The Polk County Democrats forwarded via e-mail an open letter signed by many well-known Democratic attorneys, including Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, prominent plaintiff’s attorney Roxanne Conlin, superb defense attorney Alfredo Parrish, Iowa Democratic Party chairman Scott Brennan, and past IDP chairman Gordon Fischer.

I agree with them that Polk County needs to renovate its courthouse, which is unsafe and inadequate in many ways.

I will be voting yes on April 29.

From Local Party Activists:

BUILDING FOR JUSTICE VOTE YES ON APRIL 29TH

TO OUR DEMOCRAT FRIENDS:

Our courthouse is the last bastian of direct democracy.  It is the place where any citizen with any complaint can have their issue heard and resolved.  It is also the place where criminal justice is delivered.  Access to our courthouse is the cornerstone of our republic.  Access requires a safe and secure environment, free from intimidation.  

Our Polk County Courthouse is more than 100 years old.  It is overcrowded, unsafe, and without adequate security.  The condition of our courthouse negatively impacts the delivery of justice and access guaranteed to all.

We must do something now.  A plan to fix our problem will come before the voters on April 29th.  Please join us in supporting the courthouse referendum.  The project has been carefully studied.  It is reasonable and sensible in scope, it fully restores and utilizes our historic courthouse, and solves our problem now and for future generations.

Let’s come together as our community did over 100 years ago to solve this problem and create a legacy for generations to come.  Justice deserves nothing less.

Vote “YES” on the Polk County Courthouse Referendum on April 29th.  For further information visit: wwwbuildingforjustice.org.

Marc Beltrame

Ray Blase

Scott Brennan

Roxanne Conlin

Guy Cook

Gordon Fischer

Tom Henderson

Bill McCarthy

Al Parrish

John Sarcone

Tom Whitney

Every once in a while on one of the national political blogs, a supporter of Hillary Clinton or John Edwards will assert that Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses by busing in thousands of ineligible voters from out of state.

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I am no fan of Obama, and I’ve strongly criticized some aspects of the Iowa caucus system.

But I have yet to encounter any serious observer of Iowa politics who believes Obama won Iowa by cheating. I have been talking to many volunteers for the Clinton and Edwards campaigns in Iowa, and a few staffers, while researching a future diary on how those candidates might have beaten Obama here. Literally no one I’ve talked with has claimed that Obama did not legitimately win the caucuses.

No doubt there were some people from out of state who fraudulently registered to vote here on caucus night. I’ve heard that may have been a particular problem in some areas of Scott County. But I haven’t seen any evidence that the Obama campaign orchestrated any fraud, and there’s no way the cheaters were numerous enough to account for Obama’s margin of victory here.

If you don’t believe me, read this story from the Des Moines Register: Caucuses drew few ineligible voters:

The Register review of voter registration data from all 99 counties reveals a low rate of new voter applications filled out on caucus night by people whose addresses later could not be verified.

Only 1.5 percent of the new voter identification cards mailed to voters who registered on caucus night were returned to county auditors as undeliverable. That’s an indication that the vast majority of new caucus-night voters had a bona fide address in Iowa.

State officials say the low error rate is impressive, especially since caucus-night turnout vastly exceeded expectations and overwhelmed local party officials around the state.

The other argument I hear from the occasional conspiracy theorist on a different blog is that Obama’s campaign bused in large numbers of students from out of state. First, that would have affected turnout in a relatively small number of Iowa’s 1,800 precincts.

Second, as long as those students attend Iowa colleges and live in state most of the year, I have no problem with a campaign helping them get back to their campuses in early January. What’s the qualitative difference between that and my giving someone in my neighborhood a ride to the caucus if he or she can’t drive?

The caucuses never should have been scheduled during the winter vacation of most colleges anyway.  

Friday, April 11, 7pm to 8 pm: House party for Ed Fallon at the home of Gene and Lucy Krauss, 3660 Grand Ave. apt. 240, Des Moines. RSVP to Jamie at (515) 822-4284.

Saturday, April 12, starting at 11 am: Young College Democrats Conference at Grinnell College. Ed Fallon will be speaking there, but I don’t know what else is on the program.

Saturday, April 12, 7 pm: “Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice,” First Christian Church, 2500 University Ave. in Des Moines. “Gary Anderson, nationally renowned portrayer of Clarence Darrow, depicts the man many consider the most brilliant person ever to argue law.  Darrow was famous for his work in the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.  He fought against the death penalty, social injustice, racism, conspiracy laws, and civil liberties violations.” Co-sponsored by First Christian Church and the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa. Tickets are available at the door and cost $10 for students and $20 for other adults.

Also, if you are the parent of children under the age of 10, you may want to come hear Justin Roberts and his Not Ready for Naptime Players at 11 am on Saturday, April 12, at the Masonic temple in downtown Des Moines (on Park between 5th and 6th). Justin is a Des Moines native (Roosevelt High School class of 1988) and is one of the best children’s songwriters around. Really, even adults enjoy his music! The concert is a fundraiser for the Des Moines Symphony Academy–tickets cost $15.

Please consider this an open thread for posting about any other interesting event coming up soon.

Chris Bowers announced the launch of the “From blue to bluer” campaign on Tuesday, and asked state bloggers to spread the word. Here are some highlights from his post on Open Left:

Five years ago, starting with his Presidential campaign and continuing with his tenure as DNC chair, Howard Dean introduced the idea of a “fifty state strategy” to the Democratic Party. The basic premise of the fifty-state strategy is that in order to truly revitalize the party Democrats needed to organize everywhere in the country, no matter how red or how blue a district may be, and not just in a select few “swing district” districts.

More recently, progressives have utilized Democratic primaries as a means to successfully change Democratic behavior. So far this year, this strategy has worked in districts such as the Illinois 3rd where Dan Lipinski changed his vote on Iraq because of his primary challenger, the Iowa 3rd where Blue Dog Leonard Boswell has suddenly become a progressive on a range of issues now that Ed Fallon is running against him, and the Maryland 4th where Donna Edwards handily defeated the more conservative Al Wynn. It is in the spirit of all three of these projects that BlogPac is announcing a similar program to reform safe, blue seats at the local and statewide level: From Blue to Bluer.

From Blue to Bluer seeks to first identify, and then help elect, progressive, grassroots candidates who are running in competitive Democratic primaries in blue districts around the country. The primaries can either be for open seats or against incumbents who are either too conservative for their districts, or who are simply corrupt, or both. The goal is to find a handful of proudly progressive primary candidates for local and state legislative races, and then provide them with the national support they need to help put them over the top. Through this program, we can show Democrats across the country that that a fifty-state strategy means blue districts too, and that all Democrats, no matter how local, can be held accountable for not representing their districts or for selling out progressive ideals.

Chris’s post goes into more detail about how solidly Democratic districts do not necessarily produce progressive office-holders (and he cites some examples from Philadelphia politics).

BlogPac is asking progressive activists from all over the country to nominate candidates who have the potential to turn blue districts bluer:

At BlogPac, we want to identify, and help elect, the best progressive primary candidates in blue districts around the country. Let’s find more Anne Dickers! The first step in this campaign is finding the right candidates to support, and that’s where you come in. If you have a suggestion for a local or state-level candidate for us to support, please fill out the form below and email it to natasha[dot]the[at]gmail.com:

From Blue To Bluer Submission Form

Please send your emails as word documents with the subject line “From Blue To Bluer.”

Just because a seat is blue does not mean it can’t become even bluer. Let’s build a truly national movement, and make a more progressive, reformed Democratic Party nationwide. Send in your suggestions today. The candidates we help support will only be as good as the ones you suggest.

At Open Left, you can find the link to the submission form, which is a pdf file. It looks like this:

Your name:

Your email:

Your website, if applicable:

Suggested Candidate Name:

District:

Major towns in district and/or link to a district map:

Incumbent name, if applicable:

Why is that primary a good one for the national netroots to get involved in (1,000 words or less):

If you know of any good primary battles shaping up at the state or local level in Iowa, please consider bringing the progressive challenger to the attention of BlogPac.

Barack Obama was expected to win today’s primaries in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, but he won them by even larger margins than expected. He now leads Clinton in the pledged delegate count, and may even be leading if you include Michigan and Florida.

I agree with DrinksGreenTea that it would be disastrous to have superdelegates decide our nominee at the convention. I also would hate to see our nominee determined by the decision over whether Michigan and Florida delegates are seated. I would like to see a clear winner emerge from the primaries.

That means either Hillary needs to win all of the March 4 primaries convincingly, and win Pennsylvania in April, or Obama needs to take at least one of the following: Texas, Ohio, or Pennsylvania.

If Obama wins a big state, there will be almost no way for Clinton to overtake him, and I don’t think superdelegates will go against the candidate who leads in pledged delegates.

Hillary is paying the price for having no plan for the contests after February 5. Clearly they were counting on putting Obama away on Super Tuesday.

Big wins for Obama today in the Nebraska and Washington caucuses. Early returns in Louisiana also show him winning, not surprisingly.

I will be interested to see if there was more than a negligible vote for Edwards in Louisiana, since he began and ended his campaign there and has done a lot to bring the Katrina aftermath to the media’s attention.

On the Republican side, Huckabee embarrassed McCain (and Senator Sam Brownback, who backed McCain) in Kansas today. Huck seems to have a shot at winning in Washington and Louisiana too. That would be just fine by me. Anything that keeps the “Republicans divided, base can’t stand McCain” as the journalistic narrative has to be good for Democrats.

Voters will make their choice this weekend in Maine, Louisiana, Washington state, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands.

Jerome Armstrong put up the predictions from an Obama campaign memo at MyDD. I’m sure those are lowball predictions, though.

I don’t have a clue about the percentages, but I think Obama will win all these contests handily. Clinton’s best hope is probably Maine, where the demographics are more favorable to her and her base is less likely to be stuck at work (and unable to caucus) on a weekend.

What do you think?

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

I don’t have a dog in this primary anymore. My candidate, John Edwards, is out of the race. I would vote for and do GOTV for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the general. I see major drawbacks to both of them as candidates and potential presidents, but I also think either of them have a realistic chance to beat John McCain and run a good administration.

This diary contains some friendly advice for supporters of both candidates going forward.

Join me after the jump for more.

Results will be trickling in all evening, though it may be tomorrow before we know how many delegates each candidate won.

For those who say the popular vote and the state-by-state results are meaningless because “it’s all about delegates,” I disagree. Clinton and Obama may finish within 50 delegates of each other, but psychologically, and in terms of media coverage, it will make a big difference who won the popular vote in California.

Also, it will make a big difference in the media coverage if one candidate wins at least two-thirds of the states voting today, as opposed to each candidate winning about half of the 22 states.

UPDATE: Wow, an exciting night with both candidates able to claim victory.

Obama will win 13 or 14 of the 22 states, which is impressive. True, many of them have low numbers of  Democrats participating (AK, ID, ND), but it does impress me that Democrats in the deep-red states seem to want Obama at the top of the ticket. Obama won by a surprisingly large margin in DE and won narrowly in CT and MO. He won IL by a much larger margin than Clinton won NY.

He can credibly claim that he can compete in all parts of the country.

On the other hand, Hillary looks set to crush Obama in California, despite all of the endorsements and glowing media coverage for Obama there lately. Hillary also beat Obama convincingly in MA, where the governor and both senators were for Obama, and in NJ, where some pollsters had Obama leading toward the end. She won in red states like TN and OK, not to mention AR.

It will be a while before we figure out the delegate count. If it’s a tie or close to that, Obama will be very happy, because the states set to vote for the rest of this month heavily favor him. He could have a delegate lead going into March 4, when TX and OH vote.

But given how early the networks called California and Arizona, Clinton seems to have held on to her big edge among Latinos. That doesn’t bode well for Obama’s prospects of winning TX.

I am pleased with the outcome. I didn’t want the nomination to be wrapped up tonight. We benefit from more time with our candidates in the limelight.

I hope the media will now start asking Obama more tough questions, because I’d be a lot more comfortable with him as the nominee if he gets plenty of media scrutiny in the next month or two.

More debates will help our candidates sharpen their messages as well.

All in all, a good night to be a Democrat.  

It is strange for me to feel so detached the day before an election. I don’t have a dog in this fight anymore. I see advantages and disadvantages to both Clinton and Obama as candidates and as presidents. I could live with either and would be enthusiastic about neither.

Super Tuesday, which looked a couple of weeks ago like it would be a blowout for Clinton, is up for grabs now with Obama surging in some key states. Put your predictions in this thread.

1. How many of the 22 states will Clinton win, how many will Obama win, and how many will be split decisions (with one candidate winning the popular vote and the other winning a majority of the delegates)?

2. Who will have the bigger winning margin: Obama in Illinois, or Clinton in New York?

3. Who will win each of the following states tomorrow?

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Kansas

Massachusetts

Minnesota

Missouri

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Dakota

Oklahoma

Tennessee

Utah

Check out MyDD and Open Left for recent polling data in these states, but keep in mind that there haven’t been any polls in some of them.

UPDATE: Obama supporter poblano has his predictions here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

It’s based on delegates, not popular vote, so he thinks several states will be a tie.

I forgot to add Americans abroad and American Samoa to the list of entities voting today. I predict Obama will win both of those groups.

I think Clinton will win these 11 states today: AZ, AR, CA, DE, MA, NJ, NM, NY, ND, OK, TN

Although Obama has all the momentum in CA, I pick Clinton to hang on (barely) there. I was persuaded by silver spring’s diary that most of the polls understate the percentage of women voters:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

I think Obama will win these 11 states today: AL, AK, CO, CT, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, MO, UT

I think that Obama’s winning margin in IL will be bigger than Clinton’s winning margin in NY.

I am not watching and may not even bother with the rerun later.

If you watched, what did you think?

Just last week I wrote a front-page post for MyDD called Ten arguments for sticking with John Edwards. I was getting ready to post the revised version on Daily Kos today or tomorrow, when I saw the news this morning that Edwards had decided to leave the race.

I was hoping Edwards would stay in to keep his message out there. I hope that he decided to quit for political reasons, or because he ran out of money, rather than because of a change in Elizabeth’s condition.

I feel lucky to have caucused for Edwards already. I have no idea how I would vote now. For most of the past year I strongly preferred Obama to Clinton, but in the past few months I’ve grown disenchanted with Obama’s campaign and skeptical about his ability to win. Maybe I would write in Edwards or Al Gore rather than vote for either of the candidates left in the race–I don’t know.

As for how this affects the race, I also have no idea. In some states, Clinton clearly benefits, while in others, Obama may benefit. My own siblings who supported Edwards are split, with my brothers breaking for Obama and my sister strongly leaning to Clinton.

Since most Bleeding Heartland readers seem to be Obama supporters, I recommend this diary by the wonderful JedReport called Some tips for Obama supporters, from an Edwards partisan.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the text and video of Edwards’ farewell address:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Sigh. McCain pulled this one out and is the clear front-runner, especially since Rudy Giuliani is going to endorse him. I was hoping Rudy wouldn’t finish in the top three in a single state.

On the bright side, Romney has more money, and conservative groups are starting to target McCain, with ads such as this one comparing McCain to Hillary Clinton:

http://link.brightcove.com/ser…

Results with 77 percent of precincts reporting:

McCain 615,203 (36%)

Romney 531,139 (31%)

Giuliani 252,925 (15%)

Huckabee 228,687 (14%)

Paul 55,070 (3%)

Thompson 20,231 (1%)

—

Clinton 753,543 (50%)

Obama 497,341 (33%)

Edwards 218,899 (14%)

Put your guesses in this thread. Remember, you can't win if you don't play!

My best guess for the Democratic side:

Clinton 52
Obama 40
Edwards 8

For the Republicans:

McCain 37
Romney 32
Huckabee 15
Giuliani 12
Paul 4 

As DrinksGreenTea wrote in the diaries, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is the latest big name to get behind Barack Obama’s presidential bid.

Clearly a significant chunk of the Democratic establishment does not want to see the Clintons back in charge. Also, Obama now has the backing of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick as well as both U.S. senators from the state.

Rumors continue to circulate about Al Gore endorsing Obama, but I’ve seen no confirmation of that.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton secured the backing of Florida Senator Bill Nelson shortly before that state’s primary. Her campaign is already calling on the DNC to seat Florida’s delegates despite the state’s flagrant violation of the rules.

Perhaps more significantly for Hillary, the American Nurses’ Association just endorsed her. That group represents the 2.9 million registered nurses across the country, and the endorsement will bolster Clinton’s argument that she has the superior health care plan.

My money is still on Clinton to win the nomination, but Obama’s convincing victory in South Carolina suggests that he is not out of the running either.

I don’t think anyone predicted the magnitude of Obama’s win in South Carolina, with 55 percent of the vote to 27 percent for Clinton and 18 percent for Edwards. Not only did Obama nearly double Clinton’s percentage of the total vote, the youth turnout tripled, and two-thirds of young voters chose Obama.

The total turnout exceeded 500,000, and Obama alone got more votes than the total turnout in the 2004 Democratic primary in South Carolina.

An estimated 155,000 more black voters turned out yesterday than in the 2004 primary.

Also, someone pointed out in the comments at MyDD that Obama got more votes yesterday in South Carolina than John McCain and Mike Huckabee’s combined total in the GOP primary last weekend.

I am shocked that the total turnout in the Democratic primary exceeded the turnout in the GOP primary in a state as conservative as South Carolina.  

I was way off on my Nevada predictions, but I didn't do too badly on the GOP results in South Carolina.

Please put your predictions for the Democratic South Carolina primary in the comments.

This week's polls have shown Edwards gaining, especially among whites. The big question mark is, will the Obama campaign be able to produce record black turnout, giving him a double-digit victory?

I'm guessing they will. My prediction: Obama 45, Clinton 33, Edwards 22. 

I'll be watching the rerun later. Judging from the comments at MyDD, this turned out to be quite the rumble.

What did you think?

UPDATE: noneed4thneed’s take is here:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

I will update later when more results are available. For now, I am taking these Nevada results from TPM:

Clinton 51 percent

Obama 45

Edwards 4

Romney 52 percent

Paul 13

McCain 13

Huckabee 8

Thompson 8

Giuliani 4

Hunter 2

Time for Edwards and Obama supporters to face some hard truths.

Even if he had won Iowa and gotten the unions to jump off the fence, it looks like Edwards would not have been able to take Nevada from Hillary.

If Obama couldn’t win this state despite getting favorable media coverage, more than 80 percent of the black vote (according to entrance polling), and the key union endorsements in Nevada, then it seems that no one could have beaten Clinton here.

Hillary won at least 6 of the 9 at-large precincts on the Las Vegas strip, and one of them was a tie. Those precincts supposedly were going to be dominated by the Culinary Union, which backed Obama. That’s why Clinton supporters went to court (unsuccessfully) to try to block the at-large precincts. But Culinary was not able to deliver for Obama in most of those precincts.

I haven’t seen any data yet on what percentage of Democratic caucus-goers were independents or Republicans who switched party affiliation. Total turnout shattered predictions and exceeded 114,000.

Many of the February 5 states will hold closed primaries, which means Obama will not benefit from strong support among independents and Republicans.

Entrance polling in Nevada suggests that Clinton led Obama 51-38 among women (who made up 59 percent of caucus-goers) and crushed Obama 64-26 among Latinos. That suggests a steep uphill climb for Obama in some of the larger February 5 states.

Obama supporters have been calling for Edwards to drop out, but I am not convinced that doing so would benefit Obama. In South Carolina, Edwards is  taking more away from Hillary.

Whichever candidate you favor, it’s obvious that Clinton is in the driver’s seat. She will have to make some big mistakes to lose the nomination now.

Obama was not able to put her away in New Hampshire, and it’s going to cost him big.

I just learned about the blog 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. It looks like a good place for political junkies to bookmark and check from time to time. The focus is “News and views about the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the race for the nomination.”

There’s a delegate counter and archive of past blog posts on the left-hand side of the page.

Recent posts include this one listing all of the “superdelegates” who have endorsed each of the Democratic candidates. If you click through, there is a link to a list of all the superdelegates who have not yet committed to a candidate.

You can also learn about the DNC’s standing committees on credentials, platform and rules, including who will co-chair each of those committees.

Some of you may be interested in this post about how to apply to be one of the DNC’s official state bloggers. Apparently one blogger from each state will be credentialed at the convention in Denver.  

The Nevada caucuses and the GOP primary in South Carolina take place tomorrow. How do you think the candidates will do? Here is my stab in the dark:

Nevada

Clinton 42

Obama 38

Edwards 20

Romney 35

McCain 30

Huckabee 15

Paul 5

Thompson 3

Giuliani 2

South Carolina

McCain 32

Huckabee 28

Thompson 20

Romney 12

Giuliani 5

Paul 3

I watched the rerun of the debate last night and thought all three candidates did well enough. Apparently Frank Luntz’s focus group favored Edwards, but supporters of all three candidates had plenty to cheer on.

If you want to read why Clinton “rocked,” click on alegre’s diary with video clips:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

If you want the pro-Obama version, Steven R has clips and analysis for you here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Edwards fans will enjoy NCDemAmy’s diary, also with video clips:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Check out the Nevada progressive community blog My Silver State and the MyDD posts by Las Vegas resident and precinct chair desmoulins.

If you ever want to look up which states are voting on which dates this year, click on this page at the Project Vote Smart site.  

I urge all of you to click on this diary by MyDD user Silver Spring, who analyzed the county-level results from Iowa and New Hampshire.

I am not convinced by all of the arguments in this diary, but it is a great piece of work. I have asked Silver Spring to cross-post here, so I can promote it to the front page. In the meantime, you all should head over to MyDD and read it for yourself.

I haven’t yet had a chance to dig into the county-level results from Iowa, so I greatly appreciate this effort.

This kind of in-depth analysis sets the blogs apart from superficial mainstream media coverage.

MyDD user desmoulins, who has been trained as a temporary precinct chair for the upcoming Nevada caucuses, posted this useful diary on the differences between the Nevada caucus rules and the ones drafted by the Iowa Democratic Party.

I encourage you all to click the link and read his diary, along with the discussion thread. We would benefit from incorporating some of the changes Nevada Democrats have made.

One key difference is that in Nevada, only supporters of non-viable candidates will be able to switch to a different corner during the realignment period. That will cut down on the gamesmanship whereby precinct captains of viable candidates direct a small number of people to a rival corner in order to change the delegate count.

UPDATE: desmoulins put up this interesting post about the campaign on the ground in Nevada:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

It’s one of those rare days when I largely agree with David Yepsen’s latest column: Parties must probe caucus complaints, make fixes. He points out that any problems with the way the caucuses were run will be fodder for those who will try to deprive Iowa of first-in-the-nation status for the next campaign.

Already the Republican Party will be looking to ditch Iowa, because the GOP establishment can’t stand Mike Huckabee. If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee and wins, or if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee and loses, the Democratic Party establishment will also have the knives out for Iowa.

Yepsen suggests moving the caucuses to Saturday at 5 pm, a time when fewer shift workers are on duty and young families may find it easier to get a baby-sitter. I would support that change.

Yepsen lists some of the alleged problems with the caucuses, but he left out some very disturbing problems I’ve heard about. One of the most troubling reports, written by observers in a precinct on Des Moines’ south side, maintained that counting was rushed to prevent second-tier candidates from becoming viable.

I was also sorry to hear some accounts of bullying the supporters of non-viable candidates. Daily Kos user neia was disturbed by what happened at the caucus in Strawberry Point (northeast Iowa). While I am sure this is the exception, not the rule, the Iowa Democratic Party should train precinct chairs to prevent anyone from exerting undue pressure on caucus-goers during the realignment period.

UPDATE: This Daily Kos diary includes more allegations about irregularities:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Several people have asked me what happened at my precinct caucus. I told part of the story last week, but in case anyone is interested, the longer version is after the jump.

Use this as an open thread to tell the story of your precinct caucus, whether or not there were problems with the way it operated.

Barack Obama is sitting pretty ten days before the Nevada caucuses, having snagged the endorsements of the Nevada chapter of the Service Employees International Union as well as the Culinary workers and their parent union, UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE is the first national union to endorse Obama.

In September, the national SEIU was very close to endorsing Edwards, but backed off and left the decision to state chapters. Since then, 11 state chapters of the SEIU have backed Edwards, and four or five have backed Obama.

We are seeing the consequences of Iowa failing to deliver for John Edwards. The Nevada unions were ready to jump in for him if he had won here. He also would have been helped in Nevada by the California SEIU, which has already endorsed him. But now that the Nevada SEIU is behind Obama, state chapters backing other candidates can’t send their members to campaign in Nevada.

Edwards was never likely to do well in New Hampshire, but he would have had a real shot at Nevada with union backing. Now he is forced to focus on South Carolina, where he is substantially behind Obama and Clinton in the polls.

If Obama does win the nomination and the presidency, I seriously doubt he will do much for labor unions. That would interfere with his posturing as the bipartisan president pushing a unity agenda.

But it isn’t the first time labor unions have picked the candidate they viewed as most likely to win, rather than the candidate most likely to become their champion. That’s the way the world works.

UPDATE: Over at MyDD, Jonathan Singer wonders if these endorsements post a danger to Obama by raising his expectations in Nevada, where he has trailed Clinton in the polls:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

SECOND UPDATE: Daily Kos user greenmountainboy was just in Nevada and has this to say:

The union workers and precinct captains are PISSED that their leaders pulled this crap of not supporting Edwards. They continue to run house parties for him and love the man. The power structure (Clinton and Obama) know that if Edwards gets any roots in ANY ONE of these states they are in for a real fight. If that happens watch how quickly Clinton and O’Baby join forces for “change”.

So it’s the day before the important New Hampshire primary. What is the political press obsessing about? Whether Hillary Clinton teared up and what the other candidates had to say about it.

It goes back to what CBS correspondent Chip Reid revealed not long ago:

Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes.

Please, journalists, stop insulting our intelligence. I don’t care if you think getting emotional is a mistake. It’s ridiculous for you to ask other candidates to comment on Hillary’s emotion. The only purpose of a question like that is to trick them into committing a gaffe.

None of this trivia has anything to do with who would be the best president. Try reporting on some issues for once.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. Please take the poll and comment. Now’s a good time to discuss the merits of the system we experienced last night.

When I publish a diary criticizing the caucus system, I usually hear from at least one person defending the caucuses.

This diary lists the arguments I’ve heard in favor of the caucus system, along with my responses.

More is after the jump.

I was skeptical, but clearly the strategy of focusing on first-time caucus-goers paid off in a big way for Barack Obama.

Turnout in my precinct went from 175 in 2004 to 293 tonight. That was way more than I ever imagined possible.

We had first-timers in our Edwards group, and so did Hillary, and for all I know Richardson and Biden did too. But there’s no question that the Obama group had the most first-time caucus-goers.

After the first division into preference groups, we had Obama 86, Edwards 83, Clinton 63, Richardson 28, Biden 24 and Dodd 9. To be viable, candidates needed 44 supporters.

After the second division into preference groups, Edwards had 115, Obama had 103, and Clinton had 72, but unfortunately, the math worked out to 2 delegates for each candidate.

In retrospect, the Edwards and Obama groups would have been better off helping Richardson to be viable. Then the delegates would have been split 2 Edwards, 2 Obama, 1 Clinton and 1 Richardson. But there was no way to know that, and during the realignment of course the Edwards and Obama groups were focused on attracting enough supporters to win that third delegate.

It’s very similar to what happened in my precinct in 1988. The delegates split 2-2-2 despite a fairly large difference in size between the largest and the smallest. That’s the caucus system for you.

By the way, the Richardson precinct captain confirmed that the campaign was advising people to go to Obama. However, a lot of them came over to Edwards anyway. The Biden precinct captain told me he did not receive any similar instruction from that campaign.

Various media and blogs are reporting that Richardson's campaign is instructing precinct captains to advise supporters to go to Obama if Richardson is not viable.

So far no official confirmation from the Richardson campaign.

I find it hard to belive that most Richardson supporters will go to Obama, but who knows? I'll ask the captain in my precinct later today.

Anyone else have information on this?

It’s put up or shut up time. How are the candidates going to do tomorrow night?

I don’t think all three will finish closely bunched together. Either someone will win by a clear margin, or someone will be in third by a clear margin.

I am having trouble making my final prediction, because I wouldn’t be too surprised by any one of the top three winning. Here goes:

Edwards 35 percent

Obama 28 percent

Clinton 27 percent

Biden 5 percent

Richardson 4 percent

Dodd 1 percent

Kucinich 0 percent

In my precinct: 2 delegates for Edwards, 2 for Clinton, 1 for Obama, 1 for Biden

I would so love to get that third delegate for Edwards, but I fear we will fall short.

On the Republican side, I have no clue about the numbers, but I think the order will be Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Paul, Thompson, Keyes, Cox, Hunter. I don’t think Steve King is going to deliver anything significant to Fred Thompson.

UPDATE: I forgot to include my prediction for Democratic turnout: 140,000. I have no clue about the Republican turnout, except that it will be less than 100,000.

and anyone asks me how she did it, I will point them to this recent article in the New York Times. Yes, Hillary’s got a lot of advantages: she raised a ton of money, she’s hired a huge Iowa staff (approximately 400 people), she’s got a former two-term governor and former two-term president campaigning for her.

But there are smart ways and dumb ways to spend money. Reading this article, I was impressed with some of her campaign’s tactics.

We Iowans joke about how there’s always a presidential candidate willing to pour us coffee, take out the trash and shovel our snow. But Hillary’s precinct captains really are going to shovel snow for her supporters:

Mrs. Clinton’s office here is filled with hundreds of new green snow shovels that were being strategically distributed on Saturday to precinct captains to clear the walks of older women who might be particularly wary of going out to the caucuses in bad weather. The campaign has printed doorknob hangers with caucus locations printed in extra-large type, also to accommodate these older first-time caucusers.

The article talks about microtargeting methods that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have been using. That’s not surprising, but I thought this was truly a master stroke:

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, in the first mailing to first-time caucusgoers who pledge to support her, includes porcelain lapel pins identifying them as Clinton supporters. Mrs. Clinton looks for women wearing those pins at her events and praises them for caucusing for the first time.

What a great idea. A lot of women will wear that lapel pin, and it’s an easy way for Hillary to spot first-time caucus-goers in a crowd. I would think that once someone has been singled out and thanked by Hillary, she would feel an extra obligation to show up on caucus night.

It is not easy to turn out thousands of people who have never caucused before. Hillary’s not my first, second or third choice, but if she can pull this off, her campaign deserves a lot of credit.

The article also alludes to Clinton campaign plans to have caterers bring food to serve to her supporters at pre-caucus parties on the caucus sites. Nate Willems suggested that was treading close to the vote-buying line and sparked an interesting discussion at MyDD tonight.

Finally, a quick question for Bleeding Heartland readers. The NY Times article quotes Michael Whouley, who came to Iowa last time to help with John Kerry’s field operation. It identified him as “a veteran Iowa caucus organizer, who is supporting Mrs. Clinton but is one of the few major Democratic strategists who have not come to Iowa for this fight.”

I thought I heard somewhere that Whouley was in Iowa to help the Clinton campaign. Anyone know if he’s been here?

UPDATE: Another thing money can buy is two minutes of television during the 6 pm newscasts in Iowa. Here is her final pitch. I think it hits the themes she needs to emphasize, but I am not convinced it will bring over a lot of undecided voters:

Gordon Fischer put up this post at Iowa True Blue, titled “Ten Reasons to Support Barack Obama on Thursday, January 3”:

http://www.iowatrueblue.com/Bl…

10.  Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War from the start.

9.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2002.

8.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2003.

7.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2004.

6.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2005.

5.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2006.

4.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2007.

3.  The Iraq War may well be the biggest foreign policy fiasco in our nation’s history.

2.  Barack Obama had the right judgment from the start, all the way until now — the Iraq War was a tremendous mistake.

1.  The Iraq War has cost us several thousand American lives, many more wonded, and literally billions of dollars.  And, ultimately, it has made our great country less safe.

Since Gordon does not post comments on his blog, I am asking my question here.

In what way was Barack Obama opposing the Iraq War in 2005 and 2006, when, as a senator, he voted for Iraq War supplemental funding bills?

As a candidate for Senate in the spring of 2004, he said it was time for Democrats to stop getting “steamrolled” by Bush on war funding. That was around the time that John Kerry and John Edwards voted against the $87 billion supplemental funding bill (the vote was 88-12–that was way before the majority of Americans turned against the war).

Then Obama got elected and voted several times to keep funding the war.

This spring, Chris Dodd led the opposition to the latest supplemental funding bill within the Senate, but Obama sat on the sidelines. Edwards urged Congress to reject any more war funding with no timeline for withdrawing troops. (“No timeline, no funding. No excuses.”)

But Obama didn’t even announce how he would vote, let alone lead the charge to attach a timeline for drawing down troops. He and Hillary sat there until almost everyone else had voted, then finally cast their “no” votes.

Tell me again, what has Obama done to oppose the Iraq War in 2005, 2006 and 2007? Other than continually give speeches reminding people that he called it a “dumb war”?

Obama has failed to lead on defunding the war, despite suggesting before he was elected that he would take a firm line on war funding.

It’s been obvious for a long time that Bush will never draw down troops unless Congress forces his hand by using the power of the purse.

P.S. in response to this post:

http://www.iowatrueblue.com/Bl…

John Edwards has never taken money from federal PACs or federal lobbyists. And it’s a bit rich for an Obama supporter to complain about people backing other candidates trying to “buy” the Iowa caucuses, when Obama has spent more than $8 million on tv ads alone in Iowa. Who knows how many millions he will have spent on his campaign here when it’s all over?  

In a primary or general election, you win your precinct by getting more people to vote for your candidate than for any other candidate.

But in the Iowa caucuses, there must be 50 ways to win your precinct.

OK, maybe not 50, but a lot of ways. I’ll go over them after the jump.

I got a flier today from the American Federation of Teachers, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton. The mailer cites part of the Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Clinton to make the case that, “Hillary is prepared to bring real change.”

I’ve noticed that all of the candidates have been reaching out to teachers, referencing their education plans in campaign appearances and direct-mail pieces. Bill Richardson has emphasized his “bold” education plan in more than one piece, and he and Joe Biden have both emphasized that they would scrap No Child Left Behind.

Daily Kos user teacherken (teacherken.dailykos.com) has reviewed several of the candidates’ education proposals and has had high praise for both the Edwards and Obama plans.

The teachers I know seem to be all over the map–I don’t see any one candidate dominating this group, which will account for a large number of caucus-goers.

Those of you who are teachers, are married to teachers, or know a lot of teachers, who do you think will win this group?

Jerome Armstrong put up this post at MyDD with graphs comparing the Clinton, Edwards and Obama campaigns with the Kerry 2004 campaign in terms of paid staff in Iowa, field offices in Iowa, days spent campaigning in Iowa, and money spent on tv in Iowa:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007…

It’s worth your time to click through and read the post.

The Des Moines Register reported on Saturday that some family farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates are upset about Hillary Clinton’s choice of Joy Philippi to co-chair “Rural Americans for Hillary.”

Clinton has talked about more regulations of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but  

Philippi is a recent past president of the National Pork Producers Council.

“That’s the poster organization for corporate agriculture,” said [family farmer Garry] Klicker, who owns about 120 acres in rural Bloomfield and raises about 130 cows and calves.

Klicker said that because Clinton picked Philippi, he doesn’t believe the candidate when she says she will champion small farms if she is elected president.

“I’m just very disappointed that Hillary would turn her back on us like this,” said Klicker, who said he is unsure whom he will caucus for but is leaning toward Democrat Joe Biden. “She says she’ll do one thing, yet when you surround yourself with people who are against the rest of us, we can’t expect anything good to happen on family farm issues.”

I know some Hillary supporters believe that she is just campaigning as a moderate and would govern as a true progressive. Stories like this are why I have a lot of trouble believing that. Corporate ag interests have too much power, and I can’t see Hillary taking them on.

Earlier this year, Bleeding Heartland co-founder Drew Miller created a caucus math spreadsheet so we could play around with different scenarios and see how delegates would be allocated:

http://www.bleedingheartland.c…

Now Daily Kos and MyDD user asahopkins has created an Iowa Caucus Calculator website, which also is a user-friendly way to explore caucus math:

http://caucusmath.com/

You enter the number of delegates for your pretend precinct as well as the total number of attendees and the number of supporters for each candidate, and it tells you how the delegates would be assigned.

Have fun!