Why assume which states are going to be what color this far out? Obama is right to run a 50-state campaign, if only because a bigger popular vote adds a sense of legitimacy. Remember legitimacy? That aspect of a presidential win last seen in 1996? There's also the claim to have coattails. An improved showing in a state that's still lost can nonetheless help down the ballot, meaning more Democrats not only win, but figure they partly owe their seats to Obama.

Rather than assuming winning or losing states or demographic polls, try everywhere and poll everywhere, and worry about identifying purple states later when resources have to be concentrated. Colors might have shifted with the passage of time and change of candidates.

I think bernbart was right. I looked up the site, and it's blank. Make SURE the site collecting donations is actually Clinton's. I'm thinking of chipping in a bit. I say "thinking" because many worthy campaigns need money for November and my resources are limited, but I also want Clinton supporters to feel like part of the team.

The letter writers calling for an invasion or some sort of armed intervention, well-motivated as I acknowledge them to be, are making the same mistake that cause so many on the left to support the invasion of Iraq. Though Saddam was as bad as human rights groups said he was and the Iraqis mostly wanted him gone, it turned out they still felt humiliated by the foreign invasion. Even dictators like Mugabe can expect an increase in popular support in the face of a foreign threat, which is why fearmongering leaders try to create foreign threats. I have no doubt that Zimbabweans want to be rid of Mugabe, but it's a huge stretch to suggest they would support having their country invaded.

We should also have learned from Iraq that war, even for a good purpose, has its own horrors that can be worse than the dictator. The 80 estimated killed so far could easily become a daily death toll. In short, it could be worse. Far better to let the people of Zimbabwe overthrow their dictator as they see fit. We should pressure the governments who are backing Mugabe to stop and try to prevent sales of arms to the government.

This is maybe the last argument I would use in a discussion with a nativist. Even a conservative, as fact-free as they're wont to be, can fail to miss that large chunks of the US can't support large populations. We have a lot of desert, a lot of arctic, a lot of mountains. Germany has some mountains, but is mostly woods and plains. Same for Britain. They can support denser populations. A fairer comparison would be Britain compared to New England, not compared to Alaska and Arizona.

Perhaps I don't know my home state as well as I thought? I have been saying having Gov. Pawlenty on the ticket would help McCain, and in fact that was the only way Minnesota would be purple. I'm surprised by the finding that he would hurt. I can't stand Pawlenty myself, which makes me typical of Minnesota Democrats, but I thought the home-state effect would be the other way, especially since Pawlenty's approval ratings have been positive. That result makes me doubt the poll actually, though my sense has been that Obama would win safely.

I wish I could say the same of the disappointing result for the Coleman/Franken race, but at least it's early.

The money that's speculatively chasing commodities (I deliberately say "commodities", not "oil", because oil is just one commodity that has shot up) used to be chasing tech stocks. About the time that bubble burst, deregulation of the banking industry allowed the creation of mortgage backed securities and led to the mortgage bubble. The rise in commodities has followed the bursting of the housing bubble because of the chase for big money with little risk. Unlike the stock and mortgage bubbles, where most people thought they benefited, we almost all lose by the commodities bubble. Also driving this I suggest is the steep decline in the dollar, which historically has always led people with declining money to buy something material, like houses, or gold, or darer I say it, oil.

I see only a small part of the price increase being driven by demand. I see another bubble, and at some point it will burst too and oil will come back down, for a while anyway. Same with corn, wheat, etc. I don't know if commodities markets have anything like shorting, but I'd be looking at shorting pretty soon.

Pawlenty may have done the DFL (Minnesota Democrats) a favor by being child-like in his negotiations, often described by state legislators as "my way or the highway". His idea of negotiations is Bush-like: you do what I want, and I won't attack you quite as much. In Pawlenty's first session, when he was determined to shut down the state government before compromising at all on the budget, the DFL legislators decided to be the adults and give in to stop the shutdown. They got nothing for it. Since then, they've fought him hard, and picked up a bunch of seats. Not only do they have a veto-proof majority in the senate thanks to Pawlenty's habit of picking Republican legislators for appointed positions and calling special elections when turnout will be low, but the article didn't mention that the DFL is close to a veto-proof majority in the House too. Pawlenty forced the DFL to fight instead of fruitlessly offering one rejected compromise after another, and it's a lesson application to national Democrats.