Two things:

1) The talking heads are already saying that Obama will be back on a roll if he wins in Mississippi. They are also saying that Obama may have a bigger pledged delegate lead than he had before March 5. And we need to start telling the truth: Obama will win Texas when all is said and done.

2) The Clintons are just as connected to Tony Rezko as is Obama, if not more so. That’s why they haven’t really pushed that line of attack too much. Tony Rezko’s fingers are deep in both the Dems and Repugs cakes and there’s no two ways about it. He’s a corrupt figure who’s associates have donated to the Clintons as well. And the Clintons have to answer to all the income from Canada, Saudi Arabia and China.

Billary’s correct that the Repubs are going to be worse (hah!). They will be using the same material (muslim, tribal stuff) against him (see Mark Steyn and H. Hewitt).

This long contest helps him cover all 50 states. His team is well managed, organized and getting better daily. I believe they will be ready for the general election, unlike Billary’s team (see NYT on the disorganization), or even McCain (no money).

McCain’s problem right now is a disappearing news cycle. As someone remarked before, the longer Billary stays the more hate she generates. I know some wm who are seething with rage at her, and they are die-hard former supporter Dems.

Frankly, I’ve been stunned by how well Obama has run this race. A year and half ago I never heard of this guy, and now he’s beating the “inevitable” candidate(s). For a novice, he’s giving the Billary team a damn good fight, and as a nice guy.

This is a campaign for the history books. He’ll do alright.

On a subway, a woman saw me staring at her newspaper as I was coming to the realization that Obama may have won (I don’t read french). She had a bemused look on her face; I couldn’t tell if it was fear or hostility, though.

If he was financially involved, that’s significant. Spitzer was and is a HUGE supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Did Spitzer make monetary donations to Clinton’s campaign?

Did he co-mingle state and personal funds in his involvement?

Did Hillary Clinton have any knowledge–even unconfirmed–of Spitzers actions?

Ironically, there are plenty of European Americans who are just as afraid of an Obama presidency. And they also are part of our news agencies.

I agree with so much that has been said. I believe that Obama likes to appear naive and ‘unfamiliar’ with the political game. Since the ‘end’ is afar off, I think he’s choosing his ‘battles’ carefully. It’s not urgent to him to ‘fight’ ‘verify/deny’ every sentence the Clinton/camp spews. I hope this strategy works. He has a narrow road to manage on…he can’t appear too naive or too aggressive, yet I think the country is ready to see a candidate that doesn’t always have to argue over/about each little thing.

I think if the Clintons had something on Obama, they would’ve dumped it on him already. Have we not forgotten the pictures from Obama’s Kenya visit and their Kitchen Sink Strategy?

The Clintons wanted this thing over by Super Tuesday, but it didn’t happen. If they had something on Obama, they would’ve released it by now to secure the nomination so they could begin working on McCain. This extended race, as much as Hillary lies and says it’s fun, doesn’t benefit her and is only driving up her negatives.

There are a lot of folks who like Obama, but have concerns about his experience. By telling these voters that Obama will be in the White House in some capacity, the Clintons are “alleviating” these voters guilt, and the Clintons hope these folks will vote for Hillary in the primaries instead of Obama.

Also, offering the VP to Obama is a psy-ops tactic. The Clintons are pushing the narrative that Obama is not really the frontrunner. If this narrative is repeated, people begin to believe it.

I don’t think the Clintons are monsters or zombies, as Samantha Power and Andrew Sullivan claim, but they are great politicians.

I have faith in Obama and Axelrod, though–hell, they weren’t supposed to be this far. These guys are on top of things. Obama’s surrogates (Kerry, Daschle, and Hart) were on the Sunday Morning News shows questioning Clinton’s experience as First Lady and nixing the idea of Obama being VP. Just sit tight everbody. Do what we can do. For example I just fired off an email to the DNC asking them to reconsider the mail-in do over for Florida and Michigan (I mentioned my concerns in an earlier post). Let the Obama camp do what it can do. And pray.

Mon Mar 10 2008

Departments
Election Issues

Did Republicans give Hillary her victory in Ohio?
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
March 8, 2008

Hilary Clinton’s larger-than-expected victory in Ohio may have been won with votes from Republicans, and from independents who usually vote Republican.

Much has been made of Rush Limbaugh’s other far-right commentators’ pleas to Republicans to cast their ballots for her in open primary states like Ohio and Texas. Part of the strategy is to slow down Barack Obama, who analysts argue will be harder for John McCain to beat this fall. Others, like Ann Coulter, have gone so far as to say they actually PREFER Clinton to McCain. Such voters would certainly also prefer the former first lady to Obama.

Whatever the case, there is concrete evidence in Ohio that Republican cross-over voters did, in fact, play a significant role in delivering the Buckeye primary votes to the Senator from New York.

Ohio has a classic open primary. Party affiliation can be whatever a voter states upon entering the polls. Both of this article’s writers, who usually vote Democratic or independent, chose to vote Republican in the 2006 primary, essentially because of a desire to oppose J. Kenneth Blackwell, the sitting Secretary of State, because of his role in his voter suppression during the 2004 election. In 2006, though our previous party affiliations were Democratic, each writer merely informed poll workers that we wished to cast a Republican ballot. Raised eyebrows notwithstanding, there were no problems getting them. The same opportunity allowed voters to cross-over last week.

There is clear statistical evidence that many Republican voters did cross-over. The Democratic Party “won at least 141,785 new voters in the four-county region” of Warren, Clermont, Hamilton, and Butler counties according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner told the New York Times that in Clermont and Summit Counties, paper ballots ran out mostly due to a large number of independent and Republican voters crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary.

In Warren and Clermont counties, in southwestern Ohio, the number of votes cast in the Democratic primary are telling. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that in Warren County, for example, there were 12,440 registered Democrats (9.49%) and 41,377 registered Republicans (31.57%) and 77,237 nonpartisan voters (58.94%). In Tuesday’s primary, 27,855 voters (48.53%) asked for Democratic ballots, representing 223.91% of the registered Democrats in that county.

Warren County is notorious for a “homeland security” alert called by county officials on Election Day 2004, causing the ballots to be diverted to and counted in a restricted unauthorized warehouse.

In Clermont County, there were 14,496 are registered Democrats and 37,714 registered Republicans, as reported by the Enquirer. In the primary, 26,279 people voted Democratic. One Clermont County presiding judge reported running out of Democratic ballots and turning away at least 30 people, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Election observers on 2004 claimed that 100 or so ballots in Clermont County has stickers over John Kerry’s name, that would have caused the vote scanner not to register a marked Kerry vote.

In 2004, Warren, Clermont and nearby Butler County gave Bush some 140,000 more votes than Kerry. Bush’s entire margin of victory in Ohio was less than 119,000 votes.

Dr. Richard Gunther, professor of political science at Ohio State University suggests that other factors are in play in Ohio. He sees a likely shift of independent voters, similar to the elections of 1930, 1932 and 1934. In those elections, spurred by the Great Depression, independent and Republican voters shifted their loyalties to the Democratic Party and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, causing a fundamental realignment in politics that lasted for fifty or so years.

There were some technical issues with voting machines in Tuesday’s election. The Enquirer reported on power outages in Darke and Hamilton counties and reports of electronic touch-screen voting machines problems in Montgomery County. Voters at one precinct in Lucas County (Toledo) voted on paper ballots after the electronic voting machines failed, according to the Toledo Blade.

Secretary of State Brunner has made significant strides toward guaranteeing freer, fairer and more transparent elections. In the wake of massive irregularities under Former Secretary of State Blackwell in the 2004 election, Brunner has committed the state to paper ballots. In Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), she forced the resignation of Republican Board of Elections (BOE) Chair Bob Bennett, along with the rest of the board. Bennett forced the county to spend $20 million on electronic touch-screen voting machines, which proceeded to crash in the 2005 primary. Among other things, they registered a 14% vote count error, according to a BOE study.

This spring Brunner ditched the machines in Cuyahoga County in favor of paper ballots. Ironically, the county ran out of the Democratic ballots, indicating a higher than expected turnout of voters for the Democratic primary. In response, a federal judge ordered several Cleveland polling stations to stay open until 9pm so everyone could vote.

In Franklin County (Columbus) a survey by the 16-member election protection team from the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism showed that it took an average of 15 minutes to vote in inner city precincts such as ward #5 and #55. These two precincts had lines between three to seven hours long in 2004.

Restrictions on absentee and early voting were not present in this year’s voting as they had been in 2004. Co-author Harvey Wasserman got his absentee ballot in the mail without incident this year, whereas it took four phone calls in 2004. The Franklin County Board of Elections opened with extended hours on the Monday before the primary to give voters greater flexibility.

Two days before primary election day, Brunner forced the resignation of Franklin County BOE Chair Matt Damschroder. Election officials told the Free Press that Damschroder met with Bush, Blackwell and Karl Rove on election day 2004. Misallocation of voting machines and other irregularities caused inner city residents to wait up to five hours to vote in his bailiwick. Prior to that election, in his BOE office, Damschroder accepted a $10,000 check for the Franklin County Republican Party from a representative of the Diebold voting machine company. Inexplicably, after Damschroder resigned, the Franklin County BOE, including two Democrats, voted to retain him as a “consultant” at over $11,000 per month salary.

Anecdotal evidence from Texas, where Clinton won the popular vote in the Democratic primary, also indicates Republican and Republican-leaning independent cross-over voting may have had an impact. While losing the popular vote by a narrow margin, Obama won that state’s caucuses, and emerged from Texas with more Democratic delegates than did Clinton.

Evidence in general would suggest that the intrusion of normally Republican voters into the Democratic primary may signify what statisticians call an “asymmetrical entrance” of new voters. Such a phenomenon could signal malicious cross-over voters or signs of a Democratic realignment, or both. This would also cause errors in pre-election polls. The post-election exit polls may have been affected by the so-called “Bradley Effect,” in which white voters casting ballots in an election where a white candidate is running against a black one tend to mislead exit pollsters about how they cast their actual vote.

This fall it is virtually certain that Ohio will once again play a key role in choosing the next president. Except for John Kennedy in 1960, no candidate has won the presidency without carrying the Buckeye State since the 1840s.

This spring, the Buckeye State has also played a critical part in the race for the Democratic nomination. And it would appear that Ohio Republicans and independents who generally vote Republican were key in handing the state to Hillary Clinton.

–

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org). With Steve Rosenfeld they co-wrote WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO? from the New Press. This article was originally published by freepress.org

MZ, you’re likely correct. I should know better.

Barack is doing his thing, and doing it the right way.

Clinton’s Rush-powered wins in Texas and Ohio can’t obscure Clinton’s awful record in match-ups against Obama in more than a dozen states, and she cannot possibly catch him in delegates before Denver.

So either she concedes or the the Dems writhe right through the first ballot in Denver, more than five months from now. Obama has won the voting, and his lead in total votes cast like his lead in delegates won in elections cannot be erased.

The only way for Hillary to win the nomination is to destroy Obama’s reputation among the super-delegates to such an extent that they will fear a ticket led by him will result in a crushing loss in November. Team Clinton has to be digging deep into all things Rezko as well as every aspect of Obama’s life and political career.

Clinton’s only way to win is to bleed Obama. The best way to do that is via the obvious stage that the Rezko trial presents. With so much attention focused on Tony, Team Clinton may be able to slip the dagger in without anyone noticing that the info surfaces in a strange way. The path to a superdelegate’s vote is through a Chicago courtroom.

I think what the Obama people know is that nothing they can say or do now is going to get Clinton to drop out the race before at least Penn and probably the convention.

So since this battle is destined to be fought over the next 6-16 weeks there is no need to unleash all the heavy weaponry at once.

And just FYI as other have talked about one of those new weapons is Bill Foster, a new Congressman from IL that won in no small part because of Obama’s help.

Don’t think Obama is going to take that victory to the supers as an example of what he can do for them.

“African American, 50 years old and elected last year as mayor of Philadelphia on a reform platform, Nutter has in many ways experienced a political rise similar to that of the Illinois Democrat vying for his party’s presidential nomination.

But presidential elections aren’t fought on paper, and Nutter isn’t a supporter of Obama’s. Instead, he has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and insisted in an interview late last week with The Fix that she is well positioned to clean up in both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in general when the Democratic race makes its way there on April 22.

“There’s the regular season, and then there’s the playoffs,” Nutter said of the nomination fight. “We’re now in the playoffs.” Extending the football metaphor, Nutter compared Obama to the New England Patriots, who were undefeated during the regular season and the playoffs, and Clinton to the New York Giants, who ended that winning streak in the Super Bowl. [snip]

Despite that history, Nutter said he weighed his options carefully before deciding to endorse either candidate. He spoke with Obama and Clinton several times, knowing that he wanted to make an endorsement. (”You are either on the field or on the sidelines,” Nutter said. “I am an on-the-field guy.”) In the end, he went with Clinton because “I thought she had the best ideas [and a] tremendous track record.”

Nutter’s endorsement of Clinton in December seemed inconsequential at the time. After all, no one in the political world believed the race would last beyond Feb. 5, Super Tuesday.

But, as the race has gone on (and on), Pennsylvania has become more and more relevant, and Nutter has emerged as a far more central figure in the ongoing debate over whether black elected officials should line up behind Obama and his potentially history-making candidacy.

Asked how much pressure he has come under to reconsider his endorsement of Clinton, Nutter responds curtly “none” before noting: “I don’t know if anyone is asking Senator Kennedy or Senator Kerry, who happen to be white, whether they are getting any pressure from their constituents for their endorsement of Senator Obama.”

Nutter takes it as a point of personal pride that he plans to stick with Clinton no matter what the future holds for her candidacy. “I take my time, think about what I am doing and then stick with it,” he said. “I don’t care whether it’s just me and them left.”

One uncommitted superdelegate, for example, told The Washington Post, “If the pledged-delegate total is within 100 votes or whatever, I don’t think there’s a great deal of significance in that.”

Cutting his lead to fewer than 100 is realistic, and it’s why Clinton is pushing hard to get do-overs in Florida and Michigan. Those states offer her a chance to close the gap in both the popular vote and delegates.

That’s her game. Get it close in delegates and maybe win the popular vote, then turn to the supers for a majority. Meanwhile, she wants to get the party faithful salivating about a happy ending where they can have both Obama and her, as long as she’s on top.

Offering the VP spot is a way of saying, take this or I’ll have to take you out.

It just makes no sense for her to be speaking this way, unless…