Imagine, late May in California, if the primary had not been moved from June 3 to February.  Senators Clinton and Obama stumping up and down the state, Obama looking to put the stamp of victory on his nomination, Senator Clinton to get a big victory to get back in the game.  Pretty exciting, right? 

Maybe not.  Clinton did in fact win a big victory in California in the February 5 primary and she is still well behind Obama.  If you took away the 36 net delegates that Clinton gained here, she would be even further behind, and would need to score an much bigger margin of victory than she did in February to make a big difference.

A recent Field Poll, taken for god only knows what reason, shows that Obama would win a new matchup by 51 percent to 38 percent.  If that were true, the California primary would serve only to confer more legitimacy on Obama. 

From the Los Angeles Times (via LA Observed)

Councilman Greig Smith said he and other city officials would travel to Canada, Japan, Israel, France, Germany and Spain as part of a fact-finding mission waged by the city's Bureau of Sanitation. They will also visit Bakersfield.

The purpose of the trip is to explore plans to convert garbage into energy.  They might want to look a little closer to home: Burbank has been doing this for several years already.

Also, Mayor Villaraigosa has led a delegation of about 20 city officials on a junket to Israel, for a look at airport security and to sign some ceremonial agreements.

Which leads me to two questions:

1) Are there any city officials who are actually presently in Los Angeles?

2) Since when did it become necessary to bring the city to experts, rather then bringing experts to the city?  Couldn't a consultant on garbage-energy conversion and Israeli airport security be flown to the city at a much more minimal cost?

Given that Bill Johnson, a Los Angeles County judicial candidate, has run for Congress twice before, it isn't surprising that the Huffington Post, national blog (and aspiring online newspaper), has picked up a story that has been floated in several local papers, including this one.

As mentioned in a story in our paper, Johnson, a Ron Paul fundraiser, is reputed to be the anonymous author behind a proposed constitutional amendment to limit American citizenship to white people of European descent.  The text of the amendment:

"No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States."

Howie Klein, the Huffington Post blogger, raises concerns that Johnson's connections to dedicated Ron Paul activists could help bolster him in the June 3 election.  He may have a point: Johnson's campaign website has meet-ups with Ron Paul groups to help him spray paint "Bill Johnson for Judge" banners.  I have seen two of them hanging on fences this week, one in West Covina, and one in Pasadena.

Watched HBO's "Recount" tonight, the cable network's retelling of the 2000 legal battle between Al Gore and George W. Bush for the presidency of the United States.

Taking a page from the Hillary Clinton playbook, Assembly member Fabian Nunez is blaming the perception of his lavish campaign spending on media bias. 

Nunez told the Sacramento Bee:

"Everyone's done it like this," Núñez said of previous legislative leaders. "The difference is there are some in politics who want to judge me in a certain manner.

"Because of the fact I am Mexican, they think I have to sleep under a cactus and eat from taco stands."

Funny how it is the most privileged in society who are the quickest to say they have been ill-treated because of their, gender, race, religion, etc. 

That is not to say that it is impossible that some bias does exist in the media- in Clinton's case, for example, there were some very blatantly sexist statements made by the talking heads on TV.  But that doesn't mean that sexism doomed the Clinton campaign.

In Nunez's case, it just sounds like the old "well everyone else was doing it" excuse.  If Nunez believe he did nothing wrong (he didn't break any laws, for example.  And he is correct, that most politicians in California do the same thing and don't see any problem with it)he should just stay on message and not act defensive.  It is all too easy to blame the media's motives for coming after you.

As has been expected for weeks based on unnamed campaign sources, Sen. Barack Obama has subtly declared that he is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency. From today's New York Times:

"We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in America," Mr. Obama said, standing in front of a moonlit Capitol in Des Moines.

But even as Mr. Obama moved closer to making history as the first black presidential nominee, he stopped short of declaring victory in the Democratic race, part of a calibrated effort in the remaining weeks of the contest to avoid appearing disrespectful to Mrs. Clinton and alienating her supporters. Instead, he offered her lavish praise.

The conventional wisdom is that Clinton will continue to claim she has a chance at the nomination until the end of the month, when a Democratic party committee decides whether to allow the delegates from Michigan and Florida to be seated at the convention. But considering those states were punished by the party itself for holding their primaries early without permission, and that Obama did not actively campaign there and was not even on the ballot in Michigan, those delegates are nearly assured to be forced to stay put and watch the August convention from their living room couches.

Once that decision is made Clinton will likely capitulate. But until then Obama will continue to proceed delicately, avoiding outright declarations of victory while wooing Clinton supporters behind the scenes.

That jibes with what USC professor Kareem Crayton told me on May 7:

Whatever support Obama will get from Clinton superdelegates will not happen in a wholesale fashion, and will be timed so as not to be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign.

I suspect there will be an orchestrated transition in the next few weeks from a hard-fought primary to a transition of support for the nominee.

The L.A. Times ran a well-meaning, but hopelessly naive story today on its suspicions that the city installed red light cameras not for public safety reasons but to make money.

Its evidence?  The fact that the lights are mainly catching people for making rolling right turns at red lights without coming to a full stop.

The evidence I would present if the cities I covered (or when they have) put in red light cameras is the fact that they openly have said that red light cameras would be a good source of revenue.

For example, Covina, which installed them last year, said it would help the city meets its funding goals.  Opponents of the city's utility tax used the minimal revenue gain the city expected to get from the lights as a reason not to renew the tax.

West Covina, which is facing a budget deficit next year, has discussed the idea as a way to bring in some city funds.  They also brought up overnight parking restrictions as a way to bring in money- forcing people without driveways to essentially pay a tax on using tax-payer funded streets.

So maybe we should expect another Times story on the city's brutal parking restrictions, once they discover that those are also *gasp* around to bring the city revenue. 

This bill seems like kind of a no-brainer: it would stop teachers charged with felony sex offenses from keeping their credentials by pleading no-contest to a misdemeanor offense.

The bill arose shortly after a massive Associated Press investigation that showed that teachers across the nation were getting in trouble with the law and moving on to new schools without losing credentials. 

The only thing that gave me pause was that the bill also sets in the same rules for drug offenses... it seems like the demonstrable problem was with sex offenders, rather than drug offenders.  If school boards are not having problems with drug offenders (perhaps suspension and drug treatment can be effective) maybe it did not belong in the bill.  Still, it wouldn't surprise me if the same sorts of problems are happening with drug convictions.

A similar bill authored by Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, was passed recently also: it would automatically suspend credentials of teachers who had lost their credentials in another state.  Again, no-brainer. 

Rep. Henry Waxman and Rep. Howard Berman both announced today they will both cast their votes for Sen. Obama when the superdelegates weigh in on the presidential candidate.  Both were previously uncommitted. 

Both their districts went for Sen. Clinton in February's primary, but nation-wide delegates are starting to line up behind Obama.

According to CNN Obama now leads Clinton 291 to 274 in the superdelegate count.

  Karen Bass said today in her first press conference as Speaker that she would not pursue big issues like global warming and health care.

That might be a good thing, given California's massive deficit problems. Remember last year when massive amounts of time and government resources went down the drain as a hastily-constructed (though well-intentioned) health care bill from Assemblyman Fabian Nunez died in committee because nobody thought the state could afford it?

Of course, universal health care is a worthy goal, but with the long-term structure of California government funding at stake (are we going to massively cut spending, massively increase taxation, find a compromise, or continue to face deficits even in good revenue years?) it seems like pipe dream right now.

Bass said her priorities are fixing the state's budget problems, and ensuring a secure revenue stream for foster care.  Since her term as Speaker will expire in 2010 because of term limits, accomplishing just those two things would be a decent achievement. 

Better to shoot low and accomplish than aim high and miss the target.

Assemblyman Portantino, D- La Canada, took some heat in recent weeks in some editorial pages, as we noted in this blog, for considering introducing amendments that would help hide salary information for police officers.  The California Newspaper Publisher's Association, the closest thing we journalists have to a trade group, spoke out against Portantino.

Now Portantino is behind a bill the CNPA is a fan of: AB 2433, which protects the anonymity of web site publishers.  A technique used by some organizations to silence websites is to file lawsuits, or threaten lawsuits against online providers, demanding they reveal the name and/or personal information of the person running the lawsuit.  That threat can be enough to get a web site taken offline, or to silence a blogger..... for an example thumb through this story on the Falun Gong I wrote last December. 

Good to see a bill like this being voted on in the Senate. 

Pop Photo has a cool feature up with digital projections of what Obama, Clinton, and McCain will look like in 4 years.  If you have children under the age of 12, please have them leave the room before you show them the cryptkeeper-like appearance of the site's projection of John McCain.

Really, it isn't actually that bad, but they sure won't like that great in a few years if Pop Photo is right.  They do include a comparison of George Bush in 2000 and 2008, if you have doubts about how much the presidency can age a person. 

Obama says he's "outraged" by Jeremiah Wright's comments. Here's the transcript from his latest (4/29) Q&A with reporters.

A wily bill from Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, failed in committee last week.... the bill would have authorized the taxation of music downloads.

It was wily for two reasons: first, though the bill was sold as a music download tax, it would have also opened the door for taxation on other downloads that have not yet quite become the revenue generator that music has: books, articles, movies, TV shows, etc.  It could even go beyond that in its reach.... with a new amendment the bill now reads that the tax "includes, but is not limited to, products like music, movies, and books.

Secondly, the bill aimed to tweak an existing tax code that allows tax only on "tangible property."  Through some legal wrangling, that would allow a straight majority vote in the assembly, rather than the normal 2/3 required to pass a new tax.

The real kicker on the bill though, was that tax would only be allowed on in-state companies.  With web sales, of course, you can purchase downloads from anywhere in the world, allowing a huge disincentive for web companies to base themselves in California, and a huge disincentive for people to buy anything from a California-based company.

The bill stalled with a split 4-4 vote.  Four Democrats, including Calderon and Mike Eng, D-El Monte,  voted for the bill.  Three Republicans and one Democrat voted against it.  The committee voted unanimously to allow another hearing on the bill in the future

Rocky Rushing, the chief of staff for Sen. Ron Calderon, and a very even-keeled guy didn't sound upset talking about the failure of his boss's dog-fighting bill, but he had some tough words both the Public Safety committee and the ACLU.

Rushing called it a "good day for dog fighters and the ACLU," and set the bill was about as dead as the thousands of dogs who die in the fights every year.  Ouch!

His frustration is understandable.... I think anyone's first reaction to the bill would be to agree to any steps to stop the swine who force dogs to fight for entertainment.  The argument against the bill is equally strong though: any time the government wants the right to confiscate property, people have good reason to be wary.

When I spoke to ACLU, their representative brought up some of the horrors of California's drug forfeiture laws where police were alleged to have targeted people for drug crimes based on the quality of their possessions.  In one such case, Donald Scott, of Malibu was shot and killed by police in his own home.  They were there to arrest him for drug crimes they did not find evidence of. 

So the issue doesn't necessarily have an easy answer. 

The Contra Costa Times is reporting that  Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada, wants to put amendments in a bill that originally dealt with police interrogations.  An editorial in the Sacramento Bee describes the changes as "stealth amendments" and describes their inception:

Assembly Bill 1855 originally dealt with interrogation of police officers under investigation. But, as reported in the Contra Costa Times, a police lobbying group, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, is hawking amendments that would reverse state Supreme Court decisions affirming the public's right to names, badge numbers, salaries and dates of employment.

According to the Sac Bee, Portantino's staff says the bill is about protecting undercover police officers, which the paper claims are already protected:

Since the effort to change the law has been exposed, Portantino's staff says that what the assemblyman really wants to do is "craft a set of amendments to this bill to specifically protect the identities of undercover officers." But the law and court interpretation already does that. This is an effort in search of a problem.

As a journalist, this issue is a no-brainer for me, but we are very oriented towards the importance of keeping records public.  I'm sure police groups would argue that any piece of information about an officer's identity could lead to someone tracking that officer down... but officers are not really shy about giving out their names, which is the only info I think could really lead to that happening.  Salary info is not going to reveal anything about the officer, as long as his personal information is redacted when the records are handed over to the public.

Unsurprisingly, the California Newspaper Publishers Association had the strongest words on the issue in the Contra Costa Times article:

"Portantino's bill would stop the public from monitoring excessive pay, overtime abuse, nepotism, gender and race discrimination, and the migration of potentially abusive peace officers from one agency to the next," Tom Newton, the associations' general counsel, said in a statement.

I notice that neither paper appeared to get a direct comment from the Assemblyman or his office, however, so I will email them and ask if they have a response to this blog post.

UPDATE: The bill amendments described by the Contra Costa Times were never introduced.  Assemblyman Portantino and his staff have told me in multiple conversations that Portantino never had any intention of supporting the amendments.  

What do all of the above items have in common?  If you are a taxpayer, your helped pay for them, says a Washington Post article.  The charges for those items all came from government employees using credit cards.

So it isn't just Irwindale politicians and local water boards using taxpayer funds for questionable expenses... the federal government does it as well.

The lingerie is really the most bizarre expense on there.... I believe most Americans don't realize that American State Department employees are in Ecuador running drug enforcement operations, but I am sure that until today nobody would have thought they were doing it wearing expensive women's underwear:

In another case at the State Department, a cardholder spent $360 at the Seduccion Boutique in Ecuador to buy "women's underwear/lingerie for use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program." The report does not include further details, but it says a State Department official "agreed that the charge was questionable."

The 300,000 employees with government credit cards remind me of something L.A. District Attorney Dave Demerjian told me for a story on former Baldwin Park  Councilman  William Van Cleave's misuse of a city credit card

"When I speak to public officials, I always say that giving badges and credit cards to city councilmen is like giving a cell phone to a teenage girl," said Demerjian."

So what is the solution... hmm, let me think about how we do it here on the newsroom.  We pay for expenses out of our own pockets, put it on an expense form, and then our supervisors look at it to see if it is an appropriate use of funds.  If it is, they pay for it.  I guess if the supervisor is the one buying the liquor and underwear the system doesn't work quite as well though. 

In other national news, the Justice Department no longer takes corporate wrong-doers to court.

A week or so ago we ran an article an legislator's overseas travel (and their domestic travel).  A lot of us journalists, skeptical of government, tend to assume not much comes out of them.

So to be fair, Assemblyman Charles Calderon told me two weeks ago that on a trip to Spain last month a group of legislators studied an underground tunnel freeway system.

Now, a few weeks later, reporter Fred Ortega reports that pols are looking at applying that system to the 710 Freeway, and European companies want to bid on the job.

Could be coincidence.... or it could be argued that the idea of using that freeway system could have been generated without the trip.  But if not, the trip could pay off for the public. 

The L.A. Times has an interesting background story on embattled County Registrar Dean Logan, who had the misfortune of presiding over the county's double-bubble trouble outbreak that caused 50,000 votes to initially not be counted on the Feb 5 primary.

Apparently, Logan was the head of King County's elections (the Washington state county which includes Seattle) in 2004 when one of the closest gubernatorial contests ended up with the initial outcome (A Republican win) being overturned for a Democratic winner.  Recounts in Logan;s county accounted for the change.

A GOP official who said he was "shocked that anyone would hire Dean Logan," went on to describe the 2004 governor's race like this:

"It might be the last thing I think about before I die," said Vance, the former state Republican Party chairman who was a King County councilman as well as a state legislator. "It was unbelievably bitter and all-consuming for all of us. It was one of the biggest things that has ever happened in my professional life."

Ouch!  Still, Democrats in King County remember Logan fondly, but the election was rough enough on Logan that he took a job as L.A. county deputy registrar in 2006, and is now interim head of the registrar since Connie McCormak's recent retirement.

In all fairness to Logan, regarding the double-bubble mess, the ballot was approved in 2002, years before he got to the county.  Additionally, Logan did attempt to clarify the double-bubble problem (some say a little half-heartedly) in his time as interim head of the department. 

For the umpteenth time I am asking myself why take a job at a privately-owned newspaper, when I could get a job at a publicly-owned state for more pay, benefits, and wildly-overpriced parties.  From the Sacramento Bee, on a $43,000 November bash thrown by the state-owned California lottery:

"Billed as an employee recognition and training event, the expenses actually went to entertainment, prizes and black-peppered prime rib dinners for Lottery employees, retires and guests," Controller John Chiang said in a statement.

Nearly $30,000 was spent on the Nov. 8 event, intended to celebrate the Lottery's $20 billion contribution to education. Besides a dinner and dessert, guests received silver-framed photo frames, and the Lottery hired a D.J. and photographer.

An additional $17,262 was spent on mock Lottery games for entertainment. Among the costs were $5,000 paid to a former Big Spin host as master of ceremonies and $10,932 worth of prizes, including a Nintendo Wii, i-Pods and digital cameras.

Several people have called me today in response to a story I wrote on Sen. Ron Calderon's bill to open up access to some medical records, to ask for the senator's information to write him.  The info can be found on his web site, but I will reproduce it below.  You can also follow this link to an online sheet to contact him.

The Associated Press reports today that now that the legislature's "spring break" week has come, delegations of California lawmakers are off on sponsored trips to Spain and Japan.  The Spanish delegation, which includes local Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) is there on a 11-day trip paid for by the California Foundation, which the AP describes thusly:

"The California Foundation pays for airfare, hotels, transportation and some of the meals on the trips it sponsors. Most of its budget of about $1 million a year comes from the corporations, labor unions and environmental groups that are represented on its board of directors."

The trip is meant to study high-speed rail (i.e. ride on it and maybe take a meeting with some rail officials).  The other group, which is going to Japan to study high-speed rail, is the 13th straight legislature group to go there in 13 years.  Last year, legislators, including local Assemblyman Bob Huff (D-Diamond Bar) also went to France to .... you guessed it, study high speed rail.

I guess they must really know a lot about high speed rail now. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just voiced what many political observers have been saying for months: If the superdelegates vote against the candidate who goes into the convention with the most pledged delegates from the state primaries and caucuses, the Democratic Party will be damaged politically.

Pelosi, who made the comments in a taped segment of ABC's "This Week" as reported by CNN's Political Ticker, seemed to be saying that she will cast her vote as a superdelegate for the popular leader of the Democratic nominating contests. Currently, that person is Sen. Barack Obama.

According to the AP, Obama currently leads Clinton by about 142 pledged delegates, a lead that would remain in place going into the August convention unless Clinton takes landslide victories in the remaining primaries and caucuses -- an unlikely scenario.

Pelosi's words carry great weight and could influence many of her fellow superdelegates -- Democratic members of Congress, state governors and other high-ranking party officials who get their own votes at the convention. Clinton currently leads the superdelegate county, 249-213 according to the AP.

If they follow Pelosi's lead, the roughly 700 superdelegates in the party would easily tip the nomination toward Obama.

 

The Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert blog is reporting that Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena, has been stripped of his chairmanship of the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

This appears to be the first sign of fallout from Portantino's failed candidacy for the speakership. Back on Feb. 28 we speculated on what kinds of repercussions Portantino -- and by proxy, the Valley -- might face after Portantino lost his challenge to Speaker Fabian Nunez's handpicked successor, L.A. Assemblywoman Karen Bass. Losing speakership candidates have faced similar punishment before, but we hoped the relatively peaceful nature of the Nunez-Bass transition might have proved benign to Portantino and other challengers.

Apparently not so. Capitol Alert is reporting that besides Portantino another challenger, Hector De la Torre, has also been removed from the head of the powerful Assembly Rules Committee. It seems that both assemblymen were part of an opposition group of Democrats that had joined to try to thwart Nunez's attempt to have Bass selected as speaker through a procedural maneuver. But De La Torre and Portantino weren't the only ones involved in opposing Bass, so it is unclear why they were the only ones singled out so far.

Will Portantino's loss of clout in Sacramento affect the Valley's already meager chances of attracting state funding in an already dismal fiscal climate? My guess is yes. Higher Education is an important committee, and first to be affected may be our local community colleges like Pasadena, Citrus and Mt. SAC, as well as other universities and assorted students and faculty, whom have just lost a powerful local advocate in the capitol.

Assemblyman Anthony Adam's office just emailed me a Republican-compiled top-10 worst Democratic tax increase proposals of this year.  Looks like that $14 billion budget shortfall isn't going to get reduced anytime soon.

1. The iTunes Tax
   Assembly Bill 1956 (Calderon) would require state tax officials to begin imposing sales taxes on music, movies and software purchases made online, such as on iTunes.  Democrats have also talked about taxing all items purchased on the Internet ($500 million tax increase).

 

2. Taking Away the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction
   Democrats have proposed eliminating the state home mortgage interest deduction, also known as the homeowner’s tax, which provides significant tax savings for working families and helps many Californians afford the expensive costs of home ownership.  This would be a $5.3 billion tax hike.

 

3.      Closing So-Called “Tax Loopholes”
Democrats and others have pushed closing “tax loopholes,” which is an effort to raise taxes on working Californians.  These so-called loopholes include taking away the senior citizen tax credit (a $255 million tax increase) and reducing the child dependent tax credit ($2.4 billion) – which will hurt middle-class families.

 

4. New Health Taxes
   Democrats have proposed the largest tax increase on businesses in state history, an $8 billion jobs tax, to pay for government-run health care.  In addition, Assembly Bill 2967 (Fuentes) would impose a new .06 percent tax on the gross operating costs of every California hospital, to pay for new government health care programs. 

 

5. Creating a New Tax on California Businesses
   Speaker Núñez has talked about creating a new split-roll property tax on California businesses, which would be a $3 to $7 billion tax increase on businesses.  This would lead to higher prices for consumers and the threat of job losses.

 

6. The Plastic Bag Tax
   Assembly Bill 2829 (Davis) would impose a new plastic bag tax, at a still-unspecified level, on the plastic bags used by grocery stores and other retailers to package purchases.

 

7. Making It Easier for Politicians to Raise Taxes
   Senate Constitutional Amendment 18 (Torlakson) would make it easier for local politicians to raise taxes, by allowing educational finance districts to impose special taxes by a majority vote.

 

8. Increasing the Car Tax
   Assembly Bill 2388 (Feuer) would raise the car tax based on the weight of the vehicle and the amount of carbon dioxide emissions it emits, to a still-unspecified level. 
   
   Assembly Bill 2522 (Arambula) would authorize San Joaquin Valley air quality officials to impose a new $30 car tax on local drivers, without a vote of the people. 
   
   Assembly Bill 2638 (Coto) would impose a new sales tax on the sale of cars in California that get less than 15 miles per gallon.
   
   Senate Bill 1731 (Yee) would authorize San Francisco Bay Area transportation officials to impose a higher car tax on local drivers, without a vote of the people.
   
   Democrats have also proposed restoring the higher car tax imposed by former Governor Gray Davis and repealed by Governor Schwarzenegger upon taking office, a $6 billion tax increase.

 

9. Increasing the Gas Tax

Assembly Bill 9xxx (Núñez) would impose a costly new “oil severance” tax on the cost of oil production in California.  This will cause gas prices to soar new heights in California as this new tax will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices at the pump.

 

Assembly Bill 2744 (Huffman) would authorize San Francisco Bay Area transportation officials to impose a new gas tax, of as much as 10 cents per gallon, to pay for new government spending. 

Assembly Bill 2558 (Feuer) would authorize Los Angeles transportation officials to impose one of two different taxes, subject to a majority vote, to address climate change – an increased gas tax as high as 3 percent, or an increased car tax as high as $80.

 

10. Raising Income Taxes
    Assembly Bill 2372 (Coto) would impose a new 1 percent tax on Californians earning more than $1 million per year, raising the state’s highest income tax rate to 11.3 percent. 
    
    Assembly Bill 2897 (Hancock) would impose a new 10 percent tax rate for individuals earning more than $136,115 every year ($272,230 for joint filers) and a new 11 percent tax rate for individuals earning more than $272,230 per year ($544,460 for joint filers). 

 It would have been pretty clear if Sen. Obama had just been able to take Ohio and Texas: no more endless speculation from the blogosphere, and talking heads, and salaried "political expert" columnists.

But since it isn't, let's just revel in the wildly differing opinions on this race.  From Marc Cooper at the Huffington Post:

"There is no plausible scenario in which Clinton can win the nomination. At least not democratically."

The undemocratic situation Cooper refers to is the possibility that the pledged delegate count will be so close to deadlocked that party-chosen superdelegates will be the one to choose the president (for a recap on what superdelegates are see Fred Ortega's post of last month.)

Meanwhile, two columns up at the Huff Post, Stephen Schlesinger argues there are plenty of historical examples of superdelegates elevating a candidate with fewer pledged delegates (Clinton) over the front runner:

"There is no rule in the politics of Democratic Party conventions that says that the contender with the largest number of pledged delegates short of the total required for nomination should automatically, by dint of that achievement, be handed the party's designation. This argument is now being put forth by Senator Obama's campaign."

And, of course, the final x factor is what could happen if Florida and Michigan get their delegates counted (Clinton might still be behind in that scenario, though it would be much closer).  Or, as Cooper and Schelesinger's colleague, Mark Green, suggests, perhaps Florida and Michigan will attempt a new primary which would actually have all the candidates on the ballot. 

Here is a good roundup by the AP about the delegates that were at stake Tuesday and how they were divvied up between the candidates:

There were 370 Democratic delegates at stake in Tuesday's contests, and nearly complete returns showed Clinton outpaced Obama in Ohio, 74-65, in Rhode Island, 13-8, and in the Texas primary, 65-61.

Obama won in Vermont, 9-6, and was ahead in the Texas caucuses, 30-27. Ten of the dozen that remained to be awarded were in Texas; the other two in Ohio.

So as we said earlier, it looks like Obama could take the Texas caucus, pretty much negating Hillary's primary win there. At this point, with those 12 delegates still to be apportioned, the total delegate count is 1,562 for Obama and 1,461 for Clinton -- roughly the same 100-delegate lead Obama carried into the Critical Tuesday primaries.

Again, this is all bad news for Hillary and her supporters. Her victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island are little more than morale-boosting, psychological wins, as opposed to actual, statistical ones.

Clinton wins Ohio and Texas, achieving her campaign's oft state goal of stopping Obama's momentum with wins in those two large states. So what does this really mean?

Back on Feb. 14 we noted that Clinton would have to win the big "Critical Tuesday" primaries by relatively large margins to really eat into Obama's delegate lead. She won Ohio by a good 10 points. But Texas is another story. With 98 percent of the vote counted Clinton has a narrow 3 point lead, and in the Longhorn State's weird "primacaucus" contest she is actually behind Obama by 3 points in the caucus portion of the contest, with about 40 percent of ballots counted.

Unlike California Texas does not automatically award a big chunk of the delegates to the overall winner, so even if she wins the caucus by the same margin as the primary (or if Obama holds his slight lead in the caucus) then they are pretty much gonna split the state's nearly 200 delegates. Not good for Hillary.

As this article by the AP points out, splitting the vote with Obama at this late point in the primaries does not help Hillary, since Obama still maintains the overall delegate lead:

...even if she wins every contest left, Clinton still would have a hard time overcoming Barack Obama's pledged delegate lead. In fact, her task got even harder because even though she won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island Tuesday night, she didn't do much to close the delegate gap — and with every contest that passes, the number up for grabs drops.

Obama focused on the math while addressing supporters in Texas. "We have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning and we are on our way to winning this nomination," he said. 

My take? Unless Hillary wins Pennsylvania by a landslide -- even with that she may not be able to catch up in the pledged delegate count -- she is pretty much finished. Obama will likely hold on to a (however slight) lead going into the convention, and the superdelegates will have to roll over to whoever the popular winner is at that time. Obama wins the nomination.

According to CNN, anyway.  It's kind of a yawner of a news story since McCain was virtually guaranteed to be the nominee since Super Tuesday.

The question is will Huckabee's mathematical elimination make him actually stop campaigning.