North Carolina and Indiana could have done what a bunch of other states did, and rushed to the front of the line and had their primaries on February 5th.  They could even have done as Michigan and Florida and "taken cuts" and broke through the DNC's approved sequence of early primaries.  Instead they decided to have late primaries.  They got a lot more attention from the candidates than they would have had they gone on Super Tuesday, and certainly more than had they broken the DNC rules and gone early (thus resulting in a candidate boycott).  The state parties benefited from the extra voters, the extra activity, the extra excitement.  And North Carolina and Indiana get the distinction of being the states that, if not concluded, then essentially conclusively settled the nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
But that's not all they got.  To keep states spread out and not all clustered in February, the DNC offered bonus pledged delegates to those states that went late in cycle.  Thus, instead of only getting 66 pledged delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver, Indiana gets to send 72.  And North Carolina went from 89 delegates to 115.  Those extra delegates put Indiana ahead of Tennessee and Maryland and gave it as much voting strength as Minnesota and Missouri.  And North Carolina bypassed Massachusetts and New Jersey.  

When the primary system is reworked, maybe some states will remember that going late was great for North Carolina and Indiana.  

Re: To Do List Before Dropping Out

Please, before dropping out, help the party start the healing process.

Even though it no longer matters, please, for the sake of party unity:

FIRE MARK PENN!

Thank you in advance for devoting your attention to this important matter.

A NYT op-ed by Rhodes Cook:

While Hillary Clinton probably can’t catch Barack Obama in the race for most pledged delegates at the Democratic presidential nominating convention, she does have a shot at overtaking him in the popular vote. Whoever triumphs in that symbolic total will have a persuasive argument to use with the wavering superdelegates who are likely to decide the race this summer.

Granted, Mrs. Clinton boasts that she has the lead already, but her count includes the votes in the unsanctioned primaries in Florida and Michigan. A fairer calculation would eliminate the ballots cast in those two states, as well as the votes from caucuses where no statewide tally of the actual vote was compiled.  (Those states are Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington; Mr. Obama won three of them.) Territories that do not possess any Electoral College votes should be ruled out, too.

What a compelling argument!  There's no way Hillary Clinton will come out ahead of Barack Obama in pledged delegates.  Obama may soon pass Clinton in commitments from super delegates.  It's quite possible that by the end of the primaries that Obama's combined total of pledged delegates and commitments from super delegates will exceed 2,025, the number of delegates required to secure the nomination in Denver.  Obama will have won more states.  He polls ahead of Clinton nationally, and he consistently polls better than Clinton among independent swing voters.  

To be fair, Cook doesn't count the totals from Florida and Michigan, which were not sanctioned by the DNC and which Clinton said shouldn't be counted.  She's harped on MI and FL because she needs to keep uncertainty to keep everyone from telling her she's lost, and that she won't be the nominee.  

But, if Clinton does really well the rest of the way out, and if you don't count four states that that don't count caucus votes, three of which Obama won outright and the fourth one from which he won more pledged delegates, then maybe Clinton will squeak past Obama in what this author calls the popular vote.  

In other words, if you give Clinton a several state handicap, she might look better than Obama, but even then, only on one measurement, and not one that is anywhere in the rules for determining our nominee.

I can't wait for the Olympics.  I'm looking forward to hearing and reading arguments about how the winner of the 100-meter dash shouldn't be given the gold medal, because the second-place finisher's time over 92 meters was faster than the time of the winner's over the entire 100 meters.  

Who could possibly argue that that's not a fair calculation?  

From Jake Tapper:

The campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., removed a man from his Michigan Finance Committee today.

It started after conservative writer Debbie Schussel called Michigan businessman Ali Jawad not only a supporter of Hezbollah -- a group the US State Department labels a "terrorist organization" -- but also claimed he was a "key agent of the terrorist group in the Detroit area."

After Schussel started asking questions the McCain campaign removed him from the finance committee for a May fundraiser.

"Apparently he is a well known member of the Arab-American community in Dearborn," a McCain staffer tells ABC News. "He is also a known Republican donor and former Bush finance committee member. When these rumors surfaced he notified the campaign and we removed him from the finance committee. The guy never raised a dime for us and he isn’t even a contributor."

Tapper directed people to Schussel's site—if you want to look for yourself you can get there via the link to Tapper—and then wondered if this wasn't some preemptive move by McCain to deny Obama a shot at McCain for being weak on terrorism.

It's both more complicated and simpler.  The Arab community, its place in Michigan, and its ties to the Middle East are complicated.  However, what's simple is that Debbie Schussel hates Arabs.  The McCain campaign is afraid to offend the far right.  So they ditched Ali Jawad rather than deal with Debbie Schussel.

A disclosure.  I haven't seen him in about 5 years or so, but I once knew Ali Jawad.  That may sound extraordinary, but it's nothing special for someone who's run campaigns in Michigan, especially for one who's worked with the Detroit Area's huge Arab community.  I've brought candidates to meet with him and his political circle, and I've worked with him to elect Democrats, just as my Republican counterparts have worked with him to elect Republicans.

To fully understand what's happening here, one must understand the Detroit area and its Arab community.  There are several million Arabs across the country, most of whom are Christian, with many tracing their families back to Christian Lebanese and Syrians who immigrated to the US in the early 20th Century.  What's different about the Arab population in the Detroit area is the size, diversity and power of the Arab community.  

Lebanese Shiites have lived in the Detroit area since the early 20th century.  In the shadows of the Ford Rouge Complex—one of the biggest factories in the world, which once employed 80,000 men—is the "South End" of Dearborn.  This neighborhood was a mix of Shiite Lebanese, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, Maltese, Greeks and Armenians.  In the 1970's, as the other ethnic groups moved away from the neighborhood, the Lebanese Civil War exploded.  Soon the neighborhoods of southern and eastern Dearborn—which borders Detroit—became home to many thousands of Arabs.  These immigrants were mostly Shiite Lebanese, but eventually Dearborn also became home to large numbers of immigrants from Yemen.  Around the same time many Chaldeans—Roman Catholics from Iraq whose traditional language is Aramaic, the language that dominated the region at the time of Jesus—moved in large numbers to other neighborhoods in the Detroit area.  

Today, the Arab population of the Detroit area is somewhere between a quarter and a half million.  The largest groups are the Lebanese Shiites and the Chaldeans, although there are also large numbers of Yemeni, Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and, since the end of the first Gulf War, Iraqi Shiite Arabs.  Many Detroit area Arabs are Christian, but immigrants in the last 20 years are more likely to be Muslim.

Like almost every immigrant group, Arabs have moved beyond their original neighborhoods and can be found throughout the area.  And everyone in Detroit has a lot of contact with Arab-Americans.  In secular Baathist Iraq, Chaldeans were a semi-protected group that were permitted to sell liquor.  When they began moving to Detroit, they took up the same business.  Today, Chaldeans own almost all the convenience and liquor stores in the area; everyone in the Detroit area interacts with Chaldeans because almost all the corner stores are family run.  And when you stop for gas, you'll be dealing with a Lebanese Shiite, because they own and/or operate almost all the gas stations in the area.  

Arab-Americans lean Democratic but are a key bloc of ticket-splitters.  Because of their rapidly increasing wealth, they have also become an important source of campaign contributions, especially in the $250 to $1,000 range.    This is where Ali Jawad comes in.  He is the head guy in the gas stations owners association.  He also runs the Lebanese Heritage Club, which hosts just about every candidate forum for Arab-Americans, and which regularly attracts every major politician in the area.  He's a major collector of checks, and he's one of the leaders of his community.  

As Tapper points out, Jawad has said things about Hezbollah that make it sound less sinister than one would think a group would be to make the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.  Well, he's not the only person in the area to not condemn Hezbollah; the range of attitudes of Lebanese in Dearborn is probably centered somewhere between ambivalent to fairly supportive.  Many of the Dearborn Lebanese come from a handful of villages in Southern Lebanon, within a few miles of the Israeli border.  Thus, they come from the heartland of Hezbollah.  Their home villages were used by the PLO to stage raids in Israel during the early 1970's—there is often animosity between Lebanese Shiites and Palestinians, for many Lebanese blame Palestinians for destabilizing Lebanon—the area was occupied by Israel for many years, and it was only after years of fierce attacks by Hezbollah that Israel abandoned Southern Lebanon.  In the eyes of many Lebanese, Hezbollah liberated their home villages from Israeli occuption.  

Hezbollah is now the de facto government of Southern Lebanon, and provides social services as well fights Israel.  Many people in Dearborn have family ties to major players in Lebanese Shiite politics.  And Lebanese in Dearborn view Hezbollah with much the same mix of distrust mixed with nationalist pride and identity that Catholic residents or former residents of IRA-controlled neighborhoods in Belfast or Derry view the IRA.  Most Lebanese in Dearborn came here to escape war, but that doesn't mean they don't identify with one faction more than the others.  In Dearborn, many identify  with Hezbollah.  

But whatever their views about their home country, most Arabs in Southeast Michigan view themselves as Arab-Americans, and that's how they're viewed by most of their non-Arab neighbors.  In the Middle East, most would be viewed hostilely by the Sunni terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, because most Arabs around Detroit are Shiite or Christian.  They moved to the US to escape problems back home, and have settled in.  They often hate the foreign policy of their adopted country, but they love being Americans.  And in Michigan, they are political players.

Back in the 1980's, Democratic governor Jim Blanchard was accused of returning contributions from Arab-Americans.  When he ran for Governor in 1990, Republican John Engler—with the help of his Republican party chair Spencer Abraham—did the opposite, and enthusiastically reached out to Arab-Americans.  For each of his three elections he was rewarded for his outreach with votes and contributions from Arab-Americans.  Abraham himself even slid in to the Senate in the 1994 Republican landslide (before losing to Debbie Stabenow in 2000).  But many Arab-American voters still strongly supported Democrats, especially members of Congress David Bonior (then the second-ranking Democrat in Congress), John Dingell (who represented all of Dearborn for several decades) and John Conyers (who now splits Dearborn with Dingell).  Jawad's personal political contributions mirror these community-wide patterns.

I don't know enough about Ali Jawad's background or business practices to vouch for him, but I doubt the McCain campaign does either.  But I do know that just about everyone in Michigan politics, Republican and Democrat, has sought his support, and John McCain's campaign just dumped him because viciously anti-Arab reactionary Debbie Schlussel called him a terrorist (which for her is practically a synonym for "Arab").  

Once again we have a case where a politician has no problem with dumping on Arab-Americans because of ethnic stereotyping.  It's like accusing Italians in the 1940's of all being tied to the Mafia, or thinking that every Salvadoran that comes in to the US today is connected to a violent drug gang.  

Tapper wondered if the Obama campaign might eventually throw the Jawad association back in McCain's face.  I would hope not, because that would just be validating the claims of one of the most hateful people on right.  She's claimed Media Matters is Nazi-funded.  She claimed the shooter at Virginia Tech was a "Paki."  And she's used the same scare tactics against Obama himself, pushing the bullshit that he was once a Muslim, and that "once a Muslim, always a Muslim,"  and that his comments are heavily lifted from the film Malcolm X.  In short, this woman hates Arabs and hates Muslims.  Hell, she just hates.  And anyone or anything she hates she depicts as part of a scary conspiracy of all Arabs and all Muslims (with the occasional Nazi thrown in to give her predictable hatred a bit of retro zing).  

There are legitimate criticisms to make against McCain and the Republican party in general about being soft on terrorism.  However, in the absence of anything other than the hate-filled rantings of that lunatic Debbie Schlussel, attacking McCain for once having Ali Jawad on his finance committee would not be a legitimate criticism.  The legitimate criticism of McCain is for being soft on hatred and bigotry, and caving to Debbie Schlussel.  It would be wrong for Obama's camapign to dignify her hate.  Furthermore, it would be dumb politics, because it would needlessly alienate tens of thousands of good Americans who also happen to be of Lebanese descent and swing voters in what could be one of the most competitive states in the November election.  

Chuck Norris political idiot, in the role of Chuck Norris, Republican policy wonk:

If these solutions don't stop the tides of illegal flow in and out of our borders, a friend of mine has a Texas-tough alternative and answer to replace the government's virtual fence failure. In fact, he says, we don't need a security fence at all. All we need to do is to post signs and position manned trucks at key points, just like our government does at Area 51, the top secret military airfield in remote central Nevada, around which there are no fences or walls. There is never a breach or unwanted border crossing there, at least that we hear about! And why? Because the boundary sign reads and is never questioned, "Warning: Use of deadly force authorized."

One would think that before Norris started proposing "final solutions" to "problems" of people who "aren't like us," he would have realized that the Nazis, through the experiences of their mobile killing units, the einsatzgruppen, discovered that shooting wasn't a very efficient way of killing large numbers of people.  How long until Norris or one of his buddies takes the next step, and advocates gas chambers?  

[h/t to Ken Bank]

It's not in Brooklyn:

Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending.

Federal investigators cite undersize steel plates as the "critical factor" in the collapse of the bridge. Heavy loads of construction materials on the bridge also contributed to the disaster that injured 145 people on Aug. 1, according to preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board.

"The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money," McCain told reporters while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects."

I never took physics, but I'm pretty sure it collapsed because it wasn't strong enough to hold the weight it was bearing.  It probably would have held up if some money had been spent to strengthen it, but the Republicans neglected infrastructure investment the entire 12 years they controlled Capitol Hill, because they were more concerned with tax cuts to the rich and war in Iraq.  

But the man does offer a compelling argument against electing a Republican Congress.

Also, does McCain think he's already been elected President?  Doesn't he know that he shouldn't be blaming Congress, especially his own Republican leadership, while he's still a member of Congress?  

And I love this:

"I think there is a long, long list of earmarks which went to unnecessary and unwanted projects that I think should have gone to the bridge in Minnesota," McCain said.

"I don't know whether it would have gone or not, but if you're spending $223 million on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it ..."

McCain said such projects "have everything to do with the power and influence of an individual congressman or senator and has nothing to do with the actual transportation needs of the United States."

On the same day, McCain was confronted with an earmark he did consider worthy. During a forum at Lehigh Valley Hospital, he met a woman with ovarian cancer who was treated in a clinical trial funded with $80 million in congressional earmarks.
The hospital was showing off an electronic medical records system that is virtually paper-free.

McCain insisted he was not trying to have it both ways and said that deserving projects can get money through regular channels.

"It's the process I object to," he said. "I'm sure that I can give you a list of projects the Mafia funds, and they would probably be good projects. But I can't give you a justification for the Mafia. I can't give you a justification for the corruption that's been bred which has sent members of Congress to the federal prison," he said.

Did John McCain just compare Ted Stevens to a tool of the Mafia?  

Bob Herbert:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him.

Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media — this reverend is never going away. He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it.

It’s a twofer. Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived...

The thing to keep in mind about Rev. Wright is that he is a smart fellow. He’s been a very savvy operator, politically and otherwise, for decades. He has built a thriving, politically connected congregation on the South Side of Chicago that has done some very good work over the years. Powerful people have turned to him for guidance and advice.

So it’s not like he’s naïve politically. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Forget the gibberish about responding to attacks on the black church. That is not what the reverend’s appearance before the press club was about. He was responding to what he perceives as an attack on him.

This whole story is about Senator Obama’s run for the White House and absolutely nothing else. Barack Obama went to Rev. Wright’s church as a young man and was blessed with the Christian bona fides that would be absolutely essential for a high-profile political career.

Faster than anyone could have imagined, the young Mr. Obama became Senator Obama and then the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Then came the videotaped sermons and the roof caved in on Rev. Wright’s reputation. Senator Obama had no choice but to distance himself, and he did it as gently as he felt he could.

My guess is that Mr. Wright felt he’d been thrown under a bus by an ungrateful congregant who had benefited mightily from his association with the church and who should have rallied to his former pastor’s defense. What we’re witnessing now is Rev. Wright’s “I’ll show you!” tour.

Obama appears unwilling to let Wright succeed:

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference...

"The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," Obama said of the man who married him...

Obama said he heard that Wright had given "a performance" and when he watched tapes, he realized that it more than just a case of the former pastor defending himself.

"What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that contradicts what I am and what I stand for," Obama said.

In a highly publicized speech last month, Obama sharply condemned Wright's remarks. But he did not leave the church or repudiate the minister himself, who he said was like a family member.

On Tuesday, Obama sought to distance himself further from Wright.

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he's done enormous good. ... But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS. ... There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced."

"At a certain point if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally and then he questions whether or not you believe it — in front of the National Press Club — then that's enough," Obama continued.

In his Philadelphia speech last month Obama couldn't openly repudiate Wright without risking a negative reaction from voters, especially African Americans, would see him as an ingrate, willing to cast aside people who've become inconvenient.  Now, however, as Wright goes around the country performing as a caricature of what many white voters will perceive as "The Scary Black Man," Obama has an obligation to repudiate Wright.  Failing to repudiate Wright risks allowing the GOP (and until then presumably the Clinton campaign) to use Wright as the Black proxy with which to scare off white voters.  White people who aren't solid GOP voters aren't personally scared by Obama, but they could be scared away from Obama if they're afraid that as President  he'll bring a bunch of "Scary Black Men" along with him in to the White House.  

As long as Wright continues to blab, Obama not only has the obligation to repudiate him, he has the opportunity.  This afternoon, he took advantage of the opportunity.  

Howard Dean says it again:

"We want the voters to have their say. That's over on June 3," Dean said on ABC News' Good Morning America. Although party rules enable the superdelegates to wait until the presidential nominating convention on Aug. 25 to make a choice, Dean says the party cannot wait that long if it hopes to beat Republican John McCain in November.

"We really can't have a divided convention. If we do it's going to be very hard to heal the party afterwards," Dean said today. "So we'll know who the nominee is, and that'll give us an extra 2 1/2 months to get our party together, heal the wounds of having a very closely divided race and take on Sen. McCain."

Dean isn't saying which of the two Democrats will have to step aside in June. "Either of these candidates, if it's time for them to go, they'll know it and they will go,. They don't need any pushing from me. You know when to get in and you know when to get out. That's just part of the deal."

Dean reiterated this prediction on NBC News' Today : "Five hundred of the 800 unpledged delegates have already said who they are for. The remaining 300 will do that by the end of June and we'll know who our nominee is and that's what we need to do.''

Interestingly, Terry McAuliffe said something similar to David Corn:

So, [Corn asked McAuliffe], when does this end?

"June 15," he said without a nanosecond of hesitation.

Why then? I asked. The primaries finish on June 3, he noted, and after that there will be pressure on the uncommitted superdelegates (who now number about 300) to commit to one candidate or another. It should not take too long for these undecided insiders to make up their minds and declare their intentions--even if there are some who would rather not choose between the two.

So all done by June 15? You won't contend the nomination contest beyond then? I asked.

"Oh, I'm confident we'll be the nominee," he said, smiling.

But, I added, on the night of the Pennsylvania election, you said, "We're going all the way to Denver." That suggested, I noted, that Clinton would not yield any time before then...

"What do you expect me to say?" McAuliffe retorted. "I'm chairman of the campaign." Well, I suggested, you could have said, "We're going on to the next primaries and we're going to keep on winning." He didn't have to use the D-word. He shrugged.

So, I asked, I have a promise? June 15? "June 15," he said. You keep it alive beyond that, I noted, and it could be a nuclear war within the party. (In fact, even if McAuliffe and Clinton succeed by winning enough superdelegates in the 12 days after the primaries to trump Barack Obama's lead in pledged delegates, there still could be an intra-party apocalypse.) He didn't take the bait. "June 15," he repeated.

Clinton must win almost 70% of the remaining pledged delegates to overcome Obama's lead among pledged delegates.  That's not likely.  Over the weekend, she picked up fewer add-on delegates than expected.  As the pool of superdelegates gets smaller, it's harder for Obama to overcome her superdelegate lead (although his odds of doing so are decent), but it's also harder for Clinton to overcome Obama's overall delegate lead by growing her lead among superdelegates.  

Today's superdelegate news was split.  Despite Clinton's win in New Mexico, Senator Jeff Bingaman will endorse Obama.  But Clinton appears ready to pick up a somewhat more valuable endorsement, from North Carolina governor Mike Easely.  

Typically an endorsement from a governor is especially valuable because governors have patronage networks; they can put workers on the street to round up votes.  But this will not be like Ohio with Ted Strikland or Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania, because Easley is in his last months as governor due to term limits.  There aren't that many people who need to curry favor with him, because his term is almost done.  Furthermore, there are contested Democratic  primaries for both governor and Senate, so many of the Dem operatives and power brokers will be pulled in numerous directions, unlike in PA or OH, where down-ballot races weren't big attractions.  Nevertheless, Easley is well-liked, so it's a good pick-up for Clinton.  

But Clinton needs a lot more than a scattered "good pick-up" here and there.  What might McAuliffe be thinking?  After all the talk of going to Denver, is the Clinton campaign changing its talking points?  

From journalist Elizabeth Drew:

At first, a large number of superdelegates planned to announce their support for Obama following Super Tuesday, but he didn’t do well enough to warrant that; then it was to be after Ohio and Texas; then after Pennsylvania; and some Democrats suggest that if Obama wins both Indiana and North Carolina a number of superdelegates will announce for him then...

"We may have to go to June, and whoever ends up with the most delegates wins," a key Democrat says. "Meanwhile, the attention will be on the battle she can’t win, so why is she doing this – from here on out she’s only bleeding the party. The right way to put it is, ‘This is a war of attrition and it’s obvious that the numbers aren’t going to add up, so what’s the point?’" He added, "The hope is that at some point the superdelegates will get frustrated and join the Obama bandwagon."

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Howard Dean are talking about sending a letter to superdelegates urging them to go public with their endorsements.  Rahm Emanuel is talking about the end game.  And despite winning Pennsylvania, Clinton probably needs close to 70% of the remaining superdelegates to get the nomination, while Obama will probably need little more than 30% to put him over the top.  Obama is polling well ahead of Clinton in North Carolina, and his odds of winning Indiana appear pretty good.  

Just about everything points to Obama locking up enough pledged and superdelegates in the next few weeks to secure the nomination.  But Kentucky and West Virginia could cause him some problems.  

Way back in February, the day of the Potomac Primary, I wrote that what happened in the mountains of Virginia and Maryland could presage what would happen in the Appalachian parts of other states.  Clinton pulled up to 90% in some of those counties, and she's won the Appalachian regions of every state contested.  

In the 1960's, one out of three people in Appalachia   lived poverty, per capita income was 23% lower than the national average, and the region was rapidly losing population.  In 1963 the Appalachian Regional Commission was created by Congress and President Kennedy to address the problems in the area highlighted in the map.  Since the 1960's counties near Atlanta, Huntsville AL and Pittsburgh have become wealthier much more developed.  But much of the region remains well below national standards in most measures of economic and social well-being.  

The region also has given Barack Obama by far his lowest share of the vote; this map by Kossack Meng Bomin shows that outside of Arkansas that Clinton's biggest wins (depicted in red, vs the Green Obama counties) have almost all been in Appalachia:

Why?  

George Packer offers some evidence that in Appalachia it's racism:

On Wednesday, I was in Inez, Kentucky, the Appalachian town where L.B.J. declared war on poverty forty-four years ago this month. John McCain was on a tour of "forgotten places"...After [McCain's] speech, I left the county courthouse and crossed the main street to talk to a small group of demonstrators holding signs next to McCain’s campaign bus. J. K. Patrick, a retired state employee from a neighboring county, wore a button on his shirt that said "Hillary: Smart Choice."

"East of Lexington she’ll carry seventy per cent of the primary vote," he said. Kentucky votes on May 20. "She could win the general election in Kentucky." I asked about Obama. "Obama couldn’t win."

Why not?

"Race," Patrick said matter-of-factly. "I’ve talked to people—a woman who was chair of county elections last year, she said she wouldn’t vote for a black man." Patrick said he wouldn’t vote for Obama either.

Why not?

"Race. I really don’t want an African-American as President. Race."
What about race?

"I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That’s my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did." He meant that it went Republican. "Now what caused that? Race. There’s a lot of white people that just wouldn’t vote for a colored person. Especially older people. They know what happened in the sixties. Under thirty—they don’t remember. I do. I was here."

Everyone knows that race is a factor in Obama’s low vote among older whites, though reporters say that no one will admit it personally. In Eastern Kentucky, people (and not just J. K. Patrick) admit it personally, without hesitation or apology. It’s impossible to say how much this has affected the primary or will affect the fall election. For voters like those I met in Inez, the objection to Obama has nothing to do with Reverend Jeremiah Wright or, God knows, Bill Ayers. There’s nothing Obama can do about it. He can’t even mention it.

Many pundits have declared that Obama has a "race problem," or a "working class problem," or more specifically a "white working class" problem.  Meng Bomin's map doesn't suggest a racial problem; Obama has done extremely well in many parts of the country that are almost entirely white, including several places with primaries instead of caucuses. According to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe:

I think if you look at -- we have won white voters, particularly white voters under 60, in a lot of states. We've won white men voters in most of the states we've competed in, and, you know, again, if you look at our favorable/unfavorable ratings and the characteristics and the traits with some of these voters that have voted for Senator Clinton in recent primaries, you know they are strong and they are going to be supportive of us in the fall.

Most of the white voters voting for Hillary Clinton will enthusiastically vote for him in the fall.  A good chunk of the Clinton vote is women, and there's little to suggest that they would shift from her to McCain instead of voting for the Democratic candidate, as women have been doing for decades.  No, Obama doesn't have a racial problem.    

It appears that Appalachia has an Obama problem.

If doing well in Appalachia—which has only about 18-20 million of the almost 300 million people who live in America—were necessary for an Obama win, he would be in deep trouble.  But there aren't enough people in Appalachia to present a big problem, especially since the region makes up a relatively small part of the population of most of the states it touches.  (The Appalachian counties of Pennsylvania are a bit different than the rest of the region, as they are much more Catholic than the rest of Appalachia and more ethnically diverse, with a decent number of Italians, Slavs and Germans mixed in with the most Scots-Irish and descendants of the 18th century immigrants from the English backcountry that dominate the rest of Appalachia.  Those counties, in fact, are the only part of Appalachia where Obama did OK, and actually improved on his performance over similar counties in Ohio).  

The two big exceptions, however, the two states in which Appalachia dominates, are Kentucky and West Virginia.

Based on the results of the primaries up to now, and for reasons suggested by Packer's interviews, we can see that Obama will not do well in West Virginia or Kentucky.  And that's a problem for perceptions, because even if Obama wins North Carolina and Indiana, Clinton and her surrogates are likely to trumpet the West Virginia and Kentucky results as proof that Obama can't win white voters, and offer the results as a rationale for her to stay in the race.  

If the discussion were limited to Appalachia, Clinton might have a point about the importance of her relative strength with white voters.  But increasingly, in presidential elections, Democrats can't win Kentucky, and West Virginia is also trending strongly Republican.  In 1992 Bill Clinton won Kentucky by 3 points, but against Bob Dole he barely hung on for a win of less than one point.  Despite winning the popular vote, Al Gore—from neighboring Tennessee—lost Kentucky by 15 points, and Kerry lost it by 20.  Frankly, Kentucky is not part of a map that shows a narrow Democratic win.  If any Democrat were to win Kentucky, it would be part of a landslide win.  

Even West Virginia, once one of the most Democratic states in the country—it voted for Dukakis and was one of the six states won by Jimmy Carter in 1980—is now moving in to Republican territory for Presidential years.  It's not as Republican as Kentucky, but like Kentucky it's unlikely to go Democratic regardless of the Democratic nominee, even if it were Clinton.  

The press, however, will lap up the talking points of the pundits, Clinton spinners (and Republicans) that losing Kentucky and West Virginia means that Obama won't do well with White voters, when it really means voters in Appalachia aren't ready to vote for a Black candidate, even though in most of the rest of the country they are.  

I disagree, obviously, with Packer's conclusion that Obama's race is a serious political problem; I think it's only a serious problem if he needed majorities in Appalachia or he was trying to appeal to streadfast Republicans who vote Republican for, among other reasons, racism.  Nevertheless, his advice is still sound:

McCain began his speech in Inez by saying, "I’m not the son of a coal miner. I wasn’t raised by a family that made its living from the land or toiled in a mill or worked in the local schools or health clinic. I was raised in the United States Navy, and, after my own naval career, I became a politician. My work isn’t as hard as yours." His modest disclaimer seemed unnecessary—the local pol who introduced McCain had just finished calling him a son of Kentucky at heart, and the crowd was entirely on his side. But for Obama, who’s bound to strike people in places even less isolated than Inez as alien, this kind of self-presentation might be essential. Rather than analyzing them out loud, or pretending to be one of them, he should speak about the differences (and race is far from the only one) directly, candidly, in the blunt, personal language that made his Philadelphia speech so memorable. He should say that in spite of these differences, in spite of what he doesn’t know about or share in their life, he knows what Presidential leadership can do to improve their lives—as did Roosevelt, who was an aristocrat, and Kennedy, who was rich and Catholic.

Bill refuses to get off the stage:

Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. While she has jabbed her opponent over his "elitist" tone and controversial statements by his former pastor, Mr. Clinton delivers his own slams on the stump, calling Obama ads misleading.

The former president says he's in uncharted territory. "Being the spouse is more difficult than when I was the candidate," he says in a brief interview. "When you're running, you're out there driving every day. But when you're the spouse, you feel more protective. It's much harder."

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."

On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.

Mr. Clinton also told the campaign to double the number of his daily appearances. "Look at this schedule -- you've got me down for four events," he said the week before Pennsylvania's primary, according to one operative. "Give me six, eight a day. Get me to the suburbs where I can make a difference."

Hillary Clinton won't be the nominee, but a small part of me wishes she would have won and then become President to see her and Bill fight for the microphone to answer those questions shouted out to "President Clinton."  

A little while ago the Obama campaign emailed reporters and bloggers announcing a press call regarding the campaign's 50 state effort to register new voters.  I'm intrigued about the effort, so I did something I almost never do, I hopped on the press call.  

Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand spoke, followed by NC Congressman G.K. Butterfield.  Hildebrand then opened the call for questions, which led to:

• A question about Reverend Wright (which had nothing to do with voter registration).
• A question about Jim Clyburn's remarks that Bill Clinton was tarnishing the image of the Clintons (which had nothing to do with voter registration).
• A question about TV ads going up in all the remaining states (that the reporter tried to make about voter registration, but really wasn't about voter registration).
• A question about Obama's performance with white voters (which wasn't about voter registration).

Several times Hildebrand reminded the reporters on the call that the subject was voter registration, and clearly implied  that questions about other matters should be directed to the press operation, but none of the reporters asked a single question about voter registration.

Growing, shrinking or not trying to change the size and composition of the electorate is one of the fundamental decisions of a campaign.  Most campaigns just deal with the electorate as it is, which is why so much attention is paid to the sliver of voters who are persuadable (which is seldom more than 12-14% of the national electorate).  Sometimes, by going mercilessly negative, one seeks to shrink the electorate.  Or one can try to grow the electorate, as Obama is doing.  

Apparently none of that was more interesting to the four reporters who asked questions that had little or nothing to do with voter registration, which reminded me of this essay DavidNYC wrote last month, in which he asserted that most political reporters don't love politics the way sports writers and science writers typically love their subject, but instead hate what we love about politics:

But oh - the political reporters. They are a breed apart. They like politics-as-theater: Hillary's pantsuit, Obama's turban, the Clenis, the flight-suit, America's Mayor, dead-or-alive, he-said, she-said and all the world's a stage.

Most of us care about voter registration, so look for more on this subject in the next day or two...here, at Daily Kos.  Maybe you'll see it in the traditional media.  Or maybe you'll just see more discussion about flag pins.  

Barack Obama can't win, because he couldn't beat Hillary Clinton among older voters, and we can't win in November if we don't win older voters.

Barack Obama can't win, because he couldn't beat Hillary Clinton among white working class voters, and we can't win in November if we don't win white working class voters.

Barack Obama can't win, because he didn't win the primaries in California and New York and Pennsylvania, and Democrats can't win if they can't win those big states in a general election.

Barack Obama can't win, because any state or demographic group that went with Hillary Clinton didn't really prefer Clinton, they opposed Barack Obama.  Therefore, all Democratic primary voters who didn't vote for Obama, like single women and members of AFSCME, are possible or maybe even likely McCain voters in November.

Hillary Clinton can't win, because she couldn't beat Barack Obama among younger voters.

Hillary Clinton can't win, because she couldn't beat Barack Obama among black voters.

Hillary Clinton can't win, because she didn't win the primaries in Illinois and Maryland and Connecticut, and Democrats can't win if they can't win those solidly Democratic states in a general election.

Hillary Clinton can't win, because any state or demographic group that went with Barack Obama didn't simply prefer Obama, they opposed Clinton.  Therefore, all Democratic primary voters who didn't vote for Clinton, like people for whom the Iraq war is the most important issue or members of SEIU, are possible or maybe even likely McCain voters in November.

And while we're at it, we should point out that John McCain can't win, because he couldn't beat Mike Huckabee among conservative evangelical Christian voters, and they can't win in November if they don't win conservative evangelical Christian voters.

John McCain can't win, because he couldn't beat Mitt Romney among Mormon voters, and they can't win in November if they don't win Mormon voters.

John McCain can't win, because he didn't win the primaries in Georgia and Kansas and Utah, and Republicans can't win if they can't win those heavily Republican states in a general election.

John McCain can't win, because any state or demographic group that went with Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney didn't really prefer Huckabee or Romney, they opposed John McCain.  Therefore, all Republican primary voters who didn't vote for McCain, are possible or maybe even likely...

Wait, who the heck would they vote for?  

Gee, if you follow through on the logic of the Clinton campaign, nobody will win in November.

Gosh, I guess that means that if Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to be president, Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Byrd will be our next president!

Uh...

Not content to sit on the sidelines, longtime senator and one-time presidential hopeful Orrin Hatch has penned a song for his Senate buddy John McCain in hopes of helping his White House bid.

Really, he did.

Hatch - a Utah Republican who won a platinum award for helping co-write lyrics for a song that sold more than a million records - crafted a tune called "Together Forever" for the presumptive Republican nominee.

"Forever together / America is the land we're fighting for / There's a time in history / for a hero's destiny / together forever more," says Hatch's song, co-written with composer Philip Springer, famous for the Christmas song, "Santa Baby"...

"We'll see Barack Obama's Bruce Springsteen endorsement and raise them an Orrin Hatch," a [McCain] spokesman said.

What do the kids think?

[A]ccording to Hardball, while Hatch's office says he was aiming for an upbeat song that would appeal to the youth vote, the song doesn't mimic anything found on the Top 40 - or even the next 40.

Jason Mattera, spokesman for the conservative Young America's Foundation, says the lyrics are fine but the beats and tempo are "not appealing to young people.

"Hatch's heart is in the right place, but he has the wrong decade," Mattera says, noting that the message to attract young people is that liberalism oppresses people, stifles freedom and causes "pervasive destitution. I give him credit for trying, though," Mattera adds.

What, are you surprised he didn't say "I like it, it's got a good beat, you can march to it, I give it an 86?"

Really, though, it's hard to blame McCain (who was born in 1936) or Hatch (who was born two years earlier).  Many people, myself included, think that one's love of music is heavily shaped by the music you experience as a child.  And look at was was happening in music in 1936:

George Gershwin was still alive, Cole Porter was in his prime, Rodgers and Hart were collaborating, Leadbelly published "Goodnight, Irene," Count Basie and Nat Cole began their careers, and Benny Goodman was selling a bunch of records.  It wouldn't be accurate to say, however, that Benny Goodman was tearing up the charts, because the Billboard Charts hadn't been created.  In fact, the 45 single and the 33 1/3 LP hadn't been invented yet.  

It wasn't a good year to be a Russian, as Uncle Joe Stalin was still collectivizing and purging, but it was a good year for Russian music: Prokofiev debuted Peter and the Wolf, Shastakovich wrote his Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, and Rachmaninoff wrote his Symphony No. 3.  

That's all good stuff.  But other than maybe Cole Porter, not much of that music is considered particularly hip by today's standards.  So one can partially forgive Orin Hatch and John McCain for not being very hip; they didn't grow up in time for it to be easy for them to be hip.  

For fun, though, lets look at what was happening musically in 1961, the year Barack Obama was born:

In 1961 the charts—yes, they had been around for some time by 1961—were topped by some great songs like Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" and "Spanish Harlem," the Miracles' "Shop Around," Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces," the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," Etta James' "At Last," Roy Orbison's "Crying" and Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack."  John Coltrane released "My Favorite Things," Oliver Nelson released "The Blues and the Abstract Truth" and Dave Brubeck released "Take Five."  

In 1961 Bob Dylan traveled to NYC to meet Woody Guthrie, and the Beatles were playing in Hamburg.  

Oh, there was another significant musical event in 1961; the recordings of an almost forgotten delta bluesman by the name of Robert Johnson were released on the album King of the Delta Blues Singers.  These old scratchy recordings were a big inspiration to future rock and rollers such as The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton/Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.  

The almost forgotten recordings, by the way, had mostly been recorded in 1936.  

The GOP would rather face Hillary Clinton:

The Republican Party in North Carolina said Wednesday it's launching a television ad calling Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama too extreme for the state, despite the objections of GOP presumptive nominee John McCain.

The advertisement raises the scepter of Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright, beginning with a photo of Obama and Wright together and a clip of Wright's contentious remarks about America.

"He's just too extreme for North Carolina," the narrator says in the 30-second spot.

McCain can complain, but it's naïve to think that this ad is being run against the wishes of McCain's strategists.  If they thought Obama was the weaker candidate, they would stand aside and let him more quickly end the primary contest.  Yes, regardless of who ends up the nominee, the GOP benefits from us still fighting out state-by-state primaries and caucuses (even though caucuses don't count and are in states that don't matter).  But what's more important to the GOP, if they have any control over it, is getting the weaker opponent for McCain.  Hence, the ads attacking Obama.

It's not crazy to think the Republicans are meddling in our primaries for their own benefit.  A Democrat has done the same thing to a Republican.  In 2002, California governor Gray Davis was preparing for a tough reelection.  Of the two leading Republican opponents, Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan was far more formidable; polls showed him performing much better in the general election, and more likely to beat Davis than Bill Simon.  

With no primary of his own, Davis took advantage of the Republican contest and ran a blitz of ads attacking Riordan for not having clear positions on abortion and the death penalty.  The ads hurt Riordan with both his moderate base (who were mostly pro-choice) and with the conservative Republicans, who moved solidly to Simon.  Simon beat Riordan in the primary, and Davis beat Simon in the general.  

By running ads against Obama, the Republicans are trying to torpedo the more electable of our candidates.  If Obama were to lose North Carolina, Hillary Clinton would make an even stronger appeal to the superdelegates to flip the delegate lead to her, thus ensuring a summer of Dems sniping at each other and greater opportunity costs.  Dragging the nomination out until Denver would seriously weaken Obama, which is exactly why the Republicans are running ads against him.  

A one would expect, turnout in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary was far higher than the Republican turnout.   With a handful of precincts still yet to report, we have 2,280,870 Democratic votes and only 791,205 Republican votes.  But check out the percentages:

99.34% precincts reporting.

Over a quarter of the Republicans who showed up voted against their certain nominee, John McCain.  Combined with the Republicans' failure to defeat Democrat Travis Childers in heavily Republican MS-01, what we see is a Republican party with some serious problems.  

Some will argue that Republican weakness means that there's no damage being done by Hillary Clinton staying in a contest she can't win.  That's not true, especially when one considers the tremendous opportunity costs being paid by not running exclusively against a weakened John McCain.  But it is heartening to see that while we're missing an opportunity to pound John McCain early and work toward exposing him to the American people as anything but a reforming "maverick," there are at least some serious weaknesses in the Republican brand, and some evident dissatisfaction among Republicans with their presumptive nominee.  

Yesterday the Washington Post ran a long, detailed and damning article about John McCain and his notorious temper.  The Post's own polling shows that many voters, including almost half of independents, believe that McCain's temperament would hurt his effectiveness.

McCain's longtime aide and co-author Mark Salter wrote a long email to the National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru after even Ponnuru wrote in the conservative magazine that the article might be a problem for even conservative McCain supporters.  Salter did a couple interesting things in his email.  He tried to confuse readers by changing the subject:

... I personally know 20 or 25 Senators with much worse tempers. He argues, sometimes heatedly, with his peers, but he doesn't hold grudges or pick on people subordinate to him. If you want to tell what members of Congress have ungovernable tempers, you need only look at how rapidly their staffs turnover. As a twenty-year veteran Hill staffer, I can assure you that is the best indicator of which members have bad tempers. McCain's staff serve tenures well beyond the norm, because they are treated exceedingly well by him.

Whether someone has a temper is a complete separate issue from how they value or possibly inspire loyalty.  One could interpret Salter's ruminations on McCain's loyalty as having nothing to do with temperament, but rather with hiring people who share his goals, his vendettas, his own loyalties.  

More interesting, though, was the overall gist of Salter's email, which was to attack the credibility of the reporter:

Saw your post about the WP story on the McCain temper. If one half of it were true, it would give me pause. As it happens, the piece is 99% fiction. [Reporter Michael] Leahy is a nice guy, but the story was one of the more dishonest I've read in a while...

In sum, this is one of the more shoddy examples of journalism I've ever encountered. But for the infamous NYT story, I'd say it was the worst smear job on McCain I'd ever seen.

Politicians and their staffers seldom publicly call a journalist a hack, much less a liar.  The Bush administration is notorious for attacking journalists behind the scenes, but few people do an open attack on a journalist like Salter did.  

If Leahy is respected by his peers—and I know nothing about him, so I can't speculate—Salter's attack might play out poorly for Salter, and thus for McCain.  Journalists don't much like to be told they're biased or sloppy or dumb, but they especially hate to have someone question their honesty and integrity.  This could be a intemperate and counterproductive act by Salter.  Or maybe this is a shrewd assault by Salter to let Leahy's peers know that if they write something negative about McCain, they'll be attacked in public.  

I'd like to think Leahy's article was properly reported and that Salter will be ineffective at intimidating reporters.  Unfortunately, based on the relationship between the press and the Bush administration, I'm not optimistic.  

The Clinton campaign wants you to vote for Hillary Clinton because the stock market crashed, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Kennedy waged the Cold War, Khrushchev and Castro stood together, and Osama bin Laden is out there somewhere.  

I don't know what the Clinton internal polling is telling them.  Therefore, I don't know the target audience, so I can't say if it's likely to be very effective.  It does, however, appear based on the hope that voters will be scared in to voting for Clinton.  As Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post points out, there's this guy with the same last name as Hillary who had a pretty good argument against voting based on fear:

Bill Clinton was correct then and he's correct now, even when the argument is applied against his own wife.

Besides a bit of fear mongering (and production that makes it look like a recruiting commercial for the military), what struck me about the ad is that it appears to convey an impoverished sense of what the presidency is about.  It's not just about dealing with surprise crises or being firm against our adversaries.  And being president isn't only about being tough.  An effective President is an effective persuader.  

Obama has argued that among the reasons he'll be a more effective candidate is that he's more likely to bring in and excite new voters and bridge old divides, thus making Democrats more competitive across the country.  Passing a national health care plan, getting out of Iraq, dealing with a structurally endangered economy, and addressing global concerns like the crises in energy, food production and global warming aren't only about being tough or experienced, and won't be achieved by scaring people.  They will require tremendous gifts of persuasion, but it will also be easier with larger Democratic majorities in Congress.

Back before Super Tuesday, I explained why I want Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for President:

But he represents a profound change for the Democratic party.  He is a fresh face with a compelling story of unity and erasing acrimonious divisions in our communities, our country and our world.  It's not just a story that he conveys with brilliance and inspiration, it's a vision for America and the world that he embodies.  I think Americans really are ready to move past the political gridlock and nastiness 40 years.  I think they are ready to resume the progress of the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society.  They want to be inspired, and they want to get past the racism, the political cynicism and the sense that we can't be better.  They are ready to elect more and better Democrats to help him deliver on the voters' mandate for progress. And with a mandate and with more and better Democrats, President Obama will be able to break loose of the tactical battles of short-term gains and make the kind of bold advances that inspired people to elect and revere great Democrats like Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  I think Americans will willingly embrace and ratify that vision with Barack Obama as our candidate, and that's why I hope he will be our nominee.

I also like that he doesn't stoop to fear mongering to get votes.  

UPDATE: Here's Obama's response:

If Hillary Clinton won't recognize that Barack Obama will be our nominee and step aside soon, the party leadership—Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Howard Dean—will push the superdelegates to make public endorsements, thus cutting off Clinton's plan to take the fight all the way to the convention:

[T]he decisive movement wouldn't likely come until after the final bouts June 3 in South Dakota and Montana, should the race remain unresolved. That's when Mrs. Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democratic party Chairman Howard Dean and their allies will start rallying superdelegates to decide the contest in favor of the leading candidate, Democrats say. Through a spokesman, Sen. Reid declined to comment.

Sen. Obama leads in pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses, in the number of states won, and in total popular vote. Sen. Clinton isn't likely to change that, unaligned Democratic strategists say, even with wins in Pennsylvania and others of the nine remaining contests.

The party leaders' aim: To thwart the Clinton campaign's vow to fight all summer long to a final, nationally televised round at the Denver convention, so the party can get on with the battle against the likely Republican candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Convention fights in past decades -- notably in 1968, 1972 and 1980 -- left deep divisions that contributed to the nominees' losses and hurt lesser candidates on the ballots.

With Democrats protective of the House and Senate majorities just won in 2006, "Do you think for one minute that Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid will allow this fight to go on and on and on?" says Donna Brazile, an uncommitted superdelegate as an official of the Democratic National Committee, and manager of the 2000 Gore campaign. "There's a group around [Sen. Clinton] that really wants to take the fight to the convention. They don't care about the party. It scares me, and that's what scares a lot of superdelegates."

Clinton supporters vehemently defend their right to fight to the convention if necessary, and deny it would hurt the party.

Dean has said he wants the Superdelegates to state their position no later than July 1st, although recently his urgings have been more insistent.  The general consensus is that Clinton won't make up any ground among delegates unless she beats Obama by 20 points or so.  The pundits appear to have settled upon 10 point or more for the victory to give her momentum.  The polls suggest a more modest margin of victory, most likely around 5 points or so.  

What if Clinton wins by less than 10 points?  Or what if, in a big upset, Obama shocks her and wins Pennsylvania?  Will she finally concede that Obama will be our nominee?  The Obama people aren't making it easy for her to stay in the race; from Marc Ambinder:

Despite pressure from the governor, from the local media, from their own-state campaign, Barack Obama's advisers refused to accept an invitation to debate in North Carolina because they did not want to give Hillary Clinton any excuse to stay in the race beyond Tuesday, assuming she doesn't fare that well. The Obama campaign's gambit paid off: the debate is canceled.