By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via corrente, Gene Lyons on MI/FL:

As recently as 2000, Democrats were outraged that, due to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush vs. Gore, not all of Florida’s presidential votes counted. In 2008, advanced thinkers supporting Sen. Barack Obama have persuaded themselves that fairness dictates that none of them should count. Nor Michigan’s, either. Better that the voters of two critical swing states comprising close to 10 percent of the electorate be disenfranchised than that Obama’s inevitable nomination be delayed. Nobody’s expected to notice the main reason that Team Obama faulted every suggested revote plan: He wouldn’t stand the proverbial snowball’s chance of winning either state’s primary. Rather than face that unpleasant truth, his supporters proposed various compromises with one common denominator: that Obama be awarded delegates he hasn’t won. That this strikes them as reasonable reflects the deep unreality into which roughly half the Democratic party has fallen. Once again, with feeling: The votes belong to the voter, not the candidates.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

I have written many times of Speaker Pelosi's utterly irresponsible behavior during this Democratic presidential nomination campaign. She claims to be neutral when everyone knows she is for Obama. She claims to have to maintain neutrality because she is co-chairman of the Democratic National Convention. But she has repeatedly made statements betraying that neutrality, including saying a unity ticket is impossible and that the super delegates should overturn the popular vote in favor of the pledged delegate count. She argued against revotes in Florida and Michigan.

Her behavior has predictably led to outrage from Clinton supporters. It has also helped lead to the view that a nominee with a popular vote advantage could be an illegitimate nominee. Pelosi has tried to walk back her statements in her response to the disgruntled Clinton supporters:

I'm on Hillary Clinton's media conference call right now. The theme was her new economic stimulus plan vs. the one Barack Obama announced today.

Shorter version: Obama's a copycat. One week ago, Hillary proposed a $30 billion second stimulus plan. Today he introduced a $30 billion second stimulus plan. If he can't come up with his own proposals on the campaign trail, how will he do it as president?

Her plans are specific proposals, his are a statement of principles. (More here.)

They accused Obama's campaign of negative personal and character attacks on Hillary Clinton and of savaging her in personal terms on his daily campaign calls.

Polls show Obama isn't connecting with voters on the economy so he's now offering ideas, but they are ideas she proposed a week ago. That's not leadership, that's followership.

Reporter question about the Anti-Italian slur by Wright in Trumpet Magazine: They don't know anything about it. A reporter describes it. "Comments like that have no place in the public discourse."

More...

A two year investigation has resulted in the indictment of Puerto Rico Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila on on 19 counts "including conspiracy to violate U.S. federal campaign laws and giving false testimony to the FBI."

Acevedo dismissed the indictment as nothing but politics and "a spectacle designed to damage me." ....The 55-page indictment alleges that Acevedo also personally helped a group of Philadelphia-area businessmen in their efforts to obtain Puerto Rican government contracts after they delivered illegal campaign contributions from their own staff and family members.

Acevedo is a superdelegate for Barack Obama. Big Tent Democrat has some thoughts on how Puerto Rico's voters will vote in their June 1 primary here.

REM, Losing My Religion

No explanaton needed, This is an open thread, enjoy.

Hillary Clinton gave Greta Van Susteren an extended interview tonight. She was very insistent that this race is going to be continuing for a long time. She said voters want it to go on, as indicated by the poll today saying 22% want each to drop out and the rest want the race to continue.

She said it's a very close race and we have ten states who haven't voted yet. As to Florida and Michigan, she said they will be seated at the convention in Denver -- the credentials committee will do it. Otherwise, the Dems will face trouble in November.

My question is, will they be seated and allowed to vote? Or will they be excluded from voting and then seated and merely allowed to participate in other party business?

Seating isn't enough. Their votes have to count. If you agree, go on over to Seat the Delegates and sign the petition.

The new NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) out today has Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 45%. The margin of error is 3.7%. The poll was of all registered voters, not just Democrats. Both Hillary and Obama's unfavorability ratings increased somewhat from two weeks ago. Combining the "somehat "and "very negative" categories, Obama was at 28% unfavorable two weeks ago and is at 32% now. Hillary was at 43% and is now at 48%.

Given that these numbers include Republicans, I'm not surprised. What did surprise me is that the poll says it oversampled African Americans.

In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup.

I don't get it. Does anyone have an explanation or think the results are more reliable or less because of the oversampling?

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake filed a fundraising complaint against John McCain yesterday with the FEC.

Yesterday, on behalf of a large number of progressive bloggers and activists, Jane went to the FEC and filed an official complaint against John McCain's alleged campaign finance violations. We've been asking a lot of questions about this, and the answers have been less than forthcoming. So, instead of just sitting here and stewing about yet another GOP ethical problem, we decided to put our action where our concerns were.

....As Markos of DailyKos pointed out in joining the complaint, “John McCain has officially blown past campaign spending limits mandated by his original acceptance of public campaign funding. While he has signaled his intent to withdraw from such financing, that has been hindered by the fact that he used the promise of public funding to secure a campaign loan.” Guess the campaign finance laws only apply when they aren't inconvenient for McCain's ambitions.

McCain will be fundraising in Denver tomorrow. [More...]

Bumped BTD

I'll be at the dentist most of the day and I'm tired of moderating race-baiting comments. Here's an open thread with a caveat....no Rev. Wright, no race talk. Those comments will be deleted when I get back.

In other news:

• Terry Kindlon has an op-ed in the Albany Times Union, Bush's view of war an insult to all

• Ann Althouse writes about Obama pitches to Texas delegates, including those like her son who are Hillary delegates, encouraging them to vote for Obama at the county convention.

• Via Instapundit, Quick as a Link, You're in the Clink

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Daily Kos, the latest negative attack from the Obama campaign:

Senator Clinton’s claims about her visit to Tuzla, Bosnia—and the footage disproving her account—have created quite a stir. And with good reason. . . . Unfortunately, Clinton’s fantastic invention of a sniper-raked landing is only one in a growing list of instances in which she has exaggerated her role as First Lady, particularly with respect to domestic policy.

Any words of reproach for these negative attacks from Obama supporting blogs? Of course not. I hope that we can at least hear no more about how negative Clinton has become from these same sources. If you are pleased with negative attacks by Obama, you can hardly condemn them from Clinton. Me, I condemn them from both sides.

Hilarious postscript on the flip.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Remember when Obama famously declared that he could get Clinton's voters but she could not get his? Time to rethink that proposition. The Gallup Poll has Obama losing 28% of Clinton supporters against McCain (19% of Obama supporters defect to McCain if Clinton is the nominee.)

Too many in the Obama campaign, Obama supporters and Obama supporting blogs believe that their demonization of Hillary Clinton has had no ill effects on Barack Obama's image among the half of the Democratic Party that supports Hillary Clinton. They are wrong. At this point, without the active and sincere support by Hillary Clinton of his potential Presidential run against John McCain, Obama has no chance in November. And vice versa of course.

We Democrats will need unity in November. I believe a Unity Ticket is the only way to achieve this.

Update (TL): Comments now closed.

Twenty-two percent (22%) of Democratic voters nationwide say that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that an identical number—22%--say that Barack Obama should drop out.

A solid majority of Democrats, 62%, aren’t ready for either candidate to leave the race.

Time to let this issue go until Pennsylvania at least.