DEM FIELD: The Netroots Smell Blood

Travis Childers' victory in the MS-01 special election has made liberal bloggers increasingly confident about the Dems' fall prospects:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "This business of Travis Childers winning an extremely Republican district on the heels of two other Democratic special election wins drives home how infuriating the idea of even having an extended 'electability' argument about 'who can win' is at this point. The reality is that given current conditions, either Clinton or Obama is very likely to win. [...] The GOP brand is so terrible that it's dragging candidates down in solid red districts, and [John] McCain is currently doing not-so-hot in polling matchups even though Americans are now inundated in unflattering information about Clinton and Obama while most people have never heard sustained from-the-left criticism of McCain."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "I've been arguing for some time that the Democrats were going to win easily in 2008. [Tuesday's] electoral results add more evidence to the trend. Reread my six signs Democrats are going to romp: Voters are paying attention, they like Democrats, they dislike Republicans, they like Obama, they want change, they associate change with Obama, and they don't like McCain the more they meet him."
• Daily Kos' DemFromCT: "The GOP that has always despised and derided John McCain now turns to him as 'savior'. [...] The real interesting trick will be to see how McCain is going to pretend not to be a Republican while Republicans wrap their arms around McCain in a death hug, not merely pretending to like him but pretending to be him. The more they succeed, the more he fails. The more he succeeds, the more they fail. Of course, the odds are that they'll all fail. The bullshit is just too pungent to pretend it's not there, and it isn't the most effective way to sell authenticity and change to a voting public that has rejected the party standard bearer (George W. Bush) as a miserable failure."
• Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "Republicans aren't losing to Democrats because Democrats are cleverly disguising themselves as Republicans. Republicans are losing to Democrats because people hate Bush, hate the war, hate the economy, can't afford health care, can't afford gas, and hate Bush. In other words, they are thoroughly rejecting all of the Republican positions on key issues. So even though it's obvious to anyone with half a brain, the GOP will not be able to win in November by screaming 'librul librul librul terra terra Wright [cough! black! cough!] Wright.' But they still don't know it."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "This election cycle could be devastating for Republicans up and down the ticket. And, it will be, once we can get to the real work (meaning after the Clinton ego trip ends.)"

In contrast, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong -- a fierce Clinton supporter -- is pessimistic about Obama's chances: "[This] reminds me of the '76 Republican nomination, when [Ronald] Reagan began winning nearly all of the closing states, even though [Gerald] Ford remained with delegate lead at the convention (its ironic how NC also played a large role in that contest). I also don't think that Clinton is interested in the VP position with Obama. 'Yes, yes, yes' seems like a 'yea, yea, yea, whatever, you know which way I have to answer that question'. As [Tuesday] night showed, the national terrain looks vory good for Democrats. The GE is very different, in terms of turnout, but we will most certainly make gains in Congress. In the presidential, I don't know, its still early, but I'm currently pessimistic on our chances."

DEM FIELD II: Thank You, John!

Many liberal bloggers think Edwards' surprise endorsement of Obama could potentially lead to a resolution of the FL/MI situation:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Assuming Edwards pushes his delegates [toward Obama], then Obama will secure not only the current 19 Edwards delegates, but also the 13 prospective Edwards delegates from Florida and all 55 of the uncommitted prospective delegates from Michigan. In other words, Clinton would be shut out of all conceivable delegate options no matter how Michigan and Florida are seated, and Obama will reach the magic number according to all counts on June 3rd at the latest. As much as anything else could at this point, this endorsement really helps bring the nomination campaign to a quick and decisive conclusion."
• The Field's Al Giordano: "Edwards' support of Obama leaves no impediment for the [DNC Rules] Committee to fuse the two candidate's delegate totals [in FL] (67 for Obama, and 13 for Edwards) adding up to 80 for Obama to 105 for Clinton. If the Committee decides to seat the full delegations -- each with one vote -- that's a modest +25 delegate advance for Clinton. [...] As for Michigan: If the January 15 straw poll becomes the source for the math, Clinton would get 73 delegates to 55 for 'uncommitted.' Edwards' backing (along with [Bill] Richardson and [Chris] Dodd) of Obama opens the door to a solution in which all 'uncommitted' delegates can and should be guaranteed to the Obama campaign: a difference of just 18 delegates. [...] The most interesting solution...would be to seat the pledged delegations at 100 percent, but penalize the states by giving their superdelegates .5 votes apiece: they'd still get to go to the convention, but since the party leadership in each state is partly (in Florida) and wholly (in Michigan) responsible for the mess created by their January games of leap-frog, the punishment would go to them, and not to the voters. [...This solution] would take the wind out of the phony 'disenfranchisement' argument, give Clinton a boost of +43 pledged delegates, and even if all the undeclared supers in those states went for Clinton (not likely), with a half-vote that would add up to 23.5 more including those already declared for her from the two states. [...This] would have the effect of ending the confusion, taking the wind out of her sails, and she'd get the bonus prize of a maximum (and probably less than) +66.5, still far short of any equation that could deny Obama, the pledged delegate leader still, the nomination."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "One good thing to come from John Edwards' endorsement of Barack Obama is that there is absolutely no reason at all now to now seat the full Florida and Michigan delegations. Edwards will now throw his delegates to Obama. In Florida that would mean a 105-80 split in favor of Hillary Clinton. In Michigan that would mean a 73-60 split in favor of Clinton. The total gain for Clinton would 33 delegates, down from 48 delegates. Barack Obama needs to take the bull by the horns here, tell Donna Brazile that winning in November matters more than her silly turf wars in the DNC, and regain the high ground in Florida and Michigan."

Meanwhile, Obsidian Wings' publius, who supports Obama, doubts that Edwards' endorsement will sway working-class voters: "I think Edwards' working class support is overrated. The big story of course will be that Edwards shores up Obama's working class street cred at a critical time. Edwards, however, hasn't shown all that much strength among these voters. [...] While the endorsement may not help Obama with actual working class voters, it will help in the realm of media perceptions, which is the only game that matters at this point (sadly). The chattering classes perceive Edwards as having significant working class appeal. Thus, we'll hear over and over this week about how Edwards -- West Virginia aside -- strengthens Obama's working class street cred. This chatter, in turn, will help strengthen the resolve of superdelegates and other party establishment figures who are beginning to coalesce around Obama."

TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt, who supports Clinton, is upset by Edwards' endorsement: "I don't think Edwards' endorsement has anything to do with who would make a better candidate. It's about ending the growing perception that Obama can't win against John McCain because he can't get rural, blue collar, less wealthy and less educated voters. That perception was magnified [Tuesday] with Hillary's win in West Virginia. There's concern it will grow when Hillary wins Kentucky. Since Edwards (and other Democrats) believe Obama will ultimately win the nomination, Edwards is trying to nip that line of thinking in the bud. But, isn't this short-sighted? Shouldn't the focus of Democrats be on which Democratic candidate is better able to beat John McCain in November...? [...] Party unity is one thing and it could have waited three weeks. Winning is important too."

DEM FIELD III: No Respect For Edwards

Conservative bloggers are mocking Edwards for endorsing Obama:

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "What's the answer to being trounced by coal miners? Having a fabulously wealthy son of a mill worker vouch for your blue-collar bona fides, of course. Can't hurt, and it would have been a nice get for Hillary as (weak) evidence of a momentum shift, but is there any other politician whose national profile is as grossly out of proportion to his actual base of support? In ten years, he's won two elections: The 1998 senate race and the 2004 South Carolina primary. He couldn't even deliver North Carolina to [John] Kerry when he was on the ticket. The left adores him for his fight-fight-fightin' nutrootsy rhetoric, but for all his alleged boldness he waited around here until Obama locked up the nomination before daring to announce for him. All this accomplishes, really, is pushing Hillary's West Virginia win off the front pages a few hours earlier and confirming what we already knew, i.e. that party bigwigs are tilting to Obama to try to end the race. And true to Silky's ineffectual form, she's still going to crush the Messiah among those southern, Edwardsian, blue-collar voters in Kentucky next week."
• Michelle Malkin: "One effete, big government liberal embraces another. Yawn."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "The only interesting issue pertaining to this endorsement is why it came so late. I'm hardly in a position to answer with confidence, but I think the answer has to do with gutlessness. In this account, Edwards feared that if he endorsed Obama only to see him routed among low income and rural white voters (the voters the former North Carolina Senator sees as his natural constituency), Edwards would look bad. After last night's version of that rout in West Virginia, Edwards probably figures Obama has hit bottom among this cohort. Thus, the endorsement is embarrassment proof."

Meanwhile, NRO's Victor Davis Hanson argues that Obama would be foolish to pick Edwards as his running mate: "McCain should pray that Obama picks (he won't) John Edwards as VP -- he brings no executive record of experience, and offers less ideological balance; he has a poor record of winning primaries over two failed runs for the Presidency, has never appealed to working-class whites, hurt the Kerry ticket as a mediocre VP candidate, did poorly in past and present debates, and went even harder to the left (in scripted fashion) in the primaries. Moreover, he adds to, rather than ameliorates, the sense of elitism and out-of-touchness that plagues Obama. For all the talk of growing up the son of a mill worker, voters remember 'the haircut' and that gargantuan house with the 'John's room' inner sanctum. I'm afraid all that outweighs the photogenic youthful appearance and occasional glibness."

DEM FIELD IV: Counting The Votes

Bowers is annoyed by the Clinton camp's claim that Clinton is ahead in the popular vote (which is true if one "only counts primary states -- including both Florida and Michigan -- and excludes any votes cast in the party's caucuses"): "For a moral argument about the popular vote -- a.k.a. the will of the nomination campaign electorate -- to carry weight, it needs to be as inclusive as possible in its vote totals. Instead, this vote total pretends that the over 550,000 caucus goers in Washington, Nevada, Maine and Iowa, not to mention the quarter of a million uncommitted voters in Michigan, didn't actually have candidate preferences in the nomination campaign just because those candidate preferences weren't recorded. Excluding those 800,000 participants in the nomination campaign from a popular vote total, especially when exit polls and turnout numbers make close estimates on those preferences quite simple, renders that popular total pointless. [...] When all of the people who attempted to participate in their state's only delegate selection event (or their state's only potential delegate selection event, as is the case in Florida and Michigan) are included, Barack Obama still leads by just under 260,000 votes even after Clinton's 137,500 vote victory in West Virginia. Barring some pretty shocking results in the remaining five contests, Obama will still hold that lead after all the voting is complete on June 3rd."

Armstrong, on the other hand, shares the Clinton camp's view that Obama should receive zero votes from MI: "Clinton wound up winning [WV] by about 147K votes, while winning every single West Virginia county. This makes interesting news on the overall popular vote totals. For all votes cast, this means that Obama leads currently by about 80,000 votes. Its tough to guess what Kentucky will bring, or the other states, but there's little doubt that, even not including the totals from Puerto Rico, that Clinton will lead from all the votes taken in the 50 contests."

Meanwhile, several liberal bloggers are criticizing Clinton's determination to stay in the race:

• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "[Tuesday] night I listened to Hillary Clinton's speech, and I found it both unnerving and impossible to turn away from, in the way that it's hard to stop looking at a mudslide rumbling down a mountain towards an unsuspecting town. There she was, talking about how she was in it to win it, how she was more determined than ever, how she was ready to go head-to-head with John McCain, and I thought: can she possibly believe this? If not, why in God's name is she saying these things? For some reason, what got me the most was hearing her ask for more money. She is, after all, an extremely wealthy woman. And she was asking those people she claims to be fighting for -- the nurse on her second shift, the worker on the line, the waitress on her feet, [etc.] -- to send her some fraction of the little money they have, for nothing. When she knows she can't win. That sort of took my breath away."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis writes an angry letter to Clinton: "Your own campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, told MSNBC [Tuesday] night that you will lose to Obama in overall pledged delegates. So the only way for you to win the nomination is by the superdelegates overruling the will of the people. That will cause a civil war in the Democratic party (I'll be helping to lead it). It will likely cause blacks to leave the party, possibly forever. It will disenfranchise the youth vote. The Netroots will likely declare war on you. [...] Because you're insisting on staying in a race that you've already lost, Obama is forced to spend money and time dealing with you, rather than dealing with John McCain. You are literally helping John McCain in this race. Why does that not make you a traitor to your party?"

OBAMA: Losing His Bearings?

Conservative bloggers are buzzing about an ABC News piece that accuses Obama of falsely asserting that (a.) Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan, and (b.) agricultural specialists deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan:

• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "There is occasionally an improvised quality to Barack Obama's critique of the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He sometimes seems to be making up his critique as he goes along. This improvised quality comes through clearly in the ABC News Political Radar blog report on Barack Obama's appearance earlier this week in Cape Girardeau."
• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "If the likely Democratic nominee for the Presidency of the United States has not yet learned that Afghans don't speak Arabic, then that should be the cause of widespread concern, nyet? Equally of concern is the Pavlovian tendency to attribute any problem in Afghanistan to the fact that we have a presence in Iraq. Don't have enough agricultural specialists? That's because they are in Iraq! Is the Afghan terrain too mountainous? It's because we are in Iraq! Does Kabul not have an attractive enough nightlife? Blame the quagmire in Iraq! If we are not already at that point, we will be soon."
• RedState's Jeff Emanuel: "For a man whose campaign platform includes securing America, and re-establishing her supposedly-degraded standing in the world (in part by promising to unconditionally meet with hostile foreign leaders), Mr. Obama insists on maintaining a troublingly naive, inconsistent, and uninformed view of the world's cultures and of international events."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Obama's rhetoric calls into question whether he has any real knowledge of the issues in either Iraq or Afghanistan in any depth beyond that of the latest MoveOn talking points."

MCCAIN: Making Too Many Promises?

McCain's speech from this morning -- in which he described how his first term as President will go -- is receiving mixed reviews from conservative bloggers:

• Townhall's Matt Lewis loved the speech: "You want change? I'll give you change! This was one of McCain's best speeches. This exactly the message he needs to win in November. This McCain will win in '08."
• Morrissey likes at least one of McCain's ideas: "The speech [is] interesting, especially in charter schools and his plan to appear regularly in front of lawmakers. [...] It's an interesting offer, and one that would play to McCain's strengths. He does best in town-hall formats, speaking extemporaneously, and the constant engagement on the floor of Congress in joint session could do wonders in breaking policy logjams. It certainly has the virtue of novelty, and it could help defuse the bitter partisanship that has afflicted the political class since Watergate."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein has concerns: "This morning, John McCain gives a speech and launches an ad touting what the world would look like after his first term in office. Some commentators have made the argument that given his age, McCain should pledge to only run for a single term, and set very specific goals for his time in office. To me, this seems like an effort to do so implicitly, while avoiding looking like a lame duck by doing so explicitly. I think what he runs the risk of, though, is making so many ambitious promises that he undercuts his image as a straight talker, and makes it harder to portray Barack Obama as a naive dreamer who resides in Fantasyland."

Michelle Malkin hated McCain's speech: "You'll have to forgive me for not getting all worked up about John McCain's BVT (Big Vision Thing) speech this morning in Columbus, Ohio. The fatal flaw lies in McCain's persistent belief, shared by the MSM and Beltway pundits, that partisanship in and of itself is at the root of all our ills. McCain's problem is that he has allied himself, for the unprincipled, empty cause of mindless 'bipartisanship,' with people and causes that move our country in the wrong direction. I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who makes common cause with La Raza/The Race. I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who sneers about profits like Ralph Nader. I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who talks and walks like Al Gore. And as I've said before in response to the annoying McCain platitudes about 'reaching across the aisle' and 'getting things done': When did it become the Republican Party's top priority to 'get things done?' 'Get things done' is mindless liberal code for passing legislation and expanding government. And as McCain's ample legislative record demonstrates, 'reaching across the political aisle' never entails pulling opponents to the right. It always entails selling out the right."

MCCAIN II: No Country For Old Men

Yglesias thinks seniors are predisposed to find McCain's age problematic: "This is an interesting development -- it seems that [MS Sen.] Thad Cochran, 70; [NM Sen.] Pete Domenici, 76; [IA Sen.] Chuck Grassley, 74 all told The Hill that they're too old to be Vice President. They're also, of course, all roughly the same age as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. I think this'll be an interesting issue to keep an eye on. Young people will definitely mock McCain for being old and his age will probably render people below a certain age immune to the cult of personality around him that's impacted a lot of self-loathing boomers in the press. But if anyone develops serious worries about McCain's age per se, it'll probably be his fellow senior citizens. Most folks I'm familiar with in their seventies are, like these GOP Senators, pretty aware of and realistic about their own situation and that of their friends and other peers in ways that might give them doubts about McCain."

The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen is intrigued by Yglesias' argument: "I've heard from some seniors I know that McCain is too old for them, but it never occurred to me that this might actually be a concern among other septuagenarians (and octogenarians, and nonagenarians...). Most of the polling numbers I've seen seem to point to considerably stronger support for McCain among seniors, while Obama is favored heavily by younger voters. But might there be some lingering doubts among those similar in age to McCain? Especially if he keeps having 'senior moments'?"

Bowers, on the other hand, urges Dems not to play "the age card" against McCain: "Age-based attacks on John McCain have much the same potential for backlash as gender-based attacks on Hillary Clinton, and racially based attacks on Barack Obama. Now that McCain's age has become a national punchline, many seniors might back McCain simply because they take offense at that narrative. This is particularly dangerous in a general election campaign when seniors will be the main swing group. Even though the electoral effectiveness of the conservative backlash narratives against liberal elites and the civil rights movement have been seriously diminished by changing demographics, these narratives are still somewhat salient among seniors. Combining these conservative backlash narratives with an additional, age-based backlash could prove problematic for Obama. [...] The only reason McCain is still within striking distance of Obama, instead of being blown out of the water, is because Obama has not locked down older, self-identified Democrats."

MCCAIN III: Shady Investments

Liberal bloggers are accusing McCain of hypocrisy after it was reported that his wife Cindy McCain "sold off at least $2 million she held in funds with investments in Sudan businesses":

• Think Progress' Matt Corley: "In an April 24, 2007 speech on energy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized China for opposing sanctions in Darfur, saying that the reason it refused to do so was because 'China needs Sudan's oil.' Now, in a moment of irony, the AP reports that McCain's wife, Cindy, just 'sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds' whose holdings include companies that do business in Sudan's oil industry."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk: "I guess it's a good thing then that McCain and his wife can take care of all [these] hypocritical things now, so they'll be old news in June and July. [...] Shame on you China, only investing in Sudan for oil. How dare you exploit others suffering for your prurient national interests. You tell 'em Maverick. What kind of monstrous person would continue to invest in such a vile regime? D'OH!"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Tragedy And Scale

The Atlantic's James Fallows comments on the China earthquake:

"The human scale of almost anything in China is predictably shocking. I go to a city I'd never heard of -- say, Zibo -- and learn that it has about as many people as Chicago. I go to a city I have heard of and learn that estimates of its population are accurate only within a couple million. And of course we now have the staggering figures coming out from Sichuan province and its surroundings -- about 900 children trapped in one school, tens of thousands missing in another town, whole villages being swallowed up by landslides. America has never known mass tragedy on this scale -- or even on a pro-rated version of this scale. China has of course known it many times."

LEST WE FORGET: Aren't Libertarians Supposed To Be Consistent?

Radar's Nick Curran (h/t Shawn Macomber):

"Tuesday night, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against a resolution conveying 'condolences and sympathy' to the people in Myanmar affected by deadly Cyclone Nargis. It's not all that surprising of a move for a guy who earned the nickname 'Dr. No' by so frequently refusing to march along with the parade of feel-good legislative acts that often dominates the days of our Congress. (The resolution, it should be noted, doesn't actually do anything for the people suffering in Myanmar.) You see, if you want to earn hollow well wishes from Ron Paul on the House floor, you have to do something a little more special than just get totally wiped out by a massive cyclone and then be left for dead by your own government. Like win a big football game! Here's a quick look at some members of the elite group that has somehow managed to pry an 'aye' from Dr. No in House votes on other do-nothing resolutions considered this year...

• The University of Kansas football team for 'winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl and having the most successful year in program history'
• The New York Giants for 'winning Super Bowl XLII and completing one of the most remarkable post-season runs in professional sports history'
• The Louisiana State University football team for winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series national championship game"

DEM FIELD: The Landslide Will Not Bring Him Down

Most liberal bloggers are downplaying the significance of Clinton's WV win:

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "No one expects Obama to be competitive in the state that includes the most hostile anti-Obama combination of demographics in the entire United States. [...] West Virginia (and Kentucky next week) will be ugly for Obama. Expect lots of talk about Obama's 'white' problem, before he goes on to win white Oregon convincingly next week."
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Chuck Todd was just on MSNBC saying that there are 189 pledged delegates left after tonight. For Clinton to overtake Obama, she'd have to win 172 of those delegates or 91%. So congratulations on Hillary's victory tonight, but it doesn't matter. Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "The Clinton plan now appears to be to ride to victory on the backs of WV, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. Quit laughing."

Other bloggers are mocking the Clinton camp's claims that Obama's poor showing in WV suggests that he can't win the general election:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "As the Clinton campaign sagely points out 'no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916' and therefore Obama's primary loss shows that despite his large lead in the polls over John McCain, he can't possible win the election. What's even more interesting is that no Democrat has won the White House without carrying Minnesota since 1912 (it went for Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party) so given that Obama won Minnesota and Clinton won West Virginia, McCain is guaranteed to win the general election unless the eventual nominee can somehow completely replicate the social and political conditions prevailing in pre-WWI America. The outlook, in short, is very grim."
• Open Left's David Sirota: "You may have noticed that everyone on television is repeating Hillary Clinton's line that 'no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia.' I wonder -- why, when Barack Obama won a tough-fought race in the swing state of Missouri, did no one bother to mention that no Democrat has EVER won the White House without winning Missouri? The point here is that stats like this are truly meaningless."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "Clinton declared West Virginia a swing state and said it was she, not Obama, who has performed best in swing states nationwide. [...] The argument is not without flaw. For one thing, Democratic candidates have lost West Virginia's primary, gone on to win the nomination, and then won West Virginia in the general election anyway. [...Furthermore,] I'm not sure if the swing-state argument is the most compelling one for the Clinton team. Even if we designate West Virginia as a swing state (it's a dubious proposition in light of Bush's 13-point victory there four years ago), Obama seems to have just as strong a swing-state case to make, if not more so -- he's won Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin."

DEM FIELD II: What's The Matter With Appalachia?

Several bloggers are discussing Obama's problems in the Appalachian region:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama's problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky. If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not. [...] So what is it about this region? [...] First, some basic demographics. It's widely accepted that Hillary Clinton does better with older voters, less educated voters and white voters. These demographics perfectly match West Virginia -- and, more loosely, the entire Appalachian region."
• The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "The [WV] exit polls reveal what the demographics have long foretold, and what the polls last February predicted, with just a few wrinkles. The race factor seems to have tipped very heavily toward Clinton in West Virginia. In Indiana, 16 percent said race was an important factor for them; in Pennsylvania, 19 percent; in West Virginia, 22 percent. The racial skew to Clinton does soar in West Virginia: 81 percent of race-based voters went for Clinton; in Pennsylvania, it was 55; in Indiana, it was 53 percent. [...] My own sense is that WV voters are conservative and risk-averse and Obama suffered a great deal from unfamiliarity. Race compounded it; and if you listen to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, you're likely to believe that Obama is a Muslim, racist, terrorist communist. I note that John Edwards -- a familiar white man who's not running any more -- got a healthy showing. Okay, West Virginia, we get the message."
• Benen: "How serious were identity-politics considerations [in WV]? John Edwards -- who dropped out of the race in January -- got 7% of the vote. That's quite a few West Virginians who seemed to be saying, 'We don't like the black guy or the woman from New York.'"

DEM FIELD III: Save Us, Superdelegates!

Pro-Clinton bloggers are arguing that Clinton's landslide win shows that Obama has major electoral weaknesses:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "Obama [did] not even break 30 percent, despite being practically anointed with the nomination?!?! Look, this is a partisan blog. Nearly everyone will come around to supporting the nominee here, but if Obama doesn't recognize the serious problem this presents in the world offline, and his supporters as well, I am speechless (which may not be a bad thing considering)."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "The 'presumptive nominee' lost by 40 points in a primary. Has this EVER happened? How could it have happened? What does it mean?"

Pro-Clinton bloggers are also urging the uncommitted superdelegates to support Clinton:

• Taylor Marsh: "It's time for superdelegates to think long and hard about who can win in November. Clinton keeps winning states Democrats need against John McCain. Obama's way to victory in November depends on reinventing the electoral map. It's risky at best."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "Superdelegates were given the responsibility of voting for the nominee who has the best chance of winning the presidency. It's not just a matter of pledged delegates in the individual races. The candidate who can win back the presidency in November is Hillary Clinton. The Superdelegates need to slow down, and the voters of the remaining 5 states need to come out in force."

DEM FIELD IV: Limping Toward The Finish Line?

Conservative bloggers are also delighting in Clinton's WV win, which they believe provides further evidence that Obama is a weak general election candidate:

• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "As I've said before, the fact that voters in a given Democratic primary favor Clinton over Obama doesn't mean that many of them will favor McCain over Obama; nor should we assume that Clinton voters who say they'll vote for McCain will actually follow through. Nonetheless, the margin in the West Virginia primary suggests real resistance to Obama among Democrats in that state. Now, Obama doesn't need to win West Virginia in November any more than he needs to win Kentucky, where he's scheduled to be trounced next week. But there are many Democratic voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania who fit the West Virginia and/or Kentucky profile. Obama may need to do reasonably well with such voters to carry these two crucial states. Democratic superdelegates probably believe the risk that Obama won't do well enough with white rural and working class voters to win in Pennsylvania and Ohio is smaller than the risk that a great many black voters will stay at home if the Democrats nominate Clinton. These superdelegates may be right. But that doesn't mean the risk associated with nominating Obama isn't quite real."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "The sheer magnitude of the Obama loss in West Virginia may be the strongest evidence yet that the working class resistence to Obama is real, and will in fact carry over to the general election. A 10 point loss, a 15 point loss, even a 20 point loss, okay, maybe you can explain that away. But Democrats turning out to deliver a 41 point embarassment to the likely nominee of their own party? That's really hard to for the Obama camp to write off."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "It's worrisome that Hillary Clinton is beating Barack so soundly in West Virginia and Kentucky. Usually, when it becomes clear that one person is pretty certain to be the eventual winner, that person picks up support and electoral momentum because of a 'bandwagon effect' -- most people want to go with a winner. [...] Given all this, it's hard not to wonder: Where's Barack's bandwagon, and what does it mean that he doesn't seem to have one?"
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "West Virginia may not prove that Clinton can come back -- only a séance is likely to do that. But it does demonstrate that the Democratic near-nominee is not the electoral powerhouse he was once thought to be."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Superdelegates ought to be sweating. White working-class voters, and various overlapping demographics -- the elderly, Catholics, Jews -- just aren't warming up to Obama, and they've been the backbone for the party for generations."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "As Hillary sweeps across West Virginia tonight with a massive victory, I have to wonder how many members of the MSM will change the 'Obama wins' narrative, at least only slightly, to recognize that Obama is, in fact, the weaker candidate in a general election match up with John McCain. [...] When the sun sets on this election we might have to realize that the media's efforts to set up Obama as the Democrat nominee has been the greatest gift they've ever given to the GOP."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Put West Virginia in the McCain column. Along with Ohio and Pennsylvania. Barack Obama is far outside the mainstream, and Democrats know it. Yes, GOP candidates are facing tough weather, as the special elections show. But not against hard left candidates, and Senator Obama is hard left."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "No one expected Obama to do well in West Virginia, but I don't recall any nominee having lost every single county in a primary when his nomination was mostly assured. [...] This won't keep Obama from the nomination at this point, but without a doubt he will have to limp to the finish line. He can keep pretending that Hillary doesn't matter and stay focused on McCain, but if Hillary runs the table in the meantime, he's going to look out of touch. That will hardly build confidence in his abilities to fend off a candidate who has come back from the politically dead and from financial bankruptcy to beat a tough Republican field."

DEM FIELD V: Is Hillary Looking Ahead To 2012?

The Huffington Post's Thomas B. Edsall speculates about Clinton's motives: "I suspect, but have no way of knowing, that she is: (1.) Praying for a devastating anti-Obama story -- Jeremiah Wright-Tony Rezko squared -- to surface and turn the Illinois Senator into an unacceptable candidate in the eyes of the media and convention delegates. This is clearly a long-shot, and presumably her aides have no such story in reserve or it would have already seen the light of day. (2.) Convinced, correctly, that after running a lousy campaign she has finally hit her stride as reflected in her solid victories in Texas, Ohio and, on Tuesday, in West Virginia. These victories, in her eyes and in the eyes of many of her aides, demonstrate that Obama is an empty suit weighed down with general election liabilities that are only coming to light at the close of the nomination process. (3.) Psychically unable to accept defeat -- after first believing she was the anointed candidate, and then, after losing her superstar status, clawing her way back into contention in an extraordinary display of grit."

Edsall concludes: "For Hillary, there may be very little downside in staying in the race until the bitter end, or at least until the final delegates are selected on June 4. Under once scenario -- Obama gets the nomination but loses to John McCain -- Clinton could begin her 2012 campaign on November 5, 2008, as a vindicated politician, using the narrative that she was the better candidate. Under the alternative scenario -- Hillary promptly concedes and Obama wins the presidency -- she may well have lost her one shot at the highest office in the land, and the White House and the power, prestige and status that goes with it, will be forever out of her reach -- a intensely painful prospect."

Mother Jones' David Corn agrees with Edsall: "Clinton is setting up the biggest I-told-you-so in recent American political history. Assume Obama is the nominee and imagine that he loses to McCain in the fall. Where would that leave Clinton? She would be able to wag her finger at her party, and she wouldn't even have to say those haughty words. She and her die-hard confederates would be able to note simply and smugly, We did try to warn you. In the following four years, they would remind reporters, party leaders, Democratic voters, and everyone else, over and over, that they had said that Obama was unelectable, that they had said he could not win blue-collar (that is, white) voters. This Clinton chorus would not cease singing this song for a nanosecond. Can't you just see Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe lecturing cable news hosts on this point? Hiding their schadenfreude -- just barely -- they would note that they had won the fundamental argument of 2008: who understands American voters the best? And in this scenario, Hillary Clinton would be well-positioned for 2012."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis, a fierce Obama supporter, has no more patience for Clinton: "Good God. What is wrong with her? The Clintons and their campaign staff don't give a damn that they are now hurting our electoral chances in the fall against McCain and against the Republicans in Congress. Their campaign isn't happening in some vacuum, and they know it. Our candidates can't fundraise because of her. Obama can't focus on McCain because of her. Obama is wasting money on HER, rather than spending it on McCain, because of her. EMILY's List, and AFSCME, and the American Federation of Teachers and others are wasting their members' money on her now-failed race -- money that they could be spending, should be spending, on other real races, races that haven't already lost. She can't win, the math says she lost the nomination, but she doesn't give a damn. She's going to stay in the race like some spoiled hateful egotistical brat."

DEM FIELD VI: U.N.I.T.Y.

Pro-Clinton bloggers are arguing that Obama should pick Clinton as his running mate, noting that the new USA TODAY/Gallup poll finds that "55% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents also would like Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to choose Clinton as his running mate, although there's notable resistance among his backers":

• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "The first unifying gesture for a man who's run on his ability to unify would be to choose the person who came in a close second for the ticket. It puzzles me to hear people automatically dismiss the idea of Clinton as VP. For one thing, as this poll proves, the pick it would assuage Clinton's extremely passionate army of supporters, who Obama is going to need in the general -- and I'm not just talking for votes. But in addition, a Clinton pick has the added benefit of shoring up Obama's demographic weaknesses (working class whites, latinos, women), his perceived deficiency in the resume department, which, quite frankly, I suspect would cause more people to defect to McCain than Obama's race would, and it would balance out his lofty post-partisan inspirer-in-chief persona with an in the trenches fighter, one who for once would beat the pants off the Republican VP nominee in a debate."
• Big Tent Democrat: "We can see now that Hillary Clinton is clearly the almost required VP choice for Barack Obama should he be the nominee. Will the Obama campaign be stubborn and silly because the Media hates Clinton and apparently some in the Obama circle are childish? I trust David Axelrod, and more importantly, Barack Obama, have more sense than that."

Benen cautions against reading too much into these polling numbers: "I don't doubt that Clinton enjoys an enormous base of support within the party. That should be pretty obvious -- she's won more 15 million Democratic votes at this point. For her most enthusiastic supporters, having Clinton on the ticket, even in the #2 slot, is better than nothing. But I thought I'd take a minute to note that polls about running mates don't mean a whole lot. [...] These VP polls tend to measure name recognition -- and most VP candidates aren't well known to a national audience. Before 2000, I suspect most Republicans were not at all familiar with Dick Cheney, but then they got to know him pretty quickly. The same was true of Joe Lieberman. [...] The point isn't whether Clinton would be a good choice for Obama or not; that's a separate matter. The point is these VP polls don't tell us a whole lot. Obama may very well pick a running mate who isn't nationally known, but I suspect we'd all get to know him or her pretty quickly."

OBAMA: Exercises In Deliberate Misreading

During Obama's interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, the two men had the following exchange:

Goldberg: "Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?"
Obama: "No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable."

GOP Reps. John Boehner and Eric Cantor released a statement accusing Obama of calling Israel "a constant sore":

"It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a 'constant wound,' 'constant sore,' and that it 'infect[s] all of our foreign policy.' These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel."

Ex-Rep. Tom DeLay joined his former GOP colleagues by writing a blog post on Townhall criticizing Obama's remarks: "In an interview with The Atlantic, the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee called Israel a 'constant wound...a constant sore [that] does infect all of our foreign policy.' On one level, this is traffic-stoppingly stupid. What's wrong with this guy? We're told ad nauseum he's the greatest political communicator of his generation, and his idea of a balanced and nuanced position is to compare a threatened ally in a crucial region to a festering, open sore? It's no longer an open question as to whether Senator Obama is ready prime time: he's not. [...] Make sure Senator Obama knows that just because Israel is small and Israelis can't vote for him, that they do have a voice among their allies here in the U.S. Call his office and let him know how offensive these comments were, and ask him to retract his statement."

Goldberg chastised Boehner for misrepresenting Obama's remarks:

"Mr. Boehner, I'm sure, is a terribly busy man, with many burdensome responsibilities, so I have to assume that he simply didn't have time to read the entire Obama interview, or even the entire paragraph, or even a single clause. If he had, of course, he would have seen that Obama was clearly calling the Middle East conflict, and not Israel, a sore. Why, there's no one who would disagree that the Middle East conflict is a 'sore,' is there? I have no doubt that Mr. Boehner will issue a correction to his press release in which he states the obvious, which is that Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me."

Liberal bloggers are also coming to Obama's defense:

• dday: "It's important to recognize that a core part of Republican strategy in 2008, in addition to disenfranchising Democratic voters, is simply lying about their opponent. [...] There's no real slickness to the strategy, or forethought put into it. Birds are gonna fly, fish are gonna swim, and Republicans are gonna lie about the Democrat. Goldberg, a conservative, managed to display some intellectual honesty and point out that Boehner is, in fact, lying. The question is whether or not the rest of the media will follow his lead when some lie like this becomes front and center in the election."
• Yglesias: "Eliding here is the difference between calling Israel, the country, a sore and calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a sore. But I guess Reps. Boehner and Cantor think the conflict is a good thing, that's helpful to Israelis, and makes America's relationships with other Arab political actors easier? [...] At the end of the day, I think Israel and Israelis will be better off with an American president who thinks the conflict is a serious problem that he'll put a relatively high priority on than with a president who intends to pay Israel the false compliment of pretending that the situation is somehow no big deal."
• MA Sen. John Kerry defends Obama in a blog entry on the Huffington Post: "Look, I've been around politics long enough to know that it's a contact sport. Words will be abused. Phrases will be taken out of context. But the latest distortion from the GOP, frankly, shouldn't give us all pause -- it should spring us into action. [...] These statements by Representatives Boehner and Cantor are so bad they rise to the level of a danger to our foreign policy. America's allegiance to Israel has always been bi-partisan and unshakeable. It still is, with either Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton as President. But how can we actually have a debate on foreign policy, if the other side simply makes up statements on which to base phony, contrived outrage?"

OBAMA II: Hamas's Man In Washington?

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers continue to criticize Obama's positions on Israel and the Middle East:

• Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham: "Obama's advisers have since stated that the 'wound' of which he speaks is clearly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not Israel itself. That interpretation is only marginally better for Obama, in my mind, but the tactic is undoubtedly helpful for him. [...] Gaza phonebankers will assume his outreach is posturing and read the very real signals of his associations, staff, and comments as proof that Gaza GOTV should kick into overdrive. A deliberately blank canvas makes a dangerous presidential candidate, and the problem with Obama's pro-Israel stance persists -- it's anything but clear."
• Philip Klein: "Obama has vowed to meet without preconditions, within the first year of his administration, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust, threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and his regime has financed Hamas. So I just don't see why it's such a stretch for me to fear that circumstances would arise under which Obama would find it necessary to meet with Hamas to make progress in peace negotiations. Given his eagerness to meet with the leading state sponsor of terrorism, I just don't see why he'd draw a moral distinction at a democratically elected terrorist group that controls an area of diplomatic importance."
• Mirengoff: "Barack Obama and his legion of supporters in the MSM may not like the fact that Hamas supports his candidacy, or that John McCain and his supporters mention this fact. But it's not difficult to understand why Hamas favors Obama. Consider this statement by Obama regarding Lebanon. [...] The naivety of this statement is staggering. [...] Does he really believe that Hezbollah and its sponsors can be pacified or neutralized by electoral reform, an end to corrupt patronage, and 'fair' distribution of services? [...] No wonder he's Hamas's man."
• RedState's haystack: "Barack Obama promises he will talk to everyone -- friend and foe alike. [...] So, when Obama negotiates in good faith, and strikes a deal with terrorists who wish him into office, and they subsequently go back on their word(s) [which they ALWAYS do], and they keep upping the anty...what will Mr. Hope and Change and Change and Hope DO, exactly? Why, he'll give a speech about Hope and Change of course."

On the left side of the blogosphere, Yglesias denies that Obama has a "Jewish problem": "[Obama] doesn't actually seem to have one when pitted against John McCain. Rather, Jewish Americans like Clinton best, Obama second-best, and McCain least. Keep this in mind next time you read an argument that seems to assume that white working class Clinton supporters would prefer McCain to Obama -- it's perfectly possible for Obama to be someone's second-choice, just as Clinton is the second choice of millions of Obama voters."

MS-01: Tremble, NRCC!

The netroots are thrilled that Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in last night's special election in MS-01, a solidly GOP district. They see this win as further evidence that the GOP brand is in trouble:

• Marshall: "To put this into some broader perspective, the Republicans have lost three straight Republican districts to the Democrats in by-elections this year. [Ex-Rep Dennis] Hastert's district in Illinois, Louisiana 6th, and now Mississippi 1st. Each successively more Republican than the last. In Mississippi 1st, President Bush got 62% of the vote there in 2004."
• Ezra Klein: "It's always hard to draw a line from special elections out to general election, but Democrats are taking seats they have no right to even be contesting. And given how many retirements the GOP has seen this year, and how much voter registration Obama and Clinton have kicked off, well, things don't look so good for the Republicans."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "The magnitude of this loss cannot be overstated. The Republican party is in serious trouble in 2008."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "We are going to win everywhere in November. Landslide city."
• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "[Childers won] an 8-point victory in a solidly Republican district. The GOP even brought in Dick Cheney to campaign and tried to tar Childers as an Obama lover. But nothing worked. Even in Mississippi, they just don't want anything to do with Republicans anymore. It's going to be a ver-r-r-r-y long summer and fall for the GOP leadership."

Liberal bloggers are particularly pleased that the GOP failed in its efforts to damage Childers by linking him to Obama:

• Moulitsas: "Republicans claim they are gleeful over Obama in the fall, that they'll wrap Jeremiah Wright around every Democrat. And they did so, heavily, leading up to today's special election. [...] And it's a district in the Deep South, where scary black people are supposed to be particularly damaging to Democrats. And yet, Democrat Travis Childers won the district by eight points. Imagine that. No matter how much opportunistic Clinton supporters claim that Obama is a problem this November, fact is, the problem has been and remains George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Distractions like Wright and 'bitter' have been, and remain, irrelevant."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "The Republicans tried to make this election about two people: Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And despite running this type of campaign, they lost. While it is true that Childers distanced himself from his party (and implicitly from Obama), the fact is that the Obama/Wright smears simply DID NOT WORK. The Republicans are going to have to get a new game plan, and the establishment media are going to have to get a new meme. Sorry folks."
• Digby: "Ads featuring Reverend Wright aren't working in the deep south. Something's happening."

MS-01 II: I've Got A Bad Feeling About This...

Several conservative bloggers are concerned about Childers' victory in MS-01:

• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "There is no denying it anymore -- if it could even be denied in the run-up to tonight; Republicans have serious problems with the brand identity. Yes, I know that there are six months left until the election but what else needs to occur for the GOP to realize that it has a very serious problem on its hands? There have been any number of indications concerning a Republican image problem and nothing has been done to ameliorate matters. Either Republican leaders get on the ball very quickly, or the GOP is headed for yet another round of epic Congressional losses."
• Mirengoff: "The Republican brand is in such bad shape that the Dems can win virtually anywhere if they nominate a candidate whose position on key issues is, or can be made to seem, close to that of the Republican. Fortunately, the Democrats will not nominate such a candidate for president. And the Republican nominee, whether we feel comfortable about it or not, isn't necessarily seen as intimately associated with the Republican brand. Even so, I think that Republican nominee is running uphill."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Not only is the GOP losing special elections, it's managing to lose elections in districts where its candidates should be winning by 10 points without even campaigning. [...] What you're seeing is the result of the Republican Party's 'leadership,' such as it is, becoming arrogant, complacent, and coming to believe that they're so smart that they don't need to listen to the people who put them in office to begin with."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Silver Lining?

The New Republic's sees an upside to Obama's blowout loss in WV:

"In retrospect, Barack Obama may be lucky he didn't win Indiana last week. Why? Suppose he had -- there would have been immense pressure on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race, which she might have done. Given that around seven percent of West Virginia Democratic primary voters pulled the lever for John Edwards, who dropped out of the race more than three months ago, there's a pretty decent chance Obama would have lost West Virginia, or at the very least would have come up short of 50 percent. And as bad as tonight's results look for him (even though it's yet one more instance of the essentially unchanging demography-is-destiny story in the Democratic race), surely it would have been far worse to lose to Hillary if she had already conceded the race. As it stands now, he'll be able to take his licks in West Virginia and Kentucky without being totally humiliated, then make a victory declaration of sorts after a win in Oregon."

LEST WE FORGET: Intolerable Acts

McSweeney's Mark Amundsen provides a list:

1774:
Boston Port Act
Massachusetts Government Act
Quartering Act
Administration of Justice Act
Quebec Act

2008:

Took the Last Heineken Act
Rushed Out Onto the Sidewalk in Front of Me but Then Walked Real Slow Act
Fired Test Missiles Over Sea of Japan Act
Drove 65 in a 65 Zone Act
Clipped Your Fingernails at Your Desk Act

DEM FIELD: Obama's Appalachian Problem

In anticipation of Obama's expected drubbing in WV today, Daily Kos' DHinMI argues that Obama's problems with white voters are confined to Appalachian residents and their descendents: "It would be great if pundits and politicos would recognize and acknowledge that race doesn't appear to have been much of a hindrance for Obama in the Democratic primaries, except, it appears, in Appalachia and in some regions where descendants of Appalachian migrants settled, such as the Ozarks, Oklahoma, and some isolated rural communities on the Plains. Obama doesn't appear to have much of a problem with white voters. But it seems quite likely Appalachia has a bit of an Obama problem."

TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat disagrees: "In Arizona, Clinton won the white vote by 53-38 (she won Latinos 55-41.) In Florida, Clinton won whites by 53-23 (she won Latinos by 59-30). In Indiana, Clinton won whites 60-40. Are these three states in Appalachia too? [...] In Massachusetts, Clinton won whites 58-40 (she won Latinos 56-36). In Rhode Island, Clinton won whites 63-37. In New Jersey, Clinton won whites 66-31. Unless the entire country East of the Mississippi is now referred to as Appalachia, I think this proposed theory explains very little and indeed is part of the entire Ostrich approach we now see from Obama blogs. It is just plain silly now. I believe Obama can do better. I believe his problem goes beyond race issues. Obama is indeed the wine track candidate, the candidate of the Creative Class (and of course African Americans.) But he must do better -- with white women, with the white working class, with seniors and with Latinos. [...] Pretending that saying 'Appalachia' will solve it is no answer."

Daily Kos diarist dawnt urges the netroots not to write off Appalachia: "Over the last week or so, I've heard a lot of kossacks writing off West Virginia, making fun of West Virginia, and even saying West Virginia doesn't matter. Some have painted all of Appalachia as racist homophobes who will never change. [...] Some have suggested that we revert to Clinton-style 'states that matter' campaigning, leaving West Virginia and Kentucky behind altogether. Well, progress hasn't left us behind, and I hope that progressives won't either. [...] I know that we cannot win West Virginia on Tuesday. We cannot win Kentucky next week. We cannot win Appalachia in November. But that does not mean we should give up on them or work less hard for them. It does not make the 50 state strategy less important -- it makes the 50 state strategy more important. It means we should work even harder. Call it bridging the ignorance gap, if you will."

Obsidian Wings' publius examines Obama's "race problem": "Today's Post article on the ugly racism that Obama campaign workers have faced is disappointing, though (sadly) unsurprising. It's also been humiliating -- as a native Kentuckian -- to read some of the openly racist sentiments being expressed to reporters on the ground there. But let's face it -- race is playing a big role not just there, but throughout the Midwestern white working classes. That's not saying all white working-class Americans feel this way, or even that most do. But a lot do -- and everyone knows it. And that's a big reason why Clinton is up by such obscene margins in West Virginia and Kentucky. We should stop pretending otherwise. But that said, I think Obama supporters should see this ugly reality as an opportunity -- and as a motivation to double down in support and effort. [...] An Obama victory...would be a true watershed in that it would signal to future campaigns that a new national political majority has emerged that not only rejects race-baiting, but that (more crucially) doesn't depend upon the votes of those swayed by race-baiting."

Meanwhile, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis tries to rebut the Clinton camp's electability arguments: "As we approach the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries, Hillary is once again telling us that how a candidate does in a primary dictates how they will do in the general election. Meaning, if Obama loses to Hillary in the primary in a certain state, then he will lose to McCain in the fall in that state. It's total bull, but nonetheless, that's what Hillary keeps saying. So, I guess that means that no blacks will be voting for Hillary in the fall since they're not voting for her now. Specifically, Hillary will only get 8% of the black vote in the fall, dooming her candidacy, were she to be handed the nomination by the Superdelegates."

DEM FIELD II: Obama Veepstakes

Several liberal bloggers are discussing potential running mate choices for Obama:

Open Left's Chris Bowers lays out his VP criteria: "It is essential that Obama choose a running mate who opposed the war from the start. This criteria quickly eliminates a wide swath of potential VP candidates, including Bill Richardson, [ex-Gen.] Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, [AZ Gov.] Janet Napolitano, [VA Gov.] Tim Kaine, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, [MO Sen.] Claire McCaskill, and [ex-SD Sen.] Tom Daschle. [...VA Sen. Jim] Webb and [KS Gov. Kathleen] Sebelius...each have a lot of support online. Further, both also do a good job of reinforcing Obama's other campaign arguments: unity and change. Both have strong bi-partisan ('unity') records, Webb in working for [Ronald] Reagan, and Sebelius in convincing several high-ranking Kansas Republicans to become Democrats. Both also hit he 'change' note pretty well, since Webb has only been a Senator for a couple of years and since Sebelius has been outside of D.C. since 1994."

Bowers continues: "Now, comparing Webb and Sebelius themselves, as both a progressive and as an electoral strategist I don't think it is much of a contest. Sebelius appears to have a consistently strong progressive record, and a lengthy series of electoral victories that swan against the national and local tide. Webb, by contrast, is something of an electoral neophyte with a narrow primary victory and narrow general election victory under his belt. His Senate record is not particularly progressive (FISA being an egregious example), and I have also heard that he isn't exactly the most energetic or disciplined campaigner. [...] So, until some potentially better options begin endorsing Obama for President, right now, by process of elimination, I think Obama's best choice is definitely Kathleen Sebelius. Should either [OH Sen.] Sherrod Brown or [WA Sen.] Patty Murray endorse Obama, I could be persuaded to change my mind on this, since both of them would, I think, be extremely strong Veep choices for Obama. However, Brown remains neutral and Murray is currently backing Clinton."

Big Tent Democrat, on the other hand, thinks the only logical pick is Clinton: "One other reason Hillary Clinton has to be at the top of Obama's VP list is her finely honed campaigning skills. Just for a moment imagine the VP debate, for instance. Does anyone imagine Hillary Clinton will not clean the clock of the Republican VP candidate? Does anyone imagine Clinton will not be a huge benefit to Obama on the campaign trail? There really is no argument against Hillary Clinton as the VP candidate for Obama, other than petty nonsense. I hope and expect Barack Obama will rise above the nonsense we see from some of his supporters and choose a unity ticket that will guarantee a big Democratic win in November."

TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt, who strongly supports Clinton, disagrees with Big Tent Democrat: "While Big Tent Democrat has been sold on a unity ticket for months, I am not, regardless of who is on top of the ticket. I don't think they have a better chance of retaking the White House in November together. I think together they will drive Republicans and conservatives out in force. It's not a balanced ticket. I also don't want to see a joint ticket because I think Hillary Clinton would make a great President, and I don't think she ever will get the chance if she starts off as Vice President under Obama for 8 years. As for the speculation that Obama would convince Hillary's supporters to vote for him if he picks another female VP candidate like Napolitano or McCaskill, I highly doubt it. There is only one Hillary Clinton. Women are not interchangeable. In fact, it would be rubbing salt in the wounds of her already disappointed supporters. Like showing off the new girlfriend to the jilted one. I think millions would stay home. If Obama wins the nomination, let him go forth against McCain in November without leaning on Hillary or choosing another female VP candidate just because he wants the female vote. Let him pick his best candidate for a VP and go the distance."

DEM FIELD III: Go Forth And Endorse, Young Supers!

Some of Obama's supporters are urging the undeclared superdelegates representing Young Dems and College Dems to endorse Obama:

• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Per 'The Page,' Crystal Strait from Young Democrats endorsed Obama this past weekend. Good for her. [...] The remaining 3 student Superdelegates, Lauren Wolfe, David Hardt and Awais Khalil, need to decide. And, their votes should reflect the work of the young voters in the Democratic party who aren't superdelegates, but are putting their hearts and souls into electing the next President. This is a no-brainer for Wolfe, Hardt and Khalil. So what are they waiting for? It's soon going to be too late, Obama will pass the 2,025 mark, and Wolfe, Hardt and Khalil will lose their chance of helping elect America's next president. Yes, our next president could owe them one. That's a hell of a missed opportunity."
• Actor Kal Penn writes an open letter on The Huffington Post to Wolfe and Khaleel: "As representatives of a college group, I respect your decision to have waited until your constituents made their voices heard in a clear fashion. But that time has come and gone. You are no doubt aware that this election season started with an increase in youth voter turnout of 135% above 2004 levels in Iowa. Senator Obama won the 'youth vote' by a 4-1 margin in that state, followed by 3-1 in New Hampshire, and 2-1 in Nevada. [...] Your failure to pledge now risks returning those passionate, first-time voters to a political landscape of the same old games that caused them to maintain such distance from the Democratic Party before."

OBAMA: Weak Sauce

Conservative bloggers are slamming Obama for comments he made about Israel and Hamas during an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Barack Obama is the least-prepared-to-be-president major presidential candidate in modern times. The combination of naivete and arrogance in the interview he gave to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg ought to stop every supporter of Israel in his or her tracks. Obama's 'we don't do nuance well in politics and especially don't do it well on Middle East policy' is a huge red flare. There isn't much nuance needed when terrorist organizations on Israel's northern and southern borders are proponents of the destruction of Israel. 'Nuance' when it comes to dealing with terrorists equals appeasement at best, surrender at worst."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "[Obama] seems to be suggesting that one of the main obstacles to peace is 'hawkish elements', when I would suggest constant rocket attacks, suicide bombers, refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, and national leaders threatening to wipe Israel off the map might be bigger factors."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "Does Obama seriously believe that Hamas endorses his candidacy because he is 'worldly,' has a Muslim middle name and won't be a 'cowboy?' If so, he is even more out of touch with reality than we thought. If not, he completely ducked the interviewer's question (not that the interviewer, another Obama fan, noticed) and has yet to explain why he thinks Islamic terrorists want him to win."

OBAMA II: Where's The Outrage, Senator?

Several conservative bloggers complained that Obama didn't express enough indignation at receiving praise from a Hamas spokesperson:

• NRO's David Frum: "Obama's words are unexceptionable so far as they go. What's striking here is what is not said: There is no revulsion, no affront that Hamas would name him as its preferred candidate. [...] I do not believe that Obama is in any sense hostile to Israel. I am certain that he would be honestly disgusted by anti-semitism in any form. But do I believe that he would be cavalier with Israel's security? That his belief that anything can be negotiated and that dialogue is always the answer exposes America's allies to risks? That his understanding of the origins and causes of the Arab-Israeli dispute is dangerously wrong? That he will 'engage' Hamas and Hezbollah for exactly the same reasons that he will seek to 'engage' Iran and Syria? Yes I do. He may consider himself Israel's friend. But he will be a dangerous friend -- made all the more dangerous by the reluctance of many in the pro-Israel community to ask searching questions of this supremely evasive politician."
• The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb: "This has always been the problem with the Hamas endorsement -- the Obama camp never once got their backs up at the notion that Hamas would welcome an Obama presidency. It would have been just as easy for [strategist David] Axelrod or Obama to turn this to their advantage -- to say that Hamas clearly doesn't know anything about Obama or John Kennedy if they think an Obama administration will be a friend to Hamas. But instead they said they were 'flattered' by the comparison to JFK, and have since taken to repeating that Obama's policy with regard to Hamas is no different than Clinton's or McCain's -- which is a tough sell given that his whole foreign policy approach centers on talking to tyrants and terrorists."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "What is most disturbing is [Obama's] acceptance of the perspective that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source of all of the region and 'all of our foreign policy' problems and his blasé attitude toward Hamas. He does not seem the least bit concerned that a terrorist organization would endorse him. At the very least this should demonstrate how absurd is his claim that there is no difference between his position and John McCain's on this topic."

MCCAIN: A Third Bush Term?

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about McCain surrogate/MO Rep. Roy Blunt's admission that McCain "would be" a third Bush term on the economy:

Wolf Blitzer: "So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?"
Blunt: "It would be. I think it would be. And I think that's a good thing."

• Think Progress' Faiz Shakir: "It's nice to see Blunt conceding the point. McCain is promising more of Bush's economic agenda -- unaffordable massive tax cuts for the rich that offer no help for the average family. [...] All this coming from a man who once said he 'cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us.'"
• Crooks and Liars' Nicole Belle: "Bless his little heart, let's have House Minority Whip Roy Blunt on every week to talk up John McCain's candidacy! Talk about living within a bubble, Blunt thinks nothing of touting the McSame presidency as a Bush third term, despite the record disapproval rating for the man and the vast majority of the country believing that the country is going in the wrong direction under his leadership."
• Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith: "The GOP has put this country in a world of shit. And it seems that most Americans understand that all too well. [...] So, with that in mind, what in the hell were the Republicans thinking trotting out Roy Blunt for some seriously mixed up messaging yesterday?"
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "What's the top message priority for Democrats hoping to win this year's presidential election? When it comes to defining John McCain, it's pretty obvious: he'd offer more of the same. [...] McCain is aware of the dangers here -- no one wants to be closely associated with the most unpopular president since the dawn of modern polling, and no one wants to run on a 'stay the course' platform when four out of five Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. With that in mind, it's always encouraging when some leading Republicans seem anxious to make it easier for Democrats to hammer their message home."

MCCAIN II: Better Than Bush, But Not Good Enough

While acknowledging that McCain's environmental stance represents a step forward from Bush, liberal bloggers believe that McCain's proposals are vastly inferior to Obama's and Clinton's:

• Grist's David Roberts: "My initial reaction is that [McCain's climate plan is] better than expected, somewhat short of Lieberman-Warner, and far short of what Obama has proposed. It should comfort us that a McCain presidency will mean real action on climate change, not the shell game Bush is engaged in. But it's hard to see how McCain can claim the allegiance of voters who rank climate change as a top concern. He's still behind the curve."
• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "It's great that McCain acknowledges the reality of climate change and great that he acknowledges that we need to do something about it. But his cap-and-trade proposal is pretty weak tea."
• Firedoglake's Eric de Place: "To the extent that McCain's new proposal, flawed as it is, constitutes the lower bound of new national climate policy, we've just made a gigantic step forward. And it's about freaking time. Honestly. So what's wrong with McCain's plan? Let me count the ways. (1.) The targets are too modest. It calls for 60 percent reductions (below 1990 levels) by 2050, rather than the more aggressive 80 percent targets favored by the Democratic candidates. [...] (2.) It allows for unlimited 'offsets' from both foreign and domestic sources. There are two big problems with the anything-goes approach to offsets. For one thing, there's simply no guarantee that the offsets are real [...]. And two, a huge offset program drastically reduces the incentive for businesses to innovate and adapt. Why invest in efficiency measures when you can just keep polluting and pay for a phantom tree-planting project in Indonesia? (3.) It gives away carbon permits for free at the outset of the program, moving toward auctioning only later. [...] A better approach is auctioning the permits and then using the revenue for the public benefit, perhaps simply rebating the funds on a per capita basis."

Daily Kos' Devilstower doesn't trust McCain when it comes to the environment: "Back in 2000, candidate Bush also said the climate change was an issue and pledged to regulate CO2. It wasn't until after his election that that cuddly, caring, compassionate conservative Bush's positions gave way to the standard GOP line. So what's the difference between Bush and McCain? One is a Republican who is already in office, the other is a Republican running for office. Far from making him different from Bush, McCain's empty promises make him exactly the same as the man whose administration he's running to extend. What evidence is there that McCain would break Bush's flip-flop record if he gets the chance to sit in the Oval Office? How about this: McCain is being advised on these issues by Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, who just this morning put out an op-ed explaining how we can't let the environment get in the way of cheap energy. And of course the proposals McCain put forward today don't align very well with his other big push for a gas tax holiday. [...] As has already been demonstrated time and again, 'maverick' McCain's difference from the hard right extends as far as his words, and stops well short of his deeds. Coming from McCain, any promise on climate change is nothing but hot air."

The American Prospect's Kate Sheppard agrees: "Despite his lip service, all signs indicate that McCain lacks a grasp of the gravity of environmental concerns, and will push policy only as far as it does not inconvenience special interests and the conservative establishment. While his own values may be greener than those of the current Republican administration, chances are slim that he would make the strides necessary to reform the nation's environmental agenda."

MCCAIN III: The Maverick At His Worst

Conservative bloggers are also critical of McCain's climate plan, albeit for totally different reasons. They are accusing McCain of proposing "a massive regulatory intervention" in an effort to address "a supposed crisis that rests on skewed science":

• AmSpec Blog's Peter Suderman: "There's an old saying that everything becomes funnier if you add 'on ice!' to the end of it. Walt Disney...on ice! Nuclear winter...on ice! John Kerry...on ice! [...] Anyway, John McCain seems to be taking a similar approach to climate change legislation. Come up with whatever expensive regulatory scheme you want, and then just add the words 'market-based.' Suddenly, it's all good! So here he is telling the New York Times today that he'll 'propose a domestic cap-and-trade system that will mobilize market forces to develop and commercialize alternatives to carbon-based fuels.' It's as if he believes a massive regulatory intervention will somehow become more palatable if you repeat the word 'market' as many times as possible."
• Michelle Malkin: "A rational, free-market-based approach to environmentalism requires a commitment to scientific truth, accuracy, and honest cost-benefit analyses. For the last several years, McCain has been committed to none of those. [...] Like Barack Obama, McCain touts a 'cap-and-trade' system as the free-market answer to reducing carbon emissions. Analysts who haven't been bitten by the global warming alarmist bug beg to differ –- and evidence from cap-and-trade systems already in operation back them up. [...] A true 'free-market' approach to environmentalism means protecting the free market, not destroying it in the name of supposedly 'cost-free solutions' to a supposed crisis that rests on skewed science."

Hugh Hewitt, in contrast, defends McCain's cap-and-trade proposal by arguing that Obama's proposal is worse: "Skeptics about any aspect of the global warming debate -- the significance of the temperature rise, its origins, or the ability of humans to affect the temperature change -- thus have a choice: A candidate with a plan that includes a push for nuclear energy and accountability for China and other rapidly industrializing countries, or a candidate who will push an America-first, only, and without nuclear power plan. McCain has occupied the center on this debate, and the GOP and conservatives should get over it and begin working to keep enough Republican senators in place to assure that President McCain's emphasis on a new generation of nuclear power plants becomes a reality, thus keeping cap-and-trade from becoming a suffocating blanket."

MCCAIN IV: You Stay Classy, Joe!

Liberal bloggers are slamming McCain surrogate/CT Sen. Joe Lieberman for claiming that a Hamas spokesperson's positive statement about Obama "suggests the difference" between Obama and McCain:

"The fact that the spokesperson for Hamas would say they would welcome the election of Senator Obama really does raise the question, 'Why?' And it suggests the difference between these two candidates."

• TPM's Greg Sargent: "Lieberman is clearly emerging as a chief attack-dog for McCain on foreign policy, and here he is echoing McCain's talking points with unerring precision: While we all know that Obama doesn't in any way support Hamas or its goals, it's okay to use the group to tar the Illinois Senator anyway, merely because McCain and the Republicans want to. One wonders whether Harry Reid will keep this sort of stuff in mind when considering committee chairmanships in 2009."
• Daily Kos' Kagro X: "John McCain and Joe Lieberman = A Third Term of Stupid. Joe, this is why you're not allowed to be a Democrat any more. Too f*@#ing dumb, and too f*@#ing transparent. Note to the rest of you: this is the kind of intellectual honesty 'everything but the war' gets you."
• Benen: "Shortly after promising not to engage in these kinds of attacks, John McCain went after Barack Obama a few weeks ago over an ostensible 'endorsement' from a Hamas spokesperson. It was a cheap and ridiculous move -- especially given the fact that McCain and Obama have the same position on Hamas -- which Time's Joe Klein accurately described as 'gutter crap.' It was therefore not surprising at all to see Joe Lieberman repeat and legitimize the bogus line yesterday on CNN."
• Crooks and Liars' SilentPatriot: "This ridiculous guilt-by-association crap needs to stop already. Ed Schultz made a great point the other day: What if someone in, say, the KKK came out and said they would welcome the election of McCain over Obama? Does that have bearing on McCain, his candidacy or his beliefs? Of course not. But we wouldn't then go around, adding the caveat, 'Why does the KKK support him?' Only desperate neocons stoop that low."

MCCAIN V: McCain's Nader?

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about ex-GA Rep. Bob Barr's entry into the Presidential race, which they perceive as a blow to McCain:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Barr is enough of a media darling that if he runs he'll get a lot of free media. And there's enough weirdness going on in the Republican party right now that I could imagine a few scenarios where he'd draw non-trivial numbers away from McCain. [...] A lot of Barr's drawing power will be a test of just how much opposition to the Iraq War there is in the Republican party. How many Republicans are there out there who just won't accept McCain's Iraq forever position but can't bring themselves to vote for a Democrat? And how many of them could Barr sop up?"
• Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "The GOP brass begged Barr not to run. And Sean Hannity's complete freak out on this clip shows you just how spooked the wingnuts are over this. Make no mistake: this is a huge blow to the Republicans, who are already fighting with one arm tied behind their backs thanks to Dubya, Iraq, the economy and Dubya. And, as an added bonus, the Paulites, who were already plotting against McCain, now have a place to go in November. Go Bob!"
• Meanwhile, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher has a question: "Now that Bob Barr is running for president, inquiring minds want to know...will Tim Russert give a highly publicized, 'exclusive' campaign kick-off interview on MTP as he did for Ralph Nader? If not, why not?"

MCCAIN VI: Go Home, Bob

Most conservative bloggers are unenthusiastic about Barr's candidacy:

• Malkin: "Many readers have e-mailed asking what I think of former Ga. Rep. Bob Barr's presidential candidacy. [...] Two words: Not much. On immigration, he's virtually indistinguishable from all the other remaining presidential candidates. On homeland security, he's joined with what Heather MacDonald calls the 'privocrats' in whipping up unfounded hysteria about intelligence-gathering efforts in a post-9/11 world. On Iraq, he's what Allahpundit calls the 'poor man's Ron Paul'. And doesn't the ACLU, for which Barr consults, already have enough candidates in the race?"
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Barr has more problems than a little whipped-cream licking to overcome. Based on his own platform, Barr will have to conduct a John Edwards campaign, running against pretty much his entire voting record during his Congressional career. On every issue Barr names, he voted in the manner in which he now criticizes. [...] What will he use for a campaign slogan -- 'In hindsight, I was a lousy Congressman'? That didn't work for John Edwards this year in a major-party primary, and it won't convince people to vote Libertarian, either."
• Meanwhile, AmSpec Blog's Robert Stacy McCain likes Barr's immigration stance: "'If a person is illegally in this country, the taxpayers of this country and the government of this country owe them nothing,' Barr said. This notion that government owes something to people, simply because they're here, does not resonate with me as somebody who believes in responsible government. If one were running a charity called the United States of America, that would be one thing. This is not a charity, this is the people's business."

MCCAIN VII: Huck, No!

Several conservative bloggers are upset about James Pethokoukis' report that Mike Huckabee "is currently at the top of John McCain's short list for a running mate":

• Malkin: "Huckabee for VP? That's the buzz. It's the GOP immigration drag queen ticket! La Raza/The Race gives it two thumbs up. [...] All they need is sanctuary-friendly Rudy Giuliani as DHS Secretary, and the open-borders nightmare team will be complete. Can someone please fast-forward to 2012? Please."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit understands the rationale for putting Huckabee on the ticket: "Having not one but two media darlings on the GOP ticket might convince the press to go merely hip-deep into the tank for Obama instead of face-first, like they're planning. Finally, now that Barry O's the nominee, McCain has both a worry and an opportunity that he wouldn't have had opposite Hillary: Turnout among black voters in the south is sure to be huge this year, which, coupled with a weak turnout among southern evangelicals, could be lethal by putting red states in play. Adding a prominent Christian to the ticket solves that problem and frees McCain up to focus on the battlegrounds instead of fighting a rearguard action to preserve his base. Adding Huckabee specifically to the ticket, with his blue-collar populist rhetoric, holds an extra advantage in giving him a shot at Hillary's base of working-class Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio. All of which is to say, while Hot Air readers might not like this idea, I can understand why Team Maverick might."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Lessons From The Corleones

The New Republic's Isaac Chotiner:

"John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell have a fun and smart article in The National Interest comparing the Corleone family's response to the attempted assassination of Vito to America's response to 9/11. Tom Hagen counsels prudence and negotiation, and therefore represents the 'liberal institutionalism' of the Democratic Party. Sonny Corleone wants vengeance and conflict, and thus represents today's neocons. And then there is Michael, the realist, who saves the Corleone family, and also presents a good model for the United States to follow in the post-9/11 world. [...]

Still, I was left wondering: Do these guys know that The Godfather movies are a tragedy? That the entire point of the story is that Michael sells his soul? Considering the fact that certain 'realists' have been happy to sell their souls for a long time now (Henry Kissinger somehow comes to mind), this might have been an interesting direction for the piece."

LEST WE FORGET: The Comedic Possibilities Of Eclipses

A Deep Thought by Jack Handey:

"I bet a fun thing would be to go way back in time to where there was going to be an eclipse and tell the cave men, 'If I have come to destroy you, may the sun be blotted out from the sky.' Just then the eclipse would start, and they'd probably try to kill you or something, but then you could explain about the rotation of the moon and all, and everyone would get a good laugh."

DEM FIELD: Unity Is Overrated

Most liberal bloggers are opposed to an Obama/Clinton ticket:

• Ezra Klein: "You don't want a toxic working relationship between the president and the vice-president. Imagine President Obama, with VP Hillary Clinton and shadow-VP Bill Clinton, wants to pursue a legislative strategy that the Clintons think is a bad idea. How will they feel when Obama ignores their 8 years of White House experience and goes his own way? Will they be able to keep their sprawling universe of well-connected confidantes from leaking tales of their displeasure to the press? Will they want to? What happens when the first Time magazine cover comes out with Obama staring down the Clintons, and the tagline is, 'Who's Really Running the Country?' It's such an obvious story that it can be predicted, with almost perfect certainty, right now. Will he sideline them? Will it sow seeds of mistrust?"
• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "[I'm] pretty unenthusiastic about an Obama/Clinton 'dream ticket.' [...] A strong vice president is one thing, but if you choose Hillary as a running mate you get the whole Clinton family in the bargain, and having Bill Clinton as a de facto part of the White House staff just smells like big trouble. That aside, the bigger issue is that picking Hillary would be a sign of weakness from Obama, and a completely unnecessary one. Obama certainly ought to reach out to Hillary once the primaries are over, but he can win in November on his own, and there are plenty of good, solid VP choices out there that would nonetheless make it crystal clear that an Obama White House would be an Obama White House."
• TAPPED's Te-Ping Chen: "A dual ticket not only detracts from Obama's positives, it adds on Clinton's negatives to boot. Early opposition to the war, turning over a new leaf in foreign policy? Not when your vice-president voted for the former, and has since casually threatened 'obliterate' a major Middle Eastern country with aplomb. Hitch on a squarely Washington insider, and suddenly the Obama campaign's key tagline -- 'change' -- starts to sound weirdly akimbo. (Somehow, Changexperience just doesn't have that ring.) [...] In 1992, the last time a Clinton ran for the White House, Bill bucked conventional wisdom to reject a candidate who would 'balance' him, and instead picked a fresher candidate that helped define the generational metaphor of his campaign. This time around, Obama would be wise to do the same."
• Scott Lemieux: "First, by far the biggest impact of vice presidents on the ticket is the potential to bring a swing home state into the fold, which Clinton doesn't offer. Second, if the idea is to shore up Obama's 'foreign policy cred' you want someone with military experience but who opposed the war (such as [VA Sen. Jim] Webb or [Gen. Wes] Clark); Clinton of course is the opposite. Third, the media. It's hard to know what to do about the media's grossly unfair treatment of Clinton; if I was convinced that she would make the best president I wouldn't let it dissuade me. But when picking a running mate, surely this has to be considered a great deal more important. Fourth, partly because of the unfair treatment she receives from the media, she has much higher negatives than you would prefer in a VP candidate. Finally...I should note that the fact that Clinton appeals more to lower-class whites and older voters 1)compared to Obama and (this is the important step for those of you who don't understand why it's illogical to make inferences about the general from primary results) 2)among people who vote in Democratic primaries hardly means that she is the optimal choice to appeal to these voters compared to other possibilities."

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong -- who's a strong Clinton supporter -- supports an Obama/Clinton ticket: "The best VP tickets are those that unite the party, or otherwise bring on new constituencies. Its rare that a VP adds any regional strength, as people vote for the President, top of the ticket, no matter where they reside. [Gerald] Ford would have been strongest choosing [Ronald] Reagan in '76. [Jimmy] Carter had have been strongest choosing [Ted] Kennedy in '80. Reagan was the strongest having chosen [George H.W.] Bush in '80. One party united, and the other stayed divided. [...] There's also the opening for McCain, if Obama shuns Clinton, that McCain chooses a woman for a running mate. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is too old and AK Gov [Sarah] Palin is too young; but I could imagine Kay Hutchinson running with McCain, very effectively. [...] The hatred of Clinton runs deep among the Obama supporters, but by August, I think it will have settled some, and unless Obama gets much stronger as a candidate on his own, he'll need Clinton more than ever. In the recent LA Times poll, Clinton crushes both Obama and McCain over whom is best on economic issue. In regards to the economy, there's no better brand than the name Clinton in US politics. Its three months away, and things can change, but thats the only ticket that makes sense right now."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Hot Air's Allahpundit argues that Obama would be foolish to pick Clinton as his running mate: "If Obama's even moderately sane he'd rather take his chances with losing in November with someone else on the ticket than winning and having to endure Lady Macbeth plotting against him from inside the White House for the next four years."

DEM FIELD II: All Over But The Shouting

Atrios thinks the primary race is all but over: "Obama's won. There's no nomination path for [Clinton] which doesn't involve rewriting the rules in a way which would never be seen as legitimate, or a massive shift in superdelegates which would likewise be problematic, and even those paths range from unlikely to impossible. I don't think Clinton has to drop out. She can continue to campaign through to the last contest if she wants (she doesn't need my permission to do so), though hopefully this article is correct and the, uh, emphasis of the campaign shifts away from Obama's supposed lack of appeal to real Americans."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis questions Clinton's motives for staying in the race: "She's not stupid, she knows she lost the nomination. So then what is she doing? Trying to suck up to MI and FL for the next election in 2012? Trying to hurt Obama out of revenge? Trying to become Obama's VP? Trying to assuage her ego by finishing up all the primaries, to hell with how much damage she does the party? I suspect it's all of the above, plus staying on deck in case Obama gets hit by a meteor."

In a separate post, Aravosis unloads on Clinton: "Hillary and her husband are now out to destroy our nominee. Your could argue that it kind of made sense when Hillary still had a chance (her kitchen-sink tactics were nasty, to be sure, they appeared to have crossed a line, but at least there was a logic to it when Hillary had a chance). Now that the race is over and Hillary has lost, her ongoing attempts to hurt Obama, to smear him, to make rural voters hate him, to convince America that a black man can't and shouldn't be president, make her little better than the Republicans she hated during the 1990s."

Meanwhile, Beeton, a Clinton supporter, urges his readers to support Obama over McCain: "I understand that many supporters of Hillary Clinton have grave reservations about Barack Obama as president and honestly, it would be nice if people on both sides of the candidate divide would respect and acknowledge this fact rather than dismissing it with knee-jerk accusations of racism or 'troll!' It's a reality. Now, if you are one of those currently considering voting for John McCain yet have been fighting fiercely for Hillary Clinton in the primary, listen up. You are welcome here...But...don't expect to have a forum to argue in favor a John McCain presidency. This blog has always been open about its rasion d'etre: electing Democrats, and John McCain is no Democrat as his positions on choice (he's against), war (he's for) and healthcare (he believes the market should handle it, cuz that's worked out so well so far!) make clear. So, you are welcome here; pro-McCain diaries are not. [...] To Hillary supporters considering defecting to McCain, I say, vote for John McCain if you will, but know that doing so is voting against the very agenda you've been fighting so hard to advance and against the very candidate you've been fighting for to win the Democratic nomination."

DEM FIELD III: On To West Virginnie!

Pro-Clinton bloggers are buzzing about Clinton's likely blowout win in WV:

• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "CNN just flashed a poll showing Hillary ahead with 66% of the vote. It said a big W. VA win will show that 'a lot of Democrats aren't ready to get on Obama's bandwagon.' CNN says W.Va. used to be solidly Democratic until 2000 when George Bush took it. Social issues are big there. Guns are even bigger. The LA Times also says W. Va could spell trouble for Obama in November."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "In terms of the GE, Obama appears to have no chance in West Virginia while Clinton could likely win it. [...] It seems clear that all the talk of Obama's 50 state strategy was just that, empty talk. His electoral map will look to the West."
• In a separate post, Big Tent Democrat writes: "Did you know that Democratic Presidential candidates carried We