Michelle Obama made a statement that implied that she wasn't always 100% proud to be an American? Ah Ha! Gotcha!

It isn't like there is any extenuating circumstances for an African American Woman to justify not always being proud of her country.

Clinton supporters sure have been racking up the points in the game of "Gotcha!". To bad they haven't been translating into votes or delegates.

It is almost as if the "Gotcha!" game isn't as important as having a good ground operation in every state and a campaign strategy that extended past February 5th.

Yes, Yes, We all care about quintiles.

Didn't hear much about it until recently. She was awfully quiet during the time it mattered.

Obama supporters aren't unaware of the struggles unions have had, we just don't see any evidence that the Clintons' did anything to help. It isn't enough to say that Obama doesn't get how hard it is to deal with big corporations, Clinton has to show that she is even on the right side of the fight.

In the Nineties, the DLC and the Clintons never faced a demand from Big Business they didn't cave into. But like Molly Ivins said (about Bill): "You got to dance with them that brought you". Look at who is getting the most money by far from Big Business and lobbyists and tell me you really think she is going to fight the good fight.

From the introduction to "You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You: Politics in the Clinton Years": "If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal."

The Clinton support of the working class in the nineties is the real fairy tale.

Side note: Looks like Hillary is insisting on fighting until the convention so I thought I'd take a look at some metrics.

In my opinion, there are three standards that should weigh into who ends up with the nomination: Most votes, Most states, Most pledged delegates. The relative value of each is debatable but if one candidate gets all three they have a pretty clear claim on the nomination. Two of these metrics have "magic numbers", in other words, there is a point where one candidate has the majority.

They are Most States and Most pledged delegates.

Most States is 25 if MI and FLA opt out of having real contests and 26 if both do. DC and the territories could be tiebreakers. Right now Obama needs to win four of the last sixteen states to hit 25 states. Clinton needs to win 14 of those contests to hit 25 states.

Most pledged delegates is 1627. According to CNN Barack has 1102 and Hillary has 978. For Barack to hit the magic number he needs to win 45% of the remaining delegates. For Hillary to hit the magic number she needs to win 55% of the remaining delegates. According to other estimates that try to call more pledged delegates than CNN (the remaining 28 in WA state for example) Hillary's number jumps to 58% of the remaining delegates. The 10% difference may not seem like a lot, but bear in mind, to not hit the magic number Barack would have to have _all_ the remaining contests look like New Jersey and California.

Obviously, the popular vote doesn't have a magic number since we don't know how many people are going to vote. However, after last Tuesday Obama looks to have about a 710,553 lead. This doesn't count states that don't track number of individual voters: Alaska, Iowa, Maine, and Nevada.

Not insurmountable by any means, but not a lot of room for the Clinton's to make misteps either.

citation(s) needed, please

Hillary is one of the top 10 earmarkers in the Senate. She brings home the bacon, she gets the votes.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/14/clinton_linked_to_340m_in_earmarks/

It isn't about blue collar workers in New York being uninformed, it is about being well informed and knowing who is ultimately providing your paychecks. Give the working man a break, just because someone drives a forklift doesn't mean they don't read the New York Times.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/clinton-scoffed.html

I'm obviously biased to the idea that Hillary refused to have a single debate with her 2006 Senate primary challenger. Especialy the excuse. However, I also recognize the humor points in Obama pushing a Republican opponent for six debates.

I see the differences as an order of magnitude. Refusal to have any debates versus only agreeing to two more past the 18 we've already.

That said, the debates ads about the debate ads are reaching an almost critical mass of self parody. I think SNL would have trouble topping the amount of unintentional humor.

Parting shot: Enough money for ad buys in Wisconsin but not enough time to set foot there?

If he got the bill out of commitee it did get passed. In the Senate "passed" doesn't always mean "made into law." It is part of the arcane wonkery that goes on in the nation's most delibrative body. Fortunatly all three candidates are from the Senate so it is a more level field than when a Governor, who only has to sign or veto legislation, gets in the mix.

I think the real story here is why did the Republican controlled senate let the bill die? Must be their extremely narrow definition of "national defense". How far the bill got passed and who cosponsored it is getting well into the territory of not seeing the forest for the semantics laden leaf.

Useful link:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-2348