Happy as the Republicans may be with their recent voter ID victories, they might want to rethink their strategy in light of yesterdays news that more than 3.5 million new voters registered in the first three months of the year.

Many of us believe those Voter ID laws are clearly intended to block the vote — if not, why not advocate, instead, Rick Hasen’s suggestion that we affirmatively, pro-actively register everyone? With an opt-out provision of course.

But the news yesterday makes it look to me like no matter what they throw at us (and in Indiana, they got game) they’re not going to slow this thing down:

Voter excitement, always up before a presidential election, is pushing registration through the roof so far this year — with more than 3.5 million people rushing to join in the historic balloting, according to an Associated Press survey that offers the first national snapshot.

Figures are up for blacks, women and young people. Rural and city. South and North.

Overall, the AP found that nearly one in 65 adult Americans signed up to vote in just the first three months of the year. And in the 21 states that were able to provide comparable data, new registrations have soared about 64 percent from the same three months in the 2004 campaign.

Those voters are bound to turn some Red States Blue:

Cherie Poucher, director of elections in Wake County, home of the state capital of Raleigh, said registrations among the parties have historically kept pace with each other — until this year. In the two weeks before the April 11 registration deadline, she said, the Democrats gained about 8,000 voters in Wake County while the GOP lost several hundred.

“We have never seen something like that before,” Poucher said.

In Pennsylvania, where Clinton’s victory in the April 22 primary kept her campaign alive, there were 40,000 more Republicans than Democrats in Bucks County in April 2004.

Among the new registrants in the first three months of this year, 6,537 signed up as Democrats while 2,200 did so as members of the GOP in the county north of Philadelphia. And 12,554 filed applications to switch to the Democratic Party. By the beginning of April, Bucks had become a Democratic county by a margin of nearly 4,000 registered voters.

Cordisco said party leaders had initially set a goal of turning the county blue by 2011. Then came the extended primary battle that gave Pennsylvania an important role. And while Clinton won Bucks County by a margin of 25 percentage points, accounts suggest that many of the new registrants are black voters inspired by Obama.

Superdelegates, are you listening?

Among the new voters in North Carolina is Shy Ector, 25, of Durham. She favored Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry while a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill four years ago, but never actually took the time to make sure she was registered to vote. Barack Obama’s candidacy was enough to make sure she did this year, she said.

“I was like ‘Oh, now this is a reason to vote. This is different,’” Ector said. “I was inspired and I was excited.”

New voters are generally less reliable. So there’s no guarantee this year’s newcomers will stick around in years to come — or even cast ballots in November if their candidate doesn’t make it.

“I will be very disappointed, and it will take me some time to recover,” Ector said of an Obama loss to Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I’m not going to say I’m just going to write off politics for good, but it does make you feel like you’re doing all this work for nothing, and nothing’s coming to fruition.”

Even if some discouraged new voters drop off, the numbers are striking.

Er, and I’d say, we’ve only begun to fight!

Democratic party activists and Democrats in general often say their party has two great candidates, no matter who gets the nomination — unless they’re Barack Obama supporters saying they’d never vote for Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination or Clinton supporters saying they’d never vote for Obama if he gets the nomination.

When Democrats put aside their anger, they often describe the candidates as to topflight choices. But MSNBC’s First Thoughts looks at Clinton and Obama and proclaims “Enough Baggage To Fill A Plane”:

There’s also plenty baggage going into tomorrow…

Clinton can’t name a single economist to back up her gas-tax plan. While it’s easy to dismiss the idea that economists are heartless folks, isn’t one of the chief criticisms of Bush is that he doesn’t listen to experts? Also, Clinton defended her “obliterate” Iran comment on Sunday, but refused to reuse the word (doesn’t that suggest she DOES regret the choice of words?)

Meanwhile, Obama may have to explain at some point his quid pro quo with the Teamsters; how does one who is promising a new transparency in politics promise something that the general public has to find out about via reporters asking tough questions? And then there’s Wright, Wright, Wright. When Obama can get through a TV interview without the name Rev. Wright coming up, that’s when he’ll know he’s out of the woods. So far, he’s not out of the woods.

And, indeed, both of these candidates have negative aspects that the GOPers will most assuredly exploit come November. Indeed: viewed in this context, the idea of a “dream ticket” of Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama could be seen as a boon to the Democrats but a,lso as a kind of Disneyland for Republicans in terms of targets and rallying their party’s base. (I still predict the “Dream Ticket” is more of an “In Your Dreams” ticket due to seeming irreperable anger between the two camps and how each side demonizes the other).

And McCain?

McCain has a host of vulnerabilities (his positions today versus what they were when he ran against Bush in 2000, his ties to his own divisive religious figures, the frequent corrections he has to make after speeches or comments in terms of accuracy, and — most critically — whether he is truly independent or a McCain administration in terms of staffing and ideas will really be Bush III) that have not been addressed by Democrats who are too busy beating each other up and raising each others’ negatives.

So perhaps First Thought’s analysis should be revised:

Both parties now have likely candidates who are carrying so much much baggage that TSA will have to inspect them.

The New York Times reports the 6-3 decision to this controversial issue. As I understand it those who presume to represent the disadvantaged have resisted Voter Identification because they consider it an unreasonable barrier to voting access. Those supporting Voter ID maintain that in these modern times a requirement to have a photo ID is not unreasonable or unusual. Between the lines is the issue that the disadvantaged tend to vote Democratic. I tend to favor Democrats at this time but I agree with the ruling.

It seems to me that both parties might consider this a new opportunity to reach out to these disadvantaged folks and build goodwill by offering them help in getting not only the proper ID but rides to the Polling places and assistance for other necessary services.

Wouldn’t it be novel for these unfortunate folks to have the political parties competing for their hearts and minds.

Senator Barack Obama is more electable than Senator Hillary Clinton due to his strength among independent voters. And a contest between Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain would be a plus for America’s independent voters since both appeal to independents — and it wouldn’t be as divisive as a Clinton-McCain race.

That’s the contention of John Avlon, the former adviser to President Bill Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who has written the definitive book on independent voters
in America. At the end of his column in the New York Post, Avlon writes:

A presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain would be a win-win for America’s rising tide of independent voters. They present clear policy differences, but they are decidedly non-polarizing political figures, offering a healthy competition for cross-over votes and a welcome break from the hyper-partisanship of the Bush-Clinton-Bush era. Nominating Hillary Clinton would deepen our domestic political divisions –that’s a data-driven conclusion that’s difficult for her supporters to spin their way out of.

And Avlon presents the data. He start his column, his first since leaving Giuliani’s campaign (he used to write for the New York Sun) this way:

It’s electability, stupid.

That’s what Hillary Clinton and her surrogates have been spinning to super-delegates and anyone else who will listen since she lost her grip on once-inevitable nomination.

There’s just one problem – when it comes to independent voters, those crucial swing votes in swing states, Hillary doesn’t hold the electability edge: Barack Obama does.

Independent voters favor Obama by a 2 to 1 margin over Hillary – 49% to 24% – according to a NBC/WSJ poll taken after the Jeremiah Wright scandal in late March. His approval rating among Republicans is almost twice Hillary’s as well – 19% to 10%.

Crossover appeal is the key indicator of electability – especially for Democrats. Despite Democratic dominance of Congress during most of the 20th Century, no Democratic president managed to win more than 51% of the popular vote, with the exceptions of FDR and LBJ. What’s the lesson? Democrats especially depend on Independent voters and even some centrist Republicans to win the White House.

That’s true now more than ever: Independent voters are the fastest growing and largest segment of the American electorate, as detailed in former Clinton and Bloomberg pollster Doug Schoen’s new book “Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.”

Obama’s Independent edge has already had an impact in key 2008 swing states like Virginia, where independents made up 22% of the February 12th open primary. Obama won their support by a 2 to 1 margin, on his way to a 64-35 blowout victory.

He then looks at Clinton’s win and says that the data does not show her strong in attracting independent voters. Meanwhile, he looks at the GOP’s chief asset in attracting independent voters…McCain:

Read the rest of this entry »

As the craze for Obama spreads across the French countryside, the concern of Democrats Abroad is growing, as fear that Hillary could be doing irreparable harm to the Party’s likely standard-bearer in November starts to take hold.

Expressing frustration in this news account from France’s Le Monde newspaper, one member of Democrats abroad says:

“She’s playing the Bush card and the politics of fear. It’s because of her that we have the shameful racial bias that has been introduced into the country! It makes me crazy!”

Reflecting the kind of global attention Senator Obama’s candidacy has generated, Samuel Solvit, President of the French Committee to Support Barack Obama says in part:

“This election concerns the entire planet … it’s important to us … we are attentive to the emergence of this candidate bearing hope and who is open to the world.” Read the rest of this entry »

What makes America tick? It’s a question that Europeans have been grappling with for centuries.

How does the deep religiosity of Americans exist side by side with the strength of its democratic institutions and such strong adherence to the separation of church and state?

In seeking to explain, Nuno Sampaio writes for Portugal’s El Diario:

While a strong presence of religiosity is a distinctive feature of American society, the separation of church and state, since the founding of the United States, has been a pillar of progress for democratic institutions as well as an affirmation of religious belief. It was this separation that allowed for the full expression of both, and which, although it may seem paradoxical, was a catalyst for both. As such, it continues to inspire curiosity Read the rest of this entry »

Thinking about the outlook for today’s Democratic presidential nominee primary in Pennsylvania is like being at a birthday party, blindfolded, wrist flexed back with a dart between your thumb and index finger, trying to decide where to pin the tail on the donkey. You just can’t figure out, after having been spun around and around and around, where to place the darn dart.

In the case of the race between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, why is this so? Why are we unable to stick the dart in but good?

Sure, the candidates and their campaigns keep moving the wall and their donkey. But we expect that in politics.

As the ones holding the darts, however, the voters are unable to stick the dart in because, no matter what the campaigns do to the target they’ve embraced, the choice between these candidates represents a choice between options that can both be assessed as ones that will lead to success. Or failure. But that’s not the problem.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow’s Pennsylvania primary will most likely settle nothing, but there is an outside chance that the results could end it all. If Barack Obama wins by even one vote, it’s over.

The slice-and-dice demographics show Hillary Clinton running strong among blue-collar voters, gun owners and bowlers, but there is a less obvious layer of the electorate that could surprise the experts–the voters who were pre-pubescent when George W. Bush took power.

These 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds who are either in college or entering the work force into a dismal economy have been registering in large numbers, and despite all the negative ads and campaigning, may find Obama’s message of new politics and hope irresistible. He could win the nomination on their disgust with what eight years of the worst presidency in modern times has wrought.

At a rally yesterday, Obama said, “You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain, and all three of us would be better than George Bush.

“But what you have to ask yourself is who has the chance to actually really change things in a fundamental way so that 10 years from now or 20 years from now you can look back and you can say boy we really moved in a new direction and we put the country on a better path.”

According to an AP reporter, “The comment threatened to undercut Obama’s efforts–and those of the entire Democratic Party–to portray the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting as nothing more than an extension of Bush’s unpopular tenure. At the very least, it provides fodder Republicans can use to prop up McCain.”

But it may well be that the conventional wisdom of propping up McCain misses the point of this election. Pennsylvania’s youngest voters may settle that question tomorrow.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Here is another Guest Voice by Joel S. Hirschhorn who is highly critical of both parties.. Guest Voice columns do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.

The Most Powerful People in America

by Joel S. Hirschhorn

They are not the rich and superrich, nor the politically powerful running the two-party plutocracy, nor the greedy heads of banking and finance companies, and certainly not the media moguls and bloviating pundits.

The most powerful people are US, American consumers that account for over 70 percent of the economy. It is exactly now, when the economy is in the toilet, that consumers hold the maximum power. So why are we the people still deluding ourselves that the path to a better future rests on electing a new president?

We are suckers, conditioned by decades of clever marketing and advertising to believe the lies of politicians, and worst of all to believe that elections and our votes provide us with power. Wrong. Our real power can only be manifest through our spending dollars.

The overwhelming majority of Americans have been severely damaged by economic oppression by government policies that have produced historic economic inequality. Yet, despite revolting conditions, Americans seem unwilling to revolt by using their remaining economic power. They have let themselves become economic slaves.

What is amazing and depressing is that there are no national leaders from the worlds of politics, religion, education, media or public interest that are attempting to harness consumer power at this critical time. No one is capturing the public’s attention by making it crystal clear that consumers could obtain any political or economic reform in the public interest by joining together to withhold their discretionary spending.
Read the rest of this entry »

Senator Hillary Clinton has a new hard-hitting campaign ad aimed at continuing to keep rival Senator Barack Obama’s comments about people in small-towns being bitter alive as a potent “wedge” and “electability” issue — but NBC Political Editor Chuck Todd points out some intriguing things about it:

Question: How often do you see a politician — who’s leading a contest in high single digits — launch a negative TV ad? Well, that’s what Clinton (who’s ahead in Pennsylvania but trailing in the overall nomination race) did yesterday, when her campaign unveiled a man/woman-on-the-street TV ad in Pennsylvania that criticized Obama over his comments. “I was very insulted by Barack Obama,” says one person in the ad. “It just shows how out of touch Barack Obama is,” adds another.

This is a gamble in this respect: It means the Clinton camp is going for the political kill on this issue, both with PA voters and undecided superdelegates.

If Clinton doesn’t win Pennsylvania by bigger margins than, say, where polls have things now, will supers deem this tactic as having failed and pressure the Clinton camp to stop the constant hits? Expect Obama to respond on the paid airways in some form today. Meanwhile, the Obama camp has launched a Web ad (i.e., no money behind it) that slams Clinton on her ties to lobbyists. And don’t miss the fact that liberal (“elite?”) op-ed writers have begun coming to Obama’s defense.

Here’s Clinton’s ad which could well get her more votes and halt some Superdelegates who might want to jump ship…and make Obama suppporters more….”bitter.” (Uh, oh…will TMV now be denounced on the stump??)

Obama earlier unveiled his own ad which featured a prominent Pennsylvania politico — and here it is:
Read the rest of this entry »

Overlooked So Far, The Nation’s Unmarried Women in 2008 was released two days ago. You can read the summary here and the full report here.

From the summary:

So far unmarried women are mostly overlooked, but they are a key to this year’s campaign. A fast-growing demographic that is increasingly focused on politics, these single, divorced, and widowed women compose 26 percent of the electorate—in other words, unmarried women are more than one in four of all voters.

And appalling, unacceptable statistics:

A few facts make clear the challenges unmarried women are facing, and why their agenda is somewhat different from what the nation has heard from the campaigns so far.

• Economically Vulnerable. More than 40 percent of unmarried women have household incomes of less than $30,000 a year. That’s much worse than married women and married men, and worse than unmarried men.
• Work Pays Them Less. Unmarried women make less than others for the same work, and earn only 56 cents to every dollar a married man earns.
• Responsible for Children. The responsibility for taking care of children often falls on unmarried women: There are 12.2 million single-parent families in America, and more than 10 million are headed by single mothers.
• Missing Health Care. Unmarried women are more likely than other Americans to have no health insurance. They were twice as likely to be unable to afford medical care in the past year as women who were married.
• They Rely on Social Security. More than 25 percent of unmarried women rely on Social Security as their only source of income.

…

In this agenda, we outline the steps that leaders, particularly the next president, should take to address the needs of unmarried women. The policy agenda is divided into four categories: Expanding Opportunity by Rewarding Work; A New, Stronger Social Contract; Resolving the War in Iraq; and Improved Health Care for All.

I don’t imagine these numbers are going to reverse without consistent, intense attention, or without our elected lawmakers getting in there and doing something to create jobs, make health care affordable and demand that salaries and work conditions provide the stability and flexibility needed for not only the unmarried women, but especially those with children - since if the woman cannot provide for herself, how is she to provide for the child?

This is, of course, part of why we need more women in elected offices.

Cross-posted from Writes Like She Talks.

In this Guest Voice post, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Bill Steigerwald interviews Howard Fineman, the veteran Newsweek senior political correspondent/columnist and NBC analyst.

Hillary’s Last Chance — Interview With Howard Fineman

by Bill Steigerwald

With fresh polls showing Hillary Clinton’s huge lead over Barack Obama shrinking in the Pennsylvania primary, it was time to pick the politically savvy brain of Pittsburgh native Howard Fineman. The veteran Newsweek senior political correspondent/columnist and NBC analyst happened to be in New York City when I talked to him by telephone April 3. But he’s been busy studying Pennsylvania’s latest poll results, talking to party insiders in Pittsburgh and Philly and interviewing likely Democrat voters:

Q: With Obama making up so much ground here, is the Democrats’ primary effectively over for Hillary Clinton?

A: The chances are dwindling. I wouldn’t say they are over. Especially in politics, you are always reluctant to say “never” and to write a full conclusion on things. But it’s fading rapidly unless she can pull off a big victory in Pennsylvania — and the “big” part of it is looking less likely.

Q: New polls today show Obama actually leading. Do you have a sense of what’s happening?
Read the rest of this entry »

The women’s vote has been one of the biggest battlegrounds between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their battle for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. This Guest Voice post which blends original reporting and analysis is by NYU journalism student and writer Sophie Gilbert:

Who’s more of a feminist? Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama?

By Sophie Gilbert

Who’s more of a feminist? Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama?

This is the unexpected question dividing women as the race for the democratic nomination drags on to the bitter end. On one side, Feminists For Barack Obama. Almost 2000 noted feminists, including women’s rights historians Linda Gordon and Alice Kessler Harris, Nation columnist Katha Pollitt and author/activist Ellen Bravo have pledged their support for the Illinois Senator.

But Hillary’s not exactly being spurned by the Big Girls either. She’s received endorsements from some of the Grande Dames of feminism: Gloria Steinem, Erica Jong, Gloria Feldt. Steinem’s op-ed in the New York Times, “Women Are Never Front-Runners,” has proved almost as divisive as the race itself. It’s deeply troubling. As feminists, don’t we all have a common goal?

Maybe we don’t. Katha Pollitt, like many of her peers, was originally rooting for Edwards, even though she admits she doesn’t particularly like him. “The interesting question is, why isn’t every woman on earth for Hillary?” says Pollitt. “But why should they be? I think Hillary has done a B/B+ job for women. She’s been good on feminist issues but she hasn’t been great on them.”

The debate really got going in February, when 150 New York feminists signed a petition endorsing Barack Obama. “War and peace are as much “women’s issues” as health, the environment and the achievement of educational and occupational equality,” said the statement, the first official declaration that feminists didn’t have to support Clinton. But why not? The overwhelming majority of feminists for Obama cite not only Hillary Clinton’s initial vote in favor of the war as their main objection to her, but beyond that, her subsequent refusal to admit that it was a bad decision.

“It wasn’t just a vote,” says Ellen Bravo. “It was a couple of years of vigorous support and many speeches. I felt Obama on the other hand took a stand when it was unpopular, at a time when it could have cost him. That gave me more confidence about his judgment.”

“New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama” rapidly attracted media attention, and was opened up for feminists across the country to sign: people who resented the mainstream media’s assumption that all women, by virtue of their gender, supported the female candidate. “I think it’s very important not to fall into the identity politics trap,” says Linda Gordon, women’s rights historian, and one of the authors of the petition. “We shouldn’t think that the body people inhabit is the most important thing about their political identity. A lot of very conservative and extremely anti-feminist women have been elected to office. Look at Margaret Thatcher.”
Read the rest of this entry »

The conventional wisdom still has Senator Barack Obama ahead of Senator Hillary Clinton. Why do so many people hate Clinton? And is there a little-advertised way Democratic candidates can make it more likely that they win elections? Here’s our latest linkfest taking you to blogs of varying viewpoints, with a few comments of our own. Links do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.

A New Poll Spells Bad News For The Republicans and Poliblog has the details.

A Way A Democratic Party Candidate Is More Likely To Win Election is (no joke) appearing on The Colbert Report.

Speaking Of Comedy Shows, Clinton Appeared On Leno and Dean Esmay has the video and wonders why some people virtually hate Hillary Clinton.

Bill Maher Has Some Advice for Democrats who want to Hillary Clinton to drop her bid.

It’s Obama Versus Clinton in North Dakota and Hillary Clinton is now arguing that pledged delegates can change their votes. The problem: for many many years Democrats, Republicans, liberals, centrists and conservatives all assumed that when they voted for delegates in a primary the delegates voted for the candidates they were pledged to vote for — not for a candidate they voted against. If balloting went way beyond the first ballot, you could see some shifts. If pledged delegates simply shifted allegiances because an opposing candidate made a verbal pitch to them, they would be in hot water politically and any candidate that got the nomination that way would face election obstacles. If he or she was elected, the candidate would take office as a highly polarizing figure who would have no reservoir of good will to fall back on when inevitable crises occurred. The biggest beneficiary of pledged delegates switching would be John McCain.

But Obama Has Problems Too: From the standpoint of Hillary Clinton supporters, the refusal to seat Michigan and Florida could cost Obama in November if he gets the nomination. See Taylor Marsh for that perspective.

Read the rest of this entry »

Republican presumptive Presidential nominee Senator John McCain is now riding high in the polls and in his cross-country image building trip: he can watch the two Democratic Presidential wannabes bloody themselves (and their party) up. But he faces a ticking time bomb in November: he’s running a campaign deferential to President George Bush when polls and historian rankings show Bush to be one of the most poorly-ranked in American history.

Bush’s poll numbers aren’t the lowest in history (yet) but he is so far down that he can see a sign that says SOUTH POLE and he needs to be careful of relief-seeking sniffing dogs.

Even worse worse in terms of the long view and his legacy, just look at this historians’ poll:

A Pew Research Center poll released last week found that the share of the American public that approves of President George W. Bush has dropped to a new low of 28 percent.

An unscientific poll of professional historians completed the same week produced results far worse for a president clinging to the hope that history will someday take a kinder view of his presidency than does contemporary public opinion.

In an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted over a three-week period through the History News Network, 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success.

Can it get yet worse? Yes:

Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations.

And there’s more:

Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, I wrote a post on what I termed “quiet injustices” — things that pretty clearly implicate questions of ethics and morality in our society, but yet rarely seem to bother us. My main example was D.C. disenfranchisement. Another is felon disenfranchisement (after their sentences have been served). Neither, I think, is in any remote way justifiable, and neither are particularly salient political issues.

But the more I think about it, the more I question whether even disenfranchising felons while they’re in prison is justifiable. So, I’ve decided to spend some time exploring that issue.

Read the rest of the post….

New York Senator Hillary Clinton’s chances to get the Democratic party nomination have been described by the news media and new media in see-saw terms for months, but there now seems to be a notable shift in the media’s conventional wisdom: the perception is that she now has little chance of winning and that the race is basically over.

The Clinton camp totally rejects that view. And rival and front runner Senator Barack Obama would be guilty of political negligence if he assumed that was the case (”Assume” makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”). But you do now a see a clear shift in many analyses, the most recent in a Reuters piece that is at times blunt:

Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won.

Obama has captured more state contests, more votes and more of the pledged convention delegates who will help decide which Democrat faces Republican Sen. John McCain in November’s presidential election.

But Clinton, a New York senator who has flirted with disaster before in the back-and-forth nominating battle with Obama, shrugs off growing predictions of doom and still sees at least a narrow path to victory.

“I hear it in the atmosphere,” Clinton said of the increasingly loud chatter about whether she should drop out and let Democrats focus on the general election campaign.

“But the most common thing that people say to me … is ‘Don’t give up, keep going. We’re with you.’ And I feel really good about that because that’s what I intend to do,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

Reuters notes that media commentators and Obama supporters are certainly not included in that group and points to the Clinton camp’s meticulous and skillful use of conference calls to media types to get out the message that team Hillary ain’t gonna be going anywhere yet.

But Clinton needs almost everything to go her way in the next few months.

She had a setback last week when her push for revotes in Michigan and Florida failed. Her victories there did not count because the contests were not sanctioned by the national party. She also faced an uproar this week over her misstatements about coming under sniper fire on her arrival in Bosnia in 1996.

Reuters then outlines Clinton’s hurdles with Superdelegates.

Clinton says she has won more big, diverse states crucial to Democratic hopes in November like Ohio, New Jersey and California, proving her worth in a general election battle.

The longer she continues, the more chance Obama might slip up and make a mistake that turns the tide of the campaign. Clinton has made it clear she will not consider bowing out of the race until all of the states have concluded their voting.

At that point, Democrats hope, a winner.

And, in fact, it is worth to note:

–There is nothing illegal about Clinton carrying on her campaign. Or immoral. Or in political terms unethical. As a challenger she has a right to take it right up to the very last second that she is allowed at the convention.

–If she wins big in Pennsylvania (as expected) it would enhance her image. But she will also need to win big in North Carolina and yet another poll shows Obama on a seemingly strong rebound there:

Hillary Clinton desperately needs to claim more white votes if she is to win a desperately needed primary by taking the Democratic presidential contest in North Carolina May 6.

But with five weeks to go, undecided whites likely to vote in that primary are, if anything, slowly moving to Obama’s column, or may be ready to.

Here are the results of our North Carolina poll from Wednesday night:

“If you are voting in the Democratic primary and the election were held today, who would you vote for?”

Barack Obama (49%)
Hillary Clinton (34%)
Undecided (17%)

The poll was conducted by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion on March 26. It sampled 406 likely voters in the May 6 North Carolina Democratic presidential primary. The margin of error is plus or minus 5%. The data have been weighted for age, race, gender and party affiliation.

“Firewall state” has been the king of clichés during this campaign season, but that term has never applied more than North Carolina does for Clinton. If she loses badly here, regardless of any modest gains in the national delegate count, her candidacy may be done unless her primary victories in Florida and Michigan somehow end up being seated at the national nominating convention.

Most troubling for Clinton is that the trends in our polling of North Carolina show that a modest but significant portion of whites are drifting from Clinton back into the “undecided” column. Twenty percent of whites are undecided.“

Usually voters who change their minds do so gradually,” said Matt Towery, CEO of InsiderAdvantage. “A voter who’s going to switch from Clinton to Obama likely will first say they are undecided, and only later make a complete switch from her to him,” he said.

Our new poll also indicates that the controversy about Barack Obama’s fiery former church pastor so far isn’t alienating enough whites to significantly boost Clinton’s chances for a comeback in the Democratic race, at least in North Carolina.

BUT: this lady still has not sung. Clinton could still somehow pull off seating some or part of the contested delegations or somehow peel off enough Superdelegates. But then, the conventional wisdom says, the party could likely be split as many African-American voters and younger voters who flocked to the polls would feel cheated.

OR WOULD IT? A new Gallup poll gives details:

Democrats are at most risk of losing the support of independents, conservative Democrats, and, among Hillary Clinton supporters, less well-educated Democrats if those voters’ preferred candidate — Clinton or Barack Obama — does not win the party’s nomination. Black Democrats appear loyal to the party regardless of who wins the nomination.

…The finding that sizable percentages of Democrats say they would vote for Republican John McCain next November if the Democratic nominee is not their preferred candidate raises interesting questions about exactly whom the Democrats are most at risk of losing in the general election.

The poll gives breakdowns and then:

Across the board, the data show that Democratic support in the general election is more at risk among some subgroups of voters than among others. In particular, independent voters who lean Democratic are more likely than any other subgroup tested to say they would vote for McCain if their candidate does not gain the nomination. Additionally, conservative Democrats appear to be less attached to the party than are liberal Democrats, and more willing to say they would vote for McCain if their candidate is not the nominee.

…..These findings are not necessarily surprising, but underscore Democrats’ vulnerability with voters who are positioned somewhat more in the middle of the political or ideological spectrum. This may also reflect McCain’s strong appeal to independent voters, who may not need much nudging to shift their vote from a Democratic candidate to McCain.

So the Democrats may wish to choose: whose supporters does it wish to alienate and which rejected candidate’s supporters can do us less damage in the Presidential and Congressional elections?

Meanwhile, Clinton is leaving nothing to chance. She plans to campaign intensely in North Carolina. And she is lowering expectations, getting the word out that she expects that North Carolina will be an uphill battle.

One group that will play a MAJOR role in North Carolina: independent voters, since state has an open primary in which Democrats and independents (not GOPers) can vote.

Another tidbit that could be troubling to the Clintonistas: Bloomberg news service reports that Pennsylvania delegates are looking at the race and seem particularly concerned about a Hillary Clinton led ticket due to several reasons.

The prospect of a Hillary Clinton victory in Pennsylvania’s April 22 Democratic primary isn’t swaying some of the state’s superdelegates, who are hanging back while they calculate whether rival Barack Obama might prove a stronger draw at the top of the ticket in November.

While the New York senator is leading in polls, some undecided superdelegates — elected officials who get an automatic vote on the party presidential nomination regardless of the primary’s outcome — say they are concerned that her nomination would motivate greater numbers of Republicans to turn out in November to vote against her, and other Democrats too.

It isn’t over until it’s over — and Hillary Clinton has the perfect right to wait until it is all over until it’s over. Her supporters will also likely clamor for Obama to drop out if he loses both Pennsylvania and North Carolina, particularly by big margins.

But the bottom line for the Democrats is that Republicans are salivating as they watch Democrats stubbornly grab defeat and pull it from the jaws of victory. Some Republicans commentators write of their admiration for Clinton’s single-mindedness in pursuing her agenda and how it will help the GOP.

And somewhere, John McCain is smiling.

Cartoon by Riber Hansson, Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden

The campaign and talk radio are now boiling with the controversy over Barack Obama’s pastor. Here’s our linkfest taking you Around The Sphere. NOTE: Links and quotes do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of TMV or its co-writers.

Barack Obama’s Controversial Pastor Has Quit The Obama Campaign but now that Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. is out, some wonder if Obama’s lack of an utter repudiation is the “death blow” to his Presidential hopes. See Talking Points Memo. Steve Sailer asks:

So, Obama, who wrote pp. 274-295 about Wright in his 1995 autobiography, had no idea that Wright was an anti-American leftwing crank until early 2007?

Conservative bloggers are covering this more extensively — and angrily. One of the more step-back analyses comes from Powerline:

If it were true that Obama never knew that Wright was making highly objectionable comments until the start of the presidential campaign, and if Obama denounced the comments at that time, then I think he would have a good defense, i.e., he belonged to the church for years without knowing Wright’s anti-American, anti-white, and generally crazy views, and by the time he learned about them Wright was on the way out, so it made little sense to quit the church – denouncing the statements was enough.

Note, however, that Obama doesn’t say he didn’t know Wright was making highly objectionable comments, only that he never personally heard “the statements. . .that are the cause of this controversy.” It’s plausible that Obama might not have heard (or gotten wind of) the several sermons that have been the focus of this controversy. It’s less plausible that, over a 20-year period, Obama was oblivious to the strong anti-white, anti-American views of Wright.

A fatal blow to Obama or not? All I know is that conservative talk radio made Wright audio clips, angry callers, long monologues the motif of the day. Clearly, the GOP will use clips of this in their ads if Obama gets the nomination. But he still will have to have more debates with Hillary Clinton so there’s still time for him to compensate. He just better be ready to duck when the Republican kitchen sink, and bathtub, and shower are thrown at him in November.

Who Else Has Been Preached To By Wright? Oprah Winfrey, as Ed Morrissey notes. He adds this:

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This is a Guest Voice post by journalism professor and author Walter Brasch who is also a syndicated newspaper columnist and radio commentator, and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.

The Surrogate Votergate

by Walter Brasch

“Vote for Marshbaum! Get your vote recorded early!”

On Main Street, shouting and scaring away dogs, Marshbaum was campaigning furiously, stopping almost every carbon form within 30 feet of him. In one hand was a sign, “Change With Obama.” In his other hand was “3 a.m. Hillary.”

“You are running for President?” I asked somewhat skeptically.

“Didn’t you read the signs?” asked an incredulous Marshbaum, upset that even a journalist could miss props that large. “I’m accepting votes for Obama or Hillary.”

“You’re doing what?!”

“Accepting votes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Whoever gives me the most money is the one I’m voting for.”

“Obama and Hillary certainly aren’t paying you to vote?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Marshbaum, “they only paid voters in the Iowa caucuses. I’m after Republicans.” With the Pennsylvania primary expected to give either Obama or Clinton the final momentum for the Democratic nomination, Marshbaum had figured out how to provide a nefarious service and be paid for it without governmental interference, something Republicans crave in the free market economy. “If more Republicans give me money for Obama, I’ll vote for him in April. If more give me money for Hillary, then it’s wake-up time in America, and she becomes the favorite for commander-in-chief.”
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Polls don’t agree on any one number, but a spate of new polls show a trend: steady and significant increases for Senator Barack Obama in his increasingly-bitter contest with Senator Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination.

If there is a truism this year, it’s this: polls — unless it’s the poll taken when voters vote on election day — need to be taken with a huge chunk of salt. But a pattern is emerging in new polls. Here’s a look at a few of them and none provide good news for the Hillary Clinton campaign:

TEXAS: There’s an old joke: “Two silkworms had a race. They wound up in a tie.” Obama and Clinton are now tied in Texas — one of Clinton’s “firewall” states — according to a new poll:

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a statistical dead heat in Texas, according to a poll released eight days before the state’s crucial presidential primary.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said Obama is their choice for the party’s nominee, while 46 percent backed Clinton.

But taking into account the poll’s sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.

Clinton had a statistically insignificant 50 percent to 48 percent edge over Obama in last Monday’s CNN/ORC poll in Texas.

“The 2-point gain for Obama and the 4-point drop for Clinton are both within the poll’s sampling error, so although the survey appears to indicate some movement toward Obama, we cannot say for certain that he has gained any ground since last week,” said CNN polling director Keating Holland.

Two recent polls by other organizations also show the race statistically even.

The pattern for Obama in many races this year has been that he starts out behind, but then starts to gain and by election day in most (but not all) cases winds up ahead of Clinton. One theory; the polls don’t measure new and young voters he’s attracting on election day.

Survey/USA Poll says Obama is up four points in Texas:

In a Democratic Primary in Texas today, 02/25/08, 8 days till votes are counted, Barack Obama moves ever-so-slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton, though at the edge of the margin of sampling error, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for KTRK-TV Houston, KTVT-TV Dallas and KRLD-AM radio Dallas. Today, it’s Obama 49%, Clinton 45%. Compared to a SurveyUSA tracking poll released one week ago, Obama is up 4 points, Clinton is down 5 points.

OHIO: Obama Gains On Clinton In Ohio Dem Primary Quinnipiac University Likely Voter Poll Finds; College-Educated Voters In Big Shift To Obama:

Buoyed by a big shift among college-educated voters, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is gaining on New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who now leads 51 - 40 percent among Ohio likely Democratic primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 55 - 34 percent Clinton lead in a February 14 likely voter poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. College-educated voters back Sen. Obama 58 - 33 percent, compared to a 46 - 41 percent Clinton lead with these voters February 14.

On the eve of the only televised debate between the two Democratic contenders in Ohio and just one week before the crucial March 4 primary, Sen. Clinton’s large margins among women, 53 - 36 percent; older voters, whites and those without a college education keep her out front.

“Sen. Clinton’s lead remains substantial, but the trend line should be worrisome for her in a state that even her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has said she must win,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “A week is an awful long time in politics to be playing defense, but one thing going in her favor is that she is viewed more favorably than is he by Ohio likely Democratic primary voters.

“Sen. Obama, to no one’s surprise given his momentum nationally, has made inroads, especially among some of Sen. Clinton’s softer supporters,” said Brown. “If she is to stop his momentum in Ohio, she must retain her margins among her core backers - women, older voters and those lower on the social-economic and education scale.”

If there is an absolutely MUST-WIN state for Clinton, this is it. If she wins by a narrow win, it won’t be helpful to her, either.

NATIONALLY: Obama is surging, CBS reports:

A new CBS News/New York Times poll finds Barack Obama with a 16-point lead over rival Hillary Clinton among Democratic primary voters nationwide.

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