'Fascist demagoguery'

That's what they call it nowadays when students complain about a wacko professor:

A few months ago a former Dartmouth writing instructor, Priya Venkatesan, informed some of her former students that she was planning to sue them, along with Dartmouth. . . .
As Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal reports, she taught them that "scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth," inasmuch as "scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct." . . .
[After students complained] She responded by accusing the students of "fascist demagoguery," consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," and canceling classes for a week. Later, as noted, she threatened to sue some of her students for creating a "hostile work environment," and to sue Dartmouth itself for countenancing the "harassment."

(Via Insty, a professor, but not wacko.) Her brave stand against "fascist demagoguery" will no doubt earn Professor Venkatesan a McArthur "genius" grant, so she can do oppo-research for Obama.

Maverick's anti-tax agenda?

This might be taking matters too far:

San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response. County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain's trust, were returned by the post office.

An overblown nothing of a story, as it turns out. It appears to be a case of misdirected mail. The bank that oversees Mrs. McCain's family trust never got the tax notices, and the property -- where Mrs. McCain's elderly aunt lives -- owed less than $1,800 in taxes per year. Just a paperwork snafu, and the check's in the mail. No biggie.

The lede of the Newsweek story tries to play the class warfare card a bit too obviously. This is nothing but confirmation of Newsweek's status as the most left-leaning of the newsmagazines.

UPDATE: Leave it to Media Matters to complain about not enough class warfare in the media.

'Flexible and pragmatic'

Not duplicitous and arrogant, says Ann Althouse, whom Insty is at pains to distinguish from the "rubes."

Perhaps the lady is suffering from Matthews Syndrome, a disorder characterized by excessive Hope and peculiar sensations in the legs.

More poll talk

While browsing Memeorandum, I saw the Rasmussen Texas poll as a featured link and said, "Huh?" The New Republic's Nate Silver was discussing recent polls and mentioned Texas:

The two polls of Texas show the race tightening, but probably not enough to make the race interesting. There's a good rundown here of the pros and cons of Obama investing resources in Texas. . . . If Tejanos vote in anything resembling the same proportion that they constitute of Texas's citizenry, the state could be quite competitive.

I can assure Nate Silver that at the RNC they're laughing their butts off at the prospect of Obama wasting campaign resources in Texas, whatever the sympathies of "Tejanos" may be. (The problem with that scenario is that, despite its large Hispanic population, many Hispanics are either illegals or recent legal immigrants who aren't eligible to vote, while the more assimilated Tex-Mex are fairly conservative.)

Silver's attitude is indicative of the dizzy overconfidence that Obama has inspired in liberals, so that he utterly fails to realize that, despite David Plouffe's talk of a 50-state strategy, many of the states won by Bill Clinton (e.g., Kentucky) appear to be off-limits to Obama. Meanwhile, McCain is very close in Ohio, and not out of range in Michigan, Pennslyvania and -- here's a shocker -- Connecticut.

Yet even now Obama's brain trust is talking about sending their guy on world tour. I'm sure the gang at RNC headquarters are chilling champagne for their Obama bon voyage party.

Has Team Obama lost it?

First, they said they'd send the candidate to Alaska, and fantasized about Wyoming and even Texas. Now, they're babbling about England and beyond:

Obama's campaign said the likely nominee will travel to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The Illinois senator also has said he intends to visit Iraq and Afghanistan this summer; his campaign would not say whether those stops would be part of the trip to the Mideast and Europe.

Pennsylvania? Ohio? Florida? No, forget about the stupid morons in those silly swing states -- let's campaign in foreign countries where there aren't even any eligible voters!

Sensible Democrats must be tearing their hair out and chewing the carpet in frustration. It's 128 days until Nov. 4, and there is no campaign resource as precious as the candidate's personal presence -- speaking at rallies and fund-raising events, doing photo-op handshakes with ordinary Americans, talking to reporters and editors.

Yet Team Obama wants the candidate to skip the swing states, and instead do the grand tour of Europe, with a jaunt to the Levant thrown in for good measure. This, mind you, at a time when voters by more than a 2-to-1 margin are telling pollsters that their top concern is not foreign policy but domestic economic issues.

WTF? Are Plouffe and Axelrod daft? How the heck does it help convince independent voters that Obama can be trusted to fix the economy for ordinary Americans to turn on their TVs and see the candidate in London, Paris or Tel Aviv?

Given the itinerary they're laying out to the press, this "Look, Foreigners Love Me!" tour will occupy at least a week of Obama's schedule -- time that the candidate might otherwise spend at state fairs or plant-gate handshake events or rallies for his volunteers in key states.

Let me go ahead and predict that one of three things will happen. Either (a) this talk of a foreign trip will be quietly shelved, at the behest of Democratic elders; (b) the plan will be seriously scaled back to no more than 4 days, with maybe a quick London stopover en route to Iraq, and a quick stopover in Paris on the way back; or (c) Team Obama will go ahead with this grandiose scheme and suffer a brutal P.R. beating as a result.

Bill vs. Barack

According to the Telegraph:

"I’ve spoken to a couple of people who he's been in contact with and he is mad as hell.
"He's saying he's not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support."

(Via Hot Air.) We observed yesterday that Obama was forcing Hillary to jump through hoops, and noticed when Kathryn Jean Lopez predicted that Team Obama's public effort to humiliate the Clintons would backfire. Looks like Bubba's getting ready to blow up.

UPDATE: Thomas Edsall:

"Bill wants to be honored, to return to the role of Democratic elder statesman, and get rid of this image of him as a pol willing to do anything to win," said one associate.

Heh. Good luck with that, pal.

UPDATE II: Noel Sheppard catches this by UPI:

Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton didn't seem like they were on good terms at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday in London, a source told the New York Daily News. . . .
"There was a very cold reception between them," a source told the Daily News.

Ooooh. Dissing Oprah? He really is mad.

Why are liberals obsessing over the 'Obama is a Muslim' rumors?

This bogus Obama-the-secret-Muslim meme -- and the belief that it is a GOP plot with the potential to wreck Obama's election hopes -- has become an idee fixe with liberals. There are not one, but two stories in the MSM about it. First, the New York Times rolls out Princeton neuroscientist Sam Wang and science writer Sandra Aamodt to tell us that voters are crazy:

Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories — and mislead us along the way.

Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom observes deadpan:

Delusion, it would seem, despite the universality of these processes, afflicts conservatives most.

Next, the Washington Post profiles another Princeton Ph.D. who's won a McArthur "genius" award and whose research project is trying to figure out where all those Obama-the-secret-Muslim e-mails are coming from. She's viciously mocked by Byron York, who suggests that these Ph.D. types are engaged in what amounts to oppo-research and propaganda.

Yet it is the subject of their investigations that fascinates me. Obama-the-secret-Muslim is transparently bogus to anyone who takes the trouble to investigate Obama's biography. Only the kind of idiot who'd respond to a Nigerian scam e-mail could fall for that crap, and yet these Ph.D. researchers are obsessed with a dumb rumor that only appeals to morons. What this obsession indicates is:

• Academia is now so dominated by liberals that they don't even think twice about devoting themselves to partisan agitprop under the guise of "research";
• Liberal academics have a very low opinion of the intelligence of the average voter; and
• These academics believe that it is the average voter's stupidity that accounts for Republican political victories.

In other words, according to the liberal geniuses of academia, the only reason anybody ever votes Republican is because they've been deceived into false beliefs by the "right-wing noise machine." Therefore, the faults and errors of Democratic candidates and campaigns -- to say nothing of possible shortcomings in liberal policies -- need never be examined.

How comforting it must be to wrap yourself in the warm, fuzzy blanket of your own assumed superiority, and then to be rewarded for your self-justifying rationalizations with "genuius" grants and fawning publicity in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The Vision of the Anointed, indeed.

UPDATE: Mark Halperin seems impressed that "a scholar with two Ph.D.s" is investigating the e-mails. In general, when I encounter someone with a graduate degree (except in medicine or law), I don't think, "Oh, wow! They must be super-smart!"

Rather, the phrase "Ph.D." automatically invokes memories of the grad students I knew when I was in college: A bunch of bums who preferred to keep hanging around college rather than go out in the real world and get a job. You'd see them down at the Pub, these guys who were 26 or 28 or 30, drinking beer and hitting on 20-year-old coeds (this was back when the drinking age was 19). And you'd think to yourself, "Yeah, I see what that game's about."

The people I knew who went to grad school weren't smarter than me, or even smarter than the average college student. No. It wasn't their brains that made them stand out. Their distinguishing characteristics were (a) an unwillingness to leave the campus cocoon and try to earn their own living, and (b) indulgent parents who'd foot the bill for them to pursue an MFA or whatever.

A stereotype? Sure. I know people with graduate degrees who worked their way through school, and who are genuinely devoted to whatever discipline they're pursuing. Yet the impression I formed from direct observation -- the typical grad student as an immature slacker seeking to avoid a confrontation with off-campus reality -- has lingered for some 25 or 30 years. The way I look at it, the decision to attend grad school is an admission that you're too feeble to earn a living with just a bachelor's degree.

UPDATE II: Linked by Ann Althouse. Thanks!

UPDATE III: Linked by See-Dubya, who's impressed by the "downright Newtonian epiphany" of the McArthur grantee. Also: See-Dubya narcs out his Mom as the phantom e-mailer.

Howard Kurtz, gun nut?

In an unusually political piece by the Washington Post's media critic, Howard Kurtz skewers Barack Obama for flip-flopping on the DC gun ban:

Regardless of what you think of the merits of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturning the capital's handgun law, it seems to me we're entitled to a clear position by the presumed Democratic nominee. And I'm a bit confused about how the confusion came about.

Kurtz quotes the Obama campaign's November 2007 statement to the Chicago Tribune: "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." That was then, this is now:

That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position,' Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News."

What riles Kurtz -- one of those hillbillies bitterly clinging to his guns, no doubt -- is that once SCOTUS handed down its ruling, the MSM "inartfully" overlooked the evidence that Obama was for the gun ban before he was against it:

Even the Tribune--the very paper that the Obama camp told he supported the gun ban--makes no reference to the November interview. Instead: "Democrat Barack Obama offered a guarded response Thursday to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's prohibition on handguns and sidestepped providing a view on the 32-year-old local gun ban. Republican rival John McCain's campaign accused him of an 'incredible flip-flop' on gun control."
So McCain accuses Obama of a flip-flop, and the Trib can't check the clips to tell readers whether there's some basis in fact for the charge?

Bull's-eye, Howie. This is a very subtle sort of media spin. Instead of reporting the fact that Obama has changed his position, the media turns this into a Republican accusation -- in other words, you have to be a right-wing partisan to believe that Obama has flip-flopped.

The most amazing thing in this Kurtz article is that he quotes both Ed Morrisey of Hot Air and Curt at Flopping Aces.

And I'm like, "Whoa! Howard Freaking Kurtz reads Hot Air?" Makes me wonder what's his secret pseudonym in the comments field. Next think you know, we'll discover Howie's an AOSHQ moron.

This has completely changed my conception of Kurtz. Now, I'm picturing Howie in his bunker, somewhere in the Virginia foothills of the Blue Ridge, out near Front Royal, reloading .223 cartridges as he listens to shortwave radio. Howie's wearing his RealTree camos and his NRA Life Member cap.

There's a big poster on the wall: Charlton Heston holding up a musket, with the motto, "From My Cold, Dead Hands!" Kurtz finishes loading one more cartridge and says, "Well, that's another 200 rounds -- enough for one night," and puts away his tools and his powder. He steps outside the bunker door into the warm Virginia summer evening.

Howie stuffs some Prince Albert into his corncob pipe, flicks his Zippo, and inhales deeply. Gazing toward the perimeter of the Kurtz compound, he sees the moonlight glinting off the razor wire atop the 8-foot fence. He sees the tiny red power-indicator lights glowing on the motion sensors and the security cameras that pivot around, ensuring 360-degree coverage.

Smoking his pipe, Howie's thinking of going inside to log onto his computer and check for updates at FreeRepublic.com. Then suddenly, he freezes. What was that noise? It sounded like the snap of a twig, the rustle of underbrush.

Kurtz tenses, his hand silently reaching for the commando knife sheathed on his web belt. He peers keenly into the shadows next to his Army-surplus M114 HMMWV with its twin-mounted .50s. There's definitely somebody there. He can hear them breathing.

The mortars. Ever since the feds busted his militia buddies down in Alabama last year, Kurtz has been fearing that sooner or later, one of those guys would cop a plea and rat him out about the two cases of bootleg 60mm mortar rounds he'd bought in 1999, to be prepared for the millennium meltdown.

And now the BATFE has come for him. Them, the FBI, the IRS, the CIA -- probably some UN blue helmets out there, too. Somehow they'd managed to penetrate his perimeter and now, as he stands in the darkness outside his bunker, Kurtz knows he's surrounded, with no weapon handy but his trusty commando knife.

"Come on, you bastards!" Howie suddenly screams into the night. "I'll take you all! Don't tread on me! Give me liberty or give me ..."

In the shadows beside the HMMWV, something moves and emerges into the moonlight. A dark shape softly trots toward Kurtz.

"Rusty!" Kurtz mutters, chuckling. "Rusty, old boy, you scared me to death!"

Howie reaches down and scratches the neck of his AKC prize Doberman, named "Rusty" in honor of his idol, Rush Limbaugh. The dog playfully licks Kurtz's hand. "I figured the FBI snipers must have already taken you out, boy -- otherwise you would have barked, right?"

Kurtz taps the ashes from his corncob pipe, laughing at his own silly fears.

"C'mon, boy, let's go in the house," he says to his beloved companion. "You're probably hungry. Me, too. How about some nice, fresh venison?"

He steps inside the bunker, closes the heavy steel door and bolts it, thinking about the court decision that overturned the DC gun ban. Maybe after supper, he'll log onto Flopping Aces and see what Curt has to say . . .

UPDATE: Kurtz's notorious gun-nut extremist buddy Ed Morrisey gives us video proof of Obama's flip-flop:

Especially in the February interview, Obama does a perfect liberal fakeout on gun rights: Claiming to be in favor of Second Amendment freedoms while slamming the NRA, raising the bogus "loophole" argument, and blaming law-abiding firearms dealers for the illegal actions of criminals. How stupid does he think we are?

NYT on Bob Barr

Suddenly, he's the cuddly, cute ex-Republican that liberal reporters love:

Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia turned Libertarian Party candidate for president . . . gleefully recounted what he says a group of Republicans told him at a recent meeting in Washington: Don't run.
"'Well, gee, you might take votes from Senator McCain,'" Mr. Barr said this week, mimicking one of the complainers, as he sat sipping Coca-Cola in his plush corner office, 12 stories above Atlanta. “They all said, 'Look, we understand why you're doing this. We agree with why you're doing it. But please don't do it.'" . . .
Many Republicans said they were unconcerned about Mr. Barr's presence in the race. "We're confident that regardless of the field, our candidate’s message will carry through to November," said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.

I'll remember to quote Tucker Bounds next time one of my Republican friends complains that I dare even acknowledge the existence of such a thing as the Bob Barr campaign.

"Fear not: The McCain message will will carry through to November," I'll say. And my Republican friends will say: "Message? McCain's got a message now? What is it?"

Jane Hamsher interviews Barr on BloggingHeads:

Civilization? Over.

"This is so unspeakably reprehensible; I can’t even find the words."

(Via Ace.)

Will Bill stand for this?

Barack Obama's bossing Hillary around. Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks there will be consequences:

This Unity, New Hampshire, event was the ultimate in political mortification for Hillary Clinton.
I may be crazy. But Bill Clinton is not going to let himself be humiliated. He's in talks with McCain before long if he's not already. He's going to salvage his name before this election is over.

Hmmmm. That angle hadn't occurred to me. Of course, getting pushed around by Team Obama -- "do this" and "say that" and being forced to send out fundraising letters for him -- is hard enough on her, but man, it's got to be eating Bill's heart out.

The DNC is run by Howard Dean (no friend of Bill) and now Bill's enemies within the party are putting his wife through this degrading "unity" charade. Maybe he'll just decide he needs to get reaquainted with his old pal, Joe Lieberman. And, say, how long's it been since Billy Jeff had a chat with Zell Miller?

Moron

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars is apparently not fluent in American colloquialisms. She takes an exchange from an interview with John McCain and tries to say he's joking about beating his wife, when he's actually paraphrasing the classic trick question, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Here's the exchange, in which the Las Vegas Sun interviewer tries to get McCain to explain why he didn't name Nevada's unpopular, scandal-ridden Republican governor as his state campaign chairman:

Q: Why snub the governor?
McCain: I didn’t mean to snub him. I’ve known the lieutenant governor for 15 years and we’ve been good friends….I didn’t intend to snub him. There are other states where the governor is not the chairman.
Q: Maybe it’s the governor’s approval rating and you are running from him like you are from the president?
McCain: (Chuckling) And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago…

In other words, "I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole." Yet Nicole Belle either is unfamiliar with the expression, "When did you stop beating your wife?" or else she's being disingenuous, because she treats this as if McCain were actually making a joke of domestic abuse:

John McCain chose the wrong day to make a wife-beating joke. . . .
It’s McCain’s horrendous behavior towards American women, including those closest to him, that should send Clinton backers fleeing for the exits.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, rather than accuse Ms. Belle of dishonestly making a false insinuation, I'll guess that she's just plain stupid. Dumb as a stump. Thick as a brick. Got the IQ of a toaster oven. A few fries short of a Happy Meal. (These are called "figures of speech," Ms. Belle.)

Video: 'To Remake America'

From today's Unity, N.H., event, here's Hilary:

"A year and a half ago, Barack and I each began a journey, to make history and re-make America."

Does America need to be re-made? Just throw the existing America -- our Constitution, our laws, our history, our traditions -- into the garbage can, and start from scratch?

"America sucks," is what Hillary's saying. And she and Obama are united in saying it.

UPDATE: More on behind-the-scenes Democratic divisions from Howard Fineman at Newsweek:

Clinton threw around her weight early on, and the Obama people haven't forgotten.
A year ago, here in New Hampshire, experienced Democrats with access to money were told that, if they supported Obama, they would be shut out in Washington once Clinton became president.
"Now these same people who were threatening us want us to pay off Hillary's debt!" said another Obama funder. "This is what my husband calls 'delusional chutzpah.'"

Ouch.

Cluelessness

An immoderate post at the Moderate Voice:

Our national schizophrenia on firearms defies rational explanation. In the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision, both presidential candidates and, according to public opinion polls, most voters believe in "the right to bear arms."
Yet only one out of three Americans owns a gun and, after mass murders like Virginia Tech, there is an upsurge of grief and outrage at the easy availability of deadly weapons. . . .
How do we reconcile the apparent contradiction that many of those who believe in preserving the life of fetuses are just as passionate about the right to own weapons that kill human beings after birth?

Uh, sir, my weapons have never killed a human being. You are equating my rifle -- whose most recent target was a rabid raccoon that wandered out of the woods -- with guns owned by murderers. It's like saying that I'm passionate about car ownership because cars can be used for vehicular homicide.

Why is gun ownership a fundamental right? Let me ask: What good is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," if you're dead? Implicit in the right to life is the right to self-defense. If someone attempts to kill you, and you kill your assailant in order to save your own life, you have committed no crime -- it's justifiable homicide, not murder.

Gun ownership is a right because guns save lives -- which happens to be the name of an excellent book by Robert Waters: Guns Save Lives: True Stories of Americans Defending Their Lives With Firearms. I recommend it heartily. Another book I'd recommend -- if, like the poster at Moderate Voice, you're incapable of grasping the basics of reasoning and argument -- is Introduction to Logic.

Video: 'A Real Choice'

Wow. Very powerful video by Martin Avila.

Obama bossing Hillary around

Not only did Barack Obama force Hillary Clinton to attend his rally in New Hampshire, but now he's issuing orders to her supporters, Howard Fineman reports:

Obama has made two phone calls in recent days to a good source of mine who is also a top Clinton supporter and fundraiser. . . .
Obama's message was clear: He wanted this person to join his campaign and get her donors to "max out" to him.
You see, even though some funders have given all they can to the Clinton effort, they are still free to donate another $4,600 to Obama's presidential campaign.

Fineman's source said Obama was "haughty." Hmmm. Sounds suspiciously familiar. The Clinton campaign had originally said after Hillary conceded the nomination that she was planning to take a vacation. (At one point, it was reported she wouldn't return to the Senate until July 7.) She was totally exhausted from the primary campaign, and obviously needed rest.

Instead, Hillary's been required to do all these "unity" events to show her support for Obama and to try to get her donors to give him money. It's obvious that this is all his idea, not hers -- she'd rather be vacationing somewhere -- but Obama's campaign is making her do all this or else they won't help Clinton with her debt.

Team Obama has already raised more than $295 million and ended May with more than $43 million cash on hand. Team Obama's fundraising prowess is so historically awesome that the candidate has forgone federal matching funds. Meanwhile, Hillary finished the campaign millions of dollars in debt.

So, why is it that the cash-rich Obama campaign is putting the muscle on Hillary's donors? Shouldn't he first ask his donors -- who obviously have lots more money than Hillary's donors do -- to help her, rather than the other way around?

Maverick to conservatives: Screw you!

Interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun:

I haven't won on every issue. I didn’t win on immigration reform, but I'll go back at it. And I'm glad I did it.

Allahpundit:

Why on earth would he feel compelled to say he’s glad he pushed for a bill that the base hates with a nuclear passion? . . . This is him flipping the bird to amnesty opponents.

My hunch? John McCain doesn't want to be president. He only ran for the GOP nomination out of spite, so that he could prevent a conservative Republican from getting the nomination. He's sticking his thumb in the eye of conservatives now for the same reason: Because he hates conservatives.

That's why the McCain campaign shifted into neutral the minute Mitt quit in February, why the campaign has done nothing to build a grassroots infrastructure at the state level, why the McCain campaign's fundraising plan is to drain the Republican National Committee treasury -- the most important goal for John McCain is to destroy the conservative wing of the Republican Party. And he's right on track!

UPDATE: I'd feel a lot better about getting linked by Think Progress if they were attacking me and calling me names.

Objectivity

Ben Smith gets a Chris Matthews-style tingle in his leg.

Video: Obama's slide show

David Plouffe explains the math:



The text is online, as he says:

We've got an enormous opportunity to win back Bush States. Why is that? Well, it starts with Barack Obama's appeal. He's got appeal across the country with independent voters. We think we're going to be able to create historic turnout in the African American community and with younger voters, but also with the organization that you have built. The reason that we think we can be competitive in Georgia, North Dakota, Alaska, North Carolina, is because you guys built a tremendous organization on the ground and we've got to build on that.

As I responded at the Spectator blog:

Ever been pitched by a pyramid ... er, multi-tiered marketing promoter? "You guys built a tremendous organization" in states we've got a snowball's chance of actually winning Nov. 4, but "we've got to build on that," so please send money! It may be totally legit, but to street-smart ears, it sounds like a hustle.

Tomorrow, they're "United for Change."

Gallup daily: Tied for 3 days

Just a statistical anomaly?

For the third straight day, Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows Barack Obama and John McCain tied in national registered voter preferences. . . .
From a broader perspective, there has been little major change in the race for the entire month, with Obama either tying McCain or leading the race by a slim margin throughout June. This relative stability is not unexpected in the summer months when no actual voting is taking place, and when voters' attention may be diverted elsewhere unless and until a major news event occurs with the potential to disrupt the structure of the race.

So, 12% undecided and a dead heat. How, then, does David Plouffe justify talk about sending Obama to Alaska?