• Maryland DNC member Greg Pecoraro endorsed Obama
• Kansas Dems named Obama-supporter Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson as an add-on
• BHO supporters outnumbered HRC supporters at the Nevada convention in Reno, picking up an extra pledged delegate (and I would guess making it even more likely the add-on will be for Obama)
• Here's one with a question mark: I've seen Yvonne Atkinson Gates listed as undeclared, but in this AP article yesterday, she's listed as an Obama supporter.

So for the day that would be +3 for sure, with an additional 2 possible (the Nevada add-on and Yvonne Gates).

As you can see from the chart in the sidebar, assuming he splits the add-on superdelegates, Obama already has enough delegates locked down to clinch the nomination at 2,025.

There's something anti-climactic about the delegate math at this point, however; everybody, including the the Clinton campaign, knows its pretty much over. Right now we're in the transition phase to having a nominee.

My best guess (and it's purely a guess) is that once Michigan and Florida are resolved, giving Clinton a symbolic victory, she'll concede the nomination and endorse Barack.

• On Tuesday night, Barack Obama will be in Iowa, a state he hopes to turn from red to blue. His message: this is the general election. He might not "declare victory" as such, but he will secure the pledged delegate majority (whether or not Michigan and Florida are counted). I suspect he will at least present himself as the "presumptive presumptive nominee" and given the widespread acceptance that he is already the de facto nominee, the May 20 victory storyline may no longer be as urgent.
• Clinton says she leads the popular vote, which is wrong, but it was in response to a voter's question, so I wouldn't read too much into it.
• The Las Vegas Gleaner continues its humiliation of my governor (Pervus A. McSkanktard, aka Jim Gibbons) and the idiots who support him.
• What went wrong with Hillary's campaign, in their own words.
• An unfair shot at Ron Paul -- I am not a Paultard, but the reason he opposed the Burma resolution is the same reason he opposes all resolutions condemning foreign governments. He believes in non-internvention, unless the U.S. itself is threatened.
• Embittered Republicans desperately clinging to a failed political strategy. (And part 2.)
• Embittered Bush desperately clinging to John McCain.
• Jonathan Chait catches McCain inventing words from Obama. (Reminds me of Gore and the Internet.)

Stuff I did blog, but you might have missed:

• Iraq is the central battleground in the war on terror, and John McCain takes Osama bin Laden's word for it.
• John McCain's 2013 gambit raises a new question: if elected, will he run for a second term?
• Buchanan's paranoid racial fears are wrong: exit polls show Obama's race was not a net positive in the primaries.

Who would have figured it...Mac Daddy McCain likes to throw the bones (from a May, 2005 profile of John McCain in The New Yorker by Connie Bruck):

McCain is an avid gambler. Wes Gullett, a close friend who worked for McCain for years, told me that they used to play craps in Las Vegas in fourteen-hour stints, standing at the tables from 10 a.m. to midnight. “Craps is addictive,” McCain remarked, and he headed for the fifteen-dollar-minimum-bet tables.

Fifteen dollars might not seem like a lot, but most serious players place odds bets and take advantage of other wagering opportunities, easily placing hundreds of dollars on the table per roll.

Here's a camera phone picture of John McCain (or someone who looks exactly like him) throwing dice in Las Vegas. Even though the site I found it on says it was taken at Mirage, I'm pretty sure McCain is actually at Bellagio in the dice pit closest to the main tower elevators. (I think that's the Fontana Lounge in the upper right hand corner of the picture, and it is apparently daytime.)

I think the picture is from summer 2006

A Las Vegan, I'm glad that he likes to play -- I don't think there's anything wrong with it at all. I do wonder what his "traditional values" political base would think, though. Maybe he and Bill Bennett went on junkets together?

Here's the full excerpt of the story about McCain playing craps from The New Yorker.

How dare CNN suggest that people in China are clinging to hope? Time to reject and denounce!

Even though you've almost certainly already seen the bonus clip that starts this video, you probably haven't seen it in a while -- I know that I hadn't until SeattleAJ reminded me about it earlier in the evening.

Simply put: Worst. President. Ever.

I'm disturbed by the amount of chatter about Mike Huckabee's bad joke yesterday at the NRA meeting. I'm not saying this in defense of Huckabee; he screwed up and I'm sure he knew it as soon as he said it. My concern is that if we make too big a deal of it, we end up amplifying the idea behind the joke, and that can be dangerous. Perhaps I'm just superstitious, but I think this is one of those cases where less is more.

So I'm reading an article on Salon by Paul Maslin about Barack Obama's electoral map and he offers this overview of my home state:

Nevada -- 5 votes -- I suppose the Silver State should not be compared to anything, so unique is its economy and social structure. Democrats have done relatively well here the last four elections, winning narrowly in 1992 and 1996 and falling just short in 2004. Obama has a wellspring of younger, unaffiliated voters to draw upon, but McCain does enjoy a closer proximity and shared desert identity. This one should go down to the wire.

Basically, it's a punt. No problem -- everybody does it. His description of McCain's proximity to Nevada amused me though -- I hadn't even consciously realized that I'm about an hour or so away from Arizona as I write this. I really don't think it'll make much difference though in November, win or lose.

The thing that it really brought to mind though is a profile I once of someone (I think it was David Boies, Al Gore's recount lawyer) who frequently vacationed in Vegas in order to hit the craps tables. Boies or whoever it was frequently went with McCain. Again, this is all a very foggy memory, and I couldn't find the article in a quick Google search, but I'm going to keep on looking -- not as an attack or anything, but just because I'm curious. Ring any bells for you?

From CNN earlier today, Edwards interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. I'm biased, but he's a damn good surrogate. I think probably he and Claire McCaskill are now the top two.

I know he says that he has ruled out the VP spot, but what I'd tell him is this: it ain't your choice -- and if you get asked, you'd better say yes.

McCain on Hamas (2006) and on smearing Obama (2008)

My initial assessment of the McCain campaign's response to Jamie Rubin's op-ed was a bit too sympathetic. In my defense, it was a reflexive sympathy after seeing new video that added context to his answer, but now that I've had some time review all the video, it's seems to me that rather than supporting the McCain campaign's defense, it actually undermines their case.

While it's true that McCain did make some tough remarks about Hamas (notably to CNN), he also embraced talks without setting conditions. He's flip-flopped between then and now, but he also flip-flopped back then -- telling three different stories in two different interviews on the same day.

Apparently, there was a second question that didn't make its way into the HuffPo clip that I posted earlier this morning and it adds important context. Here's a transcript, including a portion of the first answer:

MCCAIN: They're the government and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them. ... It's a new reality in the Middle East and I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, then they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.

RUBIN: So should we, the United States, be dealing with that new reality through normal diplomatic contacts to get the job done for the United States?

MCCAIN: I think the United States should take a step back, see what they do when they form their government, see what their policies are, and see other ways we can engage with them, and if there aren't any, there may be a hiatus, but I think part of the relationship is going to be dictated by how Hamas acts, not how the United States acts.

Perhaps I'm being too kind, but I think this walks back the allegation against McCain rather significantly. His message to Sky News was still far more nuanced than his message to CNN, but neither was it a clear embrace of relations without conditions.

YouTube can cut both ways, it would seem, and this time it may have helped McCain.

That being said, there is still no justification for John McCain's unpresidential attacks on Obama.

Update: I just watched the clip again and wonder if I'm being too easy on McCain. The thing that really strikes me is that his answer to the first question is just so different than his answer to the follow-up, which is different to his CNN interview on the same day. It's almost like he couldn't keep his story straight in the space of a two minute interview. Certainly, if a Democratic candidate ever said something like this, he or she would not be treated nearly as charitably as I did in my initial writeup.

At HuffPo, Max Bergman finds a 2003 transcript in which John McCain endorses direct negotiations with Syria even though in his own words they were "sponsoring and harboring terrorists."

McCAIN: I think it's very appropriate that Colin Powell is going to Syria. I think we should put diplomatic and other pressures on them. It's also a time for Mr. Asad Bashar to realize that he should be more like his father was. I think he's too heavily influenced by a lot of the radical Islamic elements and--and militant groups.

LAUER: Do you think Syria meets the criteria set forth by the president in his post-9/11 address to Congress that they pose an imminent threat to the US in that they are either sponsoring or harboring terrorists?

McCAIN: I think they're--they're sponsoring and harboring terrorists.

(H/t to Jonathan Martin, along with a reminder that Drudge does for the GOP what HuffPo does for the Dems.)

Earlier this morning I predicted:

Prediction before the day is out...some Bush-McCain hack will attack Obama for criticizing the President while he is overseas!

I was just kidding, but one of Ambinder's "well-connected Republican readers" actually went there:

He could have publicly declined to comment on the President's comments citing the long standing custom of not criticizing a sitting president while abroad. ... I thought he was supposed to be a new kind of politician, but he played right into the hands of McCain. Somewhere McCain is smiling about all the Jewish votes he just secured in Florida.

I'm Jewish, and the Jewish Americans that I know were offended that Bush used the Israeli Knesset as a  prop for a domestic political attack. Israel is an important issue for McCain -- but for Republicans, Israel has more to do with John Hagee and Christian Zionism than their concern for Jewish Americans.

I especially resent the fact Jewish Americans are constantly used by the Republican Party to justify their policies in the Middle East, which have more to do with energy policy and satisfying the evangelical right than any particular concern for Jews. They are aware as anybody of the fact that along with African Americans, Jews are just about the most loyal Democratic ethnic/religious group.

I don't think Bush's offensive remarks yesterday will do anything to change that.

So the McCain campaign is responding to the Jamie Rubin interview by pointing to another interview on the same day in which he had a very different attitude towards Hamas.

I guess this means that his campaign's defense is that he can't keep his story straight?

Bush's decision to elevate Barack Obama to the presidential level was a huge mistake -- and Barack is taking advantage.

Here he is in Watertown, SD taking on Bush-McCain. It's a fun speech -- like watching him in the gas tax debate, except about an issue that really matters.

Some of the best lines:

• "The president did something that presidents don't do ... and that is launch a political attack targeted to the domestic market" while speaking to a foreign audience.
• "That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that has divided our country and has alienated the world. ... McCain embraced Bush's attack"
• "If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America that's a debate that I will have at any time in any place -- and that is a debate I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for."
• "They have to explain why we are now in our sixth year in Iraq."
• They've got to explain why Osama bin Laden is still at large. They have to explain why Iran and Hamas are now both stronger than ever. That's the Bush-McCain record.
• "John McCain still has not spelled out one substantial way that he'd be different than George Bush when it comes to foreign policy."
• "John McCain has nothing to offer but the naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington" alone will achieve our global objectives.

Prediction before the day is out...some Bush-McCain hack will attack Obama for criticizing the President while he is overseas!

Bumped at 10:55 (originally posted at 9:20 w/o video).

George Bush must really hate John McCain. How else can you explain his decision to insert himself so clumsily into the presidential campaign?

At a time when John McCain needs a divorce from President Bush in the worst way possible, Bush hugged McCain even closer. And, remarkably, McCain returned the embrace.

That's Bush-McCain unity.

And you better believe it'll help bring together not just the Democratic Party, but everyone who wants to see America change direction.

So thanks, President Bush. You've finally done something useful.

This is as fired up as I've seen Barack in a long time (except for the weekend of Annie Oakley). It reminds me of his speech in Wisconsin after the Potomac primary.

I've got a feeling we'll be seeing more of this from him as we begin the transition into the general election.

(Speaking of the general election, here's how the Edwards endorsement effectively shatters Clinton's dream scenario about Michigan and Florida.)

Shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections two years ago, John McCain told a British news program that the U.S. should recognize Hamas as a legitimate governing authority:

They're the government and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them. ... It's a new reality in the Middle East and I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, then they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.

Today, barely two years after embracing an open attitude towards Hamas, John McCain says that he will be their "worst nightmare." McCain's reversal would have been stunning on its own, but the reason for his hypocrisy is truly appalling: McCain flip-flopped on Hamas to smear Barack Obama.

McCain made his comments in Davos, Switzerland during an interview conducted by James Rubin for Sky News TV. Rubin, who wrote an op-ed about the interview in today's Washington Post, is a Clinton supporter, and deserves all the credit in the world for stepping up when he didn't have to. His article offered a full and unambiguous defense of Barack Obama, and more importantly, I suspect he had something to do with the Huffington Post getting its hands on the video from Sky News TV.

During his paranoid racial meltdown yesterday, Pat Buchanan said that Barack Obama would never have won the Democratic nomination were it not for his race. Buchanan complained that Geraldine Ferraro had been criticized for making the same point, which he called "the truth."

But the real truth is that Pat Buchanan is completely wrong: among voters who said race was an important factor in deciding their vote, Hillary Clinton has won more votes than Barack Obama.

We know this from exit poll surveys in which Democratic primary voters were asked whether race was an important factors in deciding their votes. (The surveys cover 27 states with about 30 million voters.)

I plugged all the numbers into a spreadsheet this evening and here's what I found:

• 19% (5.4 million) of Democratic primary voters said race was an important factor in their decision.
• Of these voters, 50% (2.7 million) voted for Hillary Clinton.
• 48% (2.6 million) voted for Barack Obama.
• Among voters who said race was important in the decision, Clinton won roughly 100,000 more votes than Obama.

Existenz makes an excellent catch: today, John McCain said Ronald Reagan refusal to negotiate with Iran for the release of American hostages exemplified his philosophy of "peace through strength."

Um...what about Iran-Contra and the arms-for-hostages scandal? Here's video:

For more details, check out Existenz's post.

Update: Just to be clear, McCain's specific reference is to the first hostage crisis and Iran-Contra deals with a subsequent one. His larger point -- that Reagan refused to negotiate, in the process strengthening American security -- was manifestly false.

McCain celebrates his 69th birthday with Pres. Bush on Aug. 29, 2005 as Katrina flooded New Orleans

John McCain's declaration that he hopes the U.S. will be mostly out of Iraq by 2013 is a clear attempt to begin fixing the damage done by his one hundred years gaffe. The problem is that it doesn't really clear up the underlying issue. If he had stated a goal of being completely out of Iraq by 2013 (other than embassy officials and the like), he would have settled it. Instead, the only thing that is really new here is that McCain is setting a timetable for ending our "combat role" in Iraq -- he still fails to say how long our "military presence" (his words) will last.

But the real question McCain's 2013 gambit raises is whether or not he plans to run for re-election.

It's critical to know the answer to this because if he does not plan to run for re-election, how will we be able to hold him accountable? If he only plans a one-term presidency, then he will be an instant lame duck -- and will have no political incentive to keep his promises.

There's plenty of reasons to suspect he does not plan on running for a second term. First, if re-elected, he would turn 77 in the first year of his second term. It's true that his mother is doing wonderful at age 96, but his father passed away at the age of 70. He's a cancer survivor, and claims to be in good health, but hasn't released his medical records yet, and when he does, he only plans to release portions of them.

It's a touchy subject, but it is a very important one, and the American public deserves to know his answer.

A classic moment in the history of schadenfreude (things really get going at about 4:10):

For several weeks now, Hillary Clinton's only conceivable path to the nomination involved securing a favorable deal for seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. Now that John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama, however, even that path has disappeared.

To understand why it has disappeared, let's take a step backward and review the situation. Clinton's goal is to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations according to the January primaries, with each delegate counting as one vote. If that happens, the biggest question will be what to do with the 55 uncommitted Michigan delegates.

On election day, 40% of Michigan voters chose uncommitted. Of those, 77% favored Obama and 19% favored Edwards. Since virtually all uncommitted voters were either Obama or Edwards supporters, now that Edwards has endorsed Obama, there's really no fair argument to deny Obama those 55 delegates.

Chuck Todd and the MSNBC political team catch another important ramification of the Edwards endorsement: on Tuesday, when Barack passes 1,627 pledged delegates, securing a majority, he will also win enough delegates to secure a majority of even if Michigan and Florida.

Here's their math, including the Edwards delegates:

• Including Michigan and Florida, the pledged delegate majority is 1,784
• They estimate Obama will have at least 1,667 pledged delegates after voting ends on Tuesday (it will probably be higher).
• Under the most Clinton-friendly scenario, Obama will get 67 delegates out of Florida and 55 delegates out of Michigan for a total of 122.
• 1,667 + 122 = 1,789 -- which would put him just over the top.

Making the argument even stronger, they didn't add in the 13 pledged delegates that Edwards would get out of Florida in any deal -- giving Obama at least 1,802 delegates by Tuesday night.

Moreover, their scenario is conservative in other ways: it's unlikely that the final Florida/Michigan deal will be this friendly to Clinton; it's unlikely that Obama only picks up 50 delegates on Tuesday; and MSNBC's baseline pledged delegate count currently gives Obama slightly fewer pledged delegates than do other counts.

I'm just catching up on goings on (I wrote the two earlier posts last night).

• "President" Bush sinks to a new low -- attacking Barack Obama while on foreign soil.
  • McCain supports Bush's attack.
• Obama has picked up 4 superdelegates so far today and 6 more of the Edwards delegates.
• John McCain is running an ad called 2013 and suggesting he wants to be mostly out of Iraq by then. Three thoughts:
  • Politically, McCain is once again struggling with his one-hundred years gaffe -- hoping to use the 2013 date as a way of blunting the use of that gaffe.
  • McCain is also subtly suggesting he'd just be a one-term president if elected. (If that's true, the question is why doesn't he think he'd be able to run for re-election in four years?)
  • Does this suggest McCain is about to flip-flop on the Iraq war? Straight-talk much?
• McCain's wife sells $2 million of her investments in Sudan.
• Obama wearing the flag pin more often. (Good idea -- symbols matter.)
• California court ruling sets stage for gay marriage. (Another example of why so many good things can happen in 2008.)
• Andrew Sullivan isn't excited by an Obama-Edwards ticket (which if you think in Yglesias Award terms, might actually be an argument for it)

Finally, a commenter (Praxxus) comes up with a name for that new GOP attack ad: "Applause-Gate"

So Pastor John Hagee, the nutty religious figure whose endorsement helped John McCain nail down the GOP nomination, has now apologized for his anti-Catholic comments. Reading between the lines, it seems Hagee apologized in order to inoculate John McCain from blowback against his campaign's smear tactics against Barack Obama.

As the McCain camp steps up their dishonest campaign, keep these two points in mind:

1. The only relevant issue is what Barack Obama believes. If we're debating what someone else believes, then it's not about Barack Obama. (For more, read Andrew Sullivan's March 16 post.)
2. George Bush is the reason why John McCain wants a personality-driven campaign. John McCain is directly responsible for enabling many of the worst policies of the Bush Administration, most importantly the war in Iraq. If the election is a referendum on John McCain's political alliance with George Bush, he cannot win.

The temptation will be strong to fire back with Hagee or some other nutjob when McCain's campaign launches a dishonest smear. At times, that will be appropriate.

But we should always remember: as long as we keep George W. Bush's presidency at the center of this campaign, there's just about no way Barack Obama can lose. After all, they don't call Bush Mr. 28% for nothing.

Oh noes! Barack was using some humor to make a point...and it turns out he fibbed!

So here's the deal...he told this crowd in Indiana that he once gave a speech where nobody clapped...but the truth is...he received a standing ovation at the end of his speech!

Personally, I think this will absolutely 100%might be the end of his campaign...what do we do now?

(In all seriousness, if this is the best they can come up with...November will be easy!)

I posted this chart yesterday, but it's worth another look. Despite the feverish intensity of this campaign, despite the endless hours, turned into days, turned into weeks that we've spent analyzing every nuance of it...nothing has changed in four months.

The campaign is over. On Tuesday, Barack Obama will reach the most important milestone so far in the campaign, 1,627 pledged delegates. That won't make him the official nominee -- that can't happen until the convention in August -- but it will be the most concrete sign yet that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.

This Nov. 2007 exchange between John Edwards and NBC's Brian Williams is priceless:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Senator Clinton yesterday told an interviewer that she was certain she would be the nominee.

JOHN EDWARDS (Laughs): If she's certain, she's living in a fantasy world. I've been through this before in 2004. Governor Dean looked like he had an absolute lock on the nomination, and he didn't win a single primary or a single caucus. I would say don't count your chickens before they hatch.

David Shuster included the clip in this report showing how Edwards played the role of attack dog against Hillary Clinton in the early stages of the nomination battle:

Obviously, I'm biased here, but when I see the case being made for Obama choosing Edwards as his veep, I get pretty fired up. I think they looked like a great team yesterday, and I hope it happens.

Yesterday, Chuck Todd -- before news of the Edwards endorsement -- assessed the impact of Edwards' exit from the race and concluded:

Edwards ended up greatly helping Obama, by deciding to stay in the race after New Hampshire and then exit it before Super Tuesday

Avi ZenilmanBen Smith and Democratic Convention Watch take a look at what happens with the Edwards delegates.

The short version is that 16 Edwards delegates have already been named. He's slated to get another 3 in Iowa, but now that he has officially ended his campaign, Edwards' Iowa co-chair is urging that state convention delegates there support Obama, so it's possible that Obama will pick up those 3 instead of Edwards.

Technically, the 16 pledged Edwards delegates are now free agents, effectively superdelegates. (The total could go up to 19 depending on what happens in Iowa.) Since the pledged were selected by the Edwards campaign, and the Edwards campaign apparatus is urging its delegates to unify behind Barack Obama, I suspect they will mostly be loyal, but there's no absolute guarantees.

Olbermann was at his finest this evening, delivering a devastating Special Comment on George W. Bush.

The only way the Bush Presidency could have been worse is if the American public hadn't recognized what a disaster it has been for our country and the world. Thankfully, they have, and that gives me hope that we can turn things around starting next January when Bush finally leaves office.

It's just incredible that MSNBC still puts Pat Buchanan on the air. About an hour ago on Hardball he said:

What were the African-American community in Philadelphia that gave him 90% voting on if not the fact that Barack Obama was one of them. West Virginia, Hillary, was one of us. That's the same thing. But West Virginia gets trashed, and Philadelphia is wonderful.

And:

If Barack Obama were not an African American he would have been beaten by John Edwards. He would not be the nominee. It is far more of a positive for him, not only in the African-American community, but with the Chris Matthews' of the world and in the liberal suburbs far more than it is a negative.

Update: View the full ten-minute segment here.

As a reminder, about two months ago, Buchanan wrote this on his blog:

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.

When is MSNBC going to fire this guy? It's long overdue.

He's having a racial paranoia meltdown on MSNBC right now. I'm going to post it it on YouTube soon.

In meantime, I'll leave you with these words written by Buchanan in March:

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.

Here's Colbert's parody:

• ABC News | WSJ | AP
• Interesting note: MSNBC just noted that yesterday, Edwards won 7% of the vote in West Virginia. There's still a lot of people out there who really like John Edwards (including me).
• Last Friday, Poblano (aka Nostradamus) predicted the Edwards endorsement would happen this week
• John Edwards is not a superdelegate, but he does have 19 pledged delegates.

On CNN, Hillary Clinton offers an unambiguous defense of Barack Obama from McCain's Hamas attack, and -- remarkably -- admits her "white Americans" comment was probably the stupidest thing she could have said.

Update: To be clear, even if this change in tone is real, I'm with RenaRF: I won't do it either.

Update 2: At MyDD, Todd Beeton welcomes Clinton's conciliatory tone, saying "I'm glad to see this shift...I can only hope that now her most ardent supporters will follow her lead."

John Edwards' silence (until last week) since he suspended his campaign in late January has been frustrating, even for former supporters like me. In a strange way though, it may turn out that by haivng sat on the sidelines -- and even by having hinted that he might prefer Hillary Clinton, or at least her health care plan -- Edwards may have upped the impact of an endorsement of Obama, should he make it soon. (Perhaps today?)

Throughout the campaign itself, John Edwards was clearly aligned with Barack Obama in the sense that they were the two leading candidates for change. Don't get me wrong, they were rivals -- in Iowa, Obama skillfully blunted Edwards late surge by focusing on the outside groups (527s) spending on his behalf, and Edwards criticized Obama for not being (in his view) combative enough.

Still, on balance, it seemed pretty clear to me that Edwards preferred Obama to Clinton.

But the real question is, when Edwards quit the race, did it help Obama or Clinton more? In late January, before he exited, Poblano looked at the demographics and projected that an Edwards withdrawal would boost Obama by about 2-4 points nationally.

Presenting the return of Hillary Clinton's Bosnia and Back Again -- I guarantee you'll enjoy it, or your money back:

It's been about a month since I posted it to YouTube, and somehow today seems like a good day to watch it again. I still love Andrew Sullivan's description: No one left to lie to.

In her explanation of the endorsement, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, praises Barack Obama's strong record on choice, adding:

Further, I believe Sen. Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee. He leads in pledged delegates, superdelegates, the popular vote, and cash-on-hand. As a former elected official, I know that having the three "m's" of a campaign - money, message and manpower (or womanpower!) - are how we win elections. Sen. Obama will be our next president.

You might remember that in New Hampshire, Clinton sent out a deceptive mailer questioning Barack's commitment to reproductive freedom. Some credited that mailer with her strong performance with Granite State women on election day.

With all the attention to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, it's easy to forget that by February 19, we'd already selected 70% of the pledged delegates heading to Denver, and Barack Obama had already built a nearly unbeatable lead. After yesterday's primary, we've now selected 94% of the delegates, and even though Barack Obama has just endured the toughest stretch of the campaign so far, he's only yielded 6 delegates from his lead.

So as far as delegate math, nothing much changed since February. But what about intangibles, like trends in national support for the Democratic nomination? Here's data from 187 different polls, averaged by month:

You can see the meteoric rise of Barack Obama from November to February, and his steady climb since then. Clinton, on the other hand, has hovered between 42% and 44%.

And most importantly, Barack Obama has led Hillary Clinton since February.

Contests won with 65% or more

In part because of the 9:1 delegate disparity in his blowout wins compared to Clinton's, Obama didn't need a win in West Virginia -- like John McCain, he just needed to pick up a few delegates and move on.

Well, even if he only ended up accomplishing the bare minimum, he did what he had to.

And now it's on to Oregon and the final stages of the campaign.

(h/t to kubla000 whose Daily Kos diary inspired this post.)

In other news: Obama picked up another superdelegate tonight, Awais Khaleel of the College Democrats of America. (A second superdelegate, Lauren Wolfe, also endorsed Obama, but she won't have a vote unless the Michigan delegation is seated.)

Even more news (3:57AM update): Another two superdelegates endorse Obama, Indiana Rep. Pete Viclosky, and Democrats Abroad Chair Christine Schone Marques (who will get 1/2 a vote).

Travis Childers' victory is the huge silver-lining for the night, but as Independent Don suggested to me earlier in the evening, it's worth keep our eyes on the vote totals in West Virginia.

At this moment, despite losing West Virginia in a rout, it looks like Barack Obama may end up with more votes than John McCain. Here are the latest numbers with 99% of precincts reporting:

• Barack Obama: 91,652 votes
• John McCain: 89,683 votes

Who knows if Barack can hang onto his lead, but with 99% reporting, it looks pretty good. It would pretty hilarious if even after suffering his worst primary performance of the entire campaign, Barack Obama still ended up with more votes than his general election opponent.

Update: However these numbers end up, I congratulate Hillary Clinton's supporters for their huge victory tonight. I might not approve of her campaign, but I do respect her grassroots supporters, and I think we are all looking forward to the day when the party is unified again and we are working together to defeat John McCain. The results tonight in West Virginia and Mississippi indicate just how well-positioned the Democratic Party is for a huge victory in November.

I'm shocked (in a good way!) -- Democratic Congressional candidate Travis Childers has defeated his Republican opponent in Mississippi, winning a solid 8 point victory.

For Barack Obama, Mississippi contest is far more significant than the Democratic primary in West Virginia. The Childers-Davis campaign was the third Congressional race so far this year in which Barack Obama was a central issue, and it was the first in which Republicans used the association between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright to attack a Democratic candidate.

The fact that the Republican attack on Obama and Childers campaign failed in a conservative, formerly Republican district (Bush won 62% of the vote there in 2004) pretty much conclusively debunks the idea that Barack Obama will be a drag on Democrats in conservative strongholds, particularly in the south. (Edit: In more blunt terms, what I'm saying is that tonight's results should satisfy concerns that downballot Democrats could be damaged by racist campaigns in similar districts.)

Meanwhile, Obama was featured prominently in positive advertisements in Bill Foster's victory in Dennis Hastert's old Congressional seat earlier this year. So it's not just that Obama isn't a negative -- in many Republican leaning districts, he is a big political plus.

Tim Russert earlier tonight:

The Clintons are over $20 million in debt in their campaign, half of which is out of their own personal finances. If that money is not repayed to them by August -- the convention -- they lose it. They can't get it back. They can't raise it other ways. They sacrifice all but $250,000 of it. So it's a big hit. I talked to someone very close to the Clintons today and he said, "well, you know if they have to put a couple more million dollars in the race if they think they want to go forward, they will, because to them $10-$15 million invested in the campaign, they can get it back with book deals and speeches and so forth."

Barack Obama and Claire McCaskill in Cape Girardeau, MO earlier today

Leaving aside the spin, the most important thing that happened tonight with respect to the mechanics of the Democratic nomination process is that Barack Obama picked up another 9 (+/- 1) delegates.

As you can see from the countdown numbers in the sidebar, after projecting out the remaining contests and the 49 uncommitted and unselected add-on delegates, Barack Obama needs just 14 more delegates to hit the 2,025 number by the time the last add-on delegate is selected in the middle of June.

He'll hit 2,025 before then, but as you can see from these numbers, Obama is in a race against the finish line. There's just no chance that Hillary Clinton will get 93% of the available delegates.

It was an insta-call for Clinton tonight in West Virginia -- 2:1, at least, according to MSNBC. Roughly a 10 delegate swing to Clinton.

• TPM makes a great catch -- in The Hill's roll call of Senatorial interest in the VP slot, three Republicans said no, citing age. All were Republicans, and one was younger than McCain.
• MSNBC has exit poll data up for West Virginia, but the early results seem funky. Since they update the exit polls as actual results come in, I'd wait to make any projections based on them.
• ABC needs to improve the quality of its political reporting.
• Josh Gerstein takes a look at the lobbyists surrounding John McCain and the foreign interests they represent.
• The AP reports that John McCain faces "Boeing Blowback" for helping Airbus beat out Boeing for a $35 billion defense contract.
• My former governor (who, unlike my current guv, is one of the nation's finest) explains why McCain was wrong to support Airbus and oppose Boeing.

Keith Olbermann just asked a funny question, given the the nature of the delegate math. "What are we all (the pundits) still doing here?"

It's been a wild two months -- yet since the end of February, the race has been fundamentally unchanged.  Here's a flashback to March:

The similarities are eerie, eh?

From the Obama campaign memo on WV and the state of the campaign:

MYTH 1: The Primary has left Democrats divided.
FACT: Democrats are united behind Barack Obama, even more so than Republicans are united behind McCain

• May 12 Washington Post poll shows that Obama wins 81% of Democrats in a matchup against John McCain.
• Indeed, more Republicans crossover to vote for Obama (15%) than do Democrats for McCain (13%).
  • NOTE: In 1996, Bill Clinton won 84% of Democrats.

MYTH 2: The Primary campaign has hurt Obama with swing voters and Republicans:
FACT: Obama is winning the swing voters against McCain by a wide margin.

• Obama holds a 51-42 lead among Independents in the Washington Post poll.
  • NOTE: Clinton loses 46-49 to McCain among Independents.
• Not since 1988, when George Bush beat Michael Dukakis 57-43 among Independents, has a candidate won such a large margin among swing voters.
  • In his two victories, Clinton only managed a 6-point margin over the Republican among independents in 1992 and an 8-point margin in 1996.
  • Indeed, no Democrat has won a majority of Independent voters since exit polls were first conducted in 1976.  

This is pretty big news, and I think I'm justified in breaking the embargo. Hope you agree. (And hopefully the Obama campaign will understand.)

::

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama, Tuesday, May 13, 2008. Embargoed until 10PM Eastern.

Yeah, it's snark. ;)

(APPLAUSE) Thank you. We began this campaign sixteen months ago on a cold day in Springfield, Illinois. Now, more than thirty million votes later, we've built a grassroots political organization, fueled by volunteers and donations from millions of Americans. After forty-eight contests, we've won 32 primaries and caucuses to Senator Clinton's 17. We've earned over sixteen million votes -- more than anyone else -- and we've won over 1,600 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,444.

If we continued this campaign, we'd be on pace to secure a majority of pledged delegates by May 20. Recently, we overtook Senator Clinton's lead among the superdelegates, the insiders who can -- if they choose -- overturn the will of the people. After tonight, we'd need just 145 more delegates to claim victory, less than half the number needed by Clinton.

But tonight, the people of West Virginia have spoken, and I must accept their verdict, which is that Hillary Clinton should be the next presidential nominee of the Democratic party.

I understand the historical legacy that has led to tonight's results, but I have no hard feelings. Change is not easy -- I've always understood that.

And despite efforts by other campaigns and some in the media to goad me into labeling the people of West Virginia as this or that, I understand that doing so would be divisive, counter-productive, and bad for our country. In short, it would be unpresidential.

But none of that matters now. What's important is that another 0.7% of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention have been selected, and most of them will be supporting Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, in turn, has argued that those delegates are worth more than others. There is no easy response to such a compelling argument.

Consequently, I am announcing that effective immediately, I am suspending my presidential campaign.

If you haven't already had a chance to read it, you'll enjoy Jeffrey Goldberg's refutation of the lie spread by John Boehner and others that Barack Obama called Israel a "constant sore." (Obama was actually referring to our inability to resolve conflict in the Middle East.) Here's a snippet:

I have no doubt that Mr. Boehner will issue a correction to his press release in which he states the obvious, which is that Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me.

If he doesn't, however, I would, sadly, have to agree with my colleague, the less-forgiving Andrew Sullivan, who called Boehner's statement a "flat-out lie." In fact, I would add to Andrew's post, by calling Boehner's statement mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable. So Mr. Boehner, do the right thing, and correct the record. I'll be happy to post the correction right here.

Episodes like this one are a good reminder that if you think we've seen a lot of lying so far in the campaign, it's time to buckle up. Some of these right-wing hatchet men are going to make Hillary Clinton look like Mother Theresa by comparison. And so far, unfortunately, John McCain seems quite comfortable playing their game.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D-OR), a Clinton endorser and superdelegate,
at McCain campaign event on Monday (AP Photo/Greg Wahl-Stephens)

I'm still mystified by the decision of Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski to attend a John McCain campaign event yesterday in Portland.

The entire message of the event was that John McCain is not George Bush, and having the Clinton-supporting Democratic Governor of Oregon at his side was quite valuable in making that point.

I just don't understand why Kulongoski would decide to help McCain in this way, especially eight days before the primary -- which Barack Obama is expected to win.

Making things more confusing, at the same time as Kulongoski was standing next to John McCain, Bill Clinton was also in the state campaigning for Hillary.

If I were in Kulongoski's shoes and decided to attend a campaign event, I'd have been with Bill.

But Kulongoski chose McCain. Strange.

Jeff Mapes, a reporter for The Oregonion, called it "a curious episode." Mapes reported that the governor's spokeswoman denied his appearance was political and said that he would support Obama if Obama won the nomination. Mapes also noted that McCain and Kulongoski met privately after the event, but had no information on what was said, though he surmised it was "congenial."

DCW has a nice write-up of the days super events:

• Former DNC Chair Roy Romer, who says the race is over.
• New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
• Indiana Congressman Joe Donnelly

Add these to Anita Bonds, and the tally is 4-0 (plus that pledged delegate switch of Jack Johnson). And James Carville is musing about the race coming to an end.

First, some good news. Two more superdelegates, and one of them is a switch:

• Anita Bonds, an undecided superdelegate from DC where she is Chair of the Democratic Committee, joins the Obama bandwagon.
• Prince George's (Maryland) County Executive Jack Johnson switches back to Obama from Clinton, who he had supported since February.
  • Update: Johnson is actually a pledged delegate. Although his vote has the same weight as a superdelegate, I don't think the Obama game plan involves pursuing any pledged delegates other than the ones pledged to Edwards.

A new poll from ABC News:

• Obama leads Clinton 53%-41%
• Obama leads McCain 51%-44% and Clinton leads McCain 49-46%
• Clinton does slightly better with Democrats than Obama (85%-10% compared to 81%-13%), but Obama does much better with Independents (51%-42% compared with 46%-49%) and also better with Republicans (15%-83% compared with 10%-87%).

Closer to home:

• My governor (Republican Jim Gibbons, embroiled in a nasty divorce) has filed papers to evict his wife from the governor's mansion. (You can usually find some funny commentary on the divorce at the the Las Vegas Gleaner.)

And finally something that's just interesting:

• A series of maps on American Ethnic Geography, including religion, language, politics, and more.

Louisville, Kentucky - May 12

Over the past four and one-half months, Barack Obama has contested 48 different primaries and caucuses against one of the most powerful families in American political history -- and he's come out on top.

He hasn't won every contest and he's made his share of mistakes. But viewed in perspective, what he has accomplished has been historic. And in the process, he's demonstrated the overwhelming strength of his candidacy.

It's amazing how far Barack Obama has come, from trailing Clinton by more than twenty points in national polls to the cusp of the Democratic nomination:

It's not just the polls -- Obama has done well where it counts, on election day. Ever since the first delegates were awarded in Iowa, he has led Hillary Clinton among democratically selected pledged delegates. And next Tuesday in Oregon, he will clinch the pledged delegate majority, securing his wire-to-wire dominance in this important category.

This is weird: today, Oregon's Democratic governor Ted Kulongoski stood by John McCain's side at a campaign event designed to distance McCain from George Bush's failed energy policy.

Gov. Kulongoski

Dem gov puts wind in McCain sails

PORTLAND, Ore. - John McCain got an unexpected boost in his bid to woo independent and Democratic voters here this afternoon: a shared stage with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Kulongoski is a Democrat who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. So local reporters were stunned to see him turn up at wind-power firm Vestas near Portland International Airport along with McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The event, a major speech on global warming, was designed to pitch McCain's environmental views to moderate western voters.

Why would a Democratic governor (and superdelegate) stand by McCain's side for such an important campaign event?

Making things more curious, it turns out Kulongoski is a Hillary Clinton supporter and as he stood beside McCain, Bill Clinton was on the trail in Astoria, Oregon, 90 miles away, also taking about energy policy.

So instead of going on the stump with a former President to support a Democratic candidate, Kulongoski decided to lend his credibility to John McCain's campaign.

Strange.

I'd love to know if the Clinton campaign was aware of Kulongoski's decision to attend the McCain event, and if they were, whether they encouraged or discouraged him from attending.

I know that if I were a Democratic governor who was supporting a Democratic presidential candidate, there's no chance in hell that I'd go to a Republican presidential candidate's campaign event, especially if that event were one week before my state's primary. And if there were a perception that my candidate's campaign was working to undermine the party's likely nominee, I'd be extra-sensitive to appearances.

Something just doesn't seem right here. What's going on?

Update @ 5:09PM: An Oregon resident suggests in the comments a plausible, non-nefarious explanation -- Kulongoski may have attended the event to support the company and the issue, rather than McCain. I'm not totally sold on this -- the theme of McCain's event was to establish his independence from Bush, and I can't imagine Kulongoski wouldn't have understood the significance of his presence. Then again, politicians make dumb mistakes all the time. Perhaps this was one.

The outcome of tomorrow's vote in West Virginia is not in doubt, and neither is the impact it will have on the nomination process, which will be commensurate with its 0.9% share of pledged delegates.

So to make things interesting, the number I'll watch is percentage of each candidate's voters who say they plan to vote for John McCain in November regardless of who wins the nomination.

This assumes that the exit poll will have the same questions as it did in Indiana and North Carolina, where voters were specifically asked who they planned to vote for in November, regardless of how they voted during the primary.

The fact that West Virginia is a semi-closed primary (Democrats and unaffiliated voters can participate, but not Republicans) is largely irrelevant -- just under 70% of West Virginia voters are eligible to vote.

In North Carolina, which also had a semi-closed primary, 16% of Clinton's voters said they planned to vote for McCain even if she won the primary. (Oddly, in Indiana, which is open, 13% of her voters said the same.)

Assuming the exit poll has the same question, I'll set the over-under at 15% for the percentage of Clinton supporters who will vote McCain even if she wins the nomination, and I'll set the over-under at 4% for Obama.

If the only thing you cared about was winning an election, would you rather be (a) John McCain, the candidate who had forged a political alliance with the least popular incumbent president in recent American history, or would you rather be (b) Barack Obama, the candidate whose ex-pastor had repeatedly made statements that much of the electorate had found offensive?

Purely based on electability, I'd pick Obama any day of the week -- and two recent surveys support that decision. In late April, an NBC/WSJ poll determined that Bush was a more significant albatross for McCain than Wright is for Obama (at least in the opinion of voters). Today, Gallup crunches numbers from another recent survey and comes up with the same result:

Obama picks up his fourth superdelegate of the day, Keith Roark of Idaho. One week ago, Roark tipped his hand:

"Every time I say this, it's a guaranteed applause line," [Bill Clinton] said. "You can drop me in the middle of Idaho where there's not a Democrat in 200 miles and an elk would applaud me on that."

Idaho Democrats called Clinton's comments an insult. They said the state party is making a comeback - after suffering setbacks during Clinton's two terms in office.

"If Bill Clinton had done for elk in Idaho everything he did for Democrats, we'd have far fewer elk," said Idaho Democratic Party Chairman Keith Roark - an uncommitted superdelegate - Wednesday morning.

This was brilliant:

1. Denial: “But Senator Clinton hasn’t conceded yet! She doesn’t admit that she’s lost! She keeps moving the goal posts, continues playing the race card, it therefore must not really be over for her. We need her permission to move on!“
2. Anger: “If the rest of you don’t lash out at what’s upsetting me in exactly the way I am, you’re as bad as she is!”
3. Bargaining: “This means that Obama has to put Clinton on the ticket (like Andrew Sullivan says, ‘hello again to all that!’). Oh, wait, scratch that: he has to put a Clinton supporter on the ticket. Or maybe he has to put a different woman on the ticket… or how about…”
4. Depression: “Where’d everybody go? God, I miss the adrenaline of when this was a real contest!”
5. Acceptance: “Oh, goodie: More adrenaline to come! A general election campaign! Of course Obama will choose his running mate according to his standards. I bet it’ll be as smart a move as those that got him here!”

Al is also thrilled about the Akaka endorsement. Typical, eh?

So according to one count, as of this morning, since Tuesday Obama has picked up 20 superdelegates and Clinton has picked up 0.5. With today's announcements, the numbers probably look like this:

• Obama: +23
• Clinton: +0.5

So here's my spin prediction for Camp Clinton: "Hey, we're both in double-digits!"

Ben's on fire today:

• The candidates and the calendar (an awesome Krauthammer smackdown)
• Six ways for Hillary Clinton to lose.
• Quick hits: MoveOn: 'Obamacan', Sublimminable, Obama heading to Michigan, and Obama's Jewish Roots
• Supers for Obama: Tom Allen, Dolly Strazar, Daniel Akaka, and Keith Rourk

And coming soon, I predict, Ben will blog the endorsement of Obama by Sen. Daniel Akaka.

Mother's day brought us a new advertisement from the McCain campaign, featuring John McCain's mother, Roberta McCain, still sharp after 96 years.

The ad is a reminder of just how freaked out McCain's advisors are about his age, and how desperately they want to reassure the public that McCain is not too old to serve as president for four years. (If elected, McCain will turn 73 in his first year in office and will be 76 by the time the 2012 presidential campaign begins.)

Implicitly, the argument of this ad is that McCain comes from a good gene pool: his mom is in great shape at 96, so there's nothing to worry about. But there's a simple problem with that argument: like most (okay, all) people, John McCain has two parents.

If his campaign wants us to believe he is capable of serving a full term as president on the basis of his mother's health, it's relevant to ask about his father's health.

Sadly, John McCain's father passed away 27 years ago, in 1981. He was 70. (McCain's father, also named John, was a second-generation Admiral in the U.S. Navy, and like his son, attended the Naval Academy.)

The article is here, but what amused me most wasn't the article itself, but rather McCain adviser Mark Salter's 3-page long e-mail to the Newsweek editor whining about the magazine's supposedly pro-Obama slant. Here's an excerpt Salter's squeal:

To see how completely Evan and Richard have accepted the Obama campaign spin look at the example of an illegitimate smear they cite: Senator McCain raising the Hamas spokesman’s comments welcoming Obama’s election. The Senator has never said that Senator Obama shares Hamas’ goals or values or proposed a relationship with Hamas different than the one he would propose. On the contrary, he publicly acknowledged that he doesn’t believe Senator Obama. [Jed: This must be a typo, but what a typo!] He did note that there must be something about Obama’s positions, particularly his repeated insistence that he would meet with the President of Iran (Hamas’s chief state sponsor), that was welcomed by Hamas. Imagine if a right wing death squad spokesman announced that they welcomed McCain’s election. Would Evan or Richard treat that as an illegitimate issue or would they examine which of McCain’s stated positions might have found favor with the terrorists? That seems obvious on its face to me. Rather than argue that his position on Iran is the right one and has no bearing on how Hamas views him, Senator Obama makes a false charge that we accused him of advocating a different relationship with Hamas than Senator McCain’s supports. His false characterization of Senator McCain’s statement was accepted uncritically by Evan and Richard.

Here's what Salter was responding to:

At the time of the Pennsylvania primary, the McCain campaign sent out a letter suggesting that Obama was the candidate of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group ("Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," read the letter). McCain, by contrast, portrayed himself as "Hamas's worst nightmare." (In fact, Obama and McCain have the same position on Hamas —no talks, no recognition, no outreach.)

Judging by the 4:1 ratio of Mark Salter's response to the allegedly offending passage, it seems that he might have overreacted just a trifle. I don't know much about who he is, but so far, he sure does sound like he wants to be the second-coming of Karl Rove. Fortunately, however, he doesn't appear to be nearly as effective.

As for the issue at hand, I'll just go back to Andrew Sullivan's formulation of the way to respond to the type of attack being pushed by Salter and McCain: it is dishonorable to give groups like Hamas or al Qaeda influence over this presidential election.

If Salter and McCain want to attack Barack Obama on policy grounds, then by all means, they should. But there should be zero tolerance for using the words of foreign agents in political smears.

I didn't even know he was once a host of Inside Edition. (Be warned -- he drops a few loud F-bombs.)

Update: Rude. CBS had the video taken down from YouTube. Here's another version:

h/t: Oliver Willis

On two occasions last week, John McCain attacked Barack Obama by making a campaign issue out of an interview last month in which a member of Hamas praised Obama. As Obama told Wolf Blitzer on Thursday, McCain's attack was a smear, intended to raise doubts about Obama's commitment to protecting America and its allies. The truth, as Obama said, is that there is no difference between the two candidates when it comes to policy towards Hamas.

This isn't the first time John McCain has inserted the words of foreign agents into the 2008 campaign. In late March, McCain actually used the words of Osama bin Laden to slam both Democratic candidates:

A few weeks back, when McCain first tested his Hamas gambit, Andrew Sullivan formulated a simple, powerful response to these types of attacks:

Honorable campaigns do not allow foreign agents, especially terrorist organizations, to insert themselves into American presidential politics. No respectable foreign governments do such a thing; and the gambits of al Qaeda, Hamas, or any other grouping to play one candidate against another should in general be ignored, not exploited.

Sullivan's answer is absolutely right. Debates about policy are fair game. But using the words of foreign terrorists as a political attack in a presidential campaign is completely unacceptable.

John McCain may be securing some political advantage -- but he's doing it at expense of dignifying terrorist organizations, something that no presidential candidate should ever be willing to do.

HRC is $20 million in debt. Yikes. (h/t: AMERICAblog)

As I showed here, in Indiana, there were about 110,000 pro-McCain voters in the primary, 75% of whom supported Hillary Clinton.

How might these voters have impacted the demographics of the exit polls?

As with Ohio, the results in Indiana are narrowing. Hillary Clinton now leads by just under 1.1% -- down from 1.4% on election night. It won't make a difference for the nomination battle, but it does strengthen the argument that were it not for McCain supporters, Hillary Clinton would not have won Indiana.

Let me run through numbers for you based on the new vote totals.

1. Hillary Clinton has 644,594 votes and Barack Obama has 630,599 votes
2. About 83,500 McCain supporters voted for Clinton
   
   • According to the exit poll, if Clinton were to win the nomination, 16% of primary voters would vote for McCain, 41% of whom voted for Clinton in the primary. As a result, 6.6% (16% * 41%) of Indiana primary voters voted for Clinton but plan to vote for McCain in the fall even if she wins the nomination
   • 6.6% of Indiana primary voters is 83,563. (13% of Clinton's total vote.)
3. About 27,500 McCain supporters voted for Obama
   • Also according to the exit poll, if Obama were to win the nomination, 18% of primary voters would vote for McCain, 12% of whom voted for Obama in the primary. As a result, 2.2% (18% * 12%) of Indiana primary voters voted for Obama but plan to vote for McCain in the fall even if he wins the nomination.
   • 2.2% of Indiana primary voters is 27,544. (4.4% of Obama's total vote.)
4. After factoring out the McCain supporters who voted for each candidate:
   • Clinton received 560,941 votes from sincere supporters (48.2% of the vote)
   • Obama received 603,055 votes from sincere supporters (51.8% of the vote)
5. Therefore, among voters who are not committed McCain supporters, Barack Obama won a 3.6 point victory, a swing of nearly 5 points from the current vote tally.

Keep in mind I'm not taking a position on why these McCain supporters voted for Clinton. It doesn't matter to me whether it was the Limbaugh Effect or whether they were honestly expressing their choice for second-place. What matters is they don't intend to vote for either Obama or Clinton in November, and I think any fair analysis of Indiana must factor these voters out of the equation.

As a postscript, what about North Carolina? Using the same method as above, 16% of Clinton voters in North Carolina were actually McCain supporters, compared with 3% of Obama supporters. Factoring out the McCain meddlers for both both candidates, overall Obama would have won 61%-39%, a 22-point win instead of 57%-42%, a 15-point win.

John Edwards on Face the Nation this morning:

As a former Edwards supporter, I was disappointed by his decision to stay on the sidelines during March and April.

But with the nomination process essentially over, the challenge now is to unify the Democratic Party, and Edwards' perceived impartiality might actually prove to be an asset. Along with his wife Elizabeth, he does have real credibility with Clinton supporters at the grassroots and netroots level. I think that if (really, when) he comes out strong for Obama, a lot of people who supported Clinton will listen to him.

At this point, as Edwards says, we know it will be Barack Obama at the top of the ticket. The question now is how we end the campaign and unify as a party to take on John McCain. From what I saw today, John Edwards is ready to play a leadership role in helping that process along.

John Aravosis introduces The Monica, and awards the Clinton campaign the first four Monica award for continuing their disgraceful search for "damaging information" on Obama. The name of this award may seem a bit shocking, but it is absurd for the Clintons of all people to launch a character-based assault on their opponent. And if they can't stand the heat...

As some of you might know, I supported John Edwards before he dropped out. Since then, I've been for Obama, but I still have affection for Edwards' campaign. This video is the best explanation I can offer.

Most of my friends and family are like me; they supported Edwards, but are now enthusiastically behind Obama. (Full disclosure: one of my relatives was a Clinton supporter, but she long ago saw the light, and is for Barack now!) In our cases it's clear that Edwards' withdrawal was a boost for Obama. And, I think it's fair to say, it was also a boost for us to become a part of this movement. For the first time, we've got a Democratic presidential nominee who is willing to try to change the way the game is played.

Despite our personal stories, there's plenty of room for debate about whether or not Edwards' withdrawal and subsequent decision to stay on the sidelines helped or hurt Barack Obama. I think in caucus states on Super Tuesday, it definitely helped Obama for Edwards not to be a candidate. In some primary states like Oklahoma and Tennessee, it probably hurt. I'm sure it helped in a big way in California. It also definitely helped Obama for Edwards not to be on the ballot in most of the February contests after Super Tuesday.

Whatever the impact of Edwards' withdrawal, I think that while he was still in it, he helped Obama frame Hillary Clinton's central problem: her credibility. Last fall, Clinton was riding high on the "inevitability" meme. Then, on October 30, the Democratic field gathered for a debate which I still believe began the long, slow, painful demise of her campaign. As these videos show, John Edwards played a key role -- probably the key role -- in provoking her catastrophic performance:

So even if John Edwards has been strangely silent for the last few months, I do believe that he deserves credit for helping expose the true nature of the Clinton candidacy. I'm curious now about his re-emergence, and hopeful that he begins to take a more active role in this campaign, helping to unify the party now that we have a nominee.

Over at MyDD.com, Todd Beeton lays it out for his fellow HRC supporters: "A Vote For John McCain Is A Vote Against Hillary Clinton." Amen, Todd -- and thank you.

Well, DCW has gone ahead and given all you mothers out there a Mother's Day gift -- Obama is now the superdelegate leader by their count.

As for the countdown, based on my projection that Clinton and Obama will split the remaining 50 add-on delegates, and that Clinton will win a nine delegate edge in the remaining contests, then Obama only needs 24 more delegates to lock up the magic number by the time last add-on delegate is selected. (That would be on June 21.)

Of course, given that Obama has picked up 26 superdelegate endorsements in the last week alone, 24 should be a piece of cake, and he'll actually hit the 2,024.5 magic number sooner -- ideally right after the Oregon primary on May 20th. (Note that it doesn't really matter how many superdelegates Clinton gains or loses -- Obama is in a race against the finish line, not Clinton.)

p.s.: Happy Mother's Day to everybody who qualifies (especially including my own mom, and both my grandmas)!