Michigan was told there was no legitimate vote in the primary/caucuses. At least 15% of the voters stayed home. Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot. Clinton repeatedly went on national TV and gave interviews with the major national and international print media and bloggers on conference calls saying that Michigan wasn’t legitimate contest.

When confronted by Russert this morning, Ickes had no real answer–he just waved his hand and said this wasn’t a concern when she said it. I’m sure that the Patriots would have liked to make some rule changes in the Super Bowl–possibly to count some of the Giants’ scores but not others. That’s the way Clinton is conducting her continually evolving metric game. However that’s not reality, and it’s not going to fly on planet earth this week or this year or for the rest of the next two decades.

Marcy has parsed in detail why the clusterfuck wasn’t a legitimate primary vote, and why Ickes is simply full of it. His collegues on the RBC proved they thought this with their votes, and Obama had the votes without conceding anything besides 50-50 had he wanted to. He’s been generous. I personally i don’t believe there is anything graceful or classy about Clinton’s exit conduct thus far, nor that she plans to exit on Wednesday.

That’s why what has been organized is to exit her swiftly and finally this week. This election is vitally necessary for Dems and we don’t have the luxury of allowing a candidate to play make believe for two more months to September. It’s not going to happen. What I’m trying to tell you in the most respectful way, is that Senator Clinton is no longer in the driver’s seat for this primary. She doesn’t have any real choice. She can concede or she will be exited. She’s not in a driver’s seat–the train long ago left the station and she’s not on it.

She could be helpful, but many of expect her to be anything but.

Obama only needs about 20 Super D’s and he’s going to get something like 4 times that many Wednesday to Friday if not some sooner. He has at least a two gain today.

Come Wednesday, you’re going to be in the world shoulda, coulda, mighta but Clinton will be gone.

I distinctly understand because she has explicitly said so, that Marcy doesn’t want candidate x’s pluses and minuses debated here so I won’t. I know that gets extremely difficult when there is a thread about the DNC deliberations or the primary process because the DNC makes the rules for the primary. It’s difficult for me but I understand the distinction that Marcy wants to make.

The problem with most Obama supporters is that they really didn’t know anything about him.

Actually I know quite a few of them in quite a few states, and they all know a great deal about Obama.

Obama has a number of National co-chairs. Maybe 3 dozen or more. I could find the list. He has co-chairs for every state.

If I picked a religion, Obama has over a dozen National Catholic co-chairs for example and several other people who do the same thing as they do with different titles:

National Co-Chairs from One Specific Religion

National Co-Chairs who are Catholic to name a few:

Senator Bob Casey; Representative Patrick Murphy (PA-08); Former Congressman Tim Roemer, President of the Center for National Policy; Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia; Tom Chabolla, Assistant to the President, Service Employees International Union; Victoria Reggie Kennedy, President, Common Sense About Kids and Guns; Sr. Jamie Phelps, O.P., Professor of Theology, Xavier University; Sr. Catherine Pinkerton, Congregation of St. Joseph.

If you keep doing super-imposed googles using the words “Obama Campaign National Co-Chair” you can come up with dozens of National Co-Chairs. Jesse Jackson Jr. is one of many and to quote Dickie the Cheney so….?

The Democratic nominee for President on Wednesday isn’t going to be Jesse Jackson Jr.

One thing I’ve noticed that you do is that you make declarative statements and never butress them. You’ll say Joe Schmoe or Norma Rae Jones has a lot of positives or negatives but you blithely avoid butressing your claims with any of the said positives or negatives.

I would invite you though, to hit the Tabb for Cliff’s blog and make your claims where they can be debated because of the context of his blog, but can you please try something completely different for you.

When you say Candidate X has positives or negatives that you have meticulously considered in your deliberations would you mind sharing them with those of us who can’t read your mind?

That way we can examine your positives and negatives and perhaps offer a different analysis–on Cliff’s blog.

From what you’ve written I’m not sure where you gather your information about the relative educational deficiencies of Obama supporters but with my humble background I’d love to tear into your generalizations with nothing to butress them on Cliff’s blog or some other blog where debating the merits of the candidates are appropriate.

Your timing is curious because you are going through the mental exercise of making generalizations with no bullet points to butress them at a time when there are already not enough delegates Super or pledged left for your candidate to do anything with but concede.

The Supers are all going to announce Tuesday night and Wednesday (that is those that aren’t trickling steadily hour by hour today and tomorrow and Tuesday before the polls are closed.

Nevada’s Yvonne Gates, and Donna Edwards (since Al Winn resigns today in Maryland) are two more Supers he picks up today. Donna hasn’t officially announced yet, but she is going to since this weekend marks Al Winn’s resignation.

I look forward to expecially hearing you on some other blog–you let me know where to meet you butress this mathematically false claim. If you can count to ten, the math doesn’t support your statement here:

You wrote about Obama:

Its a nice trick, and is going to get you a core of support that is dedicated to you….but it doesn’t work on everyone. And its working with fewer and fewer people the longer this campaign continues.

I’m happy to see you butress this with specific numbers and voting districts, but just not here. I’m sure with your confidence and extensive knowledge of election dynamics and mastery of the numbers you are eager to debate me somewhere else.

Let’s boogie. But you have to support your sweeping generalizations with specifics. You don’t prove anything with the generalizations alone.

But it still gets tiring when you can see that one or the other side is resolutely trying not to understand.

(I really can’t wait until this country is half mixed-race, so I don’t have to explain this stuff.)

appreciate that you are willing to do it

None of the people I’ve met in the field here are seasoned party operatives; they are generally newbies to activism who plunged into organizing for Obama headlong. They remind me so much of the Deaniacs that I and EW were more than four years ago.

Clinton, on the other hand, is supported by the likes of Lanny Davis, Terry McAuliffe, Carville…Christ, nothing but machine politicians. The Fowler men have the extra bonus of being family.

Let me guess you also don’t get how the African-American community works, either. Of course there would be somebody that the community views as their own family as co-chair; they may not actually do much (Axelrod is the powerhouse), but there would be a nod to the history of the African-American Democratic community, someone on the team who confers the blessings of the senior members of the African-American community. This is not the same mechanism; Jackson Jr. has no amassed, familial power within the party save for name recognition, bringing only the conferral of blessings of the last generation.

And with co-chairs like Daschle and Pena, you surely must realize that Jackson Jr. is intended to round out the diversity of the campaign team, as well as meet the needs of the African-American community for one of their own political families.

(I really can’t wait until this country is half mixed-race, so I don’t have to explain this stuff.)

Feel the energy.

We CAN work together. EVERYONE wants to. We just have to work out the finer details.

Thank You Marcy!! I do hope you personally can get some down-time to recoup the energy spent during this incredible effort. This was a biggie, and perhaps hard for you to see beyond the moment as you transcribed & translated your heart out.

Strong suspicion here: the overall effort will pay off bigtime. Incredible energy boost to the party from this, even including the “rocky” times. Heck. This is democracy at work…

Thanks again, BIG TIME!

The reason that I focus on the negatives now is that other than being able to give a good speech, there are no positives that I can see in Obama. I don’t know anyone who can make a ration, wholly positive reason to vote for Obama. It ALWAYS comes down to “he’s better than Clinton/McCain”

His negativea are huge — and yes, I know that Clinton has negatives, and i took those into consideration before I decided that she was a better choice than Obama.

The problem with most Obama supporters is that they really didn’t know anything about him — even he admits that he tries to present himself as a sort of blank slate upon which voters can project their own aspirations.

And because that is what happens, they stop seeing him objectively. They can’t tell the difference between a good idea and a bad idea — whatever Obama says or does is good …. unless he changes his mind or behavior, and then that becomes good.

Its a nice trick, and is going to get you a core of support that is dedicated to you….but it doesn’t work on everyone. And its working with fewer and fewer people the longer this campaign continues

Go in peace.