Right.

"Oh, Mitt Romney's not going to be president of the United States ," Pelosi said, rolling her eyes. "I think everybody knows that, right?"

H/T Crooks & Liars.

Map of the day.

Darryl does the math, so we don't have to, and finds President Obama with a 95.8% proability of defeating Romney...


Feel better now?

Ya' think?

My own personal Congressman imagines the (hopefully distant) future…

"I suspect that when I decide I'm not gonna run, there will be a couple of people who are interested in my seat."

Good guess, Jim. Keep 'em waiting. I'm sure it builds character or something, and you're doing fine.

From the "Me too" file.

Matt Yglesias...

Not only am I old enough to remember when picking Nancy Pelosi to stay on as Minority Leader doomed Democrats to never regain the majority, I’m old to even remember way back in 2005 when choosing her made it impossible for them to take it in the first place.

Me too.

And then some.

Signs of the times.

A youthful prophet, via Daily Kos...




My prediction? No, they won't. Yes, it is.

I had predicted…

…based on personal experience working with her in Indian Country, that the tribes would find State Senator Maralyn Chase to be an effective, compassionate and sensible ally on the Government Operations and Tribal Relations & Elections Committee.

Nice to see I was right.

Prediction of the day.

From Steve M. ...

IN THE FUTURE, EVERY REPUBLICAN WILL RUN FOR PRESIDENT FOR 15 MINUTES

Big game today.

Saints 35, Colts 31.

Given my track record, of course, posting that prediction probably makes the game a lock for the Colts.

I'll be watching (and cooking) at the perfect tavern. C'mon down if you're nearby.

RE: Massachusetts

Tbogg explains it all...

Scott Brown was born a poor black child. But without the Negro dialect. Which is why he is competitive.

Apparently competitive, at any rate, but appearances can deceive. In my experience, when the story is "Candidate X appears suprisingly close, an upset may be at hand," the only thing usually in Candidate X's hand when the votes are counted is his or her hat.

This is exactly the kind of election that is played out at the very end when the respective party machines tune up their GOTV machines. Big endorsements are brought out, ads are run, calls are made and doorbells are rung and underdogs get plowed under. Not always, but often enough that it should be conventional wisdom.

I'm guessing Coakley by 8-10 points when it's all done. I'm sure that someone somewhere will call that a moral victory for Brown and bad news for Obama.

Fair enough...

Rothenberg...

Bill Owens' victory in New York's 23rd was the good news for Democrats this week and continued the party's winning streak in competitive House special elections. But the dynamic that helped Owens win -- including a divided Republican Party -- can't be ignored and aren't likely to be replicated again. For now, his reelection next year is a Pure Toss-Up.

…but it bears noting that as recently as last month the election, let alone re-election, of a Democrat in NY-23, a safe Republican haven since the 19th century, seemed like a fantasy. Toss-up? That's an incredible advance.

And that Republican divide? That's not going away anytime soon.

Hat tip to Political Wire.

From the "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" file.

New jobless claims rise more than expected
Shouldn't we just expect new jobless claims to rise more than expected? Seems like they mostly do.

My Pennsylvania prediction.

At the end of the night, Clinton will trail by slightly fewer delegates than she does now. No matter how much she 'wins' by, though, she's lost.

Hillary Clinton entered the campaign selling the notion of inevitablity. She's Hillary Clinton, for jeebus sake. She lined up the machine, filled up the coffers and waited for the coronation. The problem seems to be that she consumed a bit too much of her own product. She has lost. She doesn't know it, can't beleive it.

I don't think the results will have anything to do with her decision to continue. If she was attuned to results, she'd have suspended her campaign after she lost Texas. (Yes, she lost Texas. This is a campaign for delegates.) I don't think even an outright Obama victory in PA would get her out. It's a shame, for several reasons, and an ill-service to her Party and its nominee, but it's her right.

There's another loser who continues, apparently, to campaign this year. Maybe Senator Clinton and Representative Paul should schedule a debate.

My bold prediction...

…because I know you've been waiting. When all the votes are tallied, there will be a Democratic candidate with a significant but not insurmountable delegate lead. That's what I know, or think I know.

The prospective first fella gets more specific...

“Bill thinks Hillary will win in NY, NJ, AR, TN, OK, CA and ID. Clinton thinks Obama will [win] in IL, CO, MN, AL and GA. He’s not sure about MO, MA and CT. (He’s missing New Mexico.)”

Every time you hear...

...that "no candidate has ever" or "every candidate has always" achieved a given result based on their performance in early primary states, it's worth remembering that our current system of choosing a Democratic nominee is of relatively recent vintage. The system before the McGovern reforms in the wake of the '68 convention hardly resembled what we have today.

That means our early predictions are based on a sample of 9 elections. Two of those featured a Democratic incumbent, one the sitting vice president during a time of relative peace and prosperity. Strike those. 6 elections.

I took a gentleman's C in statistics, but 6 seems like a mighty small sample to me.

It's cheating, I suppose…

…to offer predictions after the first ballots have been reported, but I promise the Dixville Notch outcome hasn't unduly influenced my analysis. In fact, the only undue influences are my own biases, but that's why I have a blog in the first place. So here goes.

Barack Obama seems unstoppable in New Hampshire. A big lead in the end, I imagine. High thirty's, maybe 40%?

Hillary in a weak second, double digits behind. 26, 27%? No "comeback kid" for this Clinton, though. She was supposed to own New Hampshire. No honorable mention. Anything but a win is a loss for the Senator.

If Edwards can finish in the twenties, say two or three points behind Clinton, and snag another decent share of the delegates, he'll be in fair shape to move on. Just because his opponents have raised enough money for three or four primary campaigns - it's amazing in a historic sense, distressing in several others - doesn't mean he can't afford his, and with the likelihood of a three-way race to the convention, well, those chunks of delegates can be very powerful.

This, of course, is predicated on Richardson picking up a few percent and Kucinich a couple. While they'll each fall short of the delegate threshold in that event, their impact would be felt. I suspect that any Kucinich defections would be to Obama, and Richardson's likely to Hillary, in both cases at Edwards' expense, but don't expect him to encounter any threshold problems.

Or, as pal o'Upper Left Terry is apt to say, I could be wrong…

So, maybe you can't poll Iowa…

…but you can still guess analyze possible outcomes. Here's my own caucus-eve hunch, based on absorbing an irrational amount of information, via the mailing lists of 6 campaigns, the feeds or front pages of about 100 blogs and the feeds of three wire services and four daily papers.

Not much TV coverage in the mix at all. Just a pinch of talk radio. Lots of barroom conversation.

I think John Edwards will win. Surprise, huh? As a veteran of a couple three decades of caucuses myself, every sign I've seen indicates that the Edwards campaign understands the caucus process and how to build a successful caucus operation. While others might boast of larger ranks of hired hands on the streets, the Edwards campaign has emphasizes having volunteer operatives inside the room. While Obama and Clinton both seem to be counting on waves of new attendees and non-Democrats, many Edwards supporters are repeaters, with insight into the rules, the math and the real world of caucus wheeling and dealing. I've sat through a lot of caucus trainings, and I've sat through a lot of caucuses. I learned a lot more at the caucuses.

It's because of that local, experienced base that Edwards has held his ground in Iowa even as others beat him to the airwaves, outspent him on the air and on the ground and the press tried to turn this into a two-way contest. It's because of that local, experienced base, and his tireless work in rural western Iowa and the breadth of his labor support that I expect 34% of the precinct delegates selected to be Edwards supporters.


The Clinton effort has suffered, I think, from something that became apparent as I watched their '92 efforts from the standpoint of the state caucus coordinator for a competing campaign. They don't like caucuses much, and they don't win them, either. They don't think they have to. They're probably right. But they can't lose. They need to come in second so that they can move to the primary states with the race defined as Hillary v. _______ , and they don't much care who _______ is. Nobody benefits more from a narrowed field than Clinton. They have the resources and savvy for a first class GOTV operation, and enough support to score second place with 28% of the delegates.

Obama seems to have great appeal to people previously outside the Democratic Party, and the rules allow them to declare themselves Democrats as they sign in to participate in the caucus (it's the same here in the upper left). Turning out independents and Republican crossovers can challenging, though, and the caucus environment can be intimidating enough for any first timer, let alone one who may not be completely comfortable assuming an unaccustomed partisan role. Some eleventh hour bashing of labor and trial lawyers, two Democratic constituencies that are likely to be overrepresented in caucus rooms, won't make those rooms any more hospitable to first time non-Democrats in attendance. When the deals are cut, despite Kucinich's promise to deliver his <1%, I think Obama will be mostly dealt out.

There's also the fact that much Obama's hope seems vested in student support, but that's blunted by their tendency to be geographically concentrated. Two hundred students crammed into a dormitory commons may end up picking the same number of delegates as a couple dozen folks in the hinterlands. It's the kind of thing that makes polling the caucuses so problematic (read "impossible"). Despite all the hype and Oprah, there are too many barriers to victory for the Obama campaign to overcome. Third place, 25%.

The remaining 13% will be split, probably more or less evenly, between Biden, Dodd, Kucinich and Richardson. Regardless of their individual shares, their net outcome will be identical - no national delegates. Since, like Washington, Iowa has a multi-tiered process of delegate selection, there will be more meetings, with more threshold requirements, before any national delegates are actually selected, and even if the campaigns survive (unlikely, really) to that point, their thresholds won't.

On the Republican side, well, since I can't imagine how any sentient being could vote for any of those guys, I have no idea.

Expect John McCain to do better than you expect him to, though.