"So you think Hillary is only waiting around for Obama to step in doo, or to stage a coup?"

Yep, that's about it -- the step in doo part, not the stage a coup part. It's the "hope Obama gets hit by a meteor" strategy, basically. Didn't work for Huckabee. Won't work for Clinton. But at least Huckabee tried to keep the internecine fighting to a minimum while he prayed for an Act of God. Clinton, not so much.

But, I'll give 'em credit. At least the Clinton campaign is aware of the math and their no-win situation. Which is more than I can say for the Clinton supporters here and around the Internets.

"You simply cannot write off a large proportion of the population as being beneath consideration and still call yourself a liberal."

I would agree. You should e-mail that to Sen. Clinton, next time we hear a variation of the "small states/caucuses/red states/black states/Obama states/all states but OH and PA don't matter" argument.

As for my own remarks, I'm not writing off a large proportion of the population, or are you telling me a statistically significant segment of the population has posted in the Tribune Rezko thread? That comment board, by nature of the subject matter, wiil be flypaper for Clinton dead-enders from all over the Internets, not a representative sample of the general election sentiment in Middle America. That was my point.

In other words, arguing that that comment board -- or any comment board on the web, frankly -- gives you any indication of how the election is playing out "in middle America" is patently ridiculous.

"I don't think FL & MI will be accepted as is, and there is no guarantee a new vote will give any better results."

In fact, the opposite is virtually guaranteed: The results, popular vote-wise, would be worse for Clinton, as explained well in that TAP link I posted a page ago. (It's a very worthwhile read. The upshot is this: Clinton wants to prolong the uncertainty in FL and MI, because certainty in any direction cements a losing scenario for her. That's why her House Dem allies killed a mail-in vote, etc.)

In Michigan, Obama would obviously get more votes than the first time, because his name would be on the ballot. So that's + Obama.

In Florida, Clinton could do better than the 50% she got the first time. But, now that it's no longer a 3-person race, Obama is much more likely to do better than the 32% he got the first time around. Since the most likely outcome is a 55-45 or 60-40 split, the change in popular vote would be almost negligible. Clinton may win by more than she did the first time, but Obama would pick up a lot of votes too.

That should be comments of a Rezko story at the Trib, not columns. My b.

Those RCP numbers are missing the 4 states that haven't released popular vote totals. (IA, NV, WA, ME) Working back from the delegate count to extrapolate from those, the popular vote seems to be bigger:

Obama: 13,614,204 (+813,051)

Clinton: 12,801,153

But, again, a moot point, for the reasons I noted below.

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=892

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/13/134235/517/95/475879

(Also, to the powers that be, I know it's only 8 years into the 21st century and all, but how about a comment board the recognizes href tags? That'd be great.)

Yes, Katetex, because the loons who troll the columns of a Rezko story at the Trib (such as yourself, by your own reckoning) represent, I'm sure, the heart of Middle America.

Fester, I'd agree that the popular vote is where the Clinton team is staking their play. They said as much to the Sunday Times last week (and also conceded they'd lost the pledged delegate count.) But, the popular vote is a huge reach anyway even if they did manage to take it, given that [a] some caucus states don't even have an official vote tally and, more importantly, [b] Speaker Pelosi shot it down specifically yesterday (to air on This Week tomorrow.) The relevant passage:

"But what if one candidate has won the popular vote and the other candidate has won the delegates?" asked Stephanopoulos. 'But it's a delegate race,' Pelosi replied. 'The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee.'"

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/pelosis-delegat.html

TAP's Mark Schmitt recently explained why FL and MI are merely a smokescreen: "Contrary to the gullible media's belief that 'time' is a 'powerful ally' on Clinton's side, in fact, Clinton's only ally is uncertainty. The minute it becomes clear what will happen with Michigan and Florida -- re-vote them, refuse to seat them, or split them 50-50 or with half-votes, as some have proposed -- is the minute that Clinton's last 'path to the nomination' closes. The only way to keep spin alive is to keep uncertainty alive...Penn can claim that there is a path to the nomination, but under any possible actual resolution of the uncertainty, there is not...

"[T]he specific resolution doesn't matter, because whatever it is, it will introduce certainty and finiteness, and without the comfort of ambiguity, the Clinton spin-campaign cannot survive. The Clinton campaign began -- unwisely -- by spinning inevitability; it ends, equally unwisely, by spinning cosmic uncertainty. In between the two spin campaigns, they apparently forgot to give people enough of a positive reason to actually vote for Senator Clinton."

If big italicized paragraphs offend your senses, here's the upshot: It's over.

(http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=03&year=2008&base_name=why_clinton_doesnt_want_a_revo)