Fresh off CNN's decision to promulgate the idea that Obama's 5-point lead over McCain (which has been consistent with other polls) constituted a "statistical dead heat", CNN has come out with yet another misleading poll headline--this time regarding the state of Clinton voters.
You can imagine my concern this morning when I directed my browser to CNN and saw the "latest news" about a poll that showed "warning signs" for Obama.
Origianally posted at Calitics, your 24-hours news source for California politics.
Or something.
I'm still trying to make heads and tails of Bob Drogin's narrative in Thursday's L.A. Times regarding John McCain's campaign strategy, which seems to be treating the entire country like one giant New Hampshire:
CINCINNATI -- When John McCain campaigned here last week, he relied on his signature event, an unscripted town hall meeting, to sway undecided voters in this crucial swing state.
The presumed Republican presidential nominee paced with a microphone at Xavier University, taking questions about energy, the economy and other issues from about 150 people.
I can consider myself one of the luckier members of our netroots "order": lucky, in that I've gotten to spend an entire day staffing Darcy Burner.
I didn't write about that day then owing to constraints on my own personal time, but in the context of the events of the past couple of days, I thought I'd share with you what I remember--and some photos.
I think the best thing I can say about Darcy is that even if she weren't my favorite Congressional Candidate, she'd still be an awesome friend.
More below the fold--as well as the obligatory fundraising ask.
By now, I'm sure you've all seen that the home of Darcy Burner, a netroots hero running in WA-08, was destroyed in a fire.
Well, I think most of us here think that Darcy should be in a different House: The House of Representatives. And I think that the last thing Darcy needs to worry about is whether she'll have the money to compete down the stretch in one of the most competitive districts in the country.
Let's get Darcy's Q3 numbers off to a good start. I've set up a special ActBlue page in response to this tragedy, and I've set the target at a relatively modest $5,000. You know what to do.
Some things are just too good to let pass without some sort of commentary. In this vein, I offer you (h/t to RunnerAAA) McCain's new web ad "attacking" Obama's energy policy:
Once you get done laughing, my commentary is below the fold...
[update] opinion below confirmed by Glenn Greenwald.
Are you pissed about FISA? I know I'm pissed about FISA. However, I may have discovered something. I could be wrong, and I would welcome corrections, especially since I'm not a lawyer.
But if I read the compromise bill correctly, there is some wiggle room that would still provide for some accountability for some of the most egregious parts of the domestic surveillance program: namely, everything that occurred before 9/11.
You know the right-wing gasbaggery the Republicans like to use to say we should stay in Iraq. The old refrain was, "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" or "The dhimmicrats want to see our women in purdah" or other such nonsense.
Michelle Malkin, as I'm sure many of you know, is panicked about "Sharia Creep" into the United States. And true to Michelle's fears, there has now been an actual request for Sharia--Islamic Law--to govern a U.S. courtroom.
But the source isn't some radical fundamentalist. Not even a mosque, or a Muslim family.
No. Rather, this request for Sharia is courtesy of that patriotic American company that's in it to help win the "war on terror": Blackwater USA.
We all know it takes 270 Electoral Votes to win the Electoral College outright. But what happens in a 269-269 tie? Well, according to the Constitution, the election of the President would devolve to the House of Representatives. But instead of it being a majority vote, it's a little more complicated because, as Chris Weigant explains, each state delegation gets one vote. And it's a little more complicated even than that: since the House vote would take place on Jan. 6, and the new Congressional terms begin on Jan. 3, it would be the incoming Congress that would vote.
The 269-269 scenario is possible. The article linked above has some scenarios for how it could work, but here's a possibility:
Also, any scenario in which McCain would have won 270-268, but with Obama taking NE-01 and splitting Nebraska, would produce the same outcome.
The entry by Weigant above creates a worrisome scenario. But unlike Weigand, I've analyzed all 51 states for you, and come up with an inescapable conclusion: Obama wins the tie. More below.
I'm quite sure many of you remember Larry Sinclair. He's the upstanding citizen who has claimed that in 1999, he was in the back of a Limo with Barack Obama performing oral sex on him while Obama smoked crack. (If you want to find out, go google it, but I ain't linking to it.) This crackpot has also accused Obama of murdering his pastor to prevent him from disclosing their gay relationship.
Well, it turns out that these accusations have been debunked, of course--but that doesn't change the fact that somehow, he is being hosted by the National Press Club next Wednesday.
What we're asking is very simple: Tell the NPC not to host Larry Sinclair and provide his claims the air of legitimacy.
It is definitely not my standard practice to do this. And yet, in so many places, including a few voices that are still here, you will see some individuals who are so upset about Hillary Clinton's loss, and are so opposed to Barack Obama because of what they perceive as the sexism of his campaign, that they are going to vote for John McCain.
Now that Barack Obama all but officially has the Democratic nomination, it's time to focus on our convention this summer.
And no, I'm not talking about the DNC convention in Denver, I'm talking about Netroots Nation in Austin!
A lot of us will be in Austin in mid-July for the convention, but for many people, paying the convention registration, lodging and travel makes attending the convention financially impossible.
Last year, kid oakland, a brilliant ideator and organizer, came up with a grassroots solution: scholarships for those who couldn't afford to make it. This effort sent many enthusiastic netroots activists from underserved geographic areas who otherwise couldn't afford the convention costs to Chicago to participate.
I want to make one thing clear that has been a bit under-discussed regarding the situation with the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting in Florida and Michigan:
What the RBC decides tomorrow has repercussions far beyond the Obama/Clinton race, which has for all practical purposes already been decided.
Regardless of whether you take the Hillary's position that the rules prevent uncommitted delegates from being seated for Obama, or the position that the rules actually say that the RBC can do what it damn well pleases, there really is only one thing to remember:
If the DNC is paying attention at all to the future of its primary process, they must sanction Florida and Michigan. And if I got the chance to talk to an RBC member before tomorrow's showdown, the names "Obama" and "Clinton" would not enter into the discussion.
I open my virtual copy of the New York Times this afternoon to find an article mentioning that lawyers for the Democratic Party have determined that no more than half of the delegations from Michigan and Florida can be seated (or that the delegations can be seated, but with each delegate getting half a vote), according to the bylaws of the Party. If we use as a guideline Poblano's WWF-style takedown of Lanny Davis as a guideline regarding the delegate allocations of Florida and Michigan, it seems likely that Clinton will only net 23 extra delegates from a seating of Michigan and Florida according to these rules:
So, we have this whole huge furor over Hillary's dredging up RFK's assassination in June as justification for her remaining in the race. How virulently you react to the remark is merely a product of whether you're viewing the "assassination" part or the "June" part as her primary justification.
But what's getting lost in all of this is the underlying assertion Hillary was (poorly) trying to make: that there is historical precedent from both 1968 and 1992 for competitive nomination contests that lasted into June, and therefore, she has justification for staying in the race this late.
If the Democrats are going to regain power, change is more likely to come from the state and local end than from the party's central command in D.C. And for the new movement populists, taking over the state parties is a good place to start.
--Crashing the Gate, p. 166
A coordinate deffort by the netroots and grassroots movement...could help democratize and reform Democratic Party committees at the state and local level.
--Crashing the Gate, p. 169
I realize that I haven't been around on the blogs that much lately. It's true that a lof of that has to do with actually being busy with work, but that's certainly not all of it. A lot of my time has gone into working under my more common name--Dante Atkins--to improve the way the Democratic Party does business out here in California, to the best of my abilities.
You've helped me before, but on June 3rd, I'll be asking for it again.
When we spend every waking hour calculating delegate scenarios and pondering exactly when Obama will get the majority of pledged delegates, we--as well as every single other media apparatus out there--is using 2025 as the number of delegates needed to clinch the "presumptive nominee" status.
You can see this at the top of the DailyKos frontpage, at CNN, at Fox (just...ignore the headlines and go to the delegate counter so you don't throw up), and MSNBC.
The Clinton campaign, however, is sending a very clear signal that they are intending on taking this all the way to the convention and staging a credentials fight. Hillary Clinton's "fact site" about Democratic delegates said you need 2208! That, of course, is the total number of delegates that would have been required if Michigan and Florida were being seated.
After all, it's where Hillary Clinton has been most lacking in recent weeks.
I was going to write something different today, but I discovered that my thoughts were crystallized succinctly by my friend kid oakland in his diary of yesterday.
k/o does an excellent job of summarizing the ways in which the Clintons have tarnished their legacy among Democratic circles in an overreaching, ad hoc effort to maintain a sense of credibility among the media and the populace that they still have a reasonable shot at re-entering the White House in 2009.
In addition to the previous offenses Hillary has committed against the Democratic Party, we can now add, as k/o writes above, overt pandering on gas taxes, guns, NAFTA, and--last but not least--hawkish threats on Iran.
Now, most Democratic voters aren't the type of political junkies who spend their free time analyzing the consequences of Hillary's betrayal of Democratic values. This diary isn't for them. But if you are a Democratic political junkie and still support Hillary, you are abetting the decimation of our Party.
I'm sure you've seen the news: the North Carolina GOP is running a racist ad in North Carolina calling Barack Obama too "extreme" (i.e., black) for the state. This, despite the fact that John McCain has denounced the ad.
Well, it seems that John McCain just can't get rid of this ad. Maybe he likes it that way, since he can play good cop-bad cop with the electorate. But there's one person who can: Senator Elizabeth Dole. And it's time to tell her to do so.
