Irish Trojan in Tennessee

West Virginia open thread

By Brendan Loy

CNN's Gloria Borger says exit polls show half of West Virginia voters believe "Obama shares Reverend Wright's values." LOL. Well, at least they're well-informed! [/sarcasm]

Also, Obama is getting 28% of the white vote, according to Bill Schneider. So... uh... I guess maybe he might crack 30% overall?

Then there's this.

Anyway, I just turned off the TV, but if anyone else is still watching and wants to comment on the results, fire away.

UPDATE: With 47 percent of the precincts reporting, it's Clinton 65%, Obama 28%, Edwards 7%.

Meanwhile, in the much more exciting MS-1 congressional special election, it's Childers (D) 51%, Davis (R) 49% with 80 percent of the precincts in. This is a district that Bush won by 25% in 2004, and would be an absolutely huge victory for the Democrats, portending doom in November for the Republicans.

UPDATE 2: According to Daily Kos, the AP has called the race for the Democrat, Childers. Amazing. Cue GOP panic!

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Sen. Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic primary in West Virginia, CNN projects.

West Virginia predictions?

By Brendan Loy

Tonight, we learn the answer to the question I posed last week: Will it still be "over" after West Virginia?

The polls close at 7:30 PM, and, for the first time since February, I expect Wolf Blitzer, Wolf Blitzer will be able to immediately "call" the race, based on exit polls alone. (They even waited a half-hour or so before calling Mississippi.) So it'll be a suspense-free night, with only the margin in doubt. That'll give the "best political team on television" (and the various other networks' political pundit squads) several hours to pontificate about "what it all means": Obama can't win the white working class, Clinton can't catch up in the delegate count, maybe they'll have a "dream ticket," blah blah freakin' blah.

I expect I'll turn off the TV around 7:35 PM.

Anyway... what will Hillary's margin be? The average of the four last polls on RCP is 61-24, but that leaves 15% unaccounted for -- and although John Edwards is prominently on the ballot (see at left), I don't think he'll be getting quite that much support. Al Giordano predicts 69% to 31%, and 20-8 in delegates. Poblano says 67.4% to 28.6% (with 4% for Edwards), and 19-9 in delegates, with the potential for a 20-8 or 21-7 delegate split, depending on the 1st and 3rd districts. I'll be pessimistic, and say 70-25-5, and 21-7. What are your predictions?

Oh, and Pablano predicts a 105,000-vote gain for Hillary in the "popular vote," which is roughly the same as the 107,105-vote estimate I used in this post, and which would put her within a few thousand votes of Obama in the facially ridiculous "don't count Iowa, Nevada, Maine or Washington, but count Florida and Michigan, but don't count Uncommitted for Obama" cumulative tally. (She currently trails that transparently fraudulent "count" by 113,498 votes.)

Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder says the "most important election taking place today is not in West Virginia. It's in Mississippi, for the first congressional district, a seat held since the Republican revolution of 1994 by Republican Roger Wicker. Wicker's retiring, and there's a good possibility that Democrat Travis Childers will win today's run-off election." He adds:

A Dem pick-up here will be a portent of doom for Republicans in the fall. George W. Bush won this district by 25 points (66,000 votes) in 2004. Because Davis and Childers tangled via advertisements over whether Childers had been endorsed by Obama amid Rev. Wright's revenge tour, the press will be tempted to spin a Childers victory as a sign that Obama is not a drag on the ticket. Local factors and the national environment are going to be dispositive here, not Barack Obama. So don't believe the hype.

You can read more about the MS-1 race -- and the GOP "panic" it's causing -- in this RCP article.

Declaring victory, acknowledging defeat

By Brendan Loy

For reasons I've stated previously, I'm glad to hear this from Team Obama: "We’re definitely not going to declare victory [on May 20] ... We think it’s an important moment in the campaign ... [but] obviously we have to get to 2025."

Meanwhile, James Carville -- whom Becky and I will be seeing in person Thursday night, at the Knox County Truman Day Dinner (I got tickets through someone at work) -- says Obama will probably win:

Carville told about 500 people at Furman University that U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton should fight until the last dog dies.

“I still hear some dogs barking,” said Carville, the flamboyant Louisianan known as the left’s ragin’ Cajun. “I’m for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee.

“As soon as I determine when that is, I’ll send him a check.”

The New York Times Caucus Blog declares Carville "our fat lady" -- i.e., the official arbiter of when the race ends -- and says, "we’ll be keeping an eye on those Federal Election Commission filings to let you know when the general election has officially begun." Heh.

Charity Bowl '08: represent, USC & ND!

By Brendan Loy

Every Day Should Be Saturday is running a contest that gives all you college sports fans an opportunity to help the victims of the recent spate of disasters -- the Burma cyclone, the China earthquake, the Midwest tornadoes -- while simultaneously showing your team pride. Here's how it works:

1) Make a donation online to the American Red Cross, CARE, or the International Rescue Committee.

2) Email the donation confirmation to kevin@fanblogs.com and state your team affiliation by 8pm EDT on Wednesday, May 14th.

3) Results will be displayed at Every Day Should Be Saturday and Fanblogs throughout the week, with the final results shown by Thursday, May 15th.

4) The winning school will have its colors displayed at EDSBS and logo/mascot shown on every page at Fanblogs.

Things are looking dismal in the current standings for both USC and Notre Dame. Neither school shows up in the Top 10, and in fact, if EDSBS is counting ND as part of the "Big East" for purposes of their conference standings, it appears that zero dollars have been donated by fans of either school. (The Pac-10 and Big East are tied for last place with $0.)

So, pony up, Irish and Trojan fans! We can't let freakin' Michigan -- in first place with $1,000 -- win this thing.

The GOP's Nader?

By Brendan Loy

If Bob Barr wins the Libertarian nomination, will he "draw non-trivial numbers away from McCain," particularly in the small-l libertarian West? Hmm. (What if he were to pick Ron Paul as his running mate? Just asking!)

In other news, I discovered this blog today: Things Younger Than John McCain. Heh.

On a more serious note, George F. Will has some questions for McCain.

Joe Donnelly endorses Obama

By Brendan Loy

South Bend's congressman, Notre Dame Law School alum Joe Donnelly, is the latest superdelegate to endorse Obama.

I'm not sure how the 2nd District as a whole voted, but Donnelly's home county, St. Joseph, favored Obama 53% to 47% last Tuesday.

Also, Clinton has lost a pledged delegate to Obama, according to the Washington Post. "I cannot in good conscience go to the convention and not support Barack," said Jack B. Johnson, who was selected to fill one of Clinton's elected delegate slots "in consultation with the Clinton campaign by the Maryland Democratic State Central Committee." (Oops.) "She ran a great campaign, but she fell short of the line," Johnson says of Clinton. I wonder if the Obama campaign will include this "switch" in their count, in light of the previous fury over Clinton's threats to try and "flip" pledged delegates? (More here, and here.)

Oh, and in other news, there's a primary today. Shh, don't tell anyone. ;)

UPDATE: And now Ray Nagin endorses Obama. Ugh.