If, as expected, Obama sweeps the Beltway states tomorrow — particularly if he does it convincingly, with landslide numbers — I suspect the growing media consensus that Hillary’s in trouble and March 4 might not be able to save her, which has been percolating for a couple of days and will be solidified by tomorrow’s NYT article, could lead the MSM, and perhaps (more importantly) some superdelegates, to essentially designate next Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary as a pre-March 4 “firewall” for Hillary.

Maybe they won’t demand that she win Wisconsin, but if she loses badly (again), it’ll leave a very bad taste in her supporters’ mouths heading into the two weeks off before Texas and Ohio, and I could see some superdelegates jumping ship early (super-jumpers?) rather than waiting till the 4th.

P.S. Of course, having said all that, the history of this campaign says that Hillary will win Virginia tonight. Anytime you start writing her political obituary, she comes back out of nowhere.

Blogger Dylan Loewe, in a post titled “Why Obama is Closer to the Nomination Than You Think,” argues convincingly that, in the end, neither rogue superdelegates nor the Florida/Michigan controversy will decide who wins the Democratic nomination; the winner will be whoever gets the most pledged delegates, even though the pledged delegates alone won’t get the winner anywhere close to a majority. The superdelegates, Loewe says, are too wimpy to buck the will of the pledged delegates — and the will of the pledged delegates will similarly control who gets on the Credentials Committee, and thus whether the Florida and Michigan delegations get seated. (Hat tip: Noam Scheiber.)

I think Loewe is probably right, provided the leading candidate’s pledged delegate advantage is meaningful — say, over 100 delegates or so. If that’s the case, the superdelegates will rally around the leader for the sake of party self-preservation. But if the leader’s delegate edge is in double digits only, I think all bets are off, in part because a lot of these superdelegates will be making their decisions while the national delegate estimates are still maddeningly in flux (so the identity of the “leader” may be less than clear) and in part because Hillary will then be able to wield the “popular vote” argument as a potentially effective counter to Obama’s “I got more delegates” argument. If the final pledged delegate count is, say, 1,640 to 1,587, then it really will be chaos. But if it’s more like 1,700 to 1,527, then, yes, the nominee will be the pledged delegate winner, notwithstanding that 1,700 is well short of the 2,025 needed to nominate.

P.S. With regard to those “maddeningly in flux” delegate counts: the media seriously, seriously needs to start consistently and clearly separating superdelegates from pledged delegates in its counts. To view the numbers primarily as an undifferentiated mish-mash is so confusing as to be almost worse than worthless. A “committed” superdelegate is not the same thing as a pledged delegate, for the simple reason that the superdelegate can change his or her mind, as some already have and many ultimately will. I’m not saying the superdelegate tally isn’t important, but it is separate from the pledged-delegate tally, and it needs to be regarded as such.

If I were a major media organization with a “decision desk” and a staff of analysts figuring out delegate counts, I would publish a breakdown of delegates that would explicitly include, in separate columns, the following clearly delineated categories:

(more…)

BrendanLoy.com, February 6:

Hillary needs to be very careful of this, methinks. If Obama starts racking up wins in the friendly landscape of the next few weeks, his momentum could become a very powerful thing indeed, not with voters but with superdelegates. If Obama does very well throughout the rest of March, the supers might be ready to jump on the bandwagon en masse, and effectively anoint Obama the winner, if Hillary doesn’t really impress in her March 4 “firewall” states, Texas and Ohio.

New York Times, February 12:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers increasingly believe that, after a series of losses, she has been boxed into a must-win position in the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, and she has begun reassuring anxious donors and superdelegates that the nomination is not slipping away from her, aides said Monday. …

“She has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she’s out,” said one Democratic superdelegate who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment. “The campaign is starting to come to terms with that.” Campaign advisers, also speaking privately in order to speak plainly, confirmed this view.

After being repeatedly and consistently wrong about almost everything this election season, I finally got something right, and got out a few days ahead of the conventional wisdom in the process, with this superdelegate thing. Woohoo! :)

You’ll be hearing about it in the articles, seeing it on SportsCenter, etc., but … wow.

I’m sorry, but there’s nothing legitimate about that Tennessee win. I don’t understand why the announcers are being so equivocal and opaque about it. The timekeeper stopped the clock with 0.2 seconds left for no apparent reason, a Tennessee player was fouled with "0.2 seconds left" — after the game should have ended — and that’s the only reason the Lady Vols "won" that game.

Home job.

UPDATE: Looks like it may be overshadowed by the similarly bulls*** ending of the Georgetown-Villanova men’s game.

UPDATE 2: A commenter writes, "The Thompson-Boling Arena clock, like the timing systems at most
college arenas, is started and stopped by the officials on the floor. A
whistle by any of the three officials stops the clock, and one of the
officials pushes a button on his/her belt to start the clock. So your
assertion that someone at the scorer’s table caused the problem is a
utterly unfounded."

I don’t know who controls the clock, but I do know that what happened at the end of that game was very, very shady.

UPDATE 3: From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

The game clock can only be stopped by an official’s whistle, according to Tim Reese, the arena manager.

"Officials are using a precision-timing device, which is used by the
SEC and most of the major conferences," he said. "It’s tied into the
control panel, and controls the game clock."

In addition to the whistle and an attached microphone, the officials
also are armed with a belt pack, which sends a wireless signal to the
clock.

That’s interesting, but it doesn’t explain how or why the clock stopped at 0.2 seconds, then started up again and ran down to 0.0. There is no possible explanation for what occurred that doesn’t involve a screw-up by somebody. If it was the referee who screwed up rather than the timekeeper, then fine. But it was still a screw-up, and Rutgers still won that game, 58-57.

P.S. Here’s some of what Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer had to say about it:

It was a great game with two ranked teams in a great atmosphere for a
great cause for all the right reasons. It’s just unfortunate that those
kinds of things happen. I’ll probably write a book on all that. I’m
getting used to it by now, but we’ll learn from it. It doesn’t take
away from a great Tennessee team and a great coach and a great
everything. …

(On whether she asked the officials about the clock) "Yes.
They said everything was fine. The foul was called before and they had
looked at the clock on the monitor and the foul was called before time
went off the clock. So now we’ve got bad eyes too." …

(On the final outcome of the game) "The two teams
are too good for that. It’s not Pat’s (Summitt) fault and it’s not
Tennessee’s fault, unfortunately. Probably what I would have to say
about that situation is that I just want to be able to coach my team in
the next couple days. It has nothing to do with Tennessee and it has
nothing to do with those players and those coaches. Unfortunately, that
is human error. I just happen to be on the end of human error too many
times with too many erasers at the end of my name and I’m so sorry,
because these young women deserve better. The clock froze."

"The game did not deserve this. Tennessee didn’t deserve this. Pat
didn’t deserve this. Those great players didn’t deserve this and
neither did my great team deserve this. It is what it is."

Indeed.

Almost exactly two years after Dick Cheney shot his friend, Harry Whittington, Dick Cheney has broken ranks with the rest of the Bush Administration and decided to oppose the DC gun ban.

I just thought the timing of his announcement was a little ironic :-)

It looks like the Hollywood writer’s strike will end on Wednesday. As always, Nikki Finke is the indispensable source for any and all information about this.

In celebration of the end of the strike, and the fact that it now appears the Academy Awards will actually happen as planned on February 24, I figured now would be a good time to open the polls in my 4th annual Oscar Pool!

[UPDATE: Due to technical problems with the server that hosts the Oscar Pool, e-mails of contestants’ picks are being delayed. Supposedly, they’ll go out eventually. To be safe, however, you may want to wait to enter the pool until this problem is cleared up.]

I’ll put the link in the sidebar, too, so people can enter later, once the big day gets closer, if they prefer. Point values and tiebreakers are the same as they’ve been in prior years. (See, e.g., last year.)

As usual, I greatly prefer if you use your full name, or, failing that, a pseudonym that readily identifies you (e.g, a nickname you use regularly in comments). First-name-only contestants and other insufficiently identified entries may be disqualified. (Otherwise, we end up with four different, effectively anonymous "Andrews" competing against each other.)

Enter here.

The only Shoah survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Tom Lantos of California, has died at the age of 80.

A passionate fighter for human rights ~ from age 16 when he escaped the deathcamp and joined the underground Resistance, until the day he died ~ this irreplaceable man will be sorely missed by all who love freedom.

Zichrono Livracha: May his memory be a blessing.

Heh:

Thanks to Zell Miller, there is a rule to deal with Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman’s endorsement of Republican John McCain disqualifies
him as a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention under what
is informally known as the Zell Miller rule, according to Democratic
State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo.

Miller, then a Democratic senator from Georgia, not only
endorsed Republican George Bush four years ago, but he delivered a
vitriolic attack on Democrat John Kerry at the Republican National
Convention.

The Democrats responded with a rule disqualifying any Democrat
who crosses the aisle from being a superdelegate. Lieberman will not be
replaced, DiNardo said.

The Yaley Daily has more. (Hat tip: NRO.)

I can’t say I blame the Democrats for this one. I’m a little surprised they were planning to invite him to Denver in the first place, actually.

I must admit, though, at purely impish level, I’m mildly disappointed. It would have been extremely amusing to hear something like this at the convention:

Mr. Speaker, the Great State of Connecticut, the Nutmeg State, home of the NCAA women’s basketball national champion UConn Huskies… [YAY!! WHOO!!]

…and home of the Big East runner-up UConn men’s basketball Huskies, who recently made yet another trip to the Sweet Sixteen… [Yay!]

…and home of the Big East co-champion UConn football Huskies… [YAY!]

…Connecticut, with its great senior senator, a fine American and a loyal Democrat, Christopher J. Dodd…  [HURRAH!]

…and with its four fine Democratic representatives, Rosa DeLauro, John Larson, Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy… [Woo!]

…Connecticut, the Constitution State… ["Vote!"]

…the state that, in 1687, struck a blow for democracy by hiding its state charter in the Charter Oak… ["VOTE!!"]

…and the state that will, in 2008, strike another blow for democracy… ["VOTE!!!"]

…by helping end eight disastrous years of Bush/Cheney/McCain government… ["Boo!" "Yay!" "VOTE!!!!"]

…by casting its seven electoral votes for the next Democratic president of the United States… ["Hear, hear!" "Hurrah!" "VOTE!!!!!"]

…Mr. Speaker, Connecticut casts 35 votes for Senator Barack Obama, 25 votes for Senator Hillary Clinton, and 1 vote for Senator John McCain.

Hee hee. Would’ve been fun. Oh, well.

Let ‘er rip!

(Members of the Newington High School Class of ‘99 with long memories will understand the reference in the title of this post. Everyone else, move along, nothing to see here…)