The Idaho primary was last night. In the Feb. 5, caucuses, Barack Obama won 79% of the vote to Hillary's 17%. A total of 21,224 Idahoans participated.

In last night's primary, Obama won 56% to 38%, with 42,000 voting.

Twice as many people voted in the primary as the caucus and Obama got 23% fewer votes.

The same thing happened in Nebraska, Washington and Texas, the other three states that have held both primaries and caucuses.

DaveOinSF at MyDD has a new graphic up showing the trends. [More...]

We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

An open thread. Go ahead and vent.

For the first time SUSA included Hillary Clinton among the potential VP picks for Obama. This was in Michigan and with the exception of Edwards, every other one of the names being floated in the SUSA polling got Obama destroyed against a McCain/Romney ticket.

Michigan is actually the kind of state where you might think John Edwards might help Obama more than Clinton but it simply was not the case. More and more it becomes clear that Hillary Clinton is the must pick VP should Obama become the nominee.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Barack Obama said today the nomination for President is effectively his to claim on Tuesday or Wednesday. I heard him say it on CNN, here is the Wall St. Journal:

Is the long Democratic primary finally over? Barack Obama says it will be on Tuesday. When asked by reporters if the general election begins on June 3, Obama gave a one-word answer: “Yes.” When asked if he will be the nominee, he said “I hope so. I believe so.”

So, to Obama, the one plus million voters in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana are irrelevant to the outcome. He perpetuates the myth that the nomination is decided solely on the basis of pledged delegates when the superdelegates can consider pledged delegates merely as one factor, also considering the popular vote totals, electability and the electoral map.

There simply is no requirement that superdelegates vote by the pledged delegate total in their districts or state. Obama may not have 2035 or 2210 (or whatever number in between it turns out to be)in pledged delegates by Tuesday. [More...]

Hillary Clinton got more support in Puerto Rico today.(in Spanish, my translation skills are minimal but here is what I get):

The president of the Office of Dominican Subjects in Puerto Rico, Luis Aguasvivas, today exhorted to his compatriots in the Island to vote for Hillary Clinton.

....“The triumph in Puerto Rico of the senator Hillary Clinton will contribute to the development of social projects in favor of our community, in the fields of migratory reform… federal aid to programs of improvement of health, education, allocation of resources for the development of micro-enterprises, as well as of technical-vocational programs of education”, it maintained in an official notice.

Singer Ricky Martin issued this press release in Puerto Rico today, urging voters to mobilize and vote for Hillary. [More...]

The defense you will hear to my strict DNC rules argument is that the early states received "waivers." In fact, they did not until AFTER they had scheduled their primaries in violation of DNC Rule 11, which was never formally amended. According to the DNC Memo of today, this makes these "waivers" against the DNC Rules. But worse than that, there is nothing in the circumstances of those waivers that are in any way different from the Florida situation. In short, the rules are rules for the DNC, except when they are not. Wayne Barrett told the story well: [More...]

Clinton's (and her supporters') situational ethics

. . . . Remember, Clinton supported the Michigan and Florida sanctions when she thought she'd coast to the nomination. . . . [T]he most infuriating part of this campaign is Clinton's lack of intellectual honesty. The shifting rationales. The constantly moving goal posts. The disrespect for rules and the intelligence of the public. It's rank dishonesty and purposefully flawed readings of history.

Here is some history. Kos on Clinton and Michigan in January 2008 [More...]

Bump and Update: Here is the 11 page memo (pdf)that accompanied Hillary's letter today that went out to more than 800 superdelegates and party officials. Some good points:

On February 8th, Senator Obama said that if someone had the most pledged delegates and the most votes in the country, that “it would be problematic for political insiders to overturn the judgment of the voters.” It appears that when all the votes are counted on June 3rd, Hillary Clinton will be the candidate with the most votes. The automatic delegates then face the choice between one candidate with more pledged delegates and another candidate with more popular vote

Rich Lowry:

[T]he Democrats’ attachment to the unadulterated popular will has gone the way of the hanging chad. Suddenly, Democrats are sticklers for rules. . . . A mere matter of timing has been enough to “disenfranchise” — to use the 2000 argot — 2.3 million Democratic voters.

It’s easy to imagine what Democrats circa 2000 would say about this. Denying the votes in Florida and Michigan would betray the “generation of patriots who risked and sacrificed on the battlefield” in the American Revolution, and be tantamount to “the poll taxes and literacy tests, violence and intimidation, dogs and tear gas” of the Jim Crow era. Counting the votes — ensuring “that every voice is heard and every vote is counted” — would be a cause worthy of the abolitionists and suffragists.

• No verdict today in either the Michigan trial of attorney Geoff Fieger or the Chicago trial of Tony Rezko.

• DNA evidence has freed Illinois inmate Dean Cage after serving 12 years for a rape he didn't commit.

• The Boston Globe has a five page article on whether Barack Obama can redo the electoral map to win in November. [More...]

Your turn. This is an Open Thread.

And if the DNC Memo (which states that any violation of DNC Rule 11 on primary timing requires at least a 50% stripping of delegates without exception) expresses the views of the Rules and Bylaws Committee then the following action should occur on May 31:

Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina must be stripped of at least 50% of their delegates. As Florida Representative Ted Deutch states:

Rule 11 clearly prohibits primaries or caucuses from being held prior to the first Tuesday in February, except in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, each of which is assigned very specific limits on when they may hold their contests. Florida Democrats were penalized for violating Rule 11 when our state moved the primary seven days too early. Michigan Democrats, whose state moved 21 days early, were penalized, too. Oddly, Democrats in three other states [the three states were Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina] that violated the rules were not.

More . . .