Plagued by a defection of Clinton supporters and white working class voters, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the leading Democratic presidential contender, trails Arizona Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican candidate, in Florida and Ohio, according to simultaneous Quinnipiac University Swing State polls released today. Sen. Obama is six points ahead in Pennsylvania. New York Sen. Clinton wins handily in all three states. No one has been elected President since 1960 without taking two of these three largest swing states in the Electoral College.

John McCain, Republican: 45%
Barack Obama, Democrat: 35%
Bob Barr, Libertarian: 8%
Undecided: 12%

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Oh, and may I also humbly suggest you post strong, yet reasonably polite criticism, since if Hillary wins, we still need the Obamabots to beat McCain & Nader.  

Here's my post:

Brought her to her knees?  

I don't think so.  She may lose, and as an Obama supporter I hope she does, but we don't need to use stupid, oppressive, sexist language to get there.  No one brings Hillary Clinton to her knees.  And "stubborn support from American women?"  If and when Obama wins the nom, how the hell do you expect us to recapture her male and female supporters after insulting their intelligence and dedication?  They're about 50% of the Democrats, and you're casually blowing them off with your demeaning characterizations.

And BTW, the 75,000 people?  I live in Oregon.  Guess what we do on those first hot days of spring... we go outside in droves.  That's right, it's been rainy or cool all spring.  Yeah, people came to see Obama, and they also came to hear a free concert by a popular local band on the first beautiful, hot weekend we had this year.

Basically, we can't trust the Republican-backed electronic voting apparatus, and we will continue to get sidetracked in future elections by Republican-led state legislatures who are hellbent on disrupting the Democratic primaries by changing the dates in spite of the DNC rules.  

This is the DNC's chance to pull the rug out from under the Repub's manipulations, and to establish a new direction to defeat election fraud in America.  We need to demand a re-vote in MI & FL, and pay for the cost of a mail-in election that utilizes equipment we already have based on Oregon's successful 100% mail-in process that undermines electronic fraud by establishing an audit trail even in states that used HAVA to undermine that concept.  We've already got the infrastructure and policies in place, based on the Oregon model.  We've got the voter rolls in both MI and FL, and it's cheaper to do the mail-in than try to repeat the vote.  Plus, a re-vote now puts both states back in good standing with respect to the DNC timing of elections rules.

This solution is expensive, but it puts to rest the issues of disenfranchisement, establishes a new standard for reducing election fraud, and creates a route for Hillary to establish that she really is more electable.

Obama has dragged his feet and now Florida's votes almost don't matter (because he has a substantial lead in pledged delegates and superdelegates)

If Obama gets to the convention with enough votes to the be the nominee regardless of whether FL/MI are seated, and then decides to let FL/MI be seated, that's no different than if he refuses to seat them.

If FL and/or MI only get seated because they won't affect the outcome, then it's like they never got to vote at all.

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Imagine if a retrograde American state announced that women would vote separately from men, and their votes would only be counted if it wouldn't change the outcome.

Suppose this goes on for 10 elections, and 5 times, the women's votes are counted, and 5 times, they are not.

Did women get to vote 100% of the time?  (They always got to cast ballots)

Did women get to vote 50% of the time?  (Their votes were "seated" with the total 50% of the time)

Or did women get to vote 0% of the time?  (Their votes never had any chance of affecting the outcome)

I think the correct answer is 0%.  It's not voting if there isn't some chance you can affect the outcome.

If FL/MI are not going to count, then they shouldn't be seated.  That makes a mockery out of democracy.  Seating people who don't count is no different from shutting down a recount in order to preserve "legitimacy."  They need to be seated now or it's not going to matter whether they are in or out.

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On the flip side, if FL/MI are not decided until the convention, then everyone will know whether seating them will swing the election to Clinton.  The problem with that is that the vote whether to seat FL/MI becomes a proxy for the vote to make Clinton or Obama the nominee.  The rules committee won't be able to decide the issue on a principled basis, because the result of their choice will be 100% certain.  They won't be deciding the rules, they will be deciding the nominee.  And the perception that the Dem nominee is chosen by the rules committee, as opposed to by the voters, will be devastating.