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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

News Digest, 2/11/08: A Very Busy Weekend

If you enjoy weekends where many important things happen in national politics, this last one was built just for you. It doesn't hurt to have had a bunch of primaries and caucuses, but there was more to this weekend than voting.

That being said, we should talk about all that voting stuff as the results are rather important. Barack Obama had a couple of big days, winning Louisiana, Washington, and Nebraska on Saturday and then taking Maine on Sunday. These contests weren't on the order of what the media calls a big prize, like Virginia, but the delegates he picked up are still delegates, putting him slightly ahead in most tallies. ABCNews put the weekend's balance at 88 delegates for Obama and 50 for Clinton, although everyone's count varies somewhat.

Sunday big political news outside of Obama's win in Maine was the reorganization of staff on the Clinton campaign, with Patty Solis Doyle stepping aside as campaign manager and handing the reins to Maggie Williams. More details about this and the short-term plans for both campaigns are sure to emerge today.

Our own Lorenzo Sadun pondered Huckabee's chances ahead of the weekend contests, and his predictions — that Huckabee would win Louisiana and Kansas and lose Washington — turned out to be correct. But McCain underperformed in Washington, and the press gave him the business for his weekend losses.

Among that news, Ron Paul got a little more realistic about his chances in a message on his web site, stating that he was cutting some staff and focusing on his congressional race, and at the same time asserted that he wouldn't be a third party candidate. The story of a conservative third party candidate won't die, and even though Ron Paul comes from another universe than the candidate those conservatives would be likely to draft, it continues the conversation about a possible schism in the GOP where conservatives break out for little more purpose than to teach the party a lesson.

The news on Friday that Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman had been stripped of his superdelegate status by the DNC was not surprising, but it offered a little more insight into how the superdelegate process works. It also gave us the opportunity to discuss the "Zell Miller rule" that provided the impetus for removing Lieberman, a decision which was made because of his support for John McCain.

Michael Bloomberg's supporters sent a message of urgency to their potential candidate, saying that he needed to make a decision in 10 days in the form of what sounded like an ultimatum. The followups at Elizabeth Benjamin's blog included some confusion, particularly as to whether the date is arbitrary or geared toward reminding Bloomberg of some ballot access deadlines.

As excitement over the upcoming Texas primary reached a fever pitch last week, I thought it would be appropriate to make the first of what will likely be many lists of things to consider about the upcoming Texas primary. As we like to say in academics, it is illustrative and not exhaustive, and your thoughts are welcome.

Lastly, we heard the sad news that Congressman Tom Lantos passed away this morning. Serving California since 1981, Lantos was the only survivor of the Holocaust to ever become a member of Congress. He was widely respected on both sides of the aisle, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.

We have a busy week ahead of us in politics, so stick with us. As always, thanks for reading.

Lieberman

Lieberman should have lost his super delegate status the day he turned Independent and did not support Ned Lamont. He is no longer a Democrat.

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