Daily Tidbits: May 14, 2008

• BREAKING: JOHN EDWARDS TO ENDORSE OBAMA IN MICHIGAN TONIGHT AT 7PM EST. Quick observations: timing is late enough that it can’t be seen as “giving” the nominaton to Obama. He was already in the inevitable category without Edwards’s endorsement. Now starts the superdelegate flood. Obama won’t make any definitive claims until after next Tuesday, when he wins Oregon – he’ll still take the high road and let HRC reach her own conclusions. Timing also counters any lingering sour taste from the expected WVA lost, which Team O always expected. This immediately changes the conversation in a positive direction. Here are some more thoughts.

• Mississippi Burning. Travis Childers wins MS-01 House seat for Democrats, 54-46%. It’s a district that Bush won with over 60% of the vote in 2004 and has been held by the GOP for decades. GOP tried to “nationalize” race by trying to tie Childers to Obama and Pelosi. It also had Cheney visit yesterday and spent 7 figures on the race. It’s the third straight special election House race lost by the GOP in a reliably GOP district. It’s also the second straight failed GOP attempt to harm a Democratic House candidate by tying him to Obama and Pelosi. Further supporting the failure of the GOP’s “Obama as a negative” strategy, Politico notes that MS-01 is the state’s “whitest” CD and the only one that Hillary carried in its primary. The Hill says, “the sky is falling on House Republicans and there’s no sign of it letting up.”
• Halperin suggests John Edwards is about to endorse Obama.
• The Onion: Obama’s voice mail message not that inspiring (audio clip).
• Obama endorsed by SEC Chairmen of Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations (Ruder, Levitt and Donaldson), along with former Fed Chairman, Paul Volcker.
• NARAL endorses Obama.
• Daily Tracking Polls. Rasmussen has Obama leading Hillary 50-43%. In Gallup, Obama maintains same lead, 50-44%.
• The Zen Master of the delegate count offers many tasty nuggets in his daily email: (1) the Democratic victory in MS-01 was a bellwether and the larger political story from last night than HRC’s expected victory in WVA, (2) there may be internecine intrigue, bloodletting and recriminations within the House GOP leadership, with targets on the backs of Tom Cole and John Boehner (Mike Allen of Politico reports of rumors that Tom Davis (R-VA) may replace Cole as head of RNCC. Only problem is Davis has already announced his retirement), (3) did you know Obama won the demographically pale Nebraska primary last night? He did (it was only a beauty contest – the delegates were already awarded in its caucus a while ago, which Obama also won decisively), (4) it’s pretty clear by now that Obama’s Achilles heel is Appalachia, but apart from that he’s done very well across demographic segments, and (5) a recent focus group of independent voters finds that a decent percentage of swing voters may be nervous about “too much” change, and in that sense are a bit uneasy by Obama. These are likely folks who would otherwise lean to Hillary — they don’t want Bush’s third term, but at least Hillary is a well known quantity (particularly among older voters). This suggests that Obama would be wise to pick a well known public figure as VP. That would weigh against picking less established figures like Sebelius, Strickland or Webb. (cough, Gore!, cough, excuse me).
• MSM credits anti-Catholic bigot Hagee’s letter to Bill Donahue, a controversial lobbyist who promotes his own cherry-picked conservative issues related to Catholicism, as an apology to all Catholics. Sorry, but Bill Donahue is no more a representative of the Roman Catholic Church and all its followers than is Pat Robertson a representative of all Protestants.
• Hill observers view Tom Cole’s statement about the GOP loss in MS last night as a “declaration of surrender” and a message that this November, it will be every man for himself (i.e., don’t look for help from the NRCC).
• Drip, Drip, Drip. Five new superdelegates for Obama (but one only counts for “.5″), and one for Hillary (and “Add-On” from election results, not an undecided breaking towards Hillary).
• Hillary’s money quote in victory/concession speech: “I will work my heart out for the Democratic nominee to make sure we have a Democratic president.”
• Is Hillary staying in to extract a promise from Obama to pursue her universal health care plan before she concedes?
• Milbank: Hillary is an ex-candidate.
• NY Times says Obama’s “almost nominee” status keeps him in limbo.
• Will “Vino” Fosella resign?
• Bizarre NY Times op-ed asserting that Obama is an “apostate” because he had a (lapsed) Muslim father but is himself a Christian has triggered letters to paper noting that this Internet slur is false as a factual matter of Muslim doctrine (the religion is not inherited). Nice work, NYT. See letters to the NYT editor, here.
• Hillary insists West Virginia is a swing state. No Democrat has won the state “cleanly” in 20 years. In 1992, Ross Perot handed Bill Clinton victory in the state by stealing a large percentage of vote from George H.W. Bush’s base. In 1996, Bill Clinton was the incumbent running against a horrible GOP candidate, Bob Dole, and Perot again took a sizable (but smaller) portion of the GOP vote. Since 1996, the GOP has won WVA, including with 57% of the vote in 2004 (an otherwise close election nationally).