I've been away from my computer quite a bit recently - that's what moving your own furniture into a Manhattan apartment will do to you - but upon catching up on the news tonight, I've become convinced that the blogosphere will always let perfect be the enemy of good...or even great. Yes, it's true that Barack Obama's positioning towards the center in preparation for the general election pisses a good deal of us off. Whether it has been his unjustified remarks about FISA or Supreme Court decisions (both of which relate to constitutional law, something that he ought to know a thing or two about) or his willingness to throw anyone who goes off-message under the bus, so to speak (such as MoveOn or Wesley Clark), Obama has tacked much further from his primary positions than many of us would care.

That being said, I'm really sick and tired of people - particularly prominent bloggers who should know better - bitching and moaning about Obama's imperfections as a general election candidate.

Why?

I've been plenty harsh on Hillary Clinton and her campaigning methods throughout this year's primary season. Many of the tactics employed by her, her husband, and her surrogates were on the level of those employed by Karl Rove and other Republican operatives. Nevertheless, I was happy to hear her concession speech in which she strongly urged her supporters to back Barack Obama as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. While I know that it will take some time for her supporters to come around fully, the vast majority of them will end up voting for Obama in the general election.

That doesn't hold true for everyone, though. Via Politico, the co-chairs of Clinton's supporters at the University of Iowa have a different idea.

The Co-Chairs of University of Iowa Students for Hillary have just sent out a Facebook message imploring the group's members to vote for John McCain -- or, if that's too hard to stomach, presumptive Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney.

After today's ruling by the Rules & Bylaws Committee to seat Florida at half strength based on the results of the state's January 29th primary, and Michigan at half strength based off of the compromise 69-59 position, this leaves Barack Obama with 2,053 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 1,876.5 (source: DemConWatch). The new magic number is now 2,117 - something that moves the goalposts 23 delegates back for Obama and 2.5 delegates closer for Clinton...basically leading us to the conclusion that this whole exercise by the Clinton campaign didn't really move it further to the nomination; it only puts Obama further back.

From here, though, when ones looks at the projected results from the last 3 contests in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana, it becomes clear that for Obama, he only requires 12.5 delegates to claim that he has rightfully won the nomination. Follow me below the fold for the math...

Oregon, along with Kentucky, will be the states that help put Barack Obama over the necessary number of pledged delegates needed to attain a majority of them - and thus nullify and serious argument Hillary Clinton can make about deserving the nomination. With the movement of pledged delegates from John Edwards to Obama following the former's endorsement, Kentucky will actually be the state that officially vaults Obama over the number - even though it will be in Oregon where he will triumph.

Although Bill Clinton had been hitting the rural areas of the state heavily in support of his wife, as has been his habit lately, the Clinton campaign seems to have given up on the state - both of the Clintons are campaigning in Kentucky today, futilely hoping that the media narrative will focus on her big win there instead of the reality that winning the nomination becomes impossible for her after Tuesday. Obama has spent the entire weekend in the state, capping his visit with a monstrous rally in Portland. Below the fold, I give my predictions for what will happen in the state's primary.

Kentucky is a state similar to West Virginia - it's one where Hillary Clinton has focused a great deal of attention and is likely to win by one of her widest margins over Barack Obama. While she and Bill Clinton have campaigned vigorously in the state, Obama has only held one rally in the state (last week in Louisville) and doesn't appear to be returning before Tuesday's primary. Like West Virginia, the state (and the Democrats in particular) are rural, working-class white voters who have favored Clinton. Throw in the fact that a good swath of Kentucky, particularly the eastern portion of the state, lies in Appalachia, and you have the makings of another rough election night ahead for Obama. Luckily for him, Oregon is also voting the same night - a state which he will almost certainly win - and will therefore counterbalance the negative results here.

Follow me below the fold for a district-by-district analysis of the likely results on Tuesday...

After last week's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, the media narrative shifted dramatically against Hillary Clinton. She lost big in North Carolina and barely held off Barack Obama in Indiana. Not even a week later, and she lost her long-standing lead in superdelegates as well. That being said, tomorrow's primary in West Virginia is going to be a blowout for Clinton. Both Clinton and her husband have toured the state fairly extensively, while Obama has made only 3 stops in-state (he visited Beckley and Charleston in March, and he came back to Charleston again today). The polling averages show Clinton leading Obama between 30-40 points, which is likely where the final result will be.

While many folks are worried that an extremely bad result affecting Obama's chances tomorrow, the truth is that Clinton will recoup roughly half of the superdelegates that Obama has netted during the past week. It's going to be his second-worst loss after Arkansas, but the math isn't fungible at this point such that the media narrative will flip against him.

About a week ago or so, I made my preliminary estimate of how the North Carolina delegate breakdown would be. I gave Barack Obama a net margin of 11 delegates (63-52), with a net margin in the popular vote of 16%. This was before the media wasted more of everyone's time over Reverend Wright and the increasingly one-sided discussion over the merits of a 'gas tax holiday'. Suffice to say, the latest polling average for North Carolina shows a race that has tightened a bit. As a result, I still think that Obama will win the state in double digits, albeit by a lower margin. However, I don't think that his margin of victory in the delegate count will change.

Follow me beneath the fold for an analysis on my updated prediction...

Almost a month ago, I did a preliminary analysis of how the Indiana election would break down. It was something of a shot at the dark at the time, given the relative lack of polling that had occurred in the state at the time. Based on some of the feedback in the diary, along with my own observations (from Pennsylvania, albeit) of how the race has shaped up in the past few weeks, I still think that Hillary Clinton is going to win the state despite the disproportionate amount of time Barack Obama has focused on the state (when compared to North Carolina, the other state voting on Tuesday). That being said, even though I think the popular vote margin I predicted last time (an 8% victory for Clinton) will only shrink slightly, she is likely to net out only 4 delegates (down from my initial prediction of 6) over Obama as a result of Tuesday's primary.

Follow me below the fold for my updated analysis on the district breakdown...

Now that Pennsylvania has gone to the polls and voted (and seemingly validated my 85-73 prediction in favor of Clinton), I'll be taking a stab at predicting the delegate allocation in North Carolina, the state that has the most delegates remaining. Looking at the polling average from the state, it's obvious that Barack Obama has been leading in the polls by double digits over Hillary Clinton for some time now. While the most recent polls show some tightening - mostly as a result of Clinton gaining strength among white voters - Obama still holds a double-digit victory and should still win the state handily.

Below the fold, you'll find by district-by-district breakdown of how I think the delegates will be allocated, accompanied with my commentary...

While the traditional media will attempt to spin last night's victory in the Pennsylvania primary as rationale enough for Hillary Clinton to continue her destructive candidacy for the nomination, I suspect that once people begin paying attention to what matters - the pledged delegate count - they will recognize that Barack Obama still leads by a virtually insurmountable number.

Despite her numerous built-in advantages in the state, Clinton ended up winning the state by 9.4% of the vote - and netted only 10 pledged delegates in doing so. Below I will break down the results by congressional district, using USA Today as a source for the CD numbers, combined with those from CNN and the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's website.

Update: I have changed CD-07 and CD-13 based on newer information. See the district breakdown for updated info.

Update #2: See notes on CD-11 below.

A couple weeks back, I made a preliminary estimate of the results of the Pennsylvania primary. Now that we have arrived at the weekend before the Tuesday election, I'd like to revisit my initial prediction and adjust it, taking into account some of the feedback I received on the entry, as well as some observations as to what has happened since then. I still believe Hillary Clinton is on track to win the primary here, but the margin of victory will be decreased from my initial estimate. Instead, she'll only pick up 12 pledged delegates (as opposed to 18), and I do think that her margin of victory will fall into the single digits.

Please see below the fold for the particular congressional districts that I made adjustments to...

Alright, I just got back from Barack Obama's rally in downtown Philadelphia. I was at John Kerry's rally in University City back in 2004 - a campaign event that drew around 25,000 people. I also went to Kerry's event in Center City 8 days before the general election - it drew more around 100,000 people in Love Park.

Tonight's event with Barack Obama surpassed that. It may not have had as many people, but goddamn - the enthusiasm for the event was off the charts. I have been to many a campaign rally, but none like this.

Pictures are below the fold...

A lot is being made of the absolutely despicable performance turned in during tonight's debate by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. One only needs to visit ABC's own discussion board to get a taste of what people thought of their performance. The fact that two people who purport to call themselves journalists spent the first half of a 2-hour debate conducting what was effectively a right-wing hit job on Barack Obama was bad enough.

But what's not being highlighted is the fact that there were plenty of opportunities for Hillary Clinton to put her foot down and tell Gibson and Stephanopoulos that enough was enough - and to focus on the issues instead.

But she didn't do that. In fact, she goaded the moderators on to continue their birdshitting. She didn't stand up for her fellow Democrat; she chose to embrace those right-wing talking points to use against him.

As primary season has gone on, the hypocrisy emanating from the campaign of Hillary Clinton has become almost shameless. The first real revelation from the media to have any real consequences was the Mark Penn flap. It forced her to 'demote' Penn, thus ending the special relationship, as one may call it, that existed between the pollster/lobbyist and the Clintons dating back to 1996. What further came about was arguably worse: that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, received $800,000 in exchange for his speaking in support of a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia. While the Clinton campaign subsequently came out and said that Bill and Hillary disagreed on the issue, it was unabashedly clear that there's a clear-cut failure of honesty: you can't personally profit from taking one side while publicly taking the other side.

I haven't been paying much attention to the latest media-contrived controversy - aided and abetted by the deceptive, hypocritical candidacy of Hillary Clinton - about Barack Obama's comments about how rural Pennsylvanians (along with those around the country) are 'bitter' about the political process. The fact that the media has jumped all over this story (just look at how rabidly Politico's chief hack Ben Smith has been covering this story like stink on a Port-A-John), combined with Clinton's desperate moves to keep this story alive as much as possible, make it clear that the end of something big is close at hand.

But it's not Obama's chances that are going to suffer as a result of these comments. No, this is the last, dying gasp of the DLC machine that has infiltrated and infested the Democratic Party over the past 20 years. And, perhaps more importantly, it's the end of the relevance of sensationalized political coverage.

While most of the political attention these days is aimed at Pennsylvania's April 22nd primary, perhaps the more important date is May 6th - when both Indiana and North Carolina hold their primaries. With a combined 187 pledged delegates at stake, it is the day that has the most pledged delegates remaining. After those two states (along with Guam, on May 3rd) have voted, 61.7% (349) of the remaining 566 pledged delegates will have been allocated. With North Carolina shaping up to be a blowout for Barack Obama, most of the attention is being focused on Indiana, which is shaping up to be a swing state in the primary.

The most recent polls show Hillary Clinton with a lead in the single digits - which is my starting point for my analysis of the state. Please find my district-by-district prediction for Indiana below the fold...

As I promised in a previous diary, I would go into further detail about the predictions that I made above. My analysis is largely based off of the county-by-county breakdowns of the vote given at CNN, while any demographic data is from what I have found at the U.S. Census Bureau. I recognize that a lot of my predictions may be largely based on generalizations and historical observations, but I think that, for the most part, they will hold up.

For the first part of my series, I will start off chronicling my predicted results in Pennsylvania, the next state to hold a nominating contest (on April 22nd). Below the fold, find my district-by-district delegate projections...

Yesterday, Barack Obama's campaign said that rumors that Obama raised over $ 30 million were false. Today comes news that they did even better:

Yet another success of lowered expectations, and well-concealed numbers, as Obama announces his fundraising numbers for March.

The campaign says he raised more than $40 million from more than 442,000, more than 218,000 of whom were giving for the first time. It's a well Obama's barely begun to tap.

Wow.