Republicans and conservatives aren't drawn from the ether. We went to the same schools and grew up in the same communities. It is ridiculous to marginalize the half of the country that voted for W as being unable to be drawn into a real conversation. They have just been unwilling to talk to people that look down on them and who they perceive as intractable in their beliefs.

If there is peer review evidence showing a significant benefit to school vouchers why not at least consider it? If the research conflicts isn't is better to take the time to try to identify what conditions lead to the different conclusions, rather than just dismissing conclusions you don't agree with as biased?

For instance, the cherry picked kids in the voucher schools. Did the studies find a that grouping high achieving students resulted in the high achievers doing better than in a mixed environment? It might be worthwhile to consider.

If you overhear someone going on about Barack Hussein Obama ask them what John McCain's or Hillary Clinton's middle names are. The really funny part is how many people answer "Rodham".

If those Texas papers are running stories like that then you should have no problem posting a link.

Until then I'm just going to use Occam's Razor: The vast majority of people voting in the Primaries are voting for the candidate they want to vote for in the Fall. I

t isn't inconceivable that a registered Republican would vote for Obama over McCain. Registered Democrats voting for W. pushed him over the top in '00 and '08. Not to mention the Reagan Democrats that gave him every state but Minnesota in '84 (which is an election to bear in mind when talking about so called "Red" and "Blue" states).

Direct mailing was an innovation that has won Republicans many elections. Don't be surprised if the internet and social networking sites do the same for the Democrats.

You'll note that even in your purely anecdotal NY Times example, no one actually followed through with their plans. The simple fact is that very few people are going to take time out of their lives to cast a vote for a candidate they don't believe in, let alone caucus.

It is funny how you think Hillary is more likely to beat McCain. Nevermind that she and her orgainization couldn't outmanuever a relative newcomer to national politics. Nevermind her trailing significantly in votes, delegates, and states won. Nevermind the vast majority of polls show Obama doing better against McCain than Clinton.

Apparently being a Clinton supporter means that talk is cheap but wishing really, really hard will carry the day everytime.

The "I'm not going to vote for Obama in November" meme is either very shortsighted or pure bluster. If you let John McCain become president because your number one pick didn't get the nomination you might as well buy your daughters wire hangers and your sons tickets to Iran now, so you can beat the rush.

1 in 5 Ohio voters in an exit poll said that race was an important factor in their decision. Eight in 10 of those voters went to Clinton.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/04/730736.aspx

The other is that it wasn't enough for her to just win, she needed big percentages. We'll see how the votes in Texas go, but by letting it be this close Hillary really lost because she didn't make up the ground she lost in every other contest following Super Tuesday.

Finally, wasn't she 24 ahead in Ohio and 17 ahead in Texas a few weeks ago?

I don't think anyone said Obama had to win every race till June to get the election. Right now, even if he loses all the primaries by 10 points from here on out he still wins the most pledged delegates.

Also, is it true that he has nearly the same delegate lead that he had before? So far it looks like Hillary's up 26, and she's up to a three point lead in Texas. I guess it depends on the meaning of nearly.

Considering his pledged delegate lead before tonight was 160, I would say that it doesn't move the ball the much. Especially considering that we don't know how the delegate split in Texas will turn out (cacauses, primary delegate allocation that rewards districts that had high turn out in 2006) and we don't know the margin she will end up with in Ohio.

Every contest where she fails to make a lead changing rate the bigger her wins need to be later on. The contests after tonight have 539 pledge delegates at stake. If she somehow makes it out of tonight with a net gain of 90 delegates, she would need to get about 56.5% of the remaining delegates to win the pledged delegate count. That means that every state from now on has to turn out better than Ohio. Every state that doesn't hit that thresehold, or even better, gives Obama a win, pushes her needed victory margins even higher.

I think those types of margins aren't realistic considering that Obama cut Clintons 20% plus lead in the Ohio polls to about 12% and her 17% point lead in the Texas polls to about 4% in about three weeks.

1. Let's have valid Michigan and Florida primaries. Let's get both candidates behind them. Why are Clinton supporters so resistant to this idea? It isn't like Obama cuts her lead at least be half in every state he sets foot in...oh wait.

2. Why can't Hillary be the one to wait? In eight years she'll only be 68. Maybe she can use the time to give me a good reason to vote for someone who had a hand in getting friends of mine wounded in a war of choice.

She hasn't won Texas yet. Let's see how the caucus and the delegates shake out.

Bill still can't offer any solid way she can win the pledged delegate count.

She literally can not win the most states at this point.

On her big night she only reduced Obama's popular vote lead to 650-750,000.