Childers with Early Lead

post from Cotton Mouth on 22 April 2008 03:54:00 PM. © Cotton Mouth

From the Daily Journal website.

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 1ST DISTRICTSpecial election for 1st District House seat (unexpired term)
Special Election

Precincts Reporting:
7%

TRAVIS W. CHILDERS 2,558 57%

GREG DAVIS 1,673 38%

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Midday open thread

post from Daily Kos on 22 April 2008 03:52:36 PM. © Daily Kos

Remember that dumbass Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry?

A North Carolina congressman has threatened legal action against his Republican primary challenger over a television ad that accuses him of "revealing troop positions" during a recent trip to Iraq, "and just two days later, two Americans died."

Rep. Patrick McHenry says the 30-second ad, being aired on local cable channels and the Internet by attorney Lance Sigmon of Newton, N.C., is defamatory.

The controversy began last month when McHenry, a two-term lawmaker, returned from his first trip to Iraq.

In a speech to local Republicans, McHenry said he'd tried to get into a gym near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad but was turned away by a "two-bit security guard." Then, McHenry posted a video of himself in the Green Zone talking about how close enemy rocket attacks had come while he was there.

McHenry voluntarily pulled the video after a veterans group called VoteVets.org accused McHenry of giving away intelligence information that could aid terrorist organizations in targeting the Green Zone.

It says something when the only people defending the ABC News debate are other Beltway journalists. Yglesias has the right standard upon which to gauge its effectiveness:

What I'd like to see in defense of ABC would be to identify some likely Democratic Party primary voters in Pennsylvania or some other upcoming state who are now better-informed about the election than they were previously.

If voters are better informed about the candidates, then the debate is a success. If not, then we have the crap ABC News dished last week.

In case you missed it last night, Meteor Blades had an interview with Earth Day's trailblazing Dennis Hayes.

NJ-Sen: Another reason why primaries are good:

In extensive interviews with Garden State Equality's Board of Directors, both incumbent Senator Frank Lautenberg and Congressman Rob Andrews endorsed legislation to establish marriage equality in New Jersey, making this one of the few elections in American history where marriage equality has been endorsed by two competing candidates for statewide office.

To be sure, United States Senators vote on legislation in Washington, not Trenton. But the support of these two esteemed public servants adds powerful momentum to our fight for marriage equality in New Jersey.

Senator Lautenberg said, "The government should get out of the business of telling same-sex couples in committed relationships that they can't marry. Anything else is not equality."

Congressman Andrews said, "I support marriage equality. The recent commission report on civil unions was pivotal in my thinking. The civil union law has failed to give gay couples equal rights."

Both candidates, in their efforts to get the endorsement, went full-bore and endorsed the sensible position on gay marriage -- full equality. Lautenberg eventually got the endorsement, but that's less important than what was a groundbreaking development in the civil rights struggle.

Pollster.com does a wrap up of Pennsylvania polls. The verdict?

All but one of the late surveys shows Clinton leading by margins of 5 to 13 points, so to no one's surprise, most expect Hillary Clinton to defeat Barack Obama tonight. The suspense seems to be about the size of Clinton's margin. On that score, unfortunately, the polls are not conclusive.

Vote for your favorite user-made Obama ad in MoveOn's Obama in 30 Seconds contest.

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PA Predictions Open thread

post from TalkLeft on 22 April 2008 03:50:00 PM. © TalkLeft

By Big Tent Democrat

Ok, what do you folks think? Me, I am a believer in SUSA so, assigning undecideds, I go Clinton 54-46. How about you?

This is an Open thread.

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PA Predictions Open Thread

post from TalkLeft on 22 April 2008 03:50:00 PM. © TalkLeft

By Big Tent Democrat

Ok, what do you folks think? Me, I am a believer in SUSA so, assigning undecideds, I go Clinton 54-46. How about you?

This is an Open thread.

I like Mark Halperin today. This is a fair assessment I think.

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Hillary brags that no one is donating any money
to her

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 22 April 2008 03:47:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

Montanaro at MSNBC:

[W]ith Barack Obama outspending her by as much as three to one, Clinton insists that if he doesn't win Pennsylvania, it shows voters have big doubts. Essentially, she's trying to turn losing into winning and turn winning around into losing. Never mind the fact that Obama can outspend her because he's raised so much more money, from many more supporters, supporters who are responsible for giving him the lead by every viable measure of the race.

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Senator Barack Obama on The Daily Show

post from Crooks and Liars on 22 April 2008 03:45:49 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Senator Obama dropped by “The Daily Show” last night (via satellite) to talk about the upcoming Pennsylvania primary and catch up with John on all the things that have happened since they last spoke. Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Bill W)JS: I?m going to cut through the spin for you, sir. This is what I?m [...]

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LAKE VS HITS.

post from Ezra Klein on 22 April 2008 03:44:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

Unlike some of the other reviewers of Heads in the Sand, I think Eli Lake actually makes some salient points here. Eli believes the objective of US foreign policy should be to militarily choose sides in intra-Islam disputes. The problem is, Eli's not[...]

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Last call for PA expectations

Obama says he doesn't expect to win, but do better than expected. The Clinton camp says a win is a win and that's that. Here's something that ought to frame the expectations game. The monthly averages for the polls, via here, were: February: 47.8 -[...]

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How Republicans Gamed the Pennsy Primary

For six weeks, as Democrats' hope of unity rode on Barack Obama's hope that Pennsylvanians would prove his national lead to be more than a wish, most tribunes of the news media ignored breathtakingly cynical Republican news-media ploys to keep Dems bitterly divided. You had to admire the artistry of it all, even its virtual invisibility.

Few pundits wondered, for example, why 160,000 Pennsylvania Republicans switched registrations, most of them in order to vote for Clinton, if demographics are a guide. That strategy -- promoted by right-wing Clinton scourge and sudden "supporter" Richard Mellon-Scaife and his Pittsburgh Post-Tribune -- is to keep the Dems divided and just maybe to give them the nominee whom Scaife has more reason than most to believe Republicans can demolish this fall.

Few commentators questioned why Clinton didn't reject Mellon-Scaife's endorsement, as she'd challenged Obama to reject Louis Farrakhan's. Few asked why she instead actually courted the Machiavellian funder of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" that had implicated her in Vincent Foster's murder and more.

Clinton's desperation was one thing, but her abdication of all dignity was another. Yet journalists who'd scrutinized Obama's handling of Farrakhan indulged her collapse into Mellon-Scaife's arms. No prissy New York Times op eds parsed whether she, like Obama, ought to have "denounced" or "renounced" or "rejected" the come-on.

The vigilant blogger John Campanelli noted Big Dog's even-more amazing appearances on Rush Limbaugh's show to urge Ditto-heads to vote for Hillary, even though he knew they'd do so only for Mellon-Scaife's set-up reasons. Now, there's desperation for you, and, in Bill's case, we needn't even mention lost dignity. I wouldn't say that the Clintons are Stalin and that Mellon-Scaife is Hitler, but show me how this mesalliance is any less cynical than the Soviet-Nazi pact of 1939, and I'll show you a bridge to the future I have to sell.

Not all Republican-leaning media agree that Clinton's the one they're most likely to beat. Republicans do have "new" dirt on the Clintons, but Americans are gagging on these tactics, effective though such ugliness remains. Obama will be easier to take down, reason the post-Rove Republicans, because, often, they can stand back and, with a wink and a nudge, let racism do its work in the privacy of the voting booth.

That's certainly the strategy of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, which actually endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination and showed that when it endorses someone, it delivers! The paper has turned every tabloid trick to slant its coverage toward Obama, no doubt endearing itself to blacks I've watched perusing the paper on the subway. Today's primary-day headlne: "Hill's 'Osama' Scare Tactics." The Post even ballyhooed the fact that the voter who loudly protested Obama's observations about "bitter" small-town Pennsylvanians is a life-long resident of New Jersey!

The paper's intended message to politicos of all persuasions: Always kiss the ring of Rupert, and forget his imported editors and their mini-con minions have turned the once-liberal Post into a daily reminder that Australia was founded as a penal colony. They are now busy turning the Wall Street Journal into the Voldemort of big dailies.

When Obama is nominated, the Post's editors will announce soberly that upon agonised reflection they've decided that McCain is the man America most desperately needs. After a suitable pause, they'll begin tearing into Obama on non-racial grounds (his latte liberal backers, his weakness on defense, etc.) while promoting McCain relentlessly and relying on racism to do the rest as they keep their hands clean with New York's multiracial populace.

Come to think of it, that's what New York Times columnist David Brooks has already done, as I predicted he would long ago: "Brooks has pretended to admire Obama so much... that you expect him to swim over to the Democrats. Don't count on it...." He was merely accumulating credibility with liberal readers for giving Obama a serious chance before reeling in as many as he can for McCain. Brooks turned that corner pre-emptively last week, ahead of the Post , either to "help" Clinton or to look smart himself by being the first to show how to champion John McCain, hero of Selma and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, against Obama, that deracinated Hyde Park liberal.

I'll say more about these conservative journalistic ploys soon, but for now it's worth emphasizing that few commentators have noted how corrosive the cynicism and duplicity of Mellon-Scaife, Murdoch, and Brooks have become of the very civic-republicanism, virtue, and freedom they claim to defend.

The philosopher George Santayana noted that Americans are "inexperienced in poisons," owing to their forthright civic-republican candor and courage in controversies, no matter how bitter and partisan. No more. Unless, that is, as I dearly hope, Pennsylvanians carry Obama strongly enough tonight to discredit the poisoned Clintons and their new Republican pushers.

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A Dark Shadow Across Philadelphia

Atrios felt my presence. That's the dark shadow of my hand across Chris's carpet.Chris and I[...]

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