No reason to be disrespectful.

Wow, this was meant to be close, not a closer.

Wow, she is/was supposed to win this state.  I can't wait for the usual excuses about it being a caucus and Hillary, despite her 35 years of experience - husband carrying this state -  20 years in Washington, not being able to compete with Obama's (newcomer) organizational advantages (that he built from scrap and didn't have the establishment endorsements like Hillary).

I really did think this would be the one Obama "swing and miss" - thought it would be a 3-5 pt Obama loss...

If he wins my double digits, then I'm really starting to think he's pulling away.

Obama may need to start running as "frontrunner" before the Potomac Primary.

Of course -- with all 3 Tuesday contests being primaries, that might be a good thing.

My prediction was 58 to 42 percent in favor of Obama. The media is going to have fun picking apart what is wrong with the Clinton campaign.

Obama is the frontrunner. No way he can call himself an underdog anymore.

She better wins this. The headline from Drudge showed her dead or sleeping?

Apparently Portland hasn't even been reported yet. This is looking like an embarassing blowout in the NE in a race that was supposed to be close.

There's just too many elections close together that favor Obama for Hillary to turn this around. Maybe after Wisconsin the two weeks before Ohio/Texas will be enough, but I don't know.

Buddy, relax. Hillary's an opponent, not an enemy.

Thought it was going to be close, in the single digits. I guess New Hampshire and Massachusetts got me a bit wary of New England.

If he does win this, it will be for one reason.  Not because it was a caucus, or rural, or whatever.  It will be because the damn flatlanders thought they understood New England, when in reality they just understood mass and NH.  New England is like a family, a very unique family.  Vermont (my home state) is the independent artist, Maine is the independent tough guy, Connecticut is the sometimes prissy (Lieberman) debutante, Rhode Island is the baby, mass is the boring technocrat, and new Hampshire is the creepy loner no one likes, but pretends to because he has power.  Without their laughably small coast, and primary no one would give a fig about New Hampshire.

Are the state primary processes essentially the same as when Bill Clinton ran for the presidency?  The reason I ask is because one would think that Hillary would know what was necessary to win in these types of environments, but her caucus record is simply atrocious.  I just don't get it.

These numbers come from Steve Clemons, so I can't vouch for accuracy.  Still, a nice weekend for Obama.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archive s/002833.php

No hard numbers yet, but Obama wins Houlton by about 20 votes.

Obama wins Rockport, carrying 8 delegates to Hillary's 3.
Obama takes Fryeburg 67 to 17
Obama takes York 414 to 225
Clinton takes Rumford 52 to 37
Clinton takes Dixfield 16 to 14
Clinton takes Mexico 27 16
Clinton takes Byron 1 to 0
Obama takes Hanover 6 to 2
Obama takes Gardiner 129 47 with 2 uncommitted
Clinton takes Old Orchard Beach 134 to 128
Obama takes Hampden 179 to 70
Obama takes Wilton 87 to 30
Obama takes Cape Elizabeth 550 to 217
Obama takes Deer Island 6 to 1
Obama takes Winterport 7 to 4
Obama takes Machiasport 2 delegates to 1O
Obama takes Ellsworth 184 to 100
Obama takes Bristol 7 to 2
Obama takes Bangor (District 15) 16 to 8
Obama takes Presque Isle 63 to 60
Obama takes Stonington 48 to 24
Obama takes Scarborough 401 to 283

and Maine

Just out of curiousity, where is it that Hillary wins before Ohio and Texas?  

The media narrative this week is going to be just brutal.  Campaign shakeup, potential Edwards endorsement of Obama, eight losses in a row.  Given that the media wasn't predisposed to like her campaign, this is trouble.

Frankly, if she loses MD, DC, VA and then WI and Hawaii, providing ten losses in a row, I'm not sure she wins either Texas or Ohio.

I don't think there will be a call Jonathan until around 7 or 8pm EST.  There are caucuses in Maine that don't start until 6:00pm according to the Maine Dems website.

Leave aside for a moment the question of who we should support, and look at how we try to predict the outcome of the state contests.

And, honestly, Obama did a lot better than I expected.

In particular, I thought WA was going to be close, and I thought that because I expected him to win about half the white vote, large majorities among Af-Am voters, and to win only 30-40% among Latinos and As-Ams (who are about 15% of the Dem electorate in WA).  Well, I haven't seen exit polls, but based on the raw numbers he must have done much better among whites, and possibly among the other groups.  That may be an emerging pattern in the West and Mountain States, which means the $60 million question is whether it'll be true in the midwest as well.

What I'll be watching over the next week is how he does among middle-income whites in VA, MD and WI.  If he shows strength there, I think HRC is in real trouble - she needs those voters to go to her in droves to win OH and PA.

So - have you done any navel-gazing?  I think it's fair to say you saw Obama doing even worse than I did.  Jerome's bottom-line prediction was for Obama to win 3 of five contests over the weekend and pick up about 10 delegates, net, on Clinton.  In fact, he won 5 of 5 - all of them blowouts - and picked up what looks to be about 45, net.

So - to the extent you can tell - where did you go wrong?

Wow.  I have been making calls for Barack ALl weekend, with tepid results at best.  i thought Hillary would win this one rather easily.

Make no mistake though...the insiders and the establishment in particular still are on HRC's side, and she still has to be considered the favorite because of it.  

They really shouldn't be announcing results until the polls close.

Ya'll, these results are with only 44% reporting.  Lets not go overboard and decide that Obama has won Maine yet.  I, for one, am still nervous about this one.  IF he wins it, that's fantastic though, as I had this marked as a likely narrow loss.  

I am ready to make a projection. Obama will win Maine and hence Hillary's campaign is in deep trouble. With 59% reporting he's leading by 15%

The Obama campaign finally nailed the expectations game. The "leaked" memo was a pretty crafty move and many people seemed to fall for it. I doubt they are surprised by any of the results this weekend, which makes their predictions of huge wins for Clinton in Texas and Ohio questionable.

Obama had problems on super tuesday with expectations. This memo really turned that around. Genius.

The betting public at Intrade will be mighty diappointed if Clinton wins it now: Obama wins ME is trading (on low but not insignificant volume) at 98%

People on both sides have been troll-rated here.  It's the closest primary in many of our lives; partisans are feisty.  What do you expect?

Just stick to reading Jerome's posts:  all pro-Hillary all the time.

Yeah, MyDD should be reserved for classless, gloating Clinton supporters. (I'm not saying you are one, just that it's ridiculous to imply that such behavior is limited to Obama supporters, especially on this site.)

You people are hysterical.  You should have seen the people at the Obama rally and the caucus I attended.  Many, many working class people, volunteer firefighters, folks from the VFW -- for Obama.

Clinton's folks were older people, mostly women.  Many,many women for Obama.

You knew nothing about Maine politics and culture and yet you were so sure Clinton would win.

I saw some people say Clinton was advantaged because the Governor supported her, obviously without them knowing that the Gov's popularity is way, way down, even among Dems.

accurate than Jerome. has he ever been right???

Obama beats Bill Clinton again by winning the Grammys

Obama pulls off the upset win

Maine is THE whitest state in the nation, so please don't even try to spin this one.

I don't think Caucus delegates should be seated. At caucuses people have to show up at a specific time (which will be impossible for some, no matter which time is chosen), Often wait in line for hour in the cold (which makes the old and people with family drop out) and get bullied by young straight men to vote in a specific way.

I didn't realize that there were any caucuses outside of Iowa. I thought they allowed that anachronism to exist so they could stay ahead of  New Hampshire. Never knew that the Democratic Party would allow that many votes to be suppressed and extorted.

I thought Iowa was the whitest state in the nation.

But it's not about race, age, or gender.

It's about Shuster baby!!!

And I'm only partially kidding. There is NOTHING that will turn off an electorate faster than perceived insincerity. Ask Mittens. Ask Mr. 911. And for that matter, ask Edwards and Kerry. I believe them to be deeply sincere, but they were defeated because the opposition successfully FRAMED them as being insincere.

Hillary crying prude on the use of "pimp" by the most liberal reporter on television?

And what was it she said when her husband ___.

No one (except me) framed it that way, but no one had to because it's so FREAKING OBVIOUS! That frame is burned into everyone's brain and it either makes HRC look good or bad, depending on her sincerity.

70% reporting...Obama 58%, Clinton 41%

Terry Mcauliffe didn't think about Obama when he tailored the schedule for the inevitable frontrunner Hillary. Ooooo she was suppposed to the AA votes and wrap up the nomination by Super Tuesday

CNN calls it for Obama

Does anyone honestly think that a primary in Washington state would have netted Obama 70 percent of the vote? Obama did not even garner that percent of the vote in his home state! The "feeding frenzy" style of caucus voting is not anywhere indicative of personal feeling, but instead is part and parcel of overarching political trends and cultural phenomenons. It is the least pure form of democracy that exists today. IN fact, caucuses are best suited as celebrations, not processes on which presidential nominations should be based.

When Clinton manages to win OH, TX and PA and convinces the necessary number of superdelegates to back her, I'm sure Mark Penn and her other operatives will be using reasoning along the same lines.

Congrats on a win Obama

Everyone almost across the board has agreed caucuses are undemocratic and a terrible way to choose our nominee. There are no caucuses in the GE. Only primaries, which Obama cannot seem to win in Democratic blue states.

What is getting tiresome is Obamabots not thinking about the ge and acting like the primary will be the end of the fight. The pubs are not going to lay down their arms because Obama is so inspirational. They will smear him and beat him badly.

The superdelegates will take the primary vs. caucus thing into account when they are deciding to cast their votes. They HAVE to. their loyalties are to the party...not to the messiah, Obama.

No, because it was in a caucus and caucuses don't count.  Unless it's the Nevada caucus, in which case it does count.

Excellent night.  Going from a probable Hillary win to a 20 point win for Obama is huge news.  Hopefully this bodes well for Tuesday.

Less than 40k people voted in the Maine caucus out of a population of 1.3 million.

got 2 jobs? work 6 days a week? 7? no car? 3 kids? no money for child care? single parent? sick/ disabled? elderly parent you care for? can't squeeze all the errands into the few hours you have off? not fluent in english? not confident around authoritative young men? afraid of getting pushed around and yelled at? afraid to vote if there's no privacy? have to ride the bus the caucus?  don't know when you'll get out?

OR

college boy?  young professional? middle aged successful professional? nice warm car?  flexible schedule? you're in charge of your own schedule? tapped into the local political community? confident and well-spoken? the leisure to follow the talking points so you can pipe up with them?

Whose constituencies do these sound like?

CBS News is reporting that Obama is ahead in delgate counted INCLUDING SUPERDELEGATES!!!

"In the delegate chase, Obama has pulled ahead of Clinton, even when the support of uncommitted super delegates is figured in. According to CBS News estimates, Obama holds a razor-thin lead with 1,134 delegates overall to 1,131 for Clinton."

Yikes! I don't know where they get their numbers but if it's true Hillary has 3 weeks of getting further and further behind. She is not going to be able to get herself out from behind the eight ball with money problems, staff problems, delegate count problems and primary win problems.

We may have just witnessed the tipping point.

Let'see the results so far Link to delegate results here:

From pre-2/5:  Obama 15 pledged delegates ahead (1 Iowa, 1 Nevada, 13 South Carolina)

From post-2/5:  

Feb 9:  45 delegates gained, Obama
Feb 10: 6 delegates gained, Obama

Now, 2/5:  Some still contested, but currently up 9, and will probably be (with Illinois, Alabama, and Americans Abroad coming in) at least another 15.

15+15+45+6= 81 pledged delegates ahead for Obama.

So Obama is CURRENTLY - before this Tuesday - 81 pledged delegates ahead, in ACTUAL contests competed in by both camps. (and yes, I am, for the purposes of THIS comment, not mentioning superdelegates).

Just an fyi - even if one posits that Clinton wins the delegate competition in Ohia, Texas, and Penn, by an average of 10% - 55% to 45% - Clinton will only pick up around 50 delegates.

So Obama will STILL be ahead by 30 delegates, plus whatever he gets THIS Tuesday, plus all the other contests.

Since we really don't want this competition to be decided by superdelegates, it's incumbent now to work extra hard for Obama, to make sure that he wins the victory 'without taint', since barring some unforeseen, Clinton won't be ahead in the pledged delegate count.

Obama is holding himself out as being a different kind of candidate, one who is not influenced by lobbyists and does not distort the truth.  But everything he does and says, show that he is just like any other candidate.  

I have put together some examples of things Obama has done or said that make it clear that Obama is Mr. Politics As Usual.  If any of you have anything to add please post it.  Since the Media has abandoned its role as a fact checker in this contest and instead is feeding the frenzy, and the Clintons are booed every time they say anything remotely negative, it's falling on us to take up the slack.  The Republicans will not treat Obama with kid gloves like the Democrats are.  At the very least, Democrats need to know what to expect if Obama gets the Democratic nod.

Questions about Obama's integrity:
1.    Obama has boasted that he wrote legislation to toughen disclosure requirements of radioactive leaks from nuclear power plants.  But in fact Obama caved to Republicans and significantly softened the requirements after meeting with Exelon, the company whose failure to disclose leaks led to outrage.   Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon have contributed in excess of $227k to Obama's campaigns for the US Senate and for president.
2.    Obama attacks Hilary for taking donations from lobbyists. But Obama himself takes money from lobbyists.
3.    Obama misled voters about his positions on gun control in Idaho.  Obama told voters: "there are people who say, `Well, he doesn't believe in the Second Amendment,' even though I come from a state -- we've got a lot of hunters in downstate Illinois. And I have no intention of taking away folks' guns." However, in the Illinois Senate, Obama regularly supported gun control measures.  Further, Obama joined a measure to prevent people from using a self-defense argument if they are charged with violating local handgun bans. The measure, which will likely rile 2nd Amendment fanatics, became state law.
4.    Obama consistently claims he is a champion of working America, but when Maytag was in the process of shutting down a refrigerator plant in Illinois and displacing 1,600 workers, he did little to help.  Further, the family of one of the company's directors has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Obama campaigns. While it is not clear that Obama knew about the connection, let alone whether it influenced his actions, it has an appearance of impropriety.
5.    Obama claims that his health insurance plan does not require mandatory insurance because people would get insurance if they could afford it.  But statistics say 1.5 million Americans who can afford health insurance don't get it, resulting in increased health care costs to those who do have insurance.
6.    Obama attacks Hillary for planning to garnish the wages of working people to pay for health insurance they cannot afford.  Hillary's plan provides subsidies for anyone who cannot afford it.  
7.    Obama's plan is estimated to cost 60% more per person per year than Hilary's ($4,400 vs $2,700) because the plan does not require mandatory coverage. Young voters are the most likely Americans to opt out of health insurance and they make up a large portion of Obama's base.
8.    Obama backed a law to expand the use of coal-to-liquid fuel; coal is abundant in Illinois, but liquid coal is one of the worst forms of fuel for the environment. Obama later changed his position, after it was clear it was disaffecting potential green voters.
9.    Obama supported eliminating caps on Social Security Tax and attacked Hillary for not supporting the caps.  But Obama later retracted that support and now claims that he never supported it.  Eliminating the cap would have affected wealthier Democrat voters who have become part of his base.
10.    Obama attacks Hilary saying that she can not work on a bipartisan basis with Republicans; that she "cannot break out of the politics of the past 15 years."  In fact Hilary has worked on many more measures with Republicans in the Senate than Obama, including working with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to expand health care for the National Guard and Reserve as well as sponsoring numerous other bills that were co-sponsored by Republicans.  
11.    Obama continuously misrepresents Hilary's position on the bankruptcy bill, which she has candidly admitted she regrets.  Obama intentionally manipulates her words to make her sound disingenuous and then says: "that kind of talk, I think, it makes people not trust government."
12.    Obama compares himself to JFK, but JFK served 6 years in Congress, 8 years in the Senate, and ran for VP, before running for President.  By contrast, Obama had served less than one term in the Senate when he began his run.  
13.    Obama consistently attacks Hillary for supporting the war in Iraq, but Hilary did not support the war.  Hillary voted for the war authorization in order to get the weapons inspectors back into Iraq and warned Bush at the time that she did not support a preemptive war.  http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_ 101002.html.  
14.    Obama attacks Hillary for supporting military action against Iran. Hilary does not support military action against Iran.  She has been one of the staunchest opponents of war with Iran and has sponsored legislation to prohibit such a war.
15.    Obama insinuates that he voted against the Iraq war, but he did not.  He was not a Senator at the time, he did not have access to the information that the Senators had, nor was he charged with the responsibility of protecting America.
16.    Obama attacks Hilary for saying she will not meet with leaders from Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.  Hilary did not say she would not meet with these leaders, rather she said she would not guarantee that she would meet with them within the first year of her administration as Obama had said he would.  She said there would be conditions that would need to be met before she would meet with them. Obama has now back-tracked from his previous guarantee, and conditions his meeting with these leaders on the same conditions as Hilary stated.
17.    Obama blasts Cheney for his energy bill, but Obama voted in favor of that bill.
18.    Obama attacks Hilary for not agreeing that the US should fulfill its responsibility under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  But Hilary has been a vocal advocate of the treaty and plans to make nonproliferation a priority of her first term.  

In short, Obama consistently distorts Hilary's positions, misleads voters about his own positions and changes his positions in light of political winds.  Mr. Obama is Politics as Usual.

Obama out and out lie's.  3 years Ago supported gun control.  Boise, ID speech said he never supported gun control.  Now I believe all politicians lie however Obama's making himself out to be a saint when he isn't.  keeps distorting non support for Iraq war.  Actually say's, "I did not vote for this war." Well no kidding, wasn't even in the senate to place a vote.  With the information that was presented, the people who were presenting the information,(Colin Powell, and Sudam Husseins track record, who knows how he would have actually voted.  And since then he has voted to fund this war 3 times in a row.  Although I'm amazed he voted at all with his track record of sitting out on the hard votes.

Anyway McCain won't only get this WOMAN'S VOTE but will also get the whole family!!!!!