Get yer polls, bets, numbers & pretty graphs! Elections 2008

GOP frets over Democratic fundraising By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Mar 1, 1:52 AM ET

WASHINGTON - For Republicans, watching Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama fight for supremacy in fundraising is not just a spectator sport. It is a look into the future, and the GOP isn't cheering.

Obama and Clinton together raked in as much as seven times as much cash in February as John McCain, the all-but-certain Republican nominee.

The Democrats, particularly Obama, are also developing a broad base of fervent donors whose help goes beyond sending money.

Some Republicans are sounding alarms...

Nice work, nimh. Nerve-wracking, though. All of those recent upticks.

I'm definitely nervous.

Crist Says He'd Support a Repeat of Florida Democratic Primary

Nadine ElsibaiSun Mar 2, 1:37 PM ET

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he'd support a repeat of the Democratic presidential primary so the state's delegates can be counted at the party's national convention.

"I'm hopeful that the Democratic National Committee comes to the conclusion it's the right thing to do."

nappyheadedhohoho wrote:

Crist Says He'd Support a Repeat of Florida Democratic Primary

Nadine ElsibaiSun Mar 2, 1:37 PM ET

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he'd support a repeat of the Democratic presidential primary so the state's delegates can be counted at the party's national convention.

"I'm hopeful that the Democratic National Committee comes to the conclusion it's the right thing to do."

How generous of the FL gov to spend state taxpayer money to fund a rerun. The Repubs are loving it that the Dems are taking such a long time settling on a candidate; prolonging the process even longer might wear down Clinton and Obama even more.

If Dean elects to go that route it seems to me that, realistically, the 2nd primary might be a month or more out (after PA?) by which time the candidate may have been decided. So the FL primary becomes an ! mark for Clinton or Obama going into the convention and the general election.

Arrogance Cost Florida Chance To Influence Election

By TALBOT D'ALEMBERTE

Published: March 2, 2008

Updated: 03/01/2008 01:33 am

As we approach the end of this extended season of political activity, we hear a great deal about the Florida and Michigan delegates to the Democratic National Convention, including arguments that the Democratic Party should be punished for its unwillingness to seat delegates from early elections.

I recently heard a respected Democrat, a state senator, tell an audience that if Florida delegates are not seated, he was not sure he would support the Democratic nominee.

This argument has a superficial attraction even when made by the very people who got us in this mess, that is, the leadership of the Florida party including its elected officials.

It may be useful to recount the history of these events in Florida that are summarized in a recent federal court order entered by Judge Robert Hinkle:

•In 2004, the national Democratic Party created a study commission to look at the issue of scheduling of primaries and caucuses, and that commission recommended that the earliest date remain the first Tuesday in February, with exceptions for Iowa and New Hampshire and perhaps for one or two additional primary states and one or two additional caucus states.

•In August 2006, the DNC adopted rules relating to the schedule much along the lines proposed by the commission. No one from Florida spoke against the proposal nor gave any other indication of dissent though representatives from New Hampshire voiced their opposition. These rules spelled out the sanctions for states that did not adhere to the rules. (The rules did allow the state to avoid sanctions if it could demonstrate that the state party and elected officials in good faith took all steps to bring the state into compliance.)

•Even before the Republican-led Legislature voted to change the date of the Florida primary, the DNC, anticipating that the earlier date would be adopted, offered a way out of the dilemma. There was discussion about a vote-by-mail process and a party-run caucus system. The DNC even offered to pay the entire cost of the caucus system, an offer without precedent. The Florida party pushed ahead.

• In March and April 2007, in the face of warnings from the DNC, the Florida Legislature voted overwhelmingly to move the primary date to Jan. 29, and the Democrats supported this legislation.

The Florida Democratic Party and elected Democrats did little to achieve compliance with the national rules, although Rep. Dan Gelber, the House Democratic minority leader, did attempt to amend the legislation setting up the new primary date to provide a later date, and a similar effort was made in the Senate.

The bill being considered at the time called for a paper ballot, an important issue to the Democrats and, when the amendment failed, the bill passed with support from the Democrats in both houses.

In line with the party rules and the notice given to Florida Democrats, the party's Rules Committee met in August 2007 and voted to take away Florida delegates to the convention.

We now find ourselves in a very odd situation. The party leadership and many of the elected Democrats took the risk of violating party rules, many promoting the change. They ignored the notice from the DNC and the substantial legal precedent that gives the party control over its own rules and supports its authority to set the terms of its delegate selection. Surely the party leaders and lawyers know of the legal rule that respects party autonomy and avoids the chaos that would exist if the primary and caucus dates were simply left to every state, a system that the U.S. Supreme Court has said would produce "an obviously intolerable result."

In an attempt to trump the rules of the national party, leaders in Florida brought a federal court action against Howard Dean and others, charging a violation of equal protection, due process and the federal Voting Rights Act.

In his order dismissing that case, Federal District Judge Robert Hinkle observed:

"The Constitution makes no mention of political parties, but they have a unique and protected stature in our constitutional system. The First Amendment right to freedom of association extends to parties and protects their internal affairs from undue government interference. Thus a political party ordinarily may decide for itself how delegates to its national convention will be chosen, and the party ordinarily need not comply with state laws purporting to restrict its options. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly so held."

Today, the strange situation is that the party leadership, now bemoaning the loss of delegates and loss of the voters' right to participate, are the very people who behaved in a cavalier way to bring us to this situation.

The Florida Democratic Party leadership has gotten us into this mess, and some are even threatening to enlist the courts in some kind of epic battle, knowing full well that the courts offer no basis for the relief they are seeking.

Moreover, their announced motivation - to increase Florida's influence - would have been achieved if they had left the issue alone or if they had accepted the DNC offer to fund caucuses. Indeed, if Florida had a primary or caucus some time now, in early March, we might actually have had a real impact on this election.

Wouldn't that have been fun?

Talbot D'Alemberte is president emeritus of Florida State University and former president of the American Bar Association.

David Plouffe: The Real Meaning of March 4th

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGgVYK

By their own clear definition of where they expected and believed they needed to be after Ohio and Texas, the Clinton campaign will fall terribly short on March 4th. The Obama pledged delegate lead stands at 162. The question for the Clinton campaign if they do not significantly erode that lead on Tuesday is what plausible path they have to even up the pledged delegates in the remaining contests.

There are 611 pledged delegates left after March 4th's contests. They would need to win at least 62% of all remaining pledged delegates to get back to even. And while they have often talked about Pennsylvania - where public polls show their lead deteriorating rapidly - the Wyoming caucuses on March 8th and Mississippi primary or March 11th could potentially result in more pledged delegates netted to the winner than on March 4th.

So it is clear that narrow popular vote wins in Texas and Ohio will do very little to improve their nearly impossible path to the nomination. If they do not win Texas and Ohio by healthy double digit margins - and they led by healthy double digit margins as recently as two weeks ago - they will be facing almost impossible odds to reverse the delegate math.

While the Clintons gamely continue to try to move the goal posts, at some point there has to be a reckoning. It is a very simple question - what is their path to secure the nomination? No amount of spin can change the math. We look forward to their tortured answers on Wednesday morning.

The Clinton campaign has insisted that this is a race about delegates. And we agree. The tale of March 4th is not who wins what states but where the delegate battle stands after all the delegate yield for all four of these contests have been allocated.

The analysis envisions an Obama winning streak over the next 12 days. It projects victories in the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state on Feb. 9 and a narrow loss to Clinton on Feb. 10 in Maine. Obama is looking to sweep the Feb. 12 primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., and get victories in Hawaii and Wisconsin a week later.

Big States

Just as Clinton won some of the most populous states on Super Tuesday, Obama's campaign scenario forecasts she will win the contests in Ohio and Texas on March 4 and Pennsylvania on April 22. Still, Democratic Party rules will give her only a few more delegates than Obama if he can keep her margin of victory narrow.

and a narrow loss to Clinton on Feb. 10 in Maine.

Is that if Clinton wins the popular vote in Ohio and Texas, she's staying in the race.

Even if she loses the delegate race in Texas.

An upbeat, no-pausing Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson claimed momentum for the Clinton campaign in Ohio and Texas.

"I have avoided making Namath-esque predictions throughout this campaign," said Wolfson, the Clinton campaign's New York-bred communications chief. "But I believe it will be very clear [on Wednesday morning] which campaign will have the better of the day and which campaign will have had the worst of it. I am supposititious about making declarative positions, but I believe we will be the successful campaign on Tuesday."

Penn and Wolfson listed three reasons why they said Obama was on the defensive: their chief economics adviser, Austan Goolsbee, was caught back-channeling with the Canadian government on NAFTA; the trial of former Obama pal Tony Rezko; and the Clinton gambit to raise questions about Obama's fitness to be commander in chief.

Reporters came back to the delegate gap between the two. Even if Clinton wins Ohio and Texas, she'll have to win a lot more states by a huge margin to regain the delegate lead. Wolfson and Penn laid out the following scenario: Losing Texas and Ohio means that a "serious case of buyer's remorse" is setting in for Democrats," Wolfson said. "Florida and Michigan are back on the table again," Penn said