A new article by Michelle Cottle draws from many interviews from within the Clinton campaign to explain what happened.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?i d=f7a4a380-c4a4-4f84-b653-f252e8569915

One thing that is very striking to me is that no one says anything about sexism.  People in the Clinton campaign just don't see that as a factor that undermined the campaign.  Instead, they point to many managerial problems, including the well known issues of not really thinking through delegate allocation and not planning for the post Super Tuesday period.

But really the problems started earlier.  For instance, regarding Iowa:

"It was obvious talking to people on the ground there that they simply did not get the Iowa caucus from a field perspective. That's where the thing was lost."

"Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald dismissed the possibility of youth turning out heavily in Iowa for Obama, saying on the record after the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, 'They don't look like caucus-goers.'"

And the team didn't listen to others much. It was very insular, while lacking experience.  That was a deadly combination.

"Hillary assembled a team thin on presidential campaign experience that confused discipline with insularity; they didn't know what they didn't know and were too arrogant to ask at a time early enough in the process when it could have made a difference, effectively shutting out even some long-time Hillaryland loyalists. Her innermost circle of [Patti Solis] Doyle, [Mark] Penn, [Mandy] Grunwald, [Neera] Tanden and [Howard] Wolfson formed a Board of Directors with no single Chairman or CEO; nobody was truly in charge, nobody held truly accountable."

People today can look for more and more information on the internet.  One sort of information political folks often want is how the candidates are doing in the electoral college.

MyDD's electoral maps purport to provide that information.  And they are cited regularly on this site.

Yet there is very limited transparency when it comes to the information. No one can tell:
a) Whether the data is based on one poll or a poll average of some kind,
b) If it is a poll average, what particular polls are included and what rule is used to decide which polls remain in the average,
c) How recent the poll or polls are,
d) The trend from the last poll conducted by the same polling organization for that state,
e) The organizations that conducted the poll orpolls,
f) The sample size and margin of error for the poll,
g) Whether there are additional data, such as internals for the poll, that would shed light on the dynamics of the race, and
h) How recently a state's data and the electoral map as a while has been updated.

And, at the same time, the current maps have some very real discrepancies from what other, more transparent sites show. For example, realclearpolitics shows Obama over McCain in PA while MyDD does not, and realclearpolitics shows Clinton losing to McCain in Wisconsin while MyDD does not.

In my opinion, for the readers of MyDD to be able to use these data well in their discussions and analyses, more information is necessary.

Please vote in my poll to indicate whether you think more and more transparent information for those electoral votes maps would be of benefit.  

And, of course, discussion is most welcome. Perhaps we could convey to site administrators that we very much appreciate them posting the electoral vote maps, but also let them know what information would be most useful.

Progressives have long been at the forefront of movements on behalf of racial equality.  Yet there are some who say that this is a topic off-limits to discourse among Democrats.

How can that possibly be?

Lyndon Johnson told the truth after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.  Johnson said that the south would be lost to the Democrats and, indeed, Nixon's southern strategy of 1968 played on racial resentments.  So did Reagan's campaigns, with former Democrats becoming Republicans and Republican voters.  

Even before that, Truman paid a price for desegregating the armed forces and for his support of anti-lynching bill with the 1948 defection of Strom Thurmond, who ran as a Dixecrat and won four deep south states.

It has been a long and competitive process.  For many, if not most of us, great passions have been aroused.  In my view, those passions have mostly been aimed at supporting our preferred candidate.  This bodes well for the Democratic party's ability to come together to win the White House.

And, in my view, it is already happening.  You can see it in the two tracking polls.

Rasmussen has shown a close race in recent weeks.  Today's poll shows a marked uptick for Obama, giving him an 8 point lead over Clinton. But, more strikingly is what Rasmussen says about the polling since Tuesday's election:

Two nights of interviews for today's update were completed after the Indiana and North Carolina Primaries. For those two nights on a stand-alone basis, Obama leads Clinton by eleven percentage points.  http://rasmussenreports.com/public_conte nt/politics/election_20082/2008_presiden tial_election/daily_presidential_trackin g_poll

This is a different sort of prediction thread.  I won't ask what percentages the candidates will get in NC and IN, but where they will end up after Tuesday's elections in their delegate quests -- in particular, how close they will get to having a majority of pledged delegates and a majority of overall delegates.

Keep in mind that Indiana awards 72 delegates and North Carolina awards 115 delegates (not including superdelegates).

Pledged delegates
Barack Obama is 133 pledged delegates away from getting a majority of pledged delegates.
Hillary Clinton is 294 pledged delegates away from getting a majority of pledged delegates

Oveall delegates
Barack Obama is 285 delegates away from getting a majority of delegates.
Hillary Clinton is 416 delegates away from getting a majority of delegates.

Since the DNC currently does not include FL and MI, these figures don't either.  Feel free to post your predictions based on the above numbers and the ones with delegates from those states. http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/ fl-mi-by-numbers.html presents some interesting FL/MI scenarios.

Clinton and her supporters claim that what Clinton offers is in-depth policy knowledge, experience, and the ability to get things done in Washington.

But this gas tax proposal shows some serious weaknesses on her behalf.

First, it demonstrates her lack of leadership abilities when it comes to dealing with Congress.  Today she said that they should vote on the plan, which every expert pans, to show if they're with her or against her.

Would this be her strategy for congressional relations should she become president?  Well, we saw how poorly she managed that with health care under Bill's administration.  HRC ignored Senator Moynihan's advice to create a plan in consultation with Congress. Then Bill said he'd veto a plan that wasn't enough like the one HRC developed.  As a result, all of us lost because nothing was passed.  With Hillary telling Congress to just do what she wants, it sure doesn't look like she's learned anything since.

Yesterday Arizona met and chose its two add-on superdelegates.  What happened was very surprising -- and should send chills up the spines of those in the Clinton campaign and her supporters.

Now, normally the add-on superdelegates support the winner of the state's primary or caucus, or perhaps split according to the state's vote.

Yesterday Jerome predicted that Clinton would pick up four superdelegates from that day. But that was not to be the case - and AZ was a big part of that story.

NEITHER of the new super-delegates endorsed Clinton. Instead, one endorsed Obama and the other remained neutral.  Terry Goddard, the uncommitted superdelgate, said that he is weeks away from making a decision.

If Clinton can't get even one of these two add-ons in a state  she won, that tells you a lot about her chances of attracting superdelegates in general.

For more information, see http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/
http://thepage.time.com/obama-release-on -arizona-superdelegate-endorsement/

Yesterday came the shocking news that a major fund raiser for Clinton -- who had raised about $500,000 for her -- was now supporting and working for Obama.  This fund raiser had longstanding ties to the Clintons, as he was appointed to an ambassadorship by Bill Clinton.

Now it turns out that he was far from alone.  

The Washington Post reports today that

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042503707_ pf.html
Campaign finance records released this week show that a growing number of Clinton's early supporters migrated to Obama in March, after he achieved 11 straight victories. Of those who had previously made maximum contributions to Clinton, 73 wrote their first checks to Obama in March. The reverse was not true: Of those who had made large contributions to Obama last year, none wrote checks to Clinton in March.