A number of people commented on the Obama smear posted here yesterday (click on "Previous report" above if you missed it).
The idea of reprinting it verbatim was that this kind of smear only works in darkness,
among the ignorant.
For example, a teacher from a poor area of the South said that most of his students believe what is
in the e-mail and their parents do too.
These are people who are trying to keep their heads above water and do not read the NY Times
online every day.
The best way to fight this garbage is to expose it to the light of day and open
people's eye's about what is going on under the surface. Lee Atwater built his entire career on
this kind of tactic and then passed it on to his star pupil. If anyone thinks an Obama-McCain
race will be clean and fought on the issues, he or she is very naive. It is only February. Polls
show Obama beating McCain. If that is still true in September, some people will get desperate.
Although McCain himself is an honorable person and probably would abhor such conduct, some of his
supporters may care only about winning and don't care at all what they have to do to achieve it.
As the Boy Scouts and
Tom Lehrer
would say: Be prepared.
The Next Hurrah
has a scatterplot of Bush-Kerry on the x-axis and Obama-Clinton on the y-axis.
From the scatterplot, you can see that Obama has done extremely well in states that Bush carried, often
by large margins. This might mean the GOP might actually have to spend money to defend states
like Idaho and North Dakota against Obama, states that would normally be freebies.
The NY Times has a story that
the Clinton camp has become nostalgic and is beginning to think about what might have been.
Well, it is not over yet. If Clinton wins big victories in Texas and Ohio, she's still in the
game. But if she loses both of them, it is hard to see how she could continue. A split decision,
Texas for Obama, Ohio for Clinton might keep her going until Pennsylvania at least.
Speaking of Pennsylvania, a new poll shows Clinton leading there.
State
Pollster
End date
Clinton
Obama
McCain
Huckabee
Paul
Pennsylvania
Muhlenberg Coll.
Feb. 17
45%
31%
The Senate and House committees have reported on fund raising through the
end of January. Below are the numbers. The Senate Democrats, under the
chairmanship of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have more than twice as much money
on hand the the Republicans, under the chairmanship of Sen. John Ensign (R-NV).
In the House it is even more extreme, with Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) having
seven times as much cash on hand as Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). This disparity could
affect many races for the Senate and House. Here are the numbers.
Chamber
Committee
Total Raised
Spent
Net Jan. 31
Senate
DSCC
$59 million
$29 million
$30 million
Senate
NRSC
$35 million
$22 million
$13 million
House
DCCC
$71 million
$37 million
$34 million
House
NRCC
$53 million
$48 million
$4 million
On the other hand, the RNC is ahead of the DNC with $22 million in the bank vs. only $3 million
for the DNC.
For more on the money story, see
RealClearPolitics,
or Daily Kos.
Here are the delegate totals from various news sources.
They differ because in most caucus states, no delegates to the national conventions have
been chosen yet, just delegates to the district, county, or state convention. Also, some
sources try to count the PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) and unpledged delegates, who also get to vote
at the convention.
When different reporters call a PLEO and hear "Well, I like Hillary,
but Barack has his charms too" they may score it differently.
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