My co-bloggers Adam and Nat-Wu are familir with my raging contempt for the left-wing blog “TalkLeft“, and most particulary for one of its two bloggers, Big Tent Democrat. BTD is one of the most witless “liberal” bloggers in the entire blogosphere, and he demonstrated that time and time again during the primary season as he engaged in the most shallow, superficial and thoughtless analysis of the campaigns to criticize Barack Obama for every action he took or every minor connection to notorious people (Wright, Rezko, Ayers…you name it) while all the time proclaiming to support Obama for President. BTD is infected with the sort of knee-jerk contrarianism (with a healthy heaping of condescension to boot) that he mistakes independent thought, and he seems to regard himself as some sort of hero for not being in the tank for the Democratic Party like the rest of the progressive blogosphere supposedly is. Here he is today, writing about a piece by Matt Stollers and Chris Bowers who discuss why the progressive blogosphere doesn’t get more respect from Democratic politicians:

Therein lies the problem. Most of the Left blogs work for politicians, not for issues. THAT is why the Netroots gets no respect.

Bowers is making the point that progressive bloggers should not expect Democratic politicians to come running to them because the bloggers support them. Which is entirely sensible. But not enough for BTD, who feels the need to indict the whole left-wing blogosphere for uncritically supporting Democrats:

To gain respect, fight, with the truth, for what you believe. Not the politician you believe in (as I said it is a mistake to believe in any politician). The “Netroots”/Left blogs stopped doing that for the most part. They became a Wurlitzer for Barack Obama, during the primaries against Hillary Clinton and now of course during the general election – without regard to issues.

When it comes to McCain, the choice is easy it seems to me. While I strongly disagree with Palinpaloooza for political reasons, I must say that I owe the Netroots a modicum of respect because they are acting in detriment to Barack Obama’s political fortunes because they despise Sarah Palin. Palin seems standard issue to me and I REALLY despise John McCain and what he stands for so it is easy for me to do the politically smart thing – focus on McCain.

This is beyond stupid. The reason many in the progressive blogosphere came around to Obama is because they believed Obama to the be the more progressive candidate based on their evaluation of the candidates stances on the issues, which anyone who read progressive/liberal blogs from last year on would easily realize (for an example see us in our endorsement of Obama, where we laid out a list of reasons-based on the issues-for why we supported Obama over Clinton; we were not alone in this regard.) BTD is so clueless that he doesn’t even realize that his point leaves the reader wondering exactly what criteria he progressive blogosphere used to select Obama over Hillary. In BTD world, liberal and progressive bloggers unfairly hitched their wagon to Obama over Hillary at the outset (for unknown reasons) and then never wrote a critical word about Obama again. Reading that, you might be startled to see BTD write this:

It surprises many people to know that I supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I considered the two to be identical on the issues (except for health care, where I felt too ignorant to take a position on which of the two positions was superior) and preferred Obama because I believed him to be more electable. Weak tea for many people I imagine, but that was my view of the race.

Why does this surprise people? Because I have been extremely critical of Barack Obama since 2005 and was before, during and after the Presidential primaries.

The reason people are surprised by this is because BTD has never written anything indicating he supported Obama over Hillary other than the words “But I support Obama over Hillary”which he appended to the end of every post wherein he attacked Obama. Everything, and I mean almost literally everything, he has written about the primaries has been critical of Obama, or critical of the left for supporting Obama. What little actual analysis of their positions he offered is epitomized by this gem, wherein he argues that Obama demonstrates his naivete by stating that nuclear weapons don’t deter terrorists. He says he thinks Obama is more electable, but this appears to be the case only if certain conditions that he demands are met, such as Obama selecting Clinton for VP, or the Democratic Party allowing FL and MI to revote (otherwise the Democratic party would be torn asunder and McCain will most assuredly win.) And now he lambasts the progressive blogosphere for being uncritically supporting of Obama and praises himself for his own critical eye, when the progressive blogosphere time and again detailed the differences between the two candidates in a thorough and informative manner, while BTD wrote post after post explaining why Obama wouldn’t win based on his silly and superficial analysis. 

Now it’s official: Barack Obama has secured enough delegates to claim the Democratic Party nomination for president. Hillary Clinton has not conceded, but neither has she indicated that she will dispute the results. It would appear that the long and sometimes very heated Democratic nomination process is finally over.

CNN rushed to report that Clinton will acknowledge tonight that Obama has secured the delegates necessary to win the Democratic presidential nomination, based apparently on this AP report which suggests that she will concede tonight. Clinton adviser Terri McAullife then rushed out to correct that misimpression, stating Clinton has no intention of conceding in her planned speech tonight following the close of the last Democratic primaries. Now, contradicting the CNN story I linked to above, the AP reports based on their own calculations that Obama has obtained enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. There’s no word as to whether Clinton will acknowledge such (unlikely) or concede (even less likely) but I’m sure other media organizations are rushing to confirm the AP’s results. We’ll see what they say, maybe as early as this afternoon or tonight.

UPDATE: The AP has updated their report. Their figures are based on a tally of public and private commitments by super-delegates, as well as the pledged delegate total (at least as I can best make out.) The report still indicates that Clinton will acknowledge Obama’s lead, but not that the she will either terminate or suspend her own campaign.

UPDATE II: A colleague of mine who’s in a position to know indicates that Clinton is preparing to concede to Obama (though not tonight.) She seems to have little choice, as Obama appears poised to secure the necessary delegates and her last hope would be a challenge to the delegation allocation at the Democratic convention. It’s more likely that lightning will strike Obama than that she will secure the nomination in this manner. This updated AP report would seem to confirm the news of a soon-to-be concession as well; according to the report, Clinton is now prepared to discuss the possibility of taking the VP slot alongside Obama. Truly, nothing would make me happier.

Is it all about to finally be over? Nobody knows for sure, but there are tantalizing hints that the long nomination process will come to an end and Clinton will concede to Obama shortly.

There are a lot of arguments against the super-delegates handing Hillary the nomination at the close of the primaries if she continues to trail in the delegate and popular vote totals (as she is likely to.) But according to Michael Dawson, another might be the loss of the black vote if insider shenanigans are seen to rob Obama of the nomination:

A “prominent Republican” interviewed for the story claimed that Obama’s biggest weakness was that he was black and therefore had a significant percentage of the November electorate already predisposed against him. Such glaring numbers may persuade still uncommitted superdelegates that Obama is unelectable in November.

Should that happen, the Democratic Party will face the Herculean task of trying to mobilize its most loyal constituency – black voters — in the face of deep and widespread black bitterness and active campaigns in the black community encouraging black voters to defect or abstain. You can already hear the angry comparisons. Just like in 2000, the protests will go, an election will have been “stolen.” But this time from within the party! Malcolm X’s quote about how the rules are changed when blacks start to succeed will also, I bet, be prominently displayed.

Many will argue that if a candidate with as much multi-racial appeal as Obama cannot be treated fairly, then there is truly no hope of any black in the U.S. (with perhaps the exception of a black Republican) to win the nation’s top office in the foreseeable future. My own prediction, should we head down this road, is that the already worrying statistic of 79 percent of blacks who believe that racial equality for blacks will either not be achieved in their lifetime or at all in the U.S. will jump to an even larger percentage (see my website for how this percentage has changed over the past few years). Should this happen, Democrats would risk losing traditionally safe states with large black populations, leaving them with amuch more difficult, perhaps impossible, road to victory.

I have no doubt in my mind that if Obama fails to win the nomination thanks to the super-delegates, many voters of all colors will be furious. But black voters in particular would be likely to take it as a sucker punch to the gut. I don’t know how many of them would stay home though. Black voters are in the same position as conservative evangelicals are in the Republican Party; complain though they may, they have nowhere else to go (though of course, conservative evangelicals have considerably more power within their party than blacks do within theirs.) But might they stay home in significant enough numbers to cost Obama electoral votes in close states? Perhaps. Would they be wrong to do so? Not in their minds, since they’d probably feel the Democratic Party no longer represents them. Who could convincingly argue that they’d be wrong?

Adam Nagourney, writing in the NY Times, explains the difficulty Clinton faces in securing the nomination at this point:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needs three breaks to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Senator Barack Obama in the view of her advisers.

She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in Pennsylvania next month to buttress her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states.

She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June.

And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.

There’s little doubt that Clinton will win in Pennsylvania (current polls have her up by as much as 16%, accounting for the margin for error.) The question is whether her win will be that large, larger, or smaller. An overwhelming win buttress her argument that she can win the “big” states, but as we’ve seen this is a convincing argument only to those who fail to stop and think things through.

As for popular vote totals, some estimates put her ahead at the end of the primary season (including Florida and Michigan, whose status is questionable at best.) But those are generous estimates, reliant upon the predictive power of polling and the assumption that those polls won’t change as the candidates campaign which, as we’ve seen, is not a safe assumption when it comes to Obama.

Wright could have been the controversy that put a crimp in the Obama campaign (though I never thought it was enough to derail him) but Obama parried that with his masterful speech on Tuesday. I think I’m only going slightly out on a limb when I say that the Wright controversy is now dead.

If Clinton can pull out the popular vote, then she can make a legitimate case for why the Super-delegates should vote for her even Obama retains the lead in pledged delegates. But this will be counter-balanced by the fact that Obama still does better nationally and in key states again McCain than Clinton does, and the fact that his general campaign is likely to focus on more states rather than the tried-and-failed Democratic strategy of half-the-electoral-vote+1.

Obama gave what has been characterized as a “major speech” on race this morning, in the wake of criticisms following his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ where Obama has long been an attendee. Here are some excerpts. First, Obama dismisses the two-dimensional characterization of the Reverand:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

He then goes on to explain his involvement at TUCC:

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

He then goes on discuss the larger issue of race in America:

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

He then makes an offer to listeners, to help him move beyond a narrow understanding of race in our country:

…we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

As Ben Smith states in his reaction to the speech:

It’s quite a speech: autobiographical, embracing complexity, and answering questions about Wright — whose most offensive words, he says, are beyond anything he’d heard in church — without ultimately disavowing him.

Throughout, he insists on things that you don’t get much of in politics: context and nuance.

It is quite a speech. Here’s my initial reaction in an email to my co-bloggers this morning:

As I was driving in this morning I was thinking “What can he say about Wright that puts it in the context of race in this country?” and I think he nailed it. And he refuses to make a cowardly effort to “disown” Wright or deny his relationship to him, and explains what the man means to him as he at the same time make his satements on race. In other words, he made exactly what I (and a lot of people like us I think) thought would be the perfect speech to respond to this. Like Smith says, Obama demand nuance and complexity, and refuses to play some of the political games. And this speech perfectly encapsulates is why he’s got my vote.

It’s not just how he says it, it’s what he says. Most politicians would’ve run away from Wright at the first opportunity, attempting to deny an obvious relationship with the man even if their denials and protestations were as transparent and flimsy as cling wrap. But not Obama. He rejects Wright’s extreme proclamations, but goes on to explain and asks us to understand why Wright would feel the way he does, and why so many black (and white) Americans feel the way they do, even as he repeats beliefs that-as he says-most of us won’t repeat in polite company. And he demands naunce, asking us to understand that Rev. Wright cannot be characterized solely by his most inflammatory statements. And he puts Wright’s statements where they belong, in the context of race in America, asking us all to make a real effort to move beyond old ways and old beliefs.

I honestly don’t mean to sound like an Obama homer here, and I don’t think you have to be an Obama supporter to admire his speech and what he believes. Time and time again Obama has promised something beyond politics as usual, just like every other politician in every other race in America does. But Obama means it, and he puts his money where his mouth is. His honesty, his demand that we accept nuance and complexity, is exactly why he has my vote.

UPDATE: I should state that for the record, Barack Obama’s thoughts on race mirror mine almost exactly and I doubt I’m the only liberal who feels this way. Honestly, it’s quite impressive to hear a politician say what you think when it comes to a difficult and uncomfortable subject like race.

UPDATE II: I generally avoid Andrew Sullivan as of late because of his anti-Hillary screed’s, but I thought this note on the speech was worth repeating:

I have never felt more convinced that this man’s candidacy – not this man, his candidacy – and what he can bring us to achieve – is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man’s faults and pain as well as his promise. This is what my faith is about. It is what the Gospels are about. This is a candidate who does not merely speak as a Christian. He acts like a Christian.

Indeed.

UPDATE III: Video of the speech is on YouTube here. The speech is apparently driving some on the right into fits and rages, meaning it probably was exactly what he needed to say.

UPDATE IV: Oliver Willis says what I was thinking but didn’t above:

It’s like you had Michael Jordan in his prime or Joe Montana with 2 minutes to go. It’s that feeling where you say to yourself: Ok, breathe, he’s got it.

Chill, Barack’s got it.

I also thought to myself this morning “If Obama is the man I think he is, then he’ll say this.” And he went out and he did. And yeah, it’s like watching a super athlete take the field or the floor. You just know going to do something amazing…and then he does, just like you knew he would.

UPDATE V: Some more thoughts from the Field Negro.

Texas Democrats have responded to threatened legal action by the Clinton campaign over allegations of illegalities in the March 4th primary by rejecting calls for a “verification” of those who participated in the evening precinct caucuses. Here are excerpts from a statement released by the Texas Democratic Party:

The overwhelming majority of problems reported in Texas do not affect the legitimacy of delegate allocation. It is important to remember that the precinct conventions are just the first of three steps where delegates and alternates are selected. “Final results” will not be determined until June 6-7 at the Texas Democratic State convention. And at each convention step, Texas Democratic Party rules provide a credentials process to address problems and provide an avenue to register complaints and make formal challenges

For that reason, the Texas Democratic Party will not do as suggested by one campaign and circumvent Party rules to set up an unnecessary, ad hoc “verification” process that could effectively disqualify delegates selected at their precinct conventions after the fact. The Party has never stated any intention to set up a verification process of this nature because Party rules already provide for “verification” through our credentials process. Candidates who wish to disqualify delegates must pursue formal challenges based on evidence filed appropriately in accordance with our party’s rules.

Fair enough, in my opinion. As I stated yesterday, there is no evidence that any shenanigans at the precinct caucuses benefitted one candidate over the other, nor is there any showing that a verification of all the signatures of the one million participants in the caucuses. The Clinton camp should not be permitted to stop-down the process simply in an effort to undermine the legitimacy of Obama’s delegate lead in Texas. Clinton hacks will spin this predictably, but as far as I’m concerned Texas Democrats have rightfully stood up to the Clinton campaign.

In other news, there will apparently be no do-over in Florida. Florida Democrats having already rejected a full do-over of the primary, also rejected the mail-in ballot proposal that had been floating around for a few weeks. Now it is left to the campaigns the DNC to try and figure out what to do with the delegates from Florida. As you can probably imagine, Clinton will fight to have the delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention, and Obama will fight to have them seated in some manner that reduces their value to Clinton.

UPDATE: A do-over in Michigan appears to be in danger as well. The AP reports that talks are hung up on a proposal to ban from the do-over voters who voted in the Michigan Republican primary, even if they were Democrats or Independents voting in the Republican primary because Barack Obama was not on the Democratic ballot. However, Marc Ambinder is reporting that talks on a do-over are almost completely dead, making it more likely that there will be no re-vote in Michigan at all and the two campaigns and the DNC will have to hammer out a compromise for both Michigan and Florida.

UPDATE: Carrie Giddens, in the NY Times writes concerning the Michigan and Florida do-overs:

There is no such thing as a do-over. Do-overs are what you get when the end results don’t matter. Do-overs are what children do on a playground. Adults accept their mistakes, learn from them and move on.

Ouch.

The Clinton camp has threatened legal action if Texas Democrats don’t act to verify all of the signatures obtained on the precinct convention sign-in sheets that were used to allocate delegates at the March 4th caucuses:

As final results from the Texas Democratic caucus remain unknown, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign wants signatures from the March 4 contest verified before party conventions are held around the state later this month.

In a letter sent to the state Democratic Party late Friday, the Clinton campaign requests the March 29 count and state Senate district conventions be postponed until the eligibility of an estimated 1 million caucus-goers are double checked.

he Clinton campaign wrote they received more than 2,000 complaints of violations following the historic Texas turnout, which was perhaps the nation’s largest caucus ever.

With about 41 percent of precinct caucuses reported, rival Barack Obama was ahead with 56 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent.

“It is the Party’s responsibility to ensure the integrity of the precinct convention process by making sure that the Rules were followed,” the letter states.

Well, yes. However, it would be silly and naive to assume that Clinton is interested in simply assuring that the rules were followed. Clearly, this is part of an effort to undermine Obama’s delegate tally in Texas, where he holds a slender lead over Clinton. I have seen no allegations that the chaos that ensued at a tiny minority of precinct conventions benefited Obama over Clinton, but this is less about reversing Obama’s win and more about undermining the legitimacy of the results and muddying the waters even further. These are hard-nosed tactics that nobody should be surprised to see, but neither should anyone think that this has anything to do with ensuring democracy for Texas Democrats.

UPDATE: Clinton’s strategy, explained more thoroughly.

Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist Mark Penn made the case today that Obama can’t win the general election because he hasn’t won the “big” states like Ohio. This follows a statement from another Clinton advisor, Harold Ickes, who argued that Obama’s wins in numerous traditionally “red” states also means little in the general election. For those who can’t immediately see the flaw in making predictions about the general election that are based on primaries decided solely by Democratic voters, Karl-Thomas Musselman at Burnt Orange Report explains:

Yes, Clinton winning the Texas primary (wait, we can’t say that yet) means she will win the state in November! Of course, polling says otherwise and suggests that Obama currently has the state in a tie with McCain while Clinton trails. But maybe that’s just because Obama won Texas by the delegates that decide the nomination (wait, sorry, keep forgetting we can’t talk about that).

But ok, let’s accept that measure of reasoning seeing how history has shown it to be true (insert eye roll). Let’s count numbers based upon the states that have been won (without debate or contest, which takes NV & TX (which each claim) and MI & FL off the table for now).

Hillary Clinton Electoral Votes: 180
Barack Obama Electoral Votes: 195

Please be aware that John McCain faces some problems winning the general election because Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have now made it impossible for him to win 18 states this November by winning their primaries. His only saving grace is that he won most of the big states in the Republican primary (which does seem to raise a bit of a problem because it is my understanding that those are guaranteed Clinton states in November since she won them in the Democratic primary). Hmm. This seems to be a problem! How can both nominees win the state in the general if they won them in the primary?

In other words, this is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that Obama won some states that are traditionally red and are not likely to go Democratic in the fall should not be overstated. But somehow Clinton is in a better position to the win the general election because she can win states that are borderline or traditional Democratic strongholds against Obama? Where’s the support for that? Polls for one flatly contradict such an idea, especially when they suggest that Obama is clearly the better candidate to compete in traditional red states. And states that are reliably Democratic are not likely to suddenly turn red simply because Obama is on the ticket.

Really, this is all just an attempt to muddy the waters. Obama leads in the delegate count and in the popular vote, and this is unlikely to change. The Clinton campaign would like to play with the numbers to convince you that their victories bode well for November, but Obama’s do not. But it’s simply not true. Obama remains in the best position to win in November.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that I think this strategy is aimed primarily at the super-delegates. No doubt arguments about “electability” and experience are for the primary voter’s consumption as well, but the average voter is less likely to sit here and figure out whether Clinton’s strong showing in such-and-such state means she’s more likely to win the general election. But it is something the super-delegates are probably thinking about…at least those who are inclined to vote against the candidate who has amassed the most pledged delegates and the most votes. I honestly don’t think it takes that much thought or brainpower to see through the spin, but then I’m not a Democratic party insider.

UPDATE II: Brendan Nyhan links to other bloggers that try to explain the same concept in more words, but it still comes down to the simple fact that primary results do not translate predictably (if at all) into results in the general election. It just ain’t so.

UPDATE III: The Clinton Camp expands on this theme in a memo they released a couple of days ago. Team Obama responds with almost line-by-line rebuttal evidencing great disbelief at the Clinton claims.