Mike Gravel, Obama Girl, and Soulja Boy

That is all.

Just how broke is the Clinton camapign?

When you go to HillaryClinton.com, you're greeted not by a welcome message or even the standard  photo and email list signup page, but with a giant donation form before you see anything else on the site.

Unless she pulls off a 10 point win (which at this point looks like it won't happen), I don't see how she'll be able to bring in the money to keep going without loaning her campaign several million dollars again. 

The Videos Continue...

I'll have a post with actual writing eventually, but another video for now - this time a commercial for upcoming movie "Under the Same Moon":

Words Escape Me...

Guess Who Supports Barack Obama?

The sleeping girl in Hillary's 3 AM ad:

A Little Part of Me Just Died

I think I threw up a little in my mouth after reading Roseanne Barr's (yes, that Roseanne) blog post on Huffington Post.  I'm not even going to go into the details of just how wrong she is on so many levels, but I'll leave you all with this gem from the end of the piece:

"Lead us, Barack, show us how cooperation works, let's live the dream of Dr. King"

Yes, Roseanne, let's live the dream of Dr. King by having the black candidate, as you say, "bow to" and give in to the white one. 

Barack Obama Will Kill Your Children

Hillary's reached a new low:

Update: Obama responds:

And let's see what Bill has to say:

Like Hope, But Different

Genius parody of the Obama "Yes We Can" video:

The Original:

Hillary to Succumb to Rudy-ism?

Washington, Nebraska, and Louisiana have been called for Obama tonight. In addition to that, Obama's expected to score big in Maryland, DC, and Virginia in the Potomac / Chesapeake / Beltway / Pundit Primary on Tuesday (seriously, could they give it any more names?). Maine tomorrow could be closer, but Obama's strong showings in caucuses (winning 9 of 10 so far) mean that he'll probably pull off a win there too.

Following Tuesday, there are three remaining contests this month on February 19 - primaries in Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Washington state (although Washington's primary won't count; all of their delegates will be apportioned according to the results of tonight's caucuses). Obama will more than likely do well in Hawaii - the state of his birth, while Wisconsin is less clear.

The Clinton campaign has been saying lately that they plan to focus on the March 4 contests in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont, where the demographics favor her. What happens, though, if Obama goes into March having won all or all but one of the contests since Super Tuesday? Clinton could start to look a lot like Rudy Giuliani did during the early primaries. Rudy's campaign wrote off Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, and they couldn't survive a month of absolutely no media coverage and no momentum after he received next to no votes in those states. Once Rudy lost his "firewall" state of Florida, he dropped out.

This same thing could happen with Clinton. If Obama has strong wins in the remaining February primaries, as it looks like he will, Hillary's current demographic advantages in the March 4 states could evaporate in favor of Obama momentum. If this race is going to go all the way to the convention, as many are predicting, Hillary needs to at least be competitive in the remaining February states.

Update: Louisiana's been called for Obama.

Update 2: And a 90% of the vote, 3 of 3 delegate sweep in the Virgin Islands.

Good Riddance Joe Lieberman

Looks like McCain supporter Joe Lieberman has been stripped of his superdelegate status, thanks to a rule put in place following former Senator Zell Miller's endorsement and crazy rant in support of Bush in 2004.  It's incredible that he's been able to slide by calling himself an "Independent Democrat" for so long despite 1) running against the elected Democratic nominee for Senate in Connecticut, 2) being an enabler for Republican claims of bipartisan support for the Iraq war, and 3) endorsing the presumptive Republican nominee for President (although it seems the conservative pundits wish McCain were a Democrat).

I can only hope that we'll win a large enough margin in the Senate this November so that the leadership can stop worrying about a complete Lieberman defection  - it's well past time that he lose his seniority and chairmanship. 

A Third Party Election

Alongside today's news that Edwards and Rudy are dropping out comes word that Ralph Nader, accomplice to Bush's 2000 election theft, is exploring another run.  It's pretty clear he waited until Edwards bowed out, as they both fit, to some extent, the same mold.  Except Edwards knew when to bow out with some dignity left, while Nader seems ready to screw things up again.

What's interesting, though, is that this could make 2008 a third party election.  If Mike Bloomberg ends up running and if Ron Paul, realizing he has several million dollars of online donations left after losing the Republican race, decides to run as well, things could get interesting.

While the Democratic race is still fairly wide-open, it's becoming increasingly clear that John McCain will end up with the GOP nomination.  McCain and Paul present drastically different views of conservatism, just as either Clinton or Obama and Nader do on the liberal side.  Bloomberg, having been a member of both parties, can provide something interesting to attract voters from both sides  - drawing from the left for his social stances and from the right for his business experience and managerial skills.

While this is drastically oversimplifying things, let's say most of Paul's supporters stick with him in a third party run and that some (although definitely not all) of Edward's supporters go to Nader.  Who does Bloomberg get?  He'll likely pick up some of Romney's supporters on the GOP side and a few Hillary or Obama supporters regardless of who wins the nomination.  Nader and Paul will cut down the votes of the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees.  And if McCain is the Republican candidate, there's a good chance many of the evangelical conservatives who supported Huckabee will be less likely to vote.

What does this all boil down to?  It's still not likely by any stretch, but for the first time in decades there's a very small, but finite chance that an independent could make it to the White House.

Richardson is Out

Looks like Bill Richardson is set to drop out of the race tomorrow. The big question is now who will he endorse, if he does endorse? As I said yesterday, this is his chance to make a bigger impact than he ever had while running. Rumors abounded that he gave second-choice support to Obama in Iowa - will he continue the (alleged) trend and endorse him? Or, being a former Bill Clinton Cabinet member, will he support Hillary? This will all be especially important with the Hispanic vote in Nevada - it could either seal the deal with Obama following his endorsement by the Culinary Union or give Hillary a boost and make the race more interesting.

My guess is that he'll go with Obama if he chooses to endorse. There was just too much talk about him sending support to Obama in Iowa for it to have just been rumors or precinct captains acting alone.

Now the fun begins...

It's incredible just how wrong so many polls were. Hillary's pulled through, defying talk of a double-digit loss, and won New Hampshire. The Clinton campaign worked overtime playing down expectations post-Iowa, and it pulled off big time. A few weeks ago, a three point NH win would have been seen as a major defeat for Hillary, and now she's the new Comeback Kid. Tim Russert just called it "one of the greatest political upsets in American political history."

Earlier today there was talk of her skipping a state or two, of her wealthy donors resorting to forming an independent group to try and swiftboat Obama, of the "end of the Clinton era." Despite fairly consistent leads all night, the networks refused to call it for hours, with the expectation that Obama would validate the polls and turn it around. And now, seeing how well they've shifted the message to that of a stunning comeback, I can't help but think it was all orchestrated to some extent.

Regardless, congratulations the Clinton campaign and Clinton supporters. As an Obama supporter, it's a tough loss. But I'm looking forward to the road ahead, and especially that more voters in more states (although still probably not my one-week-too-late February 12th vote in Maryland) will get a say. It's going to be a fun race.

Some immediate questions:

• When will the recently-departed candidates (Biden and Dodd) endorse, and who will they support? (And will it matter?)
  
• With the prospect of an early win by either Clinton or Obama fairly slim, how long will Gore be able to hold out on an endorsement of his own?
• Earlier today the extremely important Culinary Union in Nevada was poised to endorse Obama, almost handing him a victory there. Will they rethink that endorsement in light of Hillary's win?
• Will either of the remaining major candidates (Edwards and Richardson) take the opportunity to make more of an impact than they ever could by remaining in the race by dropping out and endorsing Obama or Clinton?

Update: Looks like Obama's still got the Culinary Union but Hillary got the endorsement of Nevada's Democratic Congresswoman. It's going to get interesting.

Nooooooooooooooo.........

Politico is reporting that Chris Dodd is poised to drop out of the race following his disappointing sixth-place finish in Iowa. May his complete failure of a campaign rest in peace.

I was going to end this post with a funny video of Chris Dodd, but I couldn't find any. So I'll leave you with Dennis Kucinich singing.

Update: It's official. And Biden's gone too.

My Caucus Predictions

I'm not going to go with percentages, because percentage of votes from all caucus-goers doesn't matter in determining the results, and percentage of eventual delegates matters far less than who gets the media attention for winning.

My Predictions by # of Delegates:
Dems: Obama, Edwards, Clinton, Biden, Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich (No delegates for Gravel)
Republicans: Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, McCain, Paul, Guiliani (No delegates for Hunter)

For the Dems, everyone's saying we'll see an increased turnout, the size of which will determine who comes out on top.  I think the cold weather means that a lot of more of Obama's younger supporters will be willing to come out on caucus night, as opposed to Clinton's group, which includes many older women.

For the Republicans: I think Thompson's recent push in Iowa will help him edge out McCain (who's focusing far more on New Hampshire), Paul (who I don't think has enough broad support across the state to get a substantial number of delegates), and Guiliani (who couldn't care less about the early states).