Indiana State Teasurer Harold WATB

Three Indiana pension funds are holding up the sale of Chrysler to Fiat, despite multiple losses in bankruptcy courts. We'll know sometime tomorrow afternoon if they were successful, as the Supreme Court decides whether or not to stay the sale. The Indiana Treasurer uses words like "fiduciary duty" to argue in favor of more compensation for their secured debt:

The appeal heard Friday had been filed by the Indiana funds, which objected to the sale because they sought more compensation for the Chrysler secured debt they hold. A federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan previously approved the sale, which would transfer most of Chrysler’s assets to a newer, healthier company run by a group led by Fiat.

Lawyers for Chrysler and the government argued that the sale to Fiat needed to be completed as quickly as possible to preserve its viability and to save thousands of jobs. Fiat can walk away if no agreement is struck by June 15.
Late Sunday, Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez of United State Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District in New York approved the sale to Fiat, overruling more than 300 objections. On Monday night, he agreed to shorten a customary 10-day stay of the sale to four days, though the Court of Appeals stayed the transaction pending its hearing.

When Chrysler emerges from bankruptcy, a union retiree trust will own 55 percent, Fiat a 20 percent share that could eventually grow to 35 percent and the United States and Canadian governments minority stakes.

Would a collapse of the national auto industry be positive for the state of Indiana? Its pensioners? Furthermore, the Chrysler debt represents less than one percent of the total fund assets. James Kwak explains further:

The pension funds in question bought the Chrysler debt in question last July for 43 cents on the dollar. (They stand to get 29 cents on the dollar in the restructuring.) I guess the difference between that and speculation is that “speculation” is something that bad people do; when pension funds by distressed debt, it’s called “investment.” I have no problem with pension funds buying modest amounts of risky investments, but they are taking the same risks that hedge funds are taking, and if they lose money on bad investments, that’s the fault of the pension fund managers.

Now, the popular defense of the Indiana pension funds is that they have a fiduciary duty to their beneficiaries to maximize the value of their assets. (Hedge funds should have the same duty to their limited partners, unless I’m missing something, but let’s set that aside.) There is a deal on the table worth 29 cents on the dollar. Apparently they think Chrysler can do better by finding a a higher bidder (not likely at this point), or they can get more in liquidation. But that is far from a certainty, and the value of Chrysler is deteriorating as time passes; and if they manage to drag this out past June 15, Fiat can back out of the deal. So it’s not at all clear that their actions have a positive expected value for their beneficiaries.

So what’s going on here? Either (Indiana State Treasurer Richard) Mourdock really thinks that the chances of getting more than 29 cents outweigh the very real risk of getting less (and of blowing up Chrysler in the process). Or Mourdock (and Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana?) believes that the order of priority of creditors in bankruptcy is more important than maximizing value for their retirees. Or Mourdock is trying to shift the blame for losing pension fund money on distressed Chrysler debt. Or he wants to score political points and embarrass President Obama.

I think it's the latter. And let's not kid ourselves about this being an example of the "little guy" going up against the big bad gobmint.

Vigo County, Indiana

I've been looking at the Indiana returns, and Obama's strength in the southern part of the state suggests that this is going to be a very close race. Marion County (Indianapolis) and Lake County (Gary), the reliably blue ones, won't be in until later, and yet Obama is still basically tied. And then I read this about Vigo County:

Democrats are cheered by early numbers showing that Obama holds a healthy lead in Vigo County, a place that one Dem described to us as "the most reliable bellwether county in the country."

"Vigo has only been wrong on president twice since 1892," this Dem enthuses.

A story in the Indy Star concurs, adding that of the most reliable bellwhether counties in the country, Vego "has voted closest to the national margin."

Right now, in Vigo County, Obama is up 57%-42%, with 80% reporting.

Actually, it's up to 91% of the vote in, and it's 56-42 Obama.

Could be a great night.

...more to be cheerful about, from Nate Silver:

Just looking at some of the places where we have results in so far. Obama is substantially outperforming Kerry -- which is what he needs to do to win the state, of course, but the differences are pretty substantial.

Steuben: Kerry 34%, Obama 42%
DeKalb: Kerry 31%, Obama 38%
Knox: Kerry 36%, Obama 54%
Marshall: Kerry 31%, Obama 50%

Kerry lost by 20 points, so Obama must substantially outperform him. But he is.

If turnout is strong in Marion and Lake, I think we can take it. And I did not have Indiana in my projection.

No Complacency on Voter Suppression and Politicization

I'm still a little stunned that it isn't a bigger story that a sitting US President is ordering his Attorney General to intervene in a voting-rights case in Ohio - a case already decided by the US Supreme Court - just a week away from the election to pick his successor. This is attempted voter suppression at the highest levels, with the President essentially aiding an abetting the nominee from his own party. And if it's so much as hit page D-38, I'd be surprised. Only the ACLU appears the least bit worked up about this:

With the election one week away, this kind of intrusion represents partisan politics at its worst. In addition, challenging -- or purging -- lawfully registered voters in the days before the election invites chaos and undermines the integrity of the democratic process.

The whole letter is here.

Why is this not the talk of Democratic circles? Ohio may not hold the key to the election the way it has in years past, but injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, as the saying goes. My biggest fear is that after the election, if Democrats win there will be a strong pull to say "Oh well, the system worked" and not to enact the structural reforms that are needed at so many levels, whether that means instituting the National Popular Vote or same-day registration or automatic registration through Social Security numbers or a ban on e-voting machines and a paper ballot requirement or instant runoff voting or a federal voting standard or making Election Day a holiday. The catch-22 is that a win breeds inertia and a loss means the loser has no access to the levers of power.

But when people like this have a large bearing on how elections are run, there is a serious problem afoot and it doesn't matter if the eventual conclusion seems correct.

Yesterday we told you about an effort by Indiana's Republican secretary of state, Todd Rokita, to press federal and state authorities to prosecute ACORN for voter fraud. Rokita had said a review by his office of forms submitted by ACORN found "multiple criminal violations."

But it turns out that Rokita hardly has a reputation as a non-partisan public official. In October 2002, the South Bend Tribune reported (via nexis):

Working on his own time, [Rokita] also assisted George W. Bush's campaign during the infamous Florida election recount in 2000. Rokita is proud of that, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court cited Indiana election law when it decided the election in Bush's favor.

In other words, Rokita was part of the team of ambitious young Republican operatives who flew down to Florida to help out on a bid to stymie the recount effort -- remember the "Brooks Brothers riot"? -- and ultimately put George Bush in the White House.

This is a partisan operative and a McCain campaign co-chair using his office to attempt to pervert the election process. At some point, this must be fought.

Today In Election Fraud

There's been something of a pattern in recent GOP voter suppression schemes - Republican officials press their claims, and the courts smack them down. This was true when the Supreme Court backed up the Secretary of State of Ohio a week ago, saying she didn't need to match 220,000 new voter registration forms to a federal document. It's happened in Wisconsin, where a similar scheme to verify forms, pushed by the Republican Attorney General (and McCain campaign co-chair), has been tossed out. And it's happened in Indiana as well.

The Indiana Supreme Court has declined to approve a bid by the GOP to shut down early voting centers in Democratic strongholds of a key county.

A lower court had similarly rejected the effort earlier this week. The Supreme Court ruled today that the case had to first be heard by an appeals court, rather than going straight to the state's high court as the Republican plaintiffs wanted.

The appeals court may yet get involved in this, but I think we'll see early voting sites remain open there. Now we have to worry about the people counting the votes:

FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) -- A Republican county election clerk said Friday she has apologized to two employees for distributing copies of Internet blog posting referring to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as a "young, black Adolf Hitler."

The employees, who had voted for Obama in Indiana's Democratic primary, discovered the printouts at their desks after returning from Labor Day weekend, sheriff's Deputy Doug Cox said in a police report made public this week. One of the workers complained, and surveillance video showed Johnson County Clerk Jill Jackson placing an item on one worker's desk at 5:27 p.m. on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, Cox said.

"She admitted to being responsible for the letter, but only did it as a joke," Cox said. Jackson told Cox she had intended to speak with the workers upon returning to work but forgot.

I know that if I was in Indiana, I'd feel safe knowing my vote was in her hands.

Elsewhere, it's amazing to me that we still deal with faulty ballot design in this day and age, but that's what's happening in North Carolina, where their "straight-party voting" option does NOT generate a vote for President. Why the heck would that be? And this isn't a new flaw, but was in place in 2004 as well, and 3% of voters cast no ballot for President. That's absurd.

And finally, we have your good old-fashioned voter intimidation.

Minority voters in New Mexico report to TPMmuckraker that a private investigator working with Republican party lawyer Pat Rogers has appeared in person at the homes of their family members, intimidating and confusing them about their right to vote in the general election [...]

Guadalupe Bojorquez, who works in law enforcement in Albuquerque, told TPMmuckraker today that her mother, Dora Escobedo, was one of the ten voters whose names were released by the GOP. After this happened, said Bojorquez, her mother had been contacted by the voter registration group ACORN. Bojorquez, with ACORN's help, confirmed with the county clerk that her mother, who does not speak English, is indeed eligible to vote, and had been when she voted in June.

Nonetheless, Bojorquez said that her mother yesterday received a visit from a man who asked for her personal information, including an ID, in reference to her eligibility to vote. Bojorquez told TPMmuckraker that according to her mother, at one point the man asked what she would do if immigration authorities contacted her.

Read the whole thing. But if you don't, suffice to say that the GOP preys upon weakness and fear to stop people from voting.

Follow The Bouncing Ball

One thing spending a lot of time on the blogs can do is make the connections between events much easier to recognize.

For example, this:

Palin may not have been able to smell it in the Reno-Sparks Convention Center or the beautiful Henderson Pavilion, but that scent in the Nevada air for the GOP is desperation. You can see it in the numbers, on the airwaves, in the mailboxes.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the Republican straw-grasping occurring came from one of the warm-up speakers for Palin, state Sen. Bob Beers, who can play more tricks with numbers than most magicians can with rabbits and hats. Beers urged the crowd to go out and vote because Democrats are beating Republicans in the early vote, but told them to take heart that fewer Democrats had voted each day and more Republicans were going to the polls each day.

Forget accuracy for a moment — more than 15,000 Democrats voted the first day, then about 12,000 the second and 13,000 the third. More important, for Beers and the GOP, everything is relative — 5,700 Republicans voted Saturday, a little more than 5,000 on Sunday and about 6,000 on Monday. If that pathetic pace continues — though it seems unlikely — by the end of the 14-day early voting period, Republicans will be far enough behind to make Nov. 4 an afterthought.

Begets this.

The GOP effort to suppress the vote has reared its head in Nevada.

Yesterday, Sue Lowden, the state Republican chair, sent a letter to Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller, asking him to prevent some from voting, because their registrations are incomplete.

How may peope are we talking about? Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun reports: "I understand that 2,300 forms have been identified in urban counties."

"Urban" counties. How droll.

And this:

It looks like one of the numerous tricks pulled by Republicans to make it harder for black people to vote isn't going to work.

A judge in Lake County, Indiana ruled today against a GOP effort to shut down early voting centers set up in predominantly low-income African-American areas of the county.

Begets this.

13 days before the election, the McCain campaign has decided to spend several hundred thousands dollars on a last-minute television buy in the state of Indiana.

This is the first time in a month that the campaign has spent its own money on television in the Hoosier state.

It happens quite a lot. The information is open enough that you can just follow along.

This Week In Voter Suppression

A lot to cover here. Let's bullet-point it!

• In Michigan, the state GOP, which at first denied they would seek to use foreclosure reports to deny the vote to Michiganders because their address cannot be determined, basically admitted it in a lawsuit settlement yesterday.

The settlement acknowledges the existence of an illegal scheme by the Republicans to use mortgage foreclosure lists to deny foreclosure victims their right to vote. This settlement has the force of law behind it and ensures that Republicans cannot disenfranchise families facing foreclosure.

The Obama campaign moved sharply to put a stop to this once it became public, which presages well for the next two weeks. They've been just as strong in questioning the DoJ for enabling the McCain campaign's ACORN fever dreams.

• In New Mexico, the state GOP had been yelling about 28 cases of voter fraud from the state primary. Problem is, there was no fraud at all, as credible evidence was presented showing that to be the case. But the RNC already had a phone call set up and everything, so they... winged it:

So here at TPMmuckraker, we wondered what the RNC's response to this would be. And on the 3pm call, we asked party spokesman Danny Diaz.

Diaz dodged the question. He talked about an incident with ACORN in Washington state, then referred us to an October 9th Wall Street Journal story, which did not address the allegation made last week by the state GOP about fraudulent voting in the Democratic primary. (Instead, it reported that the FBI had opened a preliminary investigation into thousands of fraudulent registration forms submitted in an area near an ACORN office.)

When we tried to follow up, Diaz cut us off and shifted the discussion toward a general attack on ACORN for submitting fraudulent registrations.

In other words, it looks like the RNC had scheduled a call to tout evidence of voter fraud -- not voter registration fraud, mind you, but actual voter fraud -- being perpetrated by ACORN in New Mexico. But when ACORN appeared to come up with compelling evidence that no such fraud had occurred, the RNC held the call anyway, simply shifting the focus to other vague allegations against ACORN -- then refused to address the New Mexico situation when asked.

This is what they do - year after year, they allege some nefarious fraud scheme - they even put on the same discussion panels - and the hard evidence is always lacking. But the threat of fraud is enough to cause serious voter suppression.

• For example, in Indiana:

CROWN POINT -- Ethel Graves just wants to vote.

But like thousands of other would-be voters in Lake County, Graves has gotten swept up in a nationwide controversy over alleged voter fraud by the community organization ACORN.

After moving to Gary from Chicago in July, Graves was approached outside the city's Bureau of Motor Vehicles office by an ACORN canvasser who asked if she wanted to register to vote in the November general election.

"I said, 'Oh, good, you're saving me a trip (to the voter office in Crown Point),' " Graves recalled.

But nearly three months -- and a trip to Crown Point -- later, Graves still was waiting to receive her voter registration card last week.

That's because election officials stopped processing the applications submitted by ACORN amid accusations that information was falsified on hundreds of the forms.

This isn't about those couple thousand fraudulent voter forms - it's about holding up Graves' perfectly legal one.

• As for the actual voter registration fraud here in California, well, John McCain hired the same people to get voters registered.

According to campaign finance records, a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the RNC and the the California Republican Party, made a $175,000 payment to the group Lincoln Strategy in June for purposes of "registering voters." The managing partner of that firm is Nathan Sproul, a renowned GOP operative who has been investigated on multiple occasions for suppressing Democratic voter turnout, throwing away registration forms and even spearheading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to hinder the Democratic ticket.

In a letter to the Justice Department last October, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said that that Sproul's alleged activities "clearly suppress votes and violate the law."

• And in Ohio, where GOP attorneys are chasing down early voters and trying to disqualify them, some Republicans are being very explicit about what kind of fraud they'd like to see:

After I noted that Greene County's Republican attorneys were chasing down voting information on those who recently registered and requested an absentee ballot in that county, klynn found evidence of a "Young Republican" in that county laying out a plan to encourage vote fraud (in case that post disappears, I took this screen shot at around 1:38PM). The post claims that,

I've called all my friends in Georgia and Alaska (states that are clearly leaning Republican) and had them register to vote (using the local YMCA's address) and to apply for an absentee ballot so the ballot will be sent to their homes in GA and AK.

This is the ADMISSION of voter fraud. I'm sure Republicans will immediately start to denounce this guy.

Can of ACORN

The very serious John Danforth and Warren Rudman held a press event at the National Press Club today to stoke the fears of "voter fraud", absent any proof but lots of innuendo.

The controversy goes to revelations in recent days that canvassers for ACORN, a community organizing group, have turned in large numbers of fraudulent voter registration forms, including some where a potential voter has registered multiple times. Others include the names of cartoon characters and the Dallas Cowboys football team. The Republican Party and supporters of McCain say that Obama has several ties to ACORN, whose acronym stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Rudman said that he and Danforth are not accusing ACORN's leaders of wrong-doing. In Cuyahoga County and elsewhere, the problem has been blamed largely on people paid by ACORN to register new voters. With quotas to fill, they have used such tactics as offering money and cigarettes to people who signed multiple registration cards, according to testimony in Cleveland yesterday.

Obama should ask ACORN to stop employing people with criminal records, the pro-McCain former senators said today.

Democrats and some voting officials have said that systems already exist to catch fraudulent voters, including requirements for voters to show identification. But Danforth and Rudman said the systems rely on human judgment.

The fraudulent registrations, they said, create potential for people voting who should not; for people voting more than once, and for election officials to have to spend so much time on this that they cannot prepare properly for an orderly election on Nov. 4. The spread of absentee voting in this election makes the chances of fraudulent voting greater, they said.

"When you swamp a system with many, many fraudulent names, you're creating a problem," Danforth said.

This is a ridiculous controversy. People named Mickey Mouse don't show up to vote. The problem with having Mickey Mouse on the voter rolls, which would never happen anyway considering that ACORN FLAGS THE SUSPECT REGISTRATIONS THEMSELVES, is exactly nothing. Nobody shows up, nothing happens. There are simply no credible accounts of widespread voter fraud. It's a problem in search of an example.

This of course hasn't stopped the right from their pathetic shrieking that somehow, Mickey Mouse is going to vote 150,000 times and steal the election. In Indiana the Republican Secretary of State, the guy who pushed through the onerous voter ID law, is investigating ACORN for voter fraud. A similar circumstance is happening in Ohio.

Faulty registrations are a minor problem, but as I've said before, Republicans don't want to fix that. Every year, right-wing ballot initiatives turn out HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of faulty signatures, and yet this kind of furor never happens. They want a scapegoat out there.

The fact that John McCain stood with ACORN in 2006 is of no consequence to them.



ACORN is an organization that helps poor people and minorities, and in electoral politics, registers poor people to vote. You can imagine why that would be so threatening to Republicans.

UPDATE: Fox News has taken this to a ridiculous level.

Delegitimization Project, Cont'd

The GOP is so incensed about the suggestion that they would try to stop foreclosed voters from voting in Michigan that they sued the news outlet that reported it. I mean, it's ridiculous on its face! Michigan is a safe blue state; McCain pulled out. Clearly the GOP will get more mileage out of stopping foreclosed voters from voting in Indiana.

Democrats are concerned that Republican officials in Marion County and elsewhere might use home foreclosure lists as a way to challenge the residency of voters at the polls. The campaign of presidential candidate Barack Obama filed a lawsuit to keep the Michigan GOP from doing just that.

County GOP Chairman Tom John said foreclosure opens the door to a residency challenge, but he said his party has no plans to pursue such challenges. However, he wouldn't rule it out.

"We might end up challenging on that," he said. "It's entirely possible. I think it would be a solid basis for asking someone to vote provisionally."

I eagerly await the lawsuit against the Indianapolis Star.

Meanwhile, the anti-ACORN scaremongering continues in Missouri.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

If this is anything like the Nevada raid, ACORN was well aware of the discrepancies and in fact alerted election officials about them. That never seems to make its way into the lede.

I'm guessing this story won't show up on Instapundit this morning.

Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters' exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report.

The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data.

The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.

That's if you believe that the Help America Vote Act wasn't designed to sow confusion through stringent standards, and create the very problems it was supposed to solve. It's a feature, not a bug.

Wander Indiana

For those worried that Barack Obama was shrinking the map and focusing on the same swing states to make his way to victory, notice that Indiana is in play.

Fast-forward to this week. Poll after poll is showing that Indiana is in play. Joe Biden is going to be in the state tomorrow. Obama's Campaign for Change has upwards of 30 field offices open statewide. Faced with the undeniable fact that Indiana is receptive to Obama's message -- or antagonistic toward another four years of George Bush's policies -- what's a guy like McCain to do?

If you answered, "Throw your narrative of inevitability to the wind and buy some ad time," you are correct. Kudos to Jen Wagner for the scoop:

"John McCain's presidential campaign has finally decided to purchase television advertising in Indiana.

Word is, they're putting the buy together as I write this."

As Markos notes, this is a state that went 60-39 for Bush in 2004.

When Obama went on the air in 18 states, most of them Bush states, a few months back, he wasn't expecting to win all of them. He was expecting to stretch the map and force McCain to play defense. That's exactly what's happening. And in non-traditional swing states like this and Virginia and North Carolina, the Obama campaign has a slight edge because the Republicans don't have a time-tested ground game model from the Bush years that they can plug right into. Indiana, over the last 30 years, has never given the Democrat more than 41.55% of the vote. It would be a major accomplishment to pull this out, but Obama is doing so well that McCain is forced into playing defense.

There are also rumors that McCain is closing offices in Iowa, which amounts to a concession of the state. The polls certainly reflect this reality, and New Mexico is headed in that direction as well, with Colorado getting there too. This is still a close election - Pennsylvania and New Hampshire seem to be the Kerry states where Obama is having the most trouble - but clearly the map has expanded to the point where Obama can dip into those still-flowing resources and press a real advantage. And the more states in play, the more chances Obama has to get to 270.

The Very Best Hires

I was very pleased to see this yesterday.

Obama for America
Dear --

Help Protect the Vote Real change only happens when new people enter the political process and make their voices heard.

That's why this campaign is launching an unprecedented Voter Protection Program that will fight to promote and defend the voting rights of every American.

Attorneys, law students, and those with legal expertise will be essential in making sure every eligible citizen who wants to vote can vote -- and that their vote is counted.

Find out how you can lend your skills to make sure every voice is heard in this election:

http://my.barackobama.com/VoterProtection

It looks like a 50-state effort that is starting earlier than for any other previous Presidential campaign.

They'd better be ready. It's very clear that voter suppression and intimidation is baked into the cake of Republican electoral strategy. Sen. Obama is in Indiana today and considers that a swing state, yet this is the state with the restrictive voter ID law that the Supreme Court rubber-stamped this year, leading to nuns in their 90s being turned away from the polls. Yesterday there were a series of primary elections around the country, and in Missouri a man was arrested for trying to vote. They don't require a state-issued ID like a driver's license to vote, but the election judges apparently haven't gotten the memo.

So this morning I walked into my precinct at about 9:45AM, along with my son. Both of us were carrying Precinct issued voter cards, bank statements and utility statements, all of which are acceptable forms of ID in Missouri. The precinct is in the basement of a church and there are two precincts there: 08A and 08C. As I walked in, there were a total of six persons. Three for each precinct [...]

The first judge was named Leroy (he would tell em his last name) and he asked for our IDs and was handed the precinct-issued cards. He left them sitting on the table and said, "You need to show me IDs with your signatures on it!", in rough, angry tone.

I replied, "No sir, I do not." and handed him a computer copy of the SoS's web page, printed from this location. http://www.sos.mo.gov/... / The judge did not even look at it, instead standing straight up from his chair, raising his voice loudly, and said, "If you don't want to vote, there is the door, and you can leave now!"

My reply was, "Sir, we do want to vote. My son and I have both brought the proper ID, and the Sos"s sheet verifies that. Now, if you are refusing to let us vote, please tell us why." And the reply was, "I need to see your signature!"

(Now bear in mind, the next step in the voting is to actually sign the Poll Book, at which time judges can look at my signature all they want. But what was being demanded was some ID which was already signed. Then it dawned on me that many people would only have signatures on some government-issued IDs, such as Driver's Licenses.
Compliance with such demands would result in voters having to show Photo Voter IDs without even the need of the GOP-controlled Missouri Legislature having to pass another Photo Voter ID Act. In effect, causing Missouri voters to comply with conditions which had been declared unconstitutional in 2006!)

With the sudden realization of what was probably happening,I had to make a decision. Glancing around the room, I realized that I had seen all of these election judges at past elections. What was the likelihood of them all being untrained, or them all having forgotten what the rules were in the prior election. I calculated the odds were long.

I turned back to Leroy and replied, "Leroy, my son and I want to vote. We brought what was required of us. I am holding the SoS's web page n my left hand. If you will not look at it, or read it, please call Charlene Davis at the Eastern Jackson County Election Board, or call the SoS's office to find out what you are supposed to do. Because we want to vote."

We were then told, "You can either give me what I told you to, or you can just get out that door and find someplace else to vote!" (as he stood towering above my son and I). I looked him in the eye and said, "Leroy, Nope! We will not leave until you give us our rights. We've a right to vote!"

Leroy leaned over the table and shouted, "Not unless you follow our rules here!" To which I replied, "Your rules do not trump the laws of this state! Please read them! This ID card (the precinct-issued card) is all I need. And slapped the card down on the table in front of him. "this is all that is required."

In the next moment an election judge moved toward me from my left and called to me, causing me to turn ninety degrees to my left to face him. I am fairly certain that it was the same judge who had insisted on my photo ID in February. Regardless, as I turned, the man continued walking up to me until he gave me a "Chest Bump" (like players or managers do to umpires in baseball games), and said "You either do what you're told to vote, or you get out of here NOW!"

I was beginning to feel like Alice, when she fell through the Looking Glass, but managed to ask, "And you going to evict me? Call the police?"

ASt that point, Leroy pick up the converstaion and said, "You leave right now!". I replied, "If you won't call your Election Board, I will." and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. I turned to my son and asked himn to take his cell phone and call "Election Protection" at the Missouri SoS's Office.

As we both dialed, Leroy shouted for us to leave the building immediately, and I replied, "Sorry. Can't do that. What you are asking is neither legal or fair. Let's settle this thing." And as my son and I were talking to our respective parties, Leroy also made a call... to the Eastern Jackson County Election Board.

As my son spoke to the SoS's office, I was asking for the GOP BoE head, Charlene Davis. Oddly enough, she was not available.

But Leroy did manage to get through to the Election Board, as Independence, Missouri, Police Officers entered the precinct doors. One of the last things that Leroy was heard to say to the Election Board was "Then we don't get the signatures??"

My son and I were grabbed by the arms and escorted outside. The two policemen who escorted us were soon joined by four others with two other squad cars. Surrounded, we were peppered by questions. Basically they were of the type, "Why are you bothering these people?"

The answer, as clear as we could make it was, "We aren't bothering them! We are simply trying to vote, and these people are breaking Missouri State Statutes, preventing us from voting."

The police responded, "Look, you are breaking their rules. If you don't get out of here, we are going to arrest you!"

The question I had in response was, "Their rules? What rules? Those are employees of the Election Board, they are under the mandate of the Election Board, and then the SoS. Aren't you more concerned about the breaking of state laws?" As it turns out, apparently they were not.

This guy was obviously testing the limits of the system, but in the end it merited him an arrest. And he actually knew the rules.

The elections process is extremely fragile and ruled by local boards and pollworkers who aren't always in possession of the facts. Add on top of that the institutional barriers to voting, with long lines in poor and urban precincts, and the more devious tricks beyond ID laws, like voter caging, etc., and the Obama campaign has a major task ahead of them. This won't show up on any poll or projection, but getting out in front of election protection is absolutely worth a point or two.

I urge any lawyer reading this to pitch in.

Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana

We're waiting on absentee ballots:

Rudy Clay, the chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party, said the counting of 11,000 absentee ballots is delaying the announcement of vote totals here. Although U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a slim lead over U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in Indiana, most networks are waiting for Lake County's vote to call the state.

"I'm just as anxious as everybody else," Clay said.

This is still pretty much too close to call. Russert just said there are 220,000 votes outstanding and they're all from Obama strongholds. If he wins them 130,000-90,000, it's a tie. That's not at all out of the question.

Regardless of the "win," we're going to see what amounts to a tie in Indiana, particularly on the delegate counts. So Obama won the night, with a 200,000+ vote win in North Carolina. And this does change the game in a serious way. I think we're in endgame territory now.

UPDATE: Looks like Obama will pick up around 9-11 delegates on the night. And maybe 210,000 votes net. This basically wipes out her Pennsylvania win.

UPDATE II: Gary is coming in and coming in strong for Obama. 75-25 so far. The Mayor of Gary has predicted a shocker. It actually kind of looks suspicious, like they were waiting to see how many votes they'd need to win. Expect that to be the Limbaugh spin tomorrow when he recognizes that his Operation Chaos failed miserably.

UPDATE III: It's important to note, as Chris Bowers has, that none of this matters:

Does It Matter If Clinton Loses Indiana?

The answer to this question is obviously yes, since it will be a crushing media narrative against Clinton that will effectively end the nomination campaign tonight. However, the real answer to the question is no, since a 1% Clinton victory and a 1% Obama victory in Indiana swings only one PLEO delegate, and maybe one or two district-level delegates (or, maybe no district level delegates) [...]

Here is the bottom line: no matter the final popular vote outcome of Indiana, very few delegates will change hands and Obama will remain the overwhelming delegate favorite no matter what happens. This was as true entering tonight as it is right now. That the news media covering the campaign isn't bothering to point this out demonstrates just how detached their coverage, and their metrics, have always been from the actual campaign. In this case, following the idiotic, arbitrary, unrealistic media rules benefits Obama, but overall it means we are still playing by their stupid rules.

Yep.

UPDATE IV: Obama's going to come up just short. It's a 17,000 vote margin with 95% in. Lake County is now 56% in, and it's running 65-35 for Obama now. Apparently what's left in Lake is in more Clinton-friendly areas. I think this could get to 10,000 votes, but no closer.

UPDATE V: I guess the talking heads are finally figuring out that this is over. It has been over for a while, but now it's sinking in. Let's re-unify and work to defeat McCain.

UPDATE VI: It's pretty much over. Hillary's up to a 22,000-vote lead with 98% of the vote in. The networks could call this. However, it's a two-point victory, basically a tie, and so the narrative is all to Obama.

UPDATE VII: No public events for Hillary Clinton tomorrow. Lot of soul-searching going on, I'd bet.

Indiana and North Carolina

Well, Indiana's polls closed and it's "too early to call," which means they're waiting to see some early results in NW Indiana (supposedly Obama country) before making a projection. That gasbag Terry McAuliffe is on my teevee right now crowing about Indiana with a very minor mention of North Carolina. He's flopping like a fish on the question of whether or not Hillary will gain delegates tonight (answer - probably not).

I'm just too worn out by this process to dig into the exit polls, but it looks like a split, the economy has become the overriding issue, turnout is huge, and the party is polarized. However, that's a SNAPSHOT. We're six months out until the Presidential election, so no need to hand-wring just yet.

UPDATE: Chris Bowers sez that the quick snapshot of the exit polls show a 4-point Clinton win in Indiana. Right now with 12% in she's up 16. So it's probably somewhere in there, but closer to the exits.

UPDATE II: Barack Obama has won the North Carolina primary, NBC News immediately reported upon the close of the polls. So it looks like a big win in NC, and a smaller win for Clinton in IN. That favors Obama. Right now the margin is 14 points in IN with 17% in (I'm guessing some of the big African-American areas aren't in yet).

UPDATE III: Monroe County, the home of the University of Indiana, isn't in at all yet, so that's probably why we're still waiting on a call in the state (South Bend, home of Notre Dame, also isn't in yet. That could be very interesting, it's young but white Catholic). North Carolina looks like a big victory. This is pretty much as advertised, though perhaps a late swing overall to Obama, however slight. He's likely to win the delegate race tonight.

I don't think Hillary will quit this week unless every uncommitted superdelegate comes out en masse or something, and that's not likely to happen.

UPDATE IV: Chuck Todd is talking about an advantage of 9-15 delegates for Obama in North Carolina, and if the numbers get as high as 57% for Obama he'd wipe out Clinton's popular vote win in Pennsylvania entirely. By the way, North Carolina is a big state and a swing state in November.

I cannot believe that CNN did not poll the gas tax issue. It was the only policy talked about for a week or two. How do you poll Rev. Wright and not the gas tax?

UPDATE V: Obama is actually closing the gap in Indiana a touch. The spread is now 55,000 votes. Still no sign of Gary, South Bend, Bloomington or most of Indianapolis. Actually a lot of the NW Indiana/Chicago media market is out. I don't think he can pull it off, but it could get interesting.... never underestimate a person's regional base. Obama voters are going to come out of the woodwork in NW Indiana.

UPDATE VI: Interestingly enough, CBS called Indiana for Clinton while nobody else has. The spread is 56,000 votes with half of the vote in. This will be mid-single digits for Clinton at best.

UPDATE VII: The spread in Indiana is down to 54,000 votes, and Gary, South Bend and Bloomington continue to not be in. The percentage spread is down to 8 points, back to single digits.

UPDATE VIII: Well, South Bend wasn't much of a haul for Obama, 53-47, but Elkhart County was a huge win, 59-41. There's a possibility Obama still takes this. It's still about 50,000 votes, however, and at some point he's got to start catching up.

UPDATE IX: I gotta tell ya, this is reminiscent of Missouri, with all the African-American precincts coming in late. We're at 53-47 in Indiana and Gary is not yet in, and big turnout was expected there.

By the way, Harold Ickes is super classy.

This is what Harold Ickes, a longtime advisory to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, told Mark Halperin of Time's The Page tonight:

“We don’t know enough about Senator Obama yet. We don’t need an October Surprise. And (the chance of) an October Surprise with Hillary is remote.”

Thanks a million, Harold. You're really the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.

Down to 49,000 votes in Indiana now.

UPDATE X: MSNBC just changed Indiana to "Too Close To Call." That's very significant. Obama just started speaking in North Carolina. Hold on to your hats.

...very weird, Obama kind of conceded Indiana at a time when the gap is narrowing (now 47,000 votes).

UPDATE XI: Obama is sounding a unity theme, but about united Democrats. This is an excellent message for this speech. And he's all over McCain.

UPDATE XII: Down to 38,000 votes, and Gary REMAINS out. Wow. And Obama's delivering his usual good speech. And I love the line "The question is not what kind of campaign they will run, it's what kind of campaign we will run." Damn it feels good to hear a Democrat say that.

UPDATE XIII: 35,000 vote 31,000 vote spread now. Clinton is clearly waiting until the vote is called by all the networks until she speaks. And Gary remains out. Meanwhile, North Carolina is a 16-point lead for Obama and will probably come in more like 12-15.

UPDATE XIV: Usually presidential nomination fights end because of money. Clinton has basically been living primary to primary, and I can't imagine her being able to raise the cash to continue unless she loans herself more money. And she certainly can do that, but the question is "to what end"? I think Clinton will eventually win Indiana by a couple points, but will she be unable to win the money war and be forced to drop out for that reason?

UPDATE XV: We're back up to 39,000 votes with 82% reporting, and Lake County (Gary) isn't expected until 11:00pm ET. So I'm taking a little break.

Nuns

The primary results from Indiana and North Carolina should be pretty much projected by 8:00ET or so (and to me, it looks like a split, although Indiana looks to me like it'll be closer). But we already know who's won, at least in Indiana - voter suppression advocates like the 9 robed figures on the Supreme Court.

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.
"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

This is merely the one story that's been reported. You have to expect there are many more; in fact there are several more later in the story. Of course, the Scalia-Thomas-Alito-Roberts faction on the Court will tell you that's just the price we have to pay for dealing with the scourge of non-existent voter fraud.

Today's vote was kind of a test market for the fall. There's high turnout throughout the state anyway so I don't expect this aspect of the vote to be widely reported.

...a group of voting rights advocates that established a separate hot line reported receiving several calls from would-be voters who were turned away at precincts because they did not have a state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

One newly married woman said she was told she couldn't vote because her driver's license name didn't match the one on her voter registration record, said Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center Justice at New York University's law school, coordinator of the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hot line. Another woman said she was turned away from casting her first-ever ballot because she had only a college-issued ID card and an out-of-state driver's license, Perez said.

"These laws are confusing. People don't know how they're supposed to be applied," she said.

In case you're interested in continuing the mentality that allows voter suppression to be codified into law, there is a Presidential candidate that's right for you.

Here’s what McCain was really telling the party base: If you liked George W. Bush’s nominees, you’re going to love the judges John McCain will put on the bench.

McCain also touted his support for the so-called Gang of 14 as a supposed sign of moderation. But the fact is that he has voted to give lifetime jobs as federal judges to every one of President Bush’s most dangerous and damaging nominees. And they’re already eroding individual rights and legal protections. We’re all going to be living with the consequences of those votes for a long, long time.

The two Supreme Court justices nominated by President Bush are already making it harder for workers mistreated on the job to get justice. They’re letting politicians get away with making it harder for some people to vote. They’re redefining our Constitution and laws to erode progress on women’s rights, educational opportunity, environmental protections, and more.

We all know that a vote for McCain is a vote against women's reproductive rights, a vote against consumer rights, a vote against worker rights, and a vote for massive corporate power under the law. And we know that the Republicans aren't able to win legitimately, so laws like Indiana's will be replicated wherever possible in an attempt to game the system. In a sense awareness is a powerful way to counteract this - sunlight is the best disinfectant. At the same time part of me believes that the vote margin in November needs to be higher than the last two elections in order to get a result in line with the will of the people. But this is not a cause for despair, but a clarion call to get to work right now.

Apparently I Missed A Lot This Morning

Al Giordano explains.

The day begins with the Clinton campaign “leaking” something to the Drudge Report to set expectations for the day. That then gets repeated on political blogs and cable news, where Clinton surrogate Terry McAuliffe elaborates. Today’s “expectation”: That the Clinton campaign expects a “15 point” defeat in North Carolina. Clinton’s yapping puppies in the news media repeat the manufactured expectation all day long, in which the bar is supposedly now that if Clinton comes within 15 points in that state that she has somehow “won” with a 14 point (or 6 point) defeat.

Around 4 p.m. rumors of exit polls begin circulating on the Internet. Around 5:30 p.m. AP and other news organizations leak minor data from the exit polls that explains almost nothing of value. Sometime after 6 p.m. Drudge posts raw numbers from exit polls that - if past is prologue - show Obama doing an average of seven percentage points better than he actually does.

Obama supporters then get prematurely jubilant and after polls close (tonight at 7 p.m. ET in Indiana and 7:30 p.m. ET in North Carolina) the real results start to come in and reveal Clinton then doing “better than expected” (at least better than the new expectations promoted during the day).

I liked what I did this morning instead - grocery shopping.

UPDATE: Yeah, I missed Barackula too - but you could find that without me.

Wash

So we've got primaries in North Carolina and Indiana tomorrow. I think the best rule of thumb in this primary is to assume that the scenario which is most inconclusive politically will happen, even though that same scenario will improve Obama's position but while everybody in the media acknowledges this immutable fact nothing will be done about it. So it is with tomorrow. Obama will win North Carolina, Clinton will probably win Indiana, half of the remaining pledged delegates will be split almost evenly, Obama will have all but clinched his lead on that score, but the race will continue because a certain someone refuses to accept reality. The superdelegates are actually coming out of the woodwork, and the fact that more of them are swinging to Obama means that Clinton really, really, can't win. But "the fight goes on."

BREAKING: Democrats Completely Lose Their Minds

I guess Drudge has now linked to video of Mickey Kantor allegedly referring to Indianans as "shit' and "worthless white niggers".



That is COMPLETELY not what Kantor says. This clip is from "The War Room" and they're looking at early exits from election day 1992. He's saying "those people are shitting," referring to George H.W. Bush's people, and then he says "How would you like to be working in the White House right now?"

Readers of this site know I'm an Obama supporter (and donor) who earlier today essentially wrote that I could never vote for Clinton after her pathetic pander on gas taxes. But this is flat wrong. And as an Obama supporter I value intellectual honesty. Taking down Democrats using half-truths and smears is unacceptable in any form and no matter the Democrat. The YouTube is anonymous and dubious, and I know that unintelligible words become crystal clear once you have writing beneath them. As an editor I do this for a living.

I know someone who knows RJ Cutler, one of the producers of The War Room. I'm going to try and get him to comment.

... Atrios now agrees, this YouTube is crap.

UPDATE: D.A. Pennebaker has now weighed in.

"He does not say that [n-word]. He does not say that," said Pennebaker, after viewing the clip.

He said the initial expletive [shit] referred to the anticipated reaction in the Bush White House to the fact that Ross Perot's polling numbers were holding strong.

"What he says is he’s surprised Perot’s numbers are holding," said Pennebaker in a brief phone interview. "He says they must be shi**ing in the White House."

To be clear, I don't think the clip was doctored, I just think that when you put subtitles over footage your mind fills in the blanks for what your ears can't hear.

Operation More Chaos

This might be something to keep an eye on.

Republicans and independents can vote in Indiana's Democratic primary. But this quirky state law gives voters the right to challenge other voters at the polls for not being sufficiently loyal to the political party in whose primary they are voting.

Here's Indiana's odd rule for primary voting: The state code allows a voter to cast a ballot in a primary election "if the voter, at the last general election, voted for a majority of the regular nominees of the political party holding the primary election"—apparently meaning, in this context, that the voter voted for more Democrats than Republicans in the last general election. The law also lets voters into the primary if they did not vote the last time around but intend to vote for a majority of Democrats in the next general election. The law specifically provides that a voter can challenge another voter at the polling place for not meeting these requirements. The challenger gets to demand that the voter sign an affidavit stating that she meets one of the two requirements above. If the voter signs the affidavit under penalty of perjury, she can vote.

Given the way it's constructed, prosecuting someone under this law looks quite difficult—unless someone is dumb enough to blog about lying on an affidavit, how would prosecutors prove how the voter voted last time or that he lacks the intention to vote for a majority of Democrats at the next general election? And there are questions about the constitutionality of this provision. Still, Indiana Democrats are talking about using it because they're concerned that Republicans will cross over not just to monkey with the presidential primary, but other races as well. Democrats hold a 51-49 majority in the Indiana House of Representatives and think some manipulation of lower ballot races could occur. There is also an important primary in the close gubernatorial contest. The head of the state Democratic Party has threatened a crackdown on Republican crossover voters by challenging them at the polls and making them go through the rigmarole of signing affidavits. Perhaps this talk could deter some Republicans from crossing over and voting. And even if that's unlikely, voters in heavily Republican districts could be put off by long lines if lots of challenges take place.

Rush Limbaugh actually "called off" his Operation Chaos which asked Republicans to vote for Clinton, but I could totally see some disruptive surrogates for either candidate, not controlled by the campaign, going off and picking fights with other voters, challenging their loyalty, etc. How could this law possibly be on the books? Someone with enough chutzpah could essentially shut down the vote entirely.

About That Voter Registration Drive

It had better come with a trip to the DMV:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush.

Stevens actually wrote one of the majority opinions in this one, in addition to the conservative bloc and Kennedy joining the ruling.

This is, as we know, a solution in search of a problem. Voter fraud is a made-up conservative issue, backed by no evidence. While Stevens suggested that there are no "excessively burdensome requirements" imposed on voters who must show ID at the polls, he's answering an unknowable question. We simply have no idea how photo ID centers (if there will be any outside the DMV) in Indiana or anywhere else would be managed, whether the same groups that truck elderly and poor voters to the polls on Election Day will be able to do the same to get people their IDs, and so on. If they require the same documentation that the DMV does, many poor and elderly people simply don't have them. If it requires an application fee, how is that not a poll tax?

Justice Scalia's broader ruling shows exactly what Republicans want out of this:

Scalia, favoring a broader ruling in defense of voter ID laws, said, "The universally applicable requirements of Indiana's voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not 'even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.'"

But during the arguments, Scalia conceded that such laws would "inconvenience... a small number of people," and the Solicitor General for the state of Indiana actually said that "an infinitesimal portion of the electorate could even be, conceivably be, burdened by" the ID law.

You know, that's how the 14th Amendment WORKS, with equal protection for all, even that "infinitesimal portion of the electorate". And, as Amanda Terkel notes, that's a major soft-pedal of the impact:

Voter ID laws, however, affect more than an "infinitesimal" number of Americans and are more than a "minor inconvenience." According to the federal government, there are as many as 21 million voting-age Americans without driver's licenses. In Indiana, 13 percent of registered voters lack the documents needed to obtain a license, and therefore, cast a ballot. These restrictions disproportionately hit low-income, minority, handicapped, and elderly voters the hardest, leading to lower levels of voter participation.

Those affected also tend to vote Democratic, which may explain why Karl Rove and his colleagues have pursued so-called voter fraud with such zeal. Several U.S. attorneys ousted in the Bush administration's infamous prosecutor purge even alleged that they were fired because they refused to aggressively prosecute baseless voter fraud claims.

Considering that we have at least one Democratic campaign predicated on bringing new voters to the process, this is an incredibly calamitous outcome that could upset the entire effort. Somebody in the Obama campaign had better get out in front of this; the courts are already stacked against them.

UPDATE: I found the part of the majority opinion referring to whether or not there's an application fee for a driver's license. Part of this is unbelievable (emphasis mine):

(c) The relevant burdens here are those imposed on eligible voters who lack photo identification cards that comply with SEA 483. Because Indiana’s cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters’ right to vote, or represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting. The severity of the somewhat heavier burden that may be placed on a limited number of persons—e.g., elderly persons born out-of-state, who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate—is mitigated by the fact that eligible voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots that will be counted if they execute the required affidavit at the circuit court clerk’s office. Even assuming that the burden may not be justified as to a few voters, that conclusion is by no means sufficient to establish petitioners’ right to the relief they seek.

See, they can just cast provisional ballots! And we all know that every single one of those are counted.

UPDATE II: These Democrats registering in record numbers might all have to re-register or obtain their ID cards before registering or any number of shenanigans in states where the election apparatus is controlled by Republicans. There are fortunately less of them now (Ohio, for example is safely in Democratic hands), but the precedent here is really, really bad.

UPDATE III: Publius at Obsidian Wings has an interesting take on why Stevens joined this opinion.

But that leads back to Justice Stevens. Whatever else you might think about him, Stevens is the most politically savvy Justice. My take is that Stevens knew it was a lost cause — Kennedy must have signaled that he would uphold the law. Thus, Stevens managed to maintain the viability of more narrow “as applied” challenges by upholding the law on more narrow grounds.

In other words, Scalia and pals would have shut down all possible challenges if they could have had a 5-4 opinion all to themselves. By picking off Roberts and Kennedy, Stevens maintained the ability of plaintiffs to bring “as applied” challenges. Or to be more cynical, he kicked the can down the road hoping for a better Court in the future.

That sounds right to me. Kennedy tipped his hand on joining the conservative bloc when the case was argued. The loss of "facial challenges" in this case is disturbing because it would be far more difficult for these "as applied" challenges to result in an actual change in votes. But it offers a small sliver of hope for the future.

Rachel Maddow on Friedman Units

Rachel Maddow basically just namechecked Atrios on MSNBC and called the race a series of Friedman Units, where pundits and media types say "the next primary will be over!" and then nothing happens. This was the ultimate inconclusive result, the most annoying result, in Pennsylvania, 30-40 million to get a 10-point win with probably less than ten delegates in Clinton's favor. The media has a real desire to keep this thing going and hype up the "this is it!" nature of the next primary, and then nothing happens. I'm with Matt Yglesias - this has to end. There really isn't a whole lot more information that superdelegates are going to get. There's a saturation level that has been reached. We know the strengths and weaknesses of these candidates. We know what demographics they win against one another and what demos they lose. About half the Democrats in the country like Clinton and half like Obama. She's from the Northeast and he's from the Midwest, and they get a tilt in their favor in each of those regions. He can't knock her out because she's really good at campaigning, and she was swamped by him early because he's really good at campaigning. The level of competition is far higher here than it will be in the fall against John McCain, actually. So the superdelegates can make their choice. They could make it today.

And I agree with Stoller, we're going to be fine. Democrats forced a runoff, and came within a hair's breadth of winning, in a seat in the middle of Mississippi (MS-01) tonight, an R+10 seat. The "Clinton/Obama voters will vote for McCain if their guy doesn't win" polling is about as relevant in the middle of a hotly contested primary as a national Giuliani-Richardson head-to-head. There were high numbers for disafffected McCain supporters voting for Gore over Bush at the time. This is essentially a Parliamentary country among core party members, the kind who vote in primaries.

Obama lost the plot in the last several weeks, and Clinton capitalized with a fairly divisive campaign. He needs to get back on his feet in two favorable states. Obama has not lost a single state that shares a significant border with his home state of Illinois (Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri). His speech tonight was pretty much a replay of his 2004 DNC keynote, and he's trying to return to the themes on which he won early. If he wins those two states it will be very significant. But the superdelegates need to come out from under the rocks where they're hiding and end this.

The Inspiration of Perspiration.

This is going to be an incredible year.

I spent two dollars making this video hitting the state Republican Party on the yacht loophole, and now there's anecdotal evidence that we got the CRP to turn off their phones, two days before their annual convention!

I got vm and then was transferred to an extension that had no vm. But I'm sending them an email. They can't get rid of me that easily!

Great idea, dday. We need to band together all over the country to fight these corrupt, incompetent politicians who are giving away our tax dollars to their cronies.

Two bucks, and a few hours of online organizing. And the Republican Party in California turned off their phones.

And really I'm the least successful one out there. At Blue Indiana Thomas is launching an effort to get John McCain kicked off the state primary ballot because he didn't get the required amount of signatures:

Now, I'm originally from the 4th District, so curiosity led me to check out who had made it (and by how much) in my old stomping ground. To my surprise, I noticed that John McCain -- the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination -- was just a little short in a few districts, including my precious 4th, despite the fact that Attorney General Steve Carter had already turned in their petitions. I made a few phone calls, and one by one I found out that the McCain camp had got the job done across the state.

Except in the 4th District.

In the 4th District, they are short.

By my latest count, they turned in 496 signatures for the 4th, and the latest IED report for this morning shows them with only 491.

So this afternoon, I filed a challenge with the Secretary of State's office to keep John McCain off of the ballot. You can check it out here. (I'll have a .pdf version up when I get back to Bloomington this evening.)

And these two online efforts pale in comparison to this incredible offline organizing effort by black college students to resist voter disenfranchisement.

Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.

Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas' historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed [...]

1000 students, along with an additional 1000 friends and supporters, are this morning walking the 7.3 miles between Prairie View and Hempstead in order to vote today. According to the piece I saw on the news (there's no video up, so I can't link to it), the students plan to all vote today. There are only 2 machines available at the courthouse for early voting, so they hope to tie them up all day and into the night.

Here's video:



Incredible. And you're going to see organizing efforts like this all the way through to November.

As Sara Robinson explains (and I can't recommend that link enough), we are poised for a historical moment. Michelle Obama expressed her pride about what's happening right now because it's something different and new. People are engaged in their politics again, and they're using all kinds of new organizing strategies to turn that engagement into positive action. I hope it doesn't end up hitting a brick wall. But there's a feeling of unstoppable force going on right now. When you step away from the candidate wars it's really impressive what's happening out there.