It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

Strange week. Saw my first McCain ad this week...and it is clear he is running as a Democrat. Healthcare, alternative energy, environment...all Democratic talking points. We have gone from Democrats feeling like they have to run as Repub-Lite to Republicans trying to hide behind a Democratic facade. You even have a Republican running for Senate in Oregon trying to claim (falsely) that Obama supports him. This is desperation for the Republicans! It sounds like racist attacks have failed them, though I am sure they will try more as time goes on.

Meanwhile yet more polls show Obama ahead in Virginia and Missouri, tied in Florida, AHEAD IN INDIANA (wow!) and within 1-2 points of McCain in North Carolina, Alaska and Georgia. Each and every one of these states was solid Bush in 2004. Now they are either leaning Obama or effectively tied.

Quinnipiac University, The Washington Post and The Wall St. Journal have released their new "Battleground State" polls and, well, let's just say they might need to redefine their terms. Certainly by 2004 standards, Colorado, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota would be classic battleground states. Colorado went for Bush 52-47, Michigan went for Kerry 51-48, Minnesota went for Kerry 51-48 and Wisconsin barely went for Kerry 50-49.

We're not in 2004 anymore.

Colorado (1351 LVs, June 17-24, MOE +/- 2.7%)

Obama 49
McCain 44

Michigan (1411 LVs, June 17-24, MOE +/- 2.6%)

Obama 48
McCain 42

Minnesota (1572 LVs, June 17-24, MOE +/- 2.5%)

Obama 54
McCain 37

Wisconsin (1537 LVs, June 17-24, MOE +/- 2.5%)

Obama 52
McCain 39

Obama is overperforming Kerry in Colorado by 10%, in Michigan by 3%, in Minnesota by 14% and in Wisconsin by 12%. The keys: Obama wins independents in every single state (by double digits in three of them) and holds onto 2004 Kerry voters much better than McCain holds onto Bush voters.

If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, the least Obama will do...should do...this year is hold onto Kerry states. If pollsters want to test true battlegrounds in 08, they'd be well-advised to put polls into the field in states that went for Bush in 04 such as Virginia and Ohio, certainly moreso than some of the tight Kerry states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

While it is, of course, still early -- certainly too early to gauge the Lindsay Graham Meet The Press drama queen effect on the election -- it's good to see that the more state polls that are released, the more Barack Obama appears to be shoring up the Kerry coalition of states. The latest to fall into its natural state of blueness: Michigan.

Public Policy Polling (573 LVs, June 21-22, MOE +/- 41.%) has released the first poll out of Michigan since Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama there on June 16th and, despite the media's greatest hopes, it's looking as though the idea that McCain has a shot in hell at Michigan looks to be yet another of the great 2008 electoral myths in need of debunking.

John Kerry beat George Bush here in 2004 by 3%.

Some analysis from PPP's blog:

Barack Obama begins the general election in Michigan with a nine point lead. There are strong indications within the poll that party unity is close to full strength in the state. This is the first state where PPP has found Obama doing a better job of holding Democratic voters within the party (78-12) than McCain has of nailing down the Republican vote (74-19). Obama also has a 40-36 lead with independent voters, which Michigan has a lot of.

Obama's going to win any state where he's leading the white vote, and he has a 44-42 lead with it at this point. His 76-18 lead with black voters is likely to end up being larger on election day- pre-election polls frequently under estimate the percentage of the African American vote that Democratic candidates end up garnering.

Now, it should be noted that this poll, as of now, appears to be somewhat of an outlier, with the most recent poll taken June 9th showing Obama up just 3, so it will, as always, be interesting to see if other polls follow suit. One concern is that PPP's polling methodology may somehow favor Obama, as their recent state polls have shown Obama up by 11 in Ohio and up by 2 in Virginia. As PPP's own analysis admits:

"Every new poll PPP does in a swing state provides more evidence that talk of long term Democratic disunity because of the drawn out contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was over blown."

But whereas the Ohio numbers were informed by extremely favorable (some would say unrealistic) party ID numbers, that doesn't appear to be the case in Michigan.

Democrat 38
Republican 31
Other 30

The floods in the Midwest have continued and I include some information where I can in the Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin sections. Best of luck to all readers in the hard hit areas.

This week I return to an issue I discussed before: Republican cronies litterally killing our troops with no government oversight. This week Democratic Sentor Bob Casey is demanding an investigation of the electrocutions due to bad wiring that have been plaguing our military bases managed by a Hallibruton subsidiary. More below.

The reports of last night's event in Detroit are under-emphasizing perhaps its most important facet.  The arena was indeed full and there were plenty of people who didn't get inside.  Tons of families with young kids on a school night, parents bringing kids to engage history.  But the very most impressive thing about it was the emphasis on registration.  

We were in line for well over an hour beforehand.  In that time span three volunteers passed by with clipboards and registration materials signing people up.  First speaker of the night?  Chauncey Billups, the immensely popular point guard of the Detroit Pistons.  Spoke for five minutes to deliver a call for registration and to emphasize that all this enthusiasm doesn't matter if people don't make it to the polls.  Gore placed a good deal of emphasis on registration as well, driving home a litany of reasons why elections matter and urged people to sign up on the spot.  Obama, of course, also stressed the importance of registering.  On the way out...yep, more volunteers with registration materials.  They made it both as easy as possible and emphasized its importance as much as they possibly could.  They took an endorsement rally and made it into a massive and effective voter registration drive.  If MI depends on Metro Detroit voters they missed no opportunities here.  

I knew this was coming.  

With all the anger, accusations and hand-wringing during the primary contest over the DNC's stupid decision to strip Michigan of 100% of its delegates (they should have just gone with a flat 50% cut), the GOP was bound to come out with an ad like this and highlight the Democratic vitriol (and false claims and assertions) that swarmed around the Michigan nomination.

I post the ad to highlight that all actions have consequences.  We all should have handled the Michigan issue more civilly and with greater attention to the facts and fairness.

Although this ad is pretty misleading, I'm sure a not-inconsequential number of low-info voters are going to respond positively to this.  

You know that saying "reading blogs is like getting the newspaper 3 days early." I thought of that when I read Nedra Pickler's latest headline:

Obama camp sees possible win without Ohio, Fla.

Umm, yeah, and? The context here is Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's recent pitch to supporters at a private event:

At a fundraiser held at a Washington brewery Friday, Plouffe told a largely young crowd that the electoral map would be fundamentally different from the one in 2004. Wins in Ohio and Florida would guarantee Obama the presidency if he holds onto the states won by Democrat John Kerry, Plouffe said, but those two battlegrounds aren't required for victory.

But really, while Pickler seems to consider this news, it should come as a surprise to no one who's been truly paying attention. Back on March 14, I laid out the extremely plausible paths that both Democratic candidates had to the nomination, neither of which went through Ohio or Florida.

The first two steps:

1. Win what John Kerry won.

I think we can all agree that Kerry's states are the minimum any Democrat would (should) win, which includes 2 of the "big 4": Michigan and Pennsylvania. That will give the Democratic nominee 252 of the necessary 270 EVs as follows:

California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3),Washington (11) and Wisconsin (10).

2. Win Iowa and New Mexico.

Again, I believe these states, which barely went for Bush in 2004, would shift to either Democrat in November, thanks to a highly mobilized Hispanic community in New Mexico (I believe Gov. Richardson would be able to deliver the state for the Democrat this year) and an extremely motivated and well-organized Democratic base in Iowa thanks to the Iowa caucuses this year. Rasmussen Reports concurs that these states "Lean Democratic" this year. Victories here would give the Democrat 264 of the requisite 270.

Iowa (7), New Mexico (5)

As of this writing, Barack Obama is in fact polling ahead of John McCain in all of these states, which puts Barack just 6 EVs shy of the nomination. In other words, even without Ohio or Florida, Obama would need only one of the following states (where, incidentally, he is also currently polling ahead) to clinch:

Colorado (9 EVs)
Missouri (11 EVs)
Virginia (13 EVs)

And that's not even counting a few other red states the Obama campaign intends to put in play. From Pickler's article:

Plouffe and his aides are weighing where to contest, and where chances are too slim to marshal a large effort. A win in Virginia (13 electoral votes) or Georgia (15 votes) could give Obama a shot if he, like Kerry, loses Ohio or [sic] Florida. [...]

Georgia has many unregistered black voters who could turn out in record numbers to support the first major-party nominee who is black, he argued. Plouffe said the campaign also will keep an eye on Mississippi and Louisiana as the race moves into the fall to see if new black voters could put them within reach.

As kos notes, there is a massive voter registration drive underway right now in predominantly black neighborhoods in Louisiana that is overwhelming the local registrar offices, all of which should pay major dividends in November. But kos is right, it's not all about winning in these formerly reddest of red states, it's about making McCain spend money there.

If Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi tighten, McCain, already lagging far behind in money and constrained in the general election by taking public financing, will have a tough choice between defending what should be easy holds and spending the HUGE bucks required to seriously contest expensive Blue states like Pennsylvania while desperately holding on to expensive Red ones like Florida.

McCain is already going to have to spend big to hold onto Florida and Ohio as it is. He's downright screwed if he has to defend Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi and Plouffe's comments at the fundraiser the other day were clearly meant to put McCain on notice.

This year's map is going to be different than 2000 & 2004 and it's about time the media caught up to that.