By Big Tent Democrat

On MTP:

[Clinton Supporter] GOV. RENDELL: . . . [L]et's revote in Michigan and Florida. Let's end all the suspense. If our campaign is wrong and we are not going to be the strongest in those states, let the voters choose it. . . . Let's revote, and let's see how we do.

MR. RUSSERT: So you would be open to primaries in Michigan and Florida?

[Obama Supporter] FMR. SEN. DASCHLE: Oh, of course. Absolutely. We would be.

Clinton surrogate demanding revotes, Obama supporter ACCEPTING revotes. It seems clear what the positions of the campaigns are. More . .

23/6 is Huffington Post's satire site. I think they crossed the line here. Take a look at their blatant sexist slams of Hillary campaign official Maggie Williams, Hillary and even Michelle Obama.

• Maggie Willliams

• Hillary and Michelle Obama

Truly awful.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

There are some who hold the view that Barack Obama will welcome revote primaries in Florida and Michigan. I think that view defies common sense. I'll explain why on the flip.

The New York Times has an editorial today on the report released by the Pew Center last week and its statistics showing that 1 in every 100 Americans are in jail or prison.

The Times advocates the passage of the Second Chance Act (S. 1060: Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007). The bill would expand services to offenders and their families for reentry into society. In addition, it would:

Direct the Attorney General to award grants for: (1) state and local reentry courts; (2) Comprehensive and Continuous Offender Reentry Task Forces; (3) pharmacological drug treatment services to incarcerated offenders; (4) technology career training for offenders; and (5) mentoring services for reintegrating offenders into the community.

.... [and] Require the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to establish: (1) a prisoner reentry program; and (2) a pilot program for the release of elderly nonviolent offenders (age 60 or older).

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have signed as co-sponsors. The bill passed on the House side by a vote 347-62. So who's holding it up in the Senate?

It was Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) who, concerned about the cost, said he needed more time to study it. The bill is now sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Let's get it passed.

The New York Times examines why the feds have been so unsuccessful in getting death penalty convictions in New York State.

In the 20 years since the federal death penalty statute was revived, no federal juries have been more reluctant to sentence federal defendants to death than those in New York.

The Justice Department's losing record in New York: 19 to 1, since 1988. Nationally, the feds win about 1/3 of their capital cases.

One reason is the reluctance of jurors to impose it. Another is the quality of the New York capital defenders. A third is the sometimes unsympathetic victims.

But there's more. The Judges are weighing in, on everything from the exorbitant expense to the arbitrariness and disparity in the system. More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

A lot of outrage in the blogs about this Hillary Clinton statement:

Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to. This is a very carefully constructed process that goes back years, and we're going to follow the process.

(Emphasis supplied.) What Clinton said happens to be true. But it is wrong of her to bring it up, imo. But the rules are the rules and Clinton is playing by them. I have never been a fan of the "rules are rules" argument, particularly since those invoking it are so selective about "the rules." See the blogs on superdelegates for instance.

Here is my rule - the will of the people. Expressed in the popular vote. That is my rule of who should be the nominee.

By Big Tent Democrat

. . . Al Sharpton threatening lawsuits if the Florida delegates are seated:

Laying the groundwork for a court battle that could divide the Democratic Party, the Reverend Al Sharpton is threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it counts Florida's primary results in the official presidential delegates tally.

Rev. Sharpton is traveling to Florida today to compile lists of residents who skipped the January contest because they thought their votes would not count. He plans to have those residents sign affidavits saying they would be disenfranchised by the seating of the Florida delegation, in the event the Democratic Party allowed that to happen.

Unless Sharpton, who I like a lot, is doing this is as a devious plan to force Obama to accept a ReDo Primary in Florida, I can not imagine what he is thinking, other than making sure Al Sharpton is being covered in the Media. Oh wait . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Backers of both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned out with passionate support for their candidate in last week's Texas primary. But once they got in the voting booth, they did something different. Obama supporters were more likely to vote in the presidential race and then skip the other contests than Clinton supporters, who tended to continue voting down the ballot, a Dallas Morning News analysis finds.

. . . [T]he numbers suggest that many Obama voters were drawn singularly to him and might not return in the fall if he's not the nominee – blunting the flood of new voters who Democrats hope will help revive the party in Texas and sweep it into the White House.

(Emphasis supplied.) There is a reason for this. Obama's campaign is not affirmatively pro-Democratic or even anti-Republican. They say that one of the key things a politician can do is ask for the voters' votes. In that sense, Obama never seems to ask (the exception being to ask for a vote for Bill Foster in the IL-14 race) the voters to vote for Democrats. This could be the upshot of Barack Obama's post-partisan Unity Schtick. We'll see.

By Big Tent Democrat

The excuses for Barack Obama to object to ReDo primaries in Florida and Michigan are becoming harder and harder to come by. Joining James Carville, Governors Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Jon Corzine of New Jersey have offered to raise $15 million for revotes in Florida and Michigan:

Two of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s biggest supporters, who are also two of the Democratic Party’s most successful fund-raisers, have offered to help raise millions of dollars to stage new primaries in Florida and Michigan. Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Sunday that they would be willing to raise half the $30 million it would take to run new contests in those two states. Mr. Corzine and Mr. Rendell submitted their proposal to The Washington Post.

So money is clearly NOT an issue here. There is no reason now not to do this. Oh by the way, there is no reason NOT to do them via primaries, full blown ones. With absentee balloting, early voting, all the works. Let's count the votes. The Will of the People and all that.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for Me Only

One of the ironic aspects of the the wild success of the Obama campaign thus far is that it is succeeding in some ways in spite of itself. If you have read me, you will remember one of the aspects of Obama's political style I found most objectionable was his "appeal" to "values voters" by trashing Democrats on "faith." This was one of the reasons I found Chris Bowers' Reagan Dems post so absurd. But the very astute Paul Rosenberg has turned Bowers' lemon of a post into lemonade in this excellent post highlighting Obama's very real map changing successes. Paul writes:

As I wrote below, no candidate was required to withdraw from the Michigan or Florida primaries as part of the Four State Pledge (pdf).

John Edwards and Barack Obama were on the ballot in Florida, but withdrew from the Michigan race. Why?

Bill Schneider at CNN had a very plausible explanation:

CNN's Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider suggested the Democrats who withdrew may have calculated that it was simply in their best political interest to do so.

"If there's no campaign, the candidate most likely to win Michigan is Hillary Clinton," Schneider said. "Her Democratic rivals don't want a Clinton victory in Michigan to count. They want Iowa and New Hampshire, where they have a better chance of stopping Clinton, to count more."

More...

Judging from the comments the Obama supporters are leaving on TalkLeft, it appears there's a fundamental misunderstanding on what the candidates promised and didn't promise regarding the outcomes of the Florida and Michigan primaries.

Here's the four state pledge (pdf).

It says nothing about which delegates will count or not count in Florida and Michigan. It says nothing about whether a state's primary will count or not.

The candidates merely pledged not to campaign in any states holding a primary or caucus before Super Tuesday, other than Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The text of the pledge is reprinted below: