I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Jacob saw his first real fireworks display and loved it at first. We were watching from the 12th floor of a building right on the waterfront, so it was spectacular. Unfortunately, he was coming down with a fever and by the end was pretty unhappy. He is fine again now.

This was a big week, both locally where my friend qualified for the ballot for NYC's Sept. 9th primary election, and nationally where Obama's surge continued even as the Democrats once again showed less spine than we would like them to. More below.

The 2008 gubernatorial races were never meant to be the cycle's most suspenseful contests, but my March ratings found that the top four races had gotten unexpectedly more competitive, with three making their way to the toss-up rating. Yet, things have quieted down over the past few months. For one, heated Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina were resolved and it will take some time before the general election in these states reaches full speed. Meanwhile, Missouri's Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon is expanding his lead over his two potential opponents in what is looking like it could be a runaway race.

Originally posted on Campaign Diaries.

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.

Michigan and Florida vote early, are penalized to the point that their votes don't count, yet they have record turnouts.

48 other states count plus Puerto Rico, Democrats Abroad, Guam, Virgin Islands, and other places that don't actually get to vote in a Presidential election. Yet, they count MORE than 2 ACTUAL U.S. states.

Tonight Nebraska held a primary and the results were quite different than the caucus.

Around 39,000 people participated in the NE caucus. Tonight in a primary that DID NOT COUNT more than 89,000 democrats voted, 50,000 more than what participated in the caucus and this did NOT count.

You'll see similar results in the WA caucus vs primary.

This diary is going to be short. I'm just going to put out the facts and let you take it from there.

Lets take a look at the Washington and Texas elections.

Washington

Turnout was estimated to be about a quarter million in the Washington caucus or about 16% of Kerry voters. Obama won the state by 37 points.

Barack Obama: 68%
Hillary Clinton: 31%

Almost 700,000 people voted in the Washington primary, or about 46% of Kerry voters, yet no delegates were awarded. Obama's margin was shaved to just 5 points when turnout was increased.

Barack Obama: (354,112) 51%
Hillary Clinton: (315,744) 46%
John Edwards: (11,892) 2%
Dennis Kucinich: (4,021) 1%

Texas

In Texas, 2.8 million people voted in the primary, almost as much people that voted for Kerry in the 2004 general election (99%). Clinton was able to secure a 4-point win over Obama and a 126 delegates were distributed using the results.

Hillary Clinton: (1,459,814) 51%
Barack Obama: (1,358,785) 47%

In the caucus portion of the Texas election, over one million voters, who already voted in the primary, gave Obama a 12-point victory over Clinton. In other words, one million people voted twice on the same day.

Barack Obama: 56%
Hillary Clinton: 44%

Now, before people start talking about Bill Clinton and the TX caucus, realize this, Bill Clinton is not running for President. Bill Clinton is not Hillary Clinton and I don't care what Bill Clinton did regarding the Texas caucus.

My proposal? Clinton should appeal the TX and WA caucuses and fight for the state's respective primary results to dictate the delegate allocation.

Discuss

Please be aware that the pop vote totals on Real Clear Politics are non-representative of the real totals, as they exclude several states who haven't fully reported their popular vote totals.

Washington DC "Shadow Senators", Sen. Paul Strauss & Sen. Michael Brown, have endorsed Barack Obama.  The endorsement was noted on page 9 of the print version of today's Washington Post, District local news section (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022701430_ 2.html).  The endorsement is noted at the very end of the story.  The shadow Senators are unpaid & elected by Washington "Taxation Without Representation" DC voters to lobby for voting rights & DC statehood.  "Shadow Senators" can't vote in the US Senate nor are they recognized by that body.  

A couple weeks ago, I found an interesting post on right-wing blog race42008 wherein a Virginia Republican blogger pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton in Virginia's Feb. 12th open primary. As he explained then:

It looks like by the time the first post-Super Tuesday primaries are held here in Virginia, the Republican nomination battle will be more or less wrapped up. Between the Arnold and Rudy endorsements and Huckabee and Romney splitting the conservative vote, I'm just not sure anyone other than McCain will be viable by then.

So what's a Republican to do? Take a page from Kos, of course. You will recall that in the Michigan primary, Kos urged Democrats to vote for Romney, on the theory that he would be the weakest general election candidate.

Since then, Romney has dropped out and Huckabee has made a real play for Virginia, so I was skeptical that Hillary Clinton would see a cross-over Republican bounce. But then diarist jmr1948 finds an interesting piece over at NRO's The Corner:

My wife and I have never voted for anything left of Republican, frequently voting on the Conservative party line when available.  Yet today, we both voted for Hillary in the VA primary.  Why?  Because it seems McCain has it wrapped up, so why waste our vote on the Republican side; she is a lot less scary than Obama in many ways (better the Devil you know), and I think she is more easily beaten with her high negatives and lack of charisma.  So we were part of the high Dem turn out today which I am sure you will hear about.  And there is no way we will ever vote Dem in November.

We live in a highly conservative precinct (Eric Cantor is our Congressman).  I saw many folks today picking up the Democratic ballot also.  I think my wife and I were far from alone in our thinking.

But anyone who thinks the cross-over voting would automatically benefit Hillary Clinton, think again, Ambinder brings us this e-mail from a Republican reader:

I have heard no less than five [CONSERVATIVE THINK TANK] staffers say they voted for Obama today. Personally I think their calculus is all wrong and I plan to vote for Hillary later today.

The cross-over vote is something to look for as the post-mortem on the Virginia race is written. For what it's worth, Survey USA's final Virginia poll, which has Obama up 60-38, has Republicans making up just 6% of the Democratic primary electorate and breaking for Obama  63-27. Something tells me GOP voters will make up a slightly higher portion than this, but whether it will break for Obama as they suggest is a big question.