NC-Sen: Burr In Extremely Bad Shape

It wouldn't just be a pleasure to get rid of Richard Burr because he's a Republican, but because he's a really bad right-wing reactionary Republican. Unlike beating an Arlen Specter or a Gordon Smith or a Lincoln Chafee, who may occasionally have voted with Democrats, Burr is about as hard-core conservative as you get, and way out of step in a newly purplish North Carolina. I don't know much about Roy Cooper, but it's not possible that he's worse than Burr.

A fresh look at how Roy Cooper would fare if he challenged Richard Burr next year yields basically the same results as a December poll, the newest survey from Public Policy Polling finds.

Cooper leads Burr 41-37 in the hypothetical contest, a margin similar to the 39-34 one he held the previous time PPP polled it.

Burr’s approval rating continues to languish in the mid 30s, with 35% of voters in the state expressing support for the job he’s doing and 31% dissenting. 41% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Cooper with just 20% holding a negative view of him.

“If Roy Cooper enters the race for US Senate this race automatically becomes a tossup, if not even slightly Democratic leaning,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “It’s quite unusual for an incumbent who doesn’t have major ethical problems to trail an unannounced challenger.”

Welcome to the brave new world, GOP.

North Carolina, Nebraska; Obama Country

On top of Obama capturing North Carolina's electoral votes, it appears he has snagged one electoral vote from Omaha, as well:

Good news for Barack Obama supporters.

His odds of bagging an electoral vote in Nebraska grew stronger this morning, with word that 10,000 to 12,000 early ballots and 5,200 provisional ballots are left to count in Douglas County.

Obama won about 61 percent of the early votes counted before Tuesday's election. If that percentage holds with the early ballots left to count, Obama stands a strong chance of winning the Omaha-area 2nd Congressional District.

Republicans did not concede defeat this morning, but they acknowledged the long odds.

This would be the first time any state has split their electoral votes, and it would get Obama up to 365 EVs with Missouri still uncalled (though McCain is likely to win there). Obama won pretty much all the swing states, by the way, some with very narrow margins. That's the power of the ground game, and it worked to perfection. Indiana and North Carolina and NE-02 would not have gone to Obama without those efforts.

They all laughed when Howard Dean said we could change the map and compete in places Democrats never competed. 90% of this was just showing up, saying who you were and what you stood for, and letting people make up their own minds. They chose against fear and division, and chose Barack Obama.

Now he must be worthy of their choice. But at some point, you'd think somebody would thank Howard Dean.

You can right here.

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.

Obama Pulls Out Of North Dakota

It's not worth the effort to grab an extra three electoral votes. Besides, Montana looks much more attractive, especially with Ron Paul on the ballot there. The playing field is surely narrowing as the Palin pick consolidates the Republican base, but that's expected at this point in the game. The opportunities still exist all over the map and in historically Republican territory, like in North Carolina.

To those who would scoff at the failed audacity of the 50-state strategy, I would say that the money put into organizers and grassroots infrastructure will pay dividends down the road. But you don't have to be intellectually rigid in crunch time.

I've Got Your Convictions Right Here

I heard Mike Huckabee the other day say that what Barack Obama needs to do is to show convictions and stay true to his core beliefs, like Jesse Helms. Since those core beliefs involved him being an unapologetic racist, I thought it was slightly inappropriate. But if Huckabee wants to rephrase that, I actually do have a model for courage and conviction, and it's L.F. Eason III.

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff.

The brouhaha began late Sunday night, when Eason e-mailed eight of his employees in the state standards lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers.

"Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week," Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Here's a guy that gave up everything he had and everything he'd ever known out of the principle of calling bigotry by its name. Seeing that Sen. Obama today capitulated on the Constitutional right of persons to be safe and secure in their homes, I'd say he could learn a lesson from this man. So could Mike Huckabee. Alternatively, he could do what conservatives have been doing for decades and call the black guy a Commie. The problem with that, of course, is that Eason is white.

Jesse Helms RI... Something

I went to my small-town Fourth of July parade today and had some good-ole American fun. Then I learned about the demise of Jesse Helms, and thought that if anybody didn't deserve to die on July 4th, it was this guy. What a buzzkill.

For some reason, NPR ran this piece that explained how Helms "used race effectively." I know the guy just died, but do we have to be that euphemistic? Helms was a racist. He used racial appeals just effectively enough to eke out electoral victories in North Carolina (he never got more than 54% of the vote), and without them he would have had no identity. Can we just call this like it is?

Personally, I think the guy passed before having to endure a biracial President. And it would be quite something if the state that elected Jesse Helms for 30 years ended up choosing Barack Obama in November.

Today Is A Good Day

You've got Barack Obama blasting McCain/Bush policies on the economy, and not just their individual policies, but how they fit into the overall conservative ideology of lower taxes at all costs, indifference to the suffering of the middle class and an effort to drown government in the bathtub and use it only to pay off rich supporters.

“We did not arrive at the doorstep of our current economic crisis by some accident of history,” Mr. Obama said here to 900 invited guests, a relatively small audience for him. “This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle that was beyond our power to avoid. It was the logical conclusion of a tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long.”

He added a moment later: “We were promised a fiscal conservative. Instead, we got the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history. And now John McCain wants to give us another. Well, we’ve been there once. We’re not going back.”

Not only that, but he gave the speech in North Carolina, making further assurances that there will be no Republican country this November, no part of America that's off-limits to his message. Obama is building infrastructure in all 50 states, and will campaign in almost half of them. That's a major achievement for the Dean vision of Democrats ceding no ground to Republicans anywhere in the country.

It's the usual post-bounce period after cementing a nominee, but I'm feeling very good about our chances.

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.

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."

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.

Casey v. Rendell, or Rendell v. Casey?

You know, every analysis I've seen of the Pennsylvania primary is the Obama has to re-run the Ed Rendell strategy from the 2002 gubernatorial primary against Bob Casey, when he won only 10 counties but ran up the score around Philly. Now that Rendell has endorsed Clinton and Casey has endorsed Obama, is that at all operative anymore? Since the players are on the EXACT opposite sides?

Meanwhile, considering that Obama is well ahead in North Carolina (here's a good analysis of that state) and may be more popular in Puerto Rico than everyone thinks (although the indictment of the governor who is supporting him might be a blow), I'm not sure that Pennsylvania matters all that much. But I'm glad Obama is going for it. I want to see a winner actually win instead of back into the nomination at the end.

Why I Want The Nomination To Be Decided May 7

Blue Majority endorsed Barack Obama today. There is a rapidly hardening narrative that he will become the nominee, that Hillary Clinton doesn't have a clear path to the nomination. I wouldn't like it if that narrative became the impetus for Clinton to drop out, though I don't think that will happen. If Obama gets the nomination, it'd be best for him to WIN it. I don't want him backing into the nomination, like an NFL team that starts the season 8-2 and loses the last 6 and hangs onto a wild-card spot. He has plenty of opportunities to win the nomination outright, and one in particular is very attractive to me.

April 22nd, Pennsylvania: An Obama victory in Pennsylvania would be a huge upset, given that Clinton currently leads by an average of 16% in the state. It would also shoot down every single argument the Clinton campaign has put forth on the electability front. Pennsylvania is a big state, a swing state, a blue state, a state with a large number of working class white voters, and a state with very few independents. An Obama win here would end the campaign, and the articles pointing out that Clinton has only a small chance to win the nomination would turn into articles stating that she has no chance whatsoever. However, Clinton starts out way ahead in Pennsylvania, and it is also one of the demographically favorable states for Clinton in the entire country. A victory for Obama here is very unlikely.

May 6th, Indiana and North Carolina: May 6th is shaping up to actually be much more important than April 22nd. For one thing, more pledged delegates are at stake in Indiana and North Carolina (187) than in Pennsylvania (158). Secondly, while Pennsylvania looks like a blowout, current expectations are for both May 6th states to be reasonably close. Third, May 6th is the first date when Obama can reach 1,627 pledged delegates, or 50% + 1 of pledged delegates. Right now, he needs 173.5 pledged delegates to reach 1,627, or 49.7% of the 349 to be determined between April 22 and May 6. Fourth, after May 6th, only 217 pledged delegates will remain, effectively making it the last major primary day in the nomination campaign.
If Obama sweeps Indiana and North Carolina, while hitting 1,627 on the same day, the campaign is over. Accomplishing both goals means that Clinton will have made up absolutely no delegate ground from March 4th through May 6th, and that her final option will including winning the support of more than 70% of the remaining superdelegates. A sweep on May 6th plus hitting 1,627 would be game, set and match. The latest North Carolina poll shows Obama with a commanding lead.

May 20th, Kentucky and Oregon: May 20th is the latest possible date that Obama will reach 1,627 pledged delegates. If he has failed to reach 1,627 by this point, that means he has not done well in preceding primaries. However, if he wins Oregon and reaches 1,627 on May 20th, there is an outside chance that could end the campaign.

June, reaching 2,024: If the campaign has not ended after all the voting is completed on June 3rd, then the last remaining option for Obama to knock Clinton out of the campaign will be to reach 2,024 at some point in June. To do so will give him control of the credentials committee, and the majority of the non-disputed delegates on the floor of the convention. In other words, he will have secured the nomination whether or not Clinton drops out. Even a worst-case scenario for Obama at this point only requires about 40% of the undecided superdelegates to support him in order to reach 2,024 by the end of June. This would not be the ideal circumstance, and Obama would probably start out behind McCain in the general election, but reaching 2,024 does give Obama the nomination.

I like the idea of #2. Obama has organized massively in Pennsylvania, where Democrats now have an 800,000-vote advantage in registration. He'll end up within 5-10 points or so and that'll be fine. I like the opportunity to organize in North Carolina. Because that's a state Obama can win. According to a recent Pew poll the self-ID number for Democrats is 39-26. That's a pretty big gap, and if Obama spends a couple extra weeks in the state in late April that will help move that needle even more. The demographics of North Carolina are changing and the state is turning purple. Barack Obama can win this state.

I'm excited to see the campaign wind down and attentions turn to John W. McCain, but I'm very willing to hold out until May 6 and have Obama enter the general election with momentum and a number of states where he has worked on the ground and put into play. I'm going to finally break down and give him some cash through Blue Majority today.

End Of The Line

Kind of surprising to see The Politico get down to reality, especially considering how their bottom line is negatively affected by such clear-eyed analysis.

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

They go on to talk about how the traditional media doesn't want to call the race because a) it'd be bad for ratings, b) they don't want Howard Wolfson yelling at them, and c) if Obama woke up in a crackhouse on 103rd and MLK on the South Side and Clinton soared to victory, they wouldn't want to have been wrong. So it comes down to cowardice in the face of truth.

I don't have a problem with Clinton trudging on through Pennsylvania: as we near the final weekend to register to vote and be eligible for the primary, we've seen the Party add 111,227 new voters to the rolls, compared to a LOSS of 13,391 for Republicans in what is considered a swing state. Nothing about that is bad, and virtually nothing about the campaign that will be run in Pennsylvania, built in at least the main around progressive themes, will be bad either. I know that I'm supposed to buy into this fear of demographics and racism in middle America, but I'm sorry, I don't. That article doesn't mention the growing African-American and Hispanic populations in Johnstown, by the way. Further, Democrats like to say that they'll never vote for the other candidate if theirs loses and it never happens, and even in this very polarizing cycle, I don't buy that it'll happen in large numbers. Especially when the hammer comes down on McCain, although the one opportunity cost here is the delay in bringing down that hammer.

So I'm cool with things moving through Pennsylvania. There's a lot of primary money that has to be spent, anyway. And North Carolina and Indiana are two weeks after that (And I want a Pennsylvania-style level of organization in North Carolina, where I think Obama can pull off the upset). But if Obama turned this around this week, and I believe he has, then the result on May 6 is that he'll be further ahead in pledged delegates than he is now. And that'll REALLY be it because there won't be enough delegates left to gather.

If this goes one day past May 6 I'll start to get mad. Five months is plenty of time for the general election.

Democratic Road To The White House Just Got Easier

The other states that experiment with proportional representation with their electoral votes, Maine and Nebraska, don't have a lot of EVs and their Congressional districts are ideologically similar. But if North Carolina goes ahead and delivers 2 EVs to the winner of the Presidential race and then 1 EV to the winner of each of its 13 Congressional districts, then that changes things in a big way. 7 of the 13 Congressional districts are currently held by Democrats, and while you wouldn't expect the nominee to pick up all seven, four or five is a distinct possibility. So even if the Republican nominee romps, what would have been a 15-0 shutout is not 10-5. Considering how close the past two elections have been, that's a MAJOR difference, and makes it even more difficult to hold the White House for Republicans. If this was in place in 2000, Gore would have received 3 electoral votes (pdf), and thus won the election. CDs 1, 4, and 12 have went Democratic the past 4 straight elections, and in 1992 CDs 7 and 11 joined them. With the state of the nation as it is, plus the fact that same-day registration has been approved in North Carolina (which will increase turnout, usually a positive development for Democrats), 3 congressional district victories would be the very least we could expect, and if hometown boy John Edwards is the nominee, the state perhaps goes in play entirely.

To be clear, states have their own ability to apportion electoral votes any way they see fit. I personally believe that the winner of the popular vote should get all of a states' EVs, as is called for in the National Popular Vote plan. Maybe this latest twist will bring Republicans on board with that plan.