As expected, Obama took North Carolina but, it was not as close as some in the Clinton camp had predicted.

However, the big story of the night is Indiana. After the Rev. Wright drama, the Clinton camp had been saying that Obama was the weaker candidate and unable to win in “states that mattered”. In looking at the early returns, I thought Clinton would coast to an easy victory in Indiana and that she would be able to push this argument further. I flipped back and forth between MSNBC and CNN and watched a high double-digit Clinton lead shrink to 8 points, then to 6 points, then to 4. As I sit here at 12:17am EDT, 92% of the Indiana vote is in and Clinton is only up by 2%.

So, there is another possibility for Indiana. There are some areas where Obama was expected to perform well that haven’t turned in their numbers yet. What this could mean is that an expected Clinton victory could turn out to be an Obama victory. Or, nearly as bad for Clinton, she squeaks out a win in an area that should have been a sure thing for her, casting serious doubts on her claims that Obama couldn’t win in states with predominately white, working-class voters.

So, I’m going to stay up a little while longer to see how this turns out. I feel that I might be witnessing the transition of Barack Obama from Democratic primary contender to Democratic presidential nominee.

UPDATE: At about 1:15am, CNN projected Hillary Clinton the winner in Indiana. It looks like it will be a 51%-49% victory for Clinton. However, even with this victory, her argument to the superdelegates has been weakened. She has said that the delegate count and popular vote should be what matters. Well, Obama has increased his delegate lead and moved his popular vote lead from over 500,000 to over 700,000. The next two weeks should be very telling.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Well, Democrats, you just might have done it.

You find yourself on the precipice of losing your black supporters during this year’s election cycle. If you do, you will have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

McClatchy News Service has run a story about black voters and their possibility of staying home if they feel Obama is cheated out of the nomination. I can’t lie — I know I can’t stand McCain but, with Hillary Clinton trying to be Republican-light, I ain’t feelin’ her too tough, either.

Though they get the views of,primarily, voters in Indiana, I hear people from all over the country expressing similar disdain for the way things are going down in this election. Some might call it bitter or sour grapes but, when black people have so greatly supported a party for so long, to get slighted will turn a lot of folks off.

We also see how the so-called big tent of the Democrats really doesn’t have room for opinionated black people so, this is also leaving many to wonder where we really stand with them.

Democrats, the race is your to lose. If Clinton gets the nod, it better be because she flat-out won and not because of political gaming on the part of the party. Otherwise, you might have to kiss the black vote goodbye.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I’m not willing to play “YouTube gotcha” with this one so, I’ll let people decide what Hillary Clinton meant on this one. Is she saying, “God bless us — we’re rich and I want to preserve that for us rich folks” or is she saying “God has blessed rich people and we need to use our wealth to help”?

I’ll let the reader decide.

Popularity: 13% [?]

The results of the Pennsylvania primary are rolling in and the networks are calling it for Hillary Clinton. The question is now how tight the race will or will not be. Right now, MSNBC has her up 53% to 47%.

I’ll keep you posted.

Update #1: (10:57pm EDT): MSNBC has Clinton up by 10 (55% to 45%)

Popularity: 14% [?]

Bill Clinton asks, “Who are you going to believe? Me or you lying ears?”

Here’s an exchange he had with an NBC Reporter today:

NBC/NJ: “Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?”

CLINTON: “When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?”

NBC/NJ: “On WHYY radio yesterday”

CLINTON: “No, no, no. That’s not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day.”

NBC/NJ: “Respectfully sir, though, you did say …”

CLINTON: “Have a nice day.” [continues shaking hands with supporters]. I said what I said, you can go and look at the interview. And if you’ll be real honest, you’ll also report what the question was and what the answer was.”

However, Clinton did accuse the Obama camp of just that:

INTERVIEWER (RE: Jackson comment): “Do you think that was a mistake, and would you do that again?”

CLINTON: “No. I think that they played the race card on me. And we now know, from memos from the campaign and everything, that they planned to do it along.

So, why is this a big deal? Well, once you hear the interview in which he said the race card was played on him, it might put things in perspective but, honestly, it’s too late to be a big deal in Pennsylvania but, in other places it could cause problems because:

1. Bill Clinton has been caught playing with race already so, he keeps resurrecting this a big issue for his wife’s campaign.
2. He and Sen. Clinton have talked about how, if a candidate can’t take the heat, that person shouldn’t be in politics. Well, isn’t he crying, now?

At the end of the day, Bill has to deal with his own words. They are below:

Popularity: 17% [?]

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News weighed in on last night’s debates and he let the moderators, Charles Gibson and George Stephanapoulos have it with both barrels.

I gather that Bunch’s beef with them, while similar to my own, also, has some marked differences. Bunch refers to how this debate had been billed as a debate dealing with the issues of Pennsylvania voters but, largely, the questions ignored this very group.

In no uncertain terms, Bunch talks about what he and others, as Pennsylvania voters, are really concerned about:

You implied throughout the broadcast that you wanted to reflect the concerns of voters in Pennsylvania. Well, I’m a Pennsylvanian voter, and so are my neighbors and most of my friends and co-workers. You asked virtually nothing that reflected our everyday issues — trying to fill our gas tanks and save for college at the same time, our crumbling bridges and inadequate mass transit, or the root causes of crime here in Philadelphia. In fact, there almost isn’t enough space — and this is cyberspace, where room is unlimited — to list all the things you could have asked about but did not, from health care to climate change to alternative energy to our policy toward China to the deterioration of Afghanistan to veterans’ benefits to improving education. You ignored virtually everything that just happened in what most historians agree is one of the worst presidencies in American history, including the condoning of torture and the trashing of the Constitution, although to be fair you also ignored the policy concerns of people on the right, like immigration issues.

You asked about gun control — phrased to try for a “gotcha” in a state where that’s such a divisive issue — but not about what we really care about, which is how to reduce crime. You pressed and pressed on those capital gains taxes, but Senators Clinton and Obama were forced to bring up the housing crisis on their own initiative.

Instead, you wasted more than half of the debate — a full hour — on tabloid trivia that for the most part wasn’t even that interesting, because most of it was infertile ground that has already been covered again and again and again. I’m not saying that Rev. Wright and Bosnia sniper fire and “bitter” were never newsworthy — I myself wrote about all of these for the Philadelphia Daily News or my Attytood blog, back when they were more relevant — but the questions were stale yet clearly intended to gin up controversy (they didn’t, by the way, other than the controversy over you.) The final questions of that section, asking Obama whether he thought Rev. Wright “loved America” and then suggesting that Obama himself is somehow a hater of the American flag, or worse, were flat-out repulsive.

Are you even thinking when simply echo some of the vilest talking points from far-right talk radio? What are actually getting at — do you honestly believe that someone with a solid track record as a lawmaker in a Heartland state which elected him to the U.S. Senate, who is now seeking to make some positive American history as our first black president, is somehow un-American, or unpatriotic? Does that even make any sense? Question his policies, or question his leadership. because that is your job as a journalist. But don’t insult our intelligence by questioning his patriotism.

Here’s a question for you, George. Is it true that yesterday you appeared on the radio with conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity, and that you said you were “taking notes” when he urged you to ask a question about Obama’s supposed ties to a former member of the Weather Underground — which in fact you did? With all the fabulous resources of ABC News at your disposal, is that an appropriate way for a supposed journalist to come up with debate questions - by pandering to divisive radio shows?

And Charlie…could you be any more out of touch with your viewers? Most people aren’t millionaires like you, and if Pennsylvanians are losing sleep over economic matters, it is not over whether the capital gains tax will go back up again. I was a little shocked when you pressed and pressed on that back-burner issue and left almost no time for high gas prices, but then I learned tonight that you did the same thing in the last debate, that you fretted over that middle-class family that made $200,000 a year. Charlie, the nicest way that I can put this is that you need to get out more.

Go get ‘em, WIll.

Popularity: 68% [?]

Why do the Clintons keep playing games when they have the potential to come back and bite them.

The Clinton camp accused Obama of elitism over the following statements:

“Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [...]

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Well, if the Clintons think this is so awful, then what do they think of this statement?

“You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I’m from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they’re gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they’ve been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country’s coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, ‘What happened to everybody’s job? What happened to everybody’s income? What … have … you … done … to … our … country?’”

Well, you’d think they’d be up in arms about such a statement, right?  Probably not.  You see, this statement was made by none other than Bill Clinton himself, in an interview with the L.A. Times when he ran for president in 1991.  The George Bush he was referring to was the father of the current president.

So, if Obama’s statements make him an elitist, what do Bill Clinton’s statements say about his mindset?  As a former president and major campaigner for his wife, scrutiny of him will fall on her, too.

Popularity: 66% [?]

It appears that, if Clinton and McCain were hoping to stir up controversy over Obama’s recent statements about the bitterness some Pennsylvanians (and other Americans) feel after seeing their jobs shipped overseas and their economies devastated, they might have to look beyond CNN for help.  Prior to Obama’s response to this contrived controversy, the CNN’s Situation Room had panelist discuss Obama’s statement and Clinton’s and McCain’s responses to them and it was clear that these panelist weren’t buying the Clinton’s or McCain’s spin on it.  In fact, it was clear that not only did they not take offense to what Obama said but, also, clearly agreed that what he was saying was factually accurate.

Popularity: 72% [?]

Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain went after Barack Obama over his recent statments at a fundraiser in California.  When asked about the challenges he faced with Pennsylvania voters, Obama gave this a part of his view on the situation there:

“Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives…”You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The above statements are what created the “controversy”.  Perhaps it is because I live in Ohio and see that there is a real bitterness when people have lost factory jobs — jobs that they thought they’d retire from — or have to deal home foreclosure.  Guess what — they are bitter.  Over the years, politicians have come to Ohio to give the “I feel your pain” speeches, all the while knowing that, when they get back to Washington, they will be supporting the very trade agreements that are undermining economies in places like Ohio.  If politicians don’t think that this has created a bitterness, they are crazy.

Barack Obama fired back at Clinton and McCain, reminding us that McCain, until very recently, couldn’t even grasp that there was a real mortgage crisis in America and that Clinton sided with and took money from the very credit card companies that wrote the new bankruptcy laws in the country so that they clearly favor these companies.

The video is below:

Popularity: 70% [?]

Well, I tried to give Hillary Clinton credit for getting rid of a problem advisor but, it appears that the resignation/firing was more for show.

It appears that Penn’s actually been “demoted.”

Mr. Penn took part on the campaign’s morning message call this morning, as usual.

This afternoon, he is also scheduled to be on a call with Clinton and other aides to begin to prepare for Saturday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia.

Mr. Penn “is still going to be very much involved,” a senior campaign official said.

Well, let’s see how this plays out.

Popularity: 7% [?]