You can vote today in the Round 5 of CQ Politics’ VP Madness starting today.

Out of a field of 32 candidates, only Wesley Clark and Joseph Biden remain. Biden narrowly edged former presidential rival Bill Richardson by just 61 votes:

• Wesley Clark (58%) vs. Edward G. Rendell (41%)
• Joseph Biden (50%) vs. Bill Richardson (49%)

I think Obama-Clark, ‘08 has a nice ring to it but I like Biden too.

Oddly enough, I’ve haven’t heard much talk about Wes Clark as a VP selection since the primaries ended. Of course, which would correspond to the media’s pattern of setting up a “surprise” VP choice by one or both of the candidates.

Clark would help Obama in battleground states, with Clinton supporters, older voters, veterans and opponents of the Iraq War. He also has the leadership skills to assume the presidency, which should be the chief qualification anyway.

Start the clock on the Charlie Black deathwatch:

A top adviser to John McCain said another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a “big advantage” for the Republican presidential candidate, drawing a sharp rebuke Monday from both the presumed GOP nominee and Democrat Barack Obama.

Charlie Black, already in the spotlight for his past lobbying work, is quoted in the upcoming July 7 edition of Fortune magazine as saying such an attack “certainly would be a big advantage to him.” Black said Monday he regretted the comment.

The classic definition of a political gaffe is saying something that is true in public that you should only say in private.

In that case, Mr. Black’s comments are just another bucket of water over Niagara Falls.

But just imagine how terrifying this statement would been if it had come from John McCain’s pastor in a sermon rather than just one of his top political advisors.

Update: The Fortune article in which Mr. Black is quoted is here.

Please tell me that this is yet another one of those occasions where Bill Kristol doesn’t know what he’s talking about:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.

However, “if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,” Kristol said, reinforcing the fact that McCain is offering a third Bush term on Iran.

“I do wonder with Senator Obama, if President Bush thinks Senator Obama’s going to win, does he somehow think — does he worry that Obama won’t follow through on that policy,” Kristol added.

I have to think that leaving America with two unresolved wars would be plenty enough to shape any ex-president’s legacy.

Three would just be piling on.

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.

Uh…

Today, Senator John McCain simultaneously claims that Barack Obama has the most liberal voting record in Congress and that Obama votes with President Bush most of the time.

Is that even possible?

In terms of the supply of petroleum or gas prices — not much.

The United States uses nearly 21 million barrels a day of petroleum and liquified hydrocarbon fuel, or nearly 25% of everything the world produces daily. The US has 5% of the world’s population.

The US produces about 5 million barrels a day of petroleum and another 3 million barrels a day of liquefied fuel. That 8 million barrels a day is only about a third of what we use, so we import the rest. The lower 48 states produced about 4.4 million barrels of petroleum a day in 2006.

If all the known offshore fields were drilled and panned out, the lower 48’s oil production would be increased by 7%. That would be 300,000 barrels a day.

But in terms of Florida’s 27 electoral votes — maybe a lot.

Most Florida politicians have opposed drilling because they fear it would harm beaches vital to the state’s tourism economy and interfere with weapons testing and training in and over the Gulf of Mexico by Florida military bases.

Democrats also argued additional offshore drilling would not affect prices set on the world market.

“It would only increase oil companies’ record-breaking profits,” said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski.

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.

Candidates often say things like “The only poll that counts is the one they take on election day” and “I don’t pay much attention to polls”.

When they say these kind of things, they’re lying.

Presidential candidates spend millions of dollars on internal polls and pay a lot of attention to the polls they don’t commission.

In the 2008 presidential election, the Gallup daily tracking is a good measure of national trends and usually gets the most attention because it’s the oldest and best-established.

In the first post-Clinton Gallup poll, Barack Obama is favored over John McCain for president, 48%-42%. That same poll found that 53% of Democrats want Obama to choose HRC as his running mate while 36% say he should choose someone else.

A Rasmussen daily tracking poll released today gives Obama at 48%-40% that is comparable to the Gallup poll’s findings. When “leaners” are included, Obama’s lead is 50%-44%.

In other words, two reputable national polls show that Obama has a lead that is outside the polls statistical margin of error. As an Obama supporter, I feel pretty good about that but it’s June and there are a lot of bridges to cross between now and November 4.

Another way to think about polling and elections is to ignore national polls and focus attention on state polls and the electoral college. After all, we don’t elect by popular vote and we probably never will.

So while the national polls may be a good indicator of where public opinion is trending, state polls are what really matter.

There are several sources for checking state polls on an electoral college map that I use in addition to the Gallup and Rasmussen polls. In 2004, I used electoral-vote.com to track where the candidates were gaining and losing ground. It proved to be pretty accurate and the author has started updating the site every day now, or at least when new state polls are available. I’ve added an icon and link to this site to my sidebar below.

According to electoral-vote.com, Obama currently leads in the electoral college race, 287-227 with 24 EVs from two states (Virginia, Indiana) split between the two candidates. This is also good news for Obama, although I seriously doubt that Indiana will vote for a Democrat in 2008.

Rasmussen also analyzes the race each day from the perspective of the electoral college and does a good job of breaking down where the candidates will be campaigning for the next six months.

Obama starts with a “base” of 12 states and 157 electoral votes that will go for a Democrat, no matter who that Democrat is: California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3).:

For his part, McCain starts with a “base” of 21 states and 168 electoral votes that will go for a Republican, no matter who that Republican is: Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3).

Twelve states with 149 Electoral Votes are either toss-ups or just slightly leaning to one party or the other. Five Democrat-leaning states account for 60 electoral votes: Iowa (7), Michigan (17), New Mexico (5), Pennsylvania (21) and Wisconsin (10) and three states with 51 votes lean Republican: Florida (27), Missouri (11), Virginia (13).

While it’s speculated that the Democrats can “steal” a few states such as Missouri and Virginia from the Republicans in November and the Republicans could do the same with Michigan and Pennsylvania, right now there are really only four genuine “toss-up” states: Colorado (9), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), and Ohio (20).

So, in 2008, while it may be fun to pay attention to those national polls as a barometer of where public opinion is leaning, it’s more important to follow the polls in a handful of states.

CQ Politics is running a “VP Madness” contest to help Barack Obama chose a running mate.

It’s a college basketball-style tournament using a field of 32 potential running mates selected by CQ Politics editors and reporters. Visitors to CQ Politics can vote once in each of five single-elimination rounds spread out over three weeks.

Why?  Because everything we do can eventually be reduced to something to wager on.

Last month, CQ Politics decided that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was the best choice for John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate.

No trophies this time - there’s obviously going to be a lot of ties. But you’ll bet bragging rights and on January 21, I’ll re-post the results to show the world how smart you are.

CQ will announce the final result on July 1.

I’m picking Wesley Clark — you can make your selections here.  One entry per customer.

If you want to play, get an entry in before Saturday.