Everyone here and elsewhere is suggesting that the democratic nomination election will likely continue on after super tuesday.  I find that to be a highly unlikely scenario.  How do I come to this conclusion?  Call it the "undecided break" theory.  

It's a theory that gets talked about in the general, but for some reason no one is talking about during the primary.  This is in spite of the fact that we've seen this phenomonen play out in the early primaries.  The theory basically goes that at the last minute, the undecided voters will break disproportionately for one candidate or the other.

We saw it happen in Hew Hampshire where they broke for Hillary.

We saw it happen in South Carolina and Florida where they broke for Obama.

We saw it happen in Michigan where they broke for "uncommited".

I'm leaving out the caucus states since "viability" tends to distort the results.  However, if you look there is some evidence that it may have happened.

Join me on the flip for the number proof.

Redstate is a funny reality free place.

I had signed up for their email alerts a long time ago - just for fun.  I've been getting email from redstate about their campaign to raise money to launch a new site.  The latest email, which can be read here, said they still need $10,000 to launch their new site.

It seemed to me that that is a lot of money left to raise.  I was curious to see what their original goal was.  During that research I noticed something even more interesting than their lack of ability to raise money.

Let's say you're a young intrepid AP reporter covering DC politics.  Let's also say that you are writing a story about the latest DC conventional wisdom.  So you try and gather experts and data to substantiate that conventional wisdom.  Now let's say that all of your research contradicts that conventional wisdom.  Now what do you do?  Well, if you're Nancy Benac, you write the story anyways and bury the contradictory evidence in the fifteenth and twenty-fourth paragraphs as well as spin the data to make it look like it supports the conventional wisdom.

Here's the best part.  In most cases of journamalism you have to go to outside sources to prove your point, but in this case, it's all right there in the story for any critical thinker to notice.

For weeks now there's been a sort of conventional wisdom amongst the netroos\blogosphere that the American people want the democrats to stand up and fight President Bush for issues that they believe in.

The narrative went like this.  Congress's approval rating was much higher than President Bush's when they took power earlier this year.  You can see congressional dems were in the 40s and Bush was still in the 30s.  Well, since then Democrats have capitulated to Bush over and over again.  Now we're in the situation where Bush's approval is still in the 30s, but congress and even congressional dems approval has plummeted.  At least that's the convetional wisdom in the netroots.  (Just one example of this conventional wisdom)

For years now whenever I watched some right-wing pundit on TV lie or "distort the truth" it would piss me off.  Such as, "al qaeda was in Iraq before 9/11".  It would piss me off when I read their Op Ed rants where they would decry everything as Clinton's fault and worship Ronald Reagan like he's some golden calf.  Now, with the Internet, the Right Wing nuts can go off saying anything and spouting all liberals as traitors, childish, and irrelevant.

For some reason it would always get to me.  I just couldn't ignore it.  Today, I can finally ignore them.  My anger has died and has given way to laughter.  Why?  I'll tell you why.

I just read an AP report claiming that the number of coalition casualties in Iraq are the lowest of 8 months.  When I first heard this figure my thought was, "Holy Shit!  Maybe the splurge really is working."  I don't doubt that if I was a redstater my thinking would end right there.  Instead, I kept looking.

That's right.  The LA Times, in an editorial, has asked Congress to back off for another Friedman Unit to see if the "surge" is working.  The entire gist of the article seems to be, Democrats should wait another few months to do what they are doing right now because if they do it now it's somehow purely political.

If the United States, through a last-ditch military effort combined with political initiatives, can quell the violence in Iraq and demonstrate progress, then a U.S. military presence for more than the congressionally approved year might be a good investment. But if the troop surge, after some months, fails to improve either the security or political situation, then a year would be too long to leave U.S. troops in Iraq.

I grow tired of people suggesting that experience, or a lack thereof, has anything to do with a Presidential candidates ability to be elected. Please note that if your argument is that experience determines their ability to be a good President once winning, that is not what this diary is about.  (Even though I would argue that that too, is false).  Therefore, to say that we can't nominate Obama, Edwards, or Joe Barber because the electorate won't accept their lack of experience is just a silly argument that needs to be put to bed.

I would argue that a candidates experience only has to be 'credible' to be electable.  Once the 'credible' threshold has been met nothing else really matters.  The question of who has more experience doesn't really matter in terms of electability as long as both candidates have met the 'credible' threshold.  While the 'credible' threshold is constantly changing and defined by the American public, it is a rather low threshold to meet.  I would say that it's only about 4 years of real public service.  Your definition may be different, but hopefully we can agree that it's fairly low.

For those of you who may have read my last diary entry on this, you would know that London was doomed to a terrorist attack over the holiday season, unless there was some kind of miracle. At least, that is, according to Abc News's Brian Ross.

This is the second part of a series.  You can find the first part here.

There are probably as many different definitions of progressive as there are Senators who'd like to be president.  In spite of the fact that bloggers, intellectuals, and politicians all declaring themselves to be progressive, there doesn't seem to be a common definition of what it means to be a progressive.  This leaves progressives open for the criticism that "progressive" is just another word for "liberal".  If a progressive movement is to last, we must define ourselves to voters before Conservatives do.

Even though we all knew it was coming, John Edwards has "officially" announced his candidacy for President in 2008.  How has his announcement played in the "Mainstream" Media?  I think surprisingly well, at least so far.  You can get the full transcript from the Washington Post.

It's been fairly good press on the wires, CBS, and Washington Post.  It looks like announcing in New Orleans is being accepted as pure genius in the Conventional wisdom.  Even his website gaffaw of least night has essentially been fluffed off by the press.

The Huffington Post grabbed onto this one first.

The "Blotter", which is Brian Ross of ABCNews's Blog, is "reporting" that

It will be a miracle if there isn't a terror attack over the holidays in London

This is, according to a "a senior American law enforcement official."  Another anonymous quote in the article states, "It is not a matter of if there will be an attack, but how bad the attack will be."

Cross Posted from Mydd.com

There are probably as many different definitions of progressive as there are Senators who'd like to be president.  In spite of the fact that bloggers, intellectuals, and politicians all declaring themselves to be progressive, there doesn't seem to be a common definition of what it means to be a progressive.  This leaves progressives open for the criticism that "progressive" is just another word for "liberal".  If a progressive movement is to last, we must define ourselves to voters before Conservatives do.

Earlier today I read a Diary, I'm Tired of the DLC Slur where the title alone made me angry.  Fortunately, after reading it and the comments following it I not only had calmed down, but also agreed with a few of it's premises.

1. Don't label politicians as DLC unless they are.
2. Don't label someone on DKos a DLC type and then never listen to them again, just because they aren't as "Progressive" as you.

There would be no problem with following these 2 rules except that, at least on DKos, DLC has developed more than one definition.  There is, of course, the literal or denotative meaning of DLC: a member of the Democratic Leadership Council.  Then there is the connotation of DLC that has developed here at DKos and many other Progressive Blogs.  What is that definition?