No one has done more to protect Wisconsin from Snipers than Hillary Tuzla Clinton!

(CNN) – A new poll out Monday appears to bolster Hillary Clinton's argument that she is in a better position than rival Barack Obama to beat John McCain in a general election match up.

According to a newly-released poll from The Associated Press and Ipsos, Clinton would beat McCain by a wide 9-point margin, 50 percent to 41 percent. But when Obama faces McCain, the two are statistically tied — Obama holds a two point edge over McCain, within the poll's margin of error.

The Clinton campaign has long argued the New York senator has a better shot at beating McCain because of her demonstrated appeal with working class white voters — a demographic that is key to winning several swing states.

Here's the rub. PA is not a swing state. Either Democrat will win in November. OH and FL are swing states where Clinton runs more favorably than Obama. WI, MN, CO, IA, VA, NC, NV, NH, NM are all swing states where Obama runs better than Clinton in recent polls. Additionally, other polls have shown Obama running competitively in crazy states like MT, AK, NE, and IN (I don't think he'd win these states, but it's weird to think about). To Clinton's credit, she puts WV and AR in play, whereas Obama would get crushed in those states.

If Wisconsin is a swing state all of the sudden then the Democratic Party is in serious trouble.

Ditto -- no mention of margin of error.

PA is not a swing state.

Mark Penn says "Wisconsin doesn't matter"

"But, but, but... Rev. Wright, Rezko... Ayres... elitist... kitchen sink... I could'a been a contender!!" - H-Bomb Clinton

Hillary is winning. You just haven't admitted to yourself yet.

Wisconsin's been a swing state for some time (it is, remember, the state of Joe McCarthy and Bob LaFollette. And it's totally a Rust Belt state -- as are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The Rust Belt, with exception to Ohio, will tend to go Democratic, but both have their liabilities in different Rust Belt states. Obama does poorly in Appalachia, probably largely because of race. Clinton would do badly in Wisconsin, probably largely because, unlike Ohio, Wisconsin remembers that she was for NAFTA before she was against it.

Fox News puts the quotation marks differently, making the first two sentences Wright quoting Mandela, and the rest Wright's own words:

“You don’t tell me who my enemies are. You don’t tell me who my friends are.”

Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn’t make me this color.

Brent Scowcroft Echoes Obama: We Need To Talk To Enemies

"Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, said on Monday that he agrees with the position, stated mainly by Sen. Barack Obama, that the U.S. would benefit from having direct talks with the leaders of its most distrusted adversaries"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/28/brent-scowcroft-echoes-ob_n_99026.html

Look under the hood in these polls and you'll find much the same thing whether it's WI, IA, CO, MT, OR or any of a number of states. Hillary Clinton's famous negatives are sky-high in those states, reaching as high as 55%. It's really hard to win an election when more than half of the people don't like you. Her supporters like to claim that she lost in those states only because they're caucuses, and therefore undemocratic. The real reason she lost those states is because people there can't stand her.

North Carolina Governor endorses Hillary Clinton.

She wins the general easily if we unite like the gop.

Lets win this time.

Eric's a little Badger (sigh)

Let's hear it for Wisconsin! When are Kohl and Feingold going to endorse Obama?

Here's the rub. PA is not a swing state. Either Democrat will win in November. OH and FL are swing states where Clinton runs more favorably than Obama. WI, MN, CO, IA, VA, NC, NV, NH, NM are all swing states where Obama runs better than Clinton in recent polls. Additionally, other polls have shown Obama running competitively in crazy states like MT, AK, NE, and IN (I don't think he'd win these states, but it's weird to think about). To Clinton's credit, she puts WV and AR in play, whereas Obama would get crushed in those states.

Excellent analysis! Worth a repeat.

I was raised in Wisconsin and now live in Minnesota. Both states are very diverse in their politics.

I'm pretty biased in my perceptions but I can say that there is a lot of diversity in politics in both. Democrats and Republicans have much sway.

Overall though it seems like people are frustrated with the war(s), the economy, Bush, and the media. I would also add that Obama was everywhere in Minnesota on caucus night. Excellent grassroots campaign.

Traditional Republicans abound, a few neo-cons,
lots of Rush and O'Reilly fans. I think McCain will have a lot of sway.

Most of my friends, Wisconsin and Minnesota, are Obama people. A few possible McCain voters. There are few, okay one, outspoken Hillary supporter. And the rest, just a few, who just want to vote Democrat, as an anti-Bush vote essentially, and don't care who the nominee is. Yes, they are my less involved friends. However, it's also important to add that they also think this whole campaign season has been inanity.

I think it's important to keep those less involved Democratic voters perspectives in mind, as well. They think all of this bickering is silly and makes the candidates, both of them, look like idiots.

I agree with them.

It is too bad that Obama cannot "package" the kind of support he has in WI and transfer it to some of the other midwestern states like OH and IN. He had pretty significant support in my area of NE WI. As an annectdote, in the WI primary, my 20-something neighbor who works a second shift job at a local manufacturing company could not wait to tell me he voted for Obama. I confess I was pleasantly surprised. One other story that may bode well for the fall...I have it on pretty good authority that Obama won Ripon, WI, birthplace of the Republican Party, in the WI primary.

I think part of the WI effect is due to the close proximity of the southern part of the state to IL, Obama's home turf. We got news of Obama both in WI and in Iowa before he was even running for president. He would likely be in much better shape if he had as many "home" states as Senator Clinton seems to have laid claim to these days.

wimomma, damned if I'll ever understand Ohio, even after living there awhile. A lot of those rural white parts in southern Ohio are pretty much Klan country. What was it Atwater (I think) said about Pennsylvania? Pittsburgh and Philly with Alabama in between? That goes for Ohio as well -- only Cincinnati and Columbus are Alabama too.

The commonality in those two states is Appalachia. I won't pretend to know much about that region. I do know that it's dotted with integrated enclaves going back to slavery days, and that whites in parts aligned themselves with escaped slaves during the Civil War. But everything I read tells me there's a virulent strain of racial fear and animosity that runs through the Scots-Irish of Appalachia, and I suspect that played some role in padding Clinton's margins there.