By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

That Crazy Lanny Davis:

Hillary supporter Lanny Davis added a new dimension to the Hillary camp's bash-the-press-for-being-soft-on-Obama strategy, asserting on Morning Joe that "it's very hard to criticize Senator Obama without being accused of playing the race card"...

Greg Sargent thought that was over the top. I would have thought so too. But then I read this from Attaturk:

And now Gail Collins comes forward today and says:

...people here worry that Barack Obama is getting show-offy

I believe the word all of you are thinking, but not typing, is...

U-P-P-I-T-Y

Let's just get it out in the open and call it for the racist bullcrap it is.

As I card carrying member of the PC police, I would urge that Gail Collins take care with her words in general. But Attaturk just called her a racist. I wonder what Hilzoy and John Cole think about that?

Update: Now that Ralph Nader has selected Matt Gonzales as his running mate, which I did not know when this post was written, I've written a follow-up here.

*****

Matt Gonzales is a progressive and the former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He's also a former public defender, former Democrat and green party candidate who ran a well-respected and close campaign against San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. (Bill Clinton campaigned for Newsom, who won.)

He started thinking he didn't know too much about Barack Obama other than the change meme, so he did some pretty exhaustive research on his voting record. As a result, he says, "Count Me Out." Check out his issue by issue comparison and then his conclusion:

Once I started looking at the votes Obama actually cast, I began to hear his rhetoric differently. The principal conclusion I draw about “change” and Barack Obama is that Obama needs to change his voting habits and stop pandering to win votes. If he does this he might someday make a decent candidate who could earn my support. For now Obama has fallen into a dangerous pattern of capitulation that he cannot reconcile with his growing popularity as an agent of change.

I remain impressed by the enthusiasm generated by Obama’s style and skill as an orator. But I remain more loyal to my values, and I’m glad to say that I want no part in the Obama craze sweeping our country.

I think Gonzales' view is even more telling when you consider who supported him for Mayor in 2003. It wasn't the Democratic establishment, it was the change folks, including: [More...]

David Gergen, former advisor to President Bill Clinton confirms to CNN that Hillary Clinton did not support NAFTA:

And for Clinton supporters out there, here's a late nighter: Hillary's new Texas ad, One of a Million

There's a new LA Times/Bloomberg national poll. The key findings:

• Between McCain, Obama and Hillary:

  In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%). Neither lead is commanding given that the survey, conducted Feb. 21-25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
  

• On the economy, Hillary beats McCain 43% to 34% while McCain beats Obama 42% to 34%. That's a big difference.

[More...]

Ohio is considered an important state in the general election. It's generally been a barometer of how the country will go.

A little history: No Republican has won the presidency that didn't take Ohio since Abe Lincoln in 1860. The only Democrats in the last century to win the presidency while losing Ohio were FDR and JFK.

Ohio favors Republicans, although Bill Clinton won the state both in 1992 and 1996. Al Gore and John Kerry both lost the state to George W. Bush.

Here's a map showing in red and blue how Ohio counties voted in past elections.

So how did Bill Clinton win Ohio? He went after the rural vote, not just the urban areas. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

In the spirit of speaking up when I think the blog CW is wrong, I want to address this argument from Markos. He cites Texas blogger Anna, who writes:

[A]nd let me just add to what karl sent you last night about the obama campaign doing more to rebuild the party in two weeks than the party's done in years.... he's 1000% right.

[W]e have - in [T]arrant county alone - 3400 volunteers and over 600 precinct captains. that means that we could fill almost every single precinct captain spot in [T]arrant county. [O]ne of our goals has been to ask these volunteers to continue to serve their local parties, and we are urging our precinct captains to become precinct chairs where ever there is an empty spot. [I]f our people will fill the empty spots, we could have a precinct chair in every precinct in [T]arrant county for the first time in over 15 years.

(Emphasis supplied.) Here's my question -- does Obama volunteer translate into Democratic volunteer? That is the assumption of both Markos and Anna. I have serious doubts that a post-partisan Unity campaign will produce the type of partisans who will become regular Democratic Party activists. "If" is the operative word in Anna's post. My reading of that "if" is "not likely."

NOTE - this thread is now closed.

After several starts and stops, Civil rights leader and long-time Hillary Clinton supporter has switched positions and will vote for Barack Obama.

Why? It's the movement. "He's transformational." The country has been swept away.

Nothing about whether or why he would make a good President. As to Hillary he says:

....the decision to switch his support was a difficult one, a choice between a longtime friend and a little-known black man.

"I did it because I felt I had to support Mrs. Clinton because of our friendship," Lewis said. "But also I thought she was ready to lead.

Update: As a commenter points out, could this have something to do with Lewis's support of Hillary earning him a new primary challenger?

In 2004, the Democratic ticket carried 20 states with 252 electoral votes. Obviously, it wasn't enough. What other states are most likely to play a role in 2008? Which of the Democratic candidates would be the Party's most successful candidate in the general election?

William Arnone, a long-time Democratic Party activist who worked with Robert F. Kennedy in 1967-68 has updated his July, 2007 analysis of "Key States in the 2008 Presidential Election."

The ten states are: Arkansas; Colorado; Florida; Iowa; Missouri; Nevada; New Mexico; North Carolina; Ohio; and Virginia.

With his permission, I reprint his newest analysis below:

A new Quinnepac poll on Pennsylvania is out. It shows Barack Obama cutting into Hillary Clinton's lead there, but she's still ahead, 49 to 43%.

The increase for Obama is attributed to the youth vote.

This biggest movement is among younger voters who went from 52 - 41 percent for Clinton February 14 to 58 - 41 percent for Obama today, a shift of 28 points.

The other numbers show:

Among likely Democratic primary voters, women back Clinton 53 - 39 percent, while men back Obama 50 - 43 percent; white voters go with Clinton 56 - 37 percent while black voters support Obama 69 - 23 percent. Democrats with a college degree favor Obama 53 - 41 percent, while voters without a degree back Clinton 52 - 39 percent.

More...

Sean Wilentz, writing today in the New Republic, argues that it is Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, who has played the race card in this campaign.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters.

Readers are welcome to weigh in, so long as they don't call anyone, candidates or other commenters, racists. This is about playing the race card, not whether either candidate or anyone on this site is a racist.

During our live-blog of tonight's debate, Big Tent Democrat thought Hillary should have praised Obama when she had a chance to respond to his answer about whether he would reject Lewis Farakhan's support and endorsement. I didn't think she needed to do that. I thought he was trying to have it both ways -- not alienating his Jewish supporters or Farakhan's.

While many think Hillary's distinction between denouncing and rejecting was artificial, Don Frederick at the LA Times disagrees. I think he makes a good case that Obama was waffling. Hillary just called him on it. See below:

(Update (TL): Our server got overwhelmed by the number of people trying to log on to the site. Even I'm having trouble logging on. Our webmaster is working on it.If you can't get in to comment, try back in a few minutes. Thanks.)

By Big Tent Democrat

My take? NBC stinks. Tim Russert stinks. Brian Williams stinks. Keith Olbermann stinks. Chris Matthews stinks. Who won the debate? No one. Who lost? Everyone.

NBC's coverage of its coverage? We are fair. We are great. How could anyone complain? What a joke.