Sunday Evening Funnies

"It's Obama, stupid"

To be read aloud in your best Scottish brogue:

Democrat grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president.

Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that she must now bow out of the primary race.

Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.

"They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."

An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton's rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.

"grandees" and coup de grâce in the same sentence. You gotta love it. The money shot:

Obama's campaign has been a phenomenon in American politics, bringing in record numbers of new voters and record funding, and few think the superdelegates would dare deny him victory if he wins the popular vote.

It would also invite the unedifying spectacle of a mostly white elite denying an African American candidate a chance for the presidency. "It would cause a scandal to do that," says one party official. "To turn around to the black community and say, 'You got the most votes, but no'? Unlikely."

Anybody still seriously considering a Clinton nomination should be honest with themselves: she can't win the nomination in a way that would render her more electable than Obama. And since that is the sole remaining argument for her getting the nomination, it is delusional for anyone to contine to believe she should.

This must be about preserving viability for Clinton as a candidate for president in 2012, as far as I can determine; a vile strategy if accurate. At this point Clinton should be defending Obama against unfair attacks on his patriotism, his choice of church and pastor, his qualifications, and his merits. That she is doing the opposite is not a reason to support her, but a reason to be "bitter".

And that there is more mention of Obama as an 'elitist' -- a utterly ridiculous conflation -- than there is regarding the Bush administration's wholehearted application of torture as a foreign policy once more makes a mockery of what passes for a discussion of 'moral values' in the so-called liberal media.

Sunday Funnies

IVR polls Skelly-Culberson and Noriega-Cornyn

And finds there is some ground to make up:

In the CD7 race, I identified each candidate's party, which may explain the unexpectedly low undecided response. Only 4% said they were undecided, with Culberson receiving 57% to Skelly's 39%. ... For the Senate race, Cornyn leads Noriega 58 to 39 within CD7.

536 likely voters polled 4/8/08, Margin of error 4.2%.

Eerily similar figures for my neighborhood in the two important federal races on the ballot (besides the one at the top, of course). Neither race is considered ripe for the Democratic taking. Yet.

Enough voters are willing to consider a non-Republican, but a Democratic candidate would need flawless execution and a little luck.

With 88,000 Democratic primary voters out of the nearly 411,000 county-wide last month, we certainly have the numbers trending our way. The outcome will turn on a variety of factors within and without our control.