I'm off to Oregon coast for about 10 days; see you political animals when I return.

Ignore any polls that say otherwise, Edwards is going to rise, trust Jerome!!!  If it takes inventing new phrases like "new progressive," or ignoring realities that plenty of partisans and progressives, new and old, support Obama or Hillary, well, then so be it!  Reality must conform to our wishes, not vice versa.  Go MyDD go!

Well, guess what?  Hillary is leading in the polls.  I wish it weren't so, but I think every time we go out there and say, "Unless a Dem candidate does X, then they won't win," ignores reality.  

Whether we like it or not, Hillary is leading in many polls and her organization is impressive.  Yes, she's an establishment candidate, but the people who came out for Bill and Hillary this past week weren't a fiction.

And Obama, "Hillary-lite?"  That is such a fictional blogosphere meme I don't even know where to begin.  If anything, he's been out there fighting against Hillary as a "candidate of the past" more than anything.  I agree he's not throwing the red meat as much as you or I might like, but I think that's a reflection of his true, contemplative self.  I don't think he's trying to be "Hillary lite."  

He raised $32 million, has 250,000 donors, and is second in the polls to Hillary, so he can't be doing everything wrong.

Actually Obama is busy blaming progressives, democrats on the division. There's an article on his strategy. It looks like that's part of his big gamble.

He is delusional. George W. Bush was Mr. likable and Mr. Uniter in 2000, did that prevent him from attacking Al Gore and the democratic party's policies in very partisan language? NO.

Obama is avoiding any partisan language on issues. He did not even mention Bush's failed policies in his stump speech. According to him, all the failures are because of the division shared equally by both parties.

Just the way he did in Iowa in '04 he can do it again this year by proving he is a factor to be reckoned with.  

I do think for him to do this Nevada is a big state for him.  It appears thats he is really besting Hillary in picking support of the unions.  He needs to show in Nevada that he can take that support and turn it into victory.  

Jerome mentions it, but just to emphasize: in addition to activists, the union endorsements will come out in September and that will be a huge boost.  

"The proclamations that Edwards campaign is fading come a bit premature."

But he has certainly faded in the intrade.com prediction market odds. He's down to about 5% chance of winning the Dem nomination from a max of 25% back in January.

Meanwhile, Clinton still leads in intrade odds, but she has trended down to about 40% while Obama has slowly fought his way up to about 38% aided by the news of his 2Q fundraising success.

For comparison, Giuliani, Thompson, Romney and McCain are at 36%, 35%, 17% and 5%, respectively for the Repug nomination.

Regardless of whether people here buy these odds or not they are reflective of what people think, or at least what the establishment's "in-touch" crowd thinks and what people willing to invest money into these things believe, so I'd say it may be pretty hard for Edwards to make his way back up to first-tier status if the perception is that he's toast.

First, Iowa, as far as I know is still first.  And, aside from a few outliers, Edwards still has the momentum there.

Second, the early states will come down to organization and I hope you will all recall that many (including perhaps Jerome) have said that the vaunted Republican 72-hour GOTV program was stolen from what labor has done for years.

Third, labor votes while other talk.

Fourth, John Kerry was doing so lousy in 2003 that he had to self-fund the campaign and he had a very complete staff shakeup (much more severe than this).  Kos said that it was a horrible sign for the campaign and that Kerry was done.  We see how that worked out.

Fifth, I will work for whoever our eventual nominee is.

heartfelt and sincere wishful thinking.  And it may be correct.

In the end, I think it will be hard for John Edwards to close the deal.  He has been out of politics for 4 years.  He chose to run for vice-president instead of staying and fighting for his senate seat; he has only been involved in politics for one term in the senate.  During these years he was not known as a leader of any sort.

I realize that national polling shows him doing well in general election match-ups.  In the end, however, democratic voters and caucusers will have to determine whether he really can accomplish what he says he wants to.  I think this will be very hard for him to do.

I am ignorant about how it works in other states..
What States have winner take all?
 In States that aren't winner take all is the proportion of delegates equal to the percentage of the vote?(or caucus)

Here in Colorado it is caucus. I don't see any Dem candidate getting over 50% here. Regardless what happens before the 5th

I am wondering if it is possible that no candidate comes to Denver with over 50% of total delegates locked in?

movement candidate.  ACORN, Wake Up Walmart.

The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.   Working people.  The netroots.  

Great post, Jerome.  

It really is people power that matters in a democracy.

Hillary on Fortune magazine cover this month, "Business Loves Hillary."

In May, Edwards in an article by same writer, "John Edwards: Union Man," by Nina Easton, Fortune Washington bureau chief.

Why is it that CEO's who represent corporate privilege know their friends  (Obama is also mentioned in the article as a friend as well as Clinton), yet progressives do not? People who call themselves progressives won't say, this one is on our team and that one is not. This is what our team stands for and their team stands for something else.

Instead, we get so often arguments about image, just like in the low-information media. She seems strong, a winner, poised, improving, shows a gutsy style - all as if a vote is a style point on the political fashion runway.

Fortune speaks for the other side with more clarity:

"Nevertheless, should Edwards overcome stiff odds and win the presidency, a new and more hostile day is sure to dawn for Washington's business interests, particularly if Democrats retain control of Congress. Legislation to make union organizing easier would readily pass (already it passed the House this year), as well as other measures to boost the bargaining leverage of organized labor. Universal health care, mostly resisted by the private sector, would top his agenda."

"The hyper-cautious Hillary Clinton learned the dangers of a frontal assault on business interests with the disastrous reception to her 1993 health-care plan."

"Barack Obama hails from the party's liberal-left wing, but prizes consensus. For President Edwards, though, the grievances of working Americans would land squarely at the door of corporate America."

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/f ortune_archive/2007/05/14/100008849/inde x2.htm

From above link "Blue Green Alliance" we find the repetition of the  Anti-Dem Candidate Narrative:

"The changes come after a disappointing fundraising quarter for Edwards and some communications challenges, including the continued fallout over his $400 haircuts and connection to a New York-based hedge fund."

"the continued fallout" = we like repeating $400 haircut every time because the owners of this newspaper like us to take cheap shots at Dem candidates. Besides, it's fun and easy.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/ne ws/nation/elections/presidential/8337012 .html

I am always amazed when centrists try to tell me that Edwards is not progressive, when it is clear they don't want progressive solutions. I think your comment explains well the big campaign donations to Clinton and Obama. Both are Democrats the wealthy can "live with."

Kind of blatant attempt at spinning but sorry, it didn't get particularly wide coverage - most places had an AP story about it buried deep within the paper, I couldn't even find it on CNN - and I'm not even sure what Armstrong is saying the "spin" is, especially since the spin is that the real story in anything other than Trippi is taking a larger part in the campaign after a 35% drop in dollars between Q1 and Q2.

the number of "true partisans" and "true progressives" in the Democratic Party. It's easy to do something like that--when you surround yourself by the same type of people, it's hard to realize that not everyone is like you.

Edwards making inroads into organized labor is the bigger story here. This is where Edwards would be getting real voters, and a real organization, that are helpful to the campaign.

Also, I don't think you have to be partisan to be a true progressive, and there are a lot of progressives attracted to Obama's campaign

Not for nothing, but has Trippi ever worked for anyone who actually won an election? His bio lists his presidential campaign creds (in no particular order) as, Edward M. Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt and Howard Dean. I note that the only one of the above to actually win the nomination has the distinction of having gone on to lose the general election by what I believe was the the largest electoral college landslide in presidential election history (by a nose).

It's ironic that Trippi worked for both Dean and Gephardt, given that he was responsible for the Dean campaign's side of the relentlessly negative and hideously expensive slugfest with Gephardt in Iowa in 2003 that effectively ended the 2004 primary campaign for both men. I heard Trippi himself call Iowa a "murder-suicide" later in interviews, which pretty neatly summed it up I thought.

Yikes! If I were the Edwards campaign, the only spinning I'd be doing where Trippi is concerned would be spinning around to run as far away from that dude as I could get, as fast as I could get there.