FABULOUS!

The women pitty vote?

Oh common, there could be a better narrative or explanation than that.

I would hope that she would at least be credited with re-tooling her message.

"Time and again in this race, though, Hillary has had her back to the wall, only to find that the female vote, perhaps driven by the sight of Hillary on the verge of defeat, has rallied around her and changed the story-line of the race."

Stay tuned, Hillary is tied to the RR track and only the women can untie the ropes so she escapes the man with the black moustache.

a grim set of circumstances that Hillary advisers have been anticipating for some time.

I doubt this. They had no plans for after Super Tuesday; they are staggering in the dark. In fact, I can just picture an HRC adviser saying, ala the Bushies, "No one could have anticipated that Obama would run the table for the rest of February."

The race now has a new, never before seen element: momentum.

There were enough expectations (there's that word again) of a Clinton victory in Maine that the Obama team will be able to get some extra mileage out of this.

Polls in TX & OH after Tuesday will show us what is really happening.

And as for a late Hillary surge in VA, it seems a little less likely now that there have been a number of races under their belts and the size of the state is much larger.

The irony that I see is that the calendar was designed to favor a candidacy by Hillary. Feb. 5th was to end it. But this new stretch of the road is proving to be her undoing, something they probably never ever envisioned. Probably never gave it much thought.

i will be looking to see how HRC new campaign manager will respond to these 4 losses!!! Will Hillary go on the attack? its obvious that this "nice" Hillary that we have seen lately ain't working...
They need a win to get some positive news coverage...Tomorrow all the pundits will be diggin HRC grave...But as we have seen, Hillary is like a vampire, you have to stab the thing in its heart, anything less and she still can come back and surprise you...

Its time for Hillary to step aside!

This split system is only going to hurt the party and our chance to gain the white house AND solidify the congress.

Step down and maybe the Big O will give you a spot on the Supreme court!

Much has been made of the "Obama's the caucus guy, not the primary guy" kind-of talk. Some research here, folks, is below. The truth is Obama and Clinton are virtually ties on the number of primaries won, and Obama's won just about all the other races, which have been caucuses. So Clinton's just sour grapes (she certainly hasn't minimized her one solitary Nevada caucus win):

Obama Primary Winners (9 altogether):
South Carolina
Alabama
Connecticut
Illinois
Missouri
Utah
Louisiana
Delaware
Georgia

Clinton's Primary Winners (10 altogether):
New Hampshire
Michigan
Arizona
California
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Arkansas

Obama's Caucus Winners (9 altogether):
Iowa
Alaska
Colorado
Idaho
Kansas
Minnesota
North Dakota
Nebraska
Washington

Clinton's Caucus Winners (1 altogether):
Nevada

Uncontested or Inconclusive at this writing:
Florida
Michigan
Maine
New Mexico

The problem is that Hillary's hopes for Ohio, PA, and TX are like Guilliani's hopes for FL. Obama has a big head of steam. He looks and smells like a winner. And people like to vote for a winner. If Obama blows through the potomac primary and Wisconsin on the 19th, he will likely win TX, OH, and PA. That's what momentum is all about.

Intrade Market:

70.0 - Obama

30.0 - Clinton

The "odds" are for the Dem Nomination.

(odds also looking good for presidency for Obama)

Let's keep the momentum going.

Very good day for Obama! ♪♪♪

Good job, Dana. It's nice to see it laid out like that.

Good point about Michigan. I'll restate. The only reason I left out Maine was that less than 100% of the vote is in...but, hell, we can agree, i think that the call for Obama's takeover there is good. Thanks, Zell!

Obama Primary Winners (9 altogether):
South Carolina
Alabama
Connecticut
Illinois
Missouri
Utah
Louisiana
Delaware
Georgia

Clinton's Primary Winners (9 altogether):
New Hampshire
Arizona
California
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Arkansas

Obama's Caucus Winners (10 altogether):
Iowa
Alaska
Colorado
Idaho
Kansas
Minnesota
North Dakota
Nebraska
Washington
Maine

Clinton's Caucus Winners (1 altogether):
Nevada

Uncontested or Inconclusive at this writing:
Florida
Michigan
New Mexico

As of now, Hillary has encountered the perfect storm: of (1) Clinton Fatigue, (2) Obama mania, and (3) the specter of John McCain, to whom she would be McCain Lite.

At 79% reporting, it's basically 59-41.

Let's all get re-energized... Donate, volunteer, make calls, knock on doors, stuff like that.

Obama '08.

What ever happened to the Iraq War issue. Do not let them con you into believing that the Surge is working. Five American Soldiers were blown to smithereens yesterday.

Now read the following report about what happened in Iraq this very day, and the same kind of thing has been happening on a more frequent basis.

When you read it, keep in mind that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton still thinks that her vote to authorize the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq was not a Reckless and Catastrophic mistake on her part. George W. Bush, and John McCain agree with her. Now read what happened in Iraq this very day. The Surge is working; My Arse!

BAGHDAD - Car bombs and gunmen struck new U.S. allies, police and civilians Sunday in northern Iraq, killing as many as 53 people. The spate of attacks came even as the American military released a captured diary and another document they say show al-Qaida in Iraq cracking under a Sunni revolt against its brutal tactics.
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The violence coincided with a visit by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Baghdad, where he warned that hard choices face Iraq's political leaders on how to stabilize the country despite promising new signs of progress toward reconciliation.

The deadliest bombing on Sunday was near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, against a checkpoint manned jointly by Iraqi police and members of an awakening group.

Iraqi police said a suicide truck bomber targeted a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied fighters and Iraqi police at the entrance of a bridge in the district of Yathrib on the outskirts of Balad. Security forces opened fire on the driver, but he managed to detonate his payload, devastating a nearby car market and other stores.

Police in the joint coordination center of the surrounding Salahuddin province and hospital officials said 34 people were killed and 37 others were wounded. Capt. Kadim Hamid said many residents in the predominantly Sunni area had removed victims directly from the site because they feared going to the hospital in Balad's mostly Shiite center.

The U.S. military put the casualty toll at 23 killed, 25 wounded and said a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi checkpoint in a market in Balad, but it did not confirm it was a suicide attack. U.S. and Iraqi forces had secured the area and the wounded had been evacuated to hospitals, according to a statement.

It was one of the worst bombings this year amid a recent lull in violence and underscored U.S. warnings that al-Qaida in Iraq remains a serious threat despite military offensives that have severely curtailed its operations.

The explosion came hours after suspected al-Qaida-linked insurgents stormed two villages near the Syrian border but were repelled by U.S.-allied fighters and Iraqi security forces in clashes that left at least 22 people dead.

Sheik Fawaz al-Jarba, the head of the Mosul anti-al-Qaida group, and other officials said the 22 killed included 10 militants and six members of the so-called awakening group in the area, as well as four women and two children.

The U.S. military in northern Iraq confirmed an attack on compound housing its Sunni allies against al-Qaida in Iraq near Sinjar, about 60 miles west of Mosul, saying five U.S.-allied fighters were killed, five wounded and 10 insurgents were killed.

Insurgents also attacked a group of civilians elsewhere in the northern Ninevah province on Sunday, killing two men and one child and wounding two other men, two women and two infants, according to the military.

Iraqi police also said four civilians were killed Sunday when a tanker truck laden with explosives blew up near an Iraqi army checkpoint on Mosul's southern outskirts.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has promised a "decisive battle" against the terror network in Mosul but given no start date. The U.S. military has warned it will not be a swift strike, but rather a grinding campaign that will require more firepower.

An al-Qaida front group for northern Iraq warned last week in an Internet statement that it was launching its own campaign in Mosul and surrounding areas.

In all, 70 people were reported killed or found dead by police on Sunday, one of the highest nationwide death tolls in recent months. That figure included three policemen who perished in a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint in the Anbar city of Fallujah and 10 bullet-riddled bodies showing signs of torture.

Hillary would make a good head of the department of Health, Education and Welfare, if there still was such a cabinet position.

Hope she joins the Obama team instead of fighting the wave.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
The old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand
For the times, they are a-changing

On Minnesota again, I noticed that Al Franken campaigned caucus night in senate district 44, his hometown and an area of the Twin Cities with a significant percentage of suburban Jewish voters. Obama got 67% of the vote in 44.

Obama's victory effectively left Hillary advisers grappling with the possibility that the worst case scenario that they'd been anticipating for some time could come true: The prospect of no victories for the whole month of February.

I know it's been a whole 5 days since Super Tuesday, but you seem to have forgotten NY, NJ, CA, OK, MA, AZ, TN, AK, and very likely NM.

Obama's victory effectively left Hillary advisers grappling with the possibility that the worst case scenario that they'd been anticipating for some time could come true: The prospect of no victories for the whole month of February.

I know it's been a whole 5 days since Super Tuesday, but you seem to have forgotten NY, NJ, CA, OK, MA, AZ, TN, AK, and very likely NM.

seems appropriate here:

By Kate Michelman

Feb. 08, 2008 | As the red light atop the camera went dark on Monday night, there was still much more I wanted to say to Chris Matthews, much more that I needed to say.

So for the moment, my time on "Hardball" continues here.

Knowing that I had just announced my support for Barack Obama for president after having earlier supported my old friend John Edwards, Matthews had me on his show Monday. His first Hardball to me was one of his typical zingers: "Kate Michelman, how does it feel to have abandoned the cause of your life?"

The simple answer, Chris, is that I haven't -- in fact, my endorsement of Barack, just like my earlier embrace of John Edwards, is all about exalting the causes of my life. Not about repudiating them.

I haven't abandoned my commitment to the women's movement -- and anyone who knows me understands I never will. My endorsement of Barack Obama is actually a celebration of that commitment, and an honest reflection of what I have been fighting for for over 40 years.

The women's movement is about free choice, self-determination and challenging a status quo that fails a lot of Americans, not just women. And it is not about going along. It's about transcending, about having the freedom to follow one's heart, about creating and pursuing new opportunities, and about the American dream being for all Americans.

Chris' gotcha-type question to me and the semi-criticism implicit in it -- that as a woman I have some biological obligation to unreservedly support whatever woman is running -- are exactly the sentiments I faced when I first started working for a woman's right to choose. If women who vote for men are traitors, then are men who vote for women also traitors? What about African-Americans who vote for whites? Or whites who vote for African-Americans?

Laying this guilt trip, this hypocrisy, on women -- saying that those women who don't vote for other women are turncoats -- is tantamount to saying that women who exercise independent thought haven't the right to do that either. Could there be a more anti-feminist contention?

When a presidential candidate's core values are unity, equality, opportunity and creating an atmosphere of respect and harmony, both nationally and internationally, then that candidate's vision aligns with the best hopes and dreams of the women's movement. And that is precisely Barack Obama's vision.

For me, the choice between supporting Barack or Hillary was the choice between supporting someone who I know would be very good, Hillary Clinton, or supporting someone who I know could be truly great. And right now, on those causes that define me and millions of other women, we shouldn't settle -- and I won't settle -- for anything less than "great."

My cause has been to create a society in which women are not judged on the basis of gender or subjected to sexist attitudes or expectations. My cause has been to ensure that every woman, and not any government, has the sole right to make the decision about when and under what circumstances it's best to become a mother. And as a woman who was once a single mother of three little girls and who was forced onto welfare and lived without healthcare and childcare, my cause has been the economic security and dignity of all women and their families.

Matthews' other Hardball, which also deserved more time than the red light gave me, was: "How can you pass, Kate, on the opportunity to support a woman for president when this may be the last chance for that to happen in your lifetime?"

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I sure do plan on being around a while longer. And just how long does Matthews believe it will be before another supremely qualified woman who currently sits in Congress or occupies a governor's mansion throws her hat into the presidential ring?

In his mind, aren't Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Gov. Janet Napolitano already at least as qualified as, say, Gov. Mike Huckabee?

It may be news to Chris Matthews, but great women have already arrived on the national stage -- and they are here to stay. They are running state governments, big cities and major corporations. And every day in the armed forces they are defending our families and our country.

Hardballs are just part of the game -- and I am happy to stand in the batter's box and take any of them on. But spitballs aren't part of the game.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/02/08/chris_matthews/

Something I've been wondering about: recent polls seem to show Obama beating McCain by a comfortable margin at the national level. Does anyone know of a breakdown of the numbers on a state-by-state basis? In other words, does his apparent national support translate into an electoral college win? (No ax to grind here, just curious, because I haven't noticed such numbers yet.)

Clinton wins a white working class state with more poor people than white wine swilling liberals
and uppity college students.

How do Clininites respond to this narrative?

Source: nytimes.com
Title: Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War

WHAT if a presidential candidate held what she billed as “the largest, most interactive town hall in political history” on national television, and no one noticed?

The untold story in the run-up to Super Tuesday was Hillary Clinton’s elaborate live prime-time special the night before the vote. Presiding from a studio in New York, the candidate took questions from audiences in 21 other cities. She had plugged the event four days earlier in the last gasp of her debate with Barack Obama and paid a small fortune for it: an hour of time on the Hallmark Channel plus satellite TV hookups for the assemblies of supporters stretching from coast to coast.

But I’m glad I watched every minute, right up until Mrs. Clinton was abruptly cut off in midsentence so Hallmark could resume its previously scheduled programming (a movie promising “A Season for Miracles,” aptly enough). However boring, this show was a dramatic encapsulation of how a once-invincible candidate ended up in a dead heat, crippled by poll-tested corporate packaging that markets her as a synthetic product leeched of most human qualities. What’s more, it offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the endgame to come.

For a campaign that began with tightly monitored Web “chats” and then planted questions at its earlier town-hall meetings, a Bush-style pseudo-event like the Hallmark special is nothing new, of course. What’s remarkable is that instead of learning from these mistakes, Mrs. Clinton’s handlers keep doubling down.

Less than two weeks ago she was airlifted into her own, less effective version of “Mission Accomplished.” Instead of declaring faux victory in Iraq, she starred in a made-for-television rally declaring faux victory in a Florida primary that was held in defiance of party rules, involved no campaigning and awarded no delegates. As Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said, it was “the Potemkin village of victory celebrations.”

The Hallmark show, enacted on an anachronistic studio set that looked like a deliberate throwback to the good old days of 1992, was equally desperate. If the point was to generate donations or excitement, the effect was the reverse. A campaign operative, speaking on MSNBC, claimed that 250,000 viewers had seen an online incarnation of the event in addition to “who knows how many” Hallmark channel viewers. Who knows, indeed? What we do know is that by then the “Yes We Can” Obama video fronted by the hip-hop vocalist will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas had been averaging roughly a million YouTube views a day. (Cost to the Obama campaign: zero.)

Two days after her town-hall extravaganza, Mrs. Clinton revealed the $5 million loan she had made to her own campaign to survive a month in which the Obama operation had raised $32 million to her $13.5 million. That poignant confession led to a spike in contributions that Mr. Obama also topped. Though Tuesday was largely a draw in popular votes and delegates, every other indicator, from the candidates’ real and virtual crowds to hard cash, points to a steadily widening Obama-Clinton gap. The Clinton campaign might be an imploding Potemkin village itself were it not for the fungible profits from Bill Clinton’s murky post-presidency business deals. (The Clintons, unlike Mr. Obama, have not released their income-tax returns.)

The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards. This was all too apparent in the Hallmark show. In its carefully calibrated cross section of geographically and demographically diverse cast members — young, old, one gay man, one vet, two union members — African-Americans were reduced to also-rans. One black woman, the former TV correspondent Carole Simpson, was given the servile role of the meeting’s nominal moderator, Ed McMahon to Mrs. Clinton’s top banana. Scattered black faces could be seen in the audience. But in the entire televised hour, there was not a single African-American questioner, whether to toss a softball or ask about the Clintons’ own recent misadventures in racial politics.

The Clinton camp does not leave such matters to chance. This decision was a cold, political cost-benefit calculus. In October, seven months after the two candidates’ dueling church perorations in Selma, USA Today found Hillary Clinton leading Mr. Obama among African-American Democrats by a margin of 62 percent to 34 percent. But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others), “the black candidate” (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself).

The result? Black America has largely deserted the Clintons. In her California primary victory, Mrs. Clinton drew only 19 percent of the black vote. The campaign saw this coming and so saw no percentage in bestowing precious minutes of prime-time television on African-American queries.

That time went instead to the Hispanic population that was still in play in Super Tuesday’s voting in the West. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles had a cameo, and one of the satellite meetings was held in the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s smart politics, especially since Mr. Obama has been behind the curve in wooing this constituency.

But the wholesale substitution of Hispanics for blacks on the Hallmark show is tainted by a creepy racial back story. Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have “not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was “making a historical statement.”

It wasn’t an accurate statement, historical or otherwise. It was a lie, and a bigoted lie at that, given that it branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists. As the columnist Gregory Rodriguez pointed out in The Los Angeles Times, all three black members of Congress in that city won in heavily Latino districts; black mayors as various as David Dinkins in New York in the 1980s and Ron Kirk in Dallas in the 1990s received more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote. The real point of the Clinton campaign’s decision to sow misinformation and racial division, Mr. Rodriguez concluded, was to “undermine one of Obama’s central selling points, that he can build bridges and unite Americans of all types.”

If that was the intent, it didn’t work. Mrs. Clinton did pile up her expected large margin among Latino voters in California. But her tight grip on that electorate is loosening. Mr. Obama, who captured only 26 percent of Hispanic voters in Nevada last month, did better than that in every state on Tuesday, reaching 41 percent in Arizona and 53 percent in Connecticut. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign’s attempt to drive white voters away from Mr. Obama by playing the race card has backfired. His white vote tally rises every week. Though Mrs. Clinton won California by almost 10 percentage points, among whites she beat Mr. Obama by only 3 points.

The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas, whose March 4 vote it sees as its latest firewall. Clearly it will stop at little. That’s why you now hear Clinton operatives talk ever more brazenly about trying to reverse party rulings so that they can hijack 366 ghost delegates from Florida and the other rogue primary, Michigan, where Mr. Obama wasn’t even on the ballot. So much for Mrs. Clinton’s assurance on New Hampshire Public Radio last fall that it didn’t matter if she alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot because the vote “is not going to count for anything.”

Last month, two eminent African-American historians who have served in government, Mary Frances Berry (in the Carter and Clinton years) and Roger Wilkins (in the Johnson administration), wrote Howard Dean, the Democrats’ chairman, to warn him of the perils of that credentials fight. Last week, Mr. Dean became sufficiently alarmed to propose brokering an “arrangement” if a clear-cut victory by one candidate hasn’t rendered the issue moot by the spring. But does anyone seriously believe that Howard Dean can deter a Clinton combine so ruthless that it risked shredding three decades of mutual affection with black America to win a primary?

A race-tinged brawl at the convention, some nine weeks before Election Day, will not be a Hallmark moment. As Mr. Wilkins reiterated to me last week, it will be a flashback to the Democratic civil war of 1968, a suicide for the party no matter which victor ends up holding the rancid spoils.

I know we're only talking 24 delegates here but Clinton really needs to start holding Obama to smaller margins in these sacrifice states. If not, she'll have to win all her own strong states with blowouts too to stay in the race. I just saw in the Washington Post that Solis-Doyle is stepping down as her campaign manager and someone named Maggie Williams is taking over, so they may be thinking the same thing I'm thinking.

February is

"a month that's shaping up as a very dark one indeed for Hillary,"

with electoral outcomes that are

"signaling a dark stretch ahead for the Hillary Camp."

I find this language striking -- it reminds me of the scene in the movie Malcolm X., where the Black Muslim shows Malcolm the definition of the word "Black" in the dictionary. One of them reads through the negative associations, and a light bulb is supposed to go off in all our heads.

It also reminds me of the days when people would, quite self righteously, defend their use of the word "he" when ostensibly discussing an individual generic person. The common usage of "he or she" today is one of feminism's little victories.

They are still allocating but estimates are that Obama picked up 63 more delegates than HC this weekend (give or take a few when all is said and done) and if polls are correct and Obama gets similar margins on Tues, he can add another 40 or so = 103. This is in addition to the 20 he lead with after Feb5 and not including WI or HI. (This is in pledged delegates, which is what I think is really the important #)

Just a question for all you Obama-philes:

Are you able to name of his weaknesses or imperfections? I realize you think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it seems like your enthusiasm blinds you. No matter how great he may be, he is not perfect. Are you able to acknowledge that?

Because it seems to me that if you can't acknowledge his weaknesses, you're going to be in for quite a surprise when the Republicans have no problem naming them, advertising them, exaggerating them, and shoving them down our throats.

Just wondering.

People keep talking about Texas like its going to be some kind of Clinton redoubt. Personally I don't see it. Hillary is setting up shop in San Antonio and will be campaigning heavily in south Texas and all along the bluer than blue border region to El Paso where most of the towns and cities are 90+% Hispanic. She will of course do well down there. But I think the state will be won in the large urban areas. Over 1/2 the population of Texas lives in the greater Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth metro areas.

Obama should clean up in the central cities and should also do well in all the large upscale suburban and exurban areas like Katy and Plano. Then there's Austin which is tailor-made for Obama. That basically leaves the large swath of populated towns and smaller cities in central, north, and east Texas. Places like Waco. I just don't see Hillary cleaning up in these areas. They are predominately Republican areas and the Clinton and Hillary hatred has been so deep-seated and long running down here among the Republicans that I think some of it has rubbed off on Dems. I teach school and I hear otherwise rational Democratic women who are right in Hillary's demographic sweet spot express all sorts of irrational dislike for her.

Whatver polls people are citing for Texas are ancient history from last fall when we still had a full slate of candidates. I expect the next set of legitimate Texas polls will show the state close to deadlocked. And I think Obama has a decent shot at taking the state, especially with the momentum and energy his campaign is developing.

i found a weakness....his server is down tonight b/c of so much traffic (ok, not really a weakness, just wanted to point that out).

That's a switch... swapping out a Latina for an African-American manager on HRC's team.

I think HRC may see the writing on the wall, and this could be another calculated moves, only right now the game clock is winding down in a hurry from their perspective. Only Texas has the "Hispanic" vote to offer in significant proportions; Ohio and Pennsylvannia have proportionally larger African-American voter populations to mine for votes. Yes, another calculated move by the Cliinton campaign.

I agree with the other posters who refer to these three states as the proberbial "Fat Ladies" and all should not leave the theatre till they sing. However, consider the possibility of a split between the voters of each three state - an almost even allocation of delegates. We're back where we are today - almost a statistical draw.

Enter the "Super Delegates".

I'll refer all who can remember Howard Dean's number one objective when he took over the DNC chairmanship - to demonstrate Democratic Party candidates can be home-grown and supported in ALL 50 states such that the sorry leadership of the days of Terry MacAuliffe would never have Democrats banking on a bi-coastalstrategy (NY, MA, CT, FL, CA) and hoping to pull in OH and MI. What Obama's campaign has demonstrated - and this must be flagged in the face of EVERY SUPER DELEGATE RELENTLESSLY - is the progressive segment of the Democratic Party now can win in Red States and draw large support from places herefore were never courted.

The Democratic Party is on the cusp on a major shift to represent all Americans, not just the well-heeled and large labor.

If you're an Obama supporter, now is the time redouble all efforts to give the maximum effort in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

True HC has shown some distinctly Lazarus like qualities this election and shouldn't be counted out. If this election has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected.

But - Supers aside, if she wins OPT (great acronym btw)by 20pts each, she will get +90-100 dels and will still be trailing Obama.
At that point more than 80% of the dels will have been awarded and a lot of the remaining states favor Obama (NC,MT,WY,MS,OR). Which is why I say she will need a good upset or 2 in addition to OPT, which at this rate is very unlikely.

So, while she isn't out by any means, her job is A LOT more difficult now and despite recent gains, she doesn't have the $ that he does. She raised 10M in the 5 days after super tues, and at the point that they took down the counter, Obama had already raised 8M in the 48 hours post. I would be willing to wager a fair amount that he is beating her by 50%+ in fund raising.

The difference between HRC and Obama is that he is working for every single delegate. While HRC concentrates on selected states, Obama is showing up in every state.

Huckabee is proving that cash flow - or lack of - is no excuse. Maybe HRC needs to start flying coach, not charter; give as many interviews as possible and in a positive manner. Trying to control MSNBC is not the answer - what kind of message does it send when you try to get a reporter fired? Rise above it!!!

I still believe HRC will squeeze out a win with pledged delegates. If not, she and Bill will pull out the stops to steal the nomination. Though I'm an Obama supporter, I keep on hoping HRC will give me a reason to vote for in November. Instead, she and Bill keep reinforcing my biggest fear - that no matter how well intentioned they are, what's good for the Clintons will always trump what's good for the country.

Newfapalooza-I hope what you're saying is true. But I think he has to win either Ohio or Texas and definetly cannot loose all three.

It will be very hard for Supers to breakway from Clinton.

I think he has a decent chance to win TX. Especially, when 67 of the texas delegates are awarded by caucus.

Angry Mouse

I thing that Obama is a deliberate, pragmatic thinker who does not give prepared quips or remarks to questions. As a consequence the debate format is not one that he excells at.

Obama also noted during the debate that he is a global web thinker, and thus paperwork, is not is forte.

Unlike the other candidates Obama gave a real answer when asked about his weakness.

While I do not find this to be a weakness many others would say that his lack of contentiousness and unwillingness to engage in the politics of personal destruction is a weakness as well. Typically, those individuals prefer a brawler to a leader. They believe in beating folks into submission rather than builing consensus on the basis of common values and common purpose. They would rather win ugly and dirty by one point than to win fair and square with lots of support.

Personally, I think that Obama's leadership, creative ideas and brilliant intellect offset those weaknesses.

He is not perfect and he states he is not perfect. More importantly, he understands that he cannot accomplish anything without the will of the people and he set out to build that foundation first in order for him to be able to govern.

The point I think you may have missed is that it is 'we the people' who have the power in this democracy, not Obama....Obama understands that and what he does is use his oratorical skills to inspire us to believe in our own power in this democracy.

In short, he empowers us to achieve all the things we believe that government can do by simply engaging and taking part in the system by becoming political activists.

I suspect there are many who would also find it a weakness that Obama beleives in the power of the American people to transform their government.

The man is simply brilliant and I feel empowered to be politically active and work for America to be strong and great again.

well said

I was looking at things from a best case scenerio for HRC. The reason I have left supers out of the calculations (aside from complicating matters) is because there are enough of them that are waiting to see what happens that I think the majority of them will vote with the winner of the delegate race, assuming it is by more than a few delegates.

So, that being said, I agree that if BO loses all 3 OPT states, it will be less clear cut as to who the nominee should be even if he does win the delegate race, so he needs to win at least one of them plus NC. I also agree that his best shot is TX but OH is winnable too. OH is probably a more influential win given the way the last 2 generals went.

dilluminati,

A few of the posters with a slightly longer history here can probably vouch that I am, in fact, quite solidly in the Obama camp. Even a cursory reading of my profile would probably disabuse you of the notion that I was a Clinton operative. Angry Mouse asked what Obama's weakness was--I would have to say that it is people like you.

You have Fair Use, feel free to quote in accordance with that. Do not abuse that right. TPM is obligated to remove posts that violate copyright when so requested.

And yes, it WAS the entire article. I read it.

Newlapalooza

I do not think that the superdelegates are going to vote for the person with the most pledged delegates. Afterall, that is the entire reason the system was put into place, so that no one could topple the establishment candidate by running a race that beat the party nominee as Carter did.

The superdelegates are there to maintain and ensure the status quo. Besides, they have no reason to favor an insurgent candidate as that makes it less likely that any of them will be ensured of the party nominations if they are selected to be the 'party's status quo defacto nominee' during the primaries.

More importantly, Obama does not owe these superdelegates he is unbought by the powers that be and not beholdent to their machinations. Obama is beating the party machine, without the big money donors that being the status quo party backed candidate brings as a formidable force to squash an insurgent. Recall, that was the original strategy? Hillary was inevitable due to how much money she had that no one could possibly mount a candidacy against her as there was no one to tap for the money, her and Bill had all the donors wrapped up. Then along comes Obama and proves that indeed this is a democracy and that the American people can actually choose their own candidate.

It is not in the superdelegates best interest to vote for Obama. He is the people's candidates. I believe that just like Hucklebee discovered tonight the party will lie, cheat and steal to support the 'defacto party nominee'...and most Obama supporters are going to be outraged by the time of the convention when the party closes ranks and backs HRC.

Get ready for it, cause it is coming just as sure as night turns to day.

As an Obama supporter these are not my wishes but as a pragmatist who understands the power of the status quo and how insurgent obama's candidacy is, I beleive we need to prepare for just such an outcome.

Clinton told Couric she would be the nominee and I do think she said that because she knows the fix is in.

I was even more convinced of that when I learned that Donna Brazile, a superdelegate, was appointed to that by none other than WJC. How many others out there do you think there could be given that he was a 2 term President and the head of the Democratic party for 8 years? Lots of those superdelegates were appointed by Bill I'm sure.

I only hope those are the ones who have declared already.

I doubt it. I ask Amy Klobuchar, my Senator, at the DFL party following our caucus, if she was going to declare for Obama. She claimed she was waiting and that now that Obama had won the state she was going to declare for him. I have not heard that announcement YET.

So, all Obama supporters need to get rather to be flummoxed and bamboozled with the okey-doke, cause it is coming..

you betcha

This is the end of Clinton victories, forget about Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. She lost Maine.

Hillary's chances of victory ride on "the Hispanic vote" in Texas and working class folks in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

This is missing the point though, these groups do not support Hillary per se, their opinion however is swayed by the Democratic establishment, which they have historically worked closely with in past elections. The deep roots of the Dem establishment allowed Hillary to dictate to the loyal soldiers of the establishment in places where those roots exist like New York, New Jersey, Nevada and California.

The Clintons also have personal roots in Arkansas and Tenessee, and they could call on those as well to secure more states.

The states the primary is entering now though, is the Dem establishment equivalent of outer space. The establishment has about as much influence in Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio as I do.

So these people will vote as they see fit. Contrary to popular belief there is no "the Hispanics" and they are in fact infamously fickle and fond of changing their minds. As New Mexico has so aptly demonstrated, it was not the fact that they spoke Spanish as a first language that compelled them to vote for Hillary in Nevada, but rather the web of deep Dem Estabishment roots.

Also, Obama is going to Reagan-smash McCain in the general. Obama is going to take all the independents and moderate republicans, and the conservatives won't vote for McCain even to stop Obama. What does that leave him with? The people most inclined to vote against Obama hate McCain EVEN MORE.

Also, to add more depressing points to the Clinton campaign, it has also been shown that the superdelegates are not immune from Obama-fever. Half the people endorsing Obama the last 2 or 3 months have been Clinton supporters and even business associates for decades. They're infected though, so there's no getting them back.

That and also Obama has some serious personal charisma voodoo. It's not even natural, I mean these people just aren't supposed to be voting for him. He won Idaho, IDAHO!

Like him or hate him, say hi to the next president.

Angry Mouse,

You seem to be confusing Obama's opposition to going to war with his pragmatism about ENDING the war. Those are 2 different variables. obama often says he wants to end the war as carefully as we were careless about going to war. Funding the war is supporting the mission of the troops as they must care out the mission the President set forths. Barack has no power to end the war. The President has that power. Barack was the Senator in the Senate who was able to create consensus amongst his peers on timetables to end the war. Obama voted to fund the war until he saw how obdurate the President was about continuing the mission. Russ Feingold has praised Obama about his efforts in the Senate to end the war, he has no such praise for Hillary. So, that is one thing he did to demonstrate leadership as a rookie Senator.

A second thing he did was he was the only sitting Senator to hold a fundraiser to oppose the S.Dakota ban on all abortions. No other Senator, including Hillary supported the fight to end that onerous ban even in cases of rape and incest. Only Obama.

He is responsible for the anti-proliferation legislation that he worked on with Lugar a repub. Obama's transparency in government legislation was recently enacted that enables you and all citizens to go to a website and find out where each and every single time in Congress is being spent.

Obama also led on ethics reform in both the IL state Senate as well as the US Senate. Obama has sponsored NUMEROUS bills, including a medical bill to make all health records electronic. You can find more at this link about the long list of his legislative acts, since coming to the Senate at this link.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html

vicissitudes - The sound you'll hear after that happens will be the Democratic Party ripped in half as a huge number of African-Americans, new young voters and life-long Democrats, like myself, leave the party for good.

If Hillary wins the nomination with a majority of committed delegates, fine. But if the DNC decides to install Hillary over a clear majority for Obama they'll be cutting their own throats. Not just for this election - which they'll lose badly as a result - but for good.

Democrats endured one stolen presidential election in 2000. We will not tolerate it in our own party. I'm old enough to remember the Democratic Party reduced to holding a fucking TELETHON in the 1970s to keep from going bankrupt. How pathetic is THAT? Well, it'll be a lot worse for them if they pull anything like what you're describing.

Honestly, I don't think they're that stupid. But then this is the Democratic Party - almost pathologically determined to lose presidential elections.

Before the Internet we sat around and drank beer in bars and argued politics.

Stupid F**king Internet...

vicissitudes:

Your points viz superdelegates and the "fix" are well taken, but consider:

Barbara Boxer (Sentator, D-CA) said she would endorse after she saw what happened in California.

Now CA happens to have been one of the few brights moments for HRC this month.

We still haven't heard her endorsement.

So, as usual, things may be more complicated than they seem.

newfapalooza, BVD, BDN

I hope all of you of right and that I am soo wrong. I have seen how corrupt the status quo is and that I anticipate them robbing Barack of the nomination. But I want to be wrong.

I agree that mass defection is the only option BVD and I plan to stay home if that occurs as the belief that we have a democracy will have been completely disabused.

Newfapalooza, I see your point. I just wonder how many of these folks will have the courage of their convictions given that many politicians lack principles.

Do you know if the superdelegates cast blind ballots or not? That would help.

I'm not surprised by these wins. Its mainly the caucuses. Hillary made the calculation not to spend much time in those states due to funds.

I think if those states were primaries, she'd have won at least half the ones if not more that he won.

As much as I feel strongly about voting every election, I'm not sure it would get me out to go spend a couple of hours in such bothersome sessions to do it. A lot of people are working are have other things to do. When you have all day to go pull a lever, it makes it far easier and fairer. More people get to join in the process.

I would like to see the end to this caucus crap.

Rae

Despite the Obama hysteria toward "closure", key differences exist between his victories and Senator Clinton's.

1. Of the nine primaries he won, four are in states that Democrats have not won (except some when Clinton and Carter were running) (Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Utah).

2. Missouri was essentially a tie.

3. Argue all you want about "motivated" Obama supporters, the caucuses disenfranchise most democratic voters. The goal needs to be to welcome as many democratic voters as possible through absentee and primary voting. That does not allow for special meetings that require folks to either take off work or waste a weekend in a three hour meeting. (You have kids or a weekend job, you can't attend even on Saturdays and Sundays.)

4. Florida and Michigan will get seated despite the Obama camp's complaints. No way do they shove the caucus results down everyone's throats while leaving out folks who actually pulled a lever. After South Carolina, everyone knew who he was and so could have voted for him in Florida. More to the point he chose to withdraw in Michigan in an attempt to not only drive down her votes but also Edwards.

5. Many of his votes are cross-overs that will not come again in the General. That was certainly true in Nebraska and will be true again in Wisconsin.

6. Most democratic voters see through the closure coalition. It's the MSM, which has done nothing but attack dems for the past two decades. It's the "liberal" wing of the Democratic party, which has not delivered an election for the Party in (gee can't figure a date and I'm a liberal Democrat). It's also the same crowd that brought you Nader (college students at elite universities and celebrities).

7. Finally, more than women support Hillary. Take a look at exit polls from key states (including CA where she won youth, Latinos, and Asians). Moreover, when we get angry over the stupid nonsense that the MSM toward her - and by extension us - it's not done out of pity. It's anger. Folks would do well to remember that point.

Cdalygo,

Quickly, because I should be in bed already:

1) Yes, he wins in red states. That's the point. That's a good thing in the general and for the party. 50 state strategy. Offense, not defense.

2) There are no ties in politics (see FL/2000)

3) You have to play day games and night games, home and away, grass and astroturf, etc. to get the nomination. Going .500 on the road (primaries) and winning at home (caucuses) is how you get to the World Series.

4) No way should Florida or Michigan (especially Michigan, with only one viable candidate on the ballot) be seated. No way should they be the margin of victory. The party would blow up and Dean knows it.

5) Cross over votes are good. See point #1. Also, the Democratic base in Wisconsin is largely an Obama base (lots of white collar workers/black voters in Milwaukee/college students) and as the party comes closer to a frontrunner, rank and file Dems will gravitate more towards Obama.

6) If he is getting crossover voters, how is the liberal wing ineffective in this case. Cognitive dissonance here. A liberal that gets independants and conservative votes is not a problem, its a gift. Obama is liberal Reagan, not Democratic Nader.

7) As he gains momentum, he will gain more voters across the board. He will win white men by a greater percentage and lose white women by a smaller percentage. It is an unrealistic expectation that a candidate has to win every slice of the electorate to win an election, but Obama is working on broadening his base and that has/will continue to include women.

Have a great night.

Meanwhile, back at the tpm ranch, Josh Micah Marshall's last four posts have concerned the GOP's caucus in Washington State...

Obama who?

Although I support Obama, I like Hillary.

However, this caucus argument is bunk and I agree reeks of sour grapes.
Hillary had the same opportunity to compete in the caucuses as Obama did - the fact that she hasn't shows piss-poor planning if you ask me. If she is so good at 'manipulating the bureaucracy' (her words) then why didn't she do a better job with these? While caucuses have their limitations, they are equally inconvenient for both candidate's supporters.

As I posted somewhere on this site, I believe the candidate's campaigns are a fairly good metaphor for their presidency. Planning, organization, judgement, fiscal responsiblity, handling adversity, defense, diplomacy...
In every way BO has been one step ahead of HRC and the caucuses are just another example of that.
If HRC can't function well in caucuses, that doesn't say much about her abitity to lead the country when things aren't just right. This is not a winning argument for HRC supporters IMO.

On the topic of the upcoming contests, after crunching some more #'s I am more convinced than ever that this weekend started the avalanche that will engulf the Clinton campaign. This process will essentially be over on March 4th.

Sorry HRC supporters, I have a lot of respect for her but she is the Andy Roddick/Phil Mickelson of politics. GREAT players (I heart Andy!) but are unfortuate enough to be playing when Roger Federer and Tiger Woods are in their prime.

cdalygo,

I wanted to address this point:

4. No way those delegates don't get seated or the party blows up. Some of feel equally strong about voter disenfranchisement. (Yes, I would feel the same if the results were reversed (as would the Obama campaign :>). This goes beyond this election.

Some, myself included, feel that it disenfranchises voters in the other 48 states if Florida and Michigan just get to do whatever they please without any consequences.

Honestly, FL and MI residents have every right to be angry! They just need to be angry at their state party organizations for causing this. The state parties knew exactly what would happen (it reads right in the DNC rules), they just thought they would get away with it.

If you do not like the rules, fine, get them changed! I would love to see all caucuses go and the party to move to preference rank voting. But while the rules remain, you need to play by them.

Barack Obama: The Head and the Heart

Obama has a teflon type of thing going on that goes well beyond being sort of black. It's a fair presumption that the Republican attack machine is keeping its powder dry, but I don't buy it. We've already made absolute mincemeat out of the entire array of Republican candidates. Keeping the powder dry requires a lot of discipline. Fact is ... everyone from Hillary to Limbaugh to Kristol to Coulter is scared shitless to diss Obama. They'd diss Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Tennessee Harry Ford in a New York minute, but nobody wants to to diss Obama. Bill tried it and got sent crying home to mama. It's not that Obama's sort of black. It's that "other" thing. I was 100% for Edwards without the slightest reservation, and on a by-the-issues basis, in spite of her cardinal sin of picking on my man Shuster, my brain is still not completely comfortable with Obama over Clinton. She's one smart cookie and I've loved her since the first time I heard her in front of congress in 1992. But when I stepped into that voting booth, my hand connected the optical voting arrows for the senator from Illinois, and when I hear him speak ... and when I listen to that mash-up ... you know what I'm talking about ... I get chills up and down my spine. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, stay tuned. There's a lot more where that came from.

For years I've said this: "Where the hell are JFK, RFK and MLK? For the job of the most powerful man on the planet why can't somebody with half an ounce of frikkin' gravitas step up to the plate?"

And when Obama did step up, I listened, and I was not impressed. "You ain't no Jack Kennedy, I ranted at my youtube ... and you ain't no MLK neither." I was thinking of "Ask not what your country can do for you ... " and "I have a dream ... that one day ...". And that's not what I heard. It took a while. It took a long while. And it didn't even put a dent in my absolute confidence that John Edwards would have taken these bastards to the woodshed and not come out until this country was right again. Even after Edwards succumbed to the attack machine it took a while. But eventually ... it ... whatever "it" is ... got to me. And there are nine months until the first Tuesday in November. That's a lot of time for "it" to get to a lot more people ... they used to call it "charisma" ... then they called it "mojo" ... I don't know what they call it now, but I know it when I hear it.

Let me weigh in here:

6. Despite hopes he is not the liberal Reagan. I see him more as W. He has not been tested in this election by the MSM - which is more than a myth or an excuse; it's a reality. Those glowing press reviews will continue only up until he gets the nomination. McCain owns the press, Obama doesn't.

First off, Obama is hardly like GWB. GWB got elected on the back of a great family political machine (the Bushes). In fact, HRC is much closer to GWB in this regard.

In contrast, Obama had to bootstrap himself into office. Not an easy feat.

Secondly, what exactly does it mean to be "vetted" by the MSM? The poorly expressed MSNBC comment aside, notice that all sides on TPM have been upset with media coverage -- always thinking their candidate got the short end. I think if everyone is offended, it must mean that the media is playing pretty even overall.

There are only 2 exceptions I can think of here: FCN which pretty much doesn't like any Dem... excuse me, "liberal". And some of the right-wing talking heads who openly hate McCain. Both of these groups aren't held in high-esteem at TPM anyway.

The candidates are "vetted" by the voters. So if HRC can give a poignant tear, or there is blowback from a WJC comment, or Obama happens to look good as an orater -- the media will report it. Your candidate will not get all the good headlines at all times.

You can argue that the analysis by the MSM isn't that good at times. Or all the time. To which I would say: Never attribute to conspiracy that which you can assign to stupidity.

One of the terrible things about the instant access age is we tend to watch pots boil these days and do super-nuanced readings and analyses. Fun if you are an academic, but this is the real world. And if Huckabee gets a few extra headlines at TPM because of *election fraud*, well, that's a pretty news worthy story, wouldn't you say?

I was thinking about the super delegates. I've read a lot of opinions about what they might do but, besides political considerations, they are people too.

If a majority of us regular folks in states all across the country are impressed with Obama and his message, stands to reason a majority of the super delegates will feel the same way.

Geez, I hope this doesn't post twice.

Newfapalooza wrote:

"On the topic of the upcoming contests, after crunching some more #'s I am more convinced than ever that this weekend started the avalanche that will engulf the Clinton campaign. This process will essentially be over on March 4th.

Sorry HRC supporters, I have a lot of respect for her but she is the Andy Roddick/Phil Mickelson of politics. GREAT players (I heart Andy!) but are unfortuate enough to be playing when Roger Federer and Tiger Woods are in their prime."

Great analogies by the way. I can't agree more. The five victories this weekend (don't forget the V.I.!), the three pending victories in the Potomac, and the one in Wisconsin seals the deal for Obama. Expect tons of endorsements in PA, TX, and OH over the next few weeks as politicians sense the momentum and clamor to be on the right side of history. I fully expect that Obama will carry two, if not three of the March 4th contests. At which point, the race is effectively over and Obama is the presumptive nominee.

Hillary fought well, but Obama has fought better. He's a natural.

Dilluminati -- In two posts on this subject, you've still failed to acknowledge that the article you posted was written by Frank Rich.

You did post a link to the original piece in the New York Times -- that's good. But you can't just cut-and-paste something into a blog comment without mentioning who wrote it. Because otherwise, the article doesn't make much sense.

Frank Rich is a persuasive guy. But he's an opinion columnist, not the Mouth of Sauron. (I happen to agree with him, but still.) You absolutely have to follow the rules on these things. And rule #1 is: Give credit where it's due.

A more standard and acceptable practice is to say something like, "Hey, did you read Frank Rich this morning?" Then quote a PORTION of the article, and post a LINK to the remainder, in case people are interested.

Thank you.