John wrote "why are both Hillary and Barack polling behind McCain, and getting behinder?"

The likelihood is that these numbers occur for the same reason that Clinton was portrayed as invicible and McCain polled close to zero last summer.  The polling results are a function of circumstances as they are captured at a certain point in the news cycles as stories emerge and wane.  The very tough battle between the Democratic candidates is making McCain look comparatively like some kind of thoughtful mandarin.

My question is different.  Why is every news show, newspaper, radio broadcast and internet story about the Democratic race?  Because all the excitement is found there, and McCain is a non-story that doesn't attract attention.  I hope you don't expect the McCain numbers we're seeing now to simply continue unabated through next October.

27.

Jo*in*Vermont
Mon, 03/31/08

Reply to this

Phil, re: I don't see an imploding Party in need of saving......
Thank you, Phil. I've read a lot of thoughtful posts about this race on many websites, but this to me says it the best.
....
we DO have the POWER!

and yes, we CAN change our politics to benefit we, the PEOPLE!!
(thank you, Howard!)
--------------

There will be always people around who are trying to look a step further, an inch deeper and a bit wider..., just out of curiosity..., lol.

Those people may actually envision though neither exploding nor imploding the Party (ANY, of course) but its’ (not premature, just in-time!) quiet, gentle and smooth self-disbanding..., not lol.

I have a friend on the ground in Pa. She is from Va. Want to share it with you.

10:54 AM EDT

Sly Stone "it's a family affair, ...":

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080318/480/a8dbacb76ddb4824a566a7b8924aed1c/

This photo provided by the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shows the presidential hopeful, Obama, in 1979 during his high school graduation in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents, Stanley Armour Dunham and his wife Madelyn Payne, both natives of Kansas.

...

family ties. nothing like it.

on msnbc the talking headette says that edwards isn't endorsing clinton because eliz and hillary don't like each other.

somebody stop em.

Lots of times people put out stuff, a false accusation, just to get a denial and a commitment to the opposite. 

Big fat snowflakes falling lazily. 

TV is just a lot of gossip.  People like to talk about other people.  Sometimes they probably feel that they know other people better than themselves.  I'm still sometimes surprised by what comes out of my mouth.  lol

By Shailagh Murray

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota announced this morning that she was endorsing Sen. Barack Obama, the latest prominent superdelegate to climb off the fence for the Illinois senator.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/31/klobuchar_endorses_obama.html

BTW, I found this neat article by Robert Parry, just by happenstance.  It's a bit dated because the drug connection never got much traction, but Parry lays out an interesting case for why the Bushes might have something on Clinton. 

I think he's much too generous and doesn't seem to consider that Clinton was selected as an insurance policy, to make sure that the Bush record was covered up and protected.

What if it was expected that Democratic prejudice against anything Republicans brought forward was being relied on to hide the truth?

The duplicity that's been revealed in the Clinton campaign is really stunning.  And I'm not referring to the lies about Bosnia and the Northern Ireland peace process.  No, what got to me first was the convoluted health care strategy in which flyers were made to look as if they came from Edwards to challenge Obama when they actually came from the Clinton supporters.  

If ever there was an example of triangulation, of trying to set one person against another, that was it. 

6.

* rdorgan
Mon, 03/31/08
-------
Rdorgan, any more details about his grands?

.  . . the (Wall Street) Journal also reports that Obama will get the support of North Carolina’s entire Democratic congressional delegation before that state’s primary on May 6.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/31/843926.aspx

John Edwards has become irrelevent for an endorsement. Perhaps in his own mind he has overblown his own importance, especially at this stage of the game, who knows.

why does the blog only let u tube video intermittingly?? why.

LANSING -- Acknowledging that Michigan's delegate selection mess is unlikely to be resolved in the coming week, the state Democratic Party decided to postpone its congressional district conventions.

The 15 district gatherings, at which more than half of the Democratic delegates are elected to the Democratic National Convention in August, had been slated for March 29.

The state party's executive committee late Friday postponed the conventions until April 19.

It remains to be seen whether the delegate picture will be any clearer by then. The national party stripped Michigan of its delegates because its Jan. 15 primary was held three weeks earlier than party rules allowed.

An effort to have a do-over primary died in the Legislature earlier this week. On Friday, the Obama and Clinton campaigns ruled out two other options: a mail-in vote and a party caucus.

That leaves as the only choices for seating delegates: Accepting a negotiated split of delegates; hoping a candidate emerges who will lift the party's ban on the seating of the delegates; or pursuing a long-shot appeal of party rules.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

as it stands right now Hillary has a 73 -55 lead if they play out as first indicated by the primary  straw poll voting

but if you allowed all delegates to the District Conventions to be "unpledged" going in you could still have a caucus allocation count at each District Convention at no cost  that would give you an outcome that would be within the spirit of the National Rules, be within the calendar, and should give you a delegation that should pass Credentials Committee muster

my guess (just an educated guess since I am very familiar with how these things work ) is that the outcome by that method would be within two or three delegates of how a total revote would turn out, since the actual individuals being elected to the National Conventions have enough respect from their peers to do the right thing to have already passed through a couple of vettings

If Obama would have time to set his organization up around such a system he might gain two or three more since many CD splits would go 3-2 him instead 0f the current 3-2 Hillary since some Hillary supporters would act more as unpledged anyway as simply being local Party leaders

there simply isn't enough difference in the outcome not to try and reach some accomodation that seats delegates without rewarding the state for jumping the rules

the uncommitted super delegates nationally can more than make up for that difference

Michigan's numbers simply will not be allowed to be the deciding number.

Florida is slightly different because both were on a ballot so National Rules could follow the Republican lead and penalize the number by fifty percent 

11:39 AM EDT

6.

* rdorgan
Mon, 03/31/08
-------
Rdorgan, any more details about his grands?

+++

former -

How so ?

Phil's solution is pretty thoughtful.  I would accept those results just to get the animosity out of the way.

I just found this very interesting article on Hillary Rodham's conduct as a Watergate lawyer when she was 27:

http://www.northstarwriters.com/dc163.ht...

She and a few others (who have remained amng her supporters and staff ever since) tried to deny Nixon the right to legal counsel by covering up the fact that William O. Douglas had the right to legal counsel when he was impeached. They stole and hid documents, the whole nine yards.

So ironic that 20-some years later, her impeached husband would enjoy the right to legal counsel.

-- volney

John Edwards even now has more pledged delegates than the difference between Hillary and Uncommitted in Michigan so he is not irrelevent and may just be waiting like Richardson did to have a moment of greater impact which to me would be between PA and NC

say Hillary beats Obama by seven delegates in Pennsylvania, and then Edwards cancels them and then some the next day on the way to his home state's vote

that would count for more than any of us could do, it is more than nothing by quite a bit

Hillary has to run off a number of wins in a row and by a large margin which without a huge stumble by Barack is not possible, but a big enough Obama win In NC can finish it

6.

* rdorgan
Mon, 03/31/08
-------
Rdorgan, any more details about his grands?
+++
former -
How so ?
---------------
What do you mean “How so?”?
I’ve just asked if you have some more info about Obama's grand-ma and –pa.
Who are they, their education, where their roots from (Germany?), this kind of stuff.
Just curious.

OK, about his grands, it's
here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madelyn_Dun...

Monica at 12.

The Clintons and Bushes have Mutually Assured Destruction which is why Bill seems joined at the hip to George the First.

It's all about Iran-Contra. If you can get hold of a book called "Compromised", it will tell you the entire jaw-dropping story, complete with document copies. The book is almost unreadable but seems like the real deal, at least to me.

-- volney

Thanks Tom

It would put it out of the hands of the two campaigns and into the hands of the grassroots Party leadership in Michigan(which is who is always elected to be National Delegates anyway as individuals)

the main attraction is a fair process, within the party, and at no cost to taxpayers

I was very pleasantly surprised at how here in Iowa when we were making the selections for our Congressional District slots on the State Convention Committees we agreed by unanimous consent not to split into Clinton and Obama factions to do our elections. We are a united party right now here.

Monica,

Thanks so much for this link Robert Parry. Very interesting stuff. Even though it is from December, it is an excellent primer as to the behind-the-scenes dirty tricks that can, do and have gone on in elections since 1992 and no doubt before that.

Recommended reading, not just for the ongoing Bush/Clinton clashes and conspiracies (of a sort), but what will be in the works for this year's election. We must be prepared to defend.

we agreed by unanimous consent not to split into Clinton and Obama factions to do our elections. We are a united party right now here.  

Phil,

And that is just one reason why Iowa needs to remain the first caucus in the country.

12:04 PM EDT

Sly Stone "it's a family affair, ":

http://cbs4.com/national/obama.emil.jones.2.688611.html

Mar 31, 2008 11:39 am US/Eastern  

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The president of the Illinois Senate is sitting in his statehouse office, talking in gravelly tones about political strategies and counter-strategies. Out of nowhere, the theme from "The Godfather" begins playing.

It turns out to be the ringtone on his cell phone — an appropriate song for the man who amounts to Barack Obama's political godfather.

Emil Jones Jr. helped Obama master the intricacies of the Legislature. When Democrats took control of the state Senate, Jones, though he risked offending colleagues who had toiled futilely on key issues under Republican rule, tapped Obama to take the lead on high-profile legislative initiatives that he now boasts about in his presidential campaign.

And when Obama wanted a promotion to the U.S. Senate, Jones provided critical support that gave the little-known legislator legitimacy, keeping him from being instantly trampled by the front-runners.

...

In other words, polls taken months before primaries or elections are ignored by sensible people. 

And that is just one reason why Iowa needs to remain the first caucus in the country.

Nonsense. Caucuses need to be done away with and primaries held on the same day. 

Mary Mitchell writes in the Chicago Sun Times - Leave Jeremiah Wright Alone!

She's in Pennsylvania covering the Obama story

http://blogs.suntimes.com/mitchell/2008/...

Tom wrote:

I hope you don't expect the McCain numbers we're seeing now to simply continue unabated through next October.

They certainly will if the Democrats don't start attacking him. Bill Clinton is campaigning for him!

12:22pm

Nonsense. Caucuses need to be done away with and primaries held on the same day. 

I disagree strongly Sitka, 

Caucuses can be done away with -- or not -- but Iowa should remain alone as the first in the nation and must remain open to cross-voting to get an idea how candidates will do in a general election.

A small state like Iowa is where we all got to know the candidates well at the least expense to the campaigns. Media are not going to cover candidates in, for instance, 15 other states as the same time nor can candidates afford to campaign in them all for openers.

After Iowa, the field can open up to contests in all the other states, however divided into regions.

I'm surprised there has been so little comment around the blogs about this:

Paulson Plan Endorses Fed's Enhanced Market Authority (Update1)
By Jesse Westbrook and Alison Vekshin

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to overhaul U.S. market regulation would officially endow the Federal Reserve with the broader authority that it has already accrued in the past two weeks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2...

I searched on KOS for recent diaries from Bonddad and Jerome a Paris and came up empty. I hope it is b/c the proposal must be approved by Congress, rather than an 'executive order' by Bush. I know little about the financial market, but do not like the idea of the Fed having more power rather than less. As a caller said on CSPAN the other morning the Fed is no more 'federal' than Federal Express. I fear the one more step toward fascism toward which we seem to be careening.

Monica I too read with interest the article you linked by Robert Parry. And your comment on snowflakes - I'm expecting them any moment in N FL lol - it's April (almost) and I have the heat on.

Annilow, restructuring the powers of the Fed does require Congressional action and the early news reports are that it will take years.  Throwing this out now is a sham solution and doesn't at all address that what we need is more regulation, not less.

Does it still look like posts are in sequence?

BTW, while I am not a super partisan, I find Bill Clinton campaigning on behalf of McCain really disgusting.    And that's all I'm going to say about that.

anyone going to democracyfest??

Joan wrote "After Iowa, the field can open up to contests in all the other states, however divided into regions."

In all candor, I prefer that cretin, Sen. Nelson's idea of having regional primaries conducted on a rotating basis. 

The only advantage of an early caucus in a small state is to give a voter sample the opportunity to scrutinize candidates at close range within a spacious time frame.  I don't see any benefit, however, to giving the same tiny group of homogenous caucus goers in Iowa veto power, election after election, over the list of candidates that the rest of the country gets to consider for nominees.

New thread.

 If candidates didn't have to spend a year and every penny camping in IA they could campaign in other states where other people with just as much inherent right to be equal, if not first, could see and evaluate them.

This long undecided primary season is an historical anomoly that may not happen again in several lifetimes.  And even if it does, it is still a process that opens itself to manipulation and division.

No state should be first nor last. All who participate should do so equally on the same playing field at the same time so that every vote has the same weight and impact. 

Have a good read--Barack's "Dreams of My Father"--a great autobiography done in the 90's. Lots of info about his Kansas grandparents and their role in his life. Obama's varied background and his insightful anyalsis and truthfulness about it appeals to many, many of us--and makes him a great american candidate.