I've got an old spreadsheet from the primary where I gathered data on as many states I could find popular vote results for, and did some simple arithmetic for comparison purposes. While the numbers were interesting at the time, I believe they can be used to help guide our understanding of the present status of this all-important election, when taken together with other information. I have tried to do just that below, as I analyze most states which held their primaries before John McCain clinched his nomination on March 4th. I have excluded some states where popular vote data is not easily available (states which held caucuses). If anybody has popular vote data for these states, please let me know in the comments and I will update my spreadsheet and take a look at the state in an update. Commentary on the overall election follows the state-by-state analysis.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/...

I disabled adblock on Poblano's always-wonderful fivethirtyeight.com a moment ago, and was quite surprised by the first ad to greet me! A banner ad on the left hand column of the page, pairing a picture of everybody's favorite presidential candidate (Barack Obama) with this man:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Everybody's least favorite Iranian president.

I've created a spreadsheet to examine turnout figures in every state which has voted thus far. It is broken down by major candidate, then compiled into Dem and Rep party figures. Finally, I've highlighted the only states which Republicans had higher turnout than Democrats (Utah, Michigan, Florida, Alabama, and Arizona).

My own analysis follows, but I welcome your observations in the comments below :) Please note that I omitted any state which either had a caucus where turnout figures were not immediately reported, or where only one of the two parties had yet voted.

Clinton's camp is spinning alright. Spinning out of control. Take a look at a few talking points on their blog, posted for the whole world to see. Tell me if this looks like an offensive or defensive mindset? I wonder if Clinton supporters lack the intellectual honesty to admit that Obama performed better in every category that Clinton's camp claims as a victory here, when that same category is expanded beyond the few examples her campaign provided.

Here we go... you are now entering the Clinton spin zone.

I was struggling this morning to find some way to contribute more to Obama's campaign. I think today will be an important fundraising day for Obama's campaign, especially online, as we try to build on the momentum demonstrated in polls across the nation, as well as in yesterday's primary and caucus results. However, with a cross-country move this weekend and no job lined up on arrival, my savings is strictly off-limits (easily enough to last two months, though, worry not!). You may be in a similar situation: a strong desire to contribute, but no means to gather the cash.

The Washington Times ran an article on February 1st titled Obama '04 at odds with Obama '08.

Before continuing, I should mention that I'm an unabashed Obama supporter, but I think while this information is inconvenient to my candidate, it's important that we not ignore the inconvenient stories on the road to selecting the best man or woman to represent our party this November. Because the Republican's sure as hell won't.

You're free to read the story and move on to the comments, skipping the rest of my diary; otherwise, I will use the rest of this space to refute the Washington Time's concerns. Did you catch what I just did there? When I said concerns just now, what I really meant was 'blatantly partisan nonsense.'

I don't think Obama is weak enough on any of these to threaten his present potential.

Pollster.com released an interesting set of graphics yesterday that succinctly illustrate the polls of all 22 Super Tuesday states. I'm going to take a moment to comment on these polls, and what they may mean for Obama in next Tuesday's "first national primary."

Follow me over the flip for an explanation of this (at first) confusing mess of a graph :)

I just finished working on a spreadsheet which may prove useful for those curious about the election results in New Hampshire. Since this diary is being overlooked, I'm going to grab your attention while I still have it. In towns where the vote was counted by hand, Obama won over Clinton 53% to 47%. In towns where the vote was counted by Diebold Accuvote machine, Clinton won over Obama 53% to 47%.

However, I don't think this is a sign of fraud, as I'm about to explain. I think this only demonstrates that Obama won the rural vote, and that most suburban and urban voting centers in NH use voting machines to count results.

You can find my spreadsheet here.

CNN is reporting that a deal has been struck on the immigration logjam, and a bipartisan agreement has been reached between Dems, Republicans, and the White House. The bill has not been submitted to either chamber of Congress, but the preliminary reporting says that millions of immigrants will have a path to citizenship. CNN also reported that this path involves going back to their country and getting in line for legalization. Something about they can go back to their country for a year to wait, come back for two years, and they can do this three times total. In exchange, Dems allowed funding for stronger border protection.

Something like 12 million illegal immigrants may be affected by this legislation. And they have to go home and wait for their paperwork to be processed? Why am I so cynical about this?

A news conference with more information is expected soon; I will update with details as I find them.

Allow me to begin with a quote from yesterday's Republican primary debate. This talking point may be familiar to you, or this may be the first time you have heard it. I believe it's a particularly dangerous concept, so I will make an attempt to snuff it here, and I hope others rise to the cause and challenge it whenever they hear it used elsewhere.

Moderator: Governor Romney, in that same NBC-Wall Street Journal poll that Chris mentioned, 55 percent of Americans say victory is just not possible in Iraq. [...] Why shouldn't they have a president who will listen?

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney: Well, if you wanted to have a president that just followed the polls, all we need to do is plug in our TVs and have them run the country. But that's not what America wants. It's not what America needs. We need leadership that's strong and that shows America what we can do to lead the world.

You may have noticed the goofy McCain/Body Armor ads running at the top of the front page today. Kos has written a story (not posted on the Front Page) explaining:

I'm playing with google ads in the to banner slot to fill inventory when Blogads doesn't have that slot sold. Right now, Google is displaying some pretty ridiculous ads, and I have little control over them. So part of this experiment is whether I can bear to have crappy trash ads displayed on my site.

However, it is actually under our control which ads are displayed and which are not. Read below the fold for three simple steps you can follow to remove irrelevant ads from the front page. Getting relevant Google ads on the front page means a lot of potential revenue for Kos, so following these simple steps is akin to donating to the site :)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Pfc. Jessica Lynch and the brother of Army Ranger Pat Tillman told a House panel Tuesday that the U.S. military lied about Tillman's death and Lynch's capture.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. They used the L word!

This diary is a response to those who requested somebody put a clip of Rohrabacher's comment on Youtube. That comment would be:

"Well, I hope it's your families, I hope it's your families that suffer the consequences [of a terrorist attack]."

Around noon today, Nancy Pelosi announced her expectation that Alberto Gonzales should resign in a short-but-sweet statement:

The Attorney General is the defender of the Constitution and the chief law enforcement officer. The people of the United States must have absolute confidence in the integrity of their Attorney General.

By his actions and with his testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lost the trust of the American people. The nation cannot have a chief law enforcement officer whose candor and judgment are in serious question.

The President should restore credibility to the office of the Attorney General. Alberto Gonzales must resign.

This rant was inspired by mcjoan's two paragraph quote from Bush's 2000 election campaign, and should be considered required reading (come on, it's only 1 minute!) before continuing, otherwise the beginning of my rant will appear to have no context.
Bush on Failure by mcjoan, 4/3/07: http://www.dailykos.com/...

In a brief discussion over the fight between mainstream media and online media, Tim Howe made the comment "we have to fight the fight now" in response to my rant on how traditional media appears to be losing the fight. I share this sentiment; we have to fight, and we have to fight now. But what are we really fighting for? On first examination, the argument appears to be over issues like abortion, civil rights, the environment, health care... but where do Republicans really differ from Democrats on these issues and others, and how will we know when we've won? This is what I will try to examine in the (hopefully short) essay that follows.