A Quinnipiac Poll shows Hillary leading and Obama trailing McCain in two of the three critical swing states, and Hillary leading Obama as to McCain in all three:

May 22, 2008 - McCain Leads Obama In Two Of Three Key Swing States, Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll Finds; Clinton Has Big Leads In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania --- FLORIDA: Clinton 48 - McCain 41; McCain 45 - Obama 41; OHIO: Clinton 48 - McCain 41; McCain 44 - Obama 40: PENNSYLVANIA: Clinton 50 - McCain 37; Obama 46 - McCain 40

..."The numbers for Florida and Ohio are good news for Sen. John McCain and should be worrisome for Sen. Barack Obama. That is especially true about Ohio, which decided the 2004 election. Ohio's economy is worse than the rest of the country and the Republican brand there is in disrepute. McCain's Buckeye lead may be a sign that nationally this may not be the easy Democratic walk to the White House that many expected," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

In the popular vote, Jonathan Last of the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board comes up with much the same numbers that I did a few days ago, using Real Clear Politics and the most expansive number of voters available, one that includes Florida, Michigan and the caucus states. [More...]

Who is Mike Murphy? Well you have seen him bloviating on Meet the Press all the time as the GOP operative though he has always operated as sort of a "maverick" GOP operative. So why do I say he could be Obama's salvation? Because the NYTimes says he advised McCain to do this:

Mr. Murphy urged him to tone down his attacks on Mr. Obama and stop coming across as so angry. He recommended that Mr. McCain concentrate on running as a reform candidate to strip that issue from Mr. Obama . . .

More . .

In today's top story in The Miami Herald:

Asked by The Herald why he doesn't just concede Florida to Clinton since he's so close to the nomination, Obama didn't answer directly. He said he wanted the state to participate in the convention, but he didn't get into specifics about how many delegates should be there and whether they would be divvied up according to the Jan. 29 vote.

"'We want the Florida delegates to be seated and we intend to make sure they have a voice at the convention," he said. "The DNC has a decision to make and we're not in the way." Pressed on why he doesn't use his influence to grant Clinton the extra Florida delegates and end the dispute, he said he doesn't control the DNC. "The delegates aren't mine to give," he said.

(Emphasis supplied.) There is an old saying - "Lead, follow or get out of the way." It seems clear now that on the question of Florida and Michigan, Obama has chosen to get out of the way.

In other words, Obama is offering to hold Florida's coat while it fights for its delegates.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

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Newsweek poll sez:

Obama 46
McCain 46

Clinton 48
McCain 44

Newsweek notes:

Clinton's white support [44%] is unusually high: at a comparable point in the 2004 election, Democratic nominee John Kerry received the support of 36 percent of white voters, compared to George W. Bush's 48 percent, and in June of 2000, Bush led Al Gore 48 percent to 39 percent.

It appears that the issue is not so much Obama's relative lack of appeal to white working class voters vis a vis typical Dems like Kerry (indeed, Obama exceeds Kerry's white support), but rather it is Hillary Clinton's strong appeal to that demographic. In other words, it is not that there is something wrong with Obama but that there is something RIGHT with Clinton.

See also andgarden on the subject.

By Big Tent Democrat

Comments closed

I've been in court all afternoon and just coming in now to all the hysteria. All I'll say is Hillary is being treated unfairly here. The media and blog commenters are engaging in character assassination. She was making a historical statement on why she needn't drop out of the race by early June. Democratic nominations have gone past that before. Her emphasis was on the word "June."

The leap that is required to think that her reference to the RFK assassination was in any way a statement or subliminal wish that it might happen to Obama is mind-boggling.

This will be the final TalkLeft thread on the matter. I'm not going to spend the weekend on this. And I'm going to have a low threshold for accusatory comments. If you want a place to further your attacks on Hillary, go somewhere else.

More...

Hillary Clinton issued the following statement today in Brandon, SD:

“Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That’s a historic fact. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I’m honored to hold Senator Kennedy’s seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family.”

More below

Barack Obama is still in Florida. Today, he spoke at a luncheon for the largest organization of Cuban-American exiles -- a pretty conservative bunch. He told them he would meet with Cuba's new leaders.

The annual Cuban Independence Day banquet of the Cuban American National Foundation cheered Obama's avowed commitment to fostering democracy in Cuba. But the audience showed its wariness of his talk of meeting with Cuban leaders. Mere handfuls applauded that statement from among the crowd of at least 500.

....Foundation Chairman Jorge Mas Santos voiced the Cuban American community's enduring opposition to any U.S. president meeting with the Castro regime before political prisoners are released and free elections slated. The son of the foundation's late founder, Mas described any expectation of engaging Raul Castro in democratic reforms as "wishful thinking."

Did he win himself any votes today? He did say he would end the travel restrictions and limits on sending money home, but he would also maintain the embargo.

The Miami Herald reports: [More...]

I disagree with Big Tent Democrat on Obama's statement today on FL and MI. It's woefully inadequate and nothing he and the party haven't said before. It doesn't address the issue.

The issue is not seating the delegates at the convention. It's counting their votes and awarding delegates based on their votes BEFORE the nominee is chosen. It's about giving 2.3 million voters who took the time to go to the polls and who did nothing wrong have their votes count in deciding our party's nominee.

Obama is playing the same games he's always played on Michigan and Florida. He's not agreeing to let their votes count.

Saying they can be seated at the convention means they can cheer for the nominee and sit in on party platform and rules meetings. Big deal. If they can't have their votes count in determining the nominee, it's a shell game.

In this interview with the Palm Beach Post, Barack Obama says the Florida delegation will be seated:

Q: At this point in the race, why not seat the entire Florida delegation with a full vote based on the Jan. 29 primary?

[OBAMA]: They're definitely going to be seated. We're not the final decision maker on this. But we've said to the DNC that we want the Florida delegation to be seated, and I'm confident that it's going to be worked out sometime in the next 10 days. I expect that the delegates are going to be participating at the convention.

(Emphasis supplied.) Good for Obama. Here's a bonus - Obama gives Donna Brazile the stiff arm:

Like Colin Powell, Patrick Kennedy and NBC News anchor Brian Williams, John McCain takes Ambien.

More on Ambien:

• FDA Requests Stronger Warnings on Ambien

• Ambien, Sweet Ambien

• Driving While Ambien'ed

Does anyone not take Ambien?

(Comments now closed.)

Via Jerome Armstrong, Jonathan Last argues:

If you believe that the most important precept in democratic politics is to "count every vote," then the sixth category is the most inclusive, and here Clinton leads Obama by 71,301 votes. Of course, this includes the Michigan result, where Sen. Obama had removed his name from the ballot. So while it may be the most inclusive, it may not be the most fair.

I disagree. The most inclusive vote totals properly honor the fact that most uncommitted voters in Michigan were Obama supporters. To properly honor their votes, we must assign those votes to Barack Obama. Indeed, as August J. Pollak (his unnecessary and nasty remarks about Jeralyn seriously mar his post BTW, Jeralyn is as nice and honorable a person as you can find. She does not deserve such vitriol.) points out:

Many do not accept that the popular vote in the Democratic nomination is the fairest representation of the will of the electorate in the Democratic contest. It is their right of course to feel that way. I disagree with them.

But I do object to what I have seen seeping into the coverage, especially on the Obama News Network (NBC), that the vote in places like Guam and Puerto Rico do not count because they do not vote in the Presidential Election in November. This utterly misconstrues the point. Oh and it is bigoted to boot. The latest was Jon Alter: