By Big Tent Democrat

The most undemocratic aspect of the nomination process is the use of caucuses to apportion delegates. They are a double whammy. They disenfranchise many voters who can not attend caucuses AND they dilute the votes of caucus goers by the ridiculous system used to apportion delegates by voting district.

The disenfranchising aspects were put in stark relief last night in Washington state. Most forgot that Washington held its beauty contest mail in primary last night. And it was so overlooked that the fact that with a little over half of the precincts reporting in a meaningless primary, over 500,000 Washingtonians have voted. In the record turnout caucus of February 9, only 200,000 attended. There is likely to be at least 500,000 move votes cast in the Washington primary than in the Washington caucus.

There was a lot of teeth gnashing about voter disenfranchisement from some quarters during the Nevada caucuses. But nary a peep about the most serious disnefranchisement device of this entire system, the caucuses.

Caucuses MUST be eliminated. They are a travesty. They are democracy in it most corrupted form - institutionalized disenfranchisement.

By Big Tent Democrat

Unlike most everyone else, I thought Obama's speech last night was pretty uninspiring and not particularly well delivered. In the end it was too long and boring. But I have heard it all before. While some, like Ezra Klein, think Obama scored a coup by "stepping on Clinton's speech," I saw nothing new in that. The networks have been cutting Clinton off after 10 minutes or so throughout.

What seemed unusual to me, or maybe it was the first time I have sat through the whole thing, was that Obama's 45 minute speech was broadcast uninterrupted. It clearly was less a victory speech than a stump speech. And I wonder if Obama expected that lengthy coverage of it. If the networks thought they were doing him a favor, I think they got it wrong. 15 minutes would have been great. 45 minutes was boring. I would be interested to see what happened on the ratings during the speech.

My two cents.

By Big Tent Democrat

It looks even worse for Hillary Clinton. So what can she do?

Of course the obvious is win. But I think how she wins matters too. But I do not mean win margins. I mean not winning ugly.

It's not fair. The Media, the blogs AND the Right (more on this later) have swooned for Obama. The Obama Rules have been operative throughout. But the Clinton campaign can't change them and any attempt to change them will only make them worse. Either the Media will suspend them now or they will not. Clinton can't do it. The Clinton campaign must remain relentlessly positive and substantive.

More . . .

Big Tent Democrat's last election results thread is overflowing, I closed the comments.

Here's a new thread for tonight's elections and your analysis and thoughts about it and what comes next.

A late night opera with themes from today, mostly sparked by reader comments:

Act 1: Poison, Give Me Something to Believe In

Acts 2, 3, 4 and the curtain call below the fold.

By Big Tent Democrat

(Speaking for me only)

The final number looks like a double digit win (the spread is currently 11 points and the current delegate split is 13-8, and likely to be around 42-32 at the end) win for Obama. That is bad for Clinton. But the bad news comes from two other results. For the first time in a primary outside of Illinois and African-American dominated states, Hillary Clinton lost Democrats to Barack Obama by 51-48.

She lost her base tonight, even though she narrowly defeated Obama among women voters. If this is a real change, then Clinton will be defeated on March 4 in Texas and Ohio and Obama will secure the nomination fairly, decisively and squarely.

The Last Stand is upon the Clinton campaign. It is the Lone Star state of Texas and in the Buckeye state of Ohio. She must win both. Or it is over.

Update (TL): Comments now closing. Thanks for your thoughts.

Based on exit polls, at 9:22 pm, CNN projects Obama wins Wisconsin.

• CNN Wisconsin results
• MSNBC Wisconsin results
• MSNBC Wisconsin Results by County
• Wisconsin County Map

Hillary is speaking now from Youngstown. She's talking about the loan she made to her campaign. "If we pull together we can do this." She's asking them to go to her website where she has her issues posted. She's not mentioning the page also starts with a contribution request. But, she says, "With your help" we can win.

She talks about why she's better equipped to be commander in chief and that she's stood up to say that women's rights are human rights. She's ready to end the war in Iraq and the era of cowboy diplomacy. One of us will provide health care for every American. It's a right not a privilege and I won't rest until every American is covered. Theme of the speech, "One of Us has a plan."

CNN puts Obama on next to her, he's going to speak at the same time. They are going to cut off Hillary to go to Obama.

Analysis and updates below:

Update: MSNBC, 9:01pm: Too early to call but Obama has lead in exit polls.

Bump and Update: Polls about to close. CNN is going to announce what they know and then talk about Huckabee. What does that tell you? If the media makes you crazy tonight, here's a new thread to vent about it.

****

Polls close in 45 minutes in Wisconsin. MSNBC results here, CNN results here. Predictions? Thoughts? More below.

Here's a thread to vent about tonight's election news coverage. Who did you like? Who made you reach for the mute button or turn the channel?

Hawaii caucuses are underway. I'm not spending time on them because there's not much mystery. Obama has focused on his "favorite son" ties there and his sister, a teacher there, has been campaigning for him. It's pretty clear he'll take Hawaii.

Results are expected later tonight and I'll update this post with them. If you've got something to say about Hawaii, here's the place.

For what it's worth, via My DD: The Gallup Daily Tracking poll has a Hillary rebound. It's now Hillary 45%, Obama 46% with Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters.

Clinton was seven percentage points behind Obama in the Feb. 15-17 average. In Monday night's interviewing, Clinton's percentage of the vote of national voters was higher than Obama's, but there has been fluidity in the nightly tracking numbers over the past several days as Democrats nationally process the intense, often heated, nature of the campaign. Monday's news coverage of the Democratic campaign was replete with a focus on the Clinton campaign's charges that Obama had plagiarized material from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and other negative attacks on Obama by the Clinton campaign. It is unclear which, if any, of these factors could be responsible for changes in the candidates' standing.

By Big Tent Democrat

CNN reports that the turnout broke down as follows:

White - 88%
A-A - 8%
Latino - 4%

Male - 43%
Female - 57%

This is a good demo breakdown for Clinton. But the early exits reports are rumored to have Obama WINNING women 51-49! If that holds, that is the big story of the night. It would be a shocking result and a big win for Obama.

Time will Tell.