Chris Matthews just violated his network rules by letting us know that NBC's exit polls show Barack Obama winning white men by around 2-1 in Oregon. Of course the Oregon polls are open until 11 pm EST. But how did he do with white women? This is rather interesting. Tweety did not tell us. Why? I am curious because SUSA projected all men going for Obama around 2-1 but women splitting evenly. Based on that, SUSA predicted an Obama 13 point win in Oregon. The question now is how did women go? And the 6% of the voters who are Asians and Latino? How did they vote? It becomes rather interesting.

By Big Tent Democrat

So says CNN, NBC, Fox etc.

Exit polls project a 30 point win for Clinton.

White voters (89% of the vote) went for Clinton 72-22. African Americans (9% of the vote) went for Obama 88-7.

My back of the envelope math tells me it will be closer to 40 than 30.

Clinton wins ALL women (57% of the vote) 67-27. Clinton wins ALL men (43% of the vote) 62-32.

BTW, Chris Matthews just lied on NBC. Clinton won college graduates in Kentucky by 60-34. Matthews lied and said Obama won them. NBC is not a news organization. More - Clinton won EVERY AGE GROUP. She won 17-29 by 55-39. She won 60 and oklder by 76-18.

It seems clear Clinton will win a huge victory in Kentucky.

Results here. On TV, they have it 149-17 for Clinton. That's 86-10. I expect Obama to close the gap from there.

Wolfson on CNN. Talking Michigan and Florida.

The Ky Sec. of State is ahead of the AP on the results. KY Sec of State has it Clinton 74k to Obama's 65k. Now 78k-66k Clinton. 8.2% lead. Most of Louisville is in. Now 82k-68k, Clinton by 9. again, most of Louisville is in.

John Edwards getting 1.5% of the vote.

First step, blame them for not voting for you. Here is a prime example of why Democrats lose white working class voters, this headline -- Appalachia's Last Chance to Show It Doesn't Have an Obama Problem.

Yes, tell voters they have a problem when they do not vote for you. Heck of a general election plan. When candidates and/or their supporters are blaming the voters, you know you have a problem.

Comments now closed.

The New York Times has an article on Hillary's outreach to blogs concentrating on her theory that it's the map not the math.

The “map/math” phrase quickly found its way to various blogs, including Talkleft and Riverdaughter. Some, like Jerome Armstrong on MyDD examined the “map/math” argument in detail.

Mrs. Clinton started her campaign as the candidate of the establishment. It may be a measure of how far she has come -- or fallen, in the eyes of her critics -- that she is now using the megaphone of insurgents.

Insurgents? I'm flattered, but I hardly think advocating for a mainstream candidate of one of the country's two major political parties qualifies as "insurgency."

On a lighter note, when checking the archives to see when I started focusing on Hillary as a presidential candidate, I found this post from October, 2006 speculating on a Hillary-Obama ticket. Seems I thought of Obama as the insurgent back then. More...

Polls close at 6pm ET in most of Kentucky and 8pm PT in almost all of Oregon.

There are 200 superdelegates who have not yet declared. Superdelegates can change their mind up until the convention. In addition to pledged delegate counts, they can consider electability in November, the electoral map, the popular vote and anything else they deem significant in arriving at their decision.

But, since the media is so focused on delegate math, here are the numbers from an article in today's Washington Post.

• Kentucky has 51 pledged delegates, Oregon has 52.
• 200 Superdelegates have yet to choose a candidate.
• Both are closed primaries open only to Democrats.
• The remaining primaries are: Puerto Rico on June 1 with 55 pledged delegates and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Montana has 16 pledged delegates and S.D. has 15.
• Hillary's campaign says the number of pledged delegates necessary to win the nomination is 2210, including Florida and Michigan. Obama's campaign says it's 2025 because FL and MI don't count.

More....

I was watching MSNBC, and Chris Matthews was giving Senator Ted Kennedy his due as one of the greatest Senators in the history of the Senate. And then he mentioned that Senator Kennedy was hoping to see in Barack Obama what he had seen from his brother Robert F. Kennedy - the ability to bring the white working class together with African Americans, Latinos, the old and the young. Whether Obama can do do that, and we all hope he can, it brought to mind for me the late great muckraking journalist Jack Newfield, who thought the world of Bobby Kennedy. Jack considered Bobby Kennedy the last candidate of his lifetime to be able to bring the natural coalitions for Democrats and progressives together. Jack probably would have seen the same promise in Obama. Again, whether that will be proven right or not, remains to be seen.

But in 2002, two years before he died, Jack Newfield wrote one of the great articles ever written about Ted Kennedy, the Senator. And I would like to share some of that with you on the flip.

President Bush says the United States does not engage in torture. A new report by the DOJ Inspector General today does not agree. The full report is here.

Some of the techniques used violated Defense Department policy at the time.

F.B.I. agents complained repeatedly, beginning in 2002, about the harsh interrogation tactics that military and C.I.A. interrogators were using in questioning terrorism suspects, like making them do dog tricks and parade in the nude in front of female soldiers, but their complaints appear to have had little effect, according to an exhaustive report released Tuesday by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The report for the most part praises the FBI.

“In sum, while our report concluded that the F.B.I. could have provided clearer guidance earlier, and while the F.B.I. and DoJ could have pressed harder for resolution of F.B.I. concerns about detainee treatment, we believe the F.B.I. should be credited for its conduct and professionalism in detainee interrogations in the military zones in Afghanistan,” in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay, the report said. DoJ refers to the Justice Department, the bureau’s parent agency.

The ACLU sees it differently: [more...]

Mohammed al-Qahtani, the Guantanamo detainee the Pentagon alleges was to be the "20th hijacker" attempted suicide in April, according to his lawyer, who was not allowed to reveal it until today due to the need for the Pentagon to clear her notes.

Mohammed al-Qahtani cut himself at least three times and had to be hospitalized at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez said. Al-Qahtani made the suicide attempt after learning military prosecutors filed capital charges against him and five other Guantanamo prisoners for their alleged roles in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"I cannot accept this injustice," the lawyer quoted him as saying. "If I have to stay in this jail, I want to put an end to this suffering."

The Center for Constitutional Rights represents al-Qahtani and has much more information on his case and newly disclosed documents. Their press release today is here.

The torture techniques approved against al-Qahtani are below the fold:

This is bad news:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor. Doctors for the Massachusetts Democrat say tests conducted after Kennedy suffered a seizure this weekend show a tumor in his left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.

His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy. His doctors said in a statement released to The Associated Press that he has had no further seizures, is in good spirits and is resting comfortably.

Malignant gliomas are a type of brain cancer diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year -- and the most common type among adults. It's a starting diagnosis: How well patients fare depends on what specific tumor type is determined by further testing.

Our thoughts are with the Liberal Lion of the Senate.

I am no Roger Simon fan. In fact, I am a Roger Simon critic. But I think this article was excellent. And as someone who has to eat crow on absolutely underestimating David Axelrod, it also made me feel good about the Obama campaign team and their skills. Here is a snippet:

“After we lost the New Hampshire primary,” Axelrod says, “the next day, on about three hours of sleep, [Obama] said, ‘I think what happened yesterday was right. When you are the new guy, it is not supposed to be easy. It was like Icarus flying too close to the sun. We have to earn this. But it persuaded me this is the right battle.’”

Good on Obama. Good on Axelrod. And good on Simon for this very good article.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

After her anticipated win in Kentucky tonight, despite the turning of some superdelegates in recent weeks and the media proclaiming her candidacy doomed, Hillary Clinton will have won four of the last six primaries. Her supporters are not accepting that the nomination has been decided and she insists she's going forward.

Whether she succeeds or not, it's clear her supporters are particularly upset about the sexist coverage of the campaign.

In Kentucky Sunday, Hillary Clinton was asked about sexism and racism in this year's presidential campaigns:

In an interview after church services in Bowling Green on Sunday, Clinton for the first time addressed what women have been talking about for months, what she refers to as the "sexist" treatment she has endured at the hands of the pundits, media and others. The lewd T-shirts. The man who shouted "Iron my shirt" at a campaign event. The references to her cleavage and her cackle.

[More...]