Let's put the claim that Barack Obama is losing support from white voters to the test.

And let's also probe whether the question can be asked without factoring in gender.

(Okay, time for some Friday night fun now that we have our Obaminee.)

McCain starts to address an audience and...ooops...which side is up?

Dare I say...Barack Obama is going to put things rightside-up?

By now, it's just a question of when and how the remaining loose ends of this nomination battle will get wrapped up, and increasingly all signs are pointing to May 20 as the day. Tonight, Obama made the case on NBC Nightly News:

As Barack says, the key thing about May 20 (the day of the Kentucky and Oregon primaries) is that on that day, he will secure a majority of democratically selected pledged delegates. After that point, the most important part of the process will be over. Unless superdelegates decide to overturn the judgment of voters and take the nomination away from Obama, it will be his.

(I'm cross-posting this from my blog in real-time, updates and all. Apologies for the cut-n-paste job, but I'm trying to update this thing in real-time.)

Based on numbers from the Indiana exit poll (via MSNBC), I determined that 13% of Clinton voters in Indiana actually plan to vote for John McCain in November, nearly three times the number of Obama voters who plan to vote for McCain.

As we assess the election returns tonight, it is imperative that we factor out pro-McCain voters for both candidates. The exit poll will continue to be tweaked as the night goes along, but based on these preliminary numbers, 13.4% of Clinton's total vote should be discounted and 4.9% of Obama's vote should be discounted.

Effectively, for Clinton to say she won without the help of pro-McCain Republicans, she needs about 53% of the vote.

A pro-Republican anti-choice group is bankrolling a robocall campaign urging pro-life Indiana voters to vote against Barack Obama in tomorrow's primary.

The group, the National Right to Life Committee, attacks Obama's pro-choice record, telling voters: "You can vote in either party’s primary. If you vote in the Democratic primary, please do not vote for Barack Obama."

Given that there is no meaningful difference between Clinton and Obama on issues of reproductive freedom, the only reasonable explanation for these calls is that the group, National Right to Life, is trying to boost Clinton's performance in tomorrow's primary in the hopes of extending the Democratic nomination battle, thereby helping John McCain's candidacy.

FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Here's a good definition from Wikipedia:

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric used in sales, marketing, public relations, and illiberal democracies. FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative (and vague) information. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of switching costs among current customers; or to maintain leverage over a current business partner who could potentially become a rival.

I haven't heard the term used often in politics, but it should be used more, especially this campaign season -- and most recently in relation to the recently floated "nuclear" option diaried by turneresq.

As a recc'd diary here notes, over at HuffPo, Peter Dreier takes a comprehensive look at the sad story of how Sidney Blumenthal is using the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to attack Barack Obama's character. Ironically, Blumenthal, who was a Clinton White House staffer and is now a pro-Clinton journalist, has documented how the very same right-wing network tried to destroy Bill Clinton during the 1990s on both paper and film.

10. To spread the Lanny Davis message of hope and optimism.

9.  O’Reilly agreed to pump her gas for rest of campaign.

8.  Richard Mellon Scaife asked her to.

7.  Outraged that William Ayers waited until September 16 to express horror at 9/11 attacks.

6.  Tasty falafel sandwiches.

Presenting "It's A Hard-Knock Life" (feat. Hillary Clinton and Dr. Evil)

On Monday, America's favorite working-class hero told a North Carolina audience: "If you'd had my life, you'd be tough too."  It must have been hard, all those years in the Governor's mansion and the White House, followed by a $109 million windfall. Since I couldn't find my violin, I made her this video instead:

Cross-posted from The Jed Report.

For most of this campaign, the Democratic Party has been unified by optimism that our eventual nominee would trounce the Republican candidate in November, 2008. That began to change towards the end of February, when the contest between Senators Clinton and Obama began to turn sharply negative.

The media and the Clinton campaign deserve their share of blame for this. And Obama is not perfect, either. But the people who deserve the most blame are the superdelegates, for it is their indecision that has made this mess possible in the first place.

Since late February, it has been clear that the Clinton campaign's only hope for victory rested in their hands. Over the past two months, the sole uncertainty about the campaign has been whether or not superdelegates will stage a coup against the voters.

(Also posted on my blog.)

::

As John McCain continues using guilt-by-association tactics to falsely portray his political opponent as a radical terrorist sympathizer, it's worth remembering that McCain himself has a little terrorism problem of his own.

In the early 1990s, McCain sided with right-wing domestic terrorists and voted against tough new legislation cracking down on a wave of anti-choice domestic terrorism targeting women who visited abortion clinics, their doctors, and clinic staff.

In both 1993 and 1994, McCain voted against the anti-terrorism measure. On each occasion, McCain was one of thirty radical anti-choice Senators to oppose the bill. Fortunately, despite McCain's opposition, it passed the Senate by a 69-30 margin.

Over the past month, foreign agents have had a tremendous impact on two key decisions made by John McCain during his presidential campaign. First, McCain endorsed Osama bin Laden's views on the Iraq war. Second, over the past week, McCain has embraced the words of a Hamas leader to divide the American electorate.

Here is McCain in late March, justifying the war in Iraq with Osama bin Laden's declaration that Iraq is the central battle ground in the war on terror:

Sadly, McCain never considered the possibility that bin Laden is perfectly content with us wasting untold billions and needlessly sacrificing American lives in Iraq -- just as long as we don't actually go after him, wherever he might be. It's too bad McCain didn't remember the advice of General George S. Patton: "Never let the enemy pick the battle site."

Also posted at The Jed Report.

::

There is no longer any question about whether or if Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate for president. The question now is when and how he will be recognized as the party's presumptive nominee.

It will happen sometime before the Democratic National Convention, just as soon as he secures the 2,024 delegates it will take to win the nomination on the convention floor. When that moment is upon us, everything else that has happened in the campaign will be overshadowed, rendered moot in an instant.

Think of that moment like the final touchdown that puts away a football game for good. And in this football game, superdelegates control when and where that touchdown will occur. They have two options. They can try to score themselves, or they can hand the ball off to voters, and let the voters finish the game off.

We already know who will win -- Barack Obama.

After last night, the things we still don't know: how and when.

Not if, not whether, but how, and when.

Update (12:50pm): I've posted my thoughts on the "how" part of this equation over here.

(Cross-posted at The Jed Report.)

During the 1990s, ultra-conservative Pennsylvania billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife funded what Hillary Clinton called a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to destroy her husband’s presidency.

Now, one decade after Scaife’s operation nearly removed her husband from office, Hillary Clinton has reached a rapprochement with the reclusive owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Last weekend Hillary Clinton accepted Scaife’s endorsement in the Pennsylvania primary, offered in the pages of the Tribune-Review. She had pursued the endorsement since last month, earning it after sitting down with Scaife and publicly attacking Barack Obama for attending Trinity United Church of Christ.

Update: It's over, he didn't ask the 9/11 question I was hoping -- and the interview was taped before my diary. So I'm a dumbass! Not that I expected it to have an impact...just getting something off my chest. But he did ask about Scaife, which was a much better question, and I've uploaded video (see end of diary).

I realize it's a bit late to be writing this diary -- Hillary Clinton's interview on Countdown is about ten minutes from now.

Still one of the things I'd really like her to explain is why she is exploiting 9/11.

I'm not talking about her new fear-mongering ad released today.

I'm talking about what she said last week about Bill Ayers, Barack Obama, and 9/11 during last week's debate.

Seems like another case of then and now.

In 2004, Bill Clinton said that even though the Democratic approach to government is favored by most Americans, the Republican approach to cultural issues like "God, gays, and guns" helps keep the GOP competitive in places like Oklahoma. He also cited white racism (euphemistically described as "white Southerners who were opposed to civil rights") as an important part of the Republican coalition.

In 2007, Clinton said that economic anxiety leads to anti-trade and anti-immigrant politics. The problem, he said, was that there wasn't "enough good new jobs."

Here's the video:

Presenting the newest production from The Jed Report -- Bosnia and Back Again, the story of Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. AMERICAblog declares it is "the most spectacular display of sniper fire since Tuzla." Senator Clinton plays herself in a performance The Field calls "a paid political ad for John McCain." Watch the trailer now:

Update 2: Someone out there doesn't want people to see this video. It's now been buried twice on digg -- the 2nd time after getting 200 digs in 2.5 hours. Anyone have any visibility as to how burying works on digg?