The author of the blog that "revealed" the Clinton push-polls is Andrew Malcolm. Sound familiar? He's a professional Republican mouthpiece and the former official spokesman for Laura Bush.

The only person Malcolm quotes who claims to have received the push-poll call is Ed Coghlan. Sound familiar? Coghlan is not a regular guy on the street, he's a right-wing political pundit and PR man! According to one of the companies he works for, Ready for Media

(see http://www.readyformedia.com/anne.htm)

"Ed Coghlan is instrumental in the corporate communications of turn-around situations and start-ups leading to IPO’s. A former news director of KCOP-TV, Los Angeles, Ed was also featured in an anchor role which involved political reporting and commentary. [...]"

In other words, he's a a corporate PR guy, who was formerly a political news specialist, and directed news at LA's FOX affiliate.

Come On! The reason this showed up in a blog, and not in the paper, is that the paper's editorial standards would never have allowed it to run. It's Republican PR, pure and simple.

So far, the only "Editor's Choice" letter regaring this article is from Jaben, and it spreads false information about Clinton and Obama's respective records in the Senate. I should point out that a Google search reveals that this letter has appeared elsewhere on the internet, in blog posts and letters columns, and is clearly being spread by misguided Obama supporters as "talking points." (It is so preposterous that I do not believe it comes from the Obama campaign, who, if they had stooped this low, would at least have done a much more competent job.)

If you actually go to the Library of Congress's Thomas search engine, as the letter suggests, you will find that Clinton's name is currently on 150 pieces of legislation, Obama's on 113. The idea that she has only contributed to twenty, and he to over eight hundred, is false and frankly ridiculous. Interestingly, the letter gives the Thomas URL incorrectly, perhaps in hopes that no one will check on its ludicrous claims. Clicking my signature should take you there.

Just because you don't like the current President is no reason to be against "people who are related to ex-presidents running for president."

For one thing, it's not like the U.S. has a real problem with this; we've only ever had a few presidents' descendants or relatives in office.

For another, when we did, they were, let's see, John Quincy Adams, a moderately effective but eminently reasonable president, who set the stage for Lincoln's abolition of slavery, damaged himself politically by being too kind to Native Americans, and took his oath of office on a law book to emphasize that the government had no business using a Bible for that--he was personally very religious, but supported the separation of church and state.

And then there was FDR, arguably the greatest president of the twentieth century. Even if you don't think he was the greatest, he was certainly an effective president with an important legacy.

So why exactly would Hillary Clinton be bad?

I voted for Hillary today in Maryland, and I agree with the previous poster that Electoral math is crucial. It's weird that the primary is done with proportional allocation of delegates, by the way, because this obscures the relationship between the primary and the election. The general election will be all about electoral votes, not who does well with what demographic in South Carolina, where McCain is going to win anyway.

The issue isn't that Obama can't win states like New York, New Jersey, and California, though. I think he'll probably win those Democratic strongholds. He absolutely has to win them all to get elected. Thus, Clinton's much stronger showings in those states may be relevant--but let's say they're not. Those states are reliably democratic, so Clinton's strong showing is pretty irrelevant.

Likewise, in many of those states where Obama did well--such as Virginia, Colorado, Alabama, and Alaska--no Democrat is likely to win in November. So Obama's strong performance in those states is more or less irrelevant. Their Democratic voters will contribute nothing to the electoral vote.

If you look at the so-called "swing states," which are the most likely to be in play, you find that Clinton is winning handily.

First of all, Nevada, New Mexico, and Missouri were so close, it hardly matters which Democrat is nominated, they'll have an equal chance in November.

Obama's only convincing swing-state victories, in states that might really be in play, were Minnesota and Iowa. That's 7 and 10 electoral votes, or 17 that Obama is more likely than Clinton to bring in.

As for the other swing states, Clinton won New Hampshire (4), she won Florida (27), she won Arkansas (6), she won Michigan (17). That's 54 electoral votes she has a better chance at.

By this math, she's doing about three times as well as he is in terms of the electoral votes she's more likely than he is to secure.

(Keep in mind also that while the Democrat will probably win Illinois no matter which one is nominated, Obama has no chance in Arkansas, which Hillary could well win for the Dems.)

The crucial upcoming states will be Ohio (20) and Pennsylvania (21). In those states, the Democrat OR the Republican could win in November, and they have lots of electoral votes. If Obama wins both Ohio and Pennsylvania, that would make him just about as strong as Clinton is where it counts--a little stronger. If she takes either of those states by any kind of margin, or if even one of them is too close for it to make a big difference to the Dems' chance in November, Clinton will still have a significantly larger number of contested electoral votes she's more likely to bring home. That means she's the more likely winner of the Electoral vote in November.

I agree, it's a weird way to pick a president. But that's how we do it, and within that system, so far Hillary's doing better.