Full transcript after the jump.

Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama has made the case that he more than his opponents is positioned to usher in a huge Democratic majority in Congress. Meanwhile, over the past several weeks his political opponents from across the ideological spectrum have tried to make the exact opposite argument.

Tonight, that anti-Obama argument faced a critical test -- and failed. This morning, the Washington Post framed the question:

In Special Elections, GOP Tests Anti-Obama Strategy

By Paul Kane - Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 3, 2008; Page A03

BATON ROUGE -- Don Cazayoux insists he pays so little attention to the presidential campaign that, even on the verge of capturing a seat in the House of Representatives, he was unaware that if he wins Saturday he will become a superdelegate, tasked with helping to decide the Democratic presidential nominee.

Yet in the run-up to Saturday's special election, the state representative's image popped up time and again in local television ads, paired with that of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). One spot had side-by-side photos of Cazayoux and Obama with the words "big government scheme" describing the local candidate's stance on health care. Another showed Cazayoux with Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and charged that Cazayoux supports a "radical liberal agenda." Another spot mocked him as "Don Tax You."

Faced with the prospect of losing a seat that the GOP has held for the past 33 years and the further thinning of their ranks in Congress, Republican committees and their conservative allies have poured more than $1 million into an effort to turn the race for Louisiana's 6th Congressional District into a referendum on Obama, the Democratic front-runner for the White House.

Despite the GOP's apparent confidence in its strategy of tying Obama to Cazayouz, their gambit fell short -- Cazayouz won by about 3%. That's not bad for a district that's been in Republican hands for the past three decades, and it's pretty good evidence that Barack Obama isn't the drag on the ticket that his detractors have claimed.

In fact, quite the opposite is more likely to be the case. Earlier this year, in another seat lost by Republicans, Democrat Bill Foster won a special election to fill former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat. Foster's campaign ran advertising featuring an endorsement from none other than...Barack Obama.

So the Republican record in defending their own districts in special elections featuring Barack Obama is now 0-2.

There will be another test on May 13 in Mississippi, but I'd be very pleasantly suprised if the Democratic candidate Childers were to win there because the district is the most conservative of the three and because as we saw in the March 11 primary, Republicans in Mississippi really dislike Barack Obama.

Whatever happens in Mississippi though, you better believe that superdelegates will also remember what happened in the Foster and Cazayouz elections. In both cases, Barack Obama was the face of the Democratic Party. And it both contests, the Democratic Party won.

Update: A reader writes that Donna Edwards' victory over Al Wynn is another example of a Congressional race -- albeit a Democratic primary -- where Obama played a role. Although Obama did not endorse Edwards, she endorsed him. Update 2: Al Wynn also endorsed Obama (in fact, three weeks earlier than Edwards), so this wasn't a good example to have included.

Collins has a pretty good column on the whole gas-tax holiday debate, emphasizing that it was John McCain's idea to begin with and that Barack Obama "drew a line" on the gas-tax pandering. Her closing advice to Indiana and North Carolina voters:

On Tuesday, root for the Democrat whose vision of the political process comes closest to matching your own. And I do not want you to be swayed by the fact that Hillary and Barack are finally having a policy debate, and it’s about the dumbest idea in the campaign.

Photo: Guam Pacific Daily News

Obama won a close victory in Guam today. According to Democratic Convention Watch, Clinton and Obama will end up splitting the pledged delegates at 4 apiece. (They each get just 0.5 votes, so a 4-4 split would mean 2 pledged delegates for each.) The real question will be how Guam's 5 superdelegates vote. No word yet on the selection of those superdelegates or how they will vote.

Update: The superdelegate tally in Guam is now 2 for Obama, 1 for Clinton, 1 undeclared, and 1 unselected. It is a bit confusing to piece together, but I'll try here. First, here's a link from the Guam Pacific Daily News reporting that of the five spots, two were up for grabs in today's vote. Another two have already been chosen, and one of those two supports Clinton, the other undeclared. The fifth spot is unselected at this point. Finally, of the two spots up for grabs today, the pro-Obama slate won (actually one of them is declared for Obama, the other said she will support the popular vote on Guam, which went for Obama). (Hat tips to commenter ctk in ky-3 and Daily Kos diarist BoBo2020.)

You might have seen this Zogby poll of Indiana voters showing Obama leading Clinton by one point, 43%-42%. I'm skeptical of the poll's accuracy because it is out of line with every other poll taken in the past week. In those polls, Clinton averages 49% and Obama averages 41%.

In addition, Zogby doesn't have the greatest track record this season. They've polled in 11 contests, accurately picking the winner in 8. That sounds good, but if you look under the hood, Zogby has been a mostly hit or miss affair. In 5 of the 11 races, the final margin was off by double digits from Zogby's projection (OH 10, GA 13, SC 14, NH 16, and CA 21 points). In one of the races it was off by 5 points (NJ) which is pretty close. And in the other five Zogby was spot on, getting within one point in four races (NV, IA, PA, and TX) and two points in a third (MO).

So while I'm rooting for Zogby to be right, I wouldn't count on it.

I had no idea that Obama has family ties to Indiana, going back several generations to the 1840s. (That's way longer than most of my family has been in the US!) Indy Star:

Sen. Barack Obama has some little-known Hoosier roots, according to state historians.

His mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas. But if you go back a few generations, you'll find her family includes Hoosier farmers, doctors and teachers. One of his great-uncles, William Riley Dunham, was even a member of the state legislature. And, yes, he was a Democrat.

Today, Obama highlights the connection in Kempton, Indiana. Ben Smith:

Obama makes a stop this afternoon at a house on land once owned by his "2nd, 3rd and 4th great-grandfathers" on his mother's side, the campaign says.

The house in Kempton, Ind., was built by one of Obama's great-uncles, who was a member of the Indiana legislature -- the campaign notes -- and stayed in the family until the 1970s.

It's some low-hanging fruit, though it would probably have had more impact if the event had been held earlier, like perhaps the day after the PA primary.

Obama will make his closing argument to Hoosiers and North Carolinians on Sunday evening in a pair of two-minute ads, one for each state. The central message (and most of the content) in each ad is the same, positioning Obama as the candidate of change, willing to speak the truth in stead of playing the same old political games.

He continues his focus on the gas tax gambit, which I think has been the most impressive part of his campaign over the past week or so, at least on a substantive level. There's no question that his opposition to a gas-tax holiday was a real political loser when it first came up. But now that he has made the case for his principled position, it has actually turned into an opportunity to refocus the campaign on his message of change.

In the long run, that should prove to be a huge plus. If this election is about change, he will win. If it's about pandering or about DC experience, he won't. For the past several weeks, with the obsession on Ayers and Wright, it's been nearly impossible for Obama to talk about his core message. Now, he's found a way to return to it. It probably won't be enough for victory in Indiana, but the more important issue is that it is allowing him to get back to the fundamental reason his campaign was effective in the first place: he is the candidate of change.

I've posted the ads in this blog entry as well as in the video pod.

Obama: "It's a Shell
game. Literally."

Forget for a moment that the best-case scenario for the gas tax holiday would only save a typical driver $30, probably even a little less. Forget about whether or not the gas tax holiday would increase demand, causing another spike in prices. Forget about the temporary, short-term nature of the plan. Forget about the fact that it will never pass Congress. And even forget about the questions of how to finance it.

On what basis should we believe that the gas companies would pass along the full $0.18/gallon to consumers?

The assumption behind the holiday appears to be that if the gas-tax were lifted, gas stations would keep their pre-tax prices constant, resulting in an $0.18/gallon drop in prices. But how realistic is that? Certainly, there would be market pressures to pass along some of that savings to consumers, but would they pass along the full amount? And how would we ever know?

Al Giordano takes a look at the numbers in Charles Blow's NYT column about race and '08. Al concludes:

Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. ...he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.

This is pretty telling -- about six months ago, two months before the first ballot was cast in Iowa, the New York Times reported that Barack Obama was trailing Hillary Clinton by 100 superdelegates, 159-59. Today, he trails by just 23, 267-244.

Here's another way of looking at those numbers:

• Supers who decided by Nov. 8: 159 for Clinton and 59 for Obama.
• Supers who decided between then and now: 108 for Clinton and 185 for Obama.

Do the math and you find that 63% of superdelegates who have decided since November 8 have gone with with Obama. That is a pretty powerful trend in Obama's favor.

More recently, however, it's true that his pace has slowed. According to Democratic Convention Watch, on April 6, the superdelegate split was 245 for Clinton and 221 for Obama. So since early April, Obama has gained 23 superdelegates to Clinton's 22, just over 50%.

Still, viewed in light of the fact that Barack Obama does not need to win a majority of remaining superdelegates to secure the nomination, I'd say this is a pretty powerful trend in his favor.

I don't have any cats, but if I did, I'd hope they all got along this well:

And on a completely unrelated note, thanks to everybody who wished me happy birthday yesterday. Now I'm one day older, and we're one day closer to President Barack Obama!

Now, I know numbers and tables and charts aren't the most inspiring thing in the world -- usually. But I think even if you hated math in school, you can find a place in your heart for the following data.

Very briefly, what this chart shows is where the numbers stand now and where they would be likely to stand (given current superdelegate totals) after Tuesday's primaries and the the conclusion of voting and selection of add-on superdelegates.

Of course, since between now and each projection the superdelegate totals are likely to change, these aren't predictions of where we will be as much as guides as to how many superdelegates Barack Obama really needs to win over in order to lock down the nomination.

The projections are very conservative, giving Clinton an eight delegate advantage in the upcoming primaries and a six delegate advantage on the add-on column.

The bottom-line is even with these very conservative assumptions about Obama's performance relative to Clinton among pledged delegates and add-on delegates, Barack Obama still has a dominant lead.

At this point, the only way Clinton can win is if a significant number of Obama's current superdelegate supporters abandon him and support her instead. But there's no indication that will happen. In fact, with Joe Andrew's endorsement of Barack Obama this week, the opposite seems to be happening. Moreover, Politico, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal have all reported this week that superdelegates are inclined to support the pledged delegate winner -- and that means Barack Obama.

The real question isn't whether or if Barack Obama will win -- the question is when and how. Will enough superdelegates endorse him so that he can wrap it up on May 20, when he secures a majority of pledged delegates? Or will they wait into early June? Either way, Obama is winning. Will it be in mid- to late-May, or early-June? For the answer to that, we've got to stay tuned.

Here's the closing five minutes from tonight's speech in North Carolina:

On a totally unrelated note, Guam started voting 23 minutes ago.

Well, it seems my governor's marital problems have forced him to move out of the house, which in this case means the Governor's Mansion. Not that you couldn't have seen this coming. Back in early April, the Las Vegas Gleaner noted that Gov. Gibbons (a Republican who the Gleaner calls Governor Pervus A. McSkantard in honor of an incident with a cocktail waitress that nearly ended cost him the election) had gone on a divorce diet.

Meanwhile, in other marital strife news we've got actual philandering, and it's of the Democratic type. It's in Ohio, and the press is salivating:

The Ohio Attorney General scandal gets better by the week.

This morning Attorney General Marc Dann used the forum of a press conference called to release a report about sexual harassment allegations involving a top aide to confess an affair with his scheduler.

Dann said he won't resign and is "very hopeful" his wife will forgive him.

Indeed.

The in-house report about sexual harassment lays out the seedy details of mishbehavior by Dann's chief of administrative services, Anthony Gutierrez, who was fired. Another top aide, communications director Leo Jennings III, also was given the boot and two the employees, including the scheduler, quit.

The Swamp has more.

Don't forget -- tomorrow is the Guam primary. Now, if it's not bizarre enough that we're havingn a primary in Guam consider this: Guam will send 13 delegates to the DNC. Of those, 8 will be pledged delegates -- but each pledged delegate from Guam will get just half a vote.  In all Guam will have 9 total delegate votes -- 4 of them from the 8 pledged delegates, and five from five superdelegates. So more superdelegates will be coming from Guam than primary delegates.  Yup, bizarre. (All this courtesy of 2008 Democratic Convention Watch.)

I'm a little late getting to this one, but if you haven't had a chance to watch Joe Andrew on Countdown discussing his reasons for endorsing Obama, it's worth taking in. In addition to gaining a ton of respect for Andrew, it also is a good illustration of just how strong a favorite Obama is to win the nomination.

I have to admit I was skeptical about whether or not this video would be good. It never occurred to me that it would be fantastic (and not just because it includes a couple of snippets of a video I posted a month or so ago.

Help put this in front of more people -- digg the video (not this page).

h/t: Ben Smith

Barack Obama began his campaign billing himself as a different kind political leader, and in the Indiana campaign he's really gotten himself back on that message. Clinton's gas tax gambit gave him a perfect opportunity to refocus the debate on the need to change the ways of Washington, and his newest ad drives that message home:

By now you've probably gotten up to speed on the basics of the dispute about Mickey Kantor's remarks, taken from the 1992 documentary film The War Room about Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.

From Digg:

In other news, 35 years ago today I was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It's always nice to celebrate another birthday, and this year North Carolinians (and Indianans!) can make it extra special with belated birthday present!

The Clinton campaign now claims she actually said "Rich people, God blessed us" on Falafel Bill O'Reilly's show. Blessed, as in B-L-E-S-S-E-D, not bless.

In the abstract my vote is that they're lying, but you should decide this one for yourself:

Okay, now that you've watched the clip...it's clearly another lie. But what else did you expect from that campaign?

Update: Turns out that a sniper shot off the "-ed." Who'd have thunk it?

I could say the same
about HRC's gambit

Clinton's gas tax plan has been roundly and justifiably slammed as pandering. It polls well, but in the real world, even in the best case, it would save people $20 to $30. Total. And in the worst case, it would actually increase gas prices. Even Clinton's own supporters concede it's a bad idea, but they like the politics of it.

Clinton, who is smart enough to know what a bad idea her gas tax plan is, probably also knows that there's virtually no chance it will ever pass Congress -- especially now that Nancy Pelosi has come out against it.

So she shamelessly advocates for a stupid idea, confident that she will bamboozle voters with it, yet secure in the knowledge that it will never happen.

At HuffPo, Peter Dreier takes a comprehensive look at the sad story of how Sidney Blumenthal is using the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to attack Barack Obama's character. Ironically, Blumenthal, who was a Clinton White House staffer and is now a pro-Clinton journalist, has documented how the very same right-wing network tried to destroy Bill Clinton during the 1990s.

Dreier's article offers a new look at what I think is a central truth of this election: the Clintons (and their political organization) learned all the wrong lessons from the 1990s. Instead of standing up to the American right, they now embrace it. It's desperate and its cynical. These are the people who helped lead the impeachment against Bill Clinton. And now the Clintons are not only forging a new alliance with them, they are throwing under the bus organizations like MoveOn.org which helped save Bill Clinton's presidency.

In the past few weeks, I've posted several videos on this theme, and I'll repost three of them here.

George Stephanopoulos strikes again. On Sunday, he's hosting a town hall event for his former boss Hillary Clinton to be broadcast on This Week, featuring questions from Indiana and North Carolina voters. Those questions will almost certainly be softballs, but Steph could always surprise us by asking some tough questions raised by other journalists at ABC. I'm not holding my breath.

If it weren't for Steph's pro-Clinton bias during the presidential debate in Philadelphia, he might have been able to get away with this without appearing too hackish. But on the face of it, this seems certain to further erode his credibility as a "journalist" (if he has any left).

If you can stomach it, here's a clip of Steph's blatantly pro-Clinton Philly debate performance:

Meanwhile, Barack Obama will be on Tim Russert's Meet the Press. Sure, Obama gets points for taking on the tougher format, but in the end Steph's campaign event will have more electoral value for Clinton than Russert's interview will have for Obama.

That's okay, though. Nobody said this was going to be easy. And even now that she is nearly defeated, Hillary Clinton still has more power in the establishment than Barack Obama. Things do change, however. Things do change.

I'm thinking it didn't clear.

Hillary Clinton's struggle with a gas station coffee maker has already gotten nearly a half-million views on YouTube in the 18 hours since it was first posted on AMERICAblog by Joe Sudbay. Those are huge numbers, even by viral video standards.

At Daily Kos, Adam B has a very thorough (and quite restrained) overview of the mess created by the WVWV, the voter registration group that gave misleading information to North Carolina voters about the registration deadline for the primary.

Here's the superdelegate news of the day (as far as I know):

• Obama endorsed by former DNC Chair Joe Andrew, who switches from Clinton to Obama
• Clinton announces all four NY add-ons will support her campaign
• Obama announces all three IL add-ons will support his campaign
• Maryland will announce its two add-ons later today
• Update: Obama also gets TX superdelegate Joe Patrick. (Numbers updated throughout.)
• Update: Clinton picks up a CT superdelegate, bringing her total to 5 for the day (but she lost one in a switch).

Net/net: Obama picks up 5 supers. Clinton picks up 5 but loses 1 for a net of +4.

The important thing as Ben Smith and Avi Zenilman note is that these add-ons do not reflect momentum in anyway whotseover. There was no suspense about whether the IL party would support Obama, or the NY party would support Clinton. Avi also notes that 3 of CA's 5 add-ons will support Clinton and 2 will support Obama.

The key thing for Obama is that he is so much closer to the 2,024 threshold than Clinton that unless she's picking up more than two supers for each one that Obama picks up, he's doing fine. If from here on out, Obama only won 40% of of the support of supers -- he would still win the nomination.

The trendlines look much better than that.

BTW, going into today, Clinton had 261 supers and Obama had 242. Taking today's announcements into account, Clinton is at 265 and Obama is at 247.

Now, remember that Obama had 1,493 pledged delegates. He's all but certain to win at least another 200 (there are 408 left to be selected). That puts him at 1,693 pledged delegates -- minimum. Add in his 246 superdelegates plus another 2 from CA and he is at 1,942 total delegates -- 83 short of the 2,024 needed to secure the nomination. (Remember, this relies on a conservative projection of pledged delegates.)

The bottom-line is that to win the nomination, Obama needs just 82 of the 278 uncommitted superdelegates -- a bit under 30%.

None of these numbers are exact, and different sources will have slightly different estimates, but the core math is very clear: to be able to win the nomination, Clinton needs 70% of the remaining superdelegates, and there has been absolutely no indication that she will be able to achieve that number.

Also note that my numbers here are very conservative. We could also project out the unnamed add-ons, which will likely split between Clinton and Obama. At that point, Obama would need just 25% or so of undeclared superdelegates. If you throw in the members of the Pelosi club and other supers like Jim Clyburn who are undeclared but are clearly for Obama, the number is closer to 20%, if not less.

The math is our friend, my friends.

Terrific news (and another superdelegate):

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance to Barack Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to "heal the rift in our party" and unite behind the Illinois senator.

Joe Andrew, who was Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999-2001, planned a news conference Thursday in his hometown of Indianapolis to urge other Hoosiers to support Obama in Tuesday's primary, perhaps the most important contest left in the White House race. He also has written a lengthy letter explaining his decision that he plans to send to other superdelegates.

"I am convinced that the primary process has devolved to the point that it's now bad for the Democratic Party," Andrew said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Bill Clinton appointed Andrew chairman of the DNC near the end of his presidency, and Andrew endorsed the former first lady last year on the day she declared her candidacy for the White House. Andrew said in his letter that he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."

Andrew served as DNC chair alongside Ed Rendell. And as the article noted, he's an Indiana native.

Andrew said he finally decided to switch to Obama after watching Obama's handling of the Wright and gas tax controversies. He also said the Obama campaign hadn't asked him to switch.

Might this be the opening of the superdelegate floodgates?

Update: Here's Andrew's letter to his fellow superdelegates.

America's favorite working-class hero reminds us of her $109 million post-White House windfall in this revealing moment on the Falafel Bill O'Reilly's teevee show (plus a bonus clip!):

Rich people, God bless us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue until the next generation.

A real woman of the people, eh?

On Tuesday, John Aravosis noticed that NC Gov. Mike Easley used the term "pansy" while Hillary Clinton stood silently by his side. As you probably know, "pansy" is derogatory term used to suggest a man is girly or gay. Now, there's nothing wrong with being a girl or being gay, but when you put someone down for being homosexual or effeminate, that's not cool. Not at all.

Senator Clinton actually cracked a smile as Easley uttered the slur and she still hasn't apologized. On Wednesday, NBC reported that while she accepted another endorsement, her endorser said the next president needed testicular fortitude and then unleashed a bizarre attack on Barack Obama supporters:

I truly believe that that’s going to take an individual that has testicular fortitude. ... Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle.

Clinton proudly accepted the endorsement, uttering not a word about her endorser's divisive words.

This isn't just about slurs or hate speech. Back in February, she slammed the entire progressive movement. It all comes down to this: is there anybody she wouldn't throw under the bus to get ahead?

Update: I changed the title of this post, swapping out "slur" in favor of "expression." I decided that a more value-neutral word there would be less off-putting to those who don't yet understand why what Easley said is not okay. The main pushback I've gotten here and on YouTube is from people who think "pansy" means "weak" not effeminate or homosexual. It doesn't mean that though. Look it up -- it means effeminate (applied to men) or gay, and it is a derogatory term. To the extent that it conveys weakness, it does so because of sexist and homophobic attitudes, which at the very least Easley was appealing to in order to make his point. It was certainly not worthy of a presidential candidate.

File this under not at all surprising: a new NBC/WSJ poll finds that more American are troubled by John McCain's political alliance with George W. Bush than than are troubled by Barack Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"McCain will be too closely aligned with the Bush agenda. He has voted 89% of the time for the Bush admin.'s programs" Major concern: 43% No real concern: 27%	"It is hard to know Barack Obama’s values because he has friends like Reverend Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers" Major concern: 32% No real concern: 36%

Once again, the American public is way ahead of the media. I wonder why the MSM thinks that the picture on the right is a bigger deal than the picture on the left. Hmm. I wonder why...

Update: Another thought occurs to me about this poll. Perhaps we're out-thinking ourselves when we dwell on how or whether to tie McCain to the pastors who have endorsed his campaign (specifically, Ministers Hagee and Parsley).

This poll makes it clear that the elephant in McCain's living room is George W. Bush. Whenever a Republican engages in a guilt-by-association attack against Barack Obama, our strongest response is to talk about the devastating policies that have resulted from the real and meaningful political alliance between Bush and McCain.

There's been a fair bit of speculation about whether or not Jeremiah Wright's appearance at the National Press Club was a dirty trick by the Clinton campaign.

It wasn't. If you want to explore the details, Michael Calderone has them.

Clinton has done thing to fan the flames of the story, but those things have been awkward and obvious, and have probably hurt her at least as much as Obama. I guess the basic thing to remember is that there hasn't been much subtle about the Clinton campaign, and when she's attacked it's been with a sledgehammer. If she had been behind this gambit, it would have been atypically subtle for her.

Introducing AcipHex (say it out loud, aci like "acid" without the d, and pHex like "effects" without the e). Yes, flatulence is listed as a potential side-effect, though a rare one.

10. To spread the Lanny Davis message of hope and optimism.

9. O’Reilly agreed to pump her gas for rest of campaign.

8. Richard Mellon Scaife asked her to.

7. Outraged that William Ayers waited until September 16 to express horror at 9/11 attacks.

6. Tasty falafel sandwiches.

5. No coffee machines: Fox News staffers fetch her lattes-to-order.

4. She's a working-class hero and a Real American.

3. He’s not a pansy.

2. America wants to know where she stands on Jeremiah Wright.

1. Desperately clinging to vast right-wing conspiracy.

Hillary Clinton staged a "commute" to work today to show her blue-collar bona fides. It didn't quite work out like she had planned. Now we know she hasn't pumped her own gas in years, and she can't work a coffee machine either. Oops:

h/t: Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog

Obama gets back to the message of change that defines his campaign in this new ad, simply called "Truth." It's airing in both North Carolina and Indiana.

p.s.: Feel free to add your links or comments in the thread.

Obama's new delegate countdown

The Obama campaign just posted a new delegate tracker on BarackObama.com and it will count down the delegates until he secures the nomination. It's something you won't see on HillaryClinton.com, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

According to the tracker, Obama needs just 288 more delegates to secure the nomination. That works out to 40% of the uncommitted delegates. Also, given that he's a lock to get at least 200 more pledged delegates, it means he really only needs 88 of the undeclared superdelegates -- just under 30%.

Bottom-line is that barring a catastrophic collapse, Barack Obama's delegate math is just unbeatable. Of course, the media doesn't want to tell you that story -- if people stopped paying attention to the primary campaign, their ratings would suffer.

As for me, all I know is that I barely watch news on television any more -- I just DVR the evening broadcasts and sometimes check them out. (And until the mainstream news blogs start covering the general, I won't be spending much time on them either.) I still do watch is Countdown, though.

I guess I'm glad I don't have a radio show on Air America, because I'd probably get fired for the title of this post. But the title is true: Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos have joined forces to destroy ABC's credibility as a news organization.

Last night, they teamed up on an "analysis" of Barack Obama's speech on Jeremiah Wright. You have to watch it to believe it -- it was almost like a video press release for the Clinton campaign:

They were so overtly biased last night that I decided it was time to go back to the video of the Philadelphia debate and edit together a montage. Before you press play, let me offer one warning: you're going to get angry watching this.

I guess we can thank Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos for one thing: they've exposed just how thoroughly corrupt the mainstream media can be.

If you're growing concerned about Barack Obama's prospects, take a moment to watch this video clip from the 1992 documentary The War Room. This clip if from the beginning of the film, when Clinton's primary campaign was sidetracked by allegations of extramarital affairs and draft dodging. The part of the clip to focus on is the end, when a Democratic consultant says he's sure the combined weight of the scandals will force Clinton out of the campaign within days, if not hours.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Likewise, today Barack Obama will survive these rough patches. He's the only candidate offering a real change this election, and these false guilt-by-association attacks just won't work. It's important to remember that Bill Clinton survived even tougher attacks -- and won the presidency. (They were tougher because there was more truth to them, and because they concerned Bill Clinton's own behavior, not that of someone he knew.)

Update: I inadvertently posted the wrong video clip at first. (I was on the phone -- shouldn't blog and talk on the phone at the same time, I guess.) So I'll correct the record and say the only thing you have to worry about is my own incompetence.

For more on why the McCain-Clinton gas tax plan is a bad idea, see Krugman.

I knew this day would eventually come (from Paul Krugman's blog):

Gas tax follies

I’ve been on the road (actually doing a public dialog with Barney Frank on financial reform), so I’m just catching up. Anyway, John McCain has a really bad idea on gasoline, Hillary Clinton is emulating him (but with a twist that makes her plan pointless rather than evil), and Barack Obama, to his credit, says no.

Why doesn’t cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It’s Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers.

Is the supply of gasoline really fixed? For this coming summer, it is. Refineries normally run flat out in the summer, the season of peak driving. Any elasticity in the supply comes earlier in the year, when refiners decide how much to put in inventories. The McCain/Clinton gas tax proposal comes too late for that. So it’s Econ 101: the tax cut really goes to the oil companies.

The Clinton twist is that she proposes paying for the revenue loss with an excess profits tax on oil companies. In one pocket, out the other. So it’s pointless, not evil. But it is pointless, and disappointing.

Clearly, Krugman is still clinging to his support for Hillary Clinton, but this is the first major crack in his anti-Obama armor. I'm hoping he begins to see just how much of Clinton's alleged superiority on issues is really a result of pandering on her part. Remember, Krugman favored Edwards, not Clinton. I doubt he comes around before Obama gets the nomination, but this was a pretty big concession, and a welcome one at that. Krugman is definitely a guy we want in our corner this fall -- and I think he'll be there.

I posted this earlier, but it deserves a post of its own. Barack Obama picks a running mate (and she's an eighty-two year old lady from North Carolina!):

Watch it until the end -- what a fun, classic moment on the campaign trail.

Pretty good roundup of reax from the blogosphere intelligentsia by Andrew Sullivan. Most importantly, he seems satisfied, and he has had his finger on the pulse of this issue better than anyone out there.

Now I'm just looking forward to seeing how the evening news covers it, and whether going forward the press allows other topics to be discussed (as they should).

These two superdelegates seem have their heart in the right place, and I really respect them for having the gumption to make this video. But keeping in mind that they are merely trying to do the best with a broken system, doesn't this tell you just about all need to know to understand why superdelegates are such a horrible idea?

Update: It seems this video was removed. If they repost it, I'll reupdate.

Again, these two are probably the best two superdelegates out there. I'm not dumping on them personally at all. I really do respect their courage in asking for input. But boy, this is a screwed up system.

My advice to them: support whomever wins the pledged delegate battle -- and commit to doing that ASAP.

In case you haven't seen it:

I just woke about twenty minutes ago (remember, I live in Las Vegas...) and I managed to watch this without any interference from the MSM filter. It's exactly what I was hoping Obama would say. Now I'm going to go read around out of (morbid?) curiosity to see what the press reaction has been but I know that on a personal level, I'm very satisfied.

And I do hope that the media -- and the Clinton and McCain campaigns -- allow us to move on from this. Barack Obama has made it clear the he is his own man. He is not Jeremiah Wright and Jeremiah Wright is not him.

The problems we face in this country are too great to play the kind of gotcha' politics that we have been through over the last five weeks. If there were any indication that Barack Obama himself was as divisive a figure as Jeremiah Wright, it would be a different story. But if that were true, we wouldn't have gotten to this moment in the first place.

They want this campaign to be about FUD - fear, uncertainty, and doubt. They want this election to be about Jeremiah Wright. They want it to be about Louis Farrakhan. They want it to be about William Ayers.

They don't want it to be about you. Or me. Or any of us. Barack Obama has a different idea:

On Monday, America's favorite working-class hero told a North Carolina audience: "If you'd had my life, you'd be tough too."  It must have been hard, all those years in the Governor's mansion and the White House, followed by a $109 million windfall. Since I couldn't find my violin, I made her this video instead:

First Read has a mini-profile of Missouri National Education Association political director Leila Medley, a superdelegate. It's an interesting window into the world of a superdelegate.

For most of this campaign, the Democratic Party has been unified by optimism that our eventual nominee would trounce the Republican candidate in November, 2008. That began to change towards the end of February, when the contest between Senators Clinton and Obama began to turn sharply negative.

The media and the Clinton campaign deserve their share of blame for this. And Obama is not perfect, either. But the people who deserve the most blame are the superdelegates, for it is their indecision that has made this mess possible in the first place.

Since late February, it has been clear that the Clinton campaign's only hope for victory rested in their hands. Over the past two months, the sole uncertainty about the campaign has been whether or not superdelegates will stage a coup against the voters.

At any point during the last two months, superdelegates could have made it clear that they would support the will of voters. Instead, by declaring their indecision, they provided Clinton with a new rationale for her campaign. Effectively, they encouraged her coup attempt. It was if they said to her: if you can prove to us that Barack Obama is unelectable, we will overturn the judgment of voters.

It is now clear just how foolish and unwise the superdelegates were for offering Clinton such a destructive path to the nomination, for she has tried to meet it with unrestrained vigor. Two months later, a party that was once unified is now divided. The septuagenarian Republican presidential candidate who devised the Iraq war strategy and wants to stay there for one hundred years is leading or tied in most polls.

And the ultimate blame for making this possible rests with the very people who are supposed to lead the Democratic Party: the superdelegates.

::

It's important to remember the state of the campaign in late February. At that point, 70% of the pledged delegates had been chosen. Barack Obama had 1,210 pledged delegates and Clinton had 1,044, a lead of 166. It was clear that Obama's pledged delegate lead was insurmountable.

Now, after two months of nastiness on the campaign trail, voters have selected another another 573 pledged delegates, 20% of the total. With just 10% remaining, the pledged delegate margin is virtually identical heading into May as it was in late February: Obama leads by 161. (He has has 1,494 and Clinton has 1,333.)

(I focus on pledged delegates because they are the only way to to measure the will of voters. The "popular vote" is just as misleading the number of states won. Moreover, delegates select the nominee -- 2,024 of them, to be exact.)

The point is clear: Hillary Clinton took the superdelegates up on their irresponsible challenge and tried to prove that Obama is unelectable. Meanwhile, Obama could not respond as forcefully to Clinton as he would have to John McCain. He knew that unlike Clinton, he had to worry about unifying the party after her superdelegate gambit. He couldn't afford to attack her the way she attacked him.

Moreover, the media created a new Clinton-friendly narrative in order to support a continued campaign. Between Clinton's attacks, his measured response, and the media's pile-on, Obama endured his worst two-month stretch of the campaign so far. Making matters more difficult, the key primaries were on Hillary Clinton's home turf.

Yet through it all, Barack Obama won just five fewer delegates than Clinton. In short, nothing much changed. Hillary Clinton failed in her mission. And now, with just 408 delegates left to be chosen, the superdelegates remain sidelined. They remain the only uncertainty left in this campaign.

It is certain that Barack Obama will end up with a solid majority of pledged delegates. It is also certain that when the voting is done, he'll need just 30% of the undecided superdelegates to vote for him at the convention. And it's overwhelmingly likely that he will win those superdelegates.

Until the superdelegates formally make their views known, however, there will be uncertainty. And as long as that uncertainty remains, the media and the Clinton campaign will be able to exploit it -- further dividing the Democratic Party.

For two months, the superdelegates have had all the information they needed to make a decision. Yet they continue to dither about. The media and the Clinton campaign do deserve blame for exploiting the environment of uncertainty. But the environment was created by the superdelegates, and for that we have nobody to blame but the superdelegates themselves.

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Who wants Kristol's
respect anyway?

...the New York Times' right-wing propagandist William Kristol completed his embrace of Hillary Clinton. In an unintentionally hilarious column (The Onion could not have come up with a better spoof), Kristol complains that "Hillary gets no respect":

But we also see the liberal media failing to give Hillary Clinton the respect she deserves. So, since we conservatives believe in giving credit where credit is due, it falls to us to praise Hillary.

Okay. So Kristol says that Hillary Clinton gets no respect. Perhaps this is what he's talking about?

Time to Move On...From Hillary And From The Clintons' Brand of Politics
By William Kristol, December 24, 2007

It will be good for the country to be able to move on, sooner rather than later, from the Clintons and their brand of politics. If the Democratic primary electorate brings this about, THE WEEKLY STANDARD will be first to say something we are not accustomed to saying to the Democratic party--thank you.

Sen. Bingaman

You can add New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman to the list of Barack Obama's supporters.

After Bingaman's endorsement, Obama now has a 107-100 lead among Governors, Senators, and Representatives -- the high-profile elected superdelegates.

Clinton maintains a lead among the mostly-anonymous insider superdelegates, 157-129.

So high-profile elected officials support Obama. Mostly-anonymous insiders support Clinton. Hmmm....go figure.

(Based on numbers from Democratic Convention Watch.)

I just got a fundraising e-mail from the Obama campaign (you probably did too if you're on the bulk e-mail lists). In the e-mail, for the first time that I've seen, the campaign talks about next week's primaries as potential game enders.

"Next week," the e-mail reads, "we have the opportunity to close out this race and secure the nomination for Barack." (Emphasis added.)

Next week, of course, there are primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. Based on the e-mail, it sounds as if the campaign is ready to declare victory in the nomination battle if Barack wins both.

Assuming Barack wins both states, even if Clinton doesn't immediately withdraw, all indications are that  there will be a superdelegate stampede in his direction. Combined with his pledged delegate lead, he will then have an insurmountable overall delegate lead, and the race will finally be over. The celebration can begin.

(Clinton has already hinted that she might drop out if she loses Indiana, and on Meet the Press, Andrea Mitchell said Clinton would drop out within two or three days of losing.)

Thought experiment. You're managing a presidential campaign and you have to rank the following three options in order from most harmful to least harmful, purely on the basis of electoral impact:

• Weakness A: Your candidate has a pastor who has made remarks that many white voters will find offensive, and he also once went to the home of someone who was involved with low-grade domestic terrorism.
• Weakness B: Your candidate supported the Iraq war from the very beginning, takes credit for the urge to surge American forces there, and also said he was fine with spending one hundred years in Iraq.
• Weakness C: A majority of Americans don't believe anything your candidate says, and the $109 million your candidate has earned in the last eight years has just entered the vetting process.

Last month, a 17-year-old Iraqi girl was hacked to death by her father because she fell in love with a British soldier:

Rand Abdel-Qader was stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed by her father, then given an unceremonious burial to emphasise her disgrace. Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.

"Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case," said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police.

In the past year, 47 young women have been murdered in similar honor killings in Basra alone. In addition, at least 15 women per month are killed for breaking Islamic dress codes.

Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase.

Du'a Khalil Aswad, 17, from Nineveh, was executed by stoning in front of mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a boy outside her Yazidi tribe. Mobile phone images of her broken body transmitted on the internet led to sectarian violence, international outrage and calls for reform. Her father, Khalil Aswad, speaking one year after her death in April last year, has revealed that none of those responsible had been prosecuted and his family remained "outcasts" in their own tribe.

I don't think we should be in Iraq. But we're there now. What does it say about our priorities that this brutality continues?

FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Here's a good definition from Wikipedia:

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric used in sales, marketing, public relations, and illiberal democracies. FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative (and vague) information. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of switching costs among current customers; or to maintain leverage over a current business partner who could potentially become a rival.

I first heard the term FUD when Microsoft announced it would was going to compete with an internet startup I was working for back in the mid-1990s.

I haven't heard the term used often in politics, but it should be used more, especially this campaign season.

FUD is not a good thing, but it can be an effective tactic, and right now, it captures the essence of the Clinton campaign. Fortunately, there's an antidote: Barack Obama and his unbeatable delegate math.

Over at TPM, Greg Sargent opines:

Obama definitely pushed back hard on some of Chris Wallace's questions, but at no point did he draw attention to Fox's spreading of lies about him or critique the network in a general sense. ... To be clear, Obama wasn't obliged to go after Fox. But a senior adviser said Obama would, as a way of quieting criticism of him. And he didn't.

Sargent predicts Obama's appearance "will likely further dismay liberal bloggers." Well, I can't speak for all liberal bloggers, but this one quickly came to peace with Obama's decision. (In an update, Sargent references Matt Stoller, who was quite negative -- over-the-top so, in my view.) UPDATE: I initially thought Stoller's post was serious, but after playing the video, and reading the comments on that thread (thanks to Josh E. for point them out) I now realize Stoller was just screwing around. (UPDATE 2: I guess I was right the first time -- Stoller was serious after all. Odd.)

I do find it quite striking that Sargent's take on Obama's appearance is so negative, especially in light of his previous reporting. When Hillary Clinton went to Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper and attacked Barack Obama over Jeremiah Wright, Sargent didn't even mention Scaife's connection to the newspaper. (He might not have been aware of the link at the time. Later in the day, Josh Marshall did mention Scaife.)

This all is just another reason I'm looking forward to the primary ending -- there's a much bigger fish to fry.

This is pretty funny, in an absurd sort of way. NYT, June 6, 1995:

And before beginning the Memorial Day recess, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 52 to 28 to table the White House proposal to expand emergency wiretapping authority, which Mr. Dole argued could erode constitutional protections on privacy.

Update: Here's a link to the roll call on that vote, which took place on May 26, 1995. Interestingly enough, John McCain was not present for the vote. Hmmm...I wonder if he skipped out on the vote to go on vacation somewhere? Meanwhile, in late February, John McCain called Congress "disgraceful...worse than embarrassing" when it refused to offer immunity to telephone companies participating in illegal wiretaps.

From The Cagle Post (via Digg):

As John McCain continues using guilt-by-association tactics to falsely portray his political opponent as a radical terrorist sympathizer, it's worth remembering that McCain himself has a little terrorism problem of his own.

McCain's terrorism problem dates back to the early 1990s, when he sided with right-wing domestic terrorists and voted against tough new legislation cracking down on a wave of anti-choice domestic terrorism targeting women who visited abortion clinics, their doctors, and clinic staff.

In both 1993 and 1994, McCain voted against the anti-terrorism measure. On each occasion, McCain was one of thirty radical anti-choice Senators to oppose the bill Fortunately, despite McCain's opposition, it passed the Senate by a 69-30 margin.

At the time, right-wing anti-choice extremists were terrorizing women, doctors, and clinic staff across the United States with thousands of acts of physical violence and threats of violence each year. The new legislation was necessary because in early 1993, the Supreme Court had ruled that even though the terrorism crossed state lines, the federal government could not protect clinics without a specific grant of statutory authority.

After Dr. David Gunn was murdered by an anti-choice terrorist outside the Pensacola Women's Medical Services clinic, Congress finally passed the much-needed legislation giving authorities the tool they needed to protect women, doctors, and clinic staff from the ongoing threat of terrorism.

Most Americans welcomed the new law -- even including far-right conservatives such as Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell. Nonetheless, John McCain stood by his extremist views and opposed the anti-terror bill.

McCain's radical position against the anti-terrorism legislation is clearly relevant in light of his recent attacks on his Democratic opponent. Although there is no indication that McCain himself supported any of the specific acts of domestic terrorism against women, their doctors, or clinic staff, radical anti-choice activists strongly supported his vote against the legislation, hoping to deprive the Federal government of an important legal tool for combating domestic terrorism.

Fortunately, moderate voices prevailed, and John McCain's dangerously tolerant attitude towards domestic terrorism against women, their doctors, and clinic staff was defeated.

::

McCain's reluctance to crack down on domestic terrorism against women, their doctors, and clinic staff illustrates his extremist views on reproductive freedom. Unfortunately, many women -- including an alarming number of his own supporters -- are unaware of just how radical McCain's positions are.

McCain: Consistently anti-choice

According to a March, 2008 survey of women in battleground states conducted for Planned Parenthood, half of women voters do not know whether McCain is pro-choice or anti-choice. Even more striking, 46% of women who support McCain want are pro-choice, and 36% of those pro-choice, pro-McCain women said they were less likely to vote for McCain once learning about his staunch anti-choice record.

Now that McCain has decided to make terrorism an issue in the campaign, voters deserve to know more about his decision to side with domestic terrorists and against women, their doctors, and clinic staff. In the process of telling that story, pro-choice Americans will learn more about his radical and extreme views on reproductive freedom -- and his strange tolerance of domestic terrorism.

::

More details on the anti-terrorism legislation opposed by McCain:

At issue is a 1994 law protecting abortion clinics from anti-choice terrorism. In May, 1994 the Senate passed the legislation by a 69-30 margin, and John McCain was among the cabal of anti-choice Senators who voted against the bill.

McCain's opposition to the legislation is rather remarkable. Its provisions were narrowly tailored to protect clinics from the wave of anti-choice terrorism that was sweeping the nation at the time. (Read the full legislation here.)

Here's how the New York Times described the new law when it first passed the Senate in November, 1993 (it passed by the same margin as the final bill, and McCain opposed it both times):

Senate Passes Abortion-Clinic Crime Bill
By ADAM CLYMER

The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a Federal law to prohibit bombings, arson and blockades at abortion clinics, and shootings and threats of violence against doctors and nurses who perform abortions..

The vote was 69 to 30. Twenty-eight senators who voted against Federal financing of abortions six weeks ago supported the measure, seeing it as a law-and-order matter rather than as an abortion issue.
...
"This legislation seeks to silence the entire pro-life movement," contended Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. ... But Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts insisted that Federal legislation was necessary because "anti-abortion violence and blockades have been occurring across the nation as part of a coordinated, systematic campaign to intimidate abortion providers and patients, and state and local authorities have been unable to control it."
...
The legislation was spurred by two events last winter, a Supreme Court decision prohibiting the use of a Reconstruction Era statute against Operation Rescue's efforts to blockade abortion clinics and the killing of Dr. David Gunn, who performed abortions in Pensacola, Fla., and had been pictured in "wanted" posters by abortion foes.
...

Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, an abortion rights supporter who helped Mr. Kennedy manage the bill, said: "This year we have witnessed a growing, nationwide campaign of violence directed at reproductive health care clinics. What were once peaceful protests have escalated to acts of force and terror." Doctors Offices as 'War Zones'

She said that because of the anti-abortion movement, American women "have seen their doctors' offices transformed from safety zones into war zones."

Mr. Kennedy said that over the last 15 years, "more than 1,000 acts of violence against abortion providers have been documented in the United States. Over 100 clinics have been bombed or burned to the ground."

He said the problem was getting worse, citing a recent survey by the Feminist Majority Foundation, which showed that half of 281 abortion clinics that responded to a survey it conducted this summer reported violence against them in the first seven months of the year.

After the bill was passed, Mr. Kennedy told reporters, "This is a resounding victory for law and order, a clear message to those who have been terrorizing doctors and women and nurses all across the country."

The New York Times editorial board strongly supported passage of the legislation:

Pass the Clinic Protection Bill

Federal help may soon be on the way for women who seek abortions at clinics threatened by Operation Rescue and other anti-choice fanatics. The Senate is committed to take up immediately the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and to vote tomorrow after only limited debate. A similar bill will reach the House floor on Thursday.

Congress is moving swiftly to fill a void created in January when the Supreme Court refused to read existing civil rights laws broadly enough to protect women from marauding extremists. Attorney General Janet Reno has given hearty support and President Clinton is happy to sign the bill.

The law is needed because violent factions of the right-to-life movement don't stop at state lines with their nationwide campaigns of blockades, scare tactics and physical violence, even the murder of a clinic doctor in Florida.

The bill would set criminal penalties for the use of force or threat of force, or physical obstruction aimed at preventing women from obtaining a clinic's service. Penalties would range from up to a year in prison for a first offense to life imprisonment for clinic violence that causes death. The bill also provides for civil lawsuits and, perhaps most effectively, for Federal court injunctions to regulate demonstrations and keep them peaceful.

Opponents of abortion -- and the bill -- argue that they are being singled out for Federal persecution because of their ideas. That's nonsense. Those who deeply believe that abortion is murder are free to believe and speak and peaceably protest.

If protesters cross the line between dissenting speech and illegal action -- if they trespass, block entrances and chain themselves to doorways -- then they must pay the criminal or civil penalty, just as civil rights demonstrators have always done if they invaded the rights of others. Operation Rescue and other radical groups invite this Federal response by the very act of overwhelming state and local peace forces.

Some of the bill's opponents are preparing amendments designed to weaken or complicate it; lawmakers should resist them. By holding to the basic bill, Congress can rise to its duty of safeguarding the constitutional rights of women who choose to have abortions and the safety of those who provide them.

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Barack Obama, kicking ass and taking names. How dare he be so damn good on the campaign trail?

(This clip is from yesterday, in Indiana.)

Hillary Clinton on Friday:

You can vote for or against any candidate based on anything -- and we do that in America. You know, you don't like...oh say, somebody's hairstyle. It's whatever you choose.

You know, I'm just not sure what Clinton meant. It sort of sounds like a permission slip to vote based on someone's appearance (dogwhistle, anyone?), but then she immediately says:

This is too important an election, and we have to know exactly where people stand.  Not what somebody says, but what they've done. ... That's why I want you to approach this like a hiring decision.

That seems to suggest it was just a dumb joke, easily subject to misinterpretation.

Whatever she actually meant, though, it is pretty obvious that she doesn't care if she gives off the wrong impression. Who knows -- I suspect some of her supporters like that about her.

What do you think?