I am not in the health insurance business.  I own a small company that started up this year.  It is a 100% telecommuting company, which works well for the type of business I am in and it provides incredible flexibility for my employees.  It is very important to me that my employees receive quality health care, and as a business owner I am happy to pay for their health insurance coverage.

It's been apparent to most of us since February that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee.  Still, I was stunned last night that it actually happened.  The insurgent won the nomination against the heavily favored establishment candidate.  I'm accustomed to my candidate losing in the primaries, and I'd become increasingly cynical each four years.  Now I'm going to have to get used to a new reality.

Four years ago, I heard about this governor from a small state who was speaking the truth against all conventional wisdom.  He attacked the notion that Democrats should accede to the powerful when the other side was just plain wrong.  He said things which were obviously, painfully, true which nobody else dared to say.

That's right - math is rearing is ugly head again.  Hillary Clinton failed to do what she needed in one of her best states to get the nomination.  As a testament to how infinitely improbable her quest is at this point, here's where we stood before the election results tonight:

Obama: 1,591.5 pledged + 284 super delegates = 1,875.5
Clinton: 1,425.5 pledged + 270.5 super delegates = 1,696

With Clinton needing 329 out of 458.5 remaining delegates to get to 2,025 and the nomination, she would need 71.76% of the remaining delegates.  She did great in West Virginia yesterday, but she only got 20 out of 28 or 71.43% of the delegates.  Sorry, Senator Clinton, but you'll have to do a little better than that in Kentucky and Oregon and Montana and South Dakota and Puerto Rico and among the remaining super delegates to win.

But wait, there's more...

For all of us who need to know the Pennsylvania results 30 hours before we will have them, Public Policy Polling (PPP) and Survey USA have given us competing internals.  Then we can figure out who is right, or what each candidate needs to do to beat expectations.  With internals on vote by gender, race, and region we take the tens of millions of dollars spent and 6 weeks of hard campaigning and boil it down to a spreadsheet.  Both pollsters use automated polling rather than live interviewers, but their results are quite different.

I've broken everything down for each of the polls for comparison, and then threw in the Ohio exit polls since Ohio is probably the closest thing we have to an analog of Pennsylvania.  Ohio's African-American population is 10.6% versus 9.2% in Pennsylvania, but I'll assume that with Pennsylvania's closed primary, the racial breakdown of the voters works out about the same between the two states.

It has been a long and bitter campaign, and it may continue until June.  All of us can recall many events which have made our blood boil.  We know from the math, though, that the campaign is all but over.  Clinton will probably need well over 80% of the remaining undeclared non-add-on super delegates to get the nomination and she'd be lucky to get 20%.

DISCLAIMER: Obama is 30 points behind!  Vote!  Donate!  Phone bank!  GOTV! yada yada yada...

I voted for Obama, but I have been stunned at the Clinton campaign's sudden turn for the worse after Super Tuesday.  Giuliani was hardly an endorsement for the Giuliani Strategy, and yet the Clinton campaign is relying on basically the same tactic.  It seems to me like if Clinton loses by about 20 points 10 times in a row, it's hard to imagine Texas and Ohio bucking the trend.  However, what if the Giuliani Strategy actually worked for Clinton?  Could she get the nomination?  I crunched the numbers to find out.

A few people, including crazymoloch earlier today have come up with sophisticated means to predict tomorrow's outcome.  My methodology is simple: I start with the latest poll from each state (averaged if there are two or even three finishing on the same date).  I then adjust it forward to today's date based on the changes in a 5-poll national average between the state poll's date and today.  Then I impose a 15% threshold for delegates and assign them proportionately.

Inspired by this incredibly detailed diary by crazymoloch, I broke out polling data from pollster.com, Real Clear Politics, and OurCampaigns to try some Excel tricks of my own to determine the delegate count next Tuesday.

Illustrious Louisiana Senator made news recently for being on the phone list for the D.C. madam, apologized for a vague "very serious sin", and received a standing ovation from the Republican caucus.  

He denied allegations that he had also had affair with a prostitute in New Orleans.  Now, those allegations are coming back:

Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, called me at the office wanting money.  I work at a small business (not as the owner), but they called my extension specifically to ask me for money.  The operator connected me to Cole's recorded message (blah, blah, blah LIBERALS blah blah TAXES blah blah PELOSI...) and then the operator came back on line and asked me if I would help.  I told the operator that Republicans have done a bad job at achieving their goals with taxes, so I would not be helping.

It's a little scary that they had my phone number and extension - it's not something widely distributed.  Obviously, the NRCC is doing some serious data mining.  Now pardon me while I take a shower.

It's become readily apparent that we have a problem when it comes to ending the war in Iraq.  There are three key factions in Congress: the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Blue Dog Democrats.  It will take two of the three factions to pass any Iraq spending bill out of the House.  In all the discussion of the Murtha with teeth strategy, the defanged (pointless) Murtha strategy, and trying to undo the war resolution, I see no talk about what matters most of all to Republicans: money.

First the good news:
MO-Sen: McCaskill 51% Talent 42%
VA-Sen (released by the sponsor earlier): Webb (D) 52%, Allen (R) 44%
OH-Sen: Brown (D) 54% DeWine 42%
OH-Gov: Strickland (D) 55% Blackwell 38%
TN-Gov: Bredesen (D) 62% Bryson (R) 34%
AR-Gov: Beebe (D) 51% Hutchinson 42%

Neither good nor bad so much, but moving in the right direction for Survey USA polls:
MD-Sen:  Cardin (D) 49% Steele (R) 46%
MD-Gov:  O'Malley (D) 50% Ehrlich 47%

There's some bad news too:
TN-Sen: Corker (R) 51% Ford (D) 46%
KY-04:  Davis (R) 49% Lucas (D) 43%

Thomas, Jeff    Dem    7,278    25.35%
    Hebert, Mike    Dem    6,324    22.02%
    Santa Cruz Bradley, Ruth    Dem    5,435    18.93%
    Herr, Steven    Dem    5,302    18.47%
    Hall, Don    Dem    4,374    15.23%

So what's the problem?  Read on...

It's probably a testament to Rep. Paul Ryan's strength in the 1st Congressional District that no Democrat elected official or major player opted to challenge the Republican congressman. But voters will still be able to make a solid choice in the Democratic primary when they go to the polls on Tuesday: Five concerned citizens took up the challenge dropped by their party leaders and are vying for the Democratic nomination to face Ryan in the November general election.

Of those five, and in a very close call, Kenosha businessman Steven Herr, 49, offers voters a good mix of real-world experience and support for Democratic values and positions. He supports a national health care system; a 24-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq; higher vehicle fuel efficiency standards and public financing of elections. Herr runs a road-salt business in Kenosha and has an apartment there but lives weekends on his family's hobby farm in Brodhead. He told us he would move into the district on a permanent basis if elected.

Thursday September 7th, 7:00-8:30 PM
Greendale High School Multi-purpose room
6801 Southway, Greendale

Saturday September 9th, 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
WGTD BioCatt building
3520 30th Avenue, Kenosha
(11:00-11:45 broadcast, 11:45-12:30 live audience only)

For more information about the candidates, Steven Herr has information on himself and links to the other candidates' websites.

Steve Herr will also be available to talk to anyone with questions on the phone Sunday from 11 AM to 9 PM and Monday from 8 AM to 9 PM.  The phone number is 262-658-1958.

All of the five candidates say they believe they have the ability to unseat the four-term Wisconsin Republican.

Certainly none of them has even close to the kind of money that Ryan has in his coffers, an amount approaching $2 million. Nor do they have the name recognition - all are first-time candidates except Jeffrey Thomas, who has made six unsuccessful runs for the job.

More on the candidates below the fold...

"As any teacher would tell you, unless you set a deadline for an assignment, the task will never get done. The assignment for the Iraqis is to develop a government that can be supported by all, and to get their own forces ready to maintain order."

The full release and more on Steve Herr is below the fold...

DailyKos: Yeah, yeah... heard it before 1,000 times...

No, you haven't.

I am not talking about Ted Lamont challenging Joe Lieberman - I am talking about Tim Walberg challenging Joe Schwarz in the Republican primary to represent Michigan's 7th Congressional District.  Both primaries are August 8th, but this is probably the first you've heard of the Michigan primary challenge from the Right.