Latest From Mark Penn
Mark Penn: "Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win because every nominee wins Democratic primaries.”
--Josh Marshall
Govt: Throw Away the Key
Federal prosecutors ask judge to sentence Duke Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes to 25 years in prison.
--Josh Marshall
Souled Out
At TPM Cafe, we're wrapping up this week's Book Club on E.J. Dionne's new book.
In his final post, Dionne argues that the era of the Religious Right began in 1980 and may well have ended in 2004 and predicts that broad economic and foreign policy questions will supplant the cultural arguments of the last quarter century.
Arguing this week against the premise of Dionne's book has been Richard Parker, who, in his final post, suggests that the retrenchment Dionne describes is less fundamental and the result of recent political setbacks for the Republican Party. He compares the Religious Right to a trophy wife:
They felt neglected and abused by their Democratic first husband, and started fooling around with the rich Republican. But now they're married to the GOP, and they're surprised that the romance has gone away?
Our thanks to all the participants this week.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Weekend Clip Extravaganza #5!
Without a Rudy Giuliani or a Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential race, the TPMtv Weekend Clip Extravaganza wasn't sure where to turn to for its material. Luckily, the blessed Chris Matthews answered our prayers. Plus, a special look back at the recent Capital Hill performance of Roger Clemens and his crack legal team.
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Ben Craw
Space Oddity
One of the challenges of covering the Bush Administration these days is resisting the temptation to assume that everything they do is a stunt or a con. Sure, more often than not it is. But you have to keep your wits about you.
So when I first saw the reports yesterday that the Pentagon was planning on shooting down this failing satellite before it re-enters the atmosphere, my first reaction was, you've got to be kidding me. It didn't ease my suspicions when the first AP wire story referred to it as "the option preferred by the Bush administration."
Sure enough, it looks like this whole Star Wars operation is fishy as well, according to actual rocket scientists.
--David Kurtz
A Tortured Analysis
Yesterday, a top Justice Department official, Stephen Bradbury, gave the most detailed description ever given of the Department's legal analysis with regard to a particular interrogation technique -- waterboarding.
--David Kurtz
Calling the Bully's Bluff
A Democratic Hill aide checks in:
I can’t remember which show it was – something like the Brady Bunch – where the protagonist is being picked on by a bully and at a certain point lashes out and inadvertently bloodies the bully’s nose (and ends the bully’s tyrannical reign, etc). It seems that the House may have inadvertently done just this. In the face of an all-too-familiar pattern of administration fear mongering instead of cowedly acceding to the administration’s wishes (and tacitly reinforcing the effectiveness of the administration’s fearmongering) the House seems, through something other than a concerted response, to have stumbled into a situation where they have bloodied the administration’s nose. Short of cancelling his Africa trip and spending all of next week demagoging this issue, I don’t see how the admin keeps their credibility on this. A line has been crossed.
I'm not a pop culture aficianado, but I think it was a Brady Brunch episode. In any event, bullying is precisely what the Bush Administration has done to cow Democrats. I'm not yet convinced that we have crossed the Rubicon in terms of Democrats punching the bully in the nose. But even if we have, what took so long?
Late Update: We're having a Brady Bunch v. A Christmas Story throwdown in the emailer comments. Here's TPM Reader DM:
It’s definitely possible that The Brady Bunch had an episode where one of the boys bloodied a bully’s nose, but I’m reasonably confident that the reader is thinking about “A Christmas Story,” where Ralphie finally snaps at all the taunting he is receiving from Scut Farkus, attacks ol’ Scut and beats the crap out of him.
Later Update: The Andy Griffith Show fans are making a late push. Writes TPM Reader JR:
Sorry, but the best example in sitcom land of a bully getting a blackeye is the "Opie and the Bully" episode No. 33 of Andy of Mayberry. In fact, it is far more relevant to the current House-White House showdown than the Brady Bunch. Opie had previously been giving the bully his milk money whenever the bully demanded it. Andy tells Opie a story about how Andy had faced down his bully when he was younger and how even when the bully hit him, it didn't hurt. So, Opie refuses to give up his milk money the next day, takes a shot from the bully (which he doesn't feel) and punches out the bully, who runs home crying.
Pop Culture Arcana Update: TPM Reader SS does the honors:
In that Brady episode, Peter doesn't bloody Buddy Hinton's nose, he knocks his tooth out, giving Buddy a lisp much like the one he mocked Cindy for having.
--David Kurtz
More on Lewis
There's obviously been a lot of chatter and confusion this morning about just what Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) told the Times and whether the Times got the story wrong. Times reporter Jeff Zeleny is standing by the story and says that Lewis will cast his super delegate vote for Obama, apparently regardless of who wins the most pledged delegates, to honor the wishes of his constituents. Whatever the particulars, the gist seems to be what I characterized it as last night. This isn't mainly about an endorsement or an unendorsement. The real issue here is the Clinton camp's professed willingness to win on super delegates even if they end up with fewer pledged delegates than Obama. The Times may have gotten some nuances wrong, or perhaps Lewis's camp wasn't completely comfortable with how things looked when they saw it on paper. But the bottom line message is that he won't go along with the Clinton strategy.
--Josh Marshall
Hillary's Alamo
Three new polls of the Texas primary out today.
Two of the polls show Hillary ahead. Rasmussen comes back 54-38 for Hillary. A poll by Public Opinion Strategies/Hamilton Campaigns for the Texas Credit Union League gives Hillary a 49-41 lead.
The third poll, from ARG, which has had more than its share of what you might politely call "outliers" this primary season, puts Obama up 48-42.
--David Kurtz
What Did John Lewis Really Say?
There was a fair amount of confusion last night and this morning about what exactly Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) told the NYT about how he would cast his superdelegate vote at the Democratic Convention.
We've been trying to track it down, and Lewis' office promises a statement later today.
But the NYT reporter, Jeff Zeleny, was on CNN this morning, and explained his piece in more detail.
It comes down to this: Despite being a Hillary supporter, Lewis is not going to cast his superdelegate vote for Hillary because his district went for Obama in the Georgia primary. That's the long and short of it. Greg Sargent has the details at Election Central.
So bad news for the Hillary camp's strategy of using superdelegates to push her over the top if she's trailing in elected delegates.
--David Kurtz
Shop Talk
New evidence of crimes by former CIA No. 3 Dusty Foggo?
--David Kurtz
Media Wars, Part 342
An unrepentant Chris Matthews calls on Hillary to fire the "kneecappers" in her own press shop.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
Dare we hope?
Could House Democrats finally be ignoring his fear-mongering on terrorism and national security and be standing up to the President on the surveillance bill?
Is it too much to hope for?
--David Kurtz
Number 39
Each year I allow myself this indulgence. Today's my birthday. I am turning 39. I can't tell whether that number sounds newly old to me or not. It seems a touch alien to me in a way that 37 and 38 didn't. But as Seneca says, Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling. So I guess it doesn't really matter.
The primary season is an exciting time for any political journalist. But it's also a turbulent one running a site like this because the divisions and emotions of our readership become so intense that a lot of the acrimony inevitably laps up on to us.
But I will say that notwithstanding the real stresses of running this operation I feel a new contentment with my life. I like what I do. I'm proud of the team that puts this site together every day. I just found out that TPM won an award for its reporting on the US Attorney Purge scandal, which is nice to hear. And I've been trying to let go of things, which is contrary to my nature. But I think most of all because of my wife and my son, who in addition to being this amazing, rambunctious little person, is allowing me to fit my own life better into a context of impermanent things, invest myself in his just started as opposed to my half-run race. But beyond all those organized thoughts I find fatherhood simply a mystery, a very concrete one I find sitting in my bed in front of me each morning, but one that hits me in some suddenly brand new way several times a day and has wrapped me into a kind of love and devotion completely different from anything I've ever experienced before and something I really wasn't able to imagine or get close to beforehand.
I don't like it when people project their own experiences into a template for other peoples lives. But speaking for myself I do not think I could feel complete as a person, fully accept this boundedness as a person, or fully know what it was to be one without the turned-upside-down experience I'm having as a father.
In a few months my wife is going to give birth to our second son. So I'm looking forward to more of this.
--Josh Marshall
Won't Go There
In the thick of a campaign it is easy to overrate the importance of an endorsement or a political hit. But it is difficult to overstate the significance of John Lewis' switch from the Clinton to Obama camps because it is a devastating blow on two or three levels wrapped together in a single person. Lewis' historic and moral stature in the African-American community and in the modern Democratic party bulks very large. “In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” Lewis told the Times. “Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.” This is a curious statement as he seems to be suggesting that his earlier endorsement of Clinton was based on his own failure to set his sights sufficiently high. What's more, the willingness of a high-profile politician not simply to endorse one candidate but to switch from one to another (at least in terms of who he believes he'll vote for as a super delegate) is a powerful sign that a tipping point is at hand.
But the most immediate and significant import is Lewis's signal that whatever the basis of his original endorsement he is unwilling to join Clinton in carving a path to the nomination through the heart of the Democratic party. The tell in Lewis's announcement is that he is not technically withdrawing his endorsement from Hillary, at least not yet. He is saying that as a super delegate (which is by virtue of being a member of Congress) he plans to vote for Obama at the convention. On Wednesday the Clinton camp started pushing hard on the idea that a delegate is a delegate and if they need to pack on super delegates to overwhelm Obama's edge with elected delegates then so be it. A win is a win is a win. I take this as Lewis saying he just won't sign on for that.
This also points to an argument I tried to make in today's episode of TPMtv. The Clinton camp's super delegate gambit is not only audacious. Far more than that it is simply unrealistic. The super delegates who are gettable for Clinton by loyalty, conviction or coercion are already got. And enough's been seen of both candidates for everyone to be more than acquainted with them. The ones who remain -- who make up roughly half the total -- are waiting to see who the winner is.
The truth is that there are over 1000 elected delegates remaining to be won. We really don't know what's going to happen yet. But if the trend continues and Obama ends the primary season with a clear majority of elected delegates, the idea that those remaining super delegates will break for the candidate who won fewer delegates, raised less money and is polling worse against the Republican nominee simply makes no sense. I'm not saying that's how it will be. But if Clinton starts winning big primaries in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania and other states, then the whole question is moot.
But this is like the unreality that seems more and more to suffuse the Clinton campaign. I don't mean the candidate or her policies or the premises of her candidacy. I mean the cocoon of political ridiculousness that has increasingly permeated her campaign apparatus since early January.
You've seen my continuous barbs at Mark Penn, Clinton's 'chief strategist'. The last couple days have shown very clearly I think that Clinton could do nothing better for her campaign than to throttle this clown and let her get down to the business of making a case to voters for her candidacy. Perhaps good spin is an oxymoron, moral if not linguistic. But good spin is clever and forward-leaning pitches of actual realities, facts. The word in the sense we use it today actually came into being in the early 90s and to a great degree around the '92 Clinton campaign, which had such mastery in its practice. But this Clinton campaign has been doing it in a weird parody mode. Not sharp 'spins' on favorable realities, but aggressive pitches of complete nonsense. So now you have Penn successively saying caucus wins don't really count, small state wins don't really count, medium state wins don't really count, states with large African-American populations don't really count, all building up to yesterday's gem: "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama."
Clinton is ultimately responsible for putting her political fate in this fool's hands. But this is a guy who has basically one big political win under his belt and whose record in seriously contested races, particularly Democratic primary races is one of almost constant defeats. Much of Clinton's current predicament stems from Penn's disastrous, glass-jaw 'inevitability' strategy and the mind-boggling decision not even to contest a slew of states where Obama racked up huge victories and many delegates.
Campaigns are about winning votes not making excuses. There are plenty of delegates still out there for Clinton to win -- over a thousand left in the remaining primaries. But her efforts are being stymied by a campaign apparatus rooted in the belief that any new reality can be overturned by pretending it away.
--Josh Marshall
Too Few Dole Parallels?
Speculation that McCain may resign his senate seat; and he leaves the door open.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Campaign 2008 Roundup, #12
The knives are sharpening in the debate over the legitimacy of the super delegates. But is it really going to come to that? Don't be so sure. We explain why in today's episode of TPMtv ...
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Josh Marshall
Hardball
It's not just about David Shuster.
Hillary's top advisers have repeatedly complained to MSNBC about Chris Matthews.
--David Kurtz
Same As It Ever Was
With torture debates and the raucous presidential primaries, folks don't think much anymore about the US Attorney scandal and the Bush administration political purge of the DOJ that led eventual to multiple resignations and the fall and disgrace of Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's Attorney and long-time legal confidant. But that's what these contempt citations are about. They're aimed at finally pushing through the stonewalling that the White House has now used for more than a year to keep the truth of what happened from becoming known. So why was David Iglesias fired? What about Carol Lam? Was her probe brushing up too close against powerful figures at the Pentagon, CIA and on Capitol Hill? What about the White House's effort to goad US Attorneys around the country to push bogus vote fraud cases to help more Republicans get elected? We still don't know the answers to those key questions. And that's mainly because the White House has been stonewalling ever since. That's what these contempt citations were and are about. And there the House Republicans are carrying the President's and Alberto Gonzales' water. I'm shocked.
--Josh Marshall
House Holds Bolten and Miers In Contempt
It is another major step in the ongoing saga of the U.S. Attorney purge scandal, which started more than a year ago.
This afternoon, the House of Representatives voted to hold White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel (and one-time Supreme Court nominee) Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for their refusal to testify about the White House role in the purge.
With House Republicans congregating on the steps of the Capitol in protest, Democrats passed the resolutions 223-32.
A legal battle over executive privilege looms, one unlikely to be resolved before President Bush leaves office.
--David Kurtz
Disorder in the House
Lots of uproar today in the House.
Basically, Republicans are pissed about the contempt resolutions filed by the Democratic majority. So they have been disrupting House proceedings, including the memorial service for the late Rep. Tom Lantos.
But just now, the GOP walked out of the House and is congregating on the Capital steps in protest.
Late Update: The walkout appears to be in protest over yesterday's House vote not to extend the Protect America Act, but we're still attempting to nail that down. It would be an odd protest, since, as we reported yesterday, the right wingers in the House joined with liberal Dems to defeat the extension.
Later Update: OK, it appears that the GOP walkout was not over the extension vote yesterday, which really would have been odd. Rather, this appears to have been done in conjunction with the President's demand this morning that the House pass the Senate surveillance bill before tomorrow's expiration of the Protect America Act. The contempt resolutions against White House aides, current and former, are part of the mix, because the House is spending time on that rather, GOPers say, than on the surveillance bill.
We'll keep you posted.
Final Update: The contempt resolutions passed.
--David Kurtz
Hmmm, Should Have Thought About That Question in Advance
Here's '92 Clinton campaign manager (and superdelegate) David Wilhelm talking about his endorsement of Barack Obama on CNN this morning. But he gets tripped up on the logic of his argument a little bit. Like what happens if Hillary Clinton ends up with more pledged delegates? Will he switch to supporting her?
--Josh Marshall
Like Kryptonite
Penn's ridiculousness stymies TPM Reader RM ...
“Worse still, Mr. Penn sees the “impressionable elites” growing in number …”I’ve spent some serious time over the past 24 hours trying to come up with some snarky, clever comment to illustrate the intellectual depravity of the concept of “impressionable elites growing in number.” And I just can’t do it.
I honestly am undecided in the Dem primary race, and I’d be happy to vote for either candidate in the general, but that is straight-up Republicanism. Elitists everywhere! They’re all elitists! The millions of people voting for Obama? Millions of elitists!
It’s reminiscent of the Onion snark headline “75% of Americans now anti-American.”
As I pointed out to RM we may soon reach a point where the entire population or even a decisive majority of the population is made up of the impressionable elites.
--Josh Marshall
Not Over Yet
There was a poll a couple weeks ago showing that Texas was only a ten point race. But in two of Hillary Clinton other firewall states -- Ohio and Pennsylvania -- she's sitting on big double digit leads, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll.
--Josh Marshall
Political Genius Walking Among Us
A quote from Mark Penn that should go over extremely well: "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama.”
--Josh Marshall
The Coming Fight
From The Globe ...
Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.
But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.
"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.
"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.
"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period,'' he added.
--Josh Marshall
BREAKING: Senate Admonishes Larry Craig
The Senate Ethics Committee issued a public letter of admonishment today to Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) for his conduct in connection with his arrest in the airport bathroom and his subsequent conduct.
We have the letter here and details here.
From a quick read through the letter, the Ethics Committee hits him harder than I might have expected. It's not just the arrest they tag him for but his efforts to withdraw his guilty plea. Oh, and there was the matter of him slipping the officer his Senate business card. They didn't like the appearance of that either.
--David Kurtz
Squeeze Play
More gamesmanship on telecom immunity. This time in the House. Paul Kiel has the details.
--David Kurtz
Point of Curiosity
Several readers have asked about where the total popular vote count between Obama and Hillary stands after last night.
Turns out that even giving Hillary her tallies in Michigan and Florida, Obama comes out ahead -- though just barely.
--David Kurtz
Rendell Probably Deserves a Pass
After reading his remarks in their context and watching his appearance this afternoon on MSNBC, I'd have to say that whatever trouble Hillary backer and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell got himself into yesterday--over his reported comments that some whites in his state will not be willing to vote for a black candidate for President--was a result of his bumptious personality, and not a deliberate effort to cast doubt on Obama's electability or to otherwise inject race into the campaign:
That's my take at least. Yours?
--David Kurtz
McCain's Bind
It appears that waterboarding and Republican presidential ambitions may have collided today in the Senate.
At issue is a Democratic measure that would restrict the CIA to using those interrogation methods listed in the Army Field Manual. In other words, it would bar the CIA from employing so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
Republicans were expected to use a parliamentary procedure today that would have blocked the measure by requiring a 60-vote minimum to proceed. But here's where it gets interesting.
Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain opposes waterboarding, which would have put him in the position of voting with the Democrats and against the President on this measure, perhaps giving the Dems the 60 votes necessary to proceed.
So the Republicans scuttled that planned parliamentary maneuver, and the full bill went to a vote a little while ago, barely passing, 51-45. Notably, McCain voted against the bill. One would expect that his publicly stated reason for opposing it will be something other than the anti-waterboarding provision.
The GOP thinking may be that it's better to have the bill pass and the President veto it, than have the current Republican nominee and the President so publicly at odds.
That sets up an interesting situation when and if a veto override is attempted. But with the two-thirds vote required for an override seemingly out of reach, McCain's vote may be less crucial.
--David Kurtz
Contempt Resolution Introduced In House
This afternoon, House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) introduced a criminal contempt resolution against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers and a resolution that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) file a civil suit against the White House.
Both resolutions arise from the U.S. Attorneys purge investigation. Paul Kiel explains.
--David Kurtz
Shuster Update
With Hillary agreeing not to back out of NBC's debate later this month, we wondered what that meant for David Shuster.
An MSNBC spokesperson tell us that Shuster remains on indefinite suspension but will not be fired and will return to the network.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Potomac Post Game
With Barack Obama's big wins last night in Maryland and Virginia (DC too but not many delegates there), it's looking really hard for Hillary Clinton to take back the lead among pledged (i.e., voted for delegates). We run the numbers and discuss the implications ...
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Josh Marshall
Get What You (Over)pay For, Part 2
One of the most exciting things about this Democratic race is that it's between two genuine titans, each of whom has brought off clutch victories that propelled them back into contention. And they are each in their own ways masters of the game. Whatever the eventual outcome, when I look at the younger generation of people who make up most of the TPM staff, I wonder how much relative newcomers to the political process have a view for how rare it is to have two such evenly matched contenders go head to head so deep into the primary calendar. And yet, looking at these two worthies, for those of us who need our fill of snark and derision we have the risible Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, who's probably at least responsible as anybody in the country for her current predicament -- whether that's the glass jaw 'inevitability' strategy he ginned up for her or the brilliant decision not to invest any resources in a slew of states across the country the campaign would need to compete in if Obama scored early victories.
As I noted on Monday, on the eve of what turned out to be a series of crushing defeats for his candidate in Maryland, DC and Virginia, Penn decided to cut out for an evening to discuss and sign copies of his micro-book Microtrends at the Strand Bookstore on the edge of Greenwich Village here in downtown Manhattan.
Here we join the festivities in progress, as reported by the New York Observer ...
“I was determined to take an hour out and talk about the book,” Mr. Penn told the audience, some of whom ate yogurt as they listened by the stacks of art and auction catalogs on the bookstore’s second floor. “It’s not a political book.”With that, Mr. Penn, who speaks softly and always looks a little nervous, began his presentation.
“The theory of the book is that the era of big trends is over,” he said.
He talked about how society had become “infinitely personalized” because of an increasingly evident “individualistic streak” that manifested itself in, among other things, the way “people don’t want to wear the same clothes.”
As Tina Brown, the former New Yorker editor who is working on a Hillary Clinton book, took notes to his left, Mr. Penn emphasized his distaste for the microtrend he calls “impressionable elites”—supposed leaders of society who, as he sees it, show more interest in a candidate’s personality than policies.
Mr. Obama enjoys the support of this chattering class, Mr. Penn believes, while Mrs. Clinton speaks more to working-class people who really care about policy because policy really impacts their lives. Worse still, Mr. Penn sees the “impressionable elites” growing in number, so much so that he has considered turning “that trend into an entire book someday, because it is becoming more and more evident.”
At least one attendee was skeptical. “Obama strikes me as a macrotrend, not a microtrend,” said Kevin Costa, a 48-year-old government analyst and undecided Democrat, during the question-and-answer session.
“It’s not just in the political context,” Mr. Penn said, explaining that more and more people were being persuaded by media stories and making important decisions in their life based on “hearsay.”
Asked after the event what, if anything, had gone wrong with the Clinton campaign, Mr. Penn suggested that Mr. Obama had simply turned out to be a tougher candidate than originally expected.
“After he won Iowa, he was a different candidate with a larger constituency,” said Mr. Penn. “I think that very much changed the course of the race, but I think you have seen us come back time and time again in situations where the polls and the media were ready to call it, and the voters said otherwise.”
I must say that the image of Mark Penn -- master of the suburban, poll-doctored demographic cliche -- falling back on 'working class people' against the 'impressionable elites' is enough to make all the late nights here reporting poll results at TPM HQ all worthwhile.
Viva Penn!
Late Update: TPM Reader JM was there at the Penn event and gives a dissenting (to the Observer's read) take on Penn's presentation.
--Josh Marshall
Mr. Due Process
I've got the Roger Clemens hearing going in the background, and I swear I just heard Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) decrying "trial by media" and "circus" hearings in his defense of Clemens.
If you weren't of age during the Clinton years, then you missed Burton in his trial-by-circus-hearing heyday:
Burton regularly makes headlines with attention-getting stunts. In 1993, he fired a rifle at a "headlike thing" in his backyard in front of a homicide expert to prove his theory that Clinton advisor Vincent Foster did not commit suicide but was murdered and that his body was moved to a Virginia park. In 1995, he wrote Clinton, demanding to know whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to Socks, the first cat. (They were not.)
--David Kurtz
Slippage
If you were looking for a silver lining to Hillary's losses last night, this ain't it:
Obama narrowly defeated Clinton among white voters in Virginia, 52 percent to 47 percent, while Clinton won with that group in Maryland by just 10 percentage points, according to an exit survey conducted for The Associated Press.Even white women were beginning to move toward the Illinois senator — Clinton won nearly 60 percent of their votes, a much lower percentage than in contests past. Clinton has based her candidacy in large part on her appeal to white women.
In addition to his usual strong showing among young voters, Obama was also running about even among those over 65, a group Clinton usually dominates.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
With the Bush-approved surveillance bill through the Senate, attention now turns to the House, where there are already signs of moderate Democrats defecting in the face of Administration scare tactics.
--David Kurtz
A Brutal Morning After
It's going to be rough day for the Clinton campaign.
On MSNBC this morning, Joe Scarborough greeted Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson with faux congratulations on Wolfson's having kept his job in yesterday campaign staff shakeup, just the latest internal turmoil to roil the campaign.
The AP's Ron Fournier takes a no-holds-barred look at the state of the Clinton campaign, particularly what he describes as shaky loyalty to the Clintons among superdelegates.
There's no question that a series of losses--big losses--with no wins in sight for another three weeks has the Clinton campaign in a precarious situation. You can judge that simply by who's willing to say what to reporters, Fournier in this case:
Two senior Clinton advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the race candidly, said the campaign feels the New York senator needs to quickly change the dynamic by forcing Obama into a poor debate performance, going negative or encouraging the media to attack Obama. They're grasping at straws, but the advisers said they can't see any other way that her campaign will be sustainable after losing 10 in a row.Clinton strategists are famous for poor-mouthing their own campaign in order to lower expectations, but these advisers have never played such games. They're legitimate, and legitimately worried.
The fear inside the Clinton camp is that Obama will win Hawaii and Wisconsin next week and head into the March 4 contests for Ohio and Texas with a 10-race winning streak. Her poll numbers will drop in Texas and Ohio, Clinton aides fear, and party leaders will start hankering for an end to the fight.
Keep in mind that Super Tuesday was only a week ago yesterday. Seems a lot longer ago, doesn't it? Obama's string of uninterrupted wins only started Saturday. But the tenor of things has already changed dramatically. We're not in the predictions business, but the Clinton campaign itself isn't expecting a victory for her for another three weeks. That is a very, very long time.
--David Kurtz
The Thinking Man's Madrassa Smear
If things continue on their current trajectory and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee we should get used to much more of the still largely subterranean effort to scare Jews and broader portions of the electorate into believing that Obama is anti-Israel. The truth is that there's little apparent difference between Obama's position and Hillary's or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of Republican party. Here's a relatively mild example of the effort -- a story in the New York Sun about how Obama supporter Zbigniew Brzezinski (the article calls him an 'advisor' -- he's probably something between a supporter and advisor) is leading a delegation to Syria sponsored by the highly controversial left-wing Rand Corporation.
On another front, here is a recent post at The Politico about emails sent out by a member of Clinton's finance committee asking friends and acquaintances to "read the attached important and very disturbing article on Barack Obama." The enclosed article is this one by the neanderthal American Thinker blog by Ed Lasky.
There's much more of this going on than you realize. And it may be prepping to expand dramatically.
--Josh Marshall
Rumblings
Still early, but it's looking like two congressional incumbents from Maryland -- Al Wynn (D) and Wayne Gilchrest (R) -- may be going down to defeat in contested primaries.
--Josh Marshall
Howard's End
Howard Fineman just did a brief segment on MSNBC gaming out the delegate count and where it's likely to end up when the last primaries and caucuses are over. He said he based his comments on conversations with people in both campaigns. And the gist of it was that both sides agree that it's highly unlikely that Clinton can end up with more pledged delegates than Barack Obama. And the issue now is how close she can keep the margin.
If she can keep it within a couple dozen delegates, he argued, it would be credible to try to make up the margin with super delegates. On the other hand, if Obama's ahead by 100 or 200, the pressure against trying to make up the margin with non-elected delegates would just be too great.
Now, Fineman is something of a paragon of the mainstream media. So his comments probably raise some suspicion among some readers. But this is a pretty straightforward mathematical question. Doesn't really matter what Fineman or either campaigns say. Folks paying close attention are as likely to accurately predict the outcomes as the folks in the campaign. So is this true? Is a pledged delegate win for Clinton no longer a realistic possibility?
Share your thoughts by email or in this discussion thread we've set up at TPMCafe.
Here's Fineman ...
--Josh Marshall
Kiss of Death?
Rudy's campaign manager praises Hillary's wait for Ohio and Texas strategy ...
Mike DuHaime, a Republican consultant who managed Rudolph W. Giuliani’s campaign, said Mrs. Clinton was making the right decisions in trying to make the most of her strengths.“Clearly, she has had success in larger states and there are a whole bunch of delegates at stake on March 4,” Mr. DuHaime said. “They are not trying to figure out who can win the most states; they are trying to figure out who can win the most delegates.”
Special Thanks to TPM Reader SN for this chilling catch.
--Josh Marshall
E.J. Dionne at TPMCafe Book Club
As you're watching the returns come in, you might want to check out the conversation at TPMCafe's Book Club about E.J. Dionne's new book, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right.
In his latest post, Dionne contemplates the challenges facing Democrats:
As a practical matter, the Democrats have a more complicated task on questions of religion: theirs is simultaneously the party of secular voters, who make up an important minority of its supporters, and religious voters. The political task of creating harmony among these groups is formidable.
Lots of great folks are participating in the discussion.
--David Kurtz
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
From the tomorrow's Times on the Rudy's sub-prime campaign ...
A half-dozen senior officials of the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee conferred this week on how to wind down their affairs, and at least one piece of their correspondence painted what appeared to be a bleak picture of the dormant campaign’s financial situation.“We are deeper in the hole than I thought we would be,” John Gross, the campaign’s treasurer, wrote in an e-mail message to several senior campaign aides that was obtained by The New York Times.
“Windown is likely to be less than projected, but travel expenses are higher,” Mr. Gross continued. “We cannot prefer any one creditor. We probably could make a 10% payment to all qualified creditors at this point, but probably not much more.”
--Josh Marshall
No Comment
The cable nets just caught maybe the first ten minutes of Hillary's speech tonight in El Paso, Texas. Not a single mention of the night's results. (Unclear whether she mentioned after they cut away.)
--Josh Marshall
And That's Based On?
Here's an interesting question. Both NBC and Reuters have already called DC for Obama. No returns have been reported. And no exit polls were taken. So where'd they come up with that projection exactly?
--Josh Marshall
McCain Escapes Virginia with Dignity Intact
MSNBC and Fox calling Virginia for McCain
--Josh Marshall
Snark Break
The Politico gets the announcement email heralding Rudy's return to the lecture circuit. Here's the Rude-man's page at Washington Speakers Bureau. "One of the World's Most Respected Leaders," says the headline.
I understand that Rudy will now speak on running the biggest presidential campaign train wreck in American history. That and transformative leadership.
--Josh Marshall
Seen Enough
TPM Reader JEM points out that with McCain now slightly ahead of Huckabee with 54% of precincts reporting, you have to figure it's time for the head of the Virginia GOP to call this baby for McCain.
--Josh Marshall
Fine Print
We're hearing on the cable shows that Obama won the Latino vote in Virginia 55%-45%. And clearly Obama is having a very good night. But we shouldn't necessarily read that much in to those numbers because Latinos were only 5% of the Democratic primary electorate. So the sample size is just too small to be reliable. So maybe Obama kicked butt among Latinos. But we can't know that from these numbers.
--Josh Marshall
Can't Win'em All
CNN's John King was just doing a run-down of the vote in Virginia. Short version seems to be that a lot of the votes that are in already come from the strong Huckabee areas; and McCain's strongholds in Northern Virginia are mainly still to report. So that bodes well for McCain.
Also. Special point of pride update. Our results out of Virginia are significantly ahead of those CNN is reporting on the air. So if you really want to be up-to-date, well ... you know, stay right here.
--Josh Marshall
Obama Beating Clinton and McCain?
You can see our live election results down the right in the news section. But if Virginia is any indication, Barack Obama is in line for a very strong showing tonight. Virginia was Hillary Clinton's best chance tonight and Obama seems to be dominating there.
It also seems like we may be seeing another example of synergy between the two races in Virginia. Independents and Republicans seem to have participated pretty heavily in the Democratic primary, and they went overwhelmingly for Obama. (The reverse happened in New Hampshire.) Those were voters McCain needed in the Republican primary. And without them, or without a lot of them who voted on the Democratic side, he's in a very tight race with Huckabee.
A key detail from the exit polls. According to CNN, 40% of the Virginia primary electorate was made up of self-identified evangelicals. And they're breaking 3 to 1 for Huckabee.
--Josh Marshall
Feelin' The Huckmentum
The exit polls look a little ambiguous. One set of exit poll numbers I've seen has it by Huckabee by two points. One the other hand, the demographics released by CNN look a little better for McCain. One way or another, a very, very close race between Huckabee and McCain in Virginia.
--Josh Marshall
Surveillance Bill Passes Senate
The Democratic-controlled Senate just passed the surveillance bill, 68-29.
As we have mentioned through the day and covered extensively at TPMmuckraker, most of the civil-liberties-friendly amendments to the bill failed. Retroactive immunity for telecoms survived.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), among others, is not a happy camper.
--David Kurtz
GOP Nominee
McCain: "Anyone who worries about how long we're in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war."
Thanks to ThinkProgress for the catch.
--Josh Marshall
Hearing that we might be up late getting a winner in the Virginia race on the GOP side.
--Josh Marshall
Froomkin: Put Up or Shut Up
So has a ticking time bomb ever been defused as a result of Bush Administration torture policies?
Writing today on the "Return of the 9/11 President," Dan Froomkin notes that the President is still making the argument that torture has saved lives:
Then, however, Bush made an unsupported claim, and issued a challenge that the media and his critics should pick up with vigor: "The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack. And for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them, which attack would they rather have not permitted -- stopped? Which attack on America did they -- would they have said, well, you know, maybe it wasn't all that important that we stop those attacks."But if the American people have "got to know" that torture gained information that prevented an attack, Bush needs to start making a better case. As I've written repeatedly, he has yet to offer any evidence that intelligence produced by torture thwarted a single plot or saved a single life.
The media should demand that he back it up or take it back.
Whatever you might think of the ticking time bomb rationale (the combination of its dubious moral and legal justifications combined with its real-world rarity lends it little weight for me personally), but you'd think that at some point its adherents would have to put up or shut up.
--David Kurtz
The Ticking Time Bomb
Apropos of Antonin Scalia's simplistic analysis below, it can't be said often enough that the torture techniques authorized by the President have not been used only in ticking time bomb scenarios (and it's not clear they were ever used in that situation).
Here for example is how they were used on one of the six detainees charged yesterday in the 9/11 attacks:
Qahtani's case drew condemnation in June 2005 when Time magazine published leaked portions of his interrogation log showing that U.S. forces had him bark like a dog and left him to urinate on himself in isolation.In the log, U.S. interrogators describe how they ratcheted up techniques on Qahtani during 50 days starting in November 2002 to extract a confession -- by using sleep deprivation, leaving him strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks and having him strip naked.
Monday, he was one of six men named by the Pentagon to face a complex six-defendant war crimes trial for the suicide attacks that slammed aircraft into the Pentagon, World Trade Center and a Pennsylvania field -- killing 2,973 people.
The six men could be executed if they are convicted, and if a Bush administration official approves their trial as a death-penalty case.
The Pentagon has since said that Qahtani's interrogation tactics were personally approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Qahtani's civilian attorney said the captive has since recanted any confessions he made during those interrogations.
Extracting a confession is a whole different ballgame, as Justice Scalia might say. And note the date the torture started, November 2002, more than a year after 9/11. So even granting some legal or moral authority to the ticking time bomb argument, it doesn't appear to apply here.
--David Kurtz
Scalia Tips His Hand on Torture
In an extraordinary interview with the BBC, Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed what he called the smugness and self-satisfaction of torture opponents:
In the interview with the Law in Action programme on BBC Radio 4, he said it was "extraordinary" to assume that the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" - the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment - also applied to "so-called" torture."To begin with the constitution... is referring to punishment for crime. And, for example, incarcerating someone indefinitely would certainly be cruel and unusual punishment for a crime."
Justice Scalia argued that courts could take stronger measures when a witness refused to answer questions.
"I suppose it's the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution?" he asked.
"It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game.
"How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"
We are indeed into a different game.
--David Kurtz
Firewall?
There've been a lot of assumptions about the Ohio primary next month. But now we've got what I believe is our first poll. SurveyUSA: Clinton 56%, Obama 39%.
Interestingly, they've also got the GOP side: McCain 50%, Huckabee 36%.
Late Update: Seems there was an earlier poll. February 3rd in the Columbus Dispatch: Clinton 42%, Obama 19%.
--Josh Marshall
It's Up to the House
Saying that the Senate had "just sanctioned" the "single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country," Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has promised to filibuster any bill that emerges from conference committee containing telecom immunity.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Potomac Primary Preview
The Potomac Primary (Maryland, DC and Virginia) is today. And we'll start reporting live results here at 7 PM Eastern. If you want to know what to expect and what the surprises might be, we've got it all in today's Potomac Primary Preview episode of TPMtv ...
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Josh Marshall
Quid Pro Quo?
This just out from the AP:
Iran is gaming its future in Iraq on three fronts, the most public of which has been face-to-face meetings between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi. Another session could be held in March.While Crocker has insisted the talks have not veered from topics surrounding Iraqi security, the Iraqi officials, some of whom sat in on the meetings, say their scope has expanded.
The result, the officials said, was Iran's pledge to stop backing the Mahdi Army in return for the Bush administration lowering its rhetoric about Iran's nuclear program. The Iraqis who spoke about the talks said they believed the release of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in December was a quid pro quo to Tehran for it having turned its back on the Mahdi Army.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The NIE, in an about-face, said Iran had halted its secret attempts to build nuclear weapons in 2003, contrary to White House claims that Iran was using a civilian nuclear energy program as cover to build nuclear weapons.
Since then, Washington's pronouncements have softened significantly.
--David Kurtz
Richard Parker in the Book Club: The political power of Christian Conservatism isn't on the wane, it never actually existed!
--David Kurtz
If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em
TPM Reader RL throws in the towel:
I actually like the idea of a unitary executive, because it implies that there could be a unitary citizen. I have begun to consider myself a unitary citizen. I am allowed (by virtue of the definition of a unitary executive) to pick and choose the laws I would like to follow, kind of Thoreau like.I also like the idea of retroactive immunity paired with the unitary citizen. I could decide not to follow a stupid law and then forgive myself afterwards.
But it begins to sound like (horrors) anarchy. Maybe that's what we now have as a form of government: unitary anarchy. I like it. It works for me!
--David Kurtz
Super Dels: Not All Created Equal?
It's looking more and more clear that we're heading into a heated debate over the role of Super Delegates at the Democratic Convention since it there's at least a very real possibility they could decide the nominee against the majority of the pledged delegates.
But I think it's worth drawing at least a mild distinction amongst the almost 800 Supers who are going to show up in Denver. We looked into this last week. And it turns out that the Supers are divided roughly evenly between elected officials and members of the Democratic National Committee.
To give a little more detail, all Democratic members of Congress are Supers; all Democratic governors are supers; former Democratic presidents, vice presidents, Speakers and Majority Leaders and a few others are all supers. The rest are party functionaries from across the country, most of whom are roped in as members of the Democratic National Committee, the governing body of the national Democratic party.
To me it seems like there's at least much more of a rationale for the officeholders to be super delegates, though the rationale might not be sufficient in any case. Basically, if you're a national Democratic officeholder, you've been elected by (mostly) Democrats at a very high level, often many times. The number who voted for you are probably substantially more than vote in most primaries. And you also have the real world experience to know what it takes to run and win as a Democrat in your state.
Again, I think it would be very questionable if the Supers as a whole decided the nomination against a clear (and 'clear' is important here) majority of the pledged delegates. But I can see the rationale for having officeholders like these in the mix as a leavening.
On the other hand, you've got a bunch of people from party offices who've in most cases never been elected to any actual public office and who aren't clearly accountable in any way. For instance, if my senator votes in a way that I don't like or I think is illegitimate, he or she is up for reelection again in two years. But the assistant Deputy Treasurer or whatever of the Democratic party in my state? I really doubt people are going to mobilize to get involved in internal party politics to signal their disagreement with that person's decision.
The rules we're playing under now are the rules. So I'm not sure this has any particular relevance to what's coming down the pike over the next couple months. But I think it's a distinction worth keeping in mind if you're giving this issue some thought.
And one other point: this debate is going forward with what appears to be the strong implicit assumption on both sides that the Supers will break strongly for Hillary. But I'm not sure there's really an basis for that assumption.
--Josh Marshall
Rendell
Gov. Rendell (D-PA): Some whites "not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."
--Josh Marshall
Nitty Gritty 2.0
TPM Reader MK checks in from Tacoma ...
I can vouch somewhat for your reader's experience in Minnesota, and I have three related questions I hope you or your readers can answer. In Washington, where I caucused, the pattern was similar. Obama cleaned house, but many of his voters left before the delegates were chosen. Probably 90% of the people there were caucusing for the first time. Even many of the people in charge seemed like newcomers, and often the rules were not spelled out clearly. The old hands, by in large, were Hillary supporters. My precinct went 11-6 in delegates for Obama (100+ votes over all). After the vote and as people gathered to decide on delegates, I looked over at the Hillary side and realized they had more people than we did, even though we'd outvoted them. Most of the Obama voters simply got up and left after they knew it was in the bag. Without intending to, I ended up as a alternate, simply because the Obama group didn't have enough bodies left for any of us not to get involved.My questions, which weren't answered fully at the caucus:
1. As we move on in Washington to the Legislative District Caucuses (April 5), the County Conventions (April 19), the Congressional District Caucuses (May 17), and then the State Convention (June 14), can Hillary supporters try to twist a few arms and swing one delegate here, two delegates there, etc. to Hillary?
2. In the case of your reader's example from Minnesota, if a Hillary backer was given the responsibility to represent Obama voters at the next level, can he/she simply switch sides without anyone noticing?3. Generally speaking, is a delegate duty-bound to vote the way he/she pledged at the caucus, or can he/she change his mind later? Are there any ramifications if someone changes their vote?
Such scenarios, intriguing as they are underhanded, make me hope this election is over before the next stage of caucusing...
I'm not in a position to vouch for what MK is saying. But we've gotten similar emails from a number of readers in different states with similar stories. If you can add anything to the mix -- your experience or why MK's missing something -- let us know.
Late Update: CR from Minnesota says that RM and MK have it wrong. And it's worth noting that he says that he's been caucusing for many years and RM and MK are first timers ...
I've already e-mailed twice to correct the take on the Minnesota caucus from reader RM. I don't know what more I can do.Reader RM's concern is unfounded.
I've been through the Minnesota convention process many times. I have been a state delegate, as has my wife on a different occasion. I know how this works.
It does not matter how many Clinton and Obama supporters make it to the congressional district and state conventions. The number of Obama and Clinton national delegates has already been determined by the precinct caucus vote. If Obama got two-thirds of the vote in a six-delegate congressional district, he gets four of the six delegates, period.
At both the congressional district and state convention, a subcaucus of just the Clinton supporters will choose the Clinton delegates, and a subcaucus of just the Obama supporters will choose the Obama delegates. If there are a hundred Clinton supporters and twenty Obama supporters, that doesn't affect the number of delegates. It just means there will be a meeting of a hundered Clinton supporters to choose their designated number of national delgates, and another meeting of twenty Obama supporters to choose their (larger) designated number of national delegates.
I have no doubt that other states with a ballot process at the precinct level -- that is to say, other states where a vote-and-leave process is possible -- have a similar rule.
There's really nothing here. Obama isn't going to lose any delegates from the caucus process.
--Josh Marshall
Senate Gives Telecoms Immunity
The Senate vote on the Dodd-Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity from the new FISA bill wasn't even close: 31-67.
Late Update: We've got the complete list of Democratic crossovers up at TPMmuckraker.
Later Update: Also going down in flames was Arlen Specter's amendment that would have required the federal government to indemnify the telecoms, essentially stepping into the shoes of the telecoms to defend any suits and pay any judgments.
--David Kurtz
Retroactive Immunity Vote Today
Today is FISA day in the Senate.
We'll be keeping track of the series of votes on various amendments through the day at TPMmuckraker.
The biggie, of course, is the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip retroactive telecom immunity from the bill.
Stay tuned.
Late Update: So far, the Democratic amendments that would rein in the bill and put additional legal limits on surveillance are going down. It's not boding well for the effort to strip out telecom immunity.
--David Kurtz
McCain Train Trying to Leave Station
From the WaPo:
At a private meeting of conservatives in the House of Representatives last month, Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.) ridiculed Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), asking why his fellow right-wing activists "shouldn't be physically ill at the prospects of a President McCain."On Monday, McHenry -- apparently feeling fine -- joined the chorus of voices calling for conservatives to unify around McCain as the likely Republican nominee, and he accused former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee of waging a pointless nomination battle because he is "in there for himself."
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
Oops. Looks like four Washington State counties reported incorrect results Saturday night in the GOP caucus.
But rest assured. With the corrected tallies in, the outcome remains the same. McCain wins!
Although what he won exactly remains hard to figure.
--David Kurtz
To Fire or Not to Fire (Hint: Option #1)
In his interview with Hillary Clinton, The Politico's John Harris asked whether she really wanted MSNBC's David Shuster fired. Here's what she said.
Late Update: We've now seen the video of the Harris interview. And having seen it, I think the Politico's transcription is at least somewhat misleading about what Clinton meant. You can click the link above to see the transcription. Meanwhile, here's the video. The relevant passage comes in the last 30 seconds of the clip.
Thanks to TPM Reader DT for the catch.
--Josh Marshall
Even His Endorsement Is A Snoozer
Did you hear? Fred Thompson endorsed John McCain.
Don't worry. No one else heard either.
--David Kurtz
Cruisin' for a Bruisin'?
If you look at the topline poll numbers on the Republican side, it looks like John McCain is headed to a much more commanding showing in tonight's Potomac Primary than he did over the weekend. But there's at least a chance that Mike Huckabee could knock McCain for a loop in Virginia.
Remember that the last poll of Washington state had McCain almost 30 points over Huckabee. And McCain only managed to 'win' by less than 2 points with the help of Boss Esser's creative vote counting.
Now let's look at some polling from Virginia. SurveyUSA has polled the state three times in the last week.
Feb. 7th: McCain 45%, Romney 22%, Huckabee 20%
Feb. 8th: McCain 57%, Huckabee 27%
Feb. 11th: McCain 48%, Huckabee 37%
As you can see, over the weekend, McCain dropped a net -9 and Huckabee went up a net +10. Not bad for a couple days.
It's still a comfortable margin for McCain. But you also have to think about the comparative motivation of potential McCain and Huckabee voters. My hunch is that McCain is more accepted than embraced by most Republican voters, certainly primary voters. And at this point, to them, the race is over. McCain's got it. So how many of them are going to come out and vote for a foregone conclusion? On the other hand, if you're a Huckabee supporter at this point it must mean you're really not crazy about John McCain. Why else would you be holding out for a guy who seems almost certain not to be the nominee in the face of the guy who almost certainly will be.
There's obviously a lot of speculation and inference here. But I think it's reasonable to think that the Huckabee voters have a lot more motivation to show up and make their point at the polls on Tuesday than the McCain voters do. After all, for the McCain voters, what is it? Gotta turn out tomorrow to prevent McCain from being humiliated by Huck!!!
A bit too much of a bank shot to get a mass of voters too jazzed up. So with that and a quickly tightening race, there's at least enough of a chance of an upset to make the Republican side of the race interesting.
(ed.note: Two other polls of this race have been released over the last week. One by the chronically inaccurate ARG has it McCain 54%, Huckabee 32% and the respected Mason-Dixon has it McCain 55%, Huckabee 27%)
--Josh Marshall
Nitty Gritty
TPM Reader RM checks in from Minnesota ...
I took part in a discussion about the Minnesota DFL caucus system last night with a three people who had attended their respective precinct caucuses and been elected delegates. In all three cases the overwhelming ballot count went for Obama, but my friends are Clinton supporters. Obama's supporters tended to cast their ballots and go, and thus Clinton people, often longtime local party activists, were given the nod for just being willing to take on the responsibility, i.e., without even being asked their preferred candidate.The other thing to know is that these are not Presidential convention delegates. There are four levels, from precinct to state level, state senate and congressional district in-between I believe. As one goes up the ladder party functionaries play an increasingly prominent role. This is where Hillary probably has an
advantage, at least if she can hang on that long. I imagine the process and dynamic is similar in many other caucus states.
--Josh Marshall
Get What You Overpay For
Tomorrow there are big primaries in Virginia, Washington DC and Maryland. The so-called Potomac Primary. But tonight if you were in New York you could have seen Clinton's message-spin-poll guru Mark Penn giving a reading from his book Microtrends at The Strand.
Good to see Penn's got his eye on the ball, right?
--Josh Marshall
Boss Esser's Boss
Boss Esser's political benefactor, according to one Washington State political blog, is none other than state Attorney General Rob McKenna, who just happens to be John McCain's state campaign chairman:
As anyone who has followed his storybook career knows, Esser has benefited from a long and cozy relationship with WA State Attorney General Rob McKenna, the two having worked closely together to climb the political ladder. Esser joined then King County Councilmember McKenna’s staff in 1996, and stayed on as a top aide even after Esser was elected first to the state house and then the state senate. Esser was paid for his help on McKenna’s successful 2004 campaign for Attorney General, and was rewarded with a plum assignment as “Outreach Director”, the perfect position in the AG’s office for a lawyer with very little legal experience. Then, after Esser lost his senate reelection bid in 2006, McKenna used his pull as the highest elected Republican in the state to help oust then WSRP Chair Diane Tebelius and replace her with his pal Esser, who proceeded to do political work on the public’s dime, while initially drawing pay checks from both the AGO and the state party. On resigning from the AG’s office under public pressure, Esser took pains to detail his close affection and ties to McKenna, writing in his resignation letter: “… Rest assured that I will always be available if I can ever be helpful to you.”
--David Kurtz
What Happened in Hazzard Snohomish County?
Looks like Boss Esser is going to have some serious 'splainin' to do.
TPMmuckraker's Paul Kiel spent the day trying to figure out what was going on in Washington State. It wasn't easy. Just understanding the caucus process itself has been a challenge.
Paul finally got in touch with a spokesman for the state GOP, who gave us the official GOP line, which goes something like this:
(1) When Washington Republicans showed up at their precinct caucuses on Saturday, they indicated their presidential preference on a sign-in sheet at the door.
(2) Each precinct caucus elected delegates from among those in attendance.
(3) Then each precinct identified the presidential preferences of its elected delegates based on what they indicated on their sign-in sheets.
(4) At that point, the precinct reported its delegate preferences to the county GOP which in turn reported them to the state GOP.
So that's the official line from the Washington Republican Party as to how things were supposed to work. But Seattle's KING5-TV is reporting tonight that things didn't work that way, or just plain didn't work at all, in at least in one county:
KING 5 News has uncovered inconsistencies in how the votes from Saturday's Republican Caucus are being reported, raising questions about the accuracy of the statewide count. …When voters participating in the caucuses walked through the door, they signed in. In Snohomish County, that sign-in sheet is what Republicans used to report results.
"And then the very last column asked them for their preference if they were to vote today, and those were the numbers we counted," said Geri Modrell, Snohomish County Republican chair.
In reality, Republicans acknowledge the sign-in sheet is not an accurate way to figure out who won. After signing in, caucus-goers had plenty of time to debate and change their minds. What really matters is what delegates they picked in the end to go to the county convention.
For example, the winner on the sign-in sheets in Pierce County was Huckabee, with 609 supporters showing up. But, by the time Pierce County elected delegates, it flipped, and John McCain walked away with 192 delegates, beating Huckabee.
In Snohomish County, caucus leaders say they also noticed the sign-up sheets did not match the final delegates at all.
Saturday night, Washington state Republican Party chair Luke Esser declared McCain the winner. But KING 5 has learned that there's no way the party could have known the delegate preferences from Snohomish County, because that county never reported delegate results, instead relying solely on those sign-up sheets.
"And we had already explained to them that we would not have that information for a couple of days," said Modrell. "I haven't talked to them. I have no idea what they did with our numbers. They obviously would not be able to use those numbers as a comparison with the rest of the counties."
If you're confused, so am I. At a minimum, there seems to be serious questions about what exactly was being tallied Saturday night. Was it the presidential preferences of individual caucusgoers, which Snohomish County apparently counted? Or was it the presidential preferences of the delegates elected by caucus-goers, which the party says should have been counted?
Setting aside the issue of why Esser, the state GOP chair, called the contest for John McCain even before all the caucuses had reported, there seems to be an issue of whether everyone was even counting the same thing.
Can we agree that any election is bound to have some problems if the people running the election haven't agreed on what is being counted?
--David Kurtz
The Right Stuff
Sources tell TPM Election Central that Hillary is picking up a big Ohio endorsement: former U.S. Sen. John Glenn.
--David Kurtz
Rudy Redux?
A number of readers have brought up the fact that Hillary Clinton's strategy is starting to look a bit like Rudy Giuliani's.
I tend to agree with the Hillary camp that party caucuses are kind of bogus. They tend to cut out folks without a lot of time and/or enthusiasm. What you get is a more politically engaged, wealthier, more time-on-their-hands type of crowd. But whatever you think about caucuses in the abstract, the real issue to me is that they're not how we run actual elections in this country -- which is to say, actual elections, where people go to a polling station and cast a vote rather than chilling with a bunch of people in a room in civic-ing it up. So winning caucuses doesn't give me a huge amount of confidence in the ability to win elections.
The counter to this argument is that a lot of these caucuses have had historically high turnouts, even unprecedented ones. And that suggests that many more people are showing up than the normal mix of committed activists and party regulars.
But in terms of this nomination contest I think the relevant point is, who cares?
Those are the rules. It doesn't really matter what you think of caucuses in the abstract; they choose delegates.
My understanding of the Clinton strategy at this point is that they're conceding that most or all of the contests this month aren't favorable for them. As we go forward they're writing them off as not surprising since she wasn't favored to start with. And she's planning to camp out in Texas and Ohio, which hold their contests on March 4th, to try come back in a big way in those contests. (Of course, a failure by Obama to do well in tomorrow's Potomac primary could seriously upset the applecart again.)
The problem is that it's not clear to me that wins in those two states are going to be enough even in terms of delegates if Obama really keeps doing well in the contests this month. But more to the point, this strategy seems to seriously understate the dynamic toll of a month of losses on Hillary's candidacy.
Of course, some strategies are born of necessity.
--Josh Marshall
John?
As far as we can tell, John McCain hasn't been asked and has made no comment about the Boss Esser situation in Washington state. If you hear any comment from him or see him get asked, definitely drop us a line.
Late Update: Okay, we've got a response from McCain. He says basically that Huckabee should shut up and stop complaining. From MSNBC's First Read ...
It's pretty clear that we won [in Washington]. [Huckabee] certainly has the right to challenge if he chooses to. But I honestly don't know enough about the details except that I know that state parties declare elections when they have sufficient evidence as to who's won and who's lost. That's not unusual in any way.
--Josh Marshall
Dana Perino comments on the charges against the six Gitmo detainees and the presumptive GOP presidential nominee (that would be John McCain, notwithstanding this weekend's results), in today's White House briefing:
--David Kurtz
Still More Suspicious
Maybe calling an election off with only 87% isn't enough to make you think there's something fishy in these degraded times of ours. Maybe this will.
This was based on my recollection. But this afternoon we went back and checked our election night notes (remember we report results in real time). And here's the progression of events.
According to our records (and I would strongly suggest other people with information check this against their data), the first report came in at roughly 9:30 PM eastern. With 16% of the vote, McCain ahead 27% to 26%.
Then at 10:15 PM, with 37% of the vote in, Huckabee moves ahead 26% to 23%.
Then there was an hour delay until the next update. That comes shortly after 11:15 PM, with 78% counted, McCain has moved ahead -- 25.4% to 23.8%.
Then there's another delay of an hour and twenty minutes. Shortly after 12:35, they get to 83% of the vote and now it's McCain 25.6% and Huckabee 23.8%.
The next update comes at 1:30 AM eastern. By this time they've counted a whopping 4% more of the vote. And with 87% reporting, it's McCain 25.5% to 23.7%.
So just to summarize here's basically how this works. We start out with McCain ahead. Huckabee jumps ahead with a 3% margin with almost 40% of the vote counted. Then everything slows waaaaay down. And we don't see anything else until about 40% more of the votes been counted and McCain is back in the lead. Things then proceed a glacial pace with Huckabee a little less than 2 percentage points back until 9% more of the vote is counted. And then they decide to declare McCain the winner. Not quite as cut and dry as the conclusion of a Scooby-Doo episode. But pretty close.
Sound fishy to you?
--Josh Marshall
Takin' a Looooong Time
(Ed.Note: We are now uncertain whether the number of votes referred to in this post is correct. We are leaving the post up to preserve the record. But for the time being, we are uncertain whether the data in this post is correct. So it should be disregarded. We will update as we find out more.)
As you know Boss Esser up there in Washington state is supposedly 'counting' those remaining caucus votes from the caucus on Saturday and trying, as he puts it, to get "as close as we can to 100 percent" of the votes counted.
But here's one point you may not realize about what's going on here. Very few people participated in that caucus. Not many more than 10,000 people. When they stopped at 87% of the votes there were, what, maybe 1500 votes still to count. They counted a few more on Sunday and got all the way to 93.3% (Huckabee made a bit of progress catching up, but not a huge amount: from 1.8% to 1.6% behind). According to the party page, those results were posted at 5:45 Pacific time last night.
So what are we down to now 900 votes? I would think any counting process that was on the up-and-up wouldn't take nearly so long. So what's going on?
(Ed.Note: If you look at the CNN results page, it refers not to voters but to delegates. So at first I assumed we were talking about a much, much larger number of participants. Remember, the Dems had something like 200,000 people caucus in Washington. But a source told me that these numbers referred to actual voters. It seems very hard to believe that the Dems out-showed up the Republicans by 20-1. But that's what I'm told. If I hear otherwise, we'll let you know.)
--Josh Marshall
Esser on Voter Suppression
It seems like Washington state GOP chair Luke Esser and his friends are still plugging away trying to get "as close as we can to 100 percent" of the votes counted in Saturday's caucus. But it seems like Esser isn't much of a voting rights man. The folks at the Horsesass Blog dug up some of Esser's columns from his college newspaper. Here's one choice passage on the topic of people's right to vote ...
Like any sport worth its salt, in politics you have adversaries, opponents, enemies. Our enemies are loudmouth leftists and shiftless deadbeats. To win the election, we have to keep as many of these people away from the polls as possible.Now your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights. The deadbeats, however, are a different matter entirely. Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy. They will vote on election day, if it isn’t much of a bother. But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.
Many of the most successful anti-deadbeat voter techniques (poll taxes, sound beatings, etc.) that conservatives have used in the past have been outlawed by busybody judges.
The only means of persuasion left available to us are Acts of God, who we know is exclusively on our side. I’m talking about seriously inclement weather. I want Biblical floods and pestilence. I will settle for rain, sweet rain. The deadbeats won’t even go out in the rain for their welfare checks (they send one of their social workers to pick it up). There’s no way they’ll vote if it’s raining.
Sort of puts the Washington state GOP's obsession with 'vote fraud' in a helpful new light.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Tom Lantos, 1928-2008
Steve Clemons remembers Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), who died today at age 80.
--David Kurtz
TPMCafe Book Club: E.J. Dionne
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne will be at the TPMCafe Book Club this week discussing his new book, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.
Dionne lays out his premise in his first Cafe post:
Souled Out insists that religious faith does not lead ineluctably to conservative political convictions. It argues that the era of the religious Right is over. Its collapse is part of a larger decline of a certain style of ideological conservatism that reached high points in 1980 and 1994 but suffered a series of decisive and I believe fatal setbacks during George W. Bush’s second term. The end of the religious Right does not signal a decline in evangelical Christianity. On the contrary, it is a sign of a new reformation among Christians who are disentangling their great movement from a political machine. This historic change will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who religious Americans are and what they believe.
We've got a great line-up for this week's discussion, including Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, Alexia Kelley of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, J. Peter Scoblic of The New Republic and the Carnegie Endowment, Richard Parker of Harvard University, Brian McClaren of Emergent Village and Sojourners, and Garance Franke-Ruta, lately of washingtonpost.com. Please join in.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: State of the Race
Democratic super-delegates, McCain's conservative cred, and a Bush-Rove tag team job on Obama. All that and more in today's Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv ...
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Ben Craw
Today's Must Read
The NYT reports that the Pentagon has buried a 2005 RAND report that skewered Administration preparation (or, rather, lack thereof) for the post-war aftermath in Iraq.
--David Kurtz
Doin' The Best We Can!
I already noted in the post below the comically unfolding story of Washington state GOP chair Luke Esser, who decided to stop counting the votes in the state GOP caucus with 13% of the votes still uncounted and has spent the last 24 hours coming up with increasingly ridiculous explanations of his actions.
TPM Reader NM just flagged this article in the Seattle Times which quotes Esser now saying that the state GOP is going to try to get as "close as we can to 100 percent" of the vote counted.
I mean, don't knock yourself out, right?
I guess I'm not surprised that the GOP bigwigs are yawning over this. Huckabee's just a speed bump they want to roll over and be done with. But I'm more than a little curious why the national political press hasn't tuned in to this yet. This Esser fellow makes Boss Hogg look like a good government man.
--Josh Marshall
WTF?
As you know, here at TPM we've been really curious what happened in the Republican caucus in Washington state. For probably the first time in all the primaries and elections I've ever watched, the folks running the election decided to stop counting the votes with 13% of the votes uncounted. And this wasn't a 70-30 blow out, but a tight race where the two top vote getters were separated by less than 2% of the vote. Then this morning, state party chair Luke Esser decided to declare McCain the winner.
Now, when we were watching this last night and I was trying to examine the tea leaves this morning, I was assuming they'd come forward with some story that there was some hang up with the votes or some mechanical issue. Whether it would be true is another matter. But you'd think they'd at least come up with a good story.
But state party chair Luke Esser said that he just thought it was the right thing to do. According to Esser, sometime overnight Esser did some sort of back of the envelope statistical analysis of the the margin of McCain's lead (1.8%) and the number votes left uncounted (13%) and decided that Huckabee didn't have a chance and he'd shut the thing down and declare McCain the winner.
So was that a good idea? Here's Esser's rationale ...
“Maybe it would have been safer if I hadn't said anything. But it was an exciting and historic day for the state and I thought if I was confident about what the outcome would be I should share that with the people who had gone out to their caucuses.”
So it was just such a rollicking good time Esser figured he owed the participants a decision as long as he was confident what the outcome would be.
I'm really not sure I've ever heard anything that ridiculous.
In terms of consequence, Bush v. Gore it ain't. This is a relatively small contest in a nomination campaign that appears to be over. But this is something you'd expect either from Soviet history or a farcical passage in a Faulkner novel. And let's not forget the context. Huckabee starts the day with a blowout win in Kansas. That evening he gets the largest number of votes in Louisiana. Then in the third contest he's neck and neck with John McCain and looks like he may win all three contests of the day -- a shut-out for the all-but-declared nominee. Then as it's going down to the wire, the head of the state party decides he's seen enough and calls it for McCain.
Here at TPM, as we watched the rate of the reporting slow to halt on Saturday evening, we joked amongst ourselves that with McCain already getting beaten by Huckabee twice that day maybe the organizers of the election figured that if they just held out long enough people would just forget they'd held a caucus. But as it got later and later we started to wonder if it wasn't a joke.
I still find it pretty hard to imagine these bozos would try something quite this brazen. And it may well be an electoral tempest in a teapot. But this one looks and quacks like a duck. So someone should give it a much closer look.
Late Update: It seems that Washington State GOP chair Luke Esser spent most of the day avoiding calls from the Huckabee campaign. And when he finally got back to them he told a lawyer for Huckabee's campaign that they'd probably count the rest of the votes some time next week. When the lawyer, Lauren Huckabee, the candidate's daughter-in-law, requested that a Huckabee lawyer be present when the remaining votes were counted, Esser hung up on her. Before the hang up, Huckabee also asked Esser about the DIY statistical analysis he did to conclude that he should call the race (Esser's expertise in statistics apparently stems from previous work as a state prosecutor and a sports writer). Was there an analysis of what precincts the remaining votes came from? According to Huck campaign manager Ed Rollins, Esser admitted that he didn't know which precincts the remaining votes came from.
--Josh Marshall
We Been Robbed
Here's a press release just put out by the Huckabee campaign ...
The Huckabee Presidential Campaign will be exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses, it was announced today. Campaign Chairman Ed Rollins issued the following statement:"The Huckabee campaign is deeply disturbed by the obvious irregularities in the Washington State Republican precinct caucuses. It is very unfortunate that the Washington State Party Chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87 percent of the vote was counted. According to CNN, the difference between Senator McCain and Governor Huckabee is a mere 242 votes, out of more than 12,000 votes counted-with another 1500 or so votes, apparently, not counted. That is an outrage.
"In other words, more than one in eight Evergreen State Republicans have been disenfranchised by the actions of their own party. This was an error in judgment by Mr. Esser. It was Mr. Esser's duty to oversee a fair vote-count process. Washington Republicans know, from bitter experience in the 2004 gubernatorial election, the terrible results that can come from bad ballot-counting.
"Frankly, I am disappointed in the way that Mr. Esser has handled this urgent matter. So I call upon Mr. Esser and his colleagues to cooperate fully with the Huckabee campaign-and all Republicans, everywhere, who care about honest and transparent vote-counting-to make sure that every vote is counted and that all Republicans in Washington have the chance to make their votes count. Attempts by our campaign to contact Mr. Esser have been unsuccessful. Our lawyers will be on the ground in Washington State soon, and we look forward to sitting down with Mr. Esser to evaluate this process, to see why the count took so long, and why the vote-counting was stopped prematurely.
"It would be a disservice to every voter in Washington State to not pursue a full accounting of all votes cast.
"This is not about Mike Huckabee. This is not about Senator John McCain. This is about the failings of the Washington State Republican Party. All Republicans should unite to demand an honest accounting of the votes, so that Republicans can have full confidence in the results, and full confidence in the eventual Republican nominee. As I said, we are prepared to go to court, and we are also prepared to take our case all the way to the Republican National Convention in September.
"Our cause is just. We must reemphasize the sacred American principle that all ballots be counted in a free, fair, and transparent manner."
--Josh Marshall
Big Win for Obama
With 44% reporting in Maine, Obama is up 57-42.
Late Update: We're now up to 59% reporting, with the same 57-42 split.
Final Update: That's it. A huge victory for Obama in Maine. Final results still to come, but it's a landslide -- or as a legendary Louisiana sheriff known for his malapropisms once proclaimed, "We won in a landscape."
--David Kurtz
Huck Lawyers Up
Huckabee camp sends lawyers to Washington state to look into the "dubious" 87% of the vote will do just fine caucus vote.
--Josh Marshall
Peace Offering?
This has been flagged briefly on a few blogs. But we heard about it first from a slew of readers after 7 PM yesterday evening. In short, MSNBC preempted something called "Deadly Encounter" to run a "Headliners and Legends" mini-doc on Hillary Clinton hosted by Matt Lauer, scheduled to run just before their coverage of Saturday evening's election results.
As far as we know there was no companion Obama doc running with the Hillary one. And given how fluffy these "Headliners and Legends" episodes are, it's hard not to think that this wasn't some effort on the NBC execs part to curry favor with the campaign. So we asked an NBC spokesperson how it was a Hillary documentary came to preempt a regularly scheduled program and run just before the evening's election coverage, and we got back this reply ...
Yes that program aired. We changed our program schedule earlier in the week when we decided to have 3 hours of election coverage on Saturday night.
This could bear some more digging.
--Josh Marshall
Shake Up
Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle out, to be replaced by Maggie Williams.
--Josh Marshall
Edwards Doing Endorsement Dance
TPM Election Central confirms that John Edwards is in the midst of private endorsement discussions with Hillary and Obama, with an Edwards aide saying there's a greater than 50% chance Edwards will make an endorsement.
--David Kurtz
Mainers Caucus in Droves
An early report from the field:
Democrats and independents have arrived in droves to caucus at Cape Elizabeth High School this afternoon, delaying the start of the proceedings by more than an hour.The event is one of hundreds of its type today, as Democrats in Maine head to local caucuses a day after Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. swept contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington – closing in on front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. in the battle for the Democratic presidential nod.
Hundreds of people waited in the school’s cafeteria for the proceedings to begin. Some were forced to wait at least an hour to get into the building. The caucus had been scheduled to begin at 12:30, but proceedings were getting under way at 1:40 p.m.
TPM Reader CM checks in via iPhone:
I am at the Portland caucus now and things here are very chaotic. The line stretched around the block 30 minutes before the doors opened and now encircles the entire block. There are far more people trying to get in than the high school can hold. It will be interesting to see how they sort this out.
We're still awaiting the first results. Sounds like the heavy turnout may delay them.
--David Kurtz
Huckabee: "Weird Things" Going On
As we have mentioned, the Washington State GOP stopped counting caucus returns last night after only 87% of the caucuses were counted and declared John McCain the winner, even though his lead over Mike Huckabee was a mere 1.8%.
Huckabee is not conceding the state yet because, as he put it on Meet the Press this morning, there are some "weird things" going on:
Late Update: One TPM reader finds no end of irony here:
Nice to know the Repubs have progressed from 2000 where they refused to count Democratic votes, to 2008 where they are now refusing to count their own votes.
Ba-da-bum.
--David Kurtz
TPMCafe Weighs in on Shuster
Todd Gitlin: Don't you think that women wig these guys out in some weird sort of way?
Ruth Rosen: Is Misogyny the Last Taboo?
Andrew Golis: David Shuster is the least of MSNBC's problems.
--David Kurtz
The Maine Event
The Democratic caucuses in Maine opened about an hour ago.
We're awaiting results to start trickling in and will be posting those in the board over on the right, as well as following developments here through the afternoon--albeit somewhat bleary-eyed after last night's Washington GOP debacle.
--David Kurtz
A Little Weird
As you know, John McCain lost two of the three contests yesterday. He was losing narrowly in Washington state and then pulled ahead by a narrow margin (less than two points) toward the end. But then with 87% of the returns counted, the Washington state GOP, which runs the caucuses stopped releasing results. That left us and a lot of other news organizations in a bit of a quandary last night since it looked like McCain was going to pull it off. But as late as 1:30 AM on the east coast promised new results kept failing to materialize.
Then over night the Washington state GOP put out a press release announcing McCain the winner based on the 87% returns. Now, I think it would be borderline for a media organization to declare one candidate a winner when the margin separating first and second was 1.8% with 13% of the results still uncounted. But for the officials holding the election to declare the result on that basis is simply bizarre. But that's what they did.
The release says final results are not expected to be available until Monday.
--Josh Marshall
Caucus, What Caucus?
We're starting to lose confidence that the Washington state GOP is ever going to report the last 17% of the results of today's caucus. Perhaps they think if they wait long enough people will just forget they held one and they'll just pretend it didn't happen. That said, let's look at the results with 83% reporting ...
Huckabee 24%
McCain 26%
Paul 21%
Romney 16%
Uncommitted 12%
First thing you have to note is that 74% of caucuses showed up to vote against their all-but-certain nominee. Romney's showing a couple days after dropping out of the race is pretty impressive. And uncommitted even put in a respectable number. The truth is that beside Huckabee's feeble candidate, of the remaining three, one has officially dropped out, another has said he's shifting his focus to his congressional campaign and the third isn't even a person.
Almost anyone they put up can tally real numbers against McCain. We'll know how serious this is on Tuesday.
--Josh Marshall
Turning Back Huckabee Blowout
Starting to look like McCain will pull it out in Washington state, with a whopping 26% of the vote. It's not much. But if McCain's margin holds up it will be enough for him to avert a complete shut out at the hands of Huckabee.
--Josh Marshall
