explain her conflicting statements about race, gender, and the pursuit of the presidency.

It's not like her comments were tucked away in some obscure publication that only has a print edition: they were in the effin' New York Times. And she said them barely over a year ago.

Her words were right there, for the whole world to see. And yet not one single member of the media has challenged her on this.

I guarantee you there's a great story in her answer.

But she hasn't been asked. Pathetic.

How does NBC General Electric News justify giving up several minutes of their evening news broadcast for a studio interview with Geraldine Ferraro? Even worse, how does Ann Curry allow Ferraro to assert -- without providing a shred of evidence -- facts about what the Obama campaign has or has not done?

What is going on here? Today, we learn that more Americans support the war in Iraq than at any point since 2006. Not surprisingly, the same poll finds that just 28% of Americans know how many of our soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began.

And the MSM thinks Geraldine Ferraro of all people deserves a platform from which to spread -- unfiltered -- rumors, innuendo, and division.

It's just another reminder that the media is not our friend. At least the myth that the media is pro-Obama has been punctured.

Funny stuff from Team HRC

After setbacks in Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama needs to demonstrate that he can win the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the last state with more than 15 electoral votes on the primary calendar and Barack Obama has lost six of the seven other largest states so far - every state except his home state of Illinois.

[If you define "setback" as netting enough delegates out of our 20-plus-point wins in Mississippi and Wyoming to completely erase any delegate advantage the Clinton campaign earned out of March 4th, then yeah, we feel pretty setback.]

Update, 3/15: It turns out that while FOX News did purchase the recordings, so did other news organizations. There doesn't seem to be anything at all nefarious about the acquisitions, as I had speculated. Apprently, the church makes all of its recorded sermons available for purchase. Still, the timing of of their release -- coming immediately on the heels of the public humiliation of Geraldine Ferraro, a FOX News contributor -- does raise questions. These videos were made months and years ago. Why are they now an issue if they weren't before?

FOX News -- surprise surprise -- is making hay over a sermon made by Jeremiah Wright, the retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama's church. Completely independent of what Wright said, a few things trouble me.

First, there's nothing new here. This video is months old -- why is it coming out today, on the heels of FOX News contributor Geraldine Ferraro's resignation from the Clinton campaign?

Second, FOX News paid the church for the video. From their writeup:

FOX News purchased the video recordings of Wright’s sermons from the church.

How much did FOX News pay for the video, and when did they purchase it?

When Wright was making his speech, was he aware of the possibility that FOX News would purchase it? In other words, did he have a financial incentive to give FOX good video?

The bottom line to me is that FOX News is a propaganda organ for the far-right. They've already admitted paying for this video and I wouldn't be surprised if there is more to this story.

PocketNines concurs that Clinton's Mississippi Republicans could have cost Obama as many as 10 net delegates (costing him 5, and giving Clinton 5). Here's the numbers:

Could be as high as a 24-9 split that was lost.

Obama just short of 62.5% (62.166%) statewide for 3-1 PLEO.
Obama short of 64.286% (62.166%) statewide for 5-2 at-large.
Obama just short of bare majority in CD 1 (48.5%) for 3-2.
Obama short of 70.0% (66.7%) in CD 3 for 4-1.
Obama short of 78.6% (76.8%) in CD 2 for 6-1.

Obama barely kept a bare majority (50.5%) in CD 4.

That is a huge number. Clinton's Mississippi Republicans may have cost Obama more delegates than she won on March 4.

What a process for picking a presidential nominee, eh? And isn't it ironic that we now need superdelegates to step up to the plate to defend our right to choose a nominee?

Here's an updated look at the nearly impossible math confronting the Clinton campaign.

Over at ObamaIsWinning.com, I've posted an update to the Magic Number Tracker. Barack Obama is now just 216 delegates away from securing a majority of pledged delegates. As long as he wins 38% of the remaining delegates, he'll go to Denver as the only candidate with a legitimate claim to the nomination.

To put 38% in perspective, Barack Obama has won at least 38% of the delegates in all but three states -- Iowa, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Of course in Iowa, it was a three-way race, so there's really only two states where he's fallen short.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, must win a whopping 67% of the remaining delegates to get a majority -- and that's not going to happen. To put her challenge in perspective, she's exceed 67% exactly once. In Arkansas.

The only conceivable way she can get the nomination is by overturning the judgment of voters and the results of caucuses and primaries. Now that Republicans are beginning to interfere on her behalf in our primaries, I don't think superdelegates will put much weight on her performance down the stretch, even if she does do well.

Still, by the media's reckoning, Barack Obama is an underdog. That may well be. But he's an underdog that just can't lose.

Their choice? Hillary Clinton.

Yesterday, in the Mississippi primary, 24% of Hillary Clinton's support came from Republicans. Unlike the Republican support generated by Barack Obama, according to exit polling data, Clinton's Republican support appears to be part of the explicit plan promoted by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh to wreak havoc upon the Democratic Party by voting for Hillary Clinton.

Update, 3/12, 6:11am: I've now posted a more comprehensive blog entry with looking at the numbers and what they mean.

Do the math and 25% of Hillary Clinton's support came from the GOP. That should be enough for a delegate or two, perhaps more.

These are people who will never, ever vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election.

Simply put, Republicans are gaming the Democratic primary.

Now that John McCain is the nominee of the GOP, Republican participation in Democratic primaries is skyrocketing -- and they are voting for Clinton.

Before Texas, on average 1.8% of voters in Republican primaries were Republicans who supported Hillary Clinton. In Texas, 4.1% of voters were Republicans who supported Hillary Clinton.

Today, 10% of voters were Republicans who supported Hillary Clinton. Again, she will not win these voters in November. They are purely screwing with our process.

This is a major issue -- and it needs to be addressed.

This is the Limbaugh strategy in action.

8:20pm: Updated below.

That means 20-13 is a worst case scenario. Assuming that Chuck Todd is right, the Clinton campaign must win at least 67% of the remaining delegates.

Without these noxious gasses of conflict, the Clinton campaign cannot survive.

It is FOX news contributor Geraldine Ferraro's job to generate the pollution that the Clinton campaign so desperately needs.

And by not firing Ferraro, the Hillary Clinton has embraced that strategy.

And it is up to us to stop it.

And we can stop it.

Yes we can.

Very funny. Wolf Blitzer basically says Obama is winning a tremendously huge victory, but they won't call the state. That's hilarious. It's like he's saying: hey people, watch ads!

Again, who wins the state doesn't really matter: what matters is delegates.

Exit poll asked whether people viewed each candidate as honest and trustworthy: 70% said yes for Obama, just 52% for Clinton.

Update: It gets funnier. CNN just projected Obama as the winner...of the Texas caucuses. From last week. (We've known this for an awful long time...)

Update 2: CNN finally calls it for Obama. If you're watching CNN, note that when they put 40 delegates next to his name, that includes 7 superdelegates -- and it is the statewide total, not Obama's total. In all, 33 delegates are at stake tonight.

What's the over/under on how long it takes the networks to call the state?

Of course, that's not the real issue -- the real issue is how many delegates Obama and Clinton receive, because this is now a delegate battle. Winning or losing states may help with the media, but it won't help on the convention floor.

PocketNines at DailyKos has a diary in which he'll be tracking the results as they come on, tracking what matters -- delegates won.

Go Obama!

33 delegates are up for grabs today. When the polls close, we will have selected 83% of all pledged delegates.

If they split the delegates 17-16, then Hillary Clinton will need to 66% of the remaining delegates to hit the real magic number of 1,627 - a majority of pledged delegates. If they split them 19-14, then Clinton will need to win 67%.

If they split them 20-13, then Clinton will say the people of Mississippi don't count and the state doesn't matter anyway. :)

We've all heard how tough Hillary Clinton's delegate math is.

For starters, in order to hit a majority of pledged delegates, she'll need to win 65% of the remaining delegates -- and she's only won more than 65% in one state, Arkansas. Even if you assume Michigan and Florida come up with an acceptable plan for a binding primary or caucus, she still must win 60% of the remaining delegates, a threshold she has only crossed three times -- in Arkanasas, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island.

But what if we change the goal posts and say that Hillary Clinton merely needs to "come close" to Barack Obama? The numbers must get much easier, right?

Well, you can say the numbers are easier -- anything is easier than the impossible. But there's not as much difference as you might think.

It's enough to make you wonder why she thinks she still has a path to victory -- and how far she'll go to accomplish her goal.

First, you might not know that the fight about Michigan and Florida isn't just a fight about whether there should be a primary or a caucus, or who should get how many pledged delegates. It's also about superdelegates, because unless the Michigan and Florida delegations are seated, the superdelegates from those states won't have a say. There's 313 pledged delegates in the two states and 54 superdelegates. According to Democratic Convention Watch, of the superdelegates who have committed, 15 support Clinton, and 5 support Obama.

Second, as I said a couple of days ago, but bears repeating -- there are two states in which the Democratic primary turnout was lower than the Republican turnout. Those two states? Michigan and Florida. Proof positive that Democrats in those states did not take the primaries as seriously as Democrats in other states.

Finally, there's a lot of talk about the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton claims to lead by virtue of Michigan and Florida. (Kind of hilarious that she would include Michigan, where Obama wasn't on the ballot.) One of the problems with popular vote is that everybody has a different definition of popular vote. How do you count Texas, for example, where about 2.8 million voted in the primary and 1.1 million in the caucuses? Or Washington, which had a primary but the primary was a beauty contest because all the state's delegates were distributed in the caucuses?

Well, let's look at what happens if you just total every thing up, including Michigan, Washington, Florida, and both the Texas caucuses and Texas primaries. Mind you, I don't necessarily think this is a good definition of the popular vote, but it certainly is the most expansive one.

It turns out that using this method Barack Obama has received 14.84 million votes compared to 14.59 for Hillary Clinton. In order to claim a victory, the Clinton people remove Washington and the Texas caucuses from the totals (plus some other caucuses, I believe). So when the Clinton campaign claims a popular vote lead they might as well be saying: "we're leading in the states we choose to count."

I'll leave you with one postscript: in Michigan, which Clinton "won," she received 328,151 votes. Uncommitted won 265,686. Something tells me Obama will be picking up delegates in Michigan if there is revote. But Clinton still likes a revote, because it means more superdelegates can go to the convention.

Oh my:

McCain Advisers Lobbied for Airbus

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.

The thing is, John McCain hasn't exactly been a neutral referee -- in fact, he's done a lot to help Airbus.

In 2006, McCain lobbied the Bush Administration to change its procurement practices so that Airbus, along with its partner Northrop Grumman, could bid on a $35 billion U.S. Air Force contract that may eventually be worth $100 billion. Well, McCain's hard work paid off and two weeks ago, the Airbus-Northrop consortium won the contract, beating out Boeing.

As a result, thousands of jobs that would have been created and supported here in the United States will instead go overseas.

And now it turns out that John McCain's campaign team has at least three lobbyists who were hired by Airbus to help the European aerospace giant win that very same contract.

Can you say: we got him?

Strong statement from Senator Obama on one of McCain's smear-mongering minions, Iowa Republican congressman Steve King who stoked the false Muslim smear on Saturday:

I think that Mr. King has it backwards. The fact that the continuation of a presence in Iraq as Senator McCain has suggested is exactly what, I think, will fan the flames of anti-American sentiment and make it more difficult for us to create a long-term and sustainable peace in the world. But I have to say that Mr. King and individuals like him thrive on offensive or controversial statements as a way to get in the papers, so I don’t take it too seriously. I would hope Senator McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks.

Via Ben Smith at politico.com.

On the campaign trail, frequently one reporter is assigned to attend an event on behalf of all the reporters in "the pool." The reasoning is mainly logistics -- when a candidate visits a tiny restaurant, it's impossible for all the reporters to fit inside, for example. The reporter files a "pool report" which his or her colleagues can then use in their articles.

Today Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times filed a pool report on Barack Obama's visit to The Little Dooey, a small restaurant in Mississippi. He related the items that Obama ordered (a bunch, it was food for eight!), conveyed Obama's thoughts on Rep. Steve King's smear-mongering comments from this weekend, and added some of Obama's comments on his VP-talk smackdown. Zeleny then closed with the following line:

None of the food that he ordered from The Little Dooey was seen being consumed.

Obviously, Zeleny's implication was that Obama was a phony.

It seems like an innocent, trivial remark -- but it actually isn't, as absurd as that sounds. If Zeleny thought that it was important to find out whether or not Obama ate any of the food, he could have asked. Not that hard to do.

In fact, if he thought it was important, he should have asked. But he didn't. Instead, he added in a snarky throw-away line, no doubt to curry favor with the boys and girls on the bus -- the traveling press corps.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not whipped into a frenzy over this -- but it provides you a window into the mind of reporters, and how shallow they really are.

A few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton argued there was no difference between pledged delegates and superdelegates (which she called automatic delegates). Now she's talking as if pledged delegates don't exist any more -- there's primary delegates and caucus delegates, she says. Huh? What's this all about? Why is she going to Wyoming and saying caucuses aren't elections...and then asking people for their vote? Keith Olbermann and Chuck Todd break it down: it's all part of her undemocratic superdelegate strategy.

Update, 3/12 7:53pm: The article noted below remains the top entry on the Delegate Hub. It's now been there for at least two days.

For the second time in as many weeks, Hillary Clinton's campaign is promoting a divisive -- and misleading -- race-based argument on "The Delegate Hub," the campaign's official website for making the case that superdelegates ought not follow the results of primaries and caucuses. Today, the lead story on the site is a two paragraph excerpt from a Washington Post article including this gem:

Obama's losses Tuesday in Texas and Ohio...have also given supporters of Clinton an opening for an argument that winning over affluent, educated white voters in small Democratic enclaves, such as Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, and running up the score with African Americans in the Republican South exaggerate his strengths in states that will not vote Democratic in the fall.

Just last Sunday, the lead story on The Delegate Hub offered this "insight":

Obama has won white Democrats in only two states: New Mexico and Illinois.

Maybe Eugene Robinson was right after all. Maybe the Clinton team does think that "to paraphrase Orwell, some states are more equal than others."

I won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton. I won more of the popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more delegates than Sen. Clinton. So I don't know how someone in second place can offer the vice presidency to someone in first place.

I think we can now say that just about every single major tactic that the Hillary Clinton campaign has employed during this campaign has boomeranged.

Experience? Oops.

The VP gambit? Oops.

Superdelegates? Oops.

NAFTA-gate? Oops.

Change you can Xerox? Oops.

Shame on Obama? Oops.

Now Mark Penn is attacking Barack Obama as "the most liberal Democratic senator." One month ago, Hillary Clinton was attacking Barack Obama for supposedly saying Republicans had all the good ideas and for praising Ronald Reagan. Two weeks ago she was attacking him for betraying Harry Truman's dream. And now he's some kind of wild-eyed liberal? Good lord -- I get whiplash every time I try to figure out the Clinton campaign message.

ObamaIsWinning.com now has a new feature -- the magic number tracker. You can check it out over there, or look at it here in this post, which includes freshly updated numbers from Wyoming. Yesterday, Barack Obama picked up 7 delegates and Hillary Clinton picked up 5 delegates in that state's caucuses.

::

The Real Magic Number is 1,627

1,627 is fifty percent plus one of the 3,253 democratically selected delegates to the Democratic nominating convention.

Once a candidate has 1,627 of these "pledged" delegates, he or she will win the nomination -- unless the 796 superdelegates overturn the judgment of voters.

And that's not going to happen.

::

Magic Number Tracker

Here's where the race stands after the Wyoming caucus, using the Obama campaign's numbers.

As you can see, Obama has a significant lead -- Clinton must win 65% of the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number. She was won 65% of the pledged delegates in just one state -- Arkansas.

Even though Clinton won important contests last week, her overall deficit was so large that in a way, she actually fell even further behind by not winning a large enough victory. Before last Tuesday, Clinton needed to win just 60% of the remaining delegates. Now she needs to win 65%. Why? Because the clock is running out. We have now selected more than 80% of the pledged delegates that will go to the convention in Denver.

::

What about Florida and Michigan?

Democrats in Florida and Michigan deserve to have a voice in the nomination. The Clinton campaign argues that the non-binding beauty contests held in January should count, but nobody expects that to happen -- for good reason. Florida and Michigan are the only two "contests" in which more Republicans voted than Democrats. The reason? Democrats didn't take the primaries in Florida and Michigan seriously because they knew they wouldn't count.

Assuming that both states finally come up with a plan for a binding primary or caucus, then the magic number would increase from 1,627 to 1,784.

That wouldn't change things all that dramatically. Clinton would still need to win 60% of the remaining pledged delegates and Barack Obama would need to win 43%. To put that in perspective, Barack Obama has won at least 43% of the delegates in all but 8 of the 44 primaries and caucuses held through Wyoming -- and one of those was Iowa, where he won more delegates than Clinton.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a top Obama surrogate, and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a top Clinton surrogate, square off on Meet the Press. Daschle makes the case that superdelegates should not overturn the results of primaries and caucuses, even promising to support Hillary Clinton if she emerges the victor of the voting process. Rendell makes the opposite case, arguing that the states won by Clinton are more important than the ones won by Obama.

After Texas and Ohio, the Washington Post wrote this:

And then Clinton's advisers turned to their other goal: denying Mark Penn credit.

With a flurry of phone calls and e-mail messages that began before polls closed, campaign officials made clear to friends, colleagues and reporters that they did not view the wins as validation for the candidate's chief strategist. "A lot of people would still like to see him go," a senior adviser said.

The depth of hostility toward Penn even in a time of triumph illustrates the combustible environment within the Clinton campaign, an operation where internal strife and warring camps have undercut a candidate once seemingly destined for the Democratic nomination. Clinton now faces the challenge of exploiting this moment of opportunity while at the same time deciding whether the squabbling at her Arlington headquarters has become a distraction that requires her intervention.

Today Mark Halperin notes:

Clinton’s top strategist asserts to the New Yorker that Obama’s liberal views and inexperience are costing him.

“Independent and Republican support is diminishing as they find out he’s the most liberal Democratic senator… As they get more of a sense that he’s not ready to be Commander-in-Chief, a lot of Independents who were supporting him are disappearing.”

Penn's comments seem perfectly, one hundred percent in compatible with the actions of Hillary Clinton -- and the rest of the campaign.

So it strikes me that either the handwringing from Clinton's staff about Penn wasn't heartfelt and had more to do with reassuring people in the outside world who think Mark Penn is entirely toxic, or that Clinton's staff is even more divided than the Democratic Party.

Michigan and Florida are the only two states in which the Republican primary had more voters than the Democratic primary. The reason is obvious: nothing was at stake in Michigan or Florida and voters knew it. Still, like all states, we need to find some way to let them vote, preferably with a primary, but if not, at least with a caucus on a weekend designed to allow as many people as possible to participate. Whatever they do, they need to decide on a course of action quickly.

::

The Clinton team has decried caucuses, but even if you were to exclude all of the caucuses, Barack Obama still leads the popular vote 51% to 49% (on a two-candidate basis). So even in the contests where Obama is weakest and Clinton is strongest -- Obama is still ahead.

::

Despite this lead, Barack Obama has only netted 14 delegates from these primary states (50.3% of the delegates compared to 49.7% for Clinton). In other words, yes -- the delegate math in primary states does not work in Barack Obama's favor. And just so you don't forget, about 85% of the delegates are awarded in primary states.

::

Through Texas, in open primaries Republicans supporting Hillary averaged 1.8% of the electorate. In Texas on Tuesday, 4.1% of voters were Republicans for Hillary -- about 65,000 more voters than you would have expected given historic ratios. Given margins of error and the like, it's very conceivable that Rush Limbaugh's gambit paid off and Hillary won Texas thanks to Rush Limbaugh. (And don't forget that Bill Clinton appeared on Limbaugh's guest host's show on election day.)

On Saturday evening, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez framed Republican Congressman Steve King's comments about Barack Obama's middle name by saying "the Muslim thing continues to come back and haunt Barack Obama."

Huh? What Muslim thing?

Sanchez must mean the false Muslim smear...but somehow he manages to never once explicitly mention that the smear is not true.

The truth is that there's nothing wrong with being a Muslim, but Barack Obama is a Christian. He's not a Muslim and he's never been one.

::

Sanchez seems to be treating the smears as if they were a legitimate campaign issue that you'd debate in the same fashion as you might debate delegates vs. superdelegates.

Sanchez never really embraces the smears as being true, and at one point seems to ridicule them. At the same time however, he doesn't debunk them. More importantly, he doesn't refer to them as rumors or smears. Instead, he uses a phrase like "Muslim thing."

And Sanchez actually seems to blame Obama for the persistence of the smear.

Here's two of his finer moments:

What's harder? Being a woman in this campaign as is Hillary Clinton or being an African-American whose middle name is Hussein?

You think Barack Obama should just come out and say, look, I'm sick and tired of this. I am a Christian. I am not in any way aligned to anybody out there in Middle East who is an extremist, and I'm not going to take this any more. Why doesn't he just come out and say that?

Of course the truth is that Barack Obama has said that. In fact, he said it last weekend on 60 Minutes -- an episode says he watched.

Today, he embarrassed Iowa by trying to push the false rumors connecting Barack Obama with Muslim extremists.

As big a schmuck as King is (and I'm being kind), his comments actually present us with an opportunity, however, because it creates an opportunity to once again publicly state the truth: there's nothing wrong with being a Muslim -- but Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He is a Christian. His grandfather was a Muslim, but his father was agnostic. His mother was a Christian.

More importantly, when Americans view the world as the enemy -- as does Steve King -- we end up finding ourselves stuck in endless wars half-way around the world.

Ultimately, people like Steve King are telling us more about themselves than anything else.

Oh, by the way: last I checked, John McCain still hadn't repudiated King's comments.

Obama communications director Robert Gibbs emails reporters with a picture of Clinton and Sheryl Crow from a 1996 trip to Kosovo Bosnia, linking a series of recent articles including this Chicago Tribune piece making the point that Clinton wasn't a central player on foreign policy in her husband's administration.

Clinton's claim to the mantle of experience has always been complicated, though it's one voters, according to polls, accept. Obama has made sporadic attempts, starting in the fall in Iowa, to challenge it. This shot — complete with silly photo — seems to open a new front, as well as to signal the general atmosphere of ill will between the campaigns.

I think the moral of this story is: presidential candidates shouldn't base their campaigns on false premises.

18 12 delegates were at stake. Update: I just heard Jessica Yellin on CNN say that the Clinton campaign is claiming a come from behind close loss. Whatever exactly that means. The final results were 61%-38%.

I think the question is whether it will end up as an 8-4 split for Obama (which I think it has) or a 7-5 split.

As you know, given the Democratic Party's arcane rules, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will need support from superdelegates to actually win the Democratic nomination in 2008.

The question is whether the superdelegates should support the results of primaries and caucuses or whether they should vote their conscience, irrespective of who actually wins more pledged delegates.

Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton believes that superdelegates should vote their conscience, picking the candidate they think is most electable -- even if that means overturning the judgment of Democratic primary voters and caucus goers.

Barack Obama believes that superdelegates should respect our decision. (Maybe he'd think differently if he were losing, but that's immaterial because he's not losing. He's winning.)

It turns out that most of Hillary Clinton's own supporters agree with Barack Obama.

We know this from exit polls taken during Tuesday's primaries which posed the following question:

If the Democratic nomination were to be decided by superdelegates, they should: - Vote for who would have the best chance in November (Clinton's view) - Vote based on results of the primaries and caucuses (Obama's view)

The exit poll shows that not only do most Democratic primary voters agree with Barack Obama's position, but most Hillary Clinton voters agree with Obama as well.

A weighted average of each state shows that overall, 62% of Democratic primary voters on Tuesday agreed with Obama and just 34% agreed with Clinton.

57% of Clinton voters agreed with Obama and 73% of Obama voters agreed with their preferred candidate.

Hillary Clinton's view did not generate majority support among her voters in any of the four states. The closest she came was Rhode Island, where support was evenly split. (Why is it not surprising that Rhode Islanders would be more comfortable with overturning the popular vote than people from other states?)

::

The moral of the story: the idea that superdelegates will be able to overthrow the results of primaries and caucuses is a fantasy.

Even Hillary Clinton's own supporters would oppose such a move.

The only way Hillary Clinton will be able to secure the nomination while maintaining legitimacy is by winning the overall battle for pledged delegates in Democratic primaries voters and caucuses.

Even her own supporters don't want to win it any other way.

She's got a tough challenge ahead of her, and probably won't succeed.

But she's got every right to try -- just as long as she doesn't attempt to steal the nomination should she fall short.

About half-way through the Wyoming caucuses, Barack Obama has a lead, but we won't have final results for another four hours or so. Update: PocketNines is tracking the results at Daily Kos.

It turns out one of of the sleeping children in Hillary Clinton's 3am ad is now 1718 years old -- and a huge Barack Obama supporter. She'll be eligible to vote in November's election and caucused for Obama in Washington.

And last night Barack Obama put an end to Hillary Clinton's arrogant, patronizing, and condescending bandying about of the VP slot as a consolation prize:

You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate -- you know, I’m running for president. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count -- but you know, what I’m really focused on right now, because all that stuff is premature, is winning this nomination and changing the country.

Amen!

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton may have opened a big can of worms.

Seeking to stay on the offensive against Barack Obama, Clinton attacked him for saying one thing to Americans and another thing to foreigners. Her evidence? Comments about Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan made by Samantha Power (also of Monster-gate), who has now resigned from her unpaid role as an informal adviser to Barack Obama's campaign.

Obviously, Clinton's campaign must be pretty desperate to be attacking the unofficial comments of an informal unpaid adviser (who has now resigned).

But the real story is that her decision to make contacts between campaign advisers and foreign governments an issue could boomerang something fierce.

Here's what Clinton said:

I think it’s important to look at what she and his other advisors say behind closed doors, particularly when they’re talking to foreign governments and foreign press.

Sounds reasonable to me. Just remember that turnabout is fair play, and unless she is a complete hypocrite (always possible) she ought to be more than happy to cooperate in investigations into her own adviser's relationships with foreign governments.

I'll give you just three examples of areas where more needs to be known: her chief strategist Mark Penn's representation of sovereign wealth funds from the United Arab Emirates, her husband's financial ties to the United Arab Emirates, but and also her husband's relationship with Frank Giustra and what that could mean for U.S. relations with Kazakhstan in a third Clinton administration.

(Video of Clinton's attack and Obama's strong response is available here.)

Yesterday, one of Barack Obama's advisers resigned after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster." There's been considerable speculation about whether or not Hillary is in fact a monster, but that's another topic for a different day.

Here's where things stand on the race to get a 1,627 pledged delegates, a majority of the delegates elected through primaries and caucuses.

We're now using the Obama campaign's numbers (at least until media organizations get their numbers up-to-date).

At this point, Hillary Clinton would need to win 65% of the remaining delegates to become the legitimate nominee of the Democratic Party.

Even though she won a slight delegate lead on Tuesday, she still lost ground. Going into Tuesday, she needed about three-fifths of the remaining delegates. Now she needs 65%.

Things got tougher for her because she's running out of field. I'm not saying Barack Obama should mail it in -- he shouldn't -- but the fact is that he's got such a big lead that there is almost no way that Hillary can win, at least not legitemately.

By the way, things don't change much if Florida and Michigan end up having primaries or caucuses after all. Clinton would still need to win 60% of the remaining delegates. It would be like adding a few minutes to the clock at the end of the game even though outcome isn't much in doubt.

Over at Daily Kos, MaverickModerate makes a persuasive case that that Barack Obama actually won Texas. As you may recall, Texas is a caucus-primary hybrid and over one million people showed up for the caucuses. Between Barack Obama's net delegate gain and overall margin if you include caucus participants, Obama actually did better in Texas than Hillary Clinton.

Not to mention the fact that he didn't do it with the help of Rush Limbaugh.

Eugene Robinson nails it:

If, as expected, Obama wins in Wyoming tomorrow and Mississippi on Tuesday, we'll be right back where we were before the latest Clinton renaissance.

There must be Clinton campaign staffers who have sore backs from moving those heavy goal posts so often. Back when Obama was winning 11 primaries and caucuses in a row, the Clinton camp maintained that the whole contest was about delegates, not momentum. But since Tuesday, when Clinton won three out of four states, the delegate count is being dismissed as a mere formality. The way to assess the race, say Clinton's backers, is to look at momentum.

But it's an odd kind of momentum that we're being asked to appreciate. Apparently, the contests in Wyoming and Mississippi won't count if Obama wins them, because that's what everyone expects. The April 22 primary in Pennsylvania will definitely count if Clinton wins, however, even though that's what everyone expects. To paraphrase Orwell, some states are more equal than others.

From NBC's Bethany Thomas

What began as a typical chat session with traveling reporters on the plane from Atlanta to New Orleans quickly became a testy exchange with McCain. The senator was questioned on the details of a conversation with former presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 about being his potential running mate.

The topic came up earlier this morning during a town hall at the headquarters of Chic-Fil-A, where an employee asked if McCain would consider John Kerry as a running mate for this election cycle.

McCain answered in Atlanta that his and Kerry’s political views are too different. “I just totally disagree with them,” McCain said. “He is a liberal Democrat... I am a conservative Republican. When we had that conversation in 2004, that’s why I never even considered such a thing.”

Pressed further aboard the plane by a reporter as to whether he did in fact have a conversation with Kerry, McCain showed his infamous temper.

More and more, it becomes clear, you cannot trust a single thing Hillary Clinton says. If she told me my name was Jed, I'd wonder if my real name was Frank and if my mother had been lying to me all these years.

If you're not into streaming video, here's a decent article on the flap.

This is just unbelievable. For the third time in four days, Hillary Clinton has extolled John McCain's fitness to be commander in chief while slamming Barack Obama's. From The Swamp:

In a Cabinet-style setting, surrounded by retired military leaders, Sen. Hillary Clinton said the public should ask whether Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has met the criteria needed to become the nation’s commander in chief.

“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold,” the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant’s bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington.

“I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy,” she said.

Calling McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee a good friend and a “distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,” Clinton said, “Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold. That is a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with.”

What kind of experience is it that Hillary McClinton thinks puts her and John McCain above Barack Obama? Her experience parroting the Bush administration propaganda on Iran? Her eight years of experience watching her husband in the White House, which she says led her to vote for the war in Iraq?

These are questions that media needs to ask.

Here's an update on where the delegate battle stands, using the latest numbers from MSNBC.

As a reminder, the real magic number is 1,627 -- a majority of pledged delegates selected through primaries and caucuses. Once a candidate has 1,627 pledged delegates, he or she will become the nominee unless the superdelegates overturn the judgment of voters.

(For more on the details behind these numbers, read It may not have seemed like it, but Barack Obama took a major step closer to the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.)

By the way, there's a lot of buzz about Michigan and Florida. Because they don't have delegations, they obviously aren't included in these charts.

What would happen if the states decided to hold DNC-sanctioned primaries or caucuses?

Well, that would put another 313 delegates in play, and the new magic number would be 1,783.

It wouldn't change that much on the delegate math challenge confronting Hillary Clinton. She would have to win 59% of the remaining delegates, and Obama would have to win 44%.

There's been considerable debate over whether or not Hillary Clinton's final attack ad for the March 4 primaries darkened Barack Obama's skin tone to capitalize on racial prejudice.

As you can see from the image above, there's no question that the skin tone from the Clinton ad is darker than the the original video. It's also stretched, making Obama's face look darker than it really is.

The question is whether or not this was intentional. Here's a good Daily Kos diary arguing that the color difference was not intentional and was mostly an artifact of the conversion process from source video to YouTube. The diarist argues:

Darker, isn't it? But why? It has to do with uploading to streaming video.

conversion to Flash format drives up contrast and reduces the mid-range color values that are frequently found in flesh tones and facial detail.

But it's worse on YouTube. You see,

Some of the differences may be due to video compression required by YouTube, which encodes video to Flash format and re-sizes it, using its own required parameters before posting. The Clinton camp may have had one color scheme in its original video and ended up with a slightly different one after YouTube's processing.

I decided to test that hypothesis and created a set of screen captures from Hillary Clinton's YouTube channel and compared them to the ad in question, which is located in the center of the collage below (click on it or click here to view a larger version).

The important thing to note about this collage is that instead of comparing Hillary Clinton's video of Barack Obama to MSNBC's original video of Barack Obama this collage compares Hillary Clinton's ad to other video produced by Hillary Clinton.

There is clearly a difference. It's up to you to decide whether or not it was intentional, and if so why.

It's very important to note that there's nothing -- absolutely nothing -- wrong with having darker skin -- or lighter skin, for that matter. However, if someone is intentionally darkening someone else's skin to capitalize on racial prejudice, that is exploiting racism in the worst way. And in my mind, it should disqualify someone from winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

I'll post the original screen captures soon.

Clinton Wins Big, but Math Is Troubling

But the March 4 results have not changed Obama's strongest talking point (and reality point) for why Clinton should exit the Democratic race: Math. It appears numerically impossible for her to overtake his lead among elected delegates.

(I've updated the numbers in this post in Barack Obama is getting closer to having a majority of elected delegates.)

Now that we have emerged from the intensity of Tuesday's primaries, it's become clear that it's winning delegates that matters -- not winning states.

We knew this all along, but probably got a little greedy and hoped to land a knockout blow, ending the campaign prematurely. We didn't, and so the campaign continues.

But even though the campaign didn't end on Tuesday, Barack Obama got closer to winning the nomination -- and Hillary Clinton got further away.

The reason? The delegate math. On Tuesday, Barack Obama cut the number of delegates he needs to win a majority of pledged delegates from 425 to 272. Hillary Clinton just barely managed to get her number down to where Barack Obama started the night.

I am always amused by those who argue that the New York Times is a progressive publication. (For example, the NYT's flawed reporting on WMD in the run-up to the Iraq war makes it more responsible for that conflict than any other newspaper in America.)

Altough it's op-ed page has a clear anti-Hillary Clinton bias (from both the left, Frank Rich, and the right, Maureen Dowd), its political coverage has definitely tilted towards her campaign.

Take, for example, this headline:

Clinton Success Alters Delegate Race’s Dynamic

The implication seems to be that she has tilted the delegate battle in her favor, right? At least that's what I would take from the article if I was just scanning headlines.

When you delve into it, it's pretty clear the reporters were grasping at straws:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s victories in the primaries on Tuesday barely dented Senator Barack Obama’s lead in delegates, but they seemed to slow the Democratic Party establishment’s move in his direction while giving her campaign time to try to turn the race in her favor.

That is the first paragraph of the article. I submit to you that it is utterly devoid of any real meaning or substantive fact. I'm sure high school students have written more compelling material.

The article devolves into high comedy:

“Let me state it categorically: This party is not going to nominate somebody who hasn’t passed the commander-in-chief test,” said Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director. “If he can’t convince Democrats in Ohio and Texas that he can be commander in chief, he is not going to be nominee of our party.”

You can state it as categorically as you want, Howard, and the New York Times can print it however many times they want, but it won't change this fact: if your boss can't win a majority of pledged delegates, she ain't winning this nomination. The superdelegates just aren't going to overturn the judgment of voters.

This puts Clinton's recent comments about John McCain in perspective:

Hillary Clinton is at it again. This morning on CNN, she said:

I have a lifetime of experience. Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience. Senator Obama's campaign is about one speech he made in 2002.

She added:

if your entire campaign is about one speech and that's what you hold up as your credential to be president against a lifetime of experience from John McCain and a lifetime of experience from me, I think the voters can draw their own conclusion.

(The full transcript is available at CNN.com.)

Hillary Clinton finally won a state on Tuesday, but that doesn't mean she's won the Democratic nomination.

Barack Obama still has a nearly unsurmountable delegate lead and unless Clinton manages to win 65% of the remaining delegates after Wyoming and Mississippi, the only way Hillary Clinton will become the nominee is if the superdelegates overturn the judgment of voters.

If you're interested in just how tough the delegate math is for Hillary Clinton, check out this excellent Daily Kos diary by PocketNines. (For a bonus, you can read this totally irrelevant and off topic comment I posted about a poker hand I once played...with pocket nines.)

1,627 is fifty percent plus one of the 3,253 democratically selected delegates to the Democratic nominating convention. Once a candidate has 1,627 of these "pledged" delegates, he or she will win the nomination -- unless the 796 superdelegates overturn the judgment of voters.

According to MSNBC, there are still 119 delegates left to be allocated for the March 4 contests. Obama seems likely to win at least sixty of these delegates, meaning that to hit the magic number, he must win 260 of the 626 delegates left to be decided (42%). Hillary Clinton must win 393 of those delegates (63%). There is virtually no chance of that happening.

Mind-numbingly arrogant:

Clinton hints at shared ticket

JIM KUHNHENN and CALVIN WOODWARD, AP News
Mar 05, 2008 09:11 EST

Hillary Rodham Clinton, fresh off a campaign saving comeback, hinted Wednesday at the possibility of sharing the Democratic presidential ticket with Barack Obama — with her at the top. Obama played down his losses, stressing that he still holds the lead in number of delegates.

If Clinton isn't careful, she's going to remind people what drove them to Barack Obama in Iowa and twenty-four other states.

Terry McAuliffe makes it clear that if Barack Obama wins more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton, she will nonetheless plead her case to the superdelegates -- even though that would mean overturning the judgment of voters.

Greg Sargent at TPM:

Obama campaign advisers are privately urging the networks and media figures to consider, as they evaluate the incoming results, that in Ohio there are areas where as much as 15% of the vote is provisional ballots.

The Obama camp isn't urging the networks to hold off on calling the race, but...[snip]...Obama aides are pointing out that the nets erroneously called Missouri for Hillary before the provisional ballots came in and were later forced to reverse the results when those ballots came in from the St. Louis area and put Obama over the top.

The point isn't that Obama may have won Ohio -- the point is that Hillary's victory margin may in fact be much smaller than it currently seems to be.

According to Chuck Todd, it will be next to impossible for Hillary Clinton to overtake Barack Obama's pledged delegate lead, but superdelegates could still give her the nomination by overturning the judgment of voters.

That's basically the story of the day, pretty close to what I thought would happen. Hillary Clinton has won an important public relations battle with the media, but as far as what matters -- the overall pledged delegate lead -- the biggest thing that happened tonight was that Barack Obama maintained his lead and moved closer to the magic number of 1,627.

Barack Obama began his speech with congratulating Hillary Clinton for her two victories today (her twelfth and thirteenth) in Rhode Island and VermontOhio. He then moved on to a forcefully rejection of the seemingly coordinated lines of attack against him coming from the Clinton and McCain campaigns. Good -- it's time to fight back, and he's doing it with class.

We don't yet know what the final vote or delegate distribution will be, but keep in mind that Obama trailed Hillary Clinton by double digits within the past month.

Update: Hilarious moment in Hillary's victory speech -- she reads off the states that she thinks count...and only includes states she won. She then talks about the states yet to vote...and only mentions Pennsylvania.

Via Ben Smith, Barack Obama looks set to net at least one delegate from Vermont and Rhode Island combined. Vermont is set to split 9-6 for Obama, and Rhode Island will go 10-8 for Clinton. (There's actually a slim chance of Obama and Clinton splitting the delegates in Rhode Island at nine apiece.)

Overall, worst case for Obama seems to be 17-16 for the first 33 delegates. 337 left to go!

This means that Obama now must win 408 delegates to hit the magic number of 1,627. Clinton must win 569.

Update: According to Chris Bowers at Open Left, Clinton will net one delegate out of Vermont and Rhode Island. CBS has just called Texas for Clinton, but the delegate split looks close. Chris shows a lopsided gain of 24 delegates for Clinton in Ohio. Overall, Chris projects about two-thirds of the delegates so far, so Clinton's lead could grow (or shrink).

I just finished listening to McCain's victory speech and it seems like he's going to offer up the war in Iraq as the centerpiece of his campaign. That doesn't seem like a good idea.

The exit polls (OH, TX) offer a breakdown of how men and women voted, and the share of the electorate for each.

From those numbers you can extrapolate what the exit polls are saying the final numbers will be. Here they are:

Ohio: 51-48 for Clinton
Texas: 50-49 for Clinton

Now the thing is, these polls are always off by a little. They readjust them when returns start coming in so they can fine tune their projections. But when they are as close as they are in Texas, for example, they are basically meaningless as a tool for determining who won. (Later on, they can tell you why the winner won.)

Case in point: Obama is currently leading the early voting in Texas, a result not predicted by the exit poll.

We're just going to have to count the ballots the old fashioned way.

Looks like Clinton is doing well inAs expected, Hillary Clinton wins Rhode Island, balancing Obama's victory in Vermont.

Elsewhere, Obama is leading amongst early voters in Texas. According to the exit polls, it looks very, very close.

In Ohio, nobody has called anything, but the exit polls suggest a lead for Hillary Clinton.

(bumped)

As I've said many times, the real magic number is 1,627 -- a majority of the pledged delegates selected through primaries and caucuses.

Once a candidate hits 1,627, he or she will win the nomination -- unless superdelegates step in and overturn our judgment.

Here's a look at how things stand at the beginning of the evening.

The question tonight is how much closer each candidate gets to the magic number.

There's only about one thousand delegates left to be selected (including the 370 up for grabs tonight). As you can see, the challenge for Hillary Clinton is severe.

Update: According to the CNN exit poll, 1 in 10 Texas primary voters were Republicans, though they split fairly evenly, tilting slightly for Obama. So, barring any additional information, I think Bennett's speculation is likely bunk. Maybe he's dreaming about the Bellagio?

I don't know what to make of this, but it's pretty clear Bill Bennett (not exactly the world's most trustworthy guy) thinks that Republican voters may be interfering in the Texas primary. Recall that Rush Limbaugh yesterday urged voters there to do just that. Also, earlier today Ben Smith noted a report from a Texan that on conservative radio stations, callers were complaining that after voting for Clinton, they weren't allowed to vote in the GOP primary.

It may be a long night, but this is a nice way to start!

Update: CNN's Schneider says exit polls show Barack Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq from the very start (and Hillary Clinton's support thereof) was a major factor in Obama's victory.

Update@5.20pm: Beeton apologizes (and removes the original false claims):

[editor's note, by Todd Beeton]Edited to make my own post more consistent with reality. Sorry for carelessly jumping to conclusions, JEDReport.

I appreciate Beeton's apology.

A few hours ago, Todd Beeton over at MyDD.com falsely accused me of manipulating video footage to distort Hillary Clinton's statement yesterday that John McCain was more ready to be president than Barack Obama.

His accusation is completely false.

In the video I posted, here's what Hillary Clinton said:

I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know that Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.

Beeton responds:

Sure, if you splice the video just so, as JEDReport did in his ridiculously manipulative video, it sure looks bad, but in the full context, imagine that!, while clumsy to be sure, her response is revealed to be merely the same electability argument she's been advancing in various forms since McCain became the presumptive GOP nominee.

Beeton then quotes what he claims is the original statement:

"I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say," she said. "He's never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."

Notice something? Beeton's quote doesn't match the one in my video.

The reason? He's talking about a different statement -- one Hillary Clinton made in Forth Worth, Texas on March 1. Of course it doesn't match the one in my video, which is a statement from March 3 made in Toledo, Ohio!

Yet he accuses me of manipulating the video of her statement. Amazing.

The plain truth: I didn't manipulate the video at all.

Here's the video I posted:

Here's the original source for that video:

As you can see, I posted -- verbatim -- what Hillary Clinton said. I edited out Wolf Blitzer, but I can hardly be faulted for that.

The claim that I manipulated the video is false. Beeton owes me an apology.

As does Hillary Clinton to all Democrats.

By the way, while I'm on the topic, let me give an example of how a real Democrat talks about John McCain:

(bumped)

This evening, 370 delegates are up for grabs. When the night is through, we'll be more than eighty percent of the way through the delegate selection calendar and only about six hundred will remain to be chosen.

You're going to hear a lot of talk about the the 2,025 delegates a candidate needs to win the nomination, but that number includes superdelegates.

The real magic number is 1,627 -- a majority of the 3,253 pledged delegates (the ones democratically selected in primaries and caucuses). Once a candidate has 1,627 of these pledged delegates he or she will win the nomination -- unless the superdelegates step in an overturn the judgment of voters.

And that's not going to happen.

It's been pretty clear over the past few days that the new Clinton strategy of beating the press over the head with a two-by-four has been working like a charm.

Well, instead of grousing about it quietly, Barack Obama is returning fire:

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CNN) – Democrat Barack Obama — a candidate who's confronted two of the most negative news cycles of his campaign over the past couple of days — said Tuesday that he's "surprised" rival Hillary Clinton's strategy of taking aim at the media has helped her campaign "as well as it has."

"I didn’t expect that you guys would bite on that," Obama told reporters aboard his plane, "this whole spin of just how the press just has been so tough on them and not tough on us."

To be clear, Barack Obama has received more favorable press coverage than Hillary Clinton in February.

There's a reason, though. He's utterly dominated the primary calendar, winning a majority of delegates on Super Tuesday and every single contest since then.

Anytime a candidate wins that much he or she will get positive coverage -- unless the media decides not to report who is winning and who is losing.

And for the the record, any comparison the Clinton campaign is making between the Rezko trial and Monica Lewinsky, draft dodging, Frank Giustra, Whitewater, the Rose Law Firm, Gennifer Flowers, etc. is just ridiculous. I feel completely betrayed that they are trying to make an issue out of this after I defended them on scandal after scandal, from Norman Hsu to the Lincoln bedroom to dishwashers.

Jonathan Alter weighs in on Hillary's math problem, noting that Slate's Delegate Calculator allows the truly geeky at heart to try an infinite number of scenarios for the distribution of delegates in the final stretch of the primary process:

The Clintonites can spin to their heart's content about how Obama can't carry any large states besides Illinois. How he can't close the deal. How they've got the Big Mo now.

Tell it to Slate's Delegate Calculator.

True that. Tell it to the calculator.

You can spin all you want, but 2+2 still equals 4, and 1,627 is a lot closer to Barack Obama than it is to Hillary Clinton.

And there's a reason for that: he's won more votes and more contests than Hillary Clinton. And though every voter in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island and Vermont are important, they aren't more important than voters in other states.

First, there was the Xerox insanity (this is the real plagiarism).

Then it was shame on you.

Followed by the triumph of pessimism (no wagic wand for you!).

Then it was the media's turn, and Rezko, in the guise of the media. (By the way, I completely agree with my friend Mark Hall who feels like the Clintons have stabbed him in the back. In the 1990s, we defended them on everything from Monica Lewinsky to Whitewater, from draft dodging to Gennifer Flowers -- and now they want shove Rezko down our throat? As if there was any possible comparison between the accusations made against them.)

This weekend, there was 3:00 AM.

And now Hillary "disloyal Democrat" Clinton is saying the John McCain is better prepared for the Presidency than Barack Obama.

Leaving aside the fact that both Clinton and McCain supported the war in Iraq, can you imagine the difficulties Clinton would have debating McCain after her statements today? She basically said that both she and McCain were equally ready for the Presidency. I doubt McCain will be so kind.

And that brings me to a video that dharmafarmer at Daily Kos brought to my attention. It's of Barack Obama challenging John McCain on Iraq.

This video shows one of the many reasons why Barack Obama should be the Democratic nominee: he can challenge John McCain on Iraq in a way that Hillary Clinton can't -- because she voted for the war.

It's not that Limbaugh is for Hillary Clinton, mind you -- it's that he thinks the longer the Democratic nomination battle lasts, the more it will help John McCain. (Who he now seems to love, surprise, surprise.)

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow slam Hillary Clinton's contention that John McCain is more ready to be President than Barack Obama.

h/t: turneresq

Delegates selected through March 4: 2,259.

Delegates selected on March 4: 370.

Already, about 20 million votes have been cast and 35 states have voted (included DC).

Obama has won more than one million more votes than Hillary Clinton, and has won 24 of the 35 states.

He leads in delegates 1,194 to 1,037.

Voters in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island are important.

But they are no more important than voters every other state.

Three New Polls: Clinton's Ohio Lead Growing

Of course, even if Hillary wins every single delegate in Ohio (which she won't), she'll still end the day tomorrow significantly behind Barack Obama in the overall contest for delegates -- thanks not only to Obama's current lead, but also to Texas, Vermont, and perhaps Rhode Island.

Hillary Clinton just said John McCain is more ready to be president than Barack Obama:

I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know that Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.

Hillary Clinton's embrace of McCain is outrageous.

Yes, this is the same John McCain who is the biggest cheerleader for the war in Iraq and is the architect of the surge.

This is the same John McCain who admits he doesn't know know a thing about economics and proves it with his tired-old right wing rhetoric.

This is the same John McCain who gladly embraces an anti-Catholic pastor in the pursuit of votes from evangelical extremists.

And Hillary Clinton thinks John McCain is better suited to the presidency than Barack Obama.

Ben Smith has a good post on the contention by Barack Obama's campaign manager that no matter what happens today, Hillary Clinton has no conceivable path to the pledged delegate majority.

A commenter named Lisa chimes in with a funny line, quoted in the title of this post.

SurveyUSA is one of the most accurate pollsters, and if this poll is accurate -- Clinton 54%, Obama 44% -- then even though Clinton's hopeless position in the delegate battle will remain unchanged, her campaign will continue, and we'll see an even nastier, scorched earth battle.

If you don't get why Hillary Clinton's remarks about the false Muslim smears against Barack Obama are offensive, imagine the following scenario.

Barack Obama, on 60 Minutes, is asked about scurrilous rumors that Hillary Clinton is lesbian.

His answer goes something like this:

I take Hillary at her word that she isn't. Why would I believe that she is? There's nothing to base that on -- as far as I know. And I've been the target of a lot of smears myself. So I have sympathy for people who get targeted with these typical political smears.

I think a lot of people would be outraged -- and rightly so.

Hillary Clinton's Delegate Hub web site is her campaign's main vehicle for making the case that superdelegates should support her campaign.

Delegate Hub's newest line of argument? Hillary Clinton is winning white Democrats.

I've never seen anything like it.

TPM reports that Obama is leading in both Ohio and Texas according to Zogby's tracking poll -- by 2 and 3 points, respectively. Bottom-line: it's still close, but Obama continues to trend upwards.

As you may have heard, last night on 60 Minutes Hillary Clinton said that "as far as I know" the false smears about Barack Obama being a Muslim aren't true. Not exactly a clear-cut repudiation of the false smears.

This video debunks the false smear in the hopes that the next time Clinton's asked about it, she won't hedge. It also includes the full 60 Minutes segment in which her "as far as I know" comment was included, as well as the continuation of her comments in which she talks about smears that have been made about her in the past.

In addition to the debunking the false Muslim smear, this video debunks the false national anthem smear, the false pledge of allegiance smear, and the false flag lapel pin smear.

Overall, the video is a bit rough -- it kind of has the kitchen sink thrown in there -- and it would have benefited from some more editing, but there's only so much time in the day.

As always, if you have any thoughts, I appreciate your comments, either here or in the YouTube comments.

The answer in her own words.

On the Meet the Press today, Tim Russert reviewed the debate he and Brian Williams moderated on Tuesday, starting out with a question he asked of Obama which John McCain later tried (and failed) to use as a line of attack on Obama.

During the panel discussion, Mike Murphy (a Republican) briefly brought McCain's embrace of the anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee. Given Russert's grilling of Obama on his rejection of Louis Farrakhan's endorsement, you'd expect Russert to be fair and discuss McCain's acceptance of Hagee's endorsement.

Nope. Russert just moved on, skipping over the issue entirely.

You see, when Democrats reject endorsements from bad people, it raises troubling questions that the media must dissect in great detail.

But when Republicans accept endorsements from bad people, it gets swept under the rug.

America's punditocracy, in action.

1,627 should be a familiar number to you by now. It's the number of pledged delegates a Democratic presidential candidate needs in order to secure a clear majority of the delegates chosen by Democratic primary and caucus voters.

Once a candidate hits 1,627 pledged delegates, the only way he or she can lose the nomination is if superdelegates decide to overturn the judgment of voters.

Here's where we stand according to MSNBC's estimate: Barack Obama has 1,194 pledged delegates and Hillary Clinton has 1,037.

On Tuesday, there are four primaries -- Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont. In total, 370 delegates will be awarded. As you probably know, the only one of those whose outcome is not in doubt is Vermont, where Obama will certainly win. Clinton is favored in Rhode Island, but it's closer there. Still, the big prizes are Ohio and Texas.

Obama has led many of the recent polls in Texas and is closing the gap in Ohio. Because of the way delegates are distributed in Texas, Obama will probably do no worse there than breaking even. In Ohio, I suspect Clinton will eke out a small victory (mostly because I have a horrible track record at predicting things like that!).

Anyway, all in all, I wouldn't be surprised to see Hillary Clinton end up with 190 of the 370 delegates awarded on Tuesday, compared to 180 for Obama.

If that happens, after Tuesday she'll be at 1,227 pledged delegates and Obama will be at 1,374.

At that point, we'll be more than 80% of the way through the process with just 624 delegates left to be awarded.

To hit the magic number, Clinton will have to win 400 of the 624 delegates -- 64%.

Obama will have to win 253 of the 624 delegates -- 41%.

(The numbers add up to 105% because John Edwards has 26 pledged delegates and it is possible neither Obama nor Clinton would hit 1,627.)

The bottom line is that even if Clinton does about as well as she can expect to, it will still be almost impossible for her to acquire enough pledged delegates to hit the magic number.

There's just virtually no chance she could win anywhere near 64% of the remaining delegates after Ohio and Texas. She'll point to Pennsylvania, which is is a big prize worth 158 delegates, but Obama will counter with Oregon, Mississippi, and North Carolina which combined have 200 delegates and will almost certainly deliver larger delegate margins to him than Pennsylvania ever could to Hillary.

Under an absolute best case scenario for Hillary Clinton, she might scrape by with a net loss of about 4 delegates from those states.

At that point, with just 266 pledged delegates left to be selected, Obama would need win just 72 of them to hit the magic number. Hillary Clinton meanwhile would need 223 of them -- 84%.

Barring an unforeseen epic collapse by Barack Obama on Tuesday, there's just about no chance Hillary Clinton will hit the 1,627 number.

Yet she's still running hard, and attacking even harder.

The question is: why? Her situation is nearly hopeless -- unless she thinks she can pull off a superdelegate engineered victory.

That's a topic I'm planning to address in the coming days, because I'm beginning to think that no matter what happens on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton will push on past Ohio and Texas.

And that could get very ugly.

Hillary Clinton's chief strategist is quickly developing a reputation as the greatest comedian on the campaign trail. The latest: Obama must win Ohio and Texas, according a recent Penn memo.

“Obama Must-Wins.”

“If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there's a problem,” Penn writes. And not only does he have to win, they have to be “decisive,” according to the memo.

“Should Senator Obama fail to score decisive victories with all of the resources and effort he is bringing to bear, the message will be clear.”

When they write the obituary for Hillary Clinton's campaign, they'll say it was death by a thousand little memos from Mark Penn.

For the past six years, one of John McCain's stop legislative goals has been blocking a huge aerial tanker contract won by by Boeing in late 2001.

McCain says he opposed the contract -- then valued at $26 billion -- because it was awarded without fair competition. He has a point -- one of the official involved the deal later plead guilty to corruption charges.

But instead of being satisfied with cleaning up the process, McCain continued to press the attack against Boeing, hoping to deny the company a victory when the contract was again put up for bidding.

Yesterday, McCain finally won. The Air Force awarded the contract -- now worth $40 billion -- to Northrup Grumman and Airbus.

The tankers themselves will be built in France and shipped to Alabama for final assembly.

So the net result of one of John McCain's proudest moments is that an defense contract crucial to the economic welfare of the United States is now going overseas and will help the French economy more than the American economy.

And during the delay of the past six years, the Air Force has continued to use decades-old refueling tankers.

Good work, John.

As you might know, Pastor John Hagee, a radical cleric who founded the Christian Zionist movement, recently endorsed John McCain's presidential campaign -- an endorsement McCain fought for, and proudly welcomed.

Hagee is a frightening man and in the minds of most reasonable Americans, McCain's personal acceptance of Hagee's endorsement is appalling.

Aside from the fact that Hagee is just plain crazy, he is bigoted against Jews and Catholics. (Not to mention Muslims...or, dare I say it, atheists.)

Hagee says antisemitism is the Jews' fault:

It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day.

He also calls the Catholic Church "the great whore of Revelations 17" and says Catholics are responsible for the Holocaust.

In the last couple weeks, Hillary Clinton seems to have tested out just about every line of attack that John McCain will offer in November.

To