Remember Hillary's main argument for staying in the race--that Obama can't win working-class white voters?  Well, after looking at some demographics, that argument could go up in smoke come May 20.

May 20, as you all know, is the date of Oregon's primary.  Most polls show Obama beating Hillary like a rented mule.  So imagine my surprise when I checked out Oregon's demographics on Wikipedia ... as of 2005, Oregon is 92.3 percent white and only 3 percent black.  By comparison, West Virginia is 96 percent white and 3 percent black.

I thought for sure that Oregon would be at least 15-20 percent black, if only because of the Portland-Eugene axis (which casts something like 70 percent of Oregon's vote).  Now put that together with Obama's victory in 91 percent white Wisconsin.  That sucking sound you hear is Hillary's one claim to staying in the race rapidly deflating.

(Via Ben Smith)

Ted Kennedy joins Nancy Pelosi in nipping the "Hillary as VP" idea in the bud saying:

Obama should choose a running mate who "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people," Kennedy said. "If we had real leadership — as we do with Barack Obama — in the No. 2 spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful."

HA! First of all...that is a quite a shameless diss!

Secondly, I can assure you that this is precisely what Barack himself is thinking about. He has worked 7 days a week for 16 months. And he has seen Hillary pander on the gas tax, falsely accuse him of disenfranchising voters, recklesslesly assert that he "hasn't passed the Commander in chief threshold" while insisting he should be Vice president, threaten to obliterate Iran and generally behave without integrity.

I have no doubt that Barack dislikes her greatly. There is so much handwringing about him taking her as VP, but it would undermine his message of "Change" in such an extreme way that I can most certainly say, that he won't do it, he doesn't WANT to do it, and after all the hard work he's put into this campaigh, NO ONE is going to make him.

This U.S. politician:

Voted for the war.
Voted for the bankruptcy bill.
Voted for No Child Left Behind.
Voted for Alito and Roberts.
Voted for the Patriot Act - twice.
Voted for the resolution declaring the Iraqi guard a terrorist group.
Thinks John McCain would be a good President.
Thinks trade agreements that outsources jobs are at least a good idea in concept.
Thinks it's a viable option to bomb another country with nukes.
Thinks the white vote is most significant of all.
Thinks "processes" (e.g., 'commissions') are also "solutions."
Doesn't think experts know what they're talking about.

Now...I'm not going to ask you which politician you think that is. That would be too hard, because more than a few names come to mind, and some of them hang around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue right now. Instead I'm going to make this super-easy for you:

Which party is this politician from?

Boston Globe:

Rahm Emanuel -- hard-charging Illinois congressman, Clinton White House veteran, and one of the most influential leaders in the Democratic Party -- has spoken. Emanuel, who has remained noncommittal throughout the primary, said today that the contest is all but decided.

"At this point, Barack is the presumptive nominee," he said at a conference sponsored by The New Yorker magazine, according to The Huffington Post. "Hillary can't win but something could happen that Barack could lose the nomination."

Emanuel refused to say, though, that Clinton should drop out, saying "Next question!" when asked. But he warned Clinton not to damage the party in the coming weeks.

"What Hillary does in the next month is important," he said. "If she spends her time contrasting with Senator McCain, drawing distinctions that help the Democratic Party, that's productive. If it's done in another way, that's not productive."

In a piece entitled Damsel of Distress Peggy Noonan, Republican conservative columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and former Reagan speechwriter, joins a host of voices from left, right and center in denouncing Senator Clinton's recent descent into race-baiting as she heads into WVA and KY.  

Interestingly, her piece is accompanied by a cartoon of Hillary tied to the rails with a locomotive on its way towards her, evoking the old silent movie episodes of the Perils of Pauline

  I am not one of those anti-Clinton Obama supporters. I have always liked the Clintons.  My husband, who was much more political than I, was a huge Bill Clinton supporter.  We have not always supported DEMS, but believe that they are the party of the people.  Now, a lot of things have been said and done during this primary season that have caused others (mostly my relatives) to question my ability to "like" Hillary, even though I support Obama.  My relatives do not understand how after the comments in South Carolina and the whole "I-have-experience-McCain-has-experience-Obama-has-a-speech"-gate, I can still be okay  with everything. I do not believe that either Bill or Hillary have a racist bone in their bodies.  But, I believe that their most tragic flaw is their inability to understand when they are crossing the line. And they have done it again.

Before you swamp me with complaints, hear me out, OK?

I know that this probably won't be popular here at dKos, but I have an idea for a great way to emphasize unity in the days after Senator Clinton drops out of the race (which I believe is certain to occur before much of June is in the books).

My proposal is this: we, as a community, should create an ActBlue page for helping to retire Senator Clinton's debts.

I am aware that not many folks savor such a prospect, especially if their whole-hearted donation to Senator Obama is going to Hillary without their permission.

And that's exactly why Senator Obama would not do it that way. He knows better, so give him the benefit of the doubt.

One of the year's most important stories got lost in the furor over Reverend Wright:

...a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

This is just the latest evidence that abuse of detainees was systematic and that Bush and his inner circle--as well as senior military officials--are to blame.

What do we do with this knowledge?
What does Barack Obama do?

The issues of experience and race and "working class" (I mean, don't we all "work"?) have obscured the real elephant in the room, and that is gender. Until gender issues are addressed, the Clintons will continue to exploit them, and the danger of fragmenting the party will persist.

In some not-so-obscure ways, HRC represents the plight of literally millions of American women, who have sacrificed careers for family, who have bumped up against the glass ceiling, whose husbands have cheated on them, who have seen male bombast and "charisma" trump thoughtfulness, consensus building, and loyality.

She is an icon, not a person.

MORE

It's hard to say which perception McCain fears worst: being seen as yesterday's man -- a man of the last century -- or being seen as a shameless toady who sold his "maverick" soul for a bloated, stinking elephant carcass:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Republican John McCain was "losing his bearings" for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic terrorist group Hamas preferred Obama for president.

. . .

"This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing, because John McCain always says, 'Well, I'm not going to run that kind of politics,'" Obama said. "And then to engage in that kind of smear, I think, is unfortunate, particularly since my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his."

The Illinois senator added: "For him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don't need name-calling in this debate."

McCain's campaign issued an angry response that accused Obama of trying to divert attention from a legitimate question by raising McCain's age.

"He used the words 'losing his bearings' intentionally, a not-particularly-clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue," McCain adviser Mark Salter said.

Really?  Seems that the McCain campaign is stuck between a rock and a hard place here.  

See, my first reaction on reading Obama's comments was to think of how McCain had sacrificed his "maverick" image -- an entirely phony persona, but a powerful one -- to win the booby prize that is the 2008 GOP nomination.  Obama was observing that McCain has been "losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination," in the sense that he's lost his steely, maverick moral compass.  Now, Obama understands just as well as you and I that the "maverick" myth was the gossamer creation of a Michael Lewis mancrush, but he also understands that there's great value in developing a semi-tragic narrative in which the flawed hero McCain trades his virtue for a final shot at power.  You can't disabuse the majority of the public of the idea that McCain was at one point a good guy, but you can certainly show them just how irrevocably corrupted he's become in pursuit of the poisoned chalice.

And I think that McCain, and his campaign, get exactly what Obama is doing here.  They are deathly afraid of losing the aura of straight-shooting independence that differentiates their candidate from the depraved, cancerous body of lepers that passes for the Bush/DeLay/Fossella/Craig Republican Party.  They know that McCain cannot win as a "Republican nominee" -- his only hope is to run as an independent.  In short, McCain's greatest weakness is the prospect that he might be exposed as Just Another Sleazy Republican Hack.  And Obama's comments, in just a few words, did a marvelous job of setting that narrative in motion in the public eye.  So McCain and his minions pivoted, and attempted to divert the attention away from their greatest weakness.

Problem is, they diverted the attention onto their second greatest weakness -- the fact that John McCain is yesterday's man, a bedraggled lion decidedly incapable of prevailing over the course of six months of toe-to-toe combat with an acutely aware and prepared Obama.  McCain shouldn't ever remind people of his age, of his inability to keep Sunni and Shi'a straight in his mind, of his tired demeanor.  Yet when confronted with Obama's observation that McCain has abandoned his integrity in a last-ditch attempt to win the White House, McCain was so terrified that he preferred to treat the comments as an insinuation about his age.  And in so doing, he raised the age issue himself -- leaving the public to consider whether McCain's problem is that he's past his time, or that he's a chameleon who'll do anything to get elected.  That's the last question that McCain wants anyone pondering.

Maybe he should have just left this one alone.  Because by responding as he did, McCain showed that Obama had hit home.  And Obama is way too good not to sense blood in the water.

If Obama wins the nomination (and it looks like he will now), everyone who voted for Hillary in the primary needs to vote for John McCain in November.  It makes perfect sense.  Hillary, as we all know, is a policy wonk. She has a firm grasp and is well versed on all the issues that matter most to Americans. That is the appeal of the Hillary candidacy.  It has nothing to do with the symbolism or historical significance of a woman president; it's not a white person thing; it has nothing to do with her husband's presidency. It's all about policy.  

So let's examine the issues and the stances taken by all three candidates. Afterwards you will all understand very clearly why Hillary supporters could never vote for Barack Obama and must defect to John McCain in November:

All data gathered from OnTheIssues.org, except where otherwise linked.  All Boldface print indicates where the candidates agree.

This is a call to action.  Call your uncommitted elected official and ask them to commit now, as a super delegate, to endorsing the candidate who is the delegate leader after the final primary.  Please, only call your Representative/Senator/Governor.  Please be courteous.  

Let's make sure this madness comes to an end after the last primaries on June 3rd are held, (and possibly sooner.)  Let's make sure that we start to take on John McCain and the Republicans by early June and not late August.  If this thing got rolling, the game could be over in  a few days.  

Here's the latest from ARG:

Clinton 66%
Obama 23%
Someone else 5%
Undecided 6%

A few thoughts on this poll after the jump:

Despite Clinton's recent "electibility email," the superdelegates are quickly shifting to Obama.

So far today, Obama has picked up:
Rep. Donald Payne (NJ) who switched from Clinton to Obama
Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR)
DNC John Gage (MD)
DNC Ed Espinoza (CA)

For the week, Obama has picked up 15 superdelegates (inlcuing 2 who switched from Clinton).

Today I received an email from the group Brave New Films that makes liberal political videos for the web. This email was about one that they teamed with Mother Jones to produce regarding McCain's relationship with the Rev. Ron Parsley. It's worth taking a look at when you get the chance.

But it got me to thinking, is there really a racist bias in the MSM regarding this presidential campaign and might it show up particularly in stories involving religion?

In the desert southwest we have these cockroaches or sewer roaches if you will, that are literally indestructible.  I once sprayed a whole can of RAID directly on one and it just kind of burped, and went on its merry way.  Hmmm, the Black Knight perhaps?

I'll let this part speak for itself:

"I spent my entire life in the two reddest states in the entire U.S. so please excuse me if I fail to discern the nuances of the arguments sent my way this evening in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to intimidate the remaining unpledged delegates by threatening to leave the party and vote for a third Bush term if I and others like me don't vote for Sen. Clinton," wrote the exasperated superdelegate. "I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don't vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn't support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed."

At GOP.com, our crafty little nemeses have created an engine so "regular folks" can ask Obama the questions that concern them.  Of course, the site does not let you see which questions have been asked, does not let you vote on which questions are most important and provides absolutely no forum for discussion of the merits of any given question.  VERRY Grass Rootsy.

http://net.gop.com/...

Some questions I'd like to ask Obama include, but are not limited to, questions like:  1)Why do you care if the U.S. was misled into Iraq under false pretenses?  2) Can you explain why GOP economic policy has nearly bankrupted our Country?  Is your temperament less volatile than John McCain?