A Tennessee Democrat has apologized for making comments in a Nashville newspaper connecting Barack Obama with terrorism.

His excuse: He watches Fox News.

In his letter of apology to the state Democratic Party Executive Committee, committee member Fred Hobbs wrote:

I was not as well prepared as I should have been when speaking with reporters, and I should have taken more time to research Senator Obama’s positions. My comments did reflect questions I had after what I had seen reported on Fox News, but I should have taken some time to check the accuracy of what I saw on television before speaking publicly. My statement that Senator Obama “may be terrorist-connected” was incorrect, and I apologize for making it.

I’ve got to remember that one — it may come in handy some day.

Round four of VP Madness is underway at CQ Politics.

You can make your sections now in the Final Four:

• Edward G. Rendell (54%) over Hillary Clinton (45%)
• Wesley Clark (62%) over John Edwards (37%)
• Joseph Biden (55%) over Kathleen Sebelius (44%)
• Bill Richardson (64%) vs. Sam Nunn (35%)

If Wesley Clark is selected to be Obama’s Veep, I’m so taking credit for it.

Never underestimate the power of this blog to move a nation.

Round three of VP Madness is underway at CQ Politics.

Wesley Clark and Joe Biden have survived Round 2 and I think they’ll make it to the Final Four.

The Elite Eight:

• Hillary Clinton (62%) vs. Tom Vilsack (37%)
• Edward G. Rendell (62%) vs. Ted Strickland (37%)
• John Edwards (53%) vs. Brian Schweitzer (46%)
• Wesley Clark (56%) vs. Evan Bayh (43%)
• Kathleen Sebelius (54%) vs. Tim Kaine (45%)
• Joseph Biden (70%) vs. Max Cleland (29%)
• Bill Richardson (54%) vs. Jim Webb (45%)
• Sam Nunn (55%) vs. Al Gore (44%)

There are increasing signs that Barack Obama has no interest in running with Hillary Clinton.  This may be her last round.

If you voted in Round 1 of CQ’s “VP Madness” last week, you can now check the results and make new picks for Round 2.

My pick (Wesley Clark) is still in the running and I still like Joe Biden’s chances.

Unfortunately, General Clark didn’t make the short list of VP candidates leaked to MSNBC’s First Read yesterday.

That short list does includes Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Kathleen Sebelius, Ted Strickland, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Jim Webb, Bill Nelson, Jack Reed, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Tom Daschle, and Sam Nunn.

“Leaked” means that it was probably e-mailed to MSNBC by the Obama campaign.

Strickland was unequivocal on NPR yesterday about not wanting to be vice-president but that still shouldn’t rule him out.

Barack Obama inched closer to the Democratic nomination last night despite a thumping in Kentucky and a predicted win in Oregon.

In his victory speech from Iowa last night, Obama offered praised to both Hillary Clinton and her supporters for their effort to seat a Democrat in the White House.  Obama is going to need both if he wants to win the White House in November.

Naturally, there will be even more attention focused on when Clinton will suspend her campaign and who Barack Obama will select for vice-president in the coming weeks.

I’ve suspected for some time that Obama’s VP nominee will have to be somebody who is a more established political leader (i.e., “older) than Obama with impeccable foreign policy credentials who is not named Hillary Clinton.   I’m now leaning toward Joe Biden (DE), Wesley Clark or Jim Webb (VA).

I don’t see HRC giving up her Senate seat to run for vice-president in 2008 but Obama faces the same problem as every nominee selected in a close race faces: he has to at least offer a place on the ticket to the runner-up.

In the case of John F. Kennedy in 1960, the offer of the vice-presidency to then-Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson backfired when LBJ unexpectedly accepted the offer.  The Kennedys assumed that the offer was a formality and nobody as powerful as Johnson who give that up to be second bananna.

James Andrew Miller of the WaPo offers an interesting solution to the “what about Hillary?” problem for the Obama campaign: offer her the next vacancy on the US Supreme Court.

I think this would have to be done rather stealthily — Hillary has already raised more money for the RNC over the years than most Republicans.  If HRC were publicly touted for a seat on the Court, more than a few conservative heads would explode.

But it’s a good idea and would go a long way toward shoring-up support for an Obama-______________ ticket in the Democratic base.

Tomorrow, Democrats in North Carolina (115) and Indiana (72) will elect 46% of the remaining pledged delegates in this primary season.

So it’s an important day for our democracy, again.

I’ve mentioned before that the reality of what remains of the Democratic primary is a battle between Hillary Clinton’s campaign and some math so simple that even I can understand how it works.

It has also been noted that the delegate projections made by the Obama campaign several months for each caucus and primary has been remarkably accurate. In fact, Obama’s delegate count is actually running ahead of what they projected.

For example, the Obama campaign projected that Barack Obama would win 75 of 158 delegates in Pennsylvania two weeks ago and he won 73. This weekend, in the all-important Guam primary, a 2-2 split on Guam’s four remaining delegates was dead on with Ombamath projected.

As the DailyKos pointed out in March, even in states “lost” by Obama on Super Tuesday (like California) the difference was actually smaller than what was projected. It also gave him a comfortable lead in pledged delegates that has not relinquished.

I’ve been using the data from Real Clear Politics since Super Tuesday to keep track of the delegate count between Clinton and Obama. There are other good sources but RCP seems to be as up-to-date as any of them.

This is where the count stands as of tonight:

Delegate Count (5/5/08)

Needed to nominate: 2,025

Barack Obama (+139)

• Pledged: 1491
• Super delegates 256
• Total: 1747
• Needed to nominate: 278

Hillary Clinton

• Pledged: 1337
• Super delegates: 271
• Total: 1608
• Needed to nominate: 417

• Total remaining pledged delegates: 404 of of 4,049
• Total remaining super delegates: 267 of 794
• Total remaining delegates: 671 of 4,843
• Difference between Obama projection and delegates needed to win nomination: 53 (281-228)

The bottom line: if the Obamath is correct, Barack Obama will only need 53 super delegates to secure the nomination after the last primaries in Montana and South Dakota on June 3.

Tomorrow, Obama will probably lose Indiana by about 5% and win North Carolina by 9%. But even if they split the two states, Barack Obama will come out ahead of Clinton on pledged delegates 100-87 and will only need another 317 delegates to win the nomination.

I’ll do a another post tomorrow night when the polls close Indiana (6pm Eastern in Indiana in most counties and 7pm Eastern in some).

North Carolina polls close at 7:30pm EST in most counties.

I’m leaving the house in a little while for a benefit concert on campus for Zambia.

Cheyenne Medders is playing. He’s great.

Otherwise, I’d be sitting at home watching the PA returns and listening to the spin.

The fact that the polls closed 26 minutes ago and Pennsylvania is still too close to call is interesting but not earth-shattering.

It would indicate a close race and that’s good news for Obama.

I’ll be back online around 10:00. Rock on.

Update (7:50 pm): MSNBC calls it for HRC with 3% of the vote (55-45). Let the numbers game begin.

It’s probably going to be one of the most significant presidential nominating conventions in American history and I’m going to be in the middle of it.

So I’m thinking it might be interesting and it maybe even blogable.

Several months ago, the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars contacted Harding about the possibility of sending some of majors to Washington to work in various internships.  That evolved into an invitation to send students to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this summer.

TWC also invited faculty members to apply for teaching/facilitator positions and I took advantage of the opening.

I’ve never been to a political convention at any level before so if I start acting kind of goofy about this as August approaches, please forgive me.

At the risk of disagreeing with almost everyone in the nation’s mainstream media, the campaign for the Democratic nomination for president isn’t a bloodbath and it really isn’t that close when you get right down to it.

What remains of the 2008 election isn’t a horse race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It’s a siege that has Obama fighting to bring down a castle defended by the Clinton campaign.

As military campaigns go, siege warfare isn’t that interesting. It’s just a matter of slowly choking your opponent to death before help can arrive. It’s slow, meticulous and predictable.

In most cases, the only people who won’t accept the inevitability of the final result are the defenders of the castle.

The reality is that Barack Obama is probably going to lose in Pennsylvania tomorrow by a margin of 6-7% and Hillary Clinton will net about seven delegates against Obama. This will put Clinton seven delegates closer to Obama but will also put Obama seventy-five delegates closer to wining the nomination.

An Obama upset in Pennsylvania would be welcomed but it’s not likely. On the other hand, neither is the double-digit victory that the Clinton campaign needs to make the argument that she is more electable in pivotal electoral college states.

Next Tuesday, Obama will negate Clinton’s marginal gains in Pennsylvania by winning North Carolina by at least 15% and seven delegates. Indiana will be so close that even a Clinton victory would not result in a significant change in the delegate count.

Obama is comfortably ahead in delegates, the popular vote in Democratic primaries and he’s raising more money from more Democrats that Clinton.

By next Wednesday, the remaining superdelegates should start breaking decisively for Obama with the understanding that there just aren’t any more chips on the table for Hillary Clinton to win.

Like I said, it’s not very interesting but I’m not trying to sell advertising time or space based on the illusion that there’s any doubt as to where this thing is going.

The leadership of the Republicans in the New York state Assembly has told Governor Eliot Spitzer that he has 48 hours to resign or face impeachment.

Reports are that his resignation may come as soon as tomorrow morning.

For the life of me, I’ll never understand why smart, promising people allow themselves to duped into thinking that they can get away with things that mere mortals can’t get away with.

Worse yet, Spitzer was a guy who put people in prison for lesser crimes that solicitation of prostitution.  In my mind, the greater crime that Spitzer has committed is gross hypocrisy.

There’s always been something about power that makes many people who wield it feel invincible.