Posted originally at EENR Blog

Today is here and yesterday is over.  Why am I writing this?  Because as a reader and a John Edwards supporter I want to urge you not to change a damn thing about this blog.  Why?  Because the issues that are so important to us may not be as in focus today if it hadn't been for what John Edwards did throughout the campaign season.  I believe this wholeheartedly.

What John did in 2006 has no bearing on Universal Health Care.  What happened in 2006 does not make poverty in this County any less of an urgent issue.  The corporate media would love to believe that what John did in 2006 would mean one less powerful voice talking about the strangle hold that corporations have on every facet of our lives in this Country.

Nothing can take away from these issues unless we let it happen.

I was going to go a whole different way with this diary, but, given some of the responses to my first diary on this subject (which was really more of a rant on those who couldn't wait to yell "extraordinary claim" or "conspiracy theory"), I decided to go back and revisit the election fraud issue itself.

First, for the FAQ on "extraordinary claims":

Diaries on certain topics are likely to generate angry responses. Most of these topics fall under the general heading of "conspiracy theories", e.g., "JFK was killed by Martians". The rule for posting such diaries is "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". The more extreme the claim, the higher the burden of proof that commenters will demand. If you can't provide evidence to back up your claim, it is best not to post the diary. This guideline also applies to recommending extraordinary-claims diaries. If a diary makes an extreme claim with little or no evidence to back up that claim, it shouldn't be recommended, no matter what that claim is.

Now... follow me over the flip...

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

In the aftermath of the presidential primaries, stories of unprecedented voter registration and turnout are drifting to the back burner. But with an exceedingly imbalanced electorate, the fight to create access to the voting rolls and enforce the voting rights of all Americans continues. With historic voter registration drives underway and a preview of the types of problems that could occur in November, the focus of the media is beginning to shift towards the less sexy, but crucial elements that work to maximize voter participation while ensuring eligible voters can cast their ballots and have them counted. In Project Vote’s view, this is a welcome development since many of the potential issues require more time to sort out than is available if problems are noted only weeks in advance of the election. This week, election officials, advocates and a presidential candidate worked to assist in or restore voting rights for hospitalized veterans in Connecticut, minority citizens in Georgia, and former felons in Tennessee.

On June 5th, Simon Rosenberg of NDN had a conversation in San Francisco with Markos.  I was there (and took photos), but for people who weren't, there is now a couple of 4 minute excerpts on YouTube and about 30 minutes (after the jump along with the second YouTube clip) on fora.tv.  

There's a special circle of Hell reserved, in the minds of liberal and moderate Democrats, for anyone who claims to oppose the crimes and delusions of the Republican Party who then ends up voting for a third party candidate, or who doesn't bother to vote, or who (worst of all) ends up voting for a Republican. The very mention of the name Ralph Nader sends these folks into verbal fits of frothing at the mouth and textual fits of ALL CAPS. The Green Party and the Libertarians can induce similar if not quite so violent seizures. And the targets of their wrath are generally to be found in those groups known as the independents, the "swing voters", the hopeless idealists, and the disaffected non-voters or infrequent voters.

I don't mind the CW being wrong on occasion, I just hate it when it's wrong despite all evidence to the contrary.

There was a growing consensus during the Democratic primary season that Obama was going to struggle with Latino voters -- due to the exit polls, his race, and McCain’s immigration stance. In fact, in that now-famous conference call in which Hillary Clinton indicated that she would be open to serving as Obama’s running mate, that response was spurred by concern by New York Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D) that Obama was going to have trouble with Latinos. But it looks like that CW -- at least right now -- was wrong. In addition to our recent NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Hispanics breaking for Obama 62%-28%, a new survey of 800 Latino voters from 21 states finds that 60% of them plan to vote for Obama versus 23% for McCain. That is down considerably from the 40%-plus Bush received in 2004. It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does. This was a case of conventional wisdom that was never based on fact, just semi-informed speculation based on primary exit polling and bad stereotypes of Latinos.

You think? Really? Stereotypes like Latinos won't vote for black candidates? Claims (fed by the Clinton campaign) that people who voted for Clinton in the primary wouldn't vote for Obama in the general? All of it ratified by a clueless media who just repeated the latest bullshit talking points from Lanny Davis and Karl Rove?

That "new survey" cited above is this one, but there are plenty of state-level surveys that similarly show Obama poised to absolutely crush McCain with this demographic.

Obama's lead among Latinos is consistent among those born in the U.S. and those born abroad. Among U.S.-born Latinos, Obama leads McCain 57 percent to 26 percent, and among foreign-born Latinos, 64 percent to 21 percent.

Likewise, Obama does well among Latinos across many states. In California, he leads 66 percent to 20 percent; in New York, 65 percent to 20 percent; in Texas, 61 percent to 22 percent. Combining data in the four southwestern states expected to be key battlegrounds -- New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada -- Obama leads McCain 57 percent to 31 percent among Latino voters. In Florida, where about half of Latino voters are Cuban-American, Obama has 43 percent to McCain's 42 percent. The poll's margin of error is 3.5 percent.

Again, that CW was always hogwash, no matter how much Republicans, Clinton partisans, and the press wanted to believe otherwise. Whether the actual hard data makes a dent in the CW remains to be seen. Remember, people still claim Bush speaks fluent Spanish (when he absolutely does not).

(A little note before diving into the body of the diary: I wrote this on an old blog I published in May of '07.  This was before the constant supplemental capitulations, and before the divisive primary we have so mercifully concluded.  What strikes me is how my optimism has diminished to the extent that it has.  I'm publishing this here tonight in an attempt to reclaim it.  We're so close to booting the crooks and liars out for a generation, and if we can make the points listed here as clear and prevalent now as they were a year ago, we will do it.)

       2008 might go down in history as the collapse of the Republican Party as a primary organization in American politics.  While this would certainly be celebrated by many (my hat and noisemaker are sitting in wait); the remarkable nature of the near-epic disintegration of popular support for the GOP is its self-infliction.  This isn't an attempt in any way to marginalize the work done by many who have toiled (often at great personal detriment) in opposition to some of the more debased acts of the Republican-controlled government; but facts are what they are.

In November 2006, Tim Tagaris wrote a post mortem about what went wrong with the Ned Lamont campaign. From that post:

Barack Obama

Quite possibly the biggest disappointment ... period.

While on his book tour, he was in NYC one day, had a scheduled day off, and appeared in Massachusetts the following day.  Yet he couldn't make time to stop in the state between the two on his day off.  We made it explicitly clear he was the single senator we wanted in the state above all others.

He declined.

Eventually, we asked Senator Obama to send out an email for the campaign to his Connecticut list.  We created a culture in which emails became news (much like we did with the blogs in the primary).  They made it entirely clear that he would basically not even mention Joe Lieberman's name in the email, let alone take him to task for his unfortunate position on the war in Iraq.  This was disappointing, but I wasn't going to be spiteful.  They sent the email, and as I hoped, the press came calling.  Our Press Secretary, Eddie Vale, was asked how many people the email went to.  He looked on the back-end of the website and saw the number of click-throughs to the landing page I created.  He answered "about 5,000."  Within minutes of the Associated Press piece going on the wire, I received several phone calls from Obama staff.  They were none to pleased about the 5,000 number.  Essentially, Obama could be seen as helping, but not helping THAT much.  His staff apparently made it clear that the email only went out to 225 people in Connecticut.  That's it.  The next day we were subject to a correction in the papers and ridicule from Lieberman's campaign and corners of the right-wing blogosphere.

It's also important to note that Obama's email came only after a tremendous amount of pressure built up from portions of various online communities who "threatened" in behind-the-scenes conversations and open discussions online that support for Lamont would be viewed as a part of a "presidential checklist."

Everyone should also know that Robert Gibbs, part of the group that ran the infamous Dean/Osama ad during Iowa 2004, is now Barack Obama's Communications Director.

So why were there 5,000 clickthroughs? Because Atrios got a copy of the email and linked to the landing page, inflating the number of people who saw that page. Obama was pressured into "helping" Ned Lamont, but that help took the form of an email sent to a piddling 225 people. Such help...

Keep that in mind as you read this:

It's well known that Obama's 2006 endorsement was important. But it's not widely understood just how urgently the Lieberman people begged for Obama's help at a critical moment in Lieberman's career -- and in that light, just how much of a back-stabbing Lieberman's attacks on Obama now represent.
In response to the Lieberman camp's pleas for help, Obama subsequently endorsed him at a dinner of Connecticut Democrats later that month.

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," Obama said at the time.

"It was a favor as huge as we could have gotten -- it was like a drowning man getting thrown a life preserver," the Lieberman official continued. "Just when Ned was trying to establish himself as a credible alternative on the war, Barack Obama came in and said, `Hey, I disagree with him on the war, but you should send him back to the Senate.'"

So Obama gave Lieberman his priceless endorsement, undercutting Ned Lamont. Then, in the general election, rather than get behind Lamont as the Democratic nominee, he undercut him by refusing anything more than a pitiful email to a pitiful 200+ recipients. In other words, Obama ran interference for Lieberman.

Now, Obama reaps what he sowed, with Joe Lieberman transformed into one of John McCain's top attack dogs.

Supporting Joe Lieberman and undermining Ned Lamont was likely Obama's worst decision the past two years. And while a heaping spoonfull of "I told you so" is in order, I'd be satisfied with a full-fledged ouster of Lieberman from the Democratic caucus. Senate Democrats (and Barack Obama) cannot allow a betrayal of this magnitude remain unpunished.

Update: The past two years, Lieberman has used his chairmanship at Homeland Security to cover Bush's myriad f'ups from port security to Katrina. How much does anyone want to bet that if Senate Dems inexplicably let him keep his committee in 2009, he doesn't use it to conspire with Republicans and undermine Obama's presidency? Bet on it.

Given we were right about Lieberman before, do Senate Democrats really want to bet that we won't be right about this?

When Obama rightfully questioned McCain's committment to out soldiers when McCain failed to vote for the bipartisan GI Bill, it drew a ranting, raving response from McCain.  But it isn't really that McCain felt his honor had been attacked and he had been the subject of a political smear.  No, McCain still is suffering the sting of rejection from Obama.  See below the fold...

Tonight I was watching MSBC's coverage of the Kentucky election.  During the broadcast Harold Ford was asked how he won the white vote in Tennessee.   Joe asked Harold how he had done so well winning the white working class vote in Tennessee during his senate run.  They talked about how Harold was in a camouflage hat at the bar shaking hands and winning white votes.  Being an Obama supporter, wanting to learn from someone almost won in Tennessee I figured I would go back and look at Mr. Fords vaunted success with white voters.  

As luck would have it, CNN still has the exit interviews from that election.  It’s difficult to get to the core of his success with "white working class voters" in particular without crosstabs but we can see how he did with whites in general.  

More below the fold..

TN GOP is playing with fire.  Barack Obama stated today "Lay off my wife."  People in the MSM saw this as an empty passing warning, nothing more.  He said that the TN GOP "needs to think long and hard," about the tactics they are using.  The MSM didn’t sit and think about this at all, not surprising.... What exactly was Obama implying?  What was his threat?  Senator Bob Corker understands and is trying to make the TN GOP see what he sees.

Late today Senator Bob Corker released a statement warning his state party to back away from their latest attack on Michelle Obama.  If you haven’t seen the attack looky here.

Follow me below.

I've long sang the praises of the contested primary, most recently last week when North Carolina's Kay Hagan saw a boost against Dole after winning her primary.

Now, if you listen to the Beltway conventional wisdom, contested primaries are terrible, terrible things. The parties work feverishly to "clear the field" for favored candidates, forcing out less-attractive primary opponents regardless of how many feathers are ruffled at the grassroots level. Party officials would prefer that candidates spend time raising money rather than spending it, especially if the opposing party has cleared its own field.

Yet a bitterly contested primary wasn’t a terrible thing for over half of the Senate’s newest members. Ten of the 19 senators first elected in 2004 and 2006 triumphed in contested primaries before defeating general election opponents who had been "blessed" with cleared primary fields.

In 2004, that list included Republicans Tom Coburn in Oklahoma, Jim DeMint in South Carolina, Richard Burr in North Carolina and Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, as well as Democrat Barack Obama in Illinois. In 2006, that list included Democrats Jon Tester in Montana, Jim Webb in Virginia, Bob Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania and Ben Cardin in Maryland, as well as Republican Bob Corker in Tennessee.

I went back to see if Webb's victory in 2006 was mostly influenced by Macaca, or whether his primary victory played a role. Here's Rasmussen polling of the race for the year:

Webb's primary victory was immediately worth about a 10-point boost, a boost he never relinquished. Macaca was worth another six points or so, and put him close enough to close the deal the final weeks of the race.

But it's clear, given the numbers, that the single biggest boost for his campaign was winning his primary.

If today was Election Day, and Hillary Clinton was the nominee of the Democratic Party, I would begrudgingly vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain.  However, this is a marked difference from January, when I would have been happy and excited to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton.

As you'll recall, the Lieberman campaign hosted their website on a cheapy hosting account, probably paying in the tens of dollars per month for the service. When their website crashed due to heavy usage on Primary Day, they accused the Lamont campaign or his supporters of "hacking" his website.

We knew immediately why his site had gone down -- his shitty hosting account -- but Joe Lieberman, in full sanctimony, demanded an investigation into the website failure, forcing tax payers to fund civil and criminal investigations into the mater.

We already know that the US Attorney knew before the November elections that the charges were bogus, yet refused to reveal the information. We also know that Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal claims the Feds didn't update him on their investigation, hence he was unable to let the public know about Lieberman's bogus politically-charged accusations.

However, the reality is that the Feds DID tell Lieberman and Blumenthal about the results.

Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney, said in a statement that the office updated the Lieberman campaign and Blumenthal on the investigation in late October 2006.

"In accordance with our usual practice . . . the Lieberman campaign, as the alleged victim, and the office of attorney general, which had been conducting a contemporaneous investigation . . . were provided with limited information," Carson said. "The investigation was administratively closed several weeks later."

Tom Swan, Lamont's former campaign manager, said Carson's response is alarming.

"They acknowledge letting the Lieberman campaign know and never letting anybody from the Lamont (campaign) know," Swan said.

The US Attorney's office knew that Lieberman's charges were bull before the November election, as did Dick Blumenthal, as did Joe Lieberman. Yet none decided to update the public on charges that had a clear political import in the then-current debate.

The US Attorneys were (are?) puppets of the Rove political machine. Their silence is obvious, and Lieberman has repaid that favor to George Bush many times over since his reelection. Dick Blumenthal was obviously carrying water for Lieberman.

And Lieberman? For someone who claims to be so religious, he sure is a dishonest, lying hack.

Update: For their part, Blumenthal's office still denies they had concluded there was no wrongdoing before the election. But they did receive information from the US Attorney's office before the election. What exactly was that information?

Update II: Blumenthal emails me:

As you know from your legal background, a prosecutor is limited as to what he can say about a case that produces no criminal charges, especially when it's a state official talking about a federal investigation.

I can say that my office's discussions with the U.S. Attorney's Office prior to the election did not include any conclusions. The U.S. Attorney's Office did not inform my office of its conclusions until after the election.  

As I said in my statement, we were not informed of the FBI email or its contents or even its existence. Nor was any member of my staff given such information. This statement is not contradicted by anything said by the U.S. Attorney's Office. To have made any premature public predictions before our investigation ended in December 2006 would have been irresponsible and improper.

Interesting that the case magically gets closed just after the election when we had figured out the problem with Lieberman's website in about 45 minutes. It's still patently clear to me that Blumenthal's office and the US Attorney's office both dragged their feet until after the election. Why would they do that?

The video below is highly inspirational and conclusively decries the patronizing "Elitism" charge.

Obama speaks at Campus Progress' 2006 National Student Conference, discussing the challenges of community organizing.

I've been thinking back to the 2006 Congressional Elections.  

The conventional wisdom was that Democrats had a good chance to take back control of the House of Representatives, probably by a small margin.  But, even Chuck Schumer head of the DSCC didn't have much hope of Democrats taking back the Senate.  

Follow me past the fold for some analysis of the 2006 Congressional Elections, of Hillary Clinton's remarks about Move On, and how these relate to the 2008 elections.  

March 31, 2006:

Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman

HARTFORD, Conn. --U.S. Sen. Barack Obama rallied Connecticut Democrats at their annual dinner Thursday night, throwing his support behind mentor and Senate colleague Joe Lieberman.

Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is considered a rising star in the party, was the keynote speaker at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner.

Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.

Some at Thursday's dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman's success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.

Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the "elephant in the room" but praising Lieberman's intellect, character and qualifications.

"The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it," Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.

For someone who likes to tout his "judgement", this is proof that no one, not even Obama, is infallible.

But then again, can there possibly be a better example of Lieberman's ungratefulness? Yet another reason, in a long line of them, why his constituents are experiencing buyer's remorse.

In the wake of the publication of the Yoo memorandum, there has been a lot of attention again on this administration's war crimes. And it's needed.  Although the Bush Administration has apparently earned the contempt of the vast majority of the American people, we have yet to fully grapple with the crimes of this administration, let alone to call for the punishment of those responsible for them.

Troutfishing's excellent diary yesterday reminds us that the real war criminals include not just minor functionaries and crude hacks like John Yoo, but the highest levels of this administration including the President himself.  The MSM seems, very gingerly, to be reporting this now. And it's very important that progressives not let this story die.

But unfortunately we have another task before us which, for at least some progressives, will be far more difficult.