Another Kennedy. It'll be a really interesting night for him.

To be a fly on the wall at the California Governor's mansion. :D

If McCain is the republican nominee and Obama is teh democrat nominee I might vote Obama.

Did anyone see McCain on Leno's show the other night? He was freaking equivocating when asked who he thought would win the Super Bowl... Come on!

Suffolk California poll- Obama 40, Clinton 39

Rasmussens California Poll- Obama 45, Clinton 44

One thing that will be interesting is to see how the new Georgia Voter ID law affects Obama's chances. If we get surprise results in GA, then I think that will be the reason.

I thought the law was stricken down as being unconstitutional. Just goes to show how much I'm aware, as I voted last time without a special voting "ID" card and don't have one. I thought they renamed it the anti-Mexican law.

Speaking of which...I forgot they had Oprah this weekend, too. Jesus, talk about piling it on. This is the Shriver endorsement. It feels like it's been a million years since she was on NBC News. Hard to know if any of the hoopla will have a demonstrable effect tomorrow. But it's still interesting.

This thing is definitely tightening up. Clinton and Obama shares are now trading at 54.5 and 47 respectively on Intrade.

On the Republican side, McCain shares are trading at 87.1, while Romney is at 9.3.

Interesting points from my favorite columnist, Roland Martin

Obama would certainly fill a void for Clinton, but I never have understood what Clinton would bring to the ticket as VP for Obama.

Why on earth would Barack Obama risk being associated with Hillary Clinton when he's going to win the primary in 4 or 8 years anyway? It's all downside risk.

+1

Hillary's 60? I knew she was old, but that surprised me for some reason.

Yeah, me too. I read it a bit ago, but...it's still surprising but it's almost been 20 years since they burst onto the scene.

She's held up well for 60.

I haven't followed Tennessee at all, so what happened there and why such a margin?

The latest poll had Hillary +20, so not sure what the surprise is?

I didn't say it was a surprise, I'm asking about the demographics and issues why they would significantly favor Clinton?

I've been wondering the same thing.

-- The state is over 80% white.
-- Obama did not seem to have the appeal to women there that he has shown in other places as of the WSMV poll on 1/22, he trailed Clinton 37-19 with women)
-- Obama also had not shown as strongly with black voters in Tennessee, managing only a 40-22 edge with 36% undecided at that point. By comparison, exit polls in Georgia being quoted locally on radio tonight showed Obama at 90% of black voters, which made up half of the Democratic voters in the state.

Now, fastforward to tonight's exit polling results.
-- Obama ended up with 78% of the black vote, which basically looks like he got all of the undecideds there
-- Hillary killed him with women, 56-35
-- Hillary beat him solidly in the suburbs (56-37) and clobbered him in the small towns & rural areas (as much as 79-15 in towns of 10k-50k pop)
-- She beat him in every income bracket except $100k+
-- She beat him in all five self-identified political categories (very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, very conservative), with at least 50% of the vote in all five.
-- She won voters over 35, he won voters under 35 but by smaller margins.

Truth is, I don't see one thing here, she seems to have beaten him on virtually every measurable stat except race.

Thanks Jon, that is exactly what I was looking for.

TN was so far out of reach when Obama took off that he invested very little in the state. He put his resources into GA and AL where he had a better shot and skipped AK and TN.

He had Georgia locked up for weeks and they both knew it. Almost as certain was Alabama. When you're pulling 80%+ of at least half of one of the two voting demographics, it's pretty tough to lose as long as they show up to vote.

That last bit isn't a gimme in all cases of course, and credit to him/his organization for getting the voters to the polls but for him to have lost in Georgia one of been one of the biggest political surprises of my lifetime.

I agree, but he did make some appearances there and did some advertising. He all but conceded AK and TN weeks ago.

Just FWIW, he didn't just do "some" advertising in Georgia, he went whole hog on radio for more than a week on pretty much every station in every format.
In spite of the obvious "why on earth would he do that", the strategy was reasonably sound since he had plenty of money to do it with & was believed to be trying to lure Clinton into wasting some of her money there.

Or because the Democratic primaries assign their delegates on a proportional basis and dominant wins in Illinois and Georgia can balance out losses in all those small states and even minimalize the impact of a Cali victory.

This is just nuts. Playing off of the story that Hillary loaned her campaign five million dollars, Obama has raise over 5.6 million on line in the last 24 hours. I wouldn't be surprised to see him raise forty or fifty million in February.

edit 5 minutes later: Hit refresh and now it's over 5.7 million.

That is truly phenomenal. Wonder what it'll mean though, if anything.

Good question. I can't be sure it will change things, but especially now that the tempo has slowed it seems that much ad money would have to be an advantage.

If he wins the nomination he'll also have one hell of a donor database to use for general election funds.

I keep seeing that and my thought is that it would be far more preferable for an unknown entity than the known entity of the Clintons, esp. for those that truly remembers all the shit in the 1990s.

He broke 6 mil just before midnight EST. Clinton claiming they beat their 3 mil for thier 24 hours and are now going for 6 mil in 72 hours.

Posting the following for no other reason than I'm a partisan:


Source

Here is one of the many reasons why I love Obama. Its an excerpt from a campaign email I got today. Yes it's an overly simplified and optimistic view of things, but it's things like this that make me excited and want to be involved.

For the few states that article addresses, Flere, maybe there's something there. But it doesn't apply very well outside of the mountain west and west coast. The NYT has a facinating interactive map that breaks down each state's votes to the county level. In the southern states, even in ones he won, Obama's lead in urban areas beat Clinton's dominance in rural counties. Heck, in MO, Obama won only 5 counties. But dominating in St. Loius was enough to score a narrow win.

I think his success in Idaho and other western states is just as much attributable to the fact that he ran campaigns there and made appearances to anything else. Which gets to a point that I think may enable him to come from behind and win. If he and Hillary spend an equal amount of time campaigning in a state, he usually comes out ahead. Voters respond better to him personally. Now that the remaining primaries are spread out a little, I think he will be able to press that advantage.

Basically, it is impossible in the remaining races for either candidate to gain enough pledged delegates without the kind of scandal/collapse on the part of the other candidate that would effectively end the race anyway.

This ends with one candidate being able to swing the superdelegates--either through getting enough of a lead to tip the balance or through whatever back channels each campaign is no doubt furiously working right now.

I don't think that this goes until August, though. The superdelegates will make up their minds by then in order to avoid an embarassing convention.

I have actually changed my mind about which of Hillary/Obama is the more electable candidate. I formerly thought Obama would have a better chance, but now I think it is Hillary. Hillary vs. McCain: Hillary can neutralize some of McCain's strengths (she's one of the most hawkish Dems, for example). Obama vs. McCain: McCain can effectively paint Obama as a Howard Dean type liberal.

That's how I see it right now.

Hillary = mobilizes the GOP base to vote against her

Obama = the GOP base stays home and lets McCain get trounced

Obama is more electable.

I hope it comes down to the superdelegates and someone gets screwed. Another Mondale over Hart 1984 type scenario would be interesting. The upcoming schedule favors Obama, but the day Hillary could cement herself is March 4th. Texas and Ohio are the big states on that day and with Hillary's advantage among latinos and blue collar workers, she may win them both. Rhode Island and Vermont are also on that day so it could be the turning point. Until then she should put a lot into Wisconsin, Virginia and Maine. The rest leading up to March 4th probably go to Obama easy. She just needs to keep some momentum going into March 4th.

I know that's the CW. But I think the reality is that in a GE, Obama will seriously, seriously motivate conservatives to vote against him. The dislike for Hillary is all personality/name. I think a campaign against Obama would be more effective.

Just my uneducated opinion.

I think the reality is that Obama will win independents over McCain, so no matter how many "conservatives" come out to vote they will not be able to beat him. If it is Hillary, McCain would take those independents.

I could be wrong too though. The GE is a long way off.

Time poll says that Obama is much more electable vs McCain.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...xid=rss-nation

Of course, things can certainly change once McCain is starting the negative campaigning up full scale.

Exactly what I'm talking about. I think negative campaigning by the GOP will have tremendous impact on Obama's electability. So far they've basically said nothing about him.

True dat. Obama is pretty progressive on a lot of issues. I wonder how he'll get "unity" with the Republicans when he pushes some of his ideals like national health care and expanded federal programs.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/ca...s_on_obama.php

"Looking further out, I think it's probably the case that Obama is, in fact, the candidate that Republicans least want to run against. In fact, I think that it's actually the case that where Obama is concerned, conservatives lack much of the gut-level animus that drives them to really hate HRC, Kerry and Gore. All of these Dems represented what conservatives most hate about liberals--they all represent a liberal style (as apart from substance) that looks down on and dismisses conservatives. Obama, by contrast, comes from a generation of folks who, while certainly not conservative, have actually engaged seriously with them. Obama taught at U. of Chicago law school, and so he knows that conservatives are driven by a respectable set of ideas. He disagrees with those ideas, but I sense that he knows at least some conservatives who he believes are respectable interlocutors. And I think conservatives know this."

Now read the anecdote on the link below and tell me if you could ever, EVER, imagine this happening regarding Hillary.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.co...ght-and-o.html

Like we are pointing out, it's very, very early and Obama hasn't been hit by the right yet. He will be. I realize his worshippers think that he has this mythical power to bridge the divide, but let's get honest here. He'll be slammed for his liberal policies not because he "looks down on conservatives" (like Bill Clinton ever really did that).

Not sure if anyone posted this already or not, so just in case, here's a brief explanation of the caucus-or-primary confusion we had here about New Mexico.

http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8UMA0Q01.html
New Mexico Democrats call their contest a caucus, but it's not like Iowa's caucuses where voters gather in gyms, churches or meeting rooms, divide into groups for each candidate, try to attract more support from other groups, and then count each group. Rather it more closely resembles a "firehall primary" - a primary with shorter voting hours and fewer voting sites than would be found in traditional state primaries.

And the point I'm making is that:

1) There's no R hatred for Obama like there was/is for Gore, Hillary and Kerry. I hope that's obvious.
2) R's are indifferent toward McCain anyway. I hope that's obvious too.

As a sidenote, of course Bill Clinton looked down upon conservatives! Are you f'ing kidding? Every time he talked about some Republican leader you could practically feel the comtempt through the television.

His health care plan doesn't have mandates. Some columnist in the NY Times, saying that if you're really a progressive, you have to force people to take government health care. Obama is smart enough to realize that's not going to win him any fans on the right.

Hillarycare has mandates.

I personally cannot think of one instance that Obama has flat-out insulted conservatives. Both Clinton's do it as a matter of course, if for nothing else than fund-raising.

BTW, Michigan is considering a new caucus as a 'do-over.' For the Dems.

What R hatred was there for Kerry before the general? He was the most liberal Senator, but Obama holds that one this time around.

R's may be indifferent towards McCain, but as the prospects of as many as three pro-abortion judges be put on the Supreme Court comes up, they'll rally around him.

And Republicans thought Bill Clinton looked down on them (probably because he outmanuvered them), but it was almost entirely a fabrication.

So how does everyone see tomorrow's contests going? Washington, Louisiana, Nebraska. Obama sweep?

I'll be very surprised if he doesn't win Washington handily. Hillary got 5,000 people last night, Obama is likely going to fill Key Arena (17,000) today. Traffic is horrible around here this morning (I work fairly close to the Key). Last poll I heard he was up double digits here also....

You know Kerry's still in the Senate, right? And so is Ted Kennedy? I can't imagine Obama is the most liberal Senator.

Pretty much. Obama has done well in the South, and in traditionally red states so far. No reason to think the trend won't continue.

The same outfit that named Kerry most liberal last time around named Obama this time around. It sounds good, but there is dispute about which votes they classify as "liberal".

Oh, so you're telling me it might be biased? No way!!!!

I'm surprised they have enough voting data on Obama to put something like that together, frankly.

It takes the votes of the different bills and arranges the Senators by their percentage of votes cast that were "liberal" and "conservative".

I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

LOL. To you. Perception is reality.

Wouldn't perception be perceived reality?

Depends on how you see it I guess.

:D

I think that the story right now (though Ohio-Texas) is:

Maine, Texas, Ohio: Clinton

Virginia: Toss-up

Everything Else: Obama

I would say that if any states suprise and break from this narrative, it would be a huge boost to the winning candidate.

In the two recent polls I've seen Obama is up 20% in Virginia.

Id move Vir to Obama as JP said and Maine is probably closer to a toss up. Hillary was up a good amount there as of the last poll but that was in december I believe plus it is a caucus which BO has swept so far. If BO doesnt win everything but one state heading into March 4th I think it would be viewed as a huge disappontment to him though maybe not in the media.

I agree with both of you that this is what the polling is saying, but I also remember the New Hampshire polls and the Super Tuesday polls in MA, NJ, and CA.

I think that the pollsters are having a hard time figuring out Obamamentum and seem to overestimate it after his really good showings. So I am being cautious and assuming that they are overestimating his support after a good Super Tuesday.

As for Maine, it is a caucus state, but it is an older working-class white state with a very small in-state college population. I think that Clinton takes it easily.

But the polls basically got Obama's support in NH correct, it just turned out that undecideds broke very heavily for Clinton. The same thing happended in SC except undecideds broke heavily for Obama. In VA there aren't enough undecideds to swing it to Clinton. I'd bet good money that as of today she needs to steal voters from Obama in the next few days if she's going to win.

And I just read another site suggesting Harold Ford as Hillary's front running VP choice if she were to win the nomination. I don't know how I forgot him, but..that's an interesting idea and one that doesn't sound too crazy to me.

Looks like Obama won Nebraska and Washington by a nice margin.

And now Louisiana.

For the first time, I'm starting to think Obama could actually win the nomination. Momentum is really kicking for him right now.

More policy-laden infusions in his victory speeches. Trying to be more Presidential again. The momentum is a new thing for him and being the guy on top is hard to do, when you're always the underdog. So it's a whole new game. He was really brave by attacking her the way he did tonight in that speech, going after McCain too for the first time in such a high profile situation.

I think he's going for the death blow and that's probably smart to make people think "what if this guy can pull this off?"

But..I still can't believe the Clintons will let it go this easily. I feel like they have something up their sleeve to kill him off or at least, to injure him going forward. I almost feel like they'd rather see McCain in the White House than him, though obviously they'd never say that.

FOX News is really trying to sell their viewership on him being the "black candidate". But the title doesn't stick, but man..they're funny on how they try to heap praise on him, but throw that tag on him. CNN brought it up, but Roland Martin debunked that notion earlier.

LOL

Sorry DC but claiming he's anything but that is genuinely funny.

(That's true in more ways in just the obviously comical one, but I decided I'd just go with the humorous one here, screw the political commentary)

Sidebar here.

If Hillary does eventually lose, is it the biggest failure in U.S. political history?

Off-hand, and admittedly I'm working from recent memory not looking up historical context, I can't think of a bigger flop in terms of expectations versus outcome.

Rudy Giuliani was once the consensus frontrunner and he wasn't even competitive, anywhere so he's a colossal failure.

I don't follow politics all that much, but if Obama wins, I think it's more of a attribute of Obama's determination and resilience then any failure on Hilary's part. Giuliani being a complete non-factor in the Republican primary seems like it would be a bigger failure to me.

I'd say that Thomas Dewey's collapse against Harry Truman in 1948 would still rank as the biggest failure in U.S. political history. Going into the election season, Truman's approval rating was at 36%, and he was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning the 1948 election.

Yeah, ever since 2002 we've seen Giuliani as a big potential GOP candidate for post-Bush. All of last year he's the front-runner and prohibitive favorite. And in the end I'm not sure he got a delegate.

I think Rudy ended up with 1 delegate, same as Duncan Hunter got and 3 less than Ron Paul had when Rudy dropped out. Hillary losing is a pretty big failure though, but at least she's been competitive and is still in the race.

The only thing that surprises me about Giuliani is how anyone ever seriously thought that a pro abortion, pro gun control, pro gay marriage, public adulterer was ever going to win the Republican nomination. Say what you want to about McCain's lack of conservative credentials, but he makes Giuliani look like Ted Kennedy.

I think this thing may be far from over by the way. Hillary should do very well on March 4th. Hillary was up 42 percent to 19 percent when Ohio was last polled at the end of January. There haven't been any recent polls in Texas but I'd bet Hillary wins that state since Obama hasn't faired well with Hispanics.

That being said, I'm voting for Obama on or before May 6th if it looks like Indiana might matter.

Pretty much what VV said on that, Giuliani's backing was all shadow not substance (and his tactical ability was obviously as bad as anyone in the history of politics as we now know).

Compare that to how long Hillary has been a presumptive Presidential candidate (pretty much from the day Bill left office) and the presumptive favorite. Plus the organization was certainly in place (although I'd say it has let her down in the earlier stages) the funding was there & had a huge headstart. You add it all up, I'd have to think this is one of the most disappointing showings at least in my lifetime, a coronation instead of a race would seem like the expected outcome.

edit: As much as I loathe Hillary, I'm actually starting to look forward to reading the insider accounts of where & how things went so wrong (assuming she does end up managing to lose). It should be some fascinating stuff, and that's not the sort of thing I usually enjoy reading for people I can't stand (as I'm too turned off by them to be able to tolerate their p.o.v. in the explanations).

No idea. The guy was such a failure that he wasn't even going to win his home state according to the polls. Hillary, Obama, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee all managed to do that fairly easily.

+1

She's had eight years -- at least -- to prepare. She raised $100 million against a nominal candidate for her Senate race in 2004 and she ended up with just $10 million after it was over. What? So much for her warchest for this race.

Even with that, she was the establishment candidate and presumptive frontrunner since 2000. All anyone in 2004 could talk about was whether she'd get in the race or not, be VP or whatever and she just beat the drum of "I'm a Senate, yadda..."

She has to win this thing. She's been preparing for it and Bill has been behind the scenes behaving and trying to repair the Clinton legacy to make sure people maybe didn't think as much about how they hated them and instead, about 'making history'.

But then Obama shows up and crashes the party. It's far from over and I feel the Clintons will do almost anything to win this thing, even if it means killing off a party superstar in the process, because in their minds, they are proxy for "What's good for America." Akin to the parent who tells you to take bitter medicine because it'll "make you feel better".

I'm just not convinced they'll let it go and that's the thing that makes me really reluctant to see any path to how he'll eventually get elected.

But then, I never saw him making it this far.

I think March 4th is key as well. Texas and Ohio favor her as well as the other two states on that day, Vermont and Rhode Island. She can sweep that day and take all of the momentum away, or Obama can steal Ohio and keep it somewhat close in Texas. We'll have to wait and see how Obama winning all of the states leading up to that factors into the voters decisions.

That's the thing that I think will make such an interesting thing to read the insider views on after it's all over. If she wins, of course, those won't be written for a long time if ever but if she loses I have to think some people will be willing to talk about how they let it happen.

I suspect she got some bad advice from "experts" who weren't part of her original enclave, as she seemed to regain momentum for a while once she brought back in some of her old clique but now that seems to have stalled too.

My instinct is that the rifts inside her campaign have been significant and they ended up pulling her in too many directions trying to be everything to everybody (that she figured might eventually vote for her). She's also been running to beat McCain IMO, and overlooked the fact that she had to win the nomination first.

They just underestimated him. Of all of the people in the race, no one saw him as the formidable opponent. They didn't think he could out-Dean what Howard Dean did starting off in Iowa in '04, by using the internet to build a grassroots movement of people allied towards winning the big dance.

Obama's ground game is nuts and he's smart by getting Governors to endorse him, because that only helps things on primary/caucus days. Say what you want about "experience" or whatever, but as CEO of his campaign, he's done a heck of a job starting from absolute scratch and if that's any indication of what he can do as a national leader, well...let's just say those opposed to him better get out of the hose and douse this fire quick before it consumes everything in sight.

Don't know how much polls are worth at this point, but here's last week's Columbus Dispatch on Ohio.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live...litics&sid=101

Shows Hillary winning easily there, with McCain over Romney by 6 points (but only 3 points ahead of "Undecided")

She'll win Ohio, but Texas is in play and he's been gaining there for weeks now. And the Hispanics there aren't the same sort of voting bloc like you have in California, so that'll play out interestingly for them going forward, seeing as she needs a sweep on that day to keep the whole "I win the big states that matter" argument moving on.

That's a very good point. Much of the Hispanic support for Clinton in southern California was also tied into union endorsements. Texas is a "right to work" state, and the Hispanic percentage of support is much less certain for Clinton in Texas than it was in California.

I would've thought Ohio would be Obama territory. Shows what I know.

From the Washington caucuses today:

Precinct 702 in Port Townsend, WA

Obama v. Hillary

1988 Democratic Primary Results

I think going through the remaining twenty states that are still left for the dems and a conservative calculation is Obama getting over 1900 delegates not including the Super Delegates. So, as long as he can get aportion of the Supers he should win the nomination even if Hilary wins out in Tx and OH as well as Pennsylvania. Since on like the Republicans the Dems have delegates broken up based on districts.
1550 delegates
current totals:Clinton:1100 Obama: 1075
Primaries/caucuses left and delgates left:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election...ies/index.html

It's always amazing to me in retrospect that Jackson won 9 states.

It's also amazing that Al Gore was a pro-life, pro 2nd amendment, pro prayer in pubic schools, conservative democrat in 1988. Quite a change from the Al Gore of 2000. In 1988 he got obliterated by the ultra-liberal Dukakis in the primaries.

What's up with the Alutian Islands?

Al Gore in 2000 would be massively bigger.