To expand upon my post yesterday about how Hillary Clinton isn't giving up in her White House bid, over a dozen "swing state" Democratic members of Congress today sent a letter to others in their party saying Clinton is the best option for the "top of the ticket."

Not the best option for just "the ticket," but "the top" of the ticket. That's what's needed to beat John McCain in the general election, they say. The text of the letter is after the jump.

The thing is, they may be right when it comes to battleground states.

Three simultaneous Quinnipiac University Swing State polls released May 1 show that among white working class voters, Clinton has strong leads over McCain - and runs much better than Barack Obama - in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. If Obama is the Democratic nominee, he's in a tight race with McCain in Florida and Ohio, but takes Pennsylvania.

Quinnipiac pollsters say this is Clinton's strongest overall performance in those three vital swing states in the past two years. This survey also found:

-Florida: Clinton tops McCain 49 - 41%; McCain gets 44% to Obama's 43%
-Ohio: Clinton beats McCain 48 - 38%; McCain gets 43% to Obama's 42%
-Pennsylvania: Clinton tops McCain 51 - 37%; Obama leads McCain 47 - 38%

"If the super delegates are looking at electability, these results could be a shot in the arm for Sen. Clinton," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "No one has won the White House since 1960 without carrying two of these three swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And she clearly is running much better against Sen. McCain than is Sen. Obama, at least for now."

Hillary Clinton sent a letter to Barack Obama today asking him reject any proposals from the Democratic Party that would not count the 2.5 million people who voted in the Florida and Michigan primaries.

Bringing back the painful 2000 presidential election outcome which gave Florida voters the royal shaft, "as Democrats, we must reject any proposals that do the same," Clinton says.

The Michigan delegates agreed on a plan last night that would give Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59 as a way to get the state's 157 delegates and 29 superdelegates to the convention. The state's Democrats want the national party's rules committee to vote on the plan during its May 31 meeting.

The text of the letter is after the jump.

Everyone's counting Hillary down and out for the count, but you gotta admit, the girl's got chops.

Despite everyone calling for her to throw in the towel, she's truckin' along, counting heavily on those white women who love her. She's still got Bill and Chelsea traipsing all over the country. The former president stopped in nine North Carolina towns Monday.

"I talked to a lot of people that day, and one thing was crystal clear -- people want Hillary to stay in this race until every last voter has a say," Bill told Hillary supporters in an e-mail today. "That's why Hillary and I are working so hard. That's why we've made a deep commitment to keep campaigning, keep fighting, and keep winning."

Hillary today was in West Virginia, South Dakota and Oregon, Friday she will be in Oregon and Kentucky. Bill has five stops in West Virginia Friday.

The US Census Bureau reports that Hispanics are the fastest-growing group in the American population. Their numbers have largely increased due to births within the United States rather than by immigration. In 2000 there were 35.7 million Hispanics living in the U.S. Today, just eight years later, there are 45.5 million. Hispanics now make up 15% of the total U.S. population, and wield ever-increasing power in the political and consumer arenas.

According to The Pew Research Center, 57% of Hispanics identify themselves as supporting Democrats. 23% say they favor Republican candidates. Pew also estimates that by 2050, Hispanics will make up a whopping 31% of the population. Caucasians, meanwhile, will drop to just 45%.

You may be thinking to yourself, no wonder so many Republicans want to hermetically seal the Southern border, but, again, birth-rates are the real engine driving this demographic shift. From The Wall Street Journal:

Hispanic families tend to have more children. The population is also younger on average, so the large number of births isn't balanced out by deaths. Between July 2000 and 2007, there were 8.4 Hispanic births for every death. African Americans had 2.4 births per death. The ratio for whites was 1.6.

As Americans age and the baby boom generation retires, Hispanics may help buttress the economy and the Social Security system. The average white woman in the U.S. has 1.8 children, which is under the replacement rate of 2.1 necessary to maintain a stable population. Hispanic women, meanwhile, give birth on average to 2.8 children.

... would be using her backer's slim majority on the rules and bylaws committee to forcefully seat the Michigan and Florida delegations (which she has the majority).

At this point, it would give her a 55 point lead in the delegate count:

"Hillary Clinton's campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month,'' Edsall writes in The Huffington Post.

"With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party's 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could -- when the committee meets at the end of this month -- try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations,'' Edsall suggests. "Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives. The Obama campaign has declined to give an estimate.

The article insists that there would have to be a major shift in the political climate for this move to be successfully adopted. (at least without major repercussions). And even with that shift, one cannot underestimate the level of hysteria and, dare I say it, Chaos that will result from the ranks of Obama supporters.

But on the other hand, Hillary knows that this is her one chance at the presidency. The stars were aligned, it was hers, and I think she sincerely believes that Obama will lose, and she will only be doing her party a favor. Even against majority wishes. If push comes to shove and we come down to continued muddle results, as in a split victory between Indiana and North Carolina, I think she could do it.

That collective sigh of relief you hear is coming from the state shaped like a giant penis. Specifically, from Florida's proud community of truck drivers, who have just endured a very close shave administered by the state legislature. But the verdict is in, and, for now, their Truck-Nutz are free to dangle in the warm winds of liberty.

The Florida House decided it didn't want to penalize questionable taste with a $60 fine and the Senate backed down Thursday, accepting the emasculated version of a transportation bill. The package extends the term of driving licenses from six years to eight--with a $7 increase in fees--but doesn't attempt to ban the dangling decorations that some drivers like to hang under their back bumpers.

Ah precious freedom, in all of history have you ever found yourself bound to a symbol so beguiling as a man's wrinkled scrotum? Thank you, Florida, for reminding us once again just what it means to be Americans!

Welcome to Florida! In our magical playground, there's no state income tax, the overheated real estate market has gone into deep freeze, and a $2.1 billion-dollar budget deficit threatens to deprive local cities and towns of essential services. It is before this Disney-esque backdrop that the Florida Legislature toils day and night, doing the people's work. Last Friday, for instance, a pressing issue came before the governing body that could be ignored no longer. The state needed a yes or no answer: Truck Nutz, should they be banned?

OK, I know many readers may never heard this term, much less laid eyes on said nutz. As a result of the confusion, some of you might be feeling the outrage starting to simmer. Ban the sale of cashews, peanuts, pecans to for those proud residents whose appetites match the size of their rides? How dare they discriminate against those protein-craving, pick-up truck driving, law abiding citizens? But slow down.

Counting Michigan and Florida anyway... From the NYT:

To help make her case with superdelegates, Mrs. Clinton and some of her prominent supporters are claiming that she has won more of the popular vote in the more than 40 Democratic nominating contests that have been held. She won a net of 200,000 more votes than Mr. Obama in Pennsylvania's primary.

"I'm very proud that, as of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else," Mrs. Clinton said on Wednesday in a campaign appearance in Indianapolis. "It's a very close race, but if you count - as I count - the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that."

Mrs. Clinton won both those states by double-digit margins, but neither she nor Mr. Obama campaigned in them and Mr. Obama voluntarily removed his name from the Michigan ballot.

Well that's interesting (and predictable!), as it turns out, the Michigan senate could appear to be a key player in dragging this thing out. Obama clearly blundered by Doing the Right Thing (tm) vs. Her Sneaky Highness who took no action. and when he realized his mistake, he wanted back on the Michigan ballot.

The Michigan Senate didn't lift a finger to restore the slate, and now Hillary is using the Michigan voters, who had no choice, to beat Obama about the head. Nice.

The race for the White House has turned increasingly speculative. We've ditched all policy questions at the side of the road in favor of idyll musing as to which candidate has the best, or worst, chance of actually winning. The substantive reasons why John McCain, Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton should win or lose have happily been traded in for whatever is handy and effective. Global food shortage? Who cares when we've got lapel pins? What matters, you see, is that we opinionators craft what sounds like a plausible reason why the person we happen to dislike is going to go down in flames.

A daily cacophony of Op-Ed writers spouts forth arguments diagnosing the fatal flaws of his or her enemies. Obama cannot win because of his many distractions: Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, and terming rural Americans "bitter". Also, he hasn't won any big states, he has failed to "seal the deal," and some white people suddenly don't like him. Hillary Clinton can't win because she distorted her trip to Bosnia, she's making a dirty play for Michigan and Florida delegates to be seated, without those states it's mathematically impossible for her to claim victory, and because she was first lady when her husband told those lies about Monica Lewinsky. John McCain is just too old to win, and he said that, if necessary, American troops might be in Iraq for 100 years, and he has a temper, and we don't know how much money his wife has, and everybody hates Republicans this year, so there's just no way he'll be president.


Well, here's a newsflash. Despite what many in the press corps claim in their well-crafted essays, despite the best efforts of the readers of blogs who cut and paste 50 definitive reasons why candidate X hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell, any one of the three remaining Senators has a legitimate shot. For whatever reason, we Americans enjoy being told who is going to win a game before the game is done, or even played, for that matter. Perhaps thinking that we have a handle on what is going to happen helps alleviate stress. But when it comes right down to it, none of us knows how this election will really end up. And all the hot air expelled over who can't possibly win is worse than the CO2 emitted from the backside of a cow. Argue till you're blue in the face about who you think deserves to be the next president. But don't tell me who can't win.

"What Would Jesus Drive?" Florida may be providing a partial answer: He'd drive a car with their proposed new license plate:

Florida is also considering a plate with the inscription, "In God We Trust." Profits from specialty (vanity) plates - of which Florida has a selection of about 100 - go to various charities and worthy courses.

Of course, such freedom of expression has anti-civil-liberties groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), screaming mad. In their tireless quest to oppress the equal-rights of Christian Americans, the ACLU has threatened to sue Florida - hoping that the fear of a lengthy, expensive litigation will bully the state into abandoning the rights of religious citizens.

The ACLU has traditionally lost court battles predicated upon the argument that states establish a civil religion by allowing private persons to spend extra money to buy specialty plates with their preferred religious motto. The ACLU has unsuccessfully challenged plates engraved with, "In God We Trust." The ACLU has also attempted to prohibit "Choose Life" plate - because people with different opinions than those held by the ACLU should not have the full exercise of their civil liberties.

In the present case, the ACLU lamented that approval of the plate might prompt other groups to seek their own designs. Heavens forbid that a civil liberties group would support a diversity of expression in America.

Yesterday, after a 7 week micro-focus on the Keystone state, Hillary Clinton won a decisive nearly 10-point victory over Barack Obama. Yet, the Democrat contest remains virtually unchanged. Let's look at where the race is today, and what happened in Pennsylvania.

The race, today:

-- Obama still leads in pledged (allocated by primary or caucus) delegates (1485 to 1331).

-- Clinton still leads in "super delegates" (250 to 236).

-- Obama still leads Clinton in the popular vote that counts (ahead by 1.7%, .07% if you count Florida - for which you can make a valid argument - and Clinton who claims to lead the popular vote can make that claim only by counting both Florida and Michigan, putting her .04% ahead).

-- Wtih less than 2% of the vote difference, this contest has shown a remarkably stable -- and nearly equal -- division in the Democrat party.