I just got an email extremely upset about the Amy Poehler sketch on Saturday Night Live tonight. It's not on here for another half hour. Anyone see it?

If SNL isn't on yet in your neck of the woods, here's Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson's ad for Hillary that is airing in Oregon.

Comments now closed.

In arguing that Barack Obama is a shoo-in in November, Frank Rich makes a strange case:

[T]his isn’t 2004, and the fixation on that one demographic in the Clinton-Obama contest has obscured the big picture. The rise in black voters and young voters of all races in Democratic primaries is re-weighting the electorate. Look, for instance, at Ohio, the crucial swing state that Mr. Kerry lost by 119,000 votes four years ago. . . . Voters under 30 (up by some 245,000 voters) accounted for 16 percent, up from 9 in 2004. Those younger Ohio voters even showed up in larger numbers than the perennially reliable over-65 crowd.

If Rich had dug a little deeper into the exit poll numbers, he might have realized that Hillary Clinton split white voters 18-29 with Obama in Ohio. He might have learned that Clinton swamped Obama among white voters in every other age group. He might have learned that in Pennsylvania, Clinton won white voters 18-29 by 52-48. He might have learned that in Florida, Clinton won non-blacks 18-29 by 47-36. And so on. [More...]

I recall supporters of Barack Obama claiming profusely at one time that the pledged delegate vote is the will of the people and the superdelegates should accede to it. Will they complain about this?

Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nick Rahall, two of West Virginia's superdelegates backing Barack Obama, say they're sticking with him despite polls showing Hillary Clinton a heavy favorite in the state.

"I view my role as a superdelegate as one that takes the long-range view of what is in the best interest of our party and our country," Rahall said Thursday.

Rockefeller said he's sticking with his conscience.

No, I didn't think so. Any more than they complained that Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry were going against the will of the voters in their state.

Passions are so high between Hillary and Obama supporters. Let's tone it down a notch -- here's a segment of the April 30 episode of Boston Legal where the firm sued the DNC over pledged delegates. It should bring a little laughter and also have everyone asking themselves, "Am I really that bad?" The answer, of course, is yes. We all are.

And a question: Have any of you stopped talking to certain friends, family members or colleagues because you just cannot discuss the race civilly any more? I suspect it's become a fairly common phenonemon, but let us know.

And yes, this is an open thread.

After all the 50 state strategy talk from Obama supporters, Hillary Clinton is calling out Obama for slighting Kentucky:

Many speakers [at a KY event] noted the absence of Barack Obama. Terry McBrayer, a former state party chair and superdelegate, drew some boos from Obama supporters on hand when he said he contacted a local milk company to put Obama’s picture on a milk carton.

Clinton herself noted she was the only candidate to come, saying it was important "because Kentucky always picks the president." She later said, as she did in West Virginia earlier this week, that Democrats "for too long" have let states like this one "slip out of the Democratic column."

"Too many people felt our party didn’t speak to their values and concerns," she said. "Well I believe if you don’t stand for hard-working middle-class Americans you don’t stand for much. And it’s now up to the Democratic Party and our eventual nominee to make that case."

I am sure Robinson, Herbert and Company are outraged.

By Big Tent Democrat

Yesterday I wrote about Rep. Steve Cohen's offensive remarks regarding Senator Hillary Clinton. Today I received an e-mail from the Congressman indicating that he has apologized for the remarks.

Representative Cohen has been a strong progressive voice in Tennessee and it is good that he realizes his remarks were hurtful and wrong. Kudos to the Representative for his realization and acknowledgment that the remarks were inappropriate and hurtful. His e-mail to me:

I sincerely apologize for the comments I made about Senator Clinton's campaign. I have great respect for Senator Clinton as a US Senator. She has waged an historic campaign which has done much to break the glass ceiling. My comments obviously do not reflect the sentiments of Senator Obama or the Obama campaign. Nor do they reflect my opinion of Senator Clinton whom I have known for years and admire. My hope is that our party will come together to work to defeat John McCain.

Comments closed

Congratulations to Jenna Bush and Henry Hager for their nuptials today. May they find happiness together.

This is an Open Thread.

The New York Times (tomorrow's paper, available now) has a 7 page profile on how Barack Obama forged coalitions in Illinois:

The secret of his transformation — which has brought him to the brink of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination — can be described as the politics of maximum unity: He moved from his leftist Hyde Park base to more centrist circles; he forged early alliances with the good-government reform crowd only to be later embraced by the city’s all-powerful Democratic bosses; he railed against pork-barrel politics but engaged in it when needed; and he empathized with the views of his Palestinian friends before adroitly courting the city’s politically potent Jewish community.

To broaden his appeal to African-Americans, Mr. Obama had to assiduously court older black leaders entrenched in Chicago’s ward politics before selling himself as a young, multicultural bridge to the wider political world.

I have no use for the kind of unity that trumps taking a position on issues based on one's beliefs in favor of a taking a position based on who it will appeal to and then not sticking to it.

This is why it's so hard to figure out where Obama really stands on issues, from crime issues (here and here) to gun rights. He changes, depending on his audience and which voters he needs to appease or win over at the time. As I often write, where's Obama? Here, there and everywhere.

More from the Times:

Plutonium Page reports on this:

A $2 million program funded with little debate by the Legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.

. . . Legislative leaders said they are frustrated that researchers skeptical of the doomsday scenario get marginalized as crackpots or industry shills by the media and scientific agencies. "We want to have the money to hire scientists to answer the Interior (Department) scientists," House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, said last week.

(Emphasis supplied.) So the way to avoid having people labelled shills is to buy the research you want? Not only is this outrageous use of government funds, it is monumentally stupid. Who is going to believe any findings from scientists funded like this?

BTD referenced MyDD's post by Jerome on West Virginia earlier. I have more to say about it. I want to highlight his lead-in:

I'd humbly suggest, to all the Obama supporters that join us here on this blog, that if you can't stand the heat of the West Virginia primary, you stay out of the kitchen. While I'm at it, I also suggest that you refrain from accusations against West Virginians as being racist, or you'll join the other 6 previous users here, whose offensive comments were deleted on Friday, and that were themselves banned from the site. ...You don't like that? Fine, its a big wide blogosphere, go find a blog that has its head in the sand. Are the ground rules understood?

CNN just flashed a poll showing Hillary ahead with 66% of the vote. It said a big W. VA win will show that "a lot of Democrats aren't ready to get on Obama's bandwagon."

CNN says W.Va. used to be solidly Democratic until 2000 when George Bush took it. Social issues are big there. Guns are even bigger. The LA Times also says W. Va could spell trouble for Obama in November.[More...]

First it was Ted Kennedy. Now we hear it is Michelle Obama:

Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama. The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.

If this type of petty nonsense is holding sway in the Obama camp, Obama will lose in November. It is one thing to hear this ridiculous nonsense from absurd and unimportant bloggers. It is another thing to hear it from the Obama camp. I hope someone with more maturity reins in this juvenile, divisive and destructive behavior from the Obama camp. I am heartily disgusted. They seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

By Big Tent Democrat

Comments closed

In a distant blogging past, a lot of us, people like Tom Schaller and me, argued that in the short term, the South was not favorable terrain for expanding the electoral map for Democrats. That the favorable terrain lay in Lincoln's 1860 map - the North and the West.

I believe in a long term 50 state strategy but it is foolish to think it can make sense in this Presidential election. We are basically stuck with the Gore and Kerry maps and need to look how we hold those states and where we can add the necessary electoral votes to win the Presidency. I have outlined Obama's problems with that map and the risk we run in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But Obama can change the map in the West. In Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Montana. And this data from Oregon gives us some indication - Obama leads McCain by 14: