Update: John Nichols: A Baldwin shift to Obama could send crucial message

So, why is Wisconsin's most progressive elected official and superdelegate still declared, alone among elected state officeholders, for Hillary Clinton?

Good question for Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison).

What does it take from Clinton for Baldwin to jump ship?

Updated - An afterthought on Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is a quasi-Democratic machine state. Thus one expected the machine-backed candidate, Hillary Clinton, to do well with the most established demographics there: Whites and older citizens.

No doubt then that Hillary's expected win on Tuesday (nine points) and her turning-the-tide spin generated a round of media ridicule and explicit reference to the Pennsylvania machine-state status, minimizing the significance of the Clinton victory. Not what happened.

As Chuck Todd: (Hardball, April 7) had put it, "...Pennsylvania is a machine state. You know it‘s a machine democratic state. It is an old school machine state and she has the entire machine behind her, other than the Casey family. She‘s got the state party officially behind her."

via MAL Contends

Most rational, honest observers (those are not whom we see on cable TV) know that absent a historic meltdown by Obama, Hillary Clinton has virtually no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

Her nine-digit win in the quasi-machine state of Pennsylvania excites only those with a vested interest in seeing her continue in the race.

Here's an updated reposting of one rationale explaining why Hillary stays in, consistent with known facts: A third-party/independent run.

In Hillary Clinton's willingness to blow up a historic Democratic constituency (the African-American vote, now voting against here nine-to-one), her embrace of John McCain's national security credentials over Barack Obama's, and her utilization of rightwing media organs to smear Obama, right as her money is drying up, one sees at least the outlines of a rationale for the messianic Hillary to morph into Joe Lieberman and stage an independent run for the presidency.

via MAL Contends - crossposted at Kos -

Update: Many readers have asked: Why are you quoting TNR? Good question. TNR is good on fiscal policy; and I believe this crap by Judis needs to be knocked down. [But I promise never to even bother with Jason Zengerle who is pure shit.] But Salon is pushing this story too, though more judiciously, in Michael Lind’s piece]. Update II: Maybe Hillary, Judis and Co are on to something; even Patrick Buchanan agrees with them.

John B. Judis knows better.

His piece in The New Republic, Woe Is He, asserts the necessity of the Democratic nominee garnering the white working class demographic.

via MAL Contends

When an American politician in the presidential general election campaign says his/her opponent is out-of-the-mainstream, it's a lie.

The losing opponent will garner at least some 45 percent of the vote, disconfirming out-of-the-mainstream status, though election votes are imprecise indicators of public opinion.

The complex reality of the American political culture sees support for universal health care, social security for our seniors, full employment, as well as a mass base for fascism, racist policies at home, a decided antipathy to civil liberties, and near-genocidal wars of aggression abroad, amid what can most accurately be described as a depoliticized electorate.

But the he's-not-like-us charge is aimed at the person; a personal attack that the opponent is somehow alien, out-of-touch, different, elitist, not-of-this-culture, even malicious and the related charge that he/she is dangerous and unpredictable.

via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—Frank Rick has a piece in this morning’s Times arguing that Obama and Hillary  “are flat-out wrong” in condemning John McCain for McCain's allegedly having expressed a willingness “… to keep this (Iraq) war going for 100 years,” as the two Democrats on the campaign trail state their desire for withdrawal, contra McCain.

Rich, among the most perceptive columnists today, cites other writers and fact checkers making the same point, including tips [at] cjrdaily [dot] org in the Columbia Journalism Review.

So what are McCain’s words about the U.S. occupation/war made at a town meeting in January, and repeated since?

Update: A reader left this comment worth posting: "Hillary is a political succubus. She will suck the energy and will from this party until we are broken and defeated. ... Even if one does not consider the supposedly inflammatory nature of the Wright sermons, she took an opportunity to promote healing or at least thought provoking discussion, and instead parroted a line that even the conservative nominee and the man he defeated has abandoned. ... I have no doubt Hillary would have left her church and the place that introduced her to Jesus because it is abundantly clear that there is no belief, no ethic, no moral, or important relationship she would not gladly sacrifice in order to further her own naked ambition."

Hillary Clinton has gone blind.

Hillary is the big, yucky snowbank outside that is melting fast.

Hillary's divide-and-conquer brand of politics is becoming untenable in the Democratic presidential primary.

Melissa Schroeder, Wisconsin’s 7th District Democratic Party Secretary and superdelegate, goes to Obama. From the Obama campaign:

Today Wisconsin superdelegate Melissa Schroeder endorsed Barack Obama for president, citing his unique ability to stand up to the special interests and unite all Americans to bring about real, meaningful change. 

Melissa Schroeder said: “After much consideration, I have decided to endorse Senator Barack Obama. My decision came down to electability and who I felt would do a better job of unifying this country for a common purpose. Obama's message of hope and change has touched millions of voters in a way that I haven't seen since the late 1960's.  People from every walk of life, young and the not so young, Democrats, Independents and some Republicans, are all rallying around a belief that change can happen if we want it bad enough.  With Obama as our nominee, I am confident that this November we will increase our majority in the House and Senate and elect a Democrat to the White House.”

Update: BREAKING NEWS: NBC News confirms Geraldine Ferraro leaving Clinton campaign

Keith Olbermann on Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro's appeals to racism. See:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/23601329#23601329

via MAL Contends

Hillary Clinton's evolving attacks to define and brand Barack Obama involve what advertising and marketing professionals call impressions—the projection of one image (in this case Barack Obama) onto one human brain (a voter).

Designing and managing Obama’s brand by generating impressions for the benefit of Hillary running in the primary, it is necessary to merge negative (ostensibly plausible) aspects of Obama onto the consciousness of key voting demographics susceptible to certain appeals based on fear and xenophobia.

The more frequent and emotionally potent the impression, the greater is the political impact.

In the card game contract bridge, there is an old saying that guides players attempting to make contracts when the partner (and it's always the partner) has a few too many, and bids a seemingly unmakeable contract.

You have to play the game like the cards are where you want them.

In this way, a player might be able to make a contract (successfully scoring points in the game), though the hands dealt would not indicate likely contract-winning cards.

That's what Hillary is doing in the Democratic primary. She is adapting this occasional bridge imperative to her campaign, most recently thought dead after the Wisconsin primary.

She knows she cannot win on popular vote, pledged delegates, number of states won, and so on; so she plots a path to the nomination with the needed assumption that the political cards will be where she needs them to be.

But bridge is not a Rovian game.

In bridge, you don't change the rules in the middle, and though it's extremely competitive, bridge is a well-mannered game where you don't make up and say bad things about your opponents, and you never cheat.