Political -- and Batman -- junkies probably already know about Sen. Patrick Leahy's little infatuation with Bruce Wayne's alter ego, Batman. He loves the character, and all those colorful evil incarnates, like the Riddler, the Penguin and the Joker. Leahy has even talked his way into cameo roles in Batman movies, and in "The Dark Knight," which opens July 18, Leahy gets himself roughed up by the Joker's goons. Bam! Pow! Ooof!
So strong is the Democratic Vermont senator's infatuation that he wrote the introduction for a 1992 book collecting some of the Batman comics, "The Dark Knight Archive," and has done voice-overs for childrens' Batman cartoons. And on July 12, Leahy will play host to a special premiere of "The Dark Knight" in that hot spot of Hollywood's elite, Montpelier, Vt. The proceeds will go to a local library that has named a wing after him. Leahy, that is, not Batman.
So as we head into the long Fourth of July weekend (that phrase is a journalism cue that it's a slow news day, at least at the moment), we wonder what other politicians might harbor secret infatuations with fictional crusaders, caped and otherwise? Or even better, what superhero might actually dwell beneath those dark (pant)suits?
Maybe John McCain in his, shall we say, crankier moments, as The Hulk? Barack Obama channeling The Flash? Hillary Clinton as Wonder Woman -- the first major female superhero? John Edwards as Batman's sidekick, Robin?
And they don't have to be the heroes. Go ahead and link politicians up with your favorite bad guys, too.
So, you want to know where John McCain and Barack Obama have been on the campaign trail? Where they've been in their lives? Google has a new toy tool that lets political junkies get cartographic.
Our colleagues over on the Technology blog have the details and a deeper explanation of Google's intent to have people adapt the tool for their own uses.
But there already are a lot of different ways to play with it. This, for instance, shows you the McCain and Obama campaign trails. This is a "bio map" of McCain, and this is of Obama. The Twitterati have got one going. So far, nada for tracking delivery of late-night pizza to various campaign headquarters, or kitchens where couples are arguing Obama versus McCain. But you just know that's coming sometime.
A personal favorite: Huffington Post's fundraising map. See if you can spot yourselves in there.
The Democratic National Convention is making a show of trying to be environmentally friendly, and as longtime polar bear fans we can't object. And as fans of a certain beverage that has been part of the human experience since, well, forever, we can't object to the way they plan to fuel their ethanol cars.
Turns out Coors has been converting some of its bad beer -- yes, there is such as thing -- into ethanol at a plant in Golden, a Denver suburb. They make about 3 million gallons of it a year to blend with gasoline for E85 ethanol (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline).
And come August, some of it will be poured into part of the Democrats' convention fleet of 450 vehicles, 20% of which will run on E85, DNC transportation director Al Timothy Andrew Ballard told KUSA-TV in Denver.
Coors is the official ethanol sponsor for the convention, and you have to wonder if someone in Coors marketing pondered the sagacity of being known as the firm that gave gas to politicians. But it all makes us wonder which will consume more alcohol August 25-28 -- the cars, or the delegates?
Our cousins over at The Swamp have an item this morning spotlighting just how nagging a problem Barack Obama faces in trying to woo some disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters in facing off against John McCain. It seems a couple of notable New Hampshire Democrats -- James McConaha, a former Clinton administration farm official in New Hampshire, and his Democratic activist wife, Valery Mitchell -- have no intention of hopping aboard the Unity bus.
Whether this is enough of a counter tide to have an effect in November is the big question, of course. And it will matter most in the battleground states -- a few thousand Clinton supporters voting for McCain here in California, for instance, isn't likely to turn the state red. But it could be an issue in states where the red-blue divide is narrower.
Regardless, campaigns are an amalgamation of a lot of moving parts, and it can't be a good distraction for the Obamans to have to go out and try to run down strays from the Democratic herd.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco never officially chose sides in the Hillary Clinton/BarackObama battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. But most of those reading tea leaves assumed her heart was with the eventual winner.
A clear sign to many came when her longtime friend and ally, Rep. George Miller of the Bay Area, endorsed Obama in early January -- a time when the race was still completely up for grabs. Then, as Obama was winning contest after contest in February, Pelosi began stressing that the party's superdelegates would be ill-advised to overturn the will of primary and caucus voters -- comments widely interpreted as a nod toward the senator from Illinois.
Regardless, Pelosi today gave a nod to the senator from New York, agreeing with the widespread perception among many Clinton supporters that her White House bid was hindered by pervasive sexism.
"Yes, there was sexism," Pelosi said at a Washington breakfast with reporters. But, the Baltimore Sun's Paul West reports, the speaker stopped short of singling out such bias as the main reason for Clinton's candidacy falling by the wayside.
West's full report on Pelosi's comments on this and other political matters can be read here on the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog.
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida knows his election to the House in 2006 was a fluke. He's the Democrat who happened to be on the ballot when a late-breaking sex scandal sunk the career of the seemingly entrenched Republican incumbent, Mark Foley. And even with that, Mahoney barely won his seat.
So as Mahoney seeks reelection in a Palm Beach-area district where Republicans are in the majority, what's his attitude toward his party's presidential race? About as hands off as he can get away with.
Mahoney, a superdelegate to the Democratic convention by virtue of his office, didn't make a pick when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were battling each other. Now that Obama has triumphed, Mahoney still plans to remain uncommitted. And, he told the Palm Beach Post, he may just skip the party confab in Denver this summer.
"I wasn't elected to be a role model as to how people should vote," Mahoney told his hometown newspaper. "People in my district are smart enough to decide."
And probably smart enough to recognize a politician ducking for cover.
Ah, we must be thankful today to politics for exposing us to what is to many a new English word: "boo." Not as in scary gremlins at Halloween. But as in "She's my boo" (girlfriend) or "He's my boo" (boyfriend).
Thanks to a tip from loyal Ticket reader Brady and a tip of the hat to this site, we saw that word quickly became one of Wednesday's most-searched items on Google News. And why do you suppose that was?
Because CNN's Anderson Cooper didn't know what it was either and walked right into an embarrassing expression in a back-and-forth during Tuesday night's election coverage with Donna Brazile, a network commentator and a Democratic superdelegate, allegedly uncommitted.
She had said that Barack Obama, who had just clinched his party's presidential nomination, had called her not to seek her support but to discuss his proposed ways of ensuring party unity for the fall election after the sometimes-bitter primary campaigns against Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Cooper was pressing Brazile on what Obama actually said. "He's told everyone," she replied, "that he plans to sit down with Sen. Clinton at the right time."
Cooper replied: "I'm looking for something he hasn't told anyone else -- just you."
"Anderson," Brazile replied with cocked head, "you're not my boo."
The panel laughed. And Cooper walked right into it. "I wanna be your boo," he said, pausing as the panel broke out laughing. "I don't really even know what that means."
At that, Brazile, who was Al Gore's presidential campaign manager in 2000, looked at her watch and asked, "Anderson, are we still on TV?"
"Yes, we are, Donna Brazile."
"Well, I think I better watch my words."
"Someone can explain it to me later," said Cooper.
Since it's pretty clear this morning that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is not going to withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in the face of Sen. Hillary Clinton's admirably annoying tenacity, it falls to the New York senator to adjust to a harsh political reality that a year ago today was absolutely unthinkable: She lost.
Whatever your personal feelings are toward Clinton -- and the Ticket's Comment boards reveal a rude intensity on both sides -- or toward any of the other losers in either party who gave up the electoral marathon weeks or months ago, running for office like this requires a profound commitment by the candidate, his/her family and those around them who invest up to 20-hour days for very little pay over what now spans nearly two years.
This nation's chief executive weeding-out process is brutal, as it should be to force only the most qualified, savvy, lucky, smart to the top.
But we don't have to bring out the violins for any of the....
The moment the final polls closed in South Dakota -- and Hillary Rodham Clinton took a solid lead in the state's Democratic presidential primary -- Barack Obama was widely acclaimed the party's presumptive nominee.
Perhaps it was a fitting finish to a race that both made history and defied initial expectations.
Throughout the day, enough Democratic superdelegates announced their backing for Obama that, under the party's proportional allocation of delegates picked through primaries, all he had to do was show a pulse of support in South Dakota.
That he did, overriding any focus on Clinton's lead. (Within a few minutes, though, the cable news networks declared her the winner in South Dakota, a result that should cause a bit of chagrin within the Obama camp.)
Also overridden -- at least on CNN and MSNBC -- was presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Both cut away from McCain's speech in New Orleans, where, with the general-election lineup now clear, he took Obama to task on virtually every issue imaginable.
Fox News stuck with McCain through the end of his speech.
It may look unlikely in the short term. But if, at some point in the future, there actually is a Hillary Clinton administration, look for Cindy Nunley of Wyoming to be well plugged-in.
On a day marked by a cascade of Democratic superdelegates pledging their allegiance to Barack Obama -- and putting him on the brink of declaring himself the party's presumptive presidential nominee -- Nunley charted her own course.
At 8:25 p.m. (EDT), while part of Clinton's campaign presumably was in the process of dismantling itself, her press office sent out notice that Nunley had announced her support for the senator from New York -- the first superdelegate to do so during the day.
Nunley, a member of the Democratic National Committee, is one of the six party superdelegates from the state; the other five are Obama backers.
According to an Associated Press story out of Cheyenne, Nunley opted for Clinton "because of her commitment to veterans, the number of new voters she brought into the process and the strength and determination she's showed throughout the race."
Let's say this for Nunley -- no one can accuse her of political expediency.
Yada, yada, yada, the talking TV heads will be, well, talking and spewing talking points now about what the primary voting results mean in the last two remaining Democratic contests -- Montana and South Dakota.
And what it means for now and the fall and infinity and beyond. Right after these important commercial messages.
Why wait? And endure all that?
Let's hear what you think right now. When should she give it up?
Among the 34 Democrats in California's House delegation, the number undeclared in their party's presidential race was reduced to 6 Friday when Rep. Jim Costa announced his support for Barack Obama.
The working number actually should be considered 5 since Nancy Pelosi, as House speaker, can be expected to remain on the sidelines -- publicly, at least -- until an unambiguous choice finally emerges.
Also Friday, the once large marginHillary Clinton enjoyed over Obama within the delegation narrowed even further when Rep. Dennis Cardoza switched his allegiance from him to her her to him. In a statement, Cardoza said, "While I continue to greatly respect and admire Senator Clinton and feel she has made history with her campaign, I believe that Senator Obama will inevitably be our party's nominee for president."
That's the attitude the Obama campaign has been seeking to exude -- and hoping superdelegates would bow to. While the candidate and his aide no doubt are pleased by Cardoza's decision, what would really thrill them at this moment is if some of the women in the delegation still standing by Clinton would cross over.
Here's the latest breakdown among the Californians:
UNDECLARED (6)
Pelosi (District 8, San Francisco); Jerry McNerney (District 11, Pleasanton); Mike Honda, (District 15, San Jose); Sam Farr (District 17, Carmel); Bob Filner (District 51, Chula Vista); Susan Davis (District 53, San Diego).
CLINTON BACKERS (15)
Mike Thompson (District 1, St. Helena); Doris Matsui (District 5, Sacramento); Lynn Woolsey (District 6, Petaluma); Ellen Tausher (District 10, Alamo); Jackie Speier (District 12, Burlingame); Brad Sherman (District 27, Sherman Oaks); Hilda Solis (District 32, El Monte); Diane Watson (District 33, Los Angeles); Lucille Roybal-Allard (District 34, East Los Angeles); Maxine Waters (District 35, Los Angeles); Jane Harman (District 36, Venice); Laura Richardson (District 37, Long Beach); Grace Napolitano (District 38, Norwalk); Joe Baca (District 43, Rialto); Loretta Sanchez (District 47, Garden Grove).
OBAMA BACKERS (13)
George Miller (District 7, Martinez); Barbara Lee (District 9, Oakland); Stark (District 13, Fremont); Anna Eshoo (District 14, Menlo Park); Zoe Lofgren (District 16, San Jose); Cardoza (District 18, Atwater); Costa (District 20, Fresno); Lois Capps (District 23, Santa Barbara); Howard Berman (District 28, Valley Village); Adam Schiff (District 29, Burbank); Henry Waxman (District 30, Los Angeles); Xavier Becerra (District 31, Los Angeles); Linda Sanchez (District 39, Lakewood).
On the same morning Hillary Clinton's campaign e-mailed around to the press corps a link to a column that argues she may be leading in the total popular vote, Barack Obama scored four more superdelegates -- two from California (currently the land of fire and rain), one of them yet another Clinton defector.
The vote-count argument goes down the well-traveled trail of who do you count, and where, pointing out that if all the ballots cast in all the primaries -- including Michigan and Florida -- are counted, then she ekes out 71,000-vote lead with Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota still to vote. The general sense is Clinton will carry Puerto Rico, with Montana and South Dakota harder to read.
But the only way Clinton gets the votes-cast lead is to include those in Michigan and Florida (as well as estimates from the caucus states). Of course, the count that matters under the Democratic Party rules is the delegates. And Obama inched ever closer today with two California SuperDs -- Reps. Jim Costa of Fresno and Dennis Cardoza of Atwater -- and two former John Edwards superdelegates from New Hampshire.
Cardoza had been in the Clinton camp, and his flip seems to have more to do with wanting to jump on a stronger horse (or leave a sinking ship) than based on policy and vision. "While I continue to greatly respect and admire Sen. Clinton and feel she has made history with her campaign, I believe that Sen. Obama will inevitably be our party’s nominee for President," Cardoza in a statement released by the campaign.
He adds that he's doing it in the name of unity: "I am deeply concerned about the contentious primary campaign and controversy surrounding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan -– two states Democrats need to win in November... I believe we need to avoid this potentially divisive situation by uniting behind one nominee and bringing the party together immediately. Therefore, I have made the decision to support Senator Obama at the Democratic Convention in my role as a super delegate.”
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama got mangled in Kentucky tonight by Sen. Hillary Clinton (see her video at bottom) by a better than two-to-one margin. But he basically ignored that setback and returned to an enthusiastic crowd at the scene of his initial primary season victory tonight and talked to Iowans over and over and over about change.
In fact, even before learning of his Oregon victory, standing before the state capitol in Des Moines, the freshman senator said the word change 14 times. That provides a pretty obvious clue to the major theme he envisions in the already building general election campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her overwhelming Kentucky victory and praised her as a pioneer,
perhaps an early indication of reaching out to Clinton supporters, many of whom still cling to hopes of a mathematical miracle in her struggle for convention delegates. Obama said, "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has changed the America my daughters and your daughters will come of age."
The crowd gave a half-hearted cheer.
He made the obligatory attack on McCain, saying, "The lobbyists who rule George Bush's Washington are now running Sen. McCain's campaign."
"McCain," Obama added, "is not change."
"Our journey may be long," Obama said, his voice rising. "Our work may be great. But we know in our hearts we're ready for change."
"Iowa," he added to growing cheers, "change is coming to America. Change is coming."
In case, you didn't get it, Obama thinks change is coming. And he is it.
Hillary Clinton has indulged a taste for history of late. And that was on display tonight, as she claimed her overpowering victory in the Kentucky primary (while ignoring an expected defeat looming across the country in Oregon).
Campaigning in West Virginia earlier this month, on her way to a huge primary win last Tuesday, she stressed that since 1916, no Democrat had won the White House without carrying the Mountain State.
This evening, in Louisville, she put forth a vaguer proposition. It has often been said, she asserted, that "as goes Kentucky, so goes the nation."
Frankly, that was a new one on us. But if it's so, that's bad news for Barack Obama. As we noted earlier, he would seem to have little chance to being competitive in Kentucky as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Kentucky has had a winning track record in recent decades -- the last time the Bluegrass State picked a loser in a White House contest was in 1960, when it backed Richard Nixon instead of John Kennedy.
A handful of other states can make comparable claims as bellwethers. Still, Clinton pointedly noted that her husband won Kentucky in both of his successful presidential races. And that helped frame the message in a victory speech that was directed more at Democratic superdelegates than the cheering throng in front of her.
After she spoke kind and gracious words about Sen. Ted Kennedy in the wake of the revelation that he suffers from a malignant brain tumor, after she touched upon her commitment to universal healthcare and ending the war in Iraq, after she made her now ritualistic pitch for cash by reciting her website, she got to what she and her aides see as the nub of the matter.
Barack Obama, assuming that two consecutive primary thrashings don't cause the pause among Democratic superdelegates Hillary Clinton is hoping for, will get within shouting distance of Kentucky later this year as the party's presidential nominee. The key swing states of Ohio and Missouri border it. So do Virginia and Indiana, which Obama might be able to put in play.
But actually setting foot inside Kentucky would seem a fairly pointless gesture by Obama, unless he's got Clinton in tow as his vice presidential pick. Not only did she follow up her rout of Obama in last Tuesday's primary in nearby West Virginia with an overwhelming win in the Bluegrass State, but exit poll data showed her voters feel none too kindly toward him.
Those figures found that only a third of Clinton supporters would vote for Obama in November, while about 40% would cast their ballot for Republican John McCain and the rest -- roughly a quarter -- would stay home.
Some of those Clinton Democrats who now say they would reject Obama no doubt would reconsider once the heat of their battle cooled. Still, a vast majority of the Clintonites would have to change their minds to give Obama a chance in Kentucky (which President Bush carried with 60% of the vote four years ago) and that seems unlikely to happen.
The exit polls found Obama's backers to be much more forgiving -- seven in 10 said they would be willing to vote for Clinton in November, with the rest roughly split between those who would line up with McCain or simply ignore the presidential race.
As most probably know by now, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy was rushed to the hospital earlier today after suffering what was described as a seizure.
Recent tabloid photos of the 76-year-old well-respected, liberal lion showed him to be grossly overweight, so that can't help his condition as doctors diagnose what's wrong.
But The Ticket isn't a medical blog. It's a politics blog. So what's the political effect? First, his illness and a presumed recovery will keep Kennedy sidelined from the campaign trail on Obama's behalf, although other than publicity that hasn't seemed to prove all that helpful anyway.
Despite the slim Democratic majority in the Senate, probably not much effect there. Even if a replacement senator had to be named by the governor, he's a Democrat too. So the party seat balance won't change.
Inside the Senate, Kennedy is well-respected as a hardworking, effective legislator, who can deal with all sides, as he did, for instance, with President Bush on compromise education legislation.
Outside the Senate, the influence of the veteran senator, who overcame the Chappaquiddick scandal, seems to have waned as a vote generator. Despite lingering affection for his famous Democratic family name and....
With recent Congressional wins for the Democrats, the number of superdelegates has changed and it will now take 2,026 instead of 2,025 delegates to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August (details will be here eventually; at last check it still had the April numbers)
So reset your calculators. And be ready to reset them again depending on what the DNC rules committee decides in a couple of weeks. And you serious junkies can always spend a little time on the delegate tracker. It's not as cool as that interactive map that John King plays with on CNN, but it will let you play analyst from the comfort of your own home -- or work cubicle. And we have to wonder -- on nights when Barack Obama can't sleep, do you think he dozes off by counting delegates?
For aficionados of California politics, here's the to-the-minute breakdown of the allegiances among the state's 34 House Democrats -- superdelegates all -- in their party's presidential race, now that Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman have announced their endorsements of Barack Obama:
[UPDATE -- On Friday, a day after this originally posted, Rep. Pete Stark, who had been undeclared, also announced for Obama.]
UNDECLARED (7)
Nancy Pelosi (District 8, San Francisco); Jerry McNerney (District 11, Pleasanton); Mike Honda, (District 15, San Jose); Sam Farr (District 17, Carmel); Jim Costa (District 20, Fresno); Bob Filner (District 51, Chula Vista); Susan Davis (District 53, San Diego).
CLINTON BACKERS (16)
Mike Thompson (District 1, St. Helena); Doris Matsui (District 5, Sacramento); Lynn Woolsey (District 6, Petaluma); Ellen Tausher (District 10, Alamo); Tom Lantos* Jackie Speier (District 12, Burlingame); Dennis Cardoza (District 18, Atwater); Brad Sherman (District 27, Sherman Oaks); Hilda Solis (District 32, El Monte); Diane Watson (District 33, Los Angeles); Lucille Roybal-Allard (District 34, East Los Angeles); Maxine Waters (District 35, Los Angeles); Jane Harman (District 36, Venice); Laura Richardson (District 37, Long Beach); Grace Napolitano (District 38, Norwalk); Joe Baca (District 43, Rialto); Loretta Sanchez (District 47, Garden Grove).
* [UPDATE]: Lantos passed away on Feb. 11; Speier won a special election to replace him.
OBAMA BACKERS (11)
George Miller (District 7, Martinez); Barbara Lee (District 9, Oakland); Stark (District 13, Fremont); Anna Eshoo (District 14, Menlo Park); Zoe Lofgren (District 16, San Jose); Lois Capps (District 23, Santa Barbara); Howard Berman (District 28, Valley Village); Adam Schiff (District 29, Burbank); Henry Waxman (District 30, Los Angeles); Xavier Becerra (District 31, Los Angeles); Linda Sanchez (District 39, Lakewood).
Since we first started periodic postings of this list on the eve of California's Feb. 5 primary, the only change in the numbers has resulted from the movement by four lawmakers -- Capps, Berman, Waxman and Stark -- from undeclared into the Obama camp.
It once was a ubiquitous term in California politics: The Berman-Waxman machine.
It often was spoken of reverentially -- or fearfully, among those who found themselves on the opposing side of an apparatus that, starting in the 1970s and extending into the early 1990s, came to absolutely dominate politics on Los Angeles' Westside (down to the judgeship level) and was a force in parts of the central city and the San Fernando Valley, as well as the state Legislature.
For a variety of reasons, those days are gone. But Reps. Howard Berman, left, of Valley Village and Henry Waxman, below, of Los Angeles -- who first begin acting in concert when they became friends decades ago at UCLA -- marched in lockstep again today. They jointly joined the steady parade of Democratic superdelegates now lining up behind Barack Obama's quest for the party's presidential nomination.
Waxman, 68, is one of the House's senior members in service -- he was part of the "Watergate class" first elected in 1974. Berman, 67, won his seat in 1982, after a stint as a state assemblyman.
The Democratic takeover of the House in the 2006 election elevated both to powerful positions: Berman chairs the chamber's foreign affairs panel; Waxman heads the committee on oversight and government reform (where he has reveled in probing the workings of the Bush administration at every opportunity).
The real importance of their endorsement, however, is noted in the second sentence of the release from the Obama campaign announcing their endorsement: "Both are respected leaders in the American Jewish community..."
As much as Obama has sought to cast himself as a strong supporter of Israel, he has work to do ...
Amid minor movement today among Democratic superdelegates -- so far, Barack Obama has picked up 2 1/2 votes [UPDATE: make that 3 1/2] and Hillary Clinton, one -- Obama scored a coup with an endorsement from the nation's foremost abortion rights advocacy group.
In a news release, the political action committee for NARAL Pro-Choice America had kind words for Clinton but annoounded its backing for Obama, citing its reading of the status of the Democratic presidential race.
"Today, we are proud to put our organization's grass-roots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election," NARAL's president said in the release. "That candidate is Sen. Obama.
As expected, Hillary Clinton was instantly declared the winner of the West Virginia Democratic presidential primary by every media outlet in the business of making such calls.
Now, the question becomes how bad of a thumping Barack Obama endured and whether it will make a whit of difference to the presumption among so many party leaders -- and pundits -- that the Illinois senator remains on the path to his party's nomination.
With so few pledged delegates at stake in the Mountain State -- 28 -- even the early projections of a 2-to-1 Clinton victory would only barely chip away at Obama's overall lead in this category. What the political world will be watching, though, is whether the steady -- though hardly torrential -- stream of superdelegates into the Obama camp over the past week dries up for the moment.
The Times' Peter Wallsten had a revealing conversation Thursday with Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida. He's an uncommitted Democratic superdelegate and the fellow who won the House seat that once belonged to Republican Rep. Mark Foley. (Don't look for any text messaging joke here.)
Mahoney's been busy the last couple of days involved in presidential politics. And if his impressions are any indication, you better stop holding your breath for Sen. Hillary Clinton to give up her uphill return quest for the White House anytime soon.
Mahoney met with her for a half-hour at the Democratic National Committee offices on Wednesday. And he met with Sen. Barack Obama today on the Hill.
Both encounters are part of an ongoing series of meetings and phone calls between courting candidates and their staffers and uncommitted superdelegates that go on around the clock largely out of public view.
Mahoney said little about the session between Obama and other Democratic members of Congress today. But the sum total of both gatherings was insufficient to change Mahoney's mind about not committing to one candidate.
"I don't feel compelled to make any decisions before the convention," he said.
While everyone keeps running through the math of the Democratic primary battle, Barack Obama's campaign already has come up with its own bottom line: The contest effectively ends on May 20.
There are 217 pledged delegates up for grabs in the remaining six primaries, fewer than the number of as-yet-undeclared superdelegates. The Obama camp will bolster its efforts to court these votes this weekend, when it kicks off a 50-state voter registration drive.
Each of the remaining contests lines up neatly for one candidate or the other-- West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico for Clinton, and Oregon, South Dakota and Montana for Obama.
The Obama campaign is likely to start pressing for commitments from superdelegates -- if not right away, then after the May 20 primaries in Kentucky and Oregon. At that point, under any likely scenario, Obama will lock up a majority of the pledged delegates.
Hari Sevugan, an Obama campaign spokesman, said today: "We are currently 33 delegates away from clinching a majority of all pledged delegates. Looking at this conservatively, coming out of the primaries in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon, we expect to be able to go over the top by the night of May 20th.''
CBS 2, WBBM, in Chicago picked up on this today, declaring that "Barack Obama plans to claim the Democratic presidential nomination on the evening of May 20.''
Columnist George Will channeled his inner William Faulkner in reflecting on the dire straits Hillary Clinton faces in her pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination.
Pundits galore wrote words aplenty today on the same topic, but no others did so in a sentence (yes, a la Faulkner, a single twisting sentence) as audicious as the one produced by the erudite Will. We commend it to your attention, forthwith:
After Tuesday's split decisions in Indiana and North Carolina, Clinton, the Yankee Clipperette, can, and hence eventually will, creatively argue that she is really ahead of Barack Obama, or at any rate she is sort of tied, mathematically or morally or something, in popular votes, or delegates, or some combination of the two, as determined by Fermat's Last Theorem,** or something, in states whose names begin with vowels, or maybe consonants, or perhaps some mixture of the two as determined by listening to a recording of the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" played backward, or whatever other formula is most helpful to her, and counting the votes she received in Michigan, where hers was the only contending name on the ballot (her chief rivals, quaintly obeying their party's rules, boycotted the state, which had violated the party's rules for scheduling primaries), and counting the votes she received in Florida, which, like Michigan, was a scofflaw and where no one campaigned, and dividing Obama's delegate advantage in caucus states by pi multiplied by the square root of Yankee Stadium's Zip code.
Maybe Barack Obama backers just decided to sleep in longer after Tuesday night's barnburner of a primary in Indiana.
The day's first movement by an undeclared Democratic superdelegate was into Hillary Clinton's camp. But Obama's team countered with three pickups, and according to the Associated Press he will gain another.
The trio of new supporters announced by Obama's campaign includes Democratic National Committee member Inola Henry of Los Angeles. More on her and the other two (both from North Carolina) can be gleaned here.
The fourth pickup, reported by the AP, will be especially gratifying for Obama -- Jennifer McClellan, a state lawmaker in Virginia, once had been a Clinton supporter.
A few days ago, McClellan was featured in a Washington Post story on the increasing pressure D.C.-area superdelegates were feeling to either make up their minds or change their allegiance. "This is the most stressful thing I've been through in my whole life," she told the paper. "It was never supposed to be like this."
According to the prepared remarks for his North Carolina victory speech Tuesday evening in Raleigh, Sen. Barack Obama was supposed to say, “I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton on her victory in the state of Indiana.”
But Obama changed that line. And here's what he ended up saying, “I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton on what appears to be her victory in the great state of Indiana.”
It may have been a hopeful move on his part, having won a big victory in North Carolina and, in the end, coming a whole lot closer to putting Sen. Hillary Clinton away for good with a surprise win in Indiana. But by apparently coming within about 20,000 votes of also capturing the Hoosier State, Obama's campaign now says it plans a major change in direction.
On the Obama plane out of North Carolina tonight, his chief strategist, David Axelrod, apparently convinced that Clinton can no longer beat them, told The Times' Peter Nicholas that Obama will likely cut back his intensive primary campaigning in the remaining states; West Virginia is next Tuesday. And start his actual general election campaign almost immediately.
"We've got to multi-task here," Axelrod said enroute back to Chicago. "Superdelegates are a part of this and also a focus on the general election is important. Sen. McCain has basically run free for some time now. Everyone is eager to get on with this."
Of course, putting out such self-serving remarks may also help feed the impression that pervaded much of the evening's television chatter on how much longer Clinton could last and how graceful would be her exit. Right now, the campaigns' attention is focused on the less than 300 uncommitted superdelegates.
The fact is Obama scored so well in Lake County, Indiana especially among Gary's overwhelmingly black population, that he came within some 20,000 of scoring a huge upset.
Obama could start campaigning more against Sen. John McCain as a way of, in effect, marginalizing Clinton's continuing effort and convincing superdelegates it's all but over.
A major swing by a growing number of them could undermine Clinton's rationale for continuing, although no one underestimates the remaining fight in Clinton.
Perhaps it was a coincidence. Or perhaps Barack Obama's campaign wanted to provide a quick reminder that they've got Kennedys too.
Two emails relating to the Democratic dynasty landed in reporter in-boxes Saturday afternoon. First came news from the Clinton campaign that Maryland's Democratic Central Committee had elected former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and a Hillary Clinton supporter, as an automatic delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
Just 96 minutes later, another Kennedy was heard from: Townsend's cousin Caroline, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, writing on behalf of Obama.
Now it's not exactly news that she's an Obama backer; she announced that to the world, via a New York Times column, back in late January. The excuse for her new email was the Obama Organizing Fellowship, for which the campaign is seeking students and recent graduates who "will be trained on the basics of organizing and campaign fundamentals and then placed in a community to carry out grassroots activities."
She also was busy on another front Saturday -- attending the Kentucky Derby to help carry Obama's banner. (The state's primary is May 20.)
In Democratic circles, Caroline Kennedy, the sole surviving heir to Camelot, might be the more influential of the two cousins. Kennedy Townsend, however, is the one who gets to vote at the convention.
-- Matthew Hay Brown and Don Frederick
Matthew Hay Brown, of the Baltimore Sun, writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau.
Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in at least one race this week: The slow crawl to be first to sit down for interviews with Fox News' marquee talk-show hosts ahead of next week's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Obama was on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace over the weekend, 772 days after the candidate promised to appear. Clinton followed three days later with a taped appearance Wednesday on "The O'Reilly Factor." Our colleague Matea Gold explores the change of heart in today's paper, and the interesting question of why the two Democratic presidential contenders decided to talk with hosts on a network they had joined in boycotting in August, when they refused to take part in the Fox-sponsored Nevada debate.
Back then, Obama and Clinton were wooing Democratic activists, who tend to be liberal. But with the nomination fight locked in a stalemate and likely to be determined by the superdelegates, the candidates need more than ever to show they can win in November, which means appealing to moderates and conservatives.
And in Indiana and North Carolina, they're fighting for votes in electorates less liberal than in California or New York. There, the fight is for "rural working-class voters" who "have a lot more leverage over the contest than, say, progressive-minded Obama donors in Silicon Valley," Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political analyst, told the Ticket. "That's why they avoided Fox early, and now are there late."
Wait -- politicians acting out of political expediency? My, this is a historic race, isn't it?
Given our particular interest in all things California, we've double-checked and confirmed that that's how many of the state's 34 Democratic members of the U.S. House remain uncommitted in their party's blistering presidential contest (no small matter since they're all convention superdelegates).
The number was reduced from 11 with Rep. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara (right) declarin
like the Riddler, the Penguin and the Joker. Leahy has even talked his way into cameo roles in Batman movies, and in "The Dark Knight," which opens July 18, Leahy gets himself roughed up by the Joker's goons. Bam! Pow! Ooof!
