First it was Ted Kennedy. Now we hear it is Michelle Obama:

Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama. The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.

If this type of petty nonsense is holding sway in the Obama camp, Obama will lose in November. It is one thing to hear this ridiculous nonsense from absurd and unimportant bloggers. It is another thing to hear it from the Obama camp. I hope someone with more maturity reins in this juvenile, divisive and destructive behavior from the Obama camp. I am heartily disgusted. They seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

By Big Tent Democrat

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In a distant blogging past, a lot of us, people like Tom Schaller and me, argued that in the short term, the South was not favorable terrain for expanding the electoral map for Democrats. That the favorable terrain lay in Lincoln's 1860 map - the North and the West.

I believe in a long term 50 state strategy but it is foolish to think it can make sense in this Presidential election. We are basically stuck with the Gore and Kerry maps and need to look how we hold those states and where we can add the necessary electoral votes to win the Presidency. I have outlined Obama's problems with that map and the risk we run in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But Obama can change the map in the West. In Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Montana. And this data from Oregon gives us some indication - Obama leads McCain by 14:

Via MYDD, this WV poll says Clinton by 38:

56% of those surveyed indicate they will vote for Clinton compared to 18% for Obama. There are 26% undecided voters, according to the poll of 403 voters by Mark Blankenship Enterprises. Compared to a previous MBE poll in February, Clinton is up 13%, while Obama's numbers haven't changed.

In terms of the GE, Obama appears to have no chance in West Virginia while Clinton could likely win it:

LATimes:

Although Democrats are tangled in a fractious primary contest, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama probably would win the White House against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain if the election were held now, according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll.

Arizona Sen. McCain remains competitive, but the poll identified one important vulnerability: Voters ranked him lowest among the three candidates on who could best handle the nation's economy -- by far the most pressing concern for the public irrespective of party, gender or income. Of the three main candidates, New York Sen. Clinton inspired the most confidence on the economy. In a hypothetical matchup, the poll gave Illinois Sen. Obama 46% to McCain's 40%, with 9% undecided. Clinton led McCain 47% to 38%, with 11% undecided.

By Big Tent Democrat

Barack Obama's coalition of young voters, African Americans, and higher income white voters is apparently good enough to win the Democratic nomination. But will it win in November? Andrew Kohut discusses Obama's electoral deficiencies with older voters against John McCain:

Interestingly, older voters — many of whom supported Democrats over the years — seem reluctant to support Mr. Obama. Hillary Clinton has carried the vote of people over 65 in 26 primary elections. And looking forward to the general election, the national polls now show John McCain running better against Mr. Obama among this older age group — as well as among middle-aged voters and younger voters.

Furthermore, while Barack Obama’s appeal to young people coincides with their greater inclination to support Democrats, older voters do not show a greater allegiance to the Republican party that might explain their current voting intentions.

What Kohut is saying here is that it is not a question of older voters having more affinity for Republicans and John McCain. They seem not to like Barack Obama and his Movement. In many ways, that is not surprising. That triumphalism of the young voter, the seeming desire to sweep out the old could be taken personally by older voters. This may be a difficult needle for Obama to thread. More . . .

An informal Middle East advsior to Barack Obama quit the campaign yesterday as the advisor's ties to Hamas were about to become more publicized.

Rob Malley said he wanted to stop being a distraction for the campaign after facing attacks from the blogosphere for months for allegedly being anti-Israel, a charge he denies.

...Malley's departure comes at a sensitive time for Obama, who appears to be nearing the Democratic nomination but has struggled to win the support of Jewish and pro-Israel voters. Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, refuses to recognize Israel and is dedicated to its destruction.

Malley interviewed Hamas, Palestinian and Israeli officials as part of his job...."To do my job, I have to meet with savory and unsavory people," he said. But Malley said that after he fielded a call this morning from the Times of London, which asked about the Hamas meetings, he decided he had had enough. "

The Obama campaign responded:

"Mr. Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."

More from the U.K. Times here.

From tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor: Hillary Campaign Advisors Wolfson and Garin say it's not that Obama can't win in November, it's that the data shows Hillary has a better chance:

At the top of the ballot, current state polling data show that Clinton would defeat Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, by 42 electoral votes, while the same polls show Obama losing to Senator McCain by 8 electoral votes, they said.

The Clinton strategists also came armed with charts looking at 20 House districts where freshmen Democrats won but which also voted for George Bush in 2004. Clinton defeated Obama in 16 of those 20 districts. Their argument: Clinton would help vulnerable House members more than Obama. Asked about the breakdown of endorsements from those 16 freshmen, Wolfson said that five had so far backed her and four, Obama.

As for how long she's staying in :[More]

Rasmussen polling says Hillary can't win, they are going to stop polling her and poll only Obama and McCain.

With this in mind, Rasmussen Reports will soon end our daily tracking of the Democratic race and focus exclusively on the general election competition between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Barring something totally unforeseen, that is the choice American voters will have before them in November. While we have not firmly decided upon a final day for tracking the Democratic race, it is coming soon.

Today's Numbers: Hillary 48% to McCain 43%. Obama 47% to McCain 44%.

West VA: Hillary 56, Obama 27.

Gallup Daily: "Obama not pulling away yet". Dates polled, May 6 to May 8, 2/3 of whom were polled after Tuesday's election results were known. Obama 48, Hillary 46.

Gallup says "Obama remains in a statistical dead heat with Clinton for the 16th consecutive day."

Whoops, Obama in Oregon today:

It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

The Times' conscientious Robin Abcarian thought she heard something different there. She checked her tape recorder. It had captured what he had actually said -- 57 states now.

He even paused before he said "57" as if he was thinking about the number. Obama explained afterwards:[More...]

Big Tent Democrat wrote about this earlier, but I want to add my thoughts. Paul Krugman's column today, Thinking About November, is excellent. If Obama is the nominee, he says there are a lot of reasons Democrats should sail to an presidential win November. Then he says there is one stumbling block and opines it's a big one:

the fight for the nomination has divided the party along class and race lines in a way that I believe is unprecedented, at least in modern times. Ironically, much of Mr. Obama’s initial appeal was the hope that he could transcend these divisions. At first, voting patterns seemed consistent with this hope. In February, for example, he received the support of half of Virginia’s white voters as well as that of a huge majority of African-Americans.

But this week, Mr. Obama, while continuing to win huge African-American majorities, lost North Carolina whites by 23 points, Indiana whites by 22 points. Mr. Obama’s white support continues to be concentrated among the highly educated; there was little in Tuesday’s results to suggest that his problems with working-class whites have significantly diminished.

In other words, [More...]

I am a big fan of Ted Kennedy but he does the Democratic Party a great disservice with this type of talk:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama isn't likely to pick rival Hillary Clinton as a running mate, according to one of his most prominent supporters. "I don't think it's possible," Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt," airing this weekend.

Kennedy, 76, without naming names, said Obama should pick someone who "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people. If we had real leadership -- as we do with Barack Obama -- in the No. 2 spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful," Kennedy said.

What a terrible terrible thing to say. The Obama camp should disavow it. Unless he said it at their behest. In which case, we are gonna lose in November.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

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What do Mike Dukakis and John Kerry have in common? They were from Massachusetts and they had images as being soft. It is ironic that the one leading Democratic Presidential candidate who has overcome the "mommy" party problem is a woman -- Hillary Clinton. Susan Faludi explains:

[W]hite men are warming to Hillary Clinton — at least enough to vote for her. It’s no small shift. These men have historically been her fiercest antagonists. Their conversion may point less to a new kind of male voter than to a new kind of female vote-getter.

. . . For years, the prevailing theory has been that white men are often uneasy with female politicians because they can’t abide strong women. But if that’s so, why haven’t they deserted Senator Clinton? More particularly, why haven’t they deserted her as she has become ever more pugnacious in her campaign?