NBC political director Chuck Todd explains why the nomination race is entering a crucial stage for Hillary Clinton, and may already have slipped away from her.
“For Clinton to overtake Obama for the pledged delegate lead — which we think is the single most important statistic for the superdelegates to decide their vote — she’ll have to win 55 percent of the remaining delegates. Assuming next week goes Obama’s way in Wisconsin and Hawaii, that percentage rises to 57 percent. Toss in likely Obama victories in Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, then Clinton’s percentage need tops 60 percent of the remaining delegates available. And this is simply for her to regain the pledged delegate lead.â€
She’s facing a steep uphill climb, even if she wins Texas and Ohio. She has to win by large margins from here on out to regain the lead in elected delegates.
As a result, Clinton’s advisers are considering pressing to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan at the national convention, the New York Times reported. Clinton won both those primaries, but neither candidate campaigned there and, according to Democratic Party rules about primary scheduling, the delegates aren’t supposed to count.
“With their inflexibility, grudge-holding and eagerness to evict heretics rather than seek converts, too many of conservatism’s leaders sound like the custodians of a dwindling religious denomination or a politically correct English department at a fading liberal-arts college,†Ross Douthat, a senior editor for the Atlantic, wrote about Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, James Dobson and others who have gone apoplectic about John McCain.
“The tribunes of the American right have fallen into the same bad habits that doomed their liberal rivals to years of political failure,†Douthat wrote, accusing them of behaving “like caricatures of liberals, emphasizing a host of small-bore litmus tests that matter more to Beltway insiders than to the right-winger on the street.â€
The President Bush signed into law Wednesday a $168 billion measure designed to stimulate the economy by giving millions of Americans rebate checks to spend, ranging from $300 to $1,200.
But will it work as planned?
A recent Associated Press-Ipos poll found that most Americans won’t go on a shopping spree. Forty-five percent said they’d pay off bills, 32 percent planned to save or invest the money, and only 19 percent said they’d spend it.
What do you plan to do with your rebate check, bloggers?
Iraq’s parliament passed three laws Wednesday that were important to the Kurds (sharing revenue in the 2008 budget), Shiites (ensuring provincial governing powers) and Sunnis (granting limited amnesty to detainees held in Iraqi jails). That’s progress — albeit small.
The purpose of the military surge was to give Iraq breathing room to reach political solutions. But this is only the second of the 18 benchmarks set by the United States that has made it through parliament. And the future of the other measure — to allow lower-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to reclaim government jobs — is unclear, the Washington Post reported.
Will Steger probably felt out of his element visiting The Eagle editorial offices Tuesday — the famed polar explorer has spent more than four decades traveling the lonely expanses of the Arctic by dogsled and kayak. Now Steger is traveling the Midwest as an eyewitness to global warming and to warn of the dramatic changes he’s seen.
He said that it once took him 30 days by dogsled team to cross an expanse of the Larsen ice shelf. Now it’s gone.
“All the ice shelves I’ve traveled on have disintegrated,†he said. And he warned that if the 10,000-feet high Greenland ice cap melts, the resulting sea-level rises could be catastrophic.
Climate skeptics are “confusing the public with junk science,†he said. He wants Kansans to know that the Arctic melt is real and profound and the evidence for climate change “overwhelming.†What is happening there will be felt here in Kansas.
Here’s his Web site.
David Meyers, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, told state lawmakers Tuesday about the compelling links between smoking bans in public places and dramatic reductions in heart attacks. But John Singleton, spokesman of Reynolds American, parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., made this argument to the Hutchinson News for letting businesses set their own smoking policies: “Lots of waiters and waitresses actually prefer to work in an establishment that allows smoking, because, generally speaking, smokers stay longer, have bigger tabs and leave bigger tips than nonsmokers. There’s an advantage there, and of course, there’s an awful lot of wait staff who smoke themselves.â€
Of course, if smokers stay longer, that can mean less turnover of tables, which can mean fewer tips. And if more smoking and nonsmoking patrons die of heart attacks, that also can mean fewer tippers.
NBC political director Chuck Todd explains why the nomination race is entering a crucial stage for Hillary Clinton, and may already have slipped away from her.
