The e-mails, phone calls – robo and live, invites and blogs are buzzing through every inch of available space, cyber and otherwise, in Ohio right now. In the last two hours alone I’ve received information about Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the Jewish community in Northeast Ohio, I was called by a live (as opposed to recorded) Hillary Clinton supporter about attending a rally tomorrow at a local high school and I’m gathering information for a fellow blogger coming...

Talk about tough love and breaking from dysfunction: read this letter to Senator Hillary Clinton, written by Erin Kotecki Vest. Here’s part: I truly believed you would be the best person for the job, and I had this nagging thought in the back of my mind that is now at the forefront. The thought that drove me on Super Tuesday to Vote for Senator Obama and the thought that is the driving force as I write tonight: Senator Hillary Clinton divides this country. It’s not fair. It’s not right....

Senator Barack Obama appears to have won the “Potomac Primary” – Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Delegates will be delivered proportionately to both Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. Squabbles over the role and use of superdelegates continue. And Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania are now being called the firewall for Clinton that other states with votes long since counted didn’t turn out to be. One of the reasons abusive relationships are so difficult to leave and end...

From Ohio Daily Blog: SurveyUSA has released a new Ohio poll taken 2/10 and 2/11 and it shows Hillary Clinton with a big 17 point lead over Barack Obama among likely voters: 56% Clinton 39% Obama Clinton is buoyed by a strong showing among women (62% to 33%), voters over 65 (64% to 30%), Democrats (58% to 37%), whites (62% to 32%), Hispanics (87% to 8%), and those for whom the economy is the top issue (60% to 35%). Obama is statistically tied among males (47% to 46%) but does extremely well...

The Dayton Daily News and one of the kindest journalists out there, Bill Hershey, is reporting that: John Glenn, the former astronaut and four-term U.S. senator, is expected to endorse Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president on Tuesday. Glenn, 86, the first American to orbit the earth and a long-time friend of both Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, is expected to announce his choice at a Columbus press conference, according to a source close to the Democrats. Glenn’s...

All the announcements and tributes mention Congressman Tom Lantos’ distinction as being the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress. I don’t know how many Holocaust survivors have ever run for congress, but regardless, the fact that he will no longer bring the ideas and experience of that distinction to the legislative branch of our American government is unfortunate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: As the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, Tom Lantos devoted his...

If you are looking for places to see the results of today’s Maine Democratic Party Caucus, try CNN here, the New York Times here and the Maine Democratic Party here. 5:26pm: With 44% of the precincts reporting, Obama leads with 57% to 42% for Clinton. 5:15pm: With 11% of the precincts reporting, Barack Obama leads with 51% to 48% for Hillary Clinton.

I’ve just double-checked each of these sources and you can find the exact tallies at all of the links. Here’s the Kansas GOP Caucus homepage and here’s CNN’s results page. Louisiana (both parties today; here on CNN too) Try here or here for Nebraska (Dems only today) (or here on CNN). The Washington State Democratic Party sends visitors to CNN’s election page for results (Dems only today), here. The short version: Mike Huckabee wins Kansas (nooooo surprise there if you’ve...

From The Caucus: In a message to supporters sent just before 11 p.m. Friday night, Representative Ron Paul, a long-shot G.O.P. candidate from Texas, basically conceded that he’s not going to win the party’s nomination. That said, he’s scaling back his campaign — but not entirely. He said: With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas,...

Donna Brazile was quoted as saying, “If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party. I feel very strongly about this,” Brazile said. And Chris Bowers of Open Left wrote this post, How I Could Quit the Democratic Party, that makes the same argument. (speaking of democratic anything, Open Left crashed Firefox twice – what’s with that?) What do I think of these protestations?

From the SCOTUS Blog: Vice President Richard Cheney, parting company with the official Bush Administration position on the test case before the Supreme Court on the Second Amendment, signed onto a brief Friday urging the Justices to strike down the District of Columbia handgun ban without ordering any further proceedings. The brief — representing the views of a majority of the members of the Senate and of the House — explicitly endorsed the “categorical approach” that the D.C. Circuit Court...

Major hattip to Holly in Cincinnati for the news from The Trail: Obama and Clinton will face off on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at Cleveland State University, in a debated hosted by NBC News and WKYC, the NBC affiliate in Cleveland. Although terms haven’t been settled, Obama aides said the candidates would also meet in Texas, which votes the same day as Ohio, March 4. With probably what will be an enormous amount of luck, Ms. Holly and I would absolutely love to bring TMV a live-blog of the debate from...

After I finished reading this article about Focus on the Family’s James Dobson’s nearing endorsement of Republican primary candidate Mike Huckabee, I went searching for poll numbers on how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama might do against Huckabee. Real Clear Politics has this excellent chart. It shows that Clinton or Obama would definitively destroy Mike Huckabee. Now, it’s true, the trending only indicates results through January 22, two weeks before Super Tuesday. So –...

According to this audio and blog post by the Plain Dealer’s Mark Naymik: Barack Obama [has] said he will debate Hillary Clinton in Ohio before the March 4 primary. “I think we said we will do two more debates, and at least one of them will be in Ohio,” he told Plain Dealer editors and reporters Thursday afternoon during a phone interview. “I’m not sure exactly what communications have been going on between my staff and Sen. Clinton’s.” Speculation swirled...

Every state’s congressional delegation should develop a list like the one here, posted on the blog portion of Congressman (D, OH-17) Tim Ryan’s website. Although, to be fair, Ryan’s chart could probably be improved by reflecting input from the other 17 congressional delegates from Ohio, since I imagine they have different opinions about whether decreases (or increases) are necessarily a bad thing. And I’d appreciate seeing an even-handed review of how the Ohio delegation...

Maybe Hillary Clinton’s idea about blanketing the government with blogs isn’t so bad after all. According to Wired Threat Level: On Monday, fliers asked the TSA’s [Transportation Security Administration] new blog Evolution of Security why some airports were requiring passengers to remove all electronics – MP3 players, cell phones and even power cords – from their carry-on bags. So the first name-only bloggers at TSA looked into it, figured out it was local rogue offices...

From one of my favorite Ohio bloggers, Clark Street Blog: Terse summarizations of the candidates/campaigns so far: DEMOCRATS OBAMA: Hope with me, dream with me, believe in me, vote for me. CLINTON: Is the applause meter on? EDWARDS: I am in this until the end. The END! Okay, never mind. DODD: I would like to share some thoughtful remarks on some important matters of policy. Hey, is this thing on? RICHARDSON: You want experience? How about Congress, Cabinet, Diplomat, and Governor? (* crickets *) KUCINICH:...

Has anyone speculated on how many of the millions of absentee ballots that have been cast across the Super Tuesday states were cast for John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich, all of whom have withdrawn from their party’s race for the presidential nomination? This article outlines the mess in New Jersey, where some counties are allowing absentee voters to vote a second time if their first ballot was cast for a candidate who is now out of the race. But...

I know some people are just going to want to rip into me for saying this, but after reading this piece in The Caucus about the Barack Obama ad being shown during the Super Bowl this evening (the link has the video there), I know why the Obama phenomena just isn’t appealing to me (sadly for Hillary Clinton, there isn’t much she’s doing that’s appealing to me either). It actually is the underlying message Obama has been touting from the beginning that is the name of this ad,...

Hattip Mahalo.com.

Hattip Mahalo.com.

First, a hattip to this post by PunditMom for BlogHer for cluing the clueless (that would be me) into the fact that Maine’s GOP caucus is February 1-3 (that would be, this weekend). At just after 9pm, Saturday evening, February 2, with 64% reporting, check out how close Ron Paul and John McCain are – 18.9% to 21.5%, respectively. Ah, New Englanders (Romney is over 50%) Some resources: New York Times coverage with results as they come in here Census Bureau Pre-Caucus Snapshot (from PunditMom’s...

As Jerid at the Buckeye State Blog might write, Rut-roh. From the Houston Chronicle: The Partnership and the Sierra Club Foundation have long planned to hold a presidential debate at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Feb. 28, just five days before the March 4 Texas primary. MSNBC has promised to air the event, with NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert as moderator. The plan calls for the remaining Democratic candidates to face off in one session, with the Republicans going at it in...

From the Rocky Mountain News: The Democratic National Convention Committee named AT&T this morning as the official wireless service provider for the party’s convention in August. AT&T’s agreement with the DNCC will require it to provide smart devices, hardware, software and air cards that allow direct connection to the Internet. … The deal comes a couple of weeks after Denver-based Qwest was named by the DNCC as the official telecommunications provider for the convention. Stupid...

I’m not speculating – Ann said it herself. Would love to see a real-time reaction meter on that clip. Comment on what you think she’s really thinking here.