The racist-sexist smear campaign against Michelle Obama has begun.  Last week, Fox News smeared Michelle Obama as Barack's "baby mama."

This week, Fox News gave us a preview of the racist-sexist smear that the repubs are planning for Michelle - painting her as just another one of those "angry black women."  You know, one of those scary and dangerous "angry black women."  The angry black woman who, along with her husband and their scary black liberationist preacher, wants revenge on "whitey."  It's about fear and fear-mongering, pure and simple.  And it must stop.  

The smear occurred on Fox News Watch on Saturday, June 14.  The topic of the panel discussion was "Is Michelle Obama the Next Media Target?"  Conservative pundit Cal Thomas answered this question with a resounding and disturbing yes.  

Howard Fineman was on MSNBC with Keith Olbermann, and he repeated that, based on his reliable sources, Hillary Clinton really does not want to be Obama's vice president, despite what you are hearing from Clinton surrogates, including Lanny Davis and Diane Feinstein.  Fineman then gave his explanation for why he thinks Hillary doesn't want it.

Before I heard Fineman's explanation, I was a bit incredulous, because it seemed to me that Hillary's speech tonight was a signal that her campaign for vice president was beginning.  But, after hearing Fineman's reasoning, I'm starting to think he may be right.

More below the fold.  

As we begin the hard process of unifying the party after a bruising primary, we know that the task will be difficult because of the anger and resentment felt by many of Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters.  I keep reading Clinton supporters write and say that they will never vote for Obama, and will either vote for McCain, write-in Hillary, or stay at home.  I also read about how they say they won't be threatened into voting for McCain because of trumped up fears that a McCain presidency will mean the end of Roe v. Wade.

I'm writing this diary because there is an important fact that all democrats and pro-choice voters must know about, a fact that should help them realize that the threat to Roe v. Wade is real.  The fact that must be stated over and over again is that the average age of the 5 justices on the Court who support Roe v. Wade is seventy-four.  And we thought John McCain has an age issue.

More below the fold.

Lately, caucuses have been getting a really bad rap.  Clinton and Clinton supporters disparate caucuses as illegitimate, un-democratic systems for choosing the democratic presidential nominee.  

Now, we all know that this sudden movement against caucuses has risen only because Clinton lost ALL the caucus state elections (I consider Nevada an Obama victory).    

In this diary, I want to offer a defense of caucuses, and argue that the democratic presidential primary process should continue to include a mix of caucuses, open-primaries, and closed-primaries.  Caucuses are an important part of the process.  They are legitimate, I argue, because not only are they democratic in nature, they also provide an invaluable measure of electability factors, factors that primaries are not able to effectively measure.  Moreover, contrary to what Clintonites argue, Obama's overwhelming victories in caucus states provide a strong basis for arguing that Obama is more electable than Clinton.  Analysis after the fold.  

No, this diary is not about the phenomenon of white voters who say they'll vote for a black person then end up not voting for him/her.  That's the Tom Bradley Effect.  

What I want to talk about is something interesting Chuck Todd mentioned today on some MSNBC show.  It's a rebuttal to Bill Clinton's contention that Hillary is "winning the general election" based on current general election polling against McCain.  The nationwide and state specific general election polls are key to Hillary's argument that she's more electable than Obama.  If you go over to MyDD, their electoral map based on the most recent state polls shows Clinton with a whopping 300+ electoral votes to McCain's 200.  Obama, on the other hand, is about even with McCain.  

According to Todd, Bill and Hill's argument is wrong.  The fact that Hillary is doing well in general election match-ups proves only that she has, in effect, lost the nomination.  For an explanation of what Bill Bradley has to do with any of this, see below the fold.  

There is a recommended diary arguing that Clinton's RFK statement is her "Dean Scream" moment and signals the demise of her campaign.  I agree.  However, I still see people writing posts talking as if Clinton will just shake off this latest glitch and continue her scorched earth campaign all the way to the convention.  That will not happen, however, and the RFK statement is the final nail in Hillary's desperation campaign for many different reasons.

In this diary, I will attempt to show why and how the RFK gaffe spells the end of Clinton's desperation campaign.  No, she will not concede or suspend her campaign right away.  She will continue on to the last primaries.  But, with each passing day, it will become clearer and clearer that her campaign has been noticeably hurt by the RFK statement.  The campaign is on its last legs, and its final collapse will occur slowly but methodically over the coming several weeks.  My prediction - Clinton will suspend her campaign on June 3rd, the night of the last primaries, or on June 4th.  The campaign will not go beyond June 5th.  Reasons below the fold.  

I read another diary which referred me to a recent national general election poll conducted by Investor Business Daily.  It was quite a find, because the poll is the first one I've seen that has polled Obama against McCain with Clinton as Obama's VP.  

In the IBD poll, the Obama v. McCain match-up without vps has Obama beating McCain by 11 points, 48-37, with 15 percent undecided.  The pollster then matched up an Obama/Clinton ticket against McCain with 3 different VP candidates: Condi Rice, Mitt Romney, and Pawlenty.  

Hillary Clinton has been arguing that she is the best qualified vice president because she would be the best person to unify the democratic party and to draw white working class voters.  If so, you'd expect that the addition of Clinton alongside Obama would boost his numbers against McCain.  The results of the polling, however, doesn't seem to suggest adding Clinton to the ticket would have any dramatic effect in boosting Obama's candidacy against McCain.  Results after the fold.

Poll - McCain/VP v. Obama/Clinton  To find the IBD poll, you have to scroll about half way down the screen.

She's back.  

The exchange between Bush, McCain, and Obama seemed to signal the start of the general election.  And Obama's speech in Iowa was supposed to put an exclamation mark on his historic and triumphant presidential candidacy.

But, the day after his Iowa speech, what were the media talking about?  Hillary Clinton.  Just as Obama stole the media narrative from HRC's West Virginia win with the Edwards endorsement, HRC has "hil-jacked" the media narrative from Obama, at least momentarily.  

Everything she's doing and saying now is a not-so-subtle attempt to de-legitimize Obama's candidacy in order to get herself on the ticket.  What she is doing is perfectly rational if you see her goal as doing everything she can to make it extremely difficult for Obama not to offer her the VP slot.  More below the fold.  

In arguing that popular vote should be the metric used to determine the democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton and her supporters point to the illegitimate and un-democratic nature of caucuses as one reason why.  As we all know, Obama has destroyed Clinton in caucus states, racking up huge margins of victory in the process.  Yet, for Clinton, Obama's strength caucus states actually proves her argument that Obama is un-electable, contending that Obama is winning the pledged delegate count primarily because of his wins in "illegitimate" caucus states, states which are predominantly red-states anyway.

To test Clinton's theory, I want to examine 2 questions: (1) are caucus states mostly red-states, as Clinton supports argue?  (2) in recent polling, how is Obama faring against McCain in general election match-ups in caucus states?  And how is he doing compared to Clinton?  

The answers to the two questions, I'd argue, completely undermine Clinton's critique of caucus states and her contention that Obama is un-electable.  In fact, Obama's strength in caucus states actually may show that he is more electable than Hillary Clinton.  Analysis after the fold.  

Last week, HRC called North Carolina a gamechanger, saying that NC would be sending a strong message to the nation about who the democrats want as their next president.  When I heard it, I was immediately and deeply puzzled.  Why would she say something like that when she knows that she has little chance of winning the state?  She didn't even mention Indiana, suggesting that NC would change the game regardless of what happened in Indiana.

I thought about it for a bit, and then I came to a possible explanation.  By calling NC a gamechanger, knowing the steep odds of winning, HRC was providing herself with an exit strategy for bowing out of the race on her own terms.  

More below.  

I'm a relatively new member of Kos, having joined right when the manufactured "bittergate" scandal was taking place.  I'm an academic who writes about issues of racial equality, affirmative action, and school segregation.  So, yes, I'm one of those SF liberal elite types who are overwhelmingly supporting Obama.  

I don't drink lattes, though, and I'm actually a relatively new Obama supporter, having come on board shortly before Super Tuesday.  Early in the primary season, I believed that Obama was indeed too inexperienced to become president, and that in an ideal world, HRC would become the nominee with Obama as her running-mate, setting him to become President in 2016.  

I don't believe that anymore.  After watching Obama's press conference yesterday and hearing him talk about the gas tax holiday, I now firmly believe that Obama has what it takes to be president, and while Clinton has lots of experience in insider politics, she seems to be lacking a quality that is essential for good leadership: good judgment.  

During this ugly primary race, HRC's actions have proven to me only that she has a very bad sense of judgment.  And if you have bad judgment, all the experience in the world doesn't count for anything.  More below the fold.

Supporters of Obama who keep thinking and writing about the latest manufactured controversy are actually helping to keep the controversy alive.  

Don't unwittingly reinforce the negative frames the unholy alliance consisting of the mainstream media, repubs, and HRC is using to define Obama.  Because if we're not careful, our response may be as effective as asking someone to not think about an elephant.  Think how hard it is to not think of an elephant if you kept saying to yourself:

Stop thinking about an elephant,
Stop thinking about an elephant,
Stop thinking about an elephant,
Stop thinking about an elephant.

And, think about how hard it is to stop thinking about the famous reverend if you kept thinking to yourself:

Stop thinking about Reverend Wright.
Stop thinking about Reverend Wright.
Stop thinking about Reverend Wright.
Stop thinking about Reverend Wright.  

See?  More below the fold.
   

I read all the polls suggesting a Clinton victory in PA, and they just don't seem right to me.  Having followed the race very closely the last few weeks, I believe momentum is on Obama's side heading into today, which is very different from what happened in Ohio.  Below are the possible outcomes in descending order of likeliness, imho:

1. Clinton wins by 1-4%

2. Clinton wins by 5-7%

3. Obama wins by 2% or less

4. Clinton wins by 8-10%

5. Clinton wins by double digits

6. Obama wins by more than 2%.

So, I predict Clinton will win a close race with Obama having a better shot of winning outright than Clinton winning by 8% or more. How can I make that prediction given what the polls are saying?  I think the polls may turn out to be wrong because they all may have made faulty assumptions in determining who's likely to vote and therefore underestimated turnout for Obama.  More analysis below.