On Friday, June 13, Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe met with a group of young Hillary Clinton donors at a brewery in Washington, D.C. With the interminable Democratic primary season having just ended, Plouffe had flown all the way from Chicago to convince the Clintonistas, many of whom were still smarting from their candidate's loss, that Obama could win in November--despite their doubts. His pitch? That Obama could pave a path to the presidency through "Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states"--a path, in fact, that wouldn't require winning the perennial battleground state where a mere 537 votes decided the 2000 election: Florida.

Turns out he's not quite so dismissive when it comes to cutting checks.

In politics, talk is cheap--but advertising, field offices and voter registrations drives are not. Despite Plouffe's head fake, recent reports on Obama's Florida spending--which easily overwhelms John McCain's--suggest that the Sunshine State remains, at least at this point, the Democratic nominee's top pickoff target for 2008, much as it was for John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. Going forward, however, the question is whether Obama's massive investment will help him win the 27 electoral votes that both of his predecessors lost--or whether his money would be better spent elsewhere.

Here's the math. Since the start of the general-election season, Obama has dropped $6.51 million--a full 18 percent of his overall ad spending, and by the largest chunk of change allotted to any one state--to broadcast 10,000 commercials on Florida television. McCain's total disbursement? $0, zero ads. Meanwhile, Chicago has sent more than 200 full-time staffers and signed up at least 150,000 online volunteers to man the state's 35 field offices--the most of any battleground. McCain's local staff is a quarter of the size, and much of it is shared with the state party. Obama's goal, says deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, is to register the 630,000 eligible Hispanics, 593,000 African-Americans and 236,000 18- to 24-year-olds not yet on the rolls. With 236,000 new Democrats racked up since January--compared to 126,000 new Republicans--they're well on their way. "We need to expand the electorate," Hildebrand recently told the St. Peterburg Times, "because we know the election is going to be so close."

If Obama can win Florida on Nov. 4--which George W. Bush carried by five points in 2004--he's almost guaranteed to win the White House. But that's a big "if." The state has been trending red in recent years, and McCain--an older, moderate-seeming Vietnam vet--is uniquely suited to appeal to the state's three million seniors and 1.75 military veterans. Also worth noting: Dems may have outregistered Republicans by more than 60,000 votes in 2004, but the state's well-oiled GOP machine turned out 75 percent of its new supporters that year to John Kerry & Co.'s 66 percent; McCain, who has quietly opened a not-insignificant 25 field offices in Florida--more than twice as many as the next closest state--will benefit from the same GOTV operation.

Which is why the whizzes at FiveThirtyEight.com, who use a complex statistical model of recent polling, past results and demographic data to predict Election Day outcomes, currently give the Republican nominee a 73 percent chance of winning. It may also be why Obama still lags behind his Republican rival in RealClear Politics' average of the four most recent surveys--despite his aggressive post-primary spending and McCain's relative invisibility. True, Obama has managed to narrow the gap to a slender 1.2 percent. But that's nearly identical to the polling in mid-June--which suggests that Obama's improved performance (he trailed McCain by 15 points in Florida as recently as April) has less to do with his advertising onslaught than with the Democratic Party waiting until after Hillary Clinton had exited stage left to coalesce around its nominee. Given the size and scope of his investment, I suspect that the Illinois senator is seeking something more satisfying than a close second. As Republican strategist John Sowinski of Orlando told the Wall Street Journal this morning, "they are coming in early when it's cheaper to be on TV, and they are determining if it will be worth it to push things in Florida later on." If Obama can't move the needle more by the time McCain ramps up his Sunshine State spending--which will likely start around Labor Day--I suspect that Chicago will direct at least some of its dinero elsewhere (as Plouffe initially suggested he'd do).

Apparently, Ohio is lovely in the autumn...
 

MIAMI, Fla.--Politics, as they say, is local--and in Miami, that means Cuban. "Cuba is everything here," a local lawyer told me last night. "Then you leave and you never hear about it again."
 
Unless, of course, it's an election year. With Florida up for grabs in November--and the Cuban Independence Day celebrations in full effect--Miami's Cuban-American community had the honor (or the burden) of hosting two of the three remaining presidential candidates this week.  First it was presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who went from moderate to macho in Tuesday's tough-talking remarks (then swigged some Cuban coffee at Cafe Versailles). And not to be left out, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama followed suit this afternoon with a "major address on Latin America" before the exiles of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Obama's was the tougher crowd. Although CANF president Francisco Hernandez said in his opening remarks that his group, once the foremost voice representing the Cuban exile cause in Washington, was not "partisan but patriotic, not red or blue or black or white," its members have long gravitated toward Republicans--much like the Cuban community as a whole, which voted for Bush three-to-one in 2000 and 2004 and so far this cycle is said to prefer McCain (or even Hillary Clinton) to the senator from Illinois. With McCain having spent much of Tuesday's speech questioning his rival's foreign-policy cojones--"I want to give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime"--Obama was facing an even steeper climb.

His approach? Head on. As the crowd noshed on pork chops, sweet potato mash and asparagus, Obama delivered a sugar-coated speech that nonetheless contained some relatively bitter pills--at least for the hardest of hard-liners who form the backbone of Miami's exile community. First was Obama's promise to "immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island"--a plan that many anti-Castro types see as an unacceptable softening of stance. More important, however, was his position toward current Cuban leader Raul Castro: meeting "without preconditions." At first, the candidate was defensive. "John McCain’'s been going around the country talking about how much I want to meet with Raul Castro," he said. "As if I’'m looking for a social gathering. As if I want to have tea time. That'’s never what I’'ve said, and John McCain knows it." But ultimately Obama reiterated his support for "direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions"--even as he elaborated on his stance by calling (as he has in recent weeks) for "careful preparation" and "a clear agenda" as well. "Unlike John McCain, I would never, ever, rule out a course of action that could advance the cause of liberty," he said. With no explicit mention of meeting with Castro himself--Obama euphemistically said he would "lead that diplomacy" instead--it was a message calibrated for the crowd. But the old guard undoubtedly sensed "heresy" and found it hard to swallow.

That said, Obama's relative boldness was as much about politics as principle. In reality, Cuban hardliners will vote Republican no matter what--meaning the candidate was targeting their more moderate children instead. Among younger (albeit less engaged) Cuban-Americans, relaxing travel restrictions to the island is a popular plan now officially backed by CANF, which had until recently disagreed; it's seen as a way not only to reunite families but also to help weaken internal support for the regime. With that in mind, Team Obama hopes to peel off five, 10, 15 percent of Florida's 500,000 Cuban-American voters--an important gain in a state decided by 537 ballots in 2000. To do so, the senator can actually afford to offend more Cuban-Americans than previous Democratic candidates. The reason? Demographics. In 1988, Cuban-Americans made up 90 percent of the Hispanic vote in Florida, according to the Miami-based polling firm Bendixen & Associates; twenty years later, that number has dwindled to 45 percent, thanks to an influx of immigrants from elsewhere in the Americas. That explains why Obama was willing to cross some traditional lines--and why he spent at least half of his speech discussing Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and his broader Latin America policy. In Florida, there are other Latino votes to be won now.

Still, when in Miami, do as the Miamians do. After starting his speech with the usual litany of "thank you's" and waiting for the applause to die down, Obama paused for a moment to apologize for monopolizing the mic. "That's my job today," he said. "But this is just a hello. It's not goodbye. In the next few months, I'm going to be spending a lot of time listening to the people here." With that, he turned to the teleprompter and launched into his prepared remarks.

BOCA RATON, Fla.--The first drops of rain started falling the moment Barack Obama arrived, and by the time he started speaking, there was a downpour. But even inside the B'nai Torah temple it was easy to sense there was a storm brewing over Boca.

Obama, for one, knew the forecast. In choosing to visit a conservative synagogue in one of the country's most densely Jewish congressional districts, the Illinois senator sought Thursday evening to combat misconceptions about his background and beliefs within what's proven to be one of his most skeptical constituencies. Signs of the coming tempest were apparent as early as January, when Vicki Hercsky, 47, a local teacher, told me after a Rudy Giuliani event a nearby shul that Obama, a Christian, was "Muslim." "He has it in his blood," she said when I corrected her. "You can't take away what's given to you. It's given to you for a reason, and that's who you are. That's who he is." At Boca's Century Village retirement community Wednesday, local residents greeted voters who'd come to see Hillary Clinton with banners that said "Obama: Bad for Israel, Bad for America"; they were back yesterday at B'nai Torah, having transformed the "O" of Obama into a frowny face. Outside, the Republican Jewish Coalition distributed a flier--currently doubling as ad in the Palm Beach Post, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and the Boca Raton News--that accused Obama of supporting Arabs over Israelis. And each of the evening's warm-up speakers--a rabbi, a state senator, a state representative and a U.S. congressman--pleaded repeatedly with the audience not to believe the viral email rumors ("Muslim, pro-Palestine, un-American") that have flooded Florida's Jewish community and have largely come to define the Democratic near-nominee in the ten months since he last campaigned in the state. "This is salacious and false and wrong innuendo," said state Rep. Dan Gelber. "Senator Obama does not have an Israel problem; he is perfect on Israel. The Republicans have an election problem--and they will only win if you do not believe your own eyes and your own ears."

Providing Florida's Jewish voters with that raw material was, of course, was the point of Thursday's visit. Amid a spate of stories in recent months about a Hamas spokesman who had spoken kindly of the candidate, a former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., who had made pro-Palestinian remarks and Obama's own willingness to talk directly with hostile adversaries like Iran, the campaign has ramped up its outreach to this small but influential voting bloc by dispatching key Jewish supporters to upcoming primary states and making the candidate himself available to the Jewish press. But the B'Nai Torah visit was unique in that it brought Obama face-to-face with skeptics in a townhall setting. Aware, perhaps, of the paradox of social psychology that says that "repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness"--unlike, say, his opening acts--Obama dismissed the viral smear campaign with a quick flash of humor. "By the way, if you get an email from a Nigerian says who you can get a lot of money if you send him $1,000, don’t do it," he joked. "We don’t believe that stuff when it comes over email. Why would you believe an email about me?"

Instead, Obama chose to counter misconceptions largely by reiterating his policy positions: a 100 percent pro-Israel voting record, according to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; no negotiations with Hezbollah or Hamas, "a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction"; and demands that Iran "stop developing nuclear weapons, stop funding terrorists and stop threatening Israel." "The bottom line is this," he said. "Nobody can find any statement that I have ever made that is anything less than unequivocally pro-Israel, that says Israel's security is paramount." Throughout, the Illinois senator laced his talking points with personal reminiscences meant to stress his kinship with the Jewish people, from the sixth-grade camp counselor whose descriptions of Israel appealed to him as an uprooted, biracial child--"an outsider in search of a home"--to his 2006 trip to the Jewish state, where he was struck by "the kindness and resolve of the people I met." Ultimately, he asked that the audience move past the "rumor-mongering." "This is part, I think, of the tradition of the Jewish people is to judge me by what I say and what I have done," he said. "Don't judge me because I have a funny name. Don't judge me because I am an African American... If my policies are wrong, then vote against me because my policies are wrong. If I am not honest, if I am not truthful, don't vote for me for that reason. But don't vote against me because of who I am--and I know you won't." 

Yet the storm clouds lingered even after Obama spoke. Shortly after the start of an extended question-and-answer session, a man named Michael Ackerman ("from Brooklyn to Boca") stood up and said that his daughter, a 26-year-old New York law student, felt Obama had been "pilloried in the press" and had a question she wanted to ask. "Go ahead," said Obama. Reading from a computer printout, Ackerman began by seeming to criticize the media for obsessing over "certain relationships with controversial people with questionable pasts." But it soon became clear that was merely a pretense for listing those "relationships" himself. As Ackerman rattled off his names--a Michigan imam whom Obama met earlier this month; a Palestinian scholar he knew from Columbia University--the audience began to boo, and the senator tried to interrupt.

"All right," said Obama. "I know you're doing it for your daughter. I've got daughters so I'm sensitive to it. But I want to make sure I get some other questions in."

"I'm almost there," Ackerman insisted--then continued with the names, prompting more jeers. Undeterred, he didn't skip to his "question" until an elderly man approached and reached for the microphone. "Ok, ok," he said. "My daughter wants to know, aside form elected officials, who can you point to as close personal friends of you and your wife who are solemnly pro-Israel and anti-terrorist and can say that..."

At this, the audience erupted, drowning him out. Although Ackerman tried to speak up, Obama had heard enough. "Let me respond," he said, cutting off his questioner and quieting the crowd. Admitting that he was "hesitant" to "start listing out" Jews who could "vouch for me"--"You remember the old stereotype about someone who says, 'I'm not prejudiced; some of best friends are Jewish'"--Obama nonetheless mentioned a handful of staffers (his national finance chair, his Illinois co-chair) who fit the bill, and noted that "one of the raps on me when I first ran for Congress in [Chicago's] African American community was that 'he was too close to the Jewish community.'" But he was clearly uncomfortable with Ackerman's insinuation. "To pluck out one person who I know and who I had a conversation with and who has different views than nine of my other friends and then to suggest that shows I'm somehow not sufficiently pro-Israel is, I think, a very problematic statement," he said. Unfortunately, the discomfort didn't stop there. A few moments later, a woman who claimed she kept in touch with Iranian acquaintances from her childhood in India, "informed" the audience that her "friends" "say they are so excited because they can’t wait to have another president as good as Jimmy Carter... who will allow them to do what they want without limits." Needless to say, Obama, who reiterated his anti-nuke, anti-terrorism stance toward the Iranian regime, wasn't particularly flattered. 

Obama's so-called Jewish problem is easy to oversstate. Most of the B'nai Torah crowd was appreciative, and many were adoring; Obama received several standing ovations. What's more, a Gallup poll last month showed him clobbering John McCain among Jewish voters 61 percent to 32 percent. But it's also worth noting that Gallup had Clinton outperforming the Illinois senator by five points, and that John Kerry captured 76 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004. That wasn't enough to win Florida, a state where Jews account for five percent of the electorate. Obama's goal, of course, is to improve on Kerry's finish. Judging by Thursday's initial effort, though, there are still some rainy days ahead.
 

BOCA RATON, Fla.--When we first mentioned the possibility on March 5, it seemed impossible. For months, many Democrats simply laughed it off. She'd never accept, some said. He'd never offer, others replied. But near the end of his town hall at B’nai Torah synagogue this afternoon here in Boca Raton, Barack Obama dropped his strongest hint yet that he'd consider asking Hillary Clinton to--gasp!--join his ticket.

It came in response to a question from a man named Mike, a "50 year" resident of Pompano Beach. "I want to know if you'd consider everybody who is a possible help to you as a running mate," he said. "Even if his or her spouse is an occasional pain in the butt." Obama laughed. No names necessary; he seemed to get the drift. "Ah," he said. "I'm... well, look." Pause. Smile. Applause. "Look, look, look," he said, quieting the crowd. "We've got more work to do. Two more weeks to go. So I don't want to jump the gun." Then, suddenly, he warmed to the idea:

I can tell you this. My goal is to have the best possible government. And that means me winning. So, I'm very practical in my thinking. I'm a practical guy. One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. Awhile back, there was a wonderful book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called 'Team of Rivals,' in which she talked about how Lincoln basically pulled all the people he'd been running against into his Cabinet. Because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was, 'How can we get the country through this time of crisis?' I think that has to be the approach one takes to the vice president and the Cabinet.

If the "Lincoln in 'Team of Rivals'" reference sounds familiar, that's because it is. In a much-discussed London Times op-ed from May 4, prominent libertarian-conservative writer Andrew Sullivan made exactly the same comparison in support of a Democratic dream ticket. "There's... a way for Obama to explain this choice in a way that does not violate — and in fact strengthens — his core message," he wrote. "His model in this should be Abraham Lincoln. What Lincoln did, as Doris Kearns Goodwin explained in her brilliant book, "Team Of Rivals," was to bring his most bitter opponents into his cabinet in order to maintain national and party unity at a time of crisis. Obama — who is a green legislator from Illinois, just as Lincoln was — could signal to his own supporters in picking Clinton that he isn't capitulating to old politics, he is demonstrating his capacity to reach out and engage and co-opt his rivals and opponents." Incidentally, Sullivan is widely recognized as the mainstream blogosphere's most vocal Obama cheerleader--and Clinton's most vociferous critic. Obama is aware of his work. That the Illinois senator would describe his vice-presidential selection process by spouting the same argument as Sullivan--and citing the same book--strikes me as sign that Clinton is (at the very least) under consideration.

Even if no names were named.   

P.S. It's also worth noting that Obama didn't stop at Democrats--he's open to asking Republican rivals to join his team, too. "You know, my attitude is that whoever is the best person for the job is the person I want," he said. "If I really thought that John McCain was the absolute best person for the Department of the Homeland Security, I would put him in there." At this, an audience member shouted "No!"--but Obama didn't budge. "No, I would, if I thought that he was the best," he said. "Now, I'm not saying I do. I'm just saying that's got to be the approach that you take because part of the change that I'm looking for is to make sure that we're reminded of what we have in common as Americans."

Still, something tells us Tom Tancredo won't be serving as immigration czar anytime soon. 

UPDATE, May 23:  Yesterday in Boca, Obama hinted that he was open to the idea of Clinton as No. 2. Now some residents of Hillaryland are demanding it. Via Politico, CNN is reporting that there are "formal talks" underway to devise an exit strategy--and that Clinton sources say there would be a "civil war" if she wasn't offered the gig. Obama's David Axelrod, Bill Burton and Robert Gibbs all deny the report, but Clinton fundraising chief had this to say to TPM's Greg Sargent:

"There's a desire on the part of the party to come together under any circumstances, and Hillary and her supporters will do everything in their power to help Obama win, should he become the nominee, whether or not she's on the ticket," Nemazee said to me this morning. "But there's a risk that if she isn't invited on the ticket, Hillary's political and financial supporters may not feel compelled to be as integrated and involved in the Obama campaign in order to provide the maximum support that he'll need to prevail in November."

Developing, as they say...
 

MIAMI BEACH, Fla.--Too bad Hillary Clinton left the Sunshine State last night--because the "good news" just came in this morning.

According to a new poll from the fine folks at Quinnipiac University, Clinton currently leads John McCain in a head-to-head match-up here by a solid seven points, 48-41, and repeats her strong showing in Ohio (48-41) and Pennsylvania (50-37). Meanwhile, Barack Obama trails McCain in Florida (41-45) and Ohio (40-44), and leads by a narrower margin (six points to Clinton's 13) in the Keystone State. For the suffocating Clinton campaign, stats like these are like oxygen. According to her aides, the Quinnipiac poll proves that Clinton's crucial argument to the all-important superdelegates--that she will win swing states like Florida and Ohio on Election Day, and Obama won't--is, in fact, true.

There's only one problem: it doesn't. As any pollster will tell you, opinion surveys can't predict the future--they can only provide a snapshot of the present. That's an especially important caveat at this particular point in time. With the interminable Democratic primary clash stuck in a strange twilight phase, Clinton's supporters are still coming to terms with the fact that Obama is all-but-certain to top the ticket--and many feel disappointed, angry and/or vindictive. Obama's supporters, on the other hand, are celebrating his impending nomination; they largely feel magnanimity toward Clinton, who now poses little threat. That's why in Quinnipiac's McCain-Obama matchups, 26 to 36 percent of Clinton supporters in each state say that they'd vote for McCain in November if their candidate isn't the nominee, and only 10 to 18 percent of Obama supporters respond in kind. 

These Clinton-to-McCain defectors fully account for Obama's deficits in Florida and Ohio. Of the 41 percent of Democrats who back the former first lady here in the Sunshine State, for example, a whopping 36 percent claim they would choose McCain over Obama. Which means that in Quinnipiac's McCain-Obama trial heat, nearly 15 percent of otherwise reliable Democrats--or 7.5 percent of the overall pool, assuming that Dems account for half of the total electorate--are crossing over to vote Republican. Give all of them back to Obama, and he leads McCain approximately 45-41. Give him less--a likelier outcome--and he's still ahead or tied. And the same is true in Ohio, where an identical anti-Obama, Democratic swing vote of 7.5 percent could easily erase McCain's four-point lead. Factor in a reasonable portion of Clinton supporters who currently say they won't cast a ballot for either Obama or McCain--say, two or three percent of the overall electorate--and Obama's comfortably ahead. The question then becomes, will every single one these Clintonites oppose Obama as a strongly on Nov. 4 as they do now, with Clinton herself firmly in his corner and hundreds of millions spent delegitimizing McCain? If your answer is yes, then only Clinton is "electable." But if not, Obama is automatically more electable than he appears.

Call it the Electability Mirage. For Clinton, this is something of a catch-22. Right now, Obama trails McCain in key states because a sizable number of her supporters tell pollsters they will crossover in the fall. In other words, her key claim to the Democratic crown--Obama isn't electable--is only compelling because Democrats say they'll vote Republican if she isn't nominated. Ultimately, many of these folks will come around. But even if not, the only voters who can declare a winner at this point--that is, the superdelegates--are unlikely to favor an argument that rewards their fellow party members for threatening to defect.  sounds even a little bit like blackmail.*

*Apologies for the overheated language there. Upon review, I've realized I overstated this a bit; blackmail is the wrong word, since no one--neither Clinton nor her supporters--is actively making this argument. I've revised to reflect what I actually meant.
 

Meanwhile, Obama focused squarely on the future during the first of his three days in Florida. His rally at the St. Pete Times arena in Tampa was meant to show that despite the delegate debacle, Sunshine Staters are still excited about his bid--and judging by the coverage, it worked. "The rock star metaphor was unavoidable," wrote the Miami Herald. "Hawkers with T-shirts and buttons fanned out over blocks, as did the line of people waiting to get in. Pictures of Obama flickered on the jumbo-tron screen, and a double-deckered banner of the campaign slogan 'Change We Can Believe In' was wrapped around the arena." Not that any of those accouterments are unusual at Obama rallies; it's just that this was Florida's first. In his speech, Obama credited Clinton as a worthy opponent, but largely ignored his (ostensible) Democratic rival (and her popular-vote plea), choosing to attack John McCain's foreign policy and lobbyist ties instead. “John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now, because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign," he said. "And when he was called on it, his top lobbyists actually had the nerve to say, ‘The American people won’t care about this.’" Later, Obama wooed Puerto Ricans in the Orlando suburb of Kissimmee. We'll know how well his outreach to Florida's key Latino constituency is going in... oh, about five months.

Today, the Tropicana Trail is a little quieter--but no less fascinating. After voting in Washington, D.C. this morning on a series of emergency war-funding bills, Obama returns to Florida for a 4:00 p.m. event at the B’nai Torah synagogue in Boca Raton. Like with yesterday's Kissimmee appearance, Obama will make an initial pass at appealing to a key Sunshine State community that's been reluctant to back him in the primaries--that is, Jewish voters, who make up five percent of the electorate here and who, as the New York Times reports this morning, have been especially susceptible to the false "Obama is a pro-Palestinian, un-American Muslim" rumors that have swamped the state in the absence of any actual Democratic campaign. We'll return this evening with a dispatch from Boca on Obama's first attempt to battle back.

 

Bill Clinton called giving Florida half its delegates -- similar to how the Republican National Committee penalized the state for holding an earlier-than-allowed contest -- an "appropriate penalty." "The Republican Party said 'OK, we'd like to win Florida in the fall so we are gonna invoke our rule, they got out of turn, we will seat their delegates as half a delegate and seat their superdelegates,' " Clinton said at a campaign event in Missoula, Mon. "That is an appropriate penalty."

There he goes again. Just as I was about to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, rather) to explain the math behind Hillary Clinton's new popular vote crusade--and show why it has the potential to become more divisive than a mere attack on Obama--my esteemed colleague Jonathan Alter beat me to the punch. I've reposted his analysis below. Two notes before you dive in--one that helps Obama and one that helps Hillary. First of all, Jon writes that "everyone in Michigan knew on January 15 that a vote for 'uncommitted' was a vote for Obama," meaning that those 238,168 votes are rightfully his. That's not quite right. At that point, John Edwards was still in the race, and still very much viable, but his name wasn't on the ballot either. Many of those votes--although not as many as Obama--probably belong to JRE, which lowers the Illinois senator's vote total by some unknowable number. (Goes to show how absurd this whole exercise is.) Secondly, Jon says that "with a big win in Puerto Rico, Clinton could possibly erase [Obama's 166,000-vote] margin (plus several thousand more that Obama is expected to net in Montana and South Dakota)." Or not. The expected turnout in P.R. is about 600,000, the same as South Dakota; the Montana primary will probably draw about 750,000. That means Clinton has to win by about 30 points on the island--or 180,000 votes--to catch up to Obama, then somehow hold him to a net gain of 14,000 in a pair of primaries he's expected to win by double-digits (at least 135,000 votes, combined) just to break even. That seems unlikely to me. And *even if she does* it's not like the superdelegates will suddenly side with Clinton if she does manage to overtake Obama in this uncountable "popular vote." Which means that her new crusade gives her little chance to clinch the nomination, even if she gets everything she wants--but could (since the DNC will probably compromise and halve each delegation in the end) make a lot of her supporters think the crown was stolen from her anyway.

Give credit where it's due: Hillary Clinton has shown grit and determination in finishing out the race. She has proved herself a strong campaigner. And in the week since West Virginia, she has stopped the cheap shots that had marred her campaign this year.

But Clinton has continued with one claim that could have a pernicious effect on the Democrats' chances in November. While she knows that the nomination is determined by delegates, Hillary insists on saying at every opportunity that she is winning the popular vote. And she has now taken to touting the new HBO movie "Recount," which chronicles the Florida fiasco of eight years ago. Everyone can agree that the primary calendar needs reform. But popular-vote pandering is poison for Democrats. For a party scarred by the experience of 2000, when Al Gore received 500,000 more popular votes than George W. Bush but lost the presidency, this argument is sure to make it harder to unite and put bitter feelings aside.

Oh, and it's not true.

Let me go through the numbers without making your head spin.

After Kentucky and Oregon, Obama has an official popular vote lead of 441,545.

This does not include Iowa (where Obama first broke from the pack), Nevada (where Hillary won the popular vote narrowly), Maine (where Obama won easily) or Washington state (another strong Obama state). Why? Because these caucus states don't officially report their popular votes. But if we're going to truly count all the votes, official and nonofficial, as Hillary advocates, you can't very well not include caucus states.

Adding in the unofficial tally from caucus states, as estimated by ++realclearpolitics.com++ based on official caucus turnout and the number of local delegates selected at the precinct level, that gives Obama a lead of 551,767.

Now we come to Florida and Michigan, whose popular votes Hillary says should be counted. The argument for counting them is no better than for counting the caucus states (and maybe worse, considering that these states violated party rules by moving their primaries up on the calendar, and no one campaigned there). But for the sake of argument let's count 'em. That gives Hillary a lead of 71,314.

HILLARY WINS POPULAR VOTE!

Not so fast. If the Democratic National Committee completes its expected settlement on May 31, Florida and Michigan will each get half of their votes counted. Translated to popular votes, that would subtract about 325,000 votes from Hillary, putting Obama back into the lead.

Beyond not being official numbers, there's another problem with counting Michigan in these totals. Obama wasn't on the ballot there. You can say this was his own choice, but that doesn't change the fact that had he been on the Michigan ballot he would have received a lot of popular votes. How many?

Try 238,168. That's the number of Michiganders who voted for "uncommitted." Were they possibly genuinely abstaining? Maybe a few hundred of them at most. The rest were clearly Obama supporters who launched a grass-roots campaign. Everyone in Michigan knew on January 15 that a vote for "uncommitted" was a vote for Obama.

That means that by a generous definition of popular votes (and remember, Clinton wants to enfranchise as many people as possible in her count), Obama leads by about 166,000 votes.

With a big win in Puerto Rico, Clinton could possibly erase that margin (plus several thousand more that Obama is expected to net in Montana and South Dakota). She could then proclaim that with the help of Puerto Rican voters who cannot vote in a general election, she is the popular vote winner.

The shorthand many Clinton supporters are already taking into the summer is that she won the popular vote but had the nomination "taken away" (as Joy Behar said on "The View") by a man.

What a helpful message for uniting the Democratic Party. 

READ THE REST HERE.

*Apologies: For South Dakota and Montana, I misread the voting-age population estimates as turnout predictions. Dumb. Still, it doesn't change my basic point--that Clinton needs a massive win in P.R. just to tie Obama, and even then, such a performance is will probably a) not spur the superdels to break her way and b) create further divisions among Democrats.
 

If Hillary Clinton were running a general election campaign right now--and hoping to kill two key Florida constituencies with one stone--her lunchtime stop today in Boca Raton wouldn't be a bad place to start. For starters, there's the name of the "adult condominium community" where she chose to stump--Century Village. That gives you an idea of the average age of the audience. Secondly, there's the sign on the building next to the clubhouse that housed Clinton's event: Congregation Torah Ohr. It wasn't a Catholic cathedral.

But unfortunately for Clinton, her chances of actually being on the ballot in November are vanishingly miniscule--and most everyone in attendance knew it.  Although Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" blared on the PA, door workers who once would've demanded supporters' contact information requested instead that the crowd volunteer for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party. On stage, a local pol kept the waiting septuagenarians occupied with a homily on togetherness. "Whichever side of the aisle you're on in this election," he said, "We have to be a united party as soon as the superdelegates decide who the nominee is." In place of the slogan usually emblazoned on Clinton's podium--say, "Ready to Lead"--there was a simple URL: "HillaryClinton.com." And when Clinton herself took the stage, she didn't say a single word about any of her plans or proposals, or try to sway a single undecided voter

So why did Clinton come to Boca? Let's just say that symbolism played a part.

If you'll recall, Palm Beach County (home of the infamous butterfly ballot) was the central front in the battle to count every vote cast in 2000's razor-close presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore. It's the place where, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, the dream of a Democrat returning to the White House in 2001 finally died. With the remaining primaries offering no path to victory, Clinton today finally seized on this painful history to cast what had been one of her many rationales for staying in this unwinnable race--the need to count Florida and Michigan's disputed primary votes--as a "moral" crusade that compels her to continue. "I am here today because I believe the decision our party faces is not just about the fate of these votes and the outcome of these primaries, but whether we will uphold our most fundamental values as Democrats," she said. "The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: if any votes aren't counted, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished." The crowd answered in unison: "Count our votes! Count over votes!"

If Clinton had stopped there, today's remarks would've served as (a slightly more monomaniacal version of) what's she already said before. She didn't--to put it mildly. Instead, in a wide-ranging--and carefully crafted--address that sounded, at times, like a history of American voting rights, Clinton suggested that discounting Florida and Michigan would betray the "generation of patriots who risked and sacrificed on the battlefield" to win American independence and ensure that a "just government [would] derive from the contest of the governed." Other saints would spin in their graves as well. Among them:  "abolitionists"; the "tenacious women and few brave men who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848" and spent the next "70 years struggling" for the right to vote; and the African-Americans who "knelt down on that bridge in Selma to pray and were beaten within an inch of their lives." (Clinton stopped short of mentioning Al Gore). In the end, she said, denying these votes would be of a piece with subjecting the good people of Florida and Michigan to the "poll taxes and literacy tests, violence and intimidation, dogs and tear gas" of the Jim Crow south. "It is because all that has been done that we are here in this election," she said, with a sly glance in her opponents' general direction. "I believe Sen. Obama and I have an obligation to carry on this legacy and ensure that every voice is heard and every vote is counted." In other words: I mean business.

A cynic might be tempted to remind Clinton that these disputed primaries only became a concern when it looked like they could help her, and only became a moral crusade when she had no other path to pursue. Last fall, for example, she said that Michigan "wouldn't count for anything," and two of her top aides, Harold Ickes and Terry McAuliffe, have until now supported punishing delinquent states by stripping their delegates. But Clinton wouldn't care. "Your votes should not be cast aside because of a technicality," she told the Century Villagers this afternoon. Judging by today's address, Clinton clearly hopes that Florida and Michigan will propel her past Obama in the popular-vote count and rally superdelegates to her side. Again, a cynic would probably feel compelled to note that the only plausible way Clinton can accomplish this feat is by awarding herself 328,309 votes in Michigan and awarding Obama (whose name wasn't on the ballot) a whopping zero--a sleight of hand that's unlikely to endear her to the decisive party members, but may very well discredit the Illinois senator's near-inevitable nomination among the half of the party (hers) that he still needs to win over. (Not to mention that nominations are determined by delegates instead of some chimerical, uncountable popular vote compiled from a half-dozen different kinds of contests.) Again, Clinton doesn't seem to care. "The popular vote is the truest expression of your will," she said. "I know that Senator Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot in Michigan. That was his right.  But we should not rob you of your voices because of it." Perhaps Mrs. Clinton would consider a compromise--say, halving the delegations, Republican-style? Never: "The Democratic party must count these votes, and they should count them exactly as they were cast." That settles that.

Clinton, it seems, is setting the stage for a showdown. At the end of her speech, she asked the crowd to visit her Web site and "join the 300,000 Americans" who've already signed up to petition the DNC. (Explains the "HillaryClinton.com" podium.) Meanwhile, the Rules Committee is scheduled to resolve the Florida and Michigan dispute on May 31--and, seeing as its members have already told the media that they will mete out some form of punishment, Clinton won't get the full delegations she's demanding. We'll see then if that's good enough for the candidate and her crew--or if her last crusade will simply continue, with no end in sight.
 

MIAMI--If it's good enough for a potential leader of the free world, it's good enough for me.

In search of a tasty Cuban snack to wash down today's heaping helping of anti-Castro bravado, I followed John McCain this afternoon to Versailles restaurant in Little Havana. The Arizona senator has swung by twice this year, so I figured it must be pretty good (also, I consulted the ever-illuminating Chowhound message boards, which confirmed that the place is one of the most famous--and reliable--Cuban joints in town; when it comes to ethnic food, trust the wisdom of crowds over the wisdom of lawmakers). McCain's poison was an enamel-obliterating shot of espresso--the perfect pick-me-up for a 71-year-old pol who's mostly interested in having his picture taken before scuttling off to glad-hand fat-cat donors. But mine, as always, was pork. Namely, freshly baked pork, sliced thick, layered between strips of sweet ham (jamon dolce), slathered in Swiss cheese, accented with tart pickles, shmeared with a spoonful of mustard and