By Big Tent Democrat

Why won't Paul Krugman just shut up about Obama? Does he not not know of the power of UNITY? Apparently not:

After their victory in the 2006 Congressional elections, it seemed a given that Democrats would try to make this year’s presidential campaign another referendum on Republican policies. After all, the public appears fed up not just with President Bush, but with his party. . . .

. . . But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2008 election. Unless Hillary Clinton wins big on Tuesday, Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. And he’s not at all the kind of candidate one might have expected to emerge out of the backlash against Republican governance.

. . . Mr. Obama, instead of emphasizing the harm done by the other party’s rule, likes to blame both sides for our sorry political state. And in his speeches he promises not a rejection of Republicanism but an era of postpartisan unity.

Clearly, Krugman does not agree with Mark Schmitt on Obama's theory of change.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

I write this post so that we can remember that John Zogby is not much of a pollster. On Super Tuesday, Zogby predicted wins for Obama in New Jersey and California. Obama lost both states by double digits. He may have hit the dart board here. But there is little or no polling in a John Zogby poll.

Other polls show Clinton leading in Ohio and slight Obama lead in Texas. Let's count the votes.

Update [2008-3-3 9:35:19 by Big Tent Democrat]: The UC Ohio Poll has Clinton up 9 in Ohio.

More updates below:

By Big Tent Democrat

I have written on this before, but this new AP story sheds further light on Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee's meeting with the Canadian consulate in Chicago:

Barack Obama's senior economic policy adviser said Sunday that Canadian government officials wrote an inaccurate portrayal of his private discussion on the campaign's trade policy in a memo obtained by The Associated Press. The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between the adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the consulate and attended the meeting.

Goolsbee disputed a section that read: "Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

This is a memo about a meeting that the Obama camp said never occurred, and if it did occur, the Obama camp said NAFTA was not discussed. Now it appears, the Obama camp accepts the meeting DID occur and NAFTA WAS discussed, but not in the way portrayed in the meeting. Riiiight. Thank Gawd for the Obama Rules. Hope they hold if he is the nominee. Imagine what the coverage would be like if this was a Clinton economic advisor.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

The Obama-favoring site TPM points to this NYTimes article titled "Obama Backers Urge Clinton To Exit If She Loses." TPM turned this headline into "Clinton under pressure to drop out if she does not win big in Texas and Ohio." But with Josh Marshall doing his best Ann Althouse imitations, that kind of misleading spin is not surprising.

But I want to make a different point. The last group of folks who should be pressuring Hillary to drop out is the Obama camp. It will be counterproductive AND unseemly. It would be more likely to get Clinton's back up to hear these calls from the likes of Dick Durbin and John Kerry, fierce Obama supporters. They are not likely to be taken at their word that their concern is "the good of the Party" as opposed to Obama's candidacy.

More . . .

A Cleveland Plain Dealer poll conducted by Mason Dixon of registered Democratic voters who plan to vote in the primary, has Hillary Clinton ahead of Barack Obama, 47% to 43%, with 90% of voters decided on their choice. (Actual poll results are here (pdf.) The margin of error is 4%. There are some geographic and issues differences that may be worth noting.

On NAFTA:

Voters surveyed said they see little difference between the candidates' positions on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many Democratic voters blame for the loss of jobs in Ohio and which has been a central theme of both campaigns.

On health care, those surveyed prefer Hillary's plan to Obama's, 33% to 18%. Then there's the geographic difference, which may be significant:

The Plain Dealer poll shows that Clinton's biggest lead is among voters in southeast Ohio, a poor region of the state whose voters supported Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. She leads Obama there, 55 percent to 32 percent; Obama's biggest lead is in the southwest, where he is up 52 percent to 36 percent.

It's not just that Bill Clinton won those areas in 1992 and 1996. It's that John Kerry and Al Gore didn't, and even though they blasted Bush in the northern parts of Ohio, they lost the state because of the southeastern rural vote. And, as Ohio goes, so tends to go the country in November: No Republican since Abe Lincoln has won the presidency without winning Ohio. On the Democratic side, in the last century, only FDR and JFK won the presidency without winning Ohio. (FDR lost Ohio most likely because the Republican VP candidate was from the state.)

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Expectations game?

Unlike Clinton, who has been barnstorming Ohio, Obama had only two events in the state on Sunday and was spending the night in hometown Chicago. He heads to Texas on Monday for a final day of campaigning before awaiting returns on Tuesday in San Antonio.

His aides said privately that they felt they had a good shot at a win in Texas, but were less certain about Ohio, where they braced for a possible loss.

This is consistent with the polling we have seen. I think it feels like the lay of the land. It is going to come down to Texas whether the race ends Tuesday night.

BTW, why the mystery on how much Obama raised in February? Makes me think that it was not the monster numbers implied.

By Big Tent Democrat

[T]his dogwhistle Rorschach test, which progressive activists and media elites are interpreting so differently, could create problems for Obama when it comes time to govern. . . . [T]he . . . media elites that also like Obama intend to hold him accountable unless he becomes the next Joe Lieberman.

. . . Obama's message of bipartisanship means different things to different people. Media elites see it as a sign that he will regularly engage in fights that will anger the progressive activist base of the party. By contrast, many progressive activists see it as simply stating that he intends to build a large, "bipartisan" majority in Congress that will pass a progressive agenda. If, when he becomes President, Obama breaks in one direction or the other, one of these groups will probably end up pretty angry at him.

Indeed. Finally, some traction for analyzing Obamas's theory of change.

By Big Tent Democrat

Anybody can find a poll that says anything. NJDem just found this Ras poll that says Hillary wins NJ easily over McCain while Obama loses to McCain.

My own view is that no Dem loses New Jersey. My concerns are in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida. But when you hear about Obama's real advantages in Colorado and Virginia, remember that there are 50 different elections in a Presidential general election. Some of them are contested. like Ohio, PA and MI. Some are not, like Texas, Utah, North Dakota and Idaho. Much to the dismay of many Left bloggers, there will be no 50 state strategy in the Presidential election this November.

By Big Tent Democrat

Josh Marshall's cutesy headline about David Ignatius' column misses a key point. Of course, Barack Obama is not Joe Lieberman. But that is what the Media thinks "bipartisanship" means. That is the essence of High Broderism - unity means Dems capitulating to Republicans on the issues. The question then is how exactly will, if not through High Broderism, Obama unify the country in post partisan fashion? We are back to discussing Mark Schmitt's theory of Obama change. I hold to my view (for an opposing view, here is scribe's take):

By Big Tent Democrat

I think a credible argument that Barack Obama is slightly better than Hillary Clinton on civil liberties from as legislative perspective can be made. But the most important thing a President does to protect civil liberties is to appoint good Supreme Court justices committed to recognizing and acting on the Supreme Court's role as a bulwark for civil liberties. Scott Lemieux thinks that Jeffrey Rosen makes a compelling case for Obama. I think he raised the biggest red flag imaginable. Taking aside the questionable claims Rosen makes regarding Obama's role on reforming the Patriot Act, where Rosen really buries Obama is here:

Mr. Obama . . . is not a knee-jerk believer in the old-fashioned liberal view that courts should unilaterally impose civil liberties protections on unwilling majorities. His formative experiences have involved arguing for civil liberties in the legislatures rather than courts, and winning over skeptics on both sides of the political spectrum, as he won over the police and prosecutors in Chicago.

(Emphasis supplied.) More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Let's start with the most surprising result, a Columbus Dispatch Ohio poll:

A new Dispatch Poll shows that the New York senator would lead in Ohio by as much as 16 percentage points under the usual turnout scenario dominated by loyal, older party voters -- especially if women show up in force, as they have in earlier primary states.

Even if you presume an unusual influx of young and black poll-goers, Clinton still would hold a healthy single-digit lead, the poll indicates.

Clinton by 16? That result would shake up the race. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Kevin Drum finds the latest version. Soon to be seen at a Clinton hating left blog near you.