There are some strange suggestions from inside the Obama camp being floated in Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray's WaPo piece today... but formidable challenges call for drastic measures. The challenge for Obama, according to Weisman and Murray, is that he needs to bone up on foreign policy cred pronto to compete for the nomination in the area that counts the most... the party officials who know that a candidate is only as good as their ability to beat John McCain.

With Pennsylvania looming, Obama has few good options. Some advisers say he should stick to a plan, hatched before Tuesday's defeats, to spend some time in the next weeks traveling to Europe, Israel and Asia to bolster his credentials for the general election. But if he cedes the state completely, he destroys his strategy of winning big in the small states and staying close in the big ones.

The other area crucial problem area is his ability to get the Democratic base out to vote for him, and the primary season's consensus verdict is that they're not on board yet. Follow me...

Florida Democratic State Chair Karen Thurman meant it when she said it:

"There will be no other primary. Florida Democrats absolutely must vote on January 29th... The nation will be paying attention, and Florida Democrats will have a major impact in determining who the next President of the United States of America will be."

She reiterated this on 12/5/07:

"Accordingly, the Florida Democratic Party will respect the voters' choice on January 29th in determining the allocation of our delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. We are confident that the Democratic Presidential nominee will seat Florida's delegation at the Convention."

And now she's doing it. Florida is selecting delegates for the 2008 Democratic Convention. Follow me...

Welcome to the un-debate between Hillary Clinton and.... nobody.  Hillary accepted the invitation to appear with Barack Obama from WJLA-TV ABC7 and News Channel 8 in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. This appearance can be streamed on Politico.com, and is on POTUS '08, XM Radio Channel 130.  The appearance was initially intended to be a joint appearance by the candidates sponsored by The Politico and ABC7, but Sen. Obama refused to show up. Oh well.

Here is the original announcement, back when Obama had agreed to show up...

(ARLINGTON, VA) – ABC 7 News and POLITICO announced today they will be interviewing Democratic presidential candidates Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama on Monday, February 11, 2008, one day before voters cast their ballots in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia... ABC 7’s Leon Harris and POLITICO’s editor-in-chief John Harris will conduct the interviews...

So get your popcorn and follow me...

It's splashed on the front of her website now... no press release yet. But there's not a lot to tell. The numbers speak for themselves.

TEN MILLION DOLLARS SINCE SUPER TUESDAY. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DONORS.

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Some of you might have gotten an email from Hillary’s campaign today announcing a fundraising effort.  They want to raise $3,000,000 in just 3 days.  Pretty lofty goal right?

Well guess what? They’ve already met that in less than 24 hours. Money started pouring in on line (yes from folks with computers – like us) after the polls closed last night and it hasn’t let up yet.

They blew past that initial goal and are upping the stakes.  This money is coming in from new donors – tens of thousands of new donors.

YEAH!

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When faced with irrefutable evidence of boorish behavior by his candidate, David Axelrod claims that Barack Obama was sparing Hillary's feelings by turning his back on her. Here are his words on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program:

AXELROD: No, I don't think he snubbed her at all. First of all, they acknowledged each other as they entered the chamber. But I think he knew that Senator Kennedy and Senator Clinton were friends. This was obviously an awkward day from that standpoint, and I don't think he wanted to stand there while Senator Kennedy was greeting Senator Clinton. And I think that was an appropriate sentiment. Unfortunately, the camera caught it in a different way, and so it got interpreted that way. And that's the kind of environment we're in right now. It's a very competitive race, so every little thing is going to be interpreted in that way. But it was really a matter of letting Senator Kennedy have his own conversation, his own greeting with Senator Clinton without him hovering over them.

After caucuses and primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, the Democratic nomination contest moves to Florida. I know, I know, we were bad and we don't get any delegates (for now). But I'm a purist. I want to look at how representative the states so far have been of America as a whole in demographics.

And Florida wins. So like it or lump it, the results of Tuesday's Democratic primary two days from now are Florida's voters speaking with a voice that sounds like America.

Of course, Florida is not representative of the rest of the country in all areas. Our weather puts yours to shame. Last night, I slept with the sound of the surf coming in through my windows, and awoke to blue skies, temperatures in the 60s, and the first buds of spring in the treetops. And it's JANUARY.

Other areas of Floridian superiority -our women (and men) are MUCH prettier than yours. And our citrus products, nectar of the gods that they are, make California orange juice taste like battery acid. (OK, OK, I'm getting a little carried away. Sorry.)

But in important demographic characteristics, we are JUST like America.

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Hillary's website posted a news release this afternoon clarifying her position on the seating of delegates from Michigan and Florida at the convention:

"I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee. "I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention. "I hope my fellow potential nominees will join me in this. "I will of course be following the no-campaigning pledge that I signed, and expect others will as well."

In other words, she's in favor of giving these Democrats a voice.  Follow me for a discussion of this, and a reaction from the Obama campaign...

Any lingering mystery about where Hillary stands on universal health care was dispelled in last night's debate. She laid it out.  Here are her words:

If you don't start out trying to get universal health care, we know, and our members of Congress know, you'll never get there. If a Democrat doesn't stand for universal health care that includes every single American, you can see the consequences of what that will mean. I think it is imperative that we have plans, as both John (Edwards) and I do, that say from the very beginning that- you know what- everybody's got to be covered. There's only three ways you can do it. You can have a single payer system, you can require employers,or you can have individual responsibility. My plan combines employers and individual responsibility while maintaining Medicare and Medicaid.  I think that the whole idea of universal health care is such a core democratic principle that I am willing to go to the mat for it. I've been there before, I will be there again, I am not giving in, I am not giving up, and I am not going to start out leaving 15 million Americans out of health care.

Sounds like a determined woman to me.

After aggravating more than a few Floridians with a "Florida plays no role" press release, Obama had a change of heart (after being compared to Katherine Harris) and "accidentally" made a national cable buy on CNN which, of course, has 92% market penetration in Florida. A smokin' response from Hillary's campaign ensued:

Just last week the Obama campaign snubbed the people of Florida in a memo that stated that Florida did not matter in the nominating process. After consecutive losses in New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada, they appear to be changing course.  Senator Obama’s flagrant disregard for the pledge that he signed is disturbing and calls the integrity of the pledge into question.

Hillary's campaign communication director has just announced that "the agreement is off."  

Grab your surfboards...

Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics is looking at the Nevada entrance poll data, and has noticed some interesting trends, particularly in comparison to Iowa and New Hampshire results. Jay's looking at entrance/exit poll data because it's the only data available for all primary states- Nevada didn't even report a vote count, for example. The poll data Jay is using is available from CNN here, here, and here, for Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, respectively.  Jay's assessment of why Hillary won Nevada is:

...Clinton won in Nevada because she retained the voting coalition that she formed in New Hampshire... as she won the vote by a larger margin in Nevada than she did in New Hampshire - it stands to reason that she expanded upon this basic voting coalition.

In a memo released Tuesday, Barack Obama's campaign made it clear that "Florida doesn't count" in the candidate selection process.

Our position and the position of the DNC is clear – neither the Florida nor Michigan primaries are playing any role in deciding the Democratic nominee and we are not campaigning in either state.

But that's not what he told Florida voters back in September...

...Obama was asked during the event about making sure Floridians have a role in the nomination, despite the DNC sanctions and the pledge. Scarritt said Obama responded that he'll "do what's right by Florida voters."

Well, the "Florida doesn't count" statement released by the Obama campaign certainly clarifies for ME what Obama considered "doing what's right"... doing nothing.

Looks like things have settled back into where they were before Iowa and New Hampshire, and the national CNN poll has suggested. A straw ballot at the Pennsylvania state Democratic committee meeting has demonstrated the superior performance of Hillary's campaign once again.

Results:

Hillary 44.9% Obama 27.5% Edwards 24.1%

Follow me for the details, and how this signifies...

Hillary Clinton was going door to door in Las Vegas with state Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen, visiting Hispanic and black neighborhoods. From the Las Vegas Review Journal article, they stopped in on Gilberto Santana:

Santana told Clinton how his wife, Elizabeth, a housekeeper on the Strip, was barely supporting the family single-handedly while he was unable to work for two months because of an operation.  "We're sort of struggling," he said. "We're getting there, but you have to be strong to make it."  Clinton asked the couple questions about their mortgage and his disability payments, and answered his questions about immigration and the war and health care costs.

I was reading through this article, and was transfixed by one exchange:

A man shouted through an opening in the wall that his wife was illegal.  "No woman is illegal," Clinton said, to cheers.

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Not a lot of text out yet on this from Gallup, but Hillary won Gallup's most admired woman poll- AGAIN - for 2007. There's a video up on the Gallup website, but no text article yet. CNN has a blurb up with the numbers, including dates and sample size.
The poll surveyed 1,011 Americans December 14-16, and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Hillary and Oprah are within the MOE, with Hillary two percent higher.

The numbers: Hillary Clinton 18% Oprah Winfrey 16% Condoleeza Rice 5% Angelina Jolie 3% Laura Bush 3%

Hillary has won this poll for ten of the last eleven years, beaten once by Laura Bush in 2001.

I never thought I'd see the day on a progressive blog where I'd have to defend John Lewis, a hero of the Selma Bloody Sunday march, and one of the "Big Six" in the civil rights movement.  John Lewis went on from his SNCC activist days to become a prominent member of Congress, where he has represented Georgia's fifth congressional district since 1987.  He sits on the Ways and Means Committee, but he hasn't gone all establishment on us. He was one of the first congressional members to call for the impeachment of George Bush.

So, what's not to like about John Lewis, I was wondering.  Why all the enmity?  What did he do wrong?  He endorsed Hillary, that's what he did wrong. And now people who aren't worthy to hold his coat are taking cheap shots at him.

And no, you're not going crazy. John Lewis is still a hero of the progressive movement.  Follow me for a brief history of the events surrounding this endorsement, and an analysis of shameful attempts to spin it into something it is not.

Senator Barack Obama’s advisors had a major brainfart and apparently forgot what party they're supposedly members of with their latest stunt.   Not only are they highlighting his failure to gain the support of the labor unions (the backbone and workhorses of our party), but now he’s using that failure in his latest funding appeal to his supporters.

The "if you don't support Obama you're the enemy" meme started when Paul Krugman for daring to criticize his half-assed health care reform plan has expanded and metastasized.  Opposition research, twisted and misquoted words... it's starting to look CREEPy in the Obama campaign (joke for you old-timers and Watergate aficionados).

And now this?  Obama's campaign is attacking labor unions, teachers and EMILY’S LIST. They back the "wrong candidate" and are working to help get their chosen Democrat elected, and he goes on the attack with a backhanded slur against the core of the Democratic Party.

What is wrong with Obama? There's a serious disconnect between his view of the party and our longstanding "big tent" approach to a coalition.

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The post-debate poll put up this afternoon had predictable results- Barack Obama won with 37%, followed by John Edwards with 27% and Hillary Clinton with 12%. Of course, that tells me a lot more about candidate loyalties than it tells me about the actual debate performances. People vote for their candidate.

Or do they?

Well, mostly, they do. But there's a few people in there voting for the best performer, not their favorite candidate. If only there were a way to control for the sample bias and just look at the people who voted for the best performer...

Well, there is.

We took a straw poll here about 24 hours before this debate, which tells us ALMOST EXACTLY what the sample bias is (assuming that a representative sample voted in each poll). Controlling for the sample bias, it's clear that Hillary won the debate by "outperforming" her straw poll numbers with her debate poll numbers. Obama performed above expectations, but not as well as Hillary, and Edwards, well.... not so good.

Follow me for the math and anguish.........