By Big Tent Democrat

I can not believe Howard Dean said this:

The two state [FL and MI] parties will have to find the funds to pay for new contests without help from the national party, Dean said. "We can't afford to do that. That's not our problem. We need our money to win the presidential race," he said.

(Emphasis supplied.) Not your problem Howard? Michigan and Florida are not the DNC's problem? Sheesh. I know the DNC does not have the money to pay for this. But the problem is YOUR problem, and of YOUR making. It is our problem regarding winning the Presidential race in November. And quotes like "not our problem" just exacerbate the problem. At this rate, Dems are going to lose Michigan and Florida in a landslide.

Barack Obama is now officially a rock star, He's made the cover of Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and the magazine endorse Barack Obama.

Curious subtitle for the article, "Obama: the Machinery of Hope." Machinery reminds me of Chicago politics. Perhaps not the best image for him.

By Big Tent Democrat

There is something otherworldy about the suggestion of some folks that the continuing race is a lost opportunity for Obama to define John McCain. Matt Yglesias writes:

Ross explains the cost to progressive politics of Hillary Clinton's decision to unleash the kitchen sink in a likely-futile effort to overcome Barack Obama's delegate lead:

Rather, the problem is that the party is losing a golden opportunity to try to put the race away early, the way Bill Clinton more or less did with Bob Dole in 1996 - by using their enormous fundraising advantage to rebrand John McCain as a Dole-style loser while he's still struggling to get his money-raising operation up to par. As Patrick Ruffini suggested earlier this week, if Obama had finished off Hillary last night he could have been up with anti-McCain ads all over the country immediately, forcing the GOP to play defense in places it usually owns all through the summer.

Think about what they are suggesting - that Mr. Post Partisan New Politics is losing an opportunity to employ a 20th Century political tactic used by BILL CLINTON! He will put up negative ads as his first act as the newly crowned Moses leading us to the promised land of The New Politics. Yes, that will surely help Obama's image of transcending politics. The irony drips.

But the more important factor overlooked is the fact that the moment Obama is not running against Hillary Clinton, he loses his biggest Media advantage, that he is running against Hillary Clinton. For some reason some folks simply do not want to believe that a lot of Obama's appeal to the Media is that he is running against Hillary Clinton. Heck, Obama's best strategy may be to keep Clinton in the race until the Convention, even if she wants to drop out.

By Big Tent Democrat

For all the wailing and moaning from NBC, especially Punchline Olbermann, host of the Obama News Hour, and some of the Left blogs about Hillary Clinton staying in the race, one has to wonder what they think of Barack Obama's failure to win either Ohio or Texas. The desperate ones have now learned the virtue of closed primaries, arguing the Rush Limbaugh tipped Republicans to Clinton in Texas. Todd Beeton points out, apparently Limbaugh holds great sway over Independents as well, who also moved strongly to Clinton. Of course they won't like my solution, let's have closed primaries.

I have said this since Super Tuesday - Barack Obama needs to demonstrate he can win a big contested state important in the general election. He has won his home state. He has won heavily African American Georgia. That's it. It is true he won Wisconsin convincingly and seems to have electoral advantages in Colorado, Nevada (which he lost) and New Mexico. But this election will be won or lost in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida. If Obama can not perform well in these states, it will be extremely difficult for him in November. Luckily, 3 of these 4 states may have contests to allow Obama to prove his mettle and put a stamp of legitimacy on his potential nomination. I'll explain what I mean by legitimacy on the flip.

Big Tent Democrat

Todd Beeton has Howard Dean's statement:

We're glad to hear that the Governors of Michigan and Florida are willing to lend their weight to help resolve this issue. As we've said all along, we strongly encourage the Michigan and Florida state parties to follow the rules, so today's public overtures are good news. The rules, which were agreed to by the full DNC including representatives from Florida and Michigan over 18 months ago, allow for two options. First, either state can choose to resubmit a plan and run a party process to select delegates to the convention; second, they can wait until this summer and appeal to the Convention Credentials Committee, which determines and resolves any outstanding questions about the seating of delegates. We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time. The Democratic Nominee will be determined in accordance with party rules, and out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game.

. . .

(Emphasis supplied.) I have a plan. But Howard Dean needs to be more proactive than he seems to want to be in this letter. I hope there is something being done with more urgency than Dean is showing here. More . . .

Despite Big Tent Democrat's five posts on Florida here today, not all has been said.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's campaigns are now okay with a second Florida primary:

Now the Clinton campaign has begun expressing openness to a do-over. "Let's let all of the voters go again if they are willing to do it," said Clinton adviser Terry McAuliffe Tuesday night on MSNBC. "Whatever we have to do to get people in the system, let's do it."

Obama's campaign says it would participate if one is decided upon by the Party, but is not going to do anything to make it happen. It sounds decidedly luke-warm on the prospect:

"We're going to abide by their rules as they exist now and whatever happens in the future," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters Wednesday.

"I don't think it's for our campaign or her campaign — we're in a heated contest here — to have to be the facilitators here," Plouffe said. "This is between the DNC and those state parties."

It makes sense Obama would be only luke-warm to the idea. Just look at the results from the Florida primary, a scant 5 weeks ago. He won only the northern counties closest to Georgia and the deep south. He won no county below the top of the state.

[More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

TPM on the Texas Caucuses reporting:

A lot of readers have wondered why the Texas caucuses have been so slow to report to the media. The answer: They're not reporting in great numbers anymore, and they don't actually have to. Nonetheless, we might still have a decent estimate of the final result for you to consider.

. . . The results that have come in came from a voluntary system set up in order to help the media get an idea of what to expect the final delegate result to be. . .

Heck of a way to pick a nominee. Yep, love those caucuses.

By Big Tent Democrat

Is Donna Brazile upset about this?

Obama campaign advisers are already making good on promises to confront Hillary much more aggressively on new fronts, hammering her on a conference call over her failure to release her tax returns.

. . . In response, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson sought to shift the discussion back to the Rezko story, a tale the Hillary camp will be hitting on relentlessly in the weeks ahead. "Their tax returns since they left the White House will be made available on or around April 15," Wolfson said, speaking of the Clintons. "Instead of making false attacks, we urge Senator Obama to release all relevant financial and other information related to indicted political fixer Tony Rezko."

Are we getting the vapors yets? For the record, I personally could not care less about seeing Clinton's tax returns or Obama's Rezko records.

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Marc Ambinder:

A joint statement from the governors of Florida and Michigan:

“The right to vote is at the very foundation of our democracy. This primary season, voters have turned out in record numbers to exercise that right, and it is reprehensible that anyone would seek to silence the voices of 5,163,271 Americans. It is intolerable that the national political parties have denied the citizens of Michigan and Florida their votes and voices at their respective national conventions.

According to the DNC and RNC, Florida and Michigan have violated party rules by moving up their primaries. Today, we each will call upon our respective state and national party chairs to resolve this matter and to ensure that the voters of Michigan and Florida are full participants in the formal selection of their parties' nominees. We must restore the rights of the more than 5 million voters whose voices have been silenced.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Pssst, Governors, do I have a plan for you. Commenter Coral Gables brings us the FL Dem Party reaction:

By Big Tent Democrat

This is very interesting and very smart by Barack Obama. Apparently he called SNL's Lorne Michaels to complain about SNL's bias:

Complaining about the refs apparently worked a little bit this week. So in addition to my call to [Saturday Night Live producer] Lorne Michaels, hopefully now people think everything has evened out."

I do not think there is any doubt that Obama had his toughest week of Media coverage last week and Obama is right to see SNL is a primary reason for it. The Media does not like being ridiculed. Especially by SNL.

Working the SNL ref Michaels may well get Obama some negative stuff on Clinton and make the Media feel better about giving him good coverage. NOTE - Perhaps Obama was joking. That would make some sense. But the reporting does not indicate it was a joke. FURTHER NOTE - apparently Politico went back and asked if it was a joke. The answer is yes. Ok. I guess the joke was supposed to prove how he, Obama, is not a whiner. Hard to do when you are in the middle of whining BTW.

My view is that for pure comic relief, spoofing Tweety Matthews and Punchline KO Olbermann's incredible spluttering outrage that Clinton refuses to drop out after winning Texas and Ohio is a sure fire comedy classic. But it will be hard to top the original performance. Funniest thing I have seen all year. They could even do Fineman as the Grim Reaper. It was hilarious.

By Big Tent Democrat

(speaking for me only)

People genuinely concerned with the will of the people regarding the Democratic Presidential nomination contest should be focusing on the popular vote. Here is a very flawed count (incl. FL and MI, WA primary not incl., 3 caucus states not incl.) from Real Clear Politics:

Clinton 13,563,192
Obama 13,522,829

The inclusion of Michigan is problematic as Obama was not on the ballot. Florida is problematic because campaigning was not allowed. Not including Washington state is problematic because there is no reason not to include it. 3 caucus states have not released their vote counts. Some of these problems can be resolved. Michigan and Florida should have a revote. Those caucus states can release their vote counts. The Washington state primary results can be included.

The bottom line is it is really close. The will of the people is undetermined as of yet.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

I have said that after last night, I believe it is a virtual certainty that the ticket will be Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama. Jeralyn disagrees with me. Hillary Clinton provides some evidence to my surmise:

Asked on CBS's "The Early Show" whether she and Obama should be on the same ticket, Clinton said "[t]hat may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me."

That is exactly where we are headed.