By Big Tent Democrat

(Speaking for Me Only)

Ras has them. In MI:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Hillary Clinton would attract 41% of the Primary Vote while Barack Obama would earn an identical 41%.

In FL:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that Clinton attracts 55% of the Sunshine State Primary Vote while Obama earns 39%.

Come on Barack, let's do the revotes. Clinton and Obama should fund them. Now Obama has nothing to fear from this. Let them vote. Full primaries. Let them vote.

By Big Tent Democrat

On a conference call today, a reporter for the St. Pete Times asked Howard Wolfson, why not just split the Florida delegates 50/50? Wolfson is a professional and did not ask how stupid that reporter is. The last thing the Clinton campaign wants is to have this story go away and Wolfson leveraged that silly question to hit his talking points for the Clinton campaign, it is a close race, 1.7MM Florida voters, Obama can not win the big states - you know the drill by now.

I predicted that Michigan and Florida would come to the forefront. The day of the Texas and Ohio contests, I wrote:

A British writer makes the case for legalizing cocaine.

Anyone disagree? The war on drugs has been an abysmal failure.

Excellent news. Puerto Rico has decided against caucuses and in favor of a primary and moved the date up to June 1.

[Puerto Rico will] change the voting process from 8 caucuses to a primary with voting places in all 1,800+ barrios in Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities. This is done in light of the hundreds of thousands of Democrats expected to turn out on June 1, a late date in which we would have originally expected a pro-forma vote with low turnout.

Puerto Rico has 55 pledged delegates. The DNC has approved the move up to June 1. The last states will now be Montana and South Dakota, which vote on June 3.

Update [2008-3-7 10:15:21 by Big Tent Democrat]: I want to make one point about Puerto Rico that I think some folks are missing when predicting what will happen there. First it is not a winner take all contest. Nonetheless, I believe Hillary Clinton will run up big margins in Puerot Rico. As much as any jurisdiction in this contest, Puerto Rico has political machines for churning out the votes. There are no "new voters" for Obama to turn on. The political bosses turn out the vote. They are mostly with Clinton, especially the ones with the most powerful vote getting machines. The Governor of Puerto Rico, is not going to go all out for Obama and his machine is frankly, not as strong as others for THESE purposes. Puerto Rico will go Clinton 2-1 imo.

As a follow-up to my earlier post about Samantha Power and surrogates gone wild, Drudge reports Barack Obama has renounced and rejected his senior foreign policy advisor's remark to a Scottish newspaper that Hillary Clinton is a monster.

According to Drudge (the only place right now this is appearing):

Statement from Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton: Senator Obama decries such characterizations which have no place in this campaign...

ABC News reminds us:

In December, Obama said he had "been very clear to my campaign. I do not want to see research that is involved in trying to tear people down personally. If I find out that somebody is doing that, they will be fired. And I have been absolutely crystal clear about this, and I have been clear about this for a very long time."

Also check out Martin Lewis at HuffPo.

I want to know more about Samantha Power besides her educational and publishing background. If Obama is elected, she could be in his cabinet. What are her positions on foreign issues?

The comments are getting really off-topic to our posts. We can only accommodate 200 or so comments per thread because of our fixed width (which I happen to like and am not changing) so in order for everyone to get a say on the topic of the post, off-topic comments are deleted. If you want to pick the topic, please do it in an open thread.

Like this one.

Ann Althouse has new information about the dirty tricks I first reported about campaign shenanigans in Tuesday's Texas caucuses.

Ann says it's a likely explanation for why Obama is winning in caucus delegates but not in primary votes.

Just another reason to avoid caucusing at all cost now. Caucuses can work when they are held as originally intended...for small neighborhood groups of voters to get together in a room and discuss the candidates and policy and then advocate for their choice and vote. They don't work when you have hundreds of people lined up to get in, are limited to designated two hour period and descend into chaos.

The caucuses I attended this year in Iowa and Denver were chaotic. Texas sounds worse. I hope the Dems learn from this experience.

In the latest edition of Surrogates Gone Wild: Obama's key foreign policy aide Samantha Power has called Hillary Clinton "a monster."

We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Power is a Harvard Law grad.

Ms Power was head-hunted by Barack Obama to become his foreign-policy adviser in 2005 and combines this role with her job as a Time magazine columnist and professor of practice of global leadership and public policy at Harvard.

Will Obama fire her? He should.

Comments over 200, now closed.

Update: Little progress has been made:

"Although there have been a lot of conversations about how to assure that our delegation is seated, the logistics and cost of any firehouse primary may simply be insurmountable," said Liz Boyd, Granholm's press secretary.

...Granholm's comment instantly deflated hopes in Michigan of finding a solution, barely a day after expressions of optimism. "That took the oxygen out of the room," said one Democrat in the middle of the discussions, who talked about the deliberations on the condition of anonymity. "I'm regrouping."

Update: A Michigan state legislator was just on CNN. He said there are no concrete plans for a do-over be it a primary or a caucus. While there have been discussions, nothing has been decided. He is an Obama supporter. He's telling everyone to slow down, a do-over decision (or whether it would be a primary or caucus) is not certain. He also acknowledged that he supported the early primary and the reason for it was to be more relevant. He said they made their bed, they will lie in it.

Contrast this to Florida where the primary was moved up because the Republican dominated legislature forced the early date on them.

Big Tent Democrat has another update below the fold.

***

Just in from the New York Times:

[Update, 6:30 p.m. The D.N.C. also wants it to be known that Mr. Dean doesn’t necessarily oppose the “re-seating” of these delegates. Mr. Dean offers up the options of a do-over or an appeal to the credentials committee.]

[More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

I think a lot of folks are getting the message on Florida and Michigan. While some vociferous Obama supporters are adamant against counting Florida and Michigan, others are realizing that Obama and, more importantly, the Democratic Party will suffer badly from this situation. As a result, Obama folks like Chris Bowers and Mark Schmitt are urging a different type of solution. Schmitt aims his advice directly at Barack Obama:

Here's the answer, and it's a little off the wall: He should offer a major concession. Agree to seat the Florida delegates from the January primary, along with a do-over caucus in Michigan. Don't concede the full legitimacy of the Florida primary, but just acknowledge that all the candidates were on the ballot and the expense and political cost of a do-over is too high. Seating the Florida delegation would be conditional on a do-over caucus in Michigan. . . . The advantages to Obama here are tremendous: it puts him firmly on the record in favor of enfranchising both states, it denies Clinton a second win in Florida, it shows a more magnanimous and graceful brand of politics than the win-at-all-costs mania we're witnessing from the Clinton camp, and it draws out the actual mathematical challenge she faces, without the fudge-factor of Michigan and Florida.

I think we have made some progress on this when the position being urged upon Obama by some folks who support him, very smart folks too, is that Obama should seat the Florida delegates based on the prior vote and re-do Michigan. BTW, we have to count the votes towards determining who is winning the popular vote too. Do not pretend those were not real people voting. Otherwise, we could redo by mail.

Bump and Update: Rezko's lawyer mentioned Barack Obama while sliming the government's star cooperating witness Stuart Levine in opening argument:

Duffy mentions Levine's close political ties to the late Mayor Harold Washington, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), former Gov. Jim Edgar and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago) as examples of how connected Levine was.

Wait, we may need a transcript. Politico says Duffy mentioned Obama as one of many politicians Rezko, not Levine, was connected to. Which is it? The Chicago Sun Times version is similar to Politico's.

Day One trial testimony: The first and probably only witness today is Kelly Glynn, former finance director for Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich. She said Rezko was a top bundler. The Government queried her about Chris Kelly, Blagojevich's chief fundraiser and an alleged "co-schemer" of Rezko's. She then moved on to William Cellini.

Glynn said Republican power broker William Cellini held a fundraising event for Blagojevich, a Democrat, at a suburban hotel. She said she, Kelly and a co-worker would meet at Rezko's office to discuss fundraising strategy. Glynn testified that Rezko held the first post-election party for the governor at his Wilmette mansion.

The new World's Greatest Pollster, SUSA, released its 50 state electoral maps today. Kos has a good discussion of the results, which show both Clinton and Obama garnering narrow victories over McCain.

My own thoughts are that while there are some incredible results, no way McCain wins New Jersey against either Clinton or Obama for example, it does demonstrate some basic points. First, while Obama clearly expands the electoral playing field, he also is the bigger risk in key battleground states. There is more risk and more potential reward with Obama as the nominee.

Clinton is clearly stronger, imo, in the big battleground states and she clearly flips Arkansas. Obama in most Western states. This is tied in part to the demographic makeup of their support and Hillary longstanding baggage. Because Obama will be better treated by the Media, he could expand the map. He could also get wiped out.

If Obama can prove some big state strength in PA or in a revoted FL or MI, then his superiority is proven and he will have earned the nomination. If he does not, then Clinton will have a chance to make her case.

(By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only.)