The Register Guard today reports the Democratic primary in Oregon could be a close race.

Oregon’s demographics may portend a close race, said Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts. “We have strong liberal pockets like Portland and Eugene, more moderate Democrats in the suburbs, and some blue-collar and working-class Democrats who are amenable to Clinton’s campaign,” he said. “You throw it all together and it’s a fairly competitive race.”

Oregon gets 65 delegates to the DNC, 52 pledged, 12 superdelegates and 1 add-on. It has 7 electoral college votes. Barack Obama made three campaign stops in Oregon this week.

Obama, of course, dropped in on Eugene, Salem and Portland on Friday, as well as Medford on Saturday, and many assume both he and Clinton will visit again before early May, when Oregon voters will start receiving their ballots in the mail.

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By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Lambert at Corrente finds more Obama supporter disrespect for the voters:

[C]onsider the situation in Pennsylvania. All indications are that a clear majority of Pennsylvania Democrats would prefer for Hillary Clinton to be the nominee than for Barack Obama to be the nominee. . . . I think if voters better-understood the situation, they'd be much more inclined to vote for their second-favorite Democrat . . . But people won't understand the dynamic unless it's explained to them by credible party leaders.

(Emphasis supplied.) "Stupid" voters actually voting for their preferred candidate, how dare they?

NOTE - Comments closed.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

I have BREAKING NEWS for Keith Olbermann and the Obama blogs:

The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.

Bwahahahahaha!! What will Punchline KO Olbermann say? What will Howard Fineman say? How about David Shuster? Oh nothing of course. You think Obama still wants a Congressional investigation? Oh by the way, has anyone asked Obama about this:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides some details about who will serve on the DNC Credentials Committee and decide what to do about Florida and Michigan.

There will be 186 members. Howard Dean gets to choose 35 and he has already done so. The AJC says they are people who have their primary allegiance to Dean, rather than Clinton or Obama.

The states choose the remaining members, with their allotments determined by population.

The three co-chairs have old ties to Bill Clinton.

In addition to those appointees, Dean has named three co-chairmen for the committee, all with ties to the Clintons. Alexis Herman was Bill Clinton's secretary of labor. James Roosevelt Jr. was an associate commissioner at the Social Security Administration when Hillary Clinton was first lady. Eliseo Roques-Arroyo was a consultant for Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2000.

Barack Obama has begun an ad blitz in Pennsylvania, trying to overcome Hillary Clinton's substantial poll lead in the state.

With 31 days until the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, Sen. Barack Obama yesterday began airing the first pre-primary ads on Philadelphia TV stations. According to public records, the campaign spent about $330,000 on 30- and 60-second spots that will run on six area stations through Monday, the state deadline for voter registration.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, with a double-digit lead in state polls, has yet to hit local airwaves in the run-up to the April 22 primary. A total of 158 Democratic delegates are in play.

Obama has more money to spend than Hillary. Her campaign says his ads are misrepresenting the facts.

"It’s unfortunate that Barack Obama continues to talk about his leadership on ethics but doesn’t have much action to back it up. Senator Obama’s campaign still refuses to honor requests to disclose his tax and state records, and answer questions on inconsistencies with Tony Rezko. It’s a continuing pattern of words with no action.

"Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has literally criss-crossed the state talking with the people of Pennsylvania about the issues that matter to them and what they're concerned about is results, not rhetoric. They're not interested in which candidate spends the most money. They want to know which candidate is best prepared to beat John McCain in November, create good, new jobs and provide everyone with healthcare. That candidate is Hillary Clinton."

Obama is also ratcheting up his effort to register Republicans and Independents as Democrats to vote in the primary. Of course, he's not calling it "Be a Dem for a Day" -- he calls it an effort to "expand the party." He has volunteers going house to house.

Voting registration for the Dem. primary in PA ends Monday.

I mentioned yesterday that Sara Jane Olson, aka Kathleen Soliah, the former SLA member (think Patty Hearst) was paroled from prison after serving a six year sentence.

Turns out, the California Department of Corrections says they made an error calculating her release date and she still has a year to go on her sentence. They re-arrested her at LAX last night and she's back in custody.

That just sucks. Sorry, there's no other word for it. Check out these older posts I wrote on Sara Jane's life in prison, on how her prison term got extended and how the extension was later thrown out. Here's more on her guilty plea to the second degree murder charge.

Her lawyers intend to take the matter to court, saying she doesn't deserve to be treated like a yo-yo. I totally agree.

Bump from 3/19 and Update: Roger Stone did drop a dime on Spitzer after all.

Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in Florida.

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club.'' It offered one potentially identifying detail: The man in question hadn't taken off his calf-length black socks ``during the sex act.''

Stone is the Republican operative credited with shutting down the Florida recount effort.

In related news, it turns out Spitzer used his own money to pay his call girls.

Original Post (3/19):

Spitzer Political Foe Predicted His Demise Months Three Months Ago

I don't like conspiracy theories, but this is bothersome. According to Raw Story, Robert Novak recently reported:

Republican political operative Roger Stone, Eliot Spitzer's longtime antagonist, predicted the New York governor's political demise more than three months in advance.

"Eliot Spitzer will not serve out his term as governor of the state of New York," Stone said Dec. 6 on Michael Smerconish's radio talk show on Philadelphia's 1210 WPHT. He gave no details.

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Catherine Crier, writing on Huffpo, lambasts the media coverage of the election. Whichever candidate you support, she's right. The pundits are little more than shills for their candidate and the anchors display excessive bias.

I think viewers should revolt as well as journalists. But, what to watch? Despite the end of the writers' strike, my favorite shows have not had new episodes in weeks. There's really nothing on.

A good friend (and ardent Obama supporter)waxed eloquently yesterday about HBO's In Treatment. I'd never even heard of it. Gabriel Byrne is the "star" and it's on for a half hour Monday through Friday nights. With On Demand to replay the episodes to date, it may be a way to avoid the cable news until Pennsylvania.

Any other ideas out there?

CBS has released a new poll on how Barack Obama's recent speech on Jeremiah Wright and race affected voters' views of him. Full poll results are here (pdf.)

69% said the speech favorably addressed race relations, 71% said it adequately expressed his relationship with Rev. Wright and 63% agreed with him. But,

When registered voters were asked if Obama would unite the country, however, 52 percent said yes - down from 67 percent last month.

Maybe he needs to stick to change and give up the unity theme. Someone should tell Bill Richardson, who seems to be a day late and a dollar short on unity as being a major reason for his endorsement.

His favorability rating: 43%. As to who was polled,

For this poll, CBS News re-interviewed voters who were first surveyed between March 15th and 18th, 2008, in the midst of the Wright controversy and mostly before Obama’s speech on race. The goal was to gauge their reactions to Tuesday’s speech and the continuing controversy over Wright’s comments. The poll was conducted on the night of March 20th.

In what is believed to be the first such ruling in the country, the Colorado Court of Appeals has held that no smoking laws apply to actors on stage.

A Colorado appeals court ruled on Thursday that smoking by an actor on stage, while possibly important to character and theatrical message, is still banned by the state’s two-year-old indoor smoking law.

“The smoking ban was not intended to prevent actors from expressing emotion, setting a mood, illustrating a character trait, emphasizing a plot twist or making a political statement,” a three-member panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals said in its unanimous ruling, upholding a lower court’s verdict.

But, the court added, “smoking, by itself, is not sufficiently expressive to qualify for First Amendment protection.”

My reaction below:

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

I think most readers of Talk Left know that it is my opinion that because Florida and Michigan will not have a revote, Hillary Clinton's chances to win the nomination are slim at best. The key point here is it is my opinion, not a fact. And it does not become a fact because 3 other bloggers, Politico and NBC have the same opinion. You know what it is? Conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is usually right. Sometimes it is not. It is not a fact. It is an opinion. Yesterday I wrote:

Leonard Cohen ( I actually prefer Don Henley's version but I couldn't find a video for it.)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes

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