A Big Thanks to Demconwatch

I'd like to take an opportunity to publicly thank the good folks over at 2008 Democratic Convention Watch for linking FHQ's electoral college maps in their general election tracker. I always appreciated the US News exposure, but I value the vote of confidence from my blogging peers. And this is a vote of confidence from a really great site. If you haven't been reading Demconwatch, then you've been missing the best coverage of the delegate race in the battle between Obama and Clinton.

With the new exposure and a likely increase in polling, I'm going to start bi-weekly updates of the electoral college maps. Those posts will now come on Sunday and Wednesday. Also, I'll be unveiling the general election map in this Wednesday's electoral college post. Yeah, yeah, I know. And just after I changed the color coding. The color code will remain the same but we'll (Paul Gurian and I) be introducing a new and unique map template. Paul has been using it for years and it should be a great addition to the site.



Recent Posts:
Texas Caucus Final Tally: ?% of the Caucus Vote, 57% of the Caucus Delegates

VP, VP, VP. Who Will They Choose?

Now It Was the Calendar that Brought Clinton Down?

The Dakota Effect

For those of you from the UGA campaign discussion group who didn't rush home and quickly flip through the pages of the current issue of PS after Bill Chittick brought up the Dakota effect, here is a post on The Monkey Cage on the subject from co-author, Lee Sigelman.

Recent Posts:
Obama's Slide: Is Clinton Taking Advantage?

The Electoral College Maps (4/30/08)

The State of the Race: Counting Delegates in the North Carolina Primary

And the Campaign Discussion Group goes online

Here are a few things of note for the group in the lead up to our discussion on Friday:

1) Hillary Clinton and John McCain receive the endorsements of the Des Moines Register. Experience seems to be the name of the game for the editorial board at the paper. How else could you explain McCain getting the nod on the Republican side? Iowa hasn't been his strength in either 2000 or 2008. What impact will it have on the race? Well, Edwards got the paper's blessing in 2004 and that certainly didn't hurt him on his way to a surprising second place finish in the state. It is interesting that the write up of the endorsement made mention of this. And I will admit that I'm torn as to how to take the mention of the 2004 endorsement. Is the editorial board saying, "Well, this guy did well here four years ago and he's in this race as a top tier candidate too," or "This guy did well here four years ago and well, he's in third now." What does everyone else think?

2) And speaking of Hillary... Another of her surrogates, former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, made the mistake of opening his mouth about Obama (then backed away from them). Fresh off the Bill Shaheen comments about possible drug use in Obama's past, the Clinton camp found another of its backers, Kerrey, highlighting the Illinois senator's middle name (Hussein) and Muslim background following an event with the former first lady. I thought it was the bloggers and members of the new media who were supposed to threaten the power candidates have over their own campaigns, not those within their camp.

3) Mitt Romney is making a rare stop in Georgia today. His swing through South Carolina closes across the border with meeting with the press in Savannah, GA. And who said Feb. 5 wasn't early enough for Georgia. [Blogger raising hand.]

4) Finally, if you don't already be sure and check out these other blogs:
The Fix (by Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post): US elections in general are covered.
The Caucus (The New York Times politics blog): Campaign 2008
The Primary Source (by James Pindell of the Boston Globe): All about NH.

Feel free to drop a comment or any news you have by clicking on the link below. This should be fun.