I just came across this data put together by the gallup polling organization. http://www.gallup.com/...

Here's a synopsis of the data:
-Kerry lost whites by 17 points to Bush, Obama loses them by 16 to McCain.
-Kerry won hispanics by 9, Obama wins them by 10
-Kerry lost non college grads by 6 points, Obama loses them by 4
-Kerry lost weekly churchgoers by 22, Obama loses them by 19
-Kerry lost men by 11 points, Obama loses them by 5
-Kerry won women by 3, Obama wins them by 4

These are polls taken from May 1-5 a bad time for Obama during Rev Wright II, and when he was expected to lose Indiana big, and maybe even lose NC. This shows that Obama can get the same amount of support among those demographic groups as Kerry did. This comes as a sign of relief to me, and is really good news for a number of reasons.

When this primary season began, I, like many Democrats, would often say that I would proudly vote for whoever the ultimate Democratic nominee turned out to be. At the time, I was undecided, shifting between Edwards and Obama, eventually staying with Obama after Edwards dropped out, but not at all averse to a Clinton candidacy. As the primary wore on, and as the Clinton campaign employed the most disgusting Rovian tactics with all the deftness of Bob Shrum, the prospect of Clinton actually winning through some backroom deal at the convention amidst a Democratic civil war has changed that word "proudly" to "begrudgingly". This is not to say that I would still not vote for her in this hypothetical scenario, because I realize that she would still be infinitely better than the ill-tempered torture apologist who wants to bomb bomb bomb Iran, despite not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam; however, this does mean that I would vote for her painfully, and with absolutely no realistic expectation that she could win the general election.

Over the past few weeks, one of the strongest and most disingenuous moves by the Clinton campaign has been to re-frame John Kerry's loss to George W. Bush in the 2004 election cycle as a problem with elitism.  Of course, the Obama campaign can't correct the record without alienating his support from the junior Senator from Massachusetts, as well as John Kerry's most ardent constituency.  So the job was left up to the media; the results, no surprise.

Here we go again. In this week's Newsweek Michael Hirsch has an article titled The Democrats’ Wimp Factor: As Obama's patriotism is questioned, he's starting to look more and more like John Kerry in '04.

Hirsch then uses the time-honored self-fulfilling prophecy of adopting the right-wing attack as being effective merely because the question is raised.

Between the questions about Obama's meager association with William Ayers, a former Weatherman, and the suspicions raised by his lack of a flag lapel pin, the likely nominee is slowly being turned into John Kerry.

Hirsch seems oblivious to the idiocy of those questions and the backlash against them.  Let this guy know in his comments or his email: [webeditors@newsweek.com] that this year he's wrong -- We and Obama will not let this crap stand.

Just a thought. We keep spending time talking about Obama's VP. Markos' recent top picks include:

Richardson
Dodd
Sebelius

All reasonable picks, along with Webb, Clark & Zinni. But, what if Obama's best pick was (drumroll):

Hillary Clinton supporter Eliot Spitzer has been linked to prostitution ring and the NY governor may be facing criminal charges for transporting a person across state lines for the purposes of prostitution.

I am eagerly awaiting the Clinton campaign's statement regarding their supporter Eliot Spitzer, but IMO I may be waiting until hell freezes over. What? Rank hypocrisy in the Clinton campaign. Why I never!

Most know that it's over if Obama wins OH and/or TX Tuesday and we have to be prepared, in the best interest of the party to respectfully start really arguing for a HRC withdrawal from the race.

We always knew when we did this we'd have to fight the Clinton campaign with its ever moving goalposts but the writing is on the wall that Fox News and the rest of the Right will also be pushing for the Dems to go all the way to August cause they know it's in their best interest.

We must be prepared for this fight...

Yesterday, Stroszek posted an excellent diary examining the possible VP choices for Obama.  S/he divided the choices into categories:  Change, Competence, Reform, and Unity/Consensus.  Altogether there were 39 individuals described or mentioned.  It even had pictures!

Looking over the list of possible running mates, I realized there was one name missing:  Senator John Kerry.  In a subsequent search of diaries for the past three months, I did not immediately find any other diaries suggesting that Obama pick Kerry.  (Of course, the assumption that he would be in a position to pick a running mate is not three months old – but I like to be thorough.)

Let me just briefly explain after the jump why I think he would be an excellent choice.  Then I would love to hear your thoughts.

They'll come over day now, I guess.

I wish I could post the video here directly, but on UN Dispatch I embedded the video of Bono's tribute to Congressman Tom Lantos. (You can read my account of the service here.)  

I encourage folks to watch Bono's tribute. He sings a very heartfelt version of "All You Need is Love," and when the camera pans out to the crowd you can see congressman Kucinich and John Kerry, among others, singing along.  

There were 12 states in 2004 where neither the Republican nor Democratic candidate was able to get more than 52.5% of the vote.  Six of the 12 went for George Bush and 6 went for John Kerry.

The question Democrats need to ask themselves (and should have been asking themselves for the past month) is: Which of our candidates can win these Purple States?

It's not too late for a reality check. Let's take a look ...

After many years of being a fan of John Kerry's, I just unsubscribed from his mailing list and sent a note that expressed my disappointment in him.

Why?  Take a look below the jump...

I read with interest this post of Kos about the attacks of Obama on other democrats and his use of republican talking points.  And I agree with Kos.  But what I found remarkable is, that beyond Gore,  Obama indirectly attacked John Kerry.   Well I think Kerry's campaign in 2004 was lousy.   But I also think that among the current democratic candidates, the one whose campaign is most reminiscent of Kerry's campaign is Obama himself.  Yes, Barack's campaign has many similarities to John Kerry's failed campaign in 2004.  Why am I saying that?  Here is why:

Obama at a speech today:

"I don't want to go into the next election starting off with half the county already not wanting to vote for Democrats, we've done that in 2004, 2000."

Last time I remembered, Al Gore is a Nobel Laurette, and an impeccable Democrat. I found this quote on MYDD dairy. It is big news. As NewsDay says, "Obama: Gore, Kerry Alienated 'Half the Country'"

Do endorsements matter?  Maybe not, but big political or even celebrity endorsements do one very important thing...direct media attention to a candidate.  Whether or not Oprah herself actually convinced people to go for Obama can be argued, but there is no question that the media used it to fit into the new storyline of Obama’s momentum.   With three weeks left, candidates are desperate for every second of air time...will any of these important progressive figures help them out?