Obama's chances to flip small western states or NC and/or VA are, in my humble estimation, overrated. So is his ability to hold on to PA.

I agree with BTD that Obama's a media darling and as such they give him a nice coating of teflon. But even with media-applied teflon, even with $$$ and a superior organization, even with the implicit endorsement of most of the DNC leadership, Obama lost Ohio, PA, WV, RI, IN, TX, and next week he'll lose KY.

A significant number of voters, particularly voters who have more in common with the bulk of GE voters than Obama-supporters do, aren't climbing aboard the Obama bandwagon.

Doesn't Obama realize how weak he looks making such a huge effort to avoid debating HRC ?

She also talked about the blogosphere, saying she deeply regrets the vitriol and mean spiritedness and insults that have been thrown around at bloggers for supporting her and at women in general, but this too shall pass. She said she's imperviious to the insults and almost sees it as a perverse (reverse?)form of flattery.

Love it. She's one tough cookie and I appreciate her efforts to model gracious thick-skinned-ness to us all. I aspire to be impervious to insults, too, when I grow up. :) In the meantime, I sure do admire her resilience and her ability to maintain focus on something positive. Really extraordinary quality. I admire her more each day.

1. SD are obligated to vote by the will of the people to SDs vote whatever they want,

2. Stealing pledged delegates is WRONG to ok we are good with it,

3. All votes count, unless its not for us,

4. We will compete in 50/48/47/46/well just enough

5. We can win red states to we can't even win blue states, and the grand prize....

6. I HAVE WON BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE 2025 or 2209, BUT I HAVE MAJORITY OF PLEDGED DELEGATES (woohoo I crossed my own made up line)

Thirdly, people need to write up actual policy differences and there are many.  Obama is slamming Hillary on the "gas tax" but completely ignores her entire policy plans for green jobs, R&D investment in alt. energies and how frankly Bill, due to his massive connections is the kind of guy to remove bottlenecks in the private sector to make that happen.  

Women.  Hillary has way better plans for single mothers, especially the plan to provide funding for non-traditional students (i.e. single mothers) so they can attend college.

People should be writing about those and in the Oregon news, Oregon blogs and in the Oregon major blog comment sections.

I am GLAD, GLAD, GLAD, Hillary is staying the in the race.  If people do their jobs, she will the nominee....

So the false argument that Hillary has an "electoral" lead is as laughable now as it was over thirty years ago when Kennedy was trounced in Ohio in the primaries. Anyone remember who won that state in the General? Anyone?

And no, this isn't the only example; it's simply the most illuminative one given the parallels often made, and representative of how time and again we see that both turnout (yes Obamanites, turnout now means nothing for the general) and successes during the primary means nothing for the general

Jeralyn doesn't like the "content" of my reasonable and rational post, so she censors and deletes it.

You got the quote WRONG!

You got it backwards.

Can't you tell why it doesn't make sense to say "It's the math not the map"?

Listen to the recording again.

Second, the idea that the electoral college totals should count instead of the delegate counts has no merit unless Clinton actually believes that this is a three party race. Some of the states in Clinton's column (California and New York for example) will go for the Democratic candidate regardless unless the party's candidate fails to keep his or her base. The only thing that counts for the nomination is the delegate count.

There are too many metrics in this race. The only thing that matters is electoral college votes in the fall. Everything else is smoke and mirrors (ie: popular vote with/out caucuses, with/out FL and MI, pledges vs. supers, 2025 vs. 2100, etc.).

Regardless of what you feel it should count for it doesn't actually count for anything and the superdelegates don't think so either since Obama now has a 20 SD lead.

The number one message: It's the math not the map. In addition to the popular vote, the electoral map shows her with a cushion and Obama with a deficit. She has won 311 electoral votes to Obama's 217. While a few of her's like Texas and Oklahoma will be a challenge in November, many of his states will be: Alaska, Idaho, Utah, to name a few.

 First thing's first: General Clark won the primary in Oklahoma in 2004.  Beyond that, TX remained in Republican hands throughout the 90s and through 2004.  There is no reason to believe that 2008 will be any different.  Idaho and Utah were always gonna be Republican, ditto with Alaska and Oklahoma.  Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico are the states to watch for.

 I think the historical realities are being tossed aside by some people in this campaign.  I don't think McCain is going to win it, but Michigan could have been an easy state this year.  But no, we had to play with the delegate seating (and Senator Clinton played as much as the others), and now we have to spend a lot of money there, too.  

 You can't really extrapolate much from the primaries.  Kerry and Clinton both won Texas in the primaries and lost it in the general election.  

 The Democratic primary voters gambled this year on two very unconventional candidates, and the Republican coalition was fractured and Senator McCain was able to take advantage of that.

Maybe you and other members of this blog have beaten this Michigan/Florida issue to death, but this is my first entry.

I do stand corrected regarding the DNC rules... 5 of the 7 candidates at the time responded to a request of the DNC to remove their names from the Michigan ballot. You are correct, it was not mandated.

But the remainder of my comments regarding the vote counts and applicability of using the electoral college tally versus the delegate tally remains factual.

I would also note that, by those metrics, Obama still leads by around 300,000 votes.  It is possible  Clinton could gain another half million vote margin from Kentucky and Puerto Rico, but also possible Obama could pick up another 2-300,000 votes from a good turnout in Oregon, Montana and South Dakota.  

So, by counting the votes in all 50 states and other contests, and using estimates where specific totals are unavailable, the final popular vote totals are highly likely to be roughly a tie.