Here's Hiram's observation in response to yesterday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana:

John McCain Still Can’t Convert 20-25% Of GOP Primary Voters

Since Barack Obama is already the Democratic nominee in all but name, the real news last night is that the GOP Presidential nominee John McCain still has Republican primary voters voting against him even though he’s running uncontested and already has more than enough delegates to win the nomination officially. I’ve discussed the prior races, including Pennsylvania, where more than one in four GOP primary voters voted against John McCain, and Mississippi, where one in five voted against him. Last night more than one in four North Carolinians voted against John McCain in the GOP primary - and more than one in five did so in Indiana.

If Republicans vote against John McCain when he’s the only candidate - how can McCain hope to win in the general election? John McCain cannot afford to let McCain defectors vote for Barack Obama - but he can’t afford for them to stay home either. If he’s going to have any hope of winning, John McCain will need to have Republicans vote for him - and the 75-80% GOP compliance evidenced in the last four uncontested primaries most likely isn’t enough in a general election.
 

DuPage County Board 5 Candidate Tony Michelassi Gets Press -

Democratic Candidate Tony Michelassi got picked up by the Lisle Sun in a profile here - and Progress Illinois picked it up here. I met Tony a while ago (he was then with Ruben Zamora’s 14th Congressional District campaign) - and he is certainly enthusiastic. You can check out Tony’s campaign blog here.

[WurfWhile]

Ed Kilgore writes this today at The Democratic Strategist:

McCainCare Equals BushCare

by Ed Kilgore, April 30, 2008 09:26 AM EST

In non-Jeremiah-Wright related political news, John McCain has re-released his health care plan, and the bottom line is that if follows George W. Bush's most recent proposals, which were assessed by most health care experts as representing some point along the spectrum that leads from unserious to dangerous.

Like Bush's plan, McCain's focuses on replacing the employer subsidy for health care with tax incentives for the individual purchase of health insurance. Thus it arguably represents an attack on the very idea of group health insurance purchasing, throwing federal resources into subsidies for the expensive and highly discriminatory individual market. This is somehow supposed to hold down costs.

...

Read the rest here.

Something exciting from one of my favorite bloggers:

The Youth Vote

A year and a half ago, the New York Times took a look at the party affiliations of different generations, producing a fascinating chart that showed a tremendous movement among young voters toward the Democratic party. By 2006, Democrats had opened up a lead among 20-year-olds of 52-37, the largest measured gap ever.

So what's happened since then? Acording to Pew, the gap has gotten even bigger. In polling done over the past six months, voters in their 20s identified as Democrats by a margin of 58-33. That's a 25-point gap. For comparison, the biggest recorded gap before now was 11 points at the height of Democratic dominance during the late 40s and 13 points after Watergate. But it turns out that even Nixon couldn't come close to doing the damage to the Republican brand that George Bush has. His administration has nearly doubled the previous record.

Via Mori Dinauer, who suggests that this means at least an extra million votes for the Democratic candidate in November. And the even better news? There's a good chance it means an even bigger advantage in 2012 and beyond.

I got a chuckle out of this note, which came today from Bob Peickert, Chair of the Democratic Party of DuPage County.  Thanks, Bob!

Dear DuPage Democrats,

Many of you probably had the chance to read about the GOP challenges leveled against our newly slated candidates. If not, here is the first article that appeared on April 15, entitled "DuPage GOP challenges all new Democratic candidates" The second part of the story, found here, appeared two days later with this title: "DuPage election board to Kachiroubas: You're too late"

The real punchline to this story is that, after making false public statements challenging our procedures, the challengers themselves were unable, given an entire week to do so, to walk 100 yards from the circuit clerk's office to the election commission to file a HANDWRITTEN, MISSPELLED and NEARLY ILLEGIBLE complaint on time.

If John McCain is just a regular guy, what's with the fortune in his back pocket?  And why is he going to such lengths to hide it?  Here's another view from Political Animal:

JOHN McCAIN'S FINANCES....Even though I've commented on this before, I didn't realize just how skimpy John McCain's financial disclosure was until I read this Moneybox piece over the weekend:

Aside from a Wachovia checking account, in which he keeps between $15,000 and $50,000 (wouldn't some of that money earn more interest in a certificate of deposit?), all of the couple's assets are in Cindy's name. John McCain's tax return is so anemic, so marginal to the couple's actual financial situation, that he doesn't even take a deduction for interest on his home mortgage. Presumably Cindy does, since disclosure forms indicate that she has several mortgages.

Can we stop pretending to be children about this? There's only one reason for a politician to make sure that all his assets are in his wife's name: it's to make sure that no one knows anything about his assets. It's not as if McCain is the first pol to try this, after all.

Is the press really going to let him get away with this?

[ Emphasis added - Steve ]

If you were unable to join us at last night's Community Forum, you missed a compelling and challenging presentation.

Gene Tenner began with a slideshow asking what it would be like for us at ages 6 and 8 - or worse yet, our children - to have to run, terrified, from bombs and guns, as we see our parents arrested or killed, our houses burned.  Running away from everything familiar, across Illinois, across the surging Mississippi River, where many of us would drown or be swept away, across Iowa and Nebraska and eventually to Colorado, hoping just to find shelter and safety.

That is essentially the experience of the 27,000 "Lost Boys" of Sudan, in the strife that began in 1983 and continues today.

Gene then introduced us to two local Sudanese residents, John Enakal and Wilson Luol, who lived through that terrifying pilgrimage and have now come to the United States and become citizens here.  They shared with us some of their stories, took our questions, and asked us some challenging questions in return.  They are now working to rebuild their lives and build a community here in DuPage for themselves and their children.  This was probably the most worthwhile hour I've experienced in recent memory.

There is something you can do to help.  I've attached the text from their handout below:

For those of you who have been worrying about what this year's extended Democratic primary season means for our prospects in the fall, The Democratic Strategist pointed this morning to this analysis by Alan Abramowitz at The New Republic.  The bottom line: "There's no question that the past few weeks have been rough on Obama.  [... But a]ccording to every known leading indicator, 2008 should be a very good year for Democratic candidates at all levels."

It starts like this...

Cheer Up, Democrats!  by Alan I. Abramowitz

Even if the primary stretches on, a long-term tectonic shift in the electorate means the party is in great shape for November.
Post Date Friday, April 25, 2008

It's all over but the shouting. Even though the Democratic Convention is still four months away and the presidential election is more than six months off, Barack Obama might as well admit that John McCain will beat him so squarely that he might as well start working on his concession speech. At least that's what you'd assume if you've been reading the latest musings of the Washington commentariat, which have only amplified in the wake of Hillary Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania. In the past month, articles proclaiming that Obama's campaign is doomed have been proliferating on websites and editorial pages. And it's not just GOP frontmen like George Will and Robert Novak who are making the argument that Obama's candidacy is seriously, perhaps fatally, flawed. Recently, some prominent progressives including TNR's John Judis have joined the chorus of Obama general-election skeptics.

...

Dear Steve,

Urge Congress to support real foreclosure relief legislation now!

Two weeks ago, by a vote of 84-12, the Senate passed important legislation that would begin providing relief to homeowners facing foreclosure.  It's a good first step towards solving America's housing crisis -- but there's still much more work to do.

Now the action moves to the House, where Speaker Pelosi and our Democratic colleagues will debate our bill -- and hopefully strengthen it -- before it comes back to the Senate and, ultimately, we send it to President Bush's desk for his signature.

Nearly 3,000 members of the DickDurbin.com online community have already emailed their Members of Congress, urging them to act swiftly to address the foreclosure crisis.  Will you join them?

Please forward an email to your Senators and Representative now: Urge them to support real foreclosure relief legislation!