Wondering why the Obama campaign is advertising in Georgia but not in states like Oregon or Minnesota? Perhaps it's because the map appears to be changing.

A New InsiderAdvantage / PollPosition survey conducted June 18 of registered likely voters in the November presidential contest shows Sen. John McCain leading Sen. Barack Obama by a single point in Georgia, making the race in Georgia a statistical tie. Libertarian Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia, received 6 percent of the vote.

The telephone survey of 408 registered likely voters is weighted for age, race, gender, and political affiliation. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 5%. It was conducted with InsiderAdvantage's research partner Majority Opinion Research. PollPosition is InsiderAdvantage's new branding name (look for additional information and expansion of PollPosition in the coming months).

The Results:

McCain: 44%
Obama: 43%
Barr: 6%
Undecided: 7%

I have to admit that I just didn't see this coming. Virginia, which has been trending towards the Democrats (two straight governorship wins, soon-to-be two straight Senate wins, retaking the state Senate), I could see. Colorado, which has been trending towards the Democrats (a gubernatorial win, soon-to-be two straight Senate wins, two pick-ups in the House, retaking both chambers of the state legislature), I could see. Even Alaska I could see.

But Georgia? A state that has appeared to be one of the very few (and I do mean very few) to be trending towards the GOP? Georgia is on the map? Apparently. According to the Real Clear Politics average of recent polling out of the state, John McCain's lead over Barack Obama is just 49.7 percent to 41.3 percent. Nate Silver gives Obama a 28 percent shot at carrying the state -- not overwhelming, but certainly much higher than I would have anticipated.

So will Obama carry Georgia with the help of Bob Barr, who represented the state in Congress? At this point, it doesn't even really matter. It would be yet another back-breaker were it the case that Obama beat McCain in Georgia, making it that much more difficult (if not impossible) for McCain to make it to the White House without those 15 electoral votes. But even more important, by making the McCain campaign play defense in a state that the GOP hasn't had to defend during the last two presidential elections, thus spreading its resources even more thinly, Obama increases the likelihood that he is able to win overall. It almost makes you wonder why the Democrats weren't operating under a 50-state strategy earlier...

Take a look at the purple states on the map below -

Map by Johnnygunn

What do you see?

Cross posted, with minor edits at "Daily Obama"...

What I want to do here is detail why I'm deeply afraid that a Hillary Clinton nomination, should she manage to win that and a victory in the general election, could be a very bad thing for the long-term prospects of Democrats and progressives.

Please don't get hung up on that word "concern".  I think, should Clinton win the nomination, she'll likely beat McCain in the general.  This is a discussion of long-term issues.  History doesn't end with the next inauguration.

Cross-posted from BlueIndiana.net

In 2006, 10% of all Democratic gains in the House of Representatives came from Indiana.  That's three seats out of the 31 that switched from Republican to Democrat.  All three seats are districts which Republican President George Bush carried in both 2000 and 2004.  While all three represent the conservative side of the Democratic spectrum, their voting patterns are a good match for the voters in their districts.

Also in 2006, Democrats on the state level took back the lower house of the Indiana state legislature, added seats in the upper chamber, and took over a number of county seats.  In 2007, Democrats were able to pick up mayors offices in cities around the state, with the notable exception being my home city of Indianapolis.

Over the past few days Matt Stoller and I have been having a bit of a back and forth (he writing at Open Left and me here at MyDD) about the Virginia Senate race and the ramifications of supporting candidates who may not be with us on all issues but who would help push the Democrats' numbers in the Senate to 60 members.

Responding yesterday to my post suggesting a value in seeking a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate even if that majority included some members who weren't terribly progressive, Stoller writes that I suggested that he believed "that Mark Warner or Jean Shaheen should lose their race to a Republican", and that thus I was using a "straw man that is often used to discredit so-called intolerant progressives." He also writes that I "believe that criticism of these Democrats is harmful to the party."

To begin, I think we should all agree to not put words in each others' mouths. I don't believe and am not saying that I think Stoller wants Warner and Shaheen to "lose their race to a Republican." And I think MyDD readers know that I would never hold back from criticizing a bad Democratic candidate. I'm someone who cares about the good of the progressive movement and works hard to elect Democrats -- two characteristics that I do not believe are in opposition and which, at least I would hope, don't make me a partisan hack bereft of ideals.

I do believe that a party is stronger if it holds a 60-seat majority in the Senate that includes a handful of members who defect occasionally or even often than it is if it only has 40 or 45 members in the Senate, regardless of whether they vote in unanimity the vast majority of the time. More broadly, I think a party is stronger when it enjoys the support of a large coalition than when it is relegated to minority status, however unified that minority is.

This isn't to say that I don't think it's important to have that core of 40 or 45 members in the Senate. Of course as a part of that 60-seat majority there will be an abundance of members who maintain the progressive ideal at all or most times, even if there is a small minority of the caucus willing to diverge from the progressive line at times. But in general I'd rather have a caucus comprosed of 45 solid progressives and 15 moderates or centrists than a caucus just comprised of those 45 solid progressives (and it's not even clear to me that there are, at this juncture, 45 solid progressives in the Senate today). (Remember, too, that even during times when great progressive pieces of legislation were enacted into law -- Social Security during the New Deal, Medicare during the Great Society -- there were conservatives within the Democratic caucus who were opposed to large parts of the party's agenda.)

To take one more step back, coalitions are not just about the top-level actors -- they're about the voters. As I've noted before, moderate voters already play a large and important role in the Democratic coalition. To take just a couple of examples, self-identifying moderate voters backed Democratic congressional candidates in 2006 by a 60 percent to 38 percent margin, which made a big difference in helping the Democrats secure the majority in the House and the Senate last fall. Even in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, which are home to the most core party members and are assumed to be made up of activists who are well to the left of the party mean, 43 percent of participants in 2004 self-identified as moderate or conservative.

Moreover, part and parcel of having a truly 50-state party is having members who have different bents, particularly as relates to their regional needs and political environments. Certainly there are cases in which there are members from traditionally conservative regions of the country who are able to deviate from this trend (i.e. red state members who vote like they are from blue states). Compare and contrast Birch and Evan Bayh, for example. Both represent or represented Indiana in the United States Senate, but the father (Birch) was significantly more progressive than the son (Evan). But generally, in order to run a truly 50-state party you are going to need to have a Ben Nelson in Nebraska, who is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, or a Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. We could write off these states as unwinnable for Democrats. However, it's not clear to me that such a move would strengthen the party.

Assuming that a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008, I'd rather see a large Democratic majority that can move on truly progressive judicial nominees rather than a smaller Democratic majority that has trouble moving on even relatively left of center jurists -- let alone a Democratic minority, however unified, that did not have sufficient votes to even move on judicial nominations. I'd rather have a Democratic President be able to work with a Democratic majority that can actually move on his or her priorities rather than a Democratic President banging his or her head against the wall because a narrow Democratic majority or a Democratic minority cannot move that agenda through the Senate.

Finally, even as I believe in the importance of striving for a 60-seat majority in the Senate, I also believe in the importance of holding candidates' and elected officials' feet to the fire. If they do not hear from us when we are unhappy with them (or when we are happy with them, for that matter) then we will have little power to influence them. But holding our representatives' feet to the fire is not the same thing as knee-jerkedly labeling them as "bad Senators" even before they are elected (as Stoller does with Warner). And if we want to have credibility, we will need to make better arguments than that.

I had the pleasure of seeing Howard Dean speak at a fundraiser in Los Angeles Wednesday night. He addressed us, a crowd of 100 or so who'd paid $50 each both for the privelege of hearing him and to support the 50-state strategy. That was $50 well spent indeed.

My overall reaction to seeing Dr. Dean this time was to marvel at how deftly he walks the line between the establishment and the activist base. He spoke to us firmly, with optimism, cheerleading as one would expect the head of a party to do, but he wasn't evasive...he addressed head on the hard question, namely WTF with that last vote on the war supplemental? Only Howard Dean could bring up that vote to the party faithful (including a good number of activists by the sound of it), defend Pelosi and Reid and get out of there alive. He didn't pander, he didn't condescend, he spoke to us like the idealist who got a job that requires pragmatism that he is. And the crowd loved him.

Dean got the room going with a solid dose of old fashioned partisan Democratic pride, speaking about the success of the 06 elections, Nancy Pelosi's being the first woman (and first Californian) Speaker of the House, and hitting on three succinct  points that really seem to sum up the message he'd like us all to spread to other Democrats far and wide:

1. There's no such thing as a red district anymore

2. We will win when we talk about values

3. Change takes time

More...

[cross-posted on my blog at Madison For Edwards]

At the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention, on the heels of the SCSU debates from Thursday, John Edwards was the third speaker after Joe Biden and Bill Richardson.  As he was closing up his speech, which included the simple statement of why he is running for president as "so everyone in America has the same opportunities that I have had," he made a promise to the assembled delegates from the South Carolina Democratic Party.  He said that he would, as the nominee, be back to South Carolina to campaign in that state to do two things.  First, he would campaign there to win the state, and second, he would campaign there to continue to build the Democratic Party in South Carolina and in the South.  That's a bold promise, breaking the mold of our past nominees and something that bodes well for the vitality of our party nationally.

Because there is always time for a montage: Check out what people are saying after two years of the 50-State Strategy!

Today is Governor Dean's Two Year Anniversary as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee!  And thanks to Democrats all across the country who have done the hard work to make it a success, Governor Dean's vision, the 50-State Strategy, has become an integral part of helping Democrats win campaigns all across the country.