You mischief making motherf*ckers are on fire today! Thats what I'm talking about!!

"The NBC/Journal survey was conducted of 1,000 registered voters from June 6-9; Hillary Clinton officially suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama on June 7. The poll has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.

Wow! You mean that just because voters in a particular demographic segments preferred Clinton to Obama in a primary, they nonetheless prefer Obama to McCain? Holy Cow! I'm just absolutely gobsmacked! Who could possibly have predicted this? It's unprecedented in the history of electoral politics! I was just sure that Obama's inability to make inroads into these groups during the primary meant he could not carry them in the general. Gobsmacked. It's almost enough to make a body think that the so-called "analysts" on the cable news shows don't know what the frak they're talking about!"

You wouldn't know it from the coverage. Of course, all people want to talk about is white suburban women -- can he get them?????

Whoever says Obama still gets overly positive coverage is smoking something.

Anyone know if Bush carried "white guys" in 2004?

Nice latte art, Evie!

Let's not get all jacked up just yet. Kerry had some pretty big leads over W back in 04. But as I remember, he lost in November.

I'm concerned by Obama's inability to connect with Republicans.

Many polls show McCain leading among this group.

But...but...but...William Jennings Bryan! Jimmy Carter!

This is encouraging, although there will be ups and downs before Obama ultimately wins in a landslide.

McCain's biggest problem is that Americans have an increasingly pessimistic view of their financial prospects for the next four years. The statistics repeatedly bear out that the more money people expect to earn, the more they vote Republican, despite all the other social issues, because they want lower taxes. They'll even re-elect George W. Bush, the worst president in history, rather than risk a tax bump.

But at times like this, when the middle quantiles of the country fear for their jobs and their incomes, they scramble under the Democratic umbrella en masse.

Barack will win all the states that Kerry won except possibly Connecticut. He will also win Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa.

That gives him 271 and the win. Absolutely guaranteed.

Ohio and Virginia will be toss-up states. It's more than likely Barack win one of those and it won't even be close. I don't think North Carolina and Indiana are really in play but I'd love to be proven wrong.

This kind of raw data is much more interesting than the aggregate polls. The aggregate polls all assume certain turnout models which will almost certainly be proven wrong in November. This data you can see different result based on what you think the turnout model should be.

Dijamo, gotalife, fogu2, HillaryClinton08, Marginal Player, Matthew Weaver - they've all been absent since Hillary's speech.

Keep in mind that this is a bump. I expect McCain to close the gap a bit, but I also expect him to go down in flames come November.

Putting McCain's growing list of flip-flops aside, if he has any "senior moments" during this election, then Obama will run the board as well as Reagan did in the 1980s. More states will be in play than at any time in recent memory.

The Co-Chairs of University of Iowa Students for Hillary have just sent out a Facebook message imploring the group's members to vote for John McCain -- or, if that's too hard to stomach, presumptive Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/U_of_Iowa_Students_for_Hillary_CoChairs_endorse_McCain_McKinney.html

That's the first and last time you'll see McKinney listed as a close alternative to McCain.

The spread between these two will get wider after McCain throws a rod some Sunday morning and kills Tim Russert with his bare hands out of anger at being sanbagged with his own words on videotape. This will send the posters at Lucienne Goldberg's site into rapture

From Heidi's website.

Possibly the most intense phone conversation I have ever had

Many people have been waiting to hear what Senator Clinton and her campaign's immediate plans are. I have just got off a call with Terry McCauliffe, Senate Clinton's National Campaign Director and Jonathan Mantz, her National Finance Director. The other participants were top fundraisers in the midatlantic region.

First some key information:

* Senator Clinton does indeed have enormous primary debt that she must retire and that is a key focus for her staff right now.

* Any money donated to Senator Clinton's campaign at her website goes to that retire the debt, so long as those funds are coming from people not already maxed out to the primary.

* If you are maxed out to the primary, and you donate to the website, you will be asked, eventually, if that money can be reallocated to Senator Clinton's campaign fund for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2012. The campaign's legal team says that money cannot go to retire the debt but it means that Senator Clinton and her supporters can focus on the debt and free her from worry about funds for that Senate race, which itself would cost at $20 million. (A note from me, NOT the campaign: should Senator Clinton end up running for President, either this election year or in 2012, she could ask donors if she could use funds from her Senate campaign war chest for that purpose.

Now to the rest of the call's substance: Rest assured, neither Terry nor Jonathan nor any of the people who spoke on the call (including me) are happy with the D.N.C.'s treatment of Senator Clinton. However as always on calls like this, Jonathan started by thanking us for our help and for being on the call today; he and Terry noted major goals achieved during the past eighteen months. And then they opened the call to questions.

This is when things got as intense as I have heard on almost any phone call I have participated on in my life, professional or personal.

Many commented that Senator Obama had not said a word to stop the abusive treatment she received during this campaign season. Much bigger fish than I who were on the call explained that neither they nor their "networks" would contribute a dime to the D.N.C. any time soon and nobody I heard was stepping up to raise money for Senator Obama. Speaker after speaker made it crystal clear that they and their contacts simply will not accept the current state of affairs regarding the D.N.C. and Senator Obama's treatment of Senator Clinton.

As always, Terry and Jonathan really listened. Terry McAuliffe himself said that he has never seen a major candidate treated so disgracefully - "like dirt" - by the media, and he is well aware that Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Obama did not raise a finger to object.

Terry encouraged those of us still willing to work to put a Democrat in the White House to work "with and through" Senator Clinton, to stick with her. He and Jonathan put no pressure on people not to work with PACs or even with McCain, but they made it clear that if one's priority is to empower Senator Clinton than anything one does for the general election should be done via events she will sponsor.

For myself, after the call I communicated to the campaign the following three points:

* I am going to get Senator Clinton's debt retired, singlehandedly if I have to.

* I would urge Senator Clinton not to be careless with the political support she has accrued with voters by jumping in too quickly to raise money for either Senator Obama or the D.N.C.; I will respect her choices no matter what, but my network cannot be counted upon to do so.

* The Clinton staff should always feel free to call upon me any time to ask me to do anything for Senator Clinton. I am always willing to be asked, even if I cannot say yes. I have already booked a stay in Denver for the convention week to be there "live" come what may.

As for what may come, it is clear that much is up in the air. Senator Clinton is NOT releasing her delegates. She and Senator Obama have not broached the topic of the vice-presidency; indeed, the two campaigns have just begun trying to find a time to schedule a joint appearance by Senator Obama and Senator Clinton. There will be such a joint appearance.

Senator Clinton does remain firm in her conviction that it is best for the country and best for her politically to have a Democrat in the White House. She will act on that conviction. Furthermore, she will campaign for downstream Democrats who supported her during the primary season. Of these measures, all I can say is that I would expect nothing less from a person of Senator Clinton's integrity, grace, and loyalty.

Considering all the attention given to the question of what Clinton supporters would do, it's a bit odd that this little nugget from the poll would be overlooked here.

Obama is ahead among those who said they voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries (61-19).

+13 in Wisconsin!!!!!!

just outside the the ±3.1% margin of error

Eric, doubling the "margin of error" number and discounting any lead that is smaller than that result is Terry McAuliffe style math - and greatly misleading. The margin of error is always reported in these type of polls, and it's most useful as simply a way of reminded us that there is going to be some uncertainty in the result; a difference that is within the margin of error is less reliable than one that isn't, of course. But it isn't a magic cut-off between significant and insignificant.

A lead this wide is not just barely statistically significant - it is real.

The odds are 97.87% that Obama really leads McCain in the entire population from which NBC/WSJ pulled their sample.

More margin of error discussion, by Kevin Drum:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004536.php

I gotta say, I'm glad Hispanics came home.