The votes aren't fully counted, but it's pretty clear that as expected, Barack Obama will win big today in Washington State, Nebraska and Louisiana. Hillary Clinton's campaign as released the following statement:

(Shorter version: We're concentrating on Ohio and Texas.)

Tonight there are contests in three states that the Obama campaign has long predicted they would win by large margins. According to a spreadsheet that was obtained by Bloomberg News, the Obama campaign predicted big victories in Washington State, Nebraska and Louisiana.

The Obama campaign has dramatically outspent our campaign in these three states, saturating the airwaves with 30 and 60 second ads. The Obama campaign has spent $300,000 more in Louisiana on television ads, $190,000 more in Nebraska and $175,000 more in Washington. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Over at TPM, Greg Sargent is, in my opinion, completely misreporting what Hillary Clinton meant in her written response to NBC Clinton wrote:

Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.

I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language.

. . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Sargent utterly misses Clinton's point. He thinks she wants Shuster fired. That is not what Clinton is demanding. She wants "the pattern of behavior [at NBC] that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language" to change. Too often people miss the real problem. Jamison Foser got it. Greg Sargent did not. BTW, that is poor reporting by Sargent imo.

(larger version here).

The results of the Washington caucuses should be available soon. Here's a thread to discuss them.

CNN projects Mike Huckabee as the winner in the Kansas caucuses today.

With 76 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee had 62 percent of the vote, compared with 22 percent for Arizona Sen. John McCain and 11 percent for Texas. Rep. Ron Paul. Kansas has 36 delegates at stake Saturday.

Experts say Huckabee can't make the numbers nationally and McCain will be the Republican nominee. Huckabee responds:

Well, I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles. And I still believe in those, too."

Almost 17,500 Washington voters in the state's primary (not caucuses) will not have their ballots counted. Why? Because they didn't follow the rules -- prominently stated in red on their ballots -- to declare themselves either a Republican or a Democrat.

Nearly one in four King County voters who mailed in their ballots did not identify themselves as Democrat or Republican, nullifying their votes in the presidential primary.

The elections office Friday called it a combination of protest and error. Some voters do not want to publicly declare a political party, even though their vote remains secret. Other voters might not know their votes will not be counted unless they choose a party.

It won't matter in terms of delegates. As Big Tent Democrat wrote earlier, the delegates in Washington are picked from the caucus results today, not next week's primary.

By Big Tent Democrat

Capus' statement is the best sign yet that NBC News is beginning to take seriously the lengthy pattern of inappropriate comments about women made by NBC and MSNBC reporters. (NBC News did not issue a statement about Matthews, allowing Matthews' overly narrow, on-air quasi-apology to stand as the closest thing to an official statement.)

But apologies and statements and even suspensions don't mean anything unless they are followed by an actual change in behavior. Things didn't change at NBC/MSNBC after the Matthews controversy; hopefully they will this time.

That is one of the big issues about this. We can not fall into the malign acceptance of sexism.

Obama delivered a good speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Iowa. Tonight there is another one, in Virginia.

More than 6,000 party activists and donors are expected to pack the Stuart C. Siegel Center to hear to Clinton and Obama as both campaigns increasingly view Virginia as the major prize of Tuesday's primary. Clinton is scheduled to speak at 8:30 p.m. About two hours later, Obama is planning to address the crowd.

Expect Obama's speech to be a good one...I also anticipate it will be laced with JFK references or else sound reminiscent of him. Why? Ted Sorenson, JFK's speechwriter is on board his campaign.

Sorenson, who turns 80 in May, has long been retired from actual speechwriting but he now feels compelled to lend creative service to who he feels is the country's best option right now: Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. "I endorsed Barack Obama for president... because he is more like John F. Kennedy than any other candidate of our time," Sorensen said recently.

Sorenson has experience working with Obama's young speechwriters.

According to reports, Sorenson has now become close with the young speechwriters in Obama's camp -- and has occasionally thrown in a creative phrase or a clever one-liner to be used during one of the senator's future exhortations. In addition, Sorensen is said to be giving advice and support to the Obama campaign.

As I've said here many times, speechwriters write speeches, candidates deliver them. No matter what words Sorenson feeds Obama, he is not JFK. [More...]

Interesting perspective today in the Toronto Star on the Obama wave:

It's the rumble of a political movement, a Barack Obama wave, building in the distance, about to break in a tsunami of inspiration, a torrent representing a clean break from old ways and a new chapter in American history. It is a national chant of "Yes We Can" swamping Hillary Clinton.

But the Obama wave breaks just short of the shore every time it appears ready to wash away everything in its wake.

For all the fervour of the arena rallies, the rapt thousands who hang on the senator's every word and call back to him with religious zeal, the wave has not crashed with all the ferocity bottled up in those venues.

What may be preventing the wave from cresting: the working class, women and 11th hour voters: [More...]

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will compete in three states today and one tomorrow. Today's states are:

• Louisiana (primary -- Obama heavily favored to win due to the large, 32% African-American vote)

• Washington State (caucus, but weird rules, as they have a primary next week. Only the caucus votes count.) The New York Times says this is the race to watch today. Hillary has the support of the both the states' Senators, while Obama has the support of the Governor. All three are female.

• Nebraska (caucus, Obama favored to win.)

On Sunday, Maine holds caucuses. Hillary is expected to do well there, even though caucuses usually favor Obama.

The total at stake: 161 delegates in Washington, Louisiana, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands and 24 delegates in Maine.

An Obama sweep today does not mean Hillary is out of the race -- her campaign is expecting a big Obama win and concentrating instead on the big states of Ohio and Texas which vote in early March. [More]

By Big Tent Democrat

Let's start with the anti-democratic nature of caucuses themselves. Unlike in a primary, where voters have all day to vote at their convenience, or previously vote absentee, to vote in a caucus a voter must go to the caucus site at the appointed hour. Once there they have to vote PUBLICALLY by standing in a corner of a room AND if their choice does not have 15% (not an issue here I think) their choice does not count. Understand this important fact, the biggest amount of voter disinfranchisement that occurs in the nomination campaigns is when a state or party chooses caucuses over primaries.

But Washington state decided that choosing a caucus was not enough voter disenfranchisement. Jerome Armstrong explains:

The Nebraska Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the use of the electric chair to execute inmates constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts "intense pain and agonizing suffering," the court said. "Condemned prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes," Judge William Connolly wrote in the 6-1 opinion.

"Contrary to the State's argument, there is abundant evidence that prisoners sometimes will retain enough brain functioning to consciously suffer the torture high voltage electric current inflicts on a human body," Connolly wrote.

Nebraska is the only state in the country still using the barbaric method of execution. The legislature must now authorize another means before the state can put anyone to death.

Any chance there are any legislators in Nebraska who will say, "Choose Life, End the Death Penalty?"

Keith Olbermann apologizes for the David Shuster/Chelsea Clinton pimping comment that's been the talk of the blogs today.

It sure has ignited a lot of tensions...Earlier, Big Tent Democrat put himself in Time Out for the rest of the day for insulting a reader. He says the rules have to apply to him as well.