No MSNBC At The Kellog Center...What Am I To Do?

So I just got into the Kellogg Center for the two day gauntlet that is the Bar Exam, and I get into my room, and what do I find? No MSNBC. CNN, Fox News, Headline News, CNBC, even networks like G4, but no MSNBC. Which means, tonight, no Hardball. No Morning Joe tomorrow morning. No pre or post debate coverage. May be the best thing that ever happened to me (I can do my last second review of my hundreds of notecards without any distractions, and I can get to bed earlier than planned, but this is very distressing). How can there be no MSNBC? At least the debate will be streamed on MSNBC.com tomorrow night, but geez, this is a major disappointment.

I don't understand this.

Mike Huckabee on Saturday Night Live

Blog posting has been a little light the last few days, but with a small break in the primary calendar (though with the debate last Thursday, Hillary's eruption over weeks-old mailers yesterday, and another debate Tuesday, it's not a real break) and the Bar Exam coming up on Tuesday and Wednesday (It may not be a good thing that I can tell you who Tim Pawlenty is but not recite the five-part test for the tort of negligent misrepresentation -- We'll see though) posting has slowed. But I'll pick back up on Wednesday night, and hopefully actually get back to talking about sports some. The Pistons have continued to play well, and the Wings have cooled off a bit, and before you know it the Detroit Lions' Super Bowl, the NFL Draft, will be here, so we'll pivot back to sports while hopefully celebrating Barack Obama's primary victory over Hillary Clinton (though if I've learned anything in life, it's not to count the Clinton's out of anything).

In the meantime, speaking of not counting somebody out of the Presidential race, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is still at it, still running for the Republican nomination against John McCain despite it being mathematically impossible for him to win (but, remember, he's in the miracle business, not the math business -- I wonder if that's better than the "solutions business" Hillary Clinton is in). And he did a guest spot on Saturday Night Live's weekend update Saturday, and as usual, it was a hilarious performance. If nothing else, Huckabee should get a prime time cable news show out of this run, and it would probably be a big success. If I were MSNBC, especially given the reputation it has as a liberal network, I'd put him on at 9:00 weeknights, and bump Dan Abrams back to 10:00. In any case, here's the video, good for a good laugh.

How Will Obama Run His White House? Just Look at His Campaign

After another pair of double-digit victories last night for Barack Obama, a 17-point triumph in Clinton-friendly Wisconsin and a 50% victory in his native home of Hawaii, Barack Obama is now 10-0 since February 5th. It's pretty amazing actually. And a new Zogby poll not only has Obama leading Clinton by 14-points, but he has Obama up over McCain by 7, while McCain leads Clinton by almost double that amount. Ouch.

Hillary Clinton thought (and even said) that the campaign would be over on Super Tuesday, and her campaign had no plan, no organization, and no money to compete after that date. And Barack Obama did, and he's run up 10 straight double digit victories from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands to Maine and Washington and Louisana and everywhere in-between. That's what is amazing about Obama' run, it's not just that he's won 10 in a row, but he's won every contest by double-digits, most by 25-points or more, and has won in very region of the country. Wisconsin was perfect for Hillary Clinton demographic wise. A lot of working class white voters, lots of Catholic voters which support her (or, did before last night), and very few African Americans. Yet, she still lost by 17-points. Just incredible. And this was despite a barrage of negative ads run by the Clintons and a 48-hour news cycle which was very negative on Obama (his dust up with Deval Patrick's language and Michelle Obama's words about being "proud" of the country for the first time in her adult life).

One thing mentioned on Morning Joe this morning on MSNBC which I think was a great point. Hillary Clinton has constantly harped on the media coverage of the campaign, saying that the media is giving Obama a free ride and is overly critical of her campaign. But as was pointed out this morning, if Barack Obama had lost 10 races in a row, and lost them all by double digits, he'd be finished. This race would be over without question. All the pundits and party big-wigs would be urging Obama to get out for the good of the party, just as people are doing with Mike Huckabee on the Republican side. Yet, that isn't happening because the media, rightfully, is giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt. But how often can the Clinton campaign say that states don't count because they vote for Obama, or because they lean Republican, or because they have caucuses? As has been pointed out before, it's hard to run for President when you've told half the country their voices aren't important, and that the only states which matter are California, New York, and New Jersey.

And another great point was brought up in MSNBC's First Read was that maybe you can see how Barack Obama would run his White House by looking at his campaign. As opposed to Clinton, he has been fiscally disciplined, he has competed everywhere and been prepared everywhere, and for all the talk that he has no experience, and he certainly has no experience running a national campaign (unlike the Clintons which have been through this three times before, with Bill's first Presidential primary fight and his two national elections).

The Clinton campaign has been surprisingly unprepared for the long haul. Remember when Clinton herself said the contest would be over February 5? This is the only way to explain the consistent caucus beat-down they take and the lack of preparation for Wisconsin. It's the Obama campaign that's doing the little things tactically. At some point, one has to wonder if Obama will start using the organizational success he's had in this campaign as a talking point about his own preparation to run the White House. After all, this is the largest organization either Clinton or Obama has run.

It's a powerful point. Obviously Clinton wasn't fully prepared to be a candidate on "Day One" so why would we think she would be ready to be President on "Day One?"

The only good news for the Clinton campaign? A disastrous appearance on MSNBC's coverage last night by a Barack Obama supporter, a state Senator from Texas, who was stumped by Chris Matthews when asked a simple question: "Can you name any of Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments?" He was completely stumped and unable to come up with a single thing to say specifically. Now, Obama does have legislative accomplishments. He passed ethics reform in Congress. He passed health care in Illinois. He reformed the Illinois death-penalty system. But, this was a bad moment for this guy, Kirk Watson, and I don't think he'll be doing any more interviews for the campaign. It's must-see video and I've embedded it below.

I Don't Understand the Clinton Campaign's Wisconsin Strategy

I'm at a loss to describe Hillary Clinton's campaign in the state of Wisconsin, one of two states holding their nominating process (Hawaii's caucuses being the other) on Tuesday. Today is her first day in the state, after Obama has spent nearly a week there, and According to the Milwauke Journal Sentinel she's leaving a day earlier than planned, taking off on Monday morning instead of Tuesday. So, in a state she really needs to win to break Obama's current momentum, where there are a lot of working class, lower-to-middle-class voters which she does very well with, and a state with a very small African American population, Clinton's strategy is to spend less than 48 hours in the state campaigning. Am I missing something here?

Whatever marginal gains Clinton will make by spending an extra day or two in Texas and Ohio as she has the past week will be dwarfed by the change in momentum that would come with a Clinton victory Tuesday night in the Badger State. And it's well within her grasp. Rasmussen had Obama's lead only 4%, 47-43 practically within the margin-of-error. Two other polls shown at Real Clear Politics have Obama up 4 and 5 respectively. If she could win Wisconsin, the media, which loves a comeback story, and loves a horse-race, and would like nothing better than for the Democratic race to go on forever, would flood the airwaves and newspaper front-pages with the story of Hillary's great comeback and how this would catapult her to victory in Ohio and Texas on March 4th. There is plenty of time to campaign in those states, Clinton should have been in Wisconsin days ago, and she certainly shouldn't be cutting back her stay with the polls so close. It's almost baffling. Clinton, even if she is raising $1 million a day online as her campaign says, couldn't buy all the positive and free media she would get from stopping Obama's momentum in Wisconsin. This is a critical error.

And instead of appearing in Wisconsin herself, Clinton instead is running the first negative campaign ads of the campaign, bashing Obama for not agreeing to debate, and then adding on some policy distinctions (or, depending on your take, distortions). But, as Wisconsin Governor and Obama supporter Jim Doyle has said, it's very disingenuous to attack a candidate for not debating in Wisconsin because it doesn't give Wisconsin voters a chance to compare the candidates, when the candidate running that ad isn't even campaigning in Wisconsin. How could Obama agree to a debate? Clinton is literally in the state, campaigning, for less than a weekend. To knock Obama for not giving Wisconsin voters a chance to see the candidates when Clinton herself is spending no more than 48-hours in the state takes a lot of chutzpah.

And because I think the Obama response ad is so well done, I've embedded both the second Clinton attack ad, and the second Obama response below. Judge for yourself which has the stronger message.