Latest News

In The Frame: An Interview With Helen Mirren

2008-04-04T22:23:11Z

Actress Helen Mirren began her career with the National Youth Theater in Great Britain in 1965, and four decades later is still packing in audiences at cinemas and playhouses around the world. Best known to American audiences for her Academy Award-winning turn as Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 feature film "The Queen," Mirren is out with a new autobiography entitled "In The Frame: My Life In Words And Pictures" (Atria Books 2008). Packed full of scrapbook photos from Mirren's personal collection, "In The Frame" traces the twists and turns of her life from her childhood in Essex to her self-described "amazing year" playing the British Monarch and wrapping a successful run on the detective series "Prime Suspect." Mirren spoke to The Huffington Post about her book, and a selection of her observations are below:

On why she decided to write an autobiography at this point in her career:

Well really it was encouragement by a friend of mine. I had been approached to write an autobiography over the last ten years probably. Various publishers had approached me and I had always had it in the back of my mind. But I was rather intimidated by the idea of it. I knew that I wanted to write it myself. I didn't want to work with a ghostwriter. But at the same time I felt that I wasn't capable. As I describe in the beginning of the book I'm not a diarist; I get bored with myself very quickly. And I had been mulling over the idea of how I'd do it. I felt it would be kind of fun to write an autobiography like a collection of short stories. And that was the way I was thinking I would do it. And then my friend suggested the idea of a scrapbook and writing around the pictures. I'm a very visual person, I respond a lot to visual images. And I think that was an easy way in for me.

On balancing work and writing the book:

I had to write it when I was working pretty hard doing various acting projects. in fact I was sent the advance check and I kept the check - I didn't cash it for about three months - because I was sure I wasn't going to have the time to do it and I was going to have to return the advance. But eventually a little bit of time opened up and I started. And I just absolutely flew away with it. Originally I was only supposed to write, really, just little captions for the pictures, and I was supposed to write about 15,000 words. And I finished up writing about 56,000 words. The publisher in the end wrote and said "Stop! Stop! We've got far too many words it is getting too long." Once I started I really loved it. It came incredibly easy. I really didn't edit it at all.

On the writing process:

It came very organically. I saw a collection of pictures and I began thinking about a certain time in my life and it just sort of flew away. I think the hardest thing was segueing from one relationship to another elegantly and without anyone really noticing in the book. How do I deal with the beginning of relationships and the end of the relationships and sometimes the untidy middle bits?

On whether it was difficult to convey such personal memories as discovering sex, or starting new relationships:

There's a whole other book I could write if you know what I mean that goes into those things in far more detail. And maybe far more painfully and far more shockingly, if you like, but that wasn't the book I wanted to write at this point. I wanted to write a book that was, you know, about love. And I think that comes out of the pictures. You know there are no pictures in the book of "he done me wrong" kind of things. No People who were cruel or horrible. The pictures that you keep, after all, are the pictures of your loved ones, even if they have passed on or away from your life. So I wanted it to be benign and loving basically.

Interview conducted, edited and condensed by Max Follmer.

Karen Kwiatkowski: The Soldier Who Spoke Out

2008-03-19T03:23:08Z

As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.

Karen Kwiatkowski spent two decades as a career military officer in the United States Air Force before being assigned in the spring of 2002 to a post as a political/military desk officer at the Defense Department's office for Near East South Asia (NESA). Her new assignment was to work on policy papers for the Secretary of Defense and other top brass at the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, she was assigned to a newly-formed bureau inside the Pentagon called the Office of Special Plans, which was created to help the Pentagon deal with issues in Iraq.

As Huffington Post Senior Editor Marc Cooper wrote in a profile of Kwiatkowski for LA Weekly:

Though a lifelong conservative, Kwiatkowski found herself appalled as the radical wing of the Bush administration, including her superiors in the Pentagon planning department, bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq.

Deeply frustrated and alarmed, Kwiatkowski, still on active duty, took the unusual step of penning an anonymous column of internal Pentagon dissent that was posted on the Internet by former Colonel David Hackworth, America's most decorated veteran.

Kwiatkowski retired from the military in 2003, just as the U.S. was invading Iraq. She spoke with Huffington Post about what going on at the Pentagon in the run-up to the war, and her reflections on the fifth anniversary of the invasion. A selection of her thoughts are below:

On her arrival at her new assignment and what she found was going on at NESA and the Office of Special Plans:

The biggest shock I had in May 2002 was finding that the war plan for invasion of Iraq was in its second draft - it was ready to go. We were ready to invade Iraq in the Spring of 2002. What had not happened, was the public case for this had not been made yet. So what I got to watch was the public case for war being made, and in part being made by people who worked in the Pentagon - mainly political appointees. You know military people like me, we are not creating agendas. And if military people were [going to be] creating agendas, you know, they would be conservative - small "c" conservative. But what we had were these political appointees creating an agenda to go along with the direction that Centcom had already received from Rumsfeld, and Cheney I guess, but primarily Rumsfeld. And that direction was "we're going into Iraq." I man, I was surprised that we were so ready to go when there was no intelligence justification for it, and no public case for war had been made at all. But that, of course, was beginning to happen. But that public case for war was made after the actual decision to go to war, I think. The decisions were made a long time in advance, but on what basis these decisions were made we're not 100 percent sure.

On the mood inside the Pentagon among career military officers:

There was a good sense of betrayal and also anger. And not just in me, but in a lot of the folks that I worked with - the colonels and a lot of the folks I worked with. The civilian leadership, with no justification, with no intelligence rational,e and with no real planning was pushing forward with this war and they were going to do it on the cheap, and they were going to invade, and they were going to make up reasons why. We were angry. We were feeling like we were being manipulated. This was a time of anger and frustration and it was across the board, across the military. I don't think there were too many senior military people who didn't feel like their advice was not being taken. And the guys in the Defense Intelligence Agency felt that their assessments were being rejected. And the only folks who weren't being rejected - and there were some in those agencies and there were some military guys, you know, the Petraeus kind of guy, even though Petraeus wasn't a factor then - but these highly politicized guys who will say whatever the political leaders want regardless of the facts. Those guys were the only ones, and that frustrated the military guys. We've always had contempt for those guys who will truth and their own integrity to go along with the chance for getting in good with the boss. It was amazing how many military people were not on board at all with what these civilians were doing. And yet we take our orders, we do what we're told or we quit.

On her decision to start publishing anonymous columns:

We had gotten instructions that anything we wrote in policy papers that mentioned weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, or Iraq would not be written by us through consultation with intelligence, which is how we used to do it. We would just call [the Office of] Special Plans, and Special Plans would give us the talking points. And we would use those. Now as we were doing that, and I was doing that in September of 2002, President Bush and Vice President Cheney were giving speeches and they were echoing these classified talking points that were getting from the Office of Special Plans. And we knew they weren't true! So it is one thing to be lied to by an agency, "oh this is how you do it," but then apparently the President is either being lied to - or is the source of this false information - or the Vice President is being lied to - or is the source of this false information.

So you know, there was this huge sense of betrayal, and of something not being right. But it was the President's and Vice President's speeches in September and early October 2002 that brought me to write. Now, I was frustrated before then and wrote some of these dark humor essays that were later published anonymously.

As I am seeing this I am talking to intelligence people and they are shaking their heads. There was a lot of frustration. But I really didn't intend to push them out there until I realized this was larger than stupid mismanagement at the Pentagon, and it was bigger than that. Now this war plan had been finalized for months before and the President still hadn't made his case, and to the extent that he was making his case his was making it on false information.

On how people dealt with their frustrations at work:

What people did was they left their jobs. If they were close enough to retire, they did. A lot of folks, if the had a three-year tour, they called back their services and said "get me out of here." I worked with two guys who got different positions.

I retired and wrote, anonymously, of course, because I didn't want to go to Leavenworth. That was pretty disloyal of me. I mean, heck, they shut down the military blogs. They got people so they couldn't put stuff on YouTube. There's a lot of stuff that you probably see as being honest that the military historically and today sees as being disloyal. So that would certainly have fallen into that category.

On her reaction to what has happened over the past five years:

Kind of resignation in many ways. It seems very superficial, you know, the public trial and hanging of Saddam Hussein. I mean, why kill him so quick? Because he is part of the story they didn't want told. You know, these false assurances of this we were doing and that we were doing.

And this fantasy that the surge has improved things. The partitioning of Iraq - you have to wonder if that happened by design. Because certainly that's counter to everything that Saddam Hussein as a national socialist was working for. You know, he was turning people into Iraqis. And I think that's what we wanted to get rid of. You know, we didn't want a strong modern Arab nation sitting on top of the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world. You know, that's not justification for war; that's not constitutional.

Everything that has rolled out since that invasion has continued along the same politicized cover story in Iraq. And you know, where are the reporters in Iraq? They're in the Green Zone. If they're out of the Green Zone, they're dead. They're dead people. There's no news. It's all artificial. Unless of course, for the 4,000 dead soldiers and the 100,000 people with PTSD.

Interview conducted, edited and condensed by Max Follmer.

The Reporting Team That Got Iraq Right

2008-03-17T23:29:27Z

In the months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the reporters in the Knight Ridder Newspapers Washington D.C. bureau were virtually alone in their questioning of the Bush Administration's allegations of links between Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. The team of Knight Ridder reporters, led by Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, John Walcott and Joe Galloway, produced stories that now read like a prescient accounting of how the Bush Administration sought to sell the war to the American people. Walcott and Landay spoke with The Huffington Post about the fifth anniversary of the war. Knight Ridder Newspapers has since merged with McClatchy Newspapers. You can read the entire Knight Ridder and McClatchy archives of their Iraq intelligence reporting by clicking here.

John Walcott, McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau Chief

The Knight Ridder team, and now the McClatchy team, has frequently been cited as one of the few that got it right in the run-up to the invasion. At the time a lot of people said the rest of the media was ignoring you. Is that how you and the team felt at the time?

Well we certainly didn't see anyone doing the same kinds of stories, with the exception of some stories by Walter Pincus at the Washington Post, and much, much later after the Los Angeles Times got onto Curveball. But during the period when I guess, arguably, it mattered, when it could have and should have been a debate about whether to engage in this war, I think we felt that we were fairly lonely.

What was it about the way the Knight Ridder bureau was approaching the story that made it so you didn't get lost in the same wave of reporting that overtook the rest of the press corps?

There wasn't any reporting in the rest of the press corps, there was stenography. The administration would make an assertion, people would make an assertion, people would write it down as if it were true, and put it in the newspaper or on television.

Did you guys have secret sources that no one else had access to, or was this just a question of editors approaching the job from a more traditional sense of what a reporter should actually be doing?

It's both of those things. You can't do this kind of reporting without sources and you can't develop these kinds of sources overnight. The fact that Jonathan and Warren and I, and to a great extent Joe Galloway who was also a part of this team, had been working in these vineyards for many, many years was helpful. But it begins with the second part of your question. When the administration made an assertion, a lot of people wrote it down and printed it and we looked at it and said "that doesn't make any sense. Is that true?" And we proceeded to call people. And very often, and very quickly, people said "no, that's not true," or "there is no evidence that that's true," or "they left out part of the story."

How easy or difficult was it, in your view, for the average interested citizen back in 2002 to find out what was going on in Iraq?

Very difficult. But not so much to find out what was going on in Iraq. It was very difficult for the average reader, or TV viewer or internet browser to find out the truth about Saddam's connection with Al Qaeda and international terrorism, about the real state of his nuclear weapons program, and to find out about the real honest assessment of his weapons of mass destruction program.

Of all the stories that were produced by Knight-Ridder in the run-up to the war, are there one or two that you feel were the most important?

February 13, 2002 comes to mind: Bush Has Decided To Overthrow Hussein, February 13, 2002. And the other one I would point you to is September 6, 2002, Lack Of Hard Evidence Of Iraqi Weapons Worries Top U.S. Officials; September 12, 2002: Iraq Has Been Unable To Get Materials Needed For Nuclear Bomb, Experts Say; October 4, 2002: CIA Report Reveals Analysts' Split Over Extent Of Iraqi Nuclear Threat And October 7, 2002: Some In Bush Administration Have Misgivings About Iraq Policy.

How would you compare the level of media skepticism and the caliber of reporting today on Iraq? Five years later, have you seen a shift?

I think that a lot of the media have been very quick to accept the notion that the surge has succeeded and it amounts to some kind of turning point in Iraq. And I'm not sure there is a lot of evidence to support the idea that the improvements in security are long lasting, as opposed to temporary. I think there is somewhat greater skepticism, but I think a lot of people still find it very difficult to question what to most Americans is a patriotic enterprise.

What questions are the press corps still not asking?

They range from the very classic journalism questions like "where did the money go?" All the money we've spent in Iraq to support the Iraq government, where has it gone? I think it has been very hard to play the watchdog role on the U.S. mission in Iraq. We've been fairly lonely on that. I haven't seen other people looking into [delays and mismanagement in the construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq] quite as hard as Warren [Strobel] has. Basic accountability reporting has been lacking. As I said before, I think there was a kind of uncritical acceptance of the success of the surge that may be challenged in the coming weeks or months.

Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers National Security Correspondent

When you look back at that period in the run-up to the war, was there a send in the Knight Ridder bureau that you were being ignored?

Absolutely. It wasn't that we were being ignored, I don't know that anybody was really just paying attention. I know that our stuff was getting picked up in the Early Bird - a daily compendium of national security stories that I believe are put together by one of the offices of public affairs in the Pentagon and then circulated around the government every morning. And I know that some of our stuff was getting picked up there because I was getting backslaps from other correspondents who saw our articles in the Early Bird. That's about as far as it went. As Warren [Strobel] noted in the [Bill] Moyers documentary, some of our own newspapers didn't even run our pieces.

And what was it about the way that you and the Knight Ridder team were approaching the story from a tradecraft point of view that make it different from what the public was seeing in the Times and the Post and the Wall Street Journal?

I think we approached this by asking the question every time the administration made an allegation "is this true?" "Is this true" is the basic question any journalist must ask any time a government, any government, makes an assertion. Governments do things for their own reasons depending on what the administration is. There could be altruistic reasons. But particularly a government that is politicized as the Bush Administration, one has to ask that question even more intensely. So we were doing that. We were also listening to people who were coming to us and saying "we don't think this is right. We don't believe that the intelligence is as strong as the administration is making it out to be." And indeed you saw that in open source reports. I'm referring to the unclassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which everyone had available to it, including members of congress.

First you had on September 3, 2002 the famous New York Times "aluminum tubes" piece by Judy Miller and Michael Gordon. That same day you had Vice President Cheney and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appear conveniently on the Sunday talk shows to talk about what had been extremely classified information that had appeared that day, in the New York Times. And then on September 10 you had the same allegations made to the world by the President of the United States from the podium of the United Nations. And then the following week the President made the same assertion that these aluminum tubes were for a nuclear weapons program that Iraq had hidden from UN weapons inspectors in an address to the nation. Then you had the unclassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, which said there is division within the intelligence community on exactly what these tubes are all about.

I raise this point because this was one data point in what we had seen was a trend by this administration of exaggerating the intelligence it had on Iraq. We began tracing It back to right after 9/11 when Warren [Strobel] did the first story quoting analysts as saying it was unlikely that Iraq was involved in the World Trade Center attack. Then he went on to disclose that the former director of the CIA [James] Woolsey had made official visits to Britain on behalf of the Pentagon to check out a cockamamie tale that Ramzi Yousef, who we have in jail for the first World Trade Center attack, was not actually Ramzi Yousef but an Iraqi agent. And then right after the US went into Afghanistan, he and John [Walcott] did a story on how the administration had made a decision to oust Saddam Hussein. And we kept asking the question "why do they keep talking about Iraq when the problem is Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Why do they keep talking about Iraq?" And we were already in that thinking mode when we started working on the stories in the lead up to the war. We were just doing the journalism that our journalism was pushing at.

Why is it that the folks in the Knight Ridder bureau in Washington had this level of skepticism when the rest of the DC press corps didn't and the national press corps didn't? What was everyone else so concerned about?

I think that everyone else, and I have to include myself in this category until we really started peeling back into the onion - everyone was absolutely convinced that Saddam Hussein had a secret weapons program. On the Al Qaeda account, I don't think anybody ever believed that. Ever. It just made no sense. But on the weapons front, until we really started peeling into that story, I took it for granted. I think that that was the problem: that everyone took it for granted - including in the intelligence community - that he had weapons of mass destruction and it was only once we really started doing the journalism that we started seeing that it might not be true. There was this groupthink that extended beyond the intelligence community into the policymaking community and the journalistic community.

How easy or difficult was it, in your view, for the average citizen to find out what was going on in Iraq and DC?

Back then? I think the fact that you had this repetition of stories in the leading print and electronic media accounted for what we see today is still 40 percent of Americans believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This administration drumbeat perpetuated by the mainstream media, except for us and a couple of other people, swung public opinion behind the invasion. I think Moyers illustrated that devastatingly in his documentary.

Looking at the present, how would you compare the level of media skepticism and the caliber of reporting today? Have you seen a shift?

I think there was a kind of almost an epiphany when two things happened. One: Joe Wilson wrote his expose on the 2003 State of the Union and raised question finally - in the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times, of the administration's case for going to war. And then secondly, nothing was found in Iraq in the invasion. Then you had people jump on that bandwagon almost, that bandwagon about the 19 or 16 words on Niger and uranium in the State of the Union address. Then you started seeing the White house Press doing what it had not done in the run-up to the war, and that was ask tough questions of the White House.

But there has also been, I think, backsliding. Last summer, when the administration started banging the drum about Iran and its involvement in Iraq, and the threat posed by Iran and how Iran was responsible for these explosively-formed penetrators. That's all well and good, they were, these penetrators were killing troops. But what this drumbeat did was two things: it obscured the fact that the majority of deaths in Iraq were still being caused by Sunni insurgents, and that this was going on in the middle of the so-called surge. And I think they were trying to tamp down expectations that the surge was going to produce some kind of miracle.

So they needed to shift public focus away from the fact that it wasn't producing a miracle, so they harped on and on about Iran's involvement and you most of the mainstream media once again beat that same drum. I did a story when the President delieverd a speech at the Naval War College, and he mentioned Iran something like 27 times in a speech about Iraq. And so I did a story about how he was bashing Iran when the majority of the deaths in Iraq were still being caused by Sunni insurgents. And they were appearing to try to divert public attention away from that aspect and they were trying to tamp down public expectations about the surge. And my story was noted first by my old boss, Clark Hoyt, who cited my story the next weekend in his column, and the following weekend Frank Rich picked up that story. And compare my story about that speech at the Naval War College and everyone else's where they picked up and ran with the Administration's line about Iran.

Is this because the DC press corps is lazy?

I can't speak for other correspondents and how they operate. I don't want to do that. I, quite frankly, don't know. And maybe that's something that academics can definitely look into. I think the press needs to be held accountable for its failures on Iraq. And, by the way, I they have done some amazing stuff since that turnaround. There has been some amazing journalism that has come out of Iraq. Good skeptical journalism that got it right. And as a result you had the right wing and the administration beating on the press - not responding to the substance that the press was reporting. So you had all these complaints that they were not reporting all this "good" stuff. In fact, if all that good stuff was happening, why did the administration feel the need to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq?

Interview conducted, edited and condensed by Max Follmer

Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know About Delegates And Superdelegates

2008-02-13T21:30:00Z

Here's everything you always wanted to ask but never dared to about the Democratic delegates and superdelegates.

Who are the Democratic delegates and are they the same as superdelegates?

Yes and no to that last question. All superdelegates are delegates but not vice versa. Among the regular delegates, there are two sub-categories: pledged and non-pledged. All three types of delegates will attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer. A majority of their votes will be required to name the Democratic nominee for President.

How many delegates are there in total?

The convention will host delegations from each of the 50 states, several US territories, and a contingent of "Democrats Abroad." Because some delegates, those from American Samoa, Democrats Abroad, Guam, and the Virgin Islands cast only fractional votes, there will be 4,070 delegates casting a total of 4,047 vote.

How does a candidate win these delegates?

The short answer is by winning primaries and caucuses as each state has a certain amount of delegates apportioned to it.

The longer answer is more complex and often confusing. Not all states apportion the delegates in exactly the same way. And, sorry, but there are different sub-categories among these delegates: pledged and unpledged.

OK, we'll bite. What's the difference?

Pledged delegates are awarded proportionally to candidates based on the results of the primary or caucus results in each state and primary and will support a particular candidate at the national convention.

Pledged delegates are selected both at the Congressional District, and statewide levels.

So even though Candidate X might win a particular state, Candidate Y can still pick up a number of delegates based on their performance in individual congressional districts. Because different districts are weighted differently than others, a candidate can even lose a state by popular vote but still win a majority of delegates. This is the case in Nevada, for example, where Hillary Clinton won by a 10 point margin, but where Barack Obama picked up 13 over her 12 delegates.

We're afraid to ask, but are there different types of pledged delegates?

Yes. There are three types of pledged delegates:

Congressional District Level delegates are chosen at the local level, based on the voting results in that particular district.

At-large delegates are elected at the state level to reflect the proportion of the statewide vote a presidential candidate received.

There are also a number of statewide spots reserved for state elected officials (such as mayors and state legislators) who pledge their support to an individual candidate. They are also elected in proportion to the statewide vote.

Do pledged delegates have to vote a certain way? Can they change their minds?

According to the DNC, "this is one of the biggest myths of the delegate selection process. Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the Convention or on the first ballot." Delegates sign a pledge of support, but there is no rule requiring them to honor that pledge.

OK, Ok, however arcane the system might be, in the end, whichever Democratic candidate wins the most of these delegates from the primary and caucus process will win the nomination, right?

Not necessarily. The magic number to clinch the nomination at the convention will be 2,025. But most mathematical projections now agree that it is virtually impossible for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to finish with this many delegates. One or the other candidate might, indeed, finish with a plurality but not an outright majority.

How is that possible? If there's only two candidates how can one of them not have a majority when it's all over?

Thanks for asking about the superdelegates! About one out five of the Democratic delegates - 794 to be exact--are these so-called superdelegates and their votes will make the difference in reaching a majority. They vote at the convention at the same time the other delegates do, but they got there a different way. The superdelegates are seated automatically, based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials

The 794 superdelegates consist of :

• All members of the Democratic National Committee (elections to the
DNC are held in each state and territory).
• All Democratic members of the House of Representatives
• All Democratic members of the United States Senate
• All Democratic governors
• All former Democratic presidents
• All former Democratic leaders of the United States Senate
• All former Democratic Speakers of the House
• All former Democratic House Minority Leaders
• All former Chairs of the Democratic National Committee

Do superdelegates have to vote a certain way? Can they change their minds?

Superdelegates do not have to pledge to vote a particular way at the convention (although many announce their support for a candidate in advance). Regardless of any stated endorsement, superdelegates can vote however they choose and are free to change their minds.

Who created these superdelegates, anyway? Isn't the whole thing undemocratic?

After the disastrous, 1968 Democratic convention, the so-called McGovern-Fraser Commission instituted a series of reforms to make the nomination process more transparent and democrats, less beholden to party leaders. But the Democratic establishment thought things went too far and in 1980 created the superdelegates system precisely to give the party machine a way to put the brakes on too much bottom-up initiative if necessary. The whole idea was to return a portion of power to the unelected party managers and incumbent office holders.

Have superdelegates ever decided a Democratic nomination?

Yes, in 1984. Walter Mondale was slightly ahead of Gary Hart at the time of the Democratic convention and superdelegate support put Mondale over the finish line. The Democrats lost that election. In 2004, the opposite occurred. Howard Dean won the most number of superdelegate pledges but John Kerry won an outright majority of delegates through the primary and caucus elections. Kerry also lost the general election.

Hey, what about those delegates from Michigan and Florida? We've heard their votes aren't going to count. Why not?

Both states were punished by the DNC when they advanced their primary calendars too far ahead of the schedule decided on by the national party and were told that their candidates would not be seated at the convention.

Now the DNC says the state parties in Florida and Michigan have two options if they want their delegates to be seated:

1) Appeal to the Convention Credentials Committee. The Convention Credentials Committee determines and resolves any outstanding questions concerning the seating of delegates and alternates to the Convention. The Credentials Committee is expected to meet sometime in July or August prior to the Convention, when it could take up the matters of Florida and/or Michigan.

Members of the credentials committee are selected by the delegates from each state.

2) Michigan and Florida could still choose to run a new party process (some sort of election or caucus), as Delaware did in 1996, to select delegates to the convention. This process must be held between now and the second Tuesday in June, in accordance with DNC rules.

Price Tag Precludes Re-Vote In Michigan And Florida

2008-02-11T23:23:28Z

The controversial Florida and Michigan Democratic primaries will most likely not be rescheduled, as some activists have recently demanded, according to sources in both the national and state parties who spoke with The Huffington Post.

The sources claimed that neither state party nor the Democratic National Committee had the sufficient financial resources to restage the primaries and that any money raised for such an effort would be better spent on the general election.

When both states defied DNC rules on early voting and held their primaries on an advanced calendar last month, the national party ruled that delegates elected from both states would not be seated at the party convention in late summer.

But in the midst of the neck-and-neck race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, a suggestion has emerged from diverse quarters that voters in Florida and Michigan should return to the polls in order to empower delegates that could be seated at the convention.

Mark Bubriski, spokesman for the Florida Democrats, said the state party is not planning any alternative contest, and that party officials would respect the votes of the 1.7 million Floridians who turned out for the Jan. 29 primary.

The minimum price tag for a new round of balloting in Florida - such as a vote-by-mail contest - would be $4-5 million, a sum that is beyond the reach of Florida Democrats, according to a source familiar with state party finances. The price tag for a new primary could be as high as $18 million.

After the DNC stripped Florida of its delegates to the national convention as punishment for defying party rules, the major candidates all refused to campaign in the state.

But Floridians still went to the polls, and Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in the state's Jan. 29 primary 50 percent to 33 percent. After the polls closed on election night, Clinton flew to the Sunshine State to hold a victory celebration.

Some supporters of Barack Obama claimed a foul, arguing that Clinton should not be exploiting a victory in an election in which the candidates agreed not to campaign and when the delegates would be invalidated.

Few observers predicted that the Democratic race would be as tight following the Super Tuesday contests as it is today, and large delegations from Michigan and Florida could swing the pendulum in favor of one candidate. As the Democratic contest has escalated, so has the controversy as to how the delicate question of enfranchising the voters from the two renegade states should be settled.

Democratic observers have long suspected that whoever the eventual nominee was would move to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, rather than appear to disrespect two pivotal states ahead of what could be a heated general election.

The current delegate count from the Associated Press gives Clinton 1,136 delegates to 1,108 for Obama.

Stacie Paxton, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee in Washington confirmed that party rules allow for two courses of action in trying to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida: the states could hold new votes - which would be paid for by the individual state parties - or they could appeal to the convention credentials committee, which will meet this summer ahead of the August convention

Looming Delegate Fight Over Florida And Michigan Races

2008-02-07T01:41:20Z

The split decision from Super Tuesday's coast-to-coast balloting has thrust the fight over the disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida back into the spotlight, now that neither Democrat can claim an outright delegate victory.

Political pundits Wednesday forecast that the Hillary Clinton campaign would now make a renewed push to seat the delegates from The Wolverine and Sunshine States, given the neck-and-neck delegate count on the Democratic side.

"It's easy to imagine that they could be the difference between Obama and Clinton even after the super delegates have made their decision," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia told The Huffington Post.

According to projections from NBC news, Barack Obama was expected to rack up between 840 and 849 delegates following Super Tuesday balloting, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton.

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention are awarded proportionally based on votes received in each congressional district. There are also a number of so-called "super delegates," Democratic Party elected officials and insiders, who are awarded a convention vote based on their position in the party.

The Democratic Party had earlier sanctioned Michigan and Florida for leapfrogging ahead of other early voting states in the primary calendar by stripping them of their convention delegates, and each of the major candidates pledged not to campaign in those states.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean was quoted by the St. Petersburg Times in June 2007 saying: "Their primary essentially won't count...Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates."

Barack Obama and John Edwards withdrew their names from the ballot in Michigan, leaving only Clinton and several minor candidates in the race. Clinton won the Jan. 17 primary with 55 percent over "uncommitted" which received 40 percent of the vote.

Clinton also won the Jan. 30 Florida Primary, with 50 percent of the vote to Obama's 33 percent.

The Obama camp derided the win as meaningless in an email sent to reporters on primary night, reminding the press that both candidates received zero delegates in the Florida primary.

But Obama supporters also cried foul over Clinton's pre-election activities in the state, saying that two events she attended in the Sunshine State broke her pledge to respect the Democratic Party's sanctions and avoid campaigning in Florida.

The Clinton campaign argued that the events were closed to the public, and therefore in line with the no-campaigning pledge.

On primary night, Clinton also flew to Florida for a victory celebration alongside Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Alcee Hastings.

The Associated Press reported on Jan. 27 that Clinton had already vowed to try to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates:

"I will try to persuade my delegates to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida," Clinton said at a campaign stop in Tennessee before flying to Sarasota.

Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford, writing on his "Trail Mix" blog, forecast what was in store for the convention if the candidates became embroiled in a credential fight:

First, the rival campaigns must compete behind the scenes for the support of credentials committee members - a contest that could prove to be the most important "primary" of all.
Outside the backrooms, the Clinton campaign will surely mount a vigorous public relations drive aimed at turning the debate into a question of "voting rights" and "civil rights," hoping to put Obama in the position of seeming to oppose such civil liberties. And the Clinton team will argue that Democrats simply cannot afford to deny entry to two of the nation's biggest swing states in the general election.

Already, pundits and party activists are raising the possibility that the Democratic Party might have to consider is a "re-do" in Michigan and Florida.

Marc Ambinder wrote Wednesday that:

Here is what might happen instead.
The DNC will sanction new contests, probably caucuses.

The Clinton will protest vociferously. Caucus? CAUCUS?

There will be a big debate.

Sabato told The Huffington Post that there had been "lots of credentials fight" over the years in the Democratic Party, but nothing quite like the "mess" looming in the current fight.

He also said credentials fight doesn't bode well for the party heading into the general election.

"When you get factions within the party believing that they have been treated unfairly, you have created the super-structure of defeat," Sabato said. "Some half of the party is going to feel cheated. That is exactly what you don't want your party activists to feel headed into a contested general election."

California Results Expose Bad Polling

2008-02-06T21:09:39Z

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's decisive victory Tuesday in the California Primary, one pre-election poll from C-SPAN/Zogby/Reuters that showed Barack Obama up by 13 points in the Golden State is getting a lot attention Wednesday morning.

On the morning of Super Tuesday, Zogby released its final tracking poll, showing Obama at 49 percent and Clinton at 36 percent, with 9 percent undecided, with a margin of error of 3 percent.

Pollster John Zogby said this as his poll was released:

In California, we have Obama polling into a 13-point lead. Monday was another big single day of polling for him there. What has happened here is that in addition to building leads among almost every part of his base of support, he has dramatically cut into Clinton's lead among Hispanic voters.

According to the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, with 97 percent of the precincts reporting, Clinton won the Golden State with 51 percent of the vote, compared to Obama's 42 percent.

Andrew Sullivan called Zogby "Another Big Loser." Matthew Yglesias wrote about filtering out "the most-exuberant Zogby-filled dreams." Even the Brits are pointing out the error.

On Tuesday, in a post entitled "Somebody's Gonna Be Wrong," Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal wrote about Zogby's lack of transparency about his methodology.

In his post, Blumenthal compared Zogby's results those of another pre-California poll from SurveyUSA that showed wildly different results.

Blumenthal writes:

If ever there was a case for better methodological disclosure by pollsters, this is it. If one poll, conducted entirely over the last 48 hours, shows a candidate leading by 10 points, while another conducted in the same state over the same time period, shows a another candidate leading by 13, and we cannot see enough of the details of how the polls were done to at least explain why they differ, why should we trust what any of these polls tells us?

On Wednesday, Zogby released a post-Super Tuesday analysis that includes this note about California:

Some of you may have noticed our pre-election polling differed from the actual results. It appears that we underestimated Hispanic turnout and overestimated the importance of younger Hispanic voters. We also overestimated turnout among African-American voters. Those of you who have been following our work know that we have gotten 13 out of 17 races right this year, and so many others over the years. This does happen.

John Zogby is a Huffington Post blogger.

How Two Polls In The Same State Can Say Two Different Things

2008-02-05T02:07:01Z

Can two polls released on the same day in the same state show two very different results? Yes, and it's happening right now - on the eve of Super Tuesday.

The conundrum was highlighted on Sunday morning on NBC's "Meet The Press" in a discussion of two different California Democratic Primary polls - one conducted by the Field Research Corporation, one from Mason-Dixon Research - that reached two very different conclusions.

Field pegged Clinton and Obama in an almost statistical dead heat: 36 percent for her, 34 percent for him. But Mason-Dixon painted a different picture: Clinton at 45 percent, Obama at 36 - a nine-point gap.

Viewers were left scratching their heads: how is it that two polls in the same state, released on the same day, could reach such vastly different conclusions?

One reason the numbers could have differed so greatly is that Field pollsters asked voters whether they favored "Clinton, Obama or someone else." Mason-Dixon pollsters did not prompt voters for "someone else."

How a company handles undecided voters can make a big difference in the results. Field reported that 12 percent of voters opted for "someone else," while Mason-Dixon pegged that undecided number at 3 percent.

Another explanation is that Californians who vote by mail have been able to cast their ballot for weeks, well before John Edwards and Bill Richardson dropped out of the race

The two surveys were also in the field for different periods of time: Mason-Dixon was conducted over three days, from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, while Field conducted interviews over eight days from Jan. 25 to Feb. 1. Experts say that the longer the field period, the higher the response rate because they are more likely to reach those people they have identified as likely voters.

Field noted that it makes up to six attempts to reach each voter identified in its sample.

"The longer you can call, the more opportunities you have to reach people at home," said Mark Blumenthal editor and publisher of Pollster.com.

Another possible reason for the two results: the way in which both companies define "likely voter."

Field interviewed 511 likely voters, while Mason-Dixon contacted 400 likely voters. But "likely" doesn't mean the same thing to both companies.

The fact that independents in the Golden State can vote in the Democratic primary, but not the Republican one further complicates determining who is a "likely voter" in California. Field Research does note that that they culled their sample from a list of registered voters.

As to whether voters should believe one poll over another, Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll would only say "I know the methods we use. They are as solid as we can make them."

But Blumenthal stressed that the most important number in this year's election is the number of undecided voters. In both the Field and Mason-Dixon polls, undecideds accounted for 18 and 16 percent respectively.

Blumenthal said that the undecided voters have been the main source of pollster grief this cycle.

As he noted on his own site on Monday:

This high degree of uncertainty creates the potential for a volatility that the final tracking polls may not reveal. Many voters will likely carry their sense of indecision into the voting booth, so the news and events of the next 24 hours could prove crucial.

California's Butterfly Ballot?

2008-02-05T01:56:54Z

Getting independent voters in California to the polls can already be tough enough for Democrats looking for a big win in the Golden State. But less than 24 hours before voters go to the polls on Super Tuesday, voting rights groups in Southern California have a new rallying cry for independents: don't forget the bubble!

Independent voters who show up at their local polling place in Los Angeles County on Tuesday and ask for a Democratic ballot have to fill in an extra bubble to show that they intend their vote to be counted for the Democrats. The bubble is at the top of the ballot, before the presidential candidates are listed.

Those who forget to fill in the bubble won't have their votes read by the county's tabulation machines.

Voting rights groups and progressive bloggers are already warning of a California "Butterfly Ballot," referring to the infamous voting slip from Florida that introduced the phrase "hanging chad" into the American lexicon.

The Courage Campaign, a grassroots organization working to get more independents to vote in the Democratic Primary is threatening legal action if L.A. County does not address the issue before Tuesday's election.

Los Angeles County's top election official told the Associated Press that he didn't think the problem would trip up that many voters.

"It would almost be counterintuitive for someone to miss," said Dean Logan, the acting county registrar. "We have put this information in voter education materials, and we've provided real clear instructions."

But Rick Jacobs, president of the Courage Campaign said that voters shouldn't have to accept that "intuition" will guide how their votes are counted.

"Just ask the people of Florida about the role of intuition in counting votes. It's already tough enough to vote in the Democratic primary for president. With three quarters of a million "Decline-to-State" voters in Los Angeles County, the least the county registrar of voters can do is guarantee that the ballots are accurately counted."

Jacobs pointed out that there are 776,000 independent voters in Los Angeles County, or roughly 3/4 of the total number of voters who have already voted in the early voting states.

Flatlining To Frontrunner: A Media Retrospective On McCain

2008-01-31T17:58:20Z

John McCain's re-emergence to lead the GOP presidential field following back-to-back primary victories in South Carolina and Florida has brought the narrative of the 2008 election full-circle.

McCain, the party's heir-apparent going into the 2008 cycle, was hit with a barrage of political obituaries following a major staff-shakeup in July, and a precipitous drop in opinion polling. McCain's campaign, the pundits declared, was toast.

"For all intents and purposes, McCain's campaign is over," wrote Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report in a July column in National Journal:

"The physicians have pulled up the sheet; the executors of the estate are taking over. Paying bills and winding down - not strategizing, organizing, and getting the message out - will be the order of the day."

A few weeks earlier, The Times of London's Sarah Baxter wrote that "former presidential front-runner John McCain may drop out of the 2008 race by September if his fundraising dries up and his poll ratings continue to drop."

Polls, Baxter wrote, were showing that McCain faced an uphill climb, as illustrated by a Rasmussen Reports survey that showed Fred Thompson leading the GOP pack with 28 percent of voters' support, followed closely by Rudy Giuliani at 27 percent.

McCain, it was noted, was stuck in third place, tied with Mitt Romney. Another poll, Baxter noted, had McCain pegged at fifth in Iowa.

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin started a "McCain campaign death watch," asking, "So, what will the exact expiration date of the McCain '08 campaign be?"

And Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, when asked on the July 15, 2007 airing of NBC's "Meet The Press" whether it was "doable" for McCain to claw his way back to the top, responded "remotely":

"They never come back. A lot, these early front-runners, I've seen a lot of them, George Romney, Ed, Ed Muskie, they're way on top and they collapse, they never come back. There's always a first time."

Newsweek's Richard Wolffe took readers "inside the McCain campaign meltdown" and a New York Daily News columnist declared McCain's "Prez run dealt fatal blow."

The polls in the summer of 2007 showed a much different picture of the presidential race today. A CNN poll released on August 10 pegged Giuliani ahead of the pack at 29 percent. Thompson was close behind at 22 percent.

A Fox News poll released at the end of August showed Giuliani again at 29 percent, with Thompson in second at 14 percent. In both polls, McCain was in the single digits.
Pundits seized upon the polling results as proof that the final contours of the 2008 race had begun to take shape.

And Michael Goodwin, the New York Daily News columnist, read the August polls and said 2008 was a two-horse race, with Clinton and Giuliani poised to square off.

A sampling of national polls, Goodwin wrote on August 5, 2007, showed Clinton "firmly atop" the Democratic field, with an average 16-point lead over her rivals. Giuliani, Goodwin wrote, has a 9-point lead over Fred Thompson.

"Coming after debates and forums and months of rubber-chicken and baby kissing, the shakeout is starting to feel like the real thing. Clinton and Giuliani always have been the most likely to come out on top, and it's a big deal for them to be where they are at this stage. With the first votes in January, it's no longer early."

Panic had taken hold amongst the challengers, Goodwin wrote, and pointed out that Obama had slipped 21 points in one poll. McCain, on the other side of the aisle was "flirting with a flameout."

Fast forward to January 30, and Washington Post.com political writer Chris Cillizza wrote shortly before the final GOP debate before Super Tuesday:

"Most Republican strategists -- aligned and unaligned -- agree that if McCain makes no big mistakes between now and Super Tuesday he will almost certainly be the GOP nominee."

McCain Defied Polls And Pundits To Climb Back To The Top

2008-01-31T00:49:31Z

John McCain's re-emergence to lead the GOP presidential field following back-to-back primary victories in the South Carolina and Florida primary has brought the narrative of the 2008 election back full-circle.

"For all intents and purposes, McCain's campaign is over," wrote Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report in a July column in National Journal:

"The physicians have pulled up the sheet; the executors of the estate are taking over. Paying bills and winding down - not strategizing, organizing, and getting the message out - will be the order of the day"

A few weeks earlier in late June, The Times of London's Sarah Baxter wrote that "former presidential front-runner John McCain may drop out of the 2008 race by September if his fundraising dries up and his poll ratings continue to drop."

McCain, it was noted, was stuck in third place, tied with Mitt Romney. Another poll, Baxter noted, had McCain pegged at fifth in Iowa.

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin started a "McCain campaign death watch," asking "so, what will the exact expiration date of the McCain '08 campaign be?"

And Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, when asked on the July 15, 2007 airing of NBC's "Meet The Press" whether it was "doable" for McCain to claw his way back to the top, the conservative pundit responded "remotely:"

"They never come back. A lot, these early front-runners, I've seen a lot of them, George Romney, Ed, Ed Muskie, they're way on top and they collapse, they never come back. There's always a first time."

Newsweek's Richard Wolffe took readers "inside the McCain campaign meltdown" and New York Daily News columnist declared McCain's "Prez run dealt fatal blow."

The polls in the summer of 2007 showed a much different picture of the presidential race today. A CNN poll released on August 10 pegged Giuiani ahead of the pack at 29 percent. Thompson was close behind at 22 percent.

And Michael Goodwin, the New York Daily News columnist, read the polls of August and said 2008 was a two-horse race, with Clinton and Giuliani poised to square off.

A sampling of national polls, Goodwin wrote on August 5, 2007, showed Clinton "firmly atop" the Democratic field, with an average 16-point lead over her rivals. Giuiani, Goodwin wrote, has a 9-point lead over Fred Thompson.

Coming after debates and forums and months of rubber-chicken and baby kissing, the shakeout is starting to feel like the real thing. Clinton and Giuliani always have been the most likely to come out on top, and it's a big deal for them to be where they are at this stage. With the first votes in January, it's no longer early.

Panic had taken hold amongst the challengers, Goodwin wrote, and pointed out that Obama had slipped 21 points in one poll. McCain, on the other side of the aisle was "flirting with a flameout."

Fast forward to January 30, and Washington Post.com political writer Chris Cillizza wrote shortly before the final GOP debate before Super Tuesday:

Most Republican strategists -- aligned and unaligned -- agree that if McCain makes no big mistakes between now and Super Tuesday he will almost certainly be the GOP nominee

California Independents Like Obama, But Will Have Trouble Voting For Him

2008-01-29T22:06:10Z

With 441 delegates to the Democratic National Convention up for grabs in next Tuesday's California primary, the Golden State remains the golden ring of the Super Tuesday contests.

California's roughly 3 million independent voters - who make up the fastest-growing segment of the state's voter pool - have long been eyed by each of the Democratic candidates as necessary to push across the finish line on Feb. 5.

But California's complex primary voting rules mean that campaigns have to go the extra mile to get those independent voters to the polls and make sure they actually receive a Democratic ballot on Election Day.

Those efforts have taken on a new urgency inside the Obama campaign, with new data showing the Illinois senator now leading chief rival Hillary Clinton among independent voters in California.

According to a new Los Angeles Times/CNN/Politico poll released Monday of likely Democratic primary voters in California, Obama leads Clinton by 13 points among so-called "decline to state" voters, 41 percent to 28 percent. In an earlier poll conducted by the same media outlets in mid-January, Clinton was leading Obama 52 percent to 29 percent.

The latest poll was conducted before Obama's victory in the South Carolina primary, and has a margin of error of 3 points.

One week ahead of Super Tuesday, Clinton is still considered the favorite to win the California contest. But opinion polling conducted since early voting states went to the polls shows a tightening race.

Observers have long seen Obama as a favorite among independent voters nationally, with much discussion ahead of the New Hampshire primary as to whether the Granite State's famous unaffiliated voter pool would break for Obama or GOP candidate John McCain.

The Obama campaign itself has told California reporters that "independent voters were crucial to Obama's win in Iowa."

But without a concerted effort by campaigns to educate independent voters about how to obtain a Democratic ballot, neither Obama nor any of his Democratic rivals can expect much of a boost from the unaffiliated set.

Californians registered as "decline to state" can vote in the Democratic primary, but they have to specifically request a Democratic Party ballot on election day. Otherwise, they'll be handed a ballot that only contains state measures and propositions.

And voters who want to cast their ballot by mail must specifically ask their county registrar for a Democratic ballot, another step that advocacy groups say is a barrier to getting independents to vote in presidential primaries. Independent voters cannot vote in the GOP primary in California.

"Independent voters are making an unprecedented impact on primary elections across America this year. But in California, if you don't know to ask for a Democratic ballot, you don't get to vote for President," said Rick Jacobs, founder of the Courage Campaign, a progressive grass-roots organization in California that has launched an effort to inform independent voters about voting in the presidential primary.

Jacobs' group points to the low number of independent voters who cast ballots in 2004 - 207,000 - as evidence that California's primary rules are a barrier to entry for independent voters.

The Obama campaign, recognizing that independents are key to pulling out a win in California, have been pushing precinct captains and volunteers to remind independents that they can indeed vote in the Democratic contest.

Bush's Final State Of The Union In Under 100 Words

2008-01-29T02:08:29Z

So in preparing for the President's State Of The Union address, the
team over at HuffPost discovered a great little feature in Microsoft
Word called "AutoSummarize" that automatically identifies the key
points in a document and highlights them for easy reading. Below,
President George W. Bush's final State Of The Union address in under
100 words:

"The Congress can help even more. America honors the strength and
resilience of the people of this region [the Gulf Coast]. In
Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies, and 15 partner nations are
helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their
country. We launched a surge of American forces into Iraq. A free Iraq
will deny al Qaida a safe haven. America is leading the fight against
global hunger. America is leading the fight against disease. Our
military families also sacrifice for America. Our military families
serve our Nation, they inspire our Nation, and tonight our Nation
honors them."

The Five Most Vulnerable Democrats In 2008

2008-01-29T01:01:52Z

With so much attention focused on the white-hot presidential campaign, it is easy to forget the races further down the ticket that voters will be following in November.

Congressional analysts agree that while the Democrats are poised to expand their majorities in both chambers in November, there are still several Democratic members of Congress with big bullseyes on their backs.

"I think that even thought the national political landscape favors the Democrats, there are a handful of Democratic freshmen who currently represent Republican districts - many of whom got into office because of Republican scandals," said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that tracks congressional races.

A number of freshmen House Democrats have been dubbed "scandal babies" by David Wasserman, House Race editor of the Cook Political Report. These lawmakers owe their election victories to the missteps and foibles of their GOP predecessors, Wasserman said.

Democrats in those seats are going to be given a run for their money, he said. But overall the Republicans have more to worry about in 2008.

"The big difference is that Republican open seats are the only competitive open seats," Wasserman said. "Democrats have five people who are going somewhere from the House in 2008, but none are vulnerable."

In the last round of congressional races in 2006, Democrats picked up 31 House seats and retook the majority for the first time in twelve years. This year, sensing that the chess board favors the Democratic Party, 21 GOP lawmakers have announced they are retiring from the House.

And although observers are expecting Democrats to add anywhere from two to seven seats to their House majority, victories for the members below will not be easy:

Nick Lampson (Texas 22nd)

Lampson "has to be near or at the top of the list" of vulnerable Democrats, Gonzales said. His Houston-area district is heavily Republican -- he sits in former GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's old seat -- and Lampson is perhaps the Democrats ultimate "scandal baby." After DeLay was forced out in a cloud of scandal, Lampson faced a write-in GOP opponent with a hyphenated name, and won 52 percent of the vote. But even with a crowded Republican field fighting it out ahead of Texas' March 4 primary, Lampson faces a tough fight in a district where George Bush won 64 percent of the vote in 2004.

Tim Mahoney (Florida 16th)

Mahoney practically owes his seat in the House to three words: Mark Foley scandal. Although Mahoney was running what National Journal called a "respectable" campaign for someone taking on an entrenched incumbent, he was still considered a long shot until allegations surfaced that Foley had sexually explicit Internet chats with teenage male House pages. Foley quickly skipped town and Mahoney became the odds-on favorite to win the GOP-leaning district that stretches from Palm Beach to the Gulf of Mexico. Mahoney carried the district in 2006 with 50 percent of the vote. But George W. Bush won over 54 percent of the district's voters in 2004, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that Republicans outnumber registered voters in the district 42 percent to 36 percent. An August primary will determine which of the three Republicans vying for a spot on the general election ballot will take on Mahoney, but it looks like he is spoiling for a fight: the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reported that Mahoney had already raised $1.4 million as early as October.

Nancy Boyda (Kansas 2nd)

"A lot of people think that her election to Congress was a fluke and that Jim Ryun [Boyda's predecessor] ran a weak campaign in '06 and did not see this coming until the last minute," Wasserman said. Boyda's eastern Kansas district is GOP country, and its residents broke overwhelmingly for George Bush in 2004, giving him 59 percent of the vote to John Kerry's 39 percent. There are two Republicans - including Ryun - looking to oust Boyda in the fall, and Wasserman said the freshman Democrat is going to have to step up her campaign considerably if she wants to pull out a victory in November. Boyda won her seat with 51 percent of the vote, and Ryun had represented the district for a decade before losing his seat in 2006.

Chris Carney (Pennsylvania 10th)

Carney is another of the Democrats' "scandal babies" who benefited from the personal mishaps of former GOP Rep. Don Sherwood -- who was, among other things, accused of choking an alleged mistress. Carney has received good reviews during his freshman term in Congress, Wasserman said, but "he has to prove he can win when the spotlight is on him." Carney won 53 percent of the vote in a northeastern Pennsylvania district that has a solid Republican pedigree: 60 percent of voters supported George W. Bush in 2004. Four Republicans are vying for a win in the April 22 GOP primary.

Gerald McNerney (California 11th)

McNerney wasn't even backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 primary when he won a spot in the general election against incumbent Rep. Richard Pombo. The McNerney-Pombo fight was a nasty one, but the Democrat ended up pulling in 53 percent of the vote. However, all the attention was on Pombo. The incumbent raised the ire of various environmental and conservation groups who labeled Pombo an "eco-thug" according to the National Journal. The district "voted against Richard Pombo more than they voted for Jerry McNerney," Wasserman said. McNerney's San Joaquin Valley district gave George W. Bush 54 percent of the vote in 2004, GOP voters outnumber Democrats in the district, and McNerney faces a formidable opponent in Dean Andal, a businessman from Stockton who is a former state Assemblyman and member of the California Franchise Tax Board. But the Modesto Bee pointed to one possible trump card in McNerney's hand: through the third quarter of 2007 McNerney had raised $1.06 million to Andal's $389,000.

Opinion Polling Off The Mark Again In SC

2008-01-28T01:39:22Z

It was another bad night for pollsters, as the pre-South Carolina opinion polls underestimated the margin of victory for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Unlike the fiasco following the New Hampshire primary, where polls had suggested Obama would best eventual winner Hillary Clinton, the South Carolina polls always showed Obama coming out on top. But further underscoring the faulty predictive nature of polling, they failed to accurately foreshadow Obama's eventual margin of victory.

Read more about opinion polling at HuffPost's HuffPollstrology here.

Final SC Results

Obama 55%
Clinton 27%
Edwards 18%

Zogby/Reuters C-Span Poll 1/25/08

Obama 41% (-14)
Clinton 26% (-1)
Edwards 19% (+1)
Someone else 4%
Not sure 10%

Margin of error 3.4

ARG South Carolina Poll 1/25/08

Obama 39% (-16)
Clinton 36% (+9)
Edwards 22% (+4)
Undecided 2%

Margin of error 4%

Survey USA Poll 1/24/08

Obama 43% (-12)
Clinton 30% (+3)
Edwards 24% (+6)
Other 2%
Undecided 2%

Margin of error 4.1%

PPP Poll 1/24/08

Obama 44% (-11)
Clinton 24% (-3)
Edwards 19% (+1)
Undecided 14%

Margin of error 4%

McClatchy MSNBC Poll 1/23/2008

Obama 38% (-17)
Clinton 30% (+3)
Edwards 19% (+1)
Undecided 13%

Margin of error 5%

Clemson Poll 1/23/08

Obama 27% (-28)
Clinton 20% (-7)
Edwards 17% (-2)
Undecided 36%

Margin of error 4.6%

Ebony Jet Poll 1/22/08

Obama 37% (-18)
Clinton 27%
Edwards 15% (-3)
Undecided 22%

Margin of error 2.9%

Rasmussen Poll 1/21/08

Obama 43% (-12)
Clinton 28% (+1)
Edwards 17%
Some other candidate 5%
Not sure 6%

See full polling data at Pollster.com

To read Arianna's blog about the creation of HuffPollstrology, click here.