Wednesday Morning Quarterbacking

Wednesday Morning Quarterbacking

When Barack Obama took the stage in Madison last night, he wasn't talking about Hillary Clinton; he wasn't sounding like a candidate for the Democratic nomination. He was talking about John McCain and sounding like the Democratic nominee. Kos: "He's looking past Hillary to McCain."

The train is pulling out of Platform 9 3/4 and the superdelegates -- oops, the "automatic" delegates in the official Clinton campaign term -- are smart politicians with their own butts to protect.

So, on to my native Wisconsin, and any old friends from Up Nort' who are reading this, you know what to do.

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Overlooked result: TWO Maryland US Reps knocked off in primaries last night. Corporate Dem Al Wynn lost to progressive Donna Edwards in a rematch from 2006. Safe Dem black majority district in the fall. Whether that's a leading indicator for Boswell vs. Fallon is hard to say. Clearly Change is in the air, but Fallon won't have the advantage of new Obama voters coming to the polls for the June primaty like Donna Edwrads did.

Moderate Republican Wayne Gilchrest was knocked off by Club For Growth winger Andy Harris in the Eastern Shore district. This might be winnable; Gilchrest knocked off a scandalized Dem in 1990, then got paired in redistricting in `92 and beat Tom McMillen, who may have been the tallest Congressman ever at 6'11" (he was in the NBA)

Overlooked historic trivia: remember that jinx on sitting senators getting elected president? Not since JFK? Well, looks pretty likely now. Of course, miracles are possible and Huckabee and Jesus are like this.

Michigan Dem chair says a caucus that would seat their delegation within the rules “is not a viable option.” Julian Bond of the NAACP says seat them, Al Sharpton says don't change the rules mid-game. Even Iowa hater Kos takes Iowa's side on seating the delegates, though he gets his jab in: "I appreciate what they did because it should lead to an honest re-examination of the primary process and an end to the unfair monopoly enjoyed by New Hampshire and Iowa (sic). But the rules were the rules."

The guy from Team Hillary who wrote the Screw Iowa memo is gone. Looking back, I see that I saw the key line as "If she walks any from Iowa she will devalue Iowa (our consistently weakest state)." Which plays into what's now become a running meme on the blogs: Any state that Hillary doesn't win doesn't count because... (insert list of excuses) Washington Post:

Clinton has made a habit of ignoring contests she loses. On Monday, she cited Louisiana's large African American population in explaining her defeat there. At other times, her campaign has suggested the results of caucuses in general should be discounted.

No mention at all last night in her El Paso speech of the Obama trifecta. She's adopting the Texas/Ohio Firewall strategy that worked soooo well for Rudy in Florida...