Taylor Marsh has a great clip of Wilentz on Tucker talking about the race card comments.  Ending is especially good as Tucker tries to say Wilentz is a good friend of the Clintons and Wilentz laughs and says, "I barely know them!"  Pretty funny stuff.  Whoever writes Tucker's scripts has some 'splainin' to do!

I have never gotten particularly involved emotionally at the primary level, other than thinking someone might get beat by the Republican candidate. But I never thought that a leading candidate might actually be a bad choice if the actually won.  I don't see him pushing a progressive agenda.

If Obama is the Democratic candidate, I might just have to suck up the idea of loosing to a Republican and write in some other Democrat.

Unless something else changes, I really don't think I can support Obama.  And I think it is primarily because of the supposedly progressive blogs.

I sent him the following email:

So.. Obama getting support from a domestic terrorist
organization (as designated by SPLC) is equivalent to one old lady's personal opinion?
Passing on this is your idea of journalistic equivalence?
Have you considered applying for Joe Klein's job?

On one of the threads today someone (Kathy?) suggested that it might be possible to go after MSNBC's advertisers rather than the network in terms of applying pressure (especially in light of the alleged women/Hillary-bashing). I looked for the post, but sorry, I couldn't find it to post it there.

I just came back from my gym where they have MSNBC on one of the TVs (ugh, but captive audience) and I was watching for the advertisers. During a 25 minute period, here are the companies who advertised:
-Schiff (a glucosamine supplement)
-General Electric (think women buy kitchen appliances?)
-Marriott
-Apple (iPHone)
-Campbell's soup
-Procter & Gamble: Actonel (osteoporosis drug: for women only)

Obama  -- 47.7

Clinton -- 46.5

2008 Texas Democratic Presidential Primary Pollster

Pertinent quote:

Gardner Selby, the veteran political columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, said he is baffled by some of the commentary about the Texas campaign he's seen from "East Coast media" on cable television and the Internet.

"The presidential race is not over. Anybody who says they know what is going to happen here is drunk on their own (ego)," Selby said.

And where have we heard this before?:

But if Clinton wins, the entire dynamic of the race will shift. She'll be able to claim she is best suited to be the nominee because she consistently wins the big states: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Texas, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. He'll go from front-runner to the candidate who only wins small states; but more problematic, he'll be the candidate who has failed to show any significant support among Hispanics.

(Remember, that in addition to California, Clinton carried Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Obama barely got 50 percent from Hispanics in his home state, Illinois.)

And the man could write.  Even while reading something that made my fists clench, it was impossible not to notice that the prose was  meticulously crafted.  And I learned to always take the library's copy of National Review to a seat near enough the OED to make frequent reference to it convenient -- his vocabulary was astounding.

That was when Mr. Obama proposed a novel challenge aimed at limiting the corrupting influence of money on the race: If he won the nomination, he would limit himself to spending only the $85 million available in public financing between the convention and Election Day as long as his Republican opponent did the same.

Campaign finance experts said the issue was a major test of Mr. Obama's commitment. It is also a first glimpse of what might come in a general election fight between two candidates who have championed public integrity, opening themselves to accusations of hypocrisy.

On Wednesday, the McCain campaign stepped up its criticism of Mr. Obama after his statement at the debate.

"The fact is, Senator Obama signed a piece of paper and pledged to take public financing for his campaign if I did the same," Mr. McCain said. "I believe that Senator Obama should keep his commitment also, which means taking public financing. The rest of it is ground noise. The rest of it is irrelevant."

In last night's debate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were asked if there were any "words or votes you'd like to take back." Clinton described, in gut-wrenching detail, her regrets over her Iraq War vote. When it was his turn, Obama noted that all senators had implicitly allowed the federal courts to intervene in the Terri Schiavo feeding tube case, and he wished he had spoken up against it. With a quivering air of self-castigation, Obama explained that the episode taught him the dangers of inaction.

Fair enough: Clinton chose to discuss a vote that has made some people hate her and imperiled her presidential campaign; Obama referred to a non-action in which he was only as culpable as every one of his colleagues.

But hasn't Obama been congratulating himself on the campaign trail for offering blunt, self-revealing answers to those kinds of questions, while his colleagues opt for what he calls the Washington "okey doke" response of admitting something that gives offense to no one?

 Obama -- 48.3

 Clinton -- 41.7

Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008

Obama -- 48

I gave Clinton a 5-point win in Texas and a 10-point win in Ohio and Pennsylvania, a very optimistic scenario, and very conservative Obama wins in most other states (except West Virginia) and in the end she was down 100+ pledged delegates.