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Just before 1 am EST, with 75% reporting and a margin of 3%, NBC News calls Texas for Senator Clinton.

So the final popular count for the night is three states for Clinton and one for Obama, with both big states going to Clinton. And even though this popular vote does not include the caucus results nor the TX delegate count, both of which will probably go to Obama some time next week, it is a moral victory for Clinton and will give her momentum going forward.

Next big stop is Pennsylvania on April 22.

The complete schedule can be seen on the linked article above.

This campaign is far from over. Its exciting and historic. And, if we’re lucky, it will go all the way to the August convention in Denver…

Popularity: 35% [?]

While Hillary Clinton ended her 12 state losing streak with victory in Rhode Island, the highly prized popular votes tonight in Texas and Ohio were still up for grabs.

But just recently, Ohio was called for Hillary before the 23rd hour on this Super Tuesday. With over 50% reporting a current margin of about 15%, her victory is pretty robust despite the state’s voting complications today.

(ADDENDUM:) Currently, to preempt any momentum change from a possible Obama victory in Texas, Sen. Clinton is making a victory speech in Ohio at this hour. The idea is to marginalize what is currently a close, and confusing, vote in Texas. Either way, now that she has won Ohio, I think there is no way that she will drop out before the Pennsylvania primary in April, where polling and the blue collar demographic similar to Ohio is favorable to her.

Additionally, here are the exit polls for Texas which look slightly better for Sen. Clinton. With more than half of precincts reporting the vote count is about tied, but Clinton’s numbers have been accelerating. Caucus numbers are expected to come in a little later, but it is expected that Obama will win a majority of the Texas caucus goers by enough of a margin such that he wins more actual delegates from the state even if Hillary wins the popular vote.

The minimal requirement of the night was met for Hillary Clinton, now, if she could pull out a popular victory in Texas she could meet a second milestone and perhaps capture overall momentum in this turbulent campaign.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Here are Ohio exit polls which generally seem to indicate good news for Senator Clinton.

Additionally, there has been a shortage of ballots reported in 15 Democratic precincts indicating a very large turnout. Consequently, a judge has approved an motion from the Obama camp to keep polls open due to this and poor weather that the state experienced today. Here is the story.

Texas results will be coming in within half an hour.

Popularity: 27% [?]

At 7 pm EST, the time polls closed in Vermont, sources predict Obama to win the state of Vermont. It comes as no surprise considering Vermont is one of the most liberal states in the union. Contrary to most states, the Iraq war was tied for the most important issue with the Economy, and Obama won by a lot among voters who identified with the Iraq issue (exit polls). While this victory is no surprise, it is interesting to note that Obama could net more delegates from Vermont (winning +5, if he ends up with 65% of the vote) than Clinton could if she won a narrow victory in Ohio.

Polls just closed in Ohio, where McCain was declared the victor while its too close to call on the other end. Polls had Hillary up by about 7 pts in the poll averages, in large part due to the fact that it is a blue collar state with large economic concerns, although the latest Zogby poll says the race is tied.

Texas polls close at 9 pm EST, and polls indicate the Dem race is razor close there. While Obama pulled ahead in the averages in the past two weeks, Clinton seems to have wrestle that slim lead back from him. She appears to be up by about 2 percentage pts. Because of the mix of caucuses and primary in Texas, Obama is expected to win the Texas delegate count, but the popular vote is up for grabs and has a particular momentum value for the campaigns.

Rhode Island has 35 delegates, the majority of whom are anticipated to go to Sen. Clinton.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, John McCain has already wrapped up VT and OH. The big test for the GOP tonight is whether McCain will win enough votes to wrap up the official nomination tonight.

NSP will have coverage throughout the night, so stay tuned.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Since the “Yes, We Can” music video has become somewhat of an internet hit at DipDive, Will.I.Am has chartered a new video called “We Are The Ones,” which to me appears to be even more inane and idolizing than the first. Whenever I discuss with others how bizarre these videos are, they make point to mention that they are not sanctioned by the Obama campaign as if that absolves him. But, actually, the fact that the video was not his campaign’s doing is perhaps even more frightening than otherwise. Powerful politicians are supposed to have their own heroic self-image, but when others start buying into their messianic self-regard is when it ceases to be cute and becomes, instead, just frightening. For when voters begin viewing any public figure as transcendent, it gives them free reign to as they wish politically, with less and less opposition.

You can see the video by clicking the link below:

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Popularity: 42% [?]

While defeated GOP candidates, such as Giuliani, Romney, and Tancredo,  have been perfectly willing to endorse another candidate following their withdrawal, deposed Democrats have in no notable way gone out on a limb to endorse. Still much speculation remains as to who an Edwards or Richardson (or Biden or Dodd) might support, if they chose to do so at all. The two are in constant contact with both campaigns, and whereas Edwards managed a far larger portion of voters, the qualified Richardson appears to be an especially hot commodity of late.

Listening to the New Mexico Governor on Wolf Blitzer a few days ago, the hispanic pol said, not only that he was “genuinely torn” between Hillary and Barack, but also that he expects to make an endorsement some time in the next week. Moreover, Richardson may become even more important with the upcoming March 4th primaries ,which include Texas, where about one in every two Democratic voters may be hispanic.

Here is a very illuminating story from the NYT on Richardson and each campaigns’ effort to earn his endorsement:

Barack Obama calls every three days or so. He called on Friday of last week, but Mr. Richardson was tied up with the Legislature, so he tried again on Monday and left a message on voice mail (“following up from Friday”) before finally connecting with his defeated presidential rival late Tuesday, and then again two days later.

Mr. Richardson took a half-hour call from Bill Clinton on Tuesday and received about 10 others — a typical day — from people calling “on behalf of Hillary”: former cabinet secretaries, mutual friends, elected officials. “Heavyweight types,” Mr. Richardson calls them.

“Barack is very precise,” the governor observed, sitting in his office at the New Mexico Capitol. The Obama campaign rarely pesters him with surrogates. Mr. Obama’s approach is like “a surgical bomb,” he said, while “the Clintons are more like a carpet bomb.”

While Richardson is notable for his ties to Bill Clinton and his administration (both as Energy Secretary and Ambassador to the UN), he does not seem to have developed as much of a liking for Hillary as he has for, not only her husband, but Barack Obama as well.

But, just as with John Edwards, it is very possible that we are beating a dead horse, and that all of the major ex-candidates remain neutral as the race is neck and neck.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Contrary to his 2004 bid, where he ran independently, “consumer advocate” and Democratic ball-buster Ralph Nader announced his candidacy president today.

Of course, for Democrats with a Nader complex this is an ominous prospect in for the upcoming election. But lest liberals worry too much, the truth is that this news really doesnt matter, and I am quite surprised that the announcement has garnered as much attention as it has this Sunday.

While Nader certainly had an effect in 2000, garnering 2.7% of the vote, after much ado was made of the roll he played, he only managed .3% in 2004–virtually identical to the Libertarian candidate in the same election. Nader has over-stayed his welcome in the mind of liberals, and along with the enthusiasm of Democrats in this election, there should be no reason to think that he will affect the results in November. Don’t believe me? Take Nader at his word:

The consumer champion, who will turn 74 this week, rejected suggestions that he would damage the prospects of the Democratic candidate. “If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form,” he said.

Lastly, while Nader compiles little in the vote column, he never ceases to raise that age old question of whether to vote for the candidate who you are most closely alined with even if they dont have a chance, or vote for the least of evils among those who do have a shot at victory.

My own answer is typically somewhere in between. Not only does it depend on how much publicity the candidate can get–and ultimately how they can affect the discussion and undertone of the American political landscape–but also how close the candidate is to my views. As is, I may be closer on most issues to the Libertarian Party, but not only are they not close enough to my political philosophy but they have a negligible effect on America’s zeitgeist. To the contrary, my many reservations aside, I chose to support Ron Paul for the GOP nomination this year because he had a big enough forum to influence how voters–at least a notable fraction of them–think.

With all the money he raised, he hopefully was able to move the GOP a little further towards a platform of limited government than they were before. It may sound modest, but by focusing on the political discussion rather than number of votes, one can look towards affecting who is elected not just immediately, but also in the long run.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Now that Obama has decided to shed a fraction of his flowery rhetoric in favor of more specific ideas, especially on economic issues, he is beginning to paint a better self-portrait of himself as a policy man. But when listening to him talk substance, I cannot help but raise an eyebrow relatively often. Here was a absurd comment from his Chesapeake victory speech:

It’s a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart.

This contention is just completely wrong and makes almost no economic sense. It is illogical and there is no data to support it. Not only is it sensationalism and Wal-Mart bashing, but seems that there is no reason to say it unless it were aimed at scaring people into supporting Obama and his economic plan. There is really no other explanation to why he said it other than it is pandering and, ironically, fear-mongering from the man who pontificates about hope all the time.

If he was economically literate he would take note of the fact that over half of those working minimum wage are under the age of 25 (and more than a quarter in their teens), while almost nine of every ten minimum wage workers do not have any dependents (BLS). Moreover, he would also recognize that freer trade allows for more capital mobility and for businesses and people to remain more productive, thus delivering more, cheaper, and better products to consumers. Bill Clinton was honest enough to embrace free trade even when it went against his party’s grain. Now even his wife isn’t brave enough to stand up against her party. Worse yet, Republicans like Huckabee, and to an extent Romney when he was still in the race, underhandedly went after free trade, using the unoriginal line, “I believe in free trade, but it has to be ‘fair’ trade.” Talk about a lepor’s bell. Among candidates on trade, however, McCain has demonstrated that he is most consistently in favor, even telling Iowans that he is in favor of eliminating all farm an ethanol subsidies.

One of America’s most prominent economists, Greg Mankiw, writes:

An open question in my mind is whether Barack Obama is going to align himself with the economic centrists in the Democratic party or with the populists on the far left of the party. A key litmus test is trade, and so far it does not look good.

And, for that matter, it doesn’t look so good for the other Democrat in the race as well.

From the Washington Post, here are the candidates records on earmarking which should serve as an indicator to how much fiscal restraint and responsibility they will practice on the whole:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure more than $340 million worth of home-state projects in last year’s spending bills, placing her among the top 10 Senate recipients of what are commonly known as earmarks, according to a new study by a nonpartisan budget watchdog group.

Working with her New York colleagues in nearly every case, Clinton supported almost four times as much spending on earmarked projects as her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), whose $91 million total placed him in the bottom quarter of senators who seek earmarks, the study showed.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the likely GOP presidential nominee, was one of five senators to reject earmarks entirely, part of his long-standing view that such measures prompt needless spending.

On the issue of disparity in pay between men and women, the candidates positions serve as an indicator of their overall attitude towards free exchange and market forces, as well as their willingness to use government to stifle those forces. From the WSJ:

There are actually two versions of comparable worth legislation, the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. The former is co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama; the principal sponsor of the latter is Sen. Hillary Clinton (Mr. Obama is a co-sponsor). Both would push companies to set wages based not on supply and demand — that is the free market — but on some notion of social utility. The goal is to ensure that jobs performed mostly by men (say, truck drivers) are not paid more than those performed mostly by women (paralegals, perhaps).

President Ronald Reagan correctly called comparable worth “a cockamamie idea.” A great lesson of economic theory, not to mention historical experience, is that government-set wages and prices not only curtail freedom, but lead to shortages, surpluses and market disruptions.

The writer is right on the money with his conclusion, but I will add that the arrogance of the candidates who think that the millions upon millions of individual economic actors determining supply and demand, while working in their own self-interest, should be manipulated on a whim by government edicts is becoming increasingly ominous. While I have traditionally said that Obama would be slightly more rational on the economy than Clinton, it is clear that their platforms are very, very similar (Clinton even accused Obama of copying her ideas) on these issues and that neither are very desirable Presidents at least in terms of how they would handle the economy. And even though McCain has his fair share of economic setbacks, not to mention the fact that he claims to not know much about the economy, he appears to be a more consistent backer of limited government and the free market than either Democrat would wish to be accused of in their wildest nightmares.

Popularity: 45% [?]

Perusing different websites over the course of the election season has made me aware of the fact that different outlets never have the same numbers for delegates. The reason is that delegates are not officially awarded yet, and each source is projecting based on their own numerical methods. Here is a good article showing the disparities. Here is a chart showing the current counts with a small insight into methodology.

As I see it the average, including superdelegates, has Obama around 1250-1270 and Clinton around 1200.

Popularity: 30% [?]

I’ll give you a hint: it’s not “election”…

…the point is, Chris Matthews has a man crush on Obama.

Last night I almost fell out of my seat when I heard the “Hardball” anchor make the allusion that Barack Obama’s speach turned him on in, essentially. At least that’s how I interpreted, when he said “I felt this furrowing up my leg,” so tell me if I’m completely off the mark. Then again, Olberman and Brian Williams (who was on afterwards, just not on the YouTube video) seemed to pick up on it as well.

Here’s the video (you can also see it if you click “read more” at the bottom of the post). Matthews’ admission comes at 0:30.

In all seriousness, the point is the media in general, but specifically MSNBC, seems to be particularly kind to Barack Obama (and on a side note, particularly unfavorable to Hillary Clinton). I am a regular watcher of MSNBC–that is, I tend to watch them for my election coverage–but I had to switch the channel after hearing so much sycophantic babble from Matthews, Olberman, and even Williams, the NBC anchor. This was a particular circumstance, but I’ve noticed the trend before.

And, to be sure, my accusation could be disparaged as particular and unsubstantial, but it seems to be agreed upon by others as well as independent studies on election coverage. Here is a recently released study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. The CMPA enumerates their methods:

These results are from CMPA’s 2008 ElectionNewsWatch Project. They are based on a scientific content analysis of 765 election news stories (22 hours 15 minutes of airtime) that aired on the flagship evening news shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX (the first 30 minutes of “Special Report with Brit Hume”, which is most like the network news shows in content and presentation) from December 16, 2007 through January 27, 2008.

Here is the overarching finding:

Hillary Clinton is getting the worst press and Barack Obama the best press of any major presidential candidate, and Bill Clinton is also getting negative reviews, while the gap in good press between John McCain and Mitt Romney is narrowing, according to a new study of TV news election coverage by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. The study also finds that FOX’s evening news show had the most coverage of policy issues and the least coverage of the campaign horse race.

And finally, the most telling statistic:

Sen. Barack Obama has led the race for good press and Sen. Hillary Clinton has lagged the farthest behind. From Dec 16 through Jan 27 five out of six on-air evaluations of Obama (84%) have been favorable, compared to a bare majority (51%) of evaluations of Mrs. Clinton…NBC’s coverage has been the most critical of Clinton – nearly 2 to 1 negative (36% positive and to 64% negative)

No wonder I find it astounding that Matthews chose the adjective “objective” to describe his verdict on Obama.

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Popularity: 28% [?]