From the Times Argus today (emphasis added):

Obama may have Neil Jensen of Monkton to thank for his win here Tuesday night. Jensen, a web designer, began talking to friends about the Illinois senator in the fall of 2006 – long before he was even a declared candidate.

A meet-up of Obama supporters at a restaurant in Burlington in December 2006 attracted about 30 people, Jensen said. Soon, the monthly meetings began drawing more and more interested Vermonters – a base that the campaign easily tapped into when it began its groundwork this year in the state.

“Our goal at first was to help out in New Hampshire,” Jensen said. “But once it became clear that Vermont might actually be important in this, we shifted focus.”

High praise indeed! Congratulations, Neil. Don’t forget to send us a postcard from Pennsylvania (you are going to be driving down from Pennsylvania, aren’t you?).

There’ve been a few tense races for the Clinton campaign where they have nearly faced what would have been sold as virtual elimination. Two of those moments in particular have drawn special attention from the media, and given rise to great tensions among the netroots and activist set. There was Nevada, where the system faced legal challenges from Clinton supporters and where there were accusations of impropriety against Clinton-supporting caucus-goers after the fact. Most recently, there was Ohio, where Obama momentum was effectively squelched and reversed in the last 72 hours, leading to a surprisingly definitive Clinton victory amidst charges that her campaign was “going negative.”

What was the common denominator in the Clinton campaign’s popular vote Nevada victory and the across the board victory in Ohio?

This guy:

The Hillary Clinton campaign today announced that veteran Democratic operative Robby Mook would serve as the campaign’s Nevada State Director.

“Robby is an outstanding organizer, and I’m thrilled he’s going to run our Nevada campaign,” said Clinton.

And here again, from HuffPo:

Rival candidate Senator Hillary Clinton is also deploying her most battle-ready field marshals to Ohio. While both campaigns have had skeleton teams in Ohio since January, now the big guns have unpacked their bags and set up their state headquarters in Columbus. They’ve also brought their entourage of top managers, field directors, GOTV staffers and consultants with media buys planned, along with scheduled campaign events and candidate appearances.

Behind the scenes of the Obama-Clinton race to capture Ohio’s 161 delegates, the biggest jackpot of states still in contention, it will be a killer match between each campaign’s point man: Paul Tewes and Robby Mook.

Mook’s resume is impressive; Deputy Field Director for Dean’s New Hampshire effort, work for Kerry and the DNC in states like Wisconsin and Director of the 2006 Coordinated Campaign in Maryland. What doesn’t get much mention is the fact that he’s a Vermonter who got his political feet wet working for the Democratic House Campaign back in the late 90’s, and working as the Statewide Field Director for the Vermont Democratic Party in 2002, where we were both jammed into a tiny, windowless box of a room as officemates.

What really tells me how far Robby has come is this quote, also from HuffPo:

Mook and Marshall are naturally good managers. And they work at being good managers. They see it as a major ingredient to winning–something that makes campaigns work.

With all due props to Robby, that’s half right – and in being half right it sells Robby short. In my opinion, Robby is far from being a natural manager. His clarity of understanding on what needed to be accomplished and how to get there was always spot-on (refreshingly so) – but the guy was constantly second-guessing himself and lacking self-confidence in managing staff in his first outing as a boss. Hell, I was often worried about him, and more than once wanted to go shake the hell out of a couple of his field staffers who seemed to be exploiting his unsteadiness.

No, the fact is that Robby has clearly become a good manager through focus, determination, hard work and smarts. You know – the hard way. And on his way, I suspect he’s learned an awful lot more about how to win than a dozen “naturally good managers” could possibly walk through the door with. By November of ’02, he’d had to knock a couple heads to get staffers in line, and I suspect that was only the briefest prologue to the lessons he went on to pick up in New Hampshire, Wisconsin and elsewhere, before becoming a Clinton campaign powerhouse and cementing his reputation and future in the business once and for all.

So congrats from me, and I’m sure from all your other old buddies from the old days. You’ve earned it, and I have no doubt that this is only the beginning…

When I was a science geek kid, I remember being fascinated by the life and death of stars – especially their deaths, and the strange, exotic things they would turn into when they collapse in on themselves. One piece that caught my eye at the time was the nature of the force that stops the collapse of a star like ours after its death, leaving it a tiny, squished together neutron star or white dwarf.

The force is called “degeneracy pressure.” This is a simplistic example, but imagine crushing a ball of paper in your hands tighter and tighter. There’s a point at which, even though you’re stronger than paper, you can’t squeeze it any smaller. The compression itself creates a counter pressure that will not allow the particles to be crushed down any further. I think there’s a analogy here for what could play out as the Democratic Party’s 2008 electoral future if things continue the way they’re playing out.

The Clinton campaign had to get ugly to stop Obama. And there’s every indication that she’s more than willing to get uglier. She’s embraced right-wing style fear of terrorism narratives in her ads, painting Obama as a shifty flip-flopper on Iraq and NAFTA (with the speculated collusion of Canadian conservatives on the latter, and despite her own badly mixed messages on the issues), playing up his connection to an Illinois political fixer (despite her own family’s storied shady political and financial specters) and has even been suggesting that McCain may be more qualified to the top spot than Obama. Now there are even charges of a replay of the “race card” through the darkening of his image on her website, a la the Time magazine “OJ” treatment.

And, of course, it works. They know what all of us who have ever worked in politics know (well, with the exception of a steady subset of political pros on the left who are in perpetual denial) – people always decry negative campaigning, but they always – always – respond to it. If the negativity seems to be working against you, you just need to crank up the volume a little higher. The simple fact is, it virtually never fails.

But the hidden danger is always cynicism. A level of disgust that pushes down turnout slowly and steadily, cycle after cycle. However, in this instance, Clinton is courting a real danger that the process won’t be so glacial. Obama is bringing in new voters like no one has ever seen. If she ends up beating their candidate with pure sleaziness, its going to feel like a demoralizing game of whack-a-mole to many first time voters dipping their toes in a pool they’re so often told is fixed and corrupt.

And it’s not just the new folks. Obama’s support among the more regularly voting left may simply find that there’s a point at which they can’t be crushed down by sleaziness any more. This is what the Democratic establishment needs to be most worried about. Voters are castigated for (ridiculously) suggesting that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats, as it’s clear that even a Dem hawk like Hillary Clinton would be far less likely to get us into another Iraq-esque war than John McCain. Obama supporters who suggest that they may have a problem voting for Clinton will be chastised on the one hand, but on the other hand will be asked to look at the process intellectually, recognize the clear distinction, swallow hard and vote for Clinton.

But people are not computers, and all the castigation and reasoning can not change that fact. If Clinton wins with a scorched Earth strategy that stomps this thing into the gutter, there will be many voters who – as a result of a sort of psychological degeneracy pressure that simply doesn’t allow them to be further crushed down past a point certain – will simply be emotionally unable to make a choice to reward her with their vote in November. It may not be rational, it may be frustrating, maybe even self-defeating, but people are as much creatures of emotion as reason, and all the castigating in the world won’t change that simple reality.

And if we’re to call ourselves a “reality based community,” we need to look this reality square in the eye, like it or not, and find a way to deal with it.

Petty much every news source there is has now projected the state for Obama from virtually the moment the polls closed, as exit polls are showing 2-1 Obama blowouts that may leave my 60-40 prediction in the dust if they hold true. The exits will be Chittenden (and particularly Burlington) heavy, though, so it may not be quite the mind-numbing nuclear smackdown that it’s looking like – but it’ll be close enough.

On the Dem side elsewhere, Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas are still voting … all are exit polling at almost even (and that includes Rhode Island, which aint good news for Clinton) (never trust the exit polls, I guess).

In 2004 83,000 Vermont voters picked up Democratic ballots. I’m gonna make some finger-to-the-wind magic guesses here, and say roughly 55% of that usual suspect voter pool is going to be voting for Obama today, with about 45% going towards Clinton.

The big Obama wave is going to kick in in the vote tallies above and beyond that number. I’ll go as far as to guess that 75% of the votes above and beyond that 83,000 base will be Obama’s. The Secretary of State’s office printed an additional ballot run of 25%, and I’m guessing that they’re gonna get used up. If we add that 25% in and use this formula which is based on absolutely nothing, that means that Obama will have roughly 62,000 votes to Clinton’s 43,000 (give or take a few hundred), or a split of roughly 60% to 40% for Obama.

Delegates are a lot easier to predict, especially after chatting it up with some smarter people than I. The process is a bit… odd. There are categories passed down from the DNC that can be allotted in different ways. Why not just make it simple? Well, because it’s about affording as many opportunities as possible for high-profile Dems and officeholders to get those delegate slots and go on the big trip to Denver. That means that most of the delegates are “district level,” are allotted proportionately, and are selected at the State Convention. The remaining are (mostly) also allotted proportionately, but are selected later by a meeting of the convention-elected district-level delegates at a meeting in early June.

In any event, this is how they’ll split. The district level delegates will split 6-4 for Obama. The “at-large” delegates will go 2-1 for Obama, and the 2 “pledged party leader” delegates, will be divided evenly.

So the ultimate delegate count decided tonight should be 9 for Obama and 6 for Clinton. If my prediction is off, and Obama wins crazy big, breaking 65% of the vote, that split will be 10 to 5.

Currently, the unpledged, so-called “super” delegates in the state are divided 5 to 1 for Obama. This means, that when the dust settles, Vermont should be sending 14 delegates to the convention to vote for Obama and 7 to vote for Clinton, with an additional unpledged “add on” delegate to be decided at the early June meeting (again, that would be 15-6 if Obama breaks 65%).

So… what’s your best guess?

Bill Simmon & company are again looking to capture Town Meeting stories via the blogesque Exit Voices site. Here’s the blerb:

Exit Voices is a Vermont blogging experiment. It’s a forum for Vermont voters to come together and discuss the issues and candidates on the ballot.

In the comments section of the Exit Voices posts, answer these two questions:

1. What motivates you to go to your town meeting or polling station and vote?

2. If you could add a comment on your Ballot for your elected officials to read, what would you say?

Alternately, tell us what you said at your Town Meeting, why you refused to vote, or what makes you crazy about our system of democracy.

SO, if you can, log on after meeting or voting or during a break and share your stories. It’s a cool thing, and worth participating in.

UPDATE: Okay, quick update to offset the kind of snarly freaking out over the comparisons with previous polls in this diary that the crosspost at dKos (which I just got sick of dealing with and deleted – damn, those folks are nuts over there these days… never mind…) is generating from the true believer set: Yes, I know these are different pollsters. Yes I know the poll was from days ago, and yes – the release date of the previous polls ALSO reflect polls done days before.

This is just interesting – and yes, I say below that I DO think it’s an outlier poll, but I also think – from being here on the ground – that its indicative of at least SOME momentum for Clinton up here, since she just started pushing in earnest here in the last week and has a couple high-profile campaign ambassadors. Please… calm down… end UPDATE

UPDATE 2 – Okay, some good DID come out of the massive Obamaphile pile-on… somebody rightly noticed that this poll got sat on a bit longer by WCAX than one would’ve thought, so it was actually done BEFORE the Rasmussen poll… as the in-between poll, it almost certainly IS an outlier, in terms of Obama vs. Clinton, and probably doesn’t reflect any kind of actual movement. end UPDATE

As with the Governor poll, Research 2000 used questioned 400 likely voters, with an oversample of self-identifying Republicans and Democrats to get to 400 each. The calls took place February 19 through February 21 and, again, given the relatively small sample size, margin for error is 5%. Thanks to Research 2000 for making what information they can available to GMD (there is more detailed information, but they couldn’t just hand that over… proprietary, and all).

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY:

QUESTION: If the 2008 Democratic Primary for President were held today, which of the following candidates would you vote for?

                                        ALL      MEN     WOMEN                                                                  

Barack Obama                  53%        60%            47%            

Hillary Clinton                     39%       32%            45%            

Undecided                           8%         8%              8%              

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY:

QUESTION: If the 2008 Republican Primary for President were held today, which of the following candidates would you vote for?

                                     ALL          MEN       WOMEN

John McCain                 52%            58%            45%      

Mike Huckabee             32%            28%            37%      

Ron Paul                         7%              9%              5%      

Undecided                       9%              5%            13%  

ALL VOTERS

QUESTION: If the 2008 election for President were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choice were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, and John McCain, the Republican?

                                           OBAMA              MCCAIN           UNDECIDED

ALL                                         57%                      36%                          7%  

MEN                                        52%                      42%                          6%

WOMEN                                 62%                      30%                          8%    

NORTH                                   56%                      38%                          6%

SOUTH                                    59%                      33%                         8%

QUESTION: If the 2008 election for President were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choice were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, and Mike Huckabee, the Republican?

                                              OBAMA           HUCKABEE         UNDECIDED

ALL                                          61%                      34%                        5%  

MEN                                         56%                      40%                        4%

WOMEN                                  66%                      28%                        6%    

NORTH                                     59%                     36%                        5%

SOUTH                                     64%                     30%                        6%

QUESTION: If the 2008 election for President were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choice were between Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, and John McCain, the Republican?

                                         CLINTON          MCCAIN          UNDECIDED

ALL                                         56%                      36%                          8%  

MEN                                        51%                      42%                          7%

WOMEN                                 61%                      30%                          9%    

NORTH                                   55%                      38%                          7%

SOUTH                                    58%                      33%                         9%

QUESTION: If the 2008 election for President were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choice were between Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, and Mike Huckabee, the Republican?

                                         CLINTON           HUCKABEE        UNDECIDED

ALL                                          60%                      34%                        6%  

MEN                                         55%                      40%                        5%

WOMEN                                  65%                      28%                        7%    

NORTH                                     58%                     36%                        6%

SOUTH                                     63%                      30%                        7%

Some analysis after the fold.

Besides noting that Huckabee may well squeeze out some delegates from Vermont, I’m not going to spend any time thinking about the GOP numbers. They speak for themselves.

The Democratic primary numbers also speak for themselves; the female vote is an even split (with Obama up a statistically insignificant 2%), but males breaking almost two-to-one for Obama. If these numbers hold, given the 8% undecided number across both genders, Obama could be looking at a 58-42 victory, which is a blowout, but perhaps not the blowout he would like to see. Obama strategists are already talking about a massive victory in Vermont offsetting a slight loss in Ohio, if in fact he does lose in Ohio (after the Obama campaign’s astonishing rapid media response in the last few days to Clinton’s who-will-save-us-from-the-terrorists ad, a handful of points may tip over and send it his way after all).

Vermont, being a small state, can turn around very, very quickly, and its worth noting that the Chelsea Clinton visit and accompanying media blitz may well generate some dividends for Team Clinton. That could be moot, though, if rumors of an Obama campaign stop in the state prove to be true.

Here, then, are the three polls done in the last week or so, in chronological order:

            ARG (2-22)    Rassmussen (2-25)   WCAX/Res2000 (2-27)

OBAMA        60               57                            53

CLINTON      34               33                            39

That’s a whopping 12 point change (Obama 7, Clinton +5) in Hillary’s direction from the ARG poll. The question is; is the WCAX poll an outlier, or is there some momentum in Vermont towards Clinton? (UPDATE: Outlier for sure. WCAX sat on the poll a few days longer than usual probably to wait until their entire package of issue polls was done, and as such, somebody caught that this poll chronologically falls between the ARG and Rasmussen polls. Probably the difference is a low-sample size hiccup, given that the other two polling firms agree.)

A little from column A and a little from column B? Obama has had a de facto campaign presence through the efforts of very motivated volunteers and bloggers for some time, but only in the last few days has Clinton had anything going on. With ambassadors such as former Governor Kunin going everywhere she can to remind Dems what they may have liked about Clinton, there’s bound to be some payoff. And as I mentioned, the former first daughter’s campaign stop will feed that even more. So where I think the momentum nationwide has been steadily towards Obama – here in Vermont, where Obama’s had a win wrapped up for some time, we may be bucking the trend (UPDATE: Doesn’t look that way after all… see above…). It’s likely though, that if an Obama visit does happen in the next couple days, that dynamic will again turn around.

Which means, I’ll be waiting until at least Monday night before I dare to stick my neck out with any predictions…

What’s also interesting about this poll is the head-to-head general election matchup questions.

Statistically, you could put Obama, Clinton, McCain and even Huckabee in a big shaker and dump out whoever you want from either party, and the numbers come out basically the same. Obama does a bit better on that head-to-head, but it is on the far end of the margin of error.

The slight bump in Obama’s support versus McCain in women polled (as compared to Clinton’s support versus McCain) is interesting. Given the hard partisan split evident – which will likely equate to solidarity in the general among Dem women regardless of the candidate, it’s likely that slight bump comes from independent and Republican women feeling a bit better about Obama than Clinton.

Gotta love numbers…

Here are some details on the recent polls done for WCAX by Research 2000, a polling firm out of Maryland that does a lot of the polling work for small media markets nationwide and seems to be WCAX’s go-to firm of choice over the last few years.

400 “likely voters” were interviewed by telephone between February 19 through February 21, 2008.  400 is a small sample, and many media sources prefer to see at least 600 as a viable sample pool. Still, Vermont is a small state, so the scale mitigates some of those concerns. Margin for error for this sample size is significant at 5%.

GOVERNOR RACE:

QUESTION: If the 2008 election for Governor were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Peter Galbraith, the Democrat, Jim Douglas, the Republican, and Anthony Pollina, the Progressive Party candidate?

                                 DOUGLAS     GALBRAITH      POLLINA      UNDECIDED

ALL                                 53%                22%                   15%                   10%

MEN                                57%                19%                   16%                    8%

WOMEN                         49%                25%                   14%                   12%

NORTH                           56%                20%                   13%                   11%

SOUTH                           48%                25%                    18%                    9%

Some analysis follows…

The first thing one notices is that 1-2-3 ordering of Douglas-Galbraith-Pollina is consistent across these crosstabs, through gender and geography. Both Pollina and Douglas perform a bit beneath their overall percentages with women, while Galbraith scores higher. Douglas is clearly weaker in the south (and I have no way to know exactly where that line of distinction is drawn, but lets presume its more-or-less the southern 4 counties and a chunk of Orange), and that weakness pays off equally for both Pollina and Galbraith. That shift certainly comes disproportionately from Windham County which is resolutely anti-Douglas (it was the only County Peter Clavelle won in 2004).

The biggest thing here, though, is obviously the question itself, which, as many of us surmised in the previous thread, identifies each candidate by party. On name recognition alone, Pollina – who has been on three statewide ballots – has name recognition all over Galbraith, so its doubtful anyone would dispute that that 22% is keyed to that “Democratic” label, making it Galbraith’s practical floor of support. Also, as I mentioned before, this group isn’t simply Democrats who likely reject Pollina as a candidate (as they will also splinter off into “undecided” – and of course, there continues to be a weeniecrat contingent which support Douglas), but is likely to be disproportionately liberal and center-left Democrats who reject Pollina, given the bleed into the other categories.

Despite the stark numbers, there is good news, as well as bad news. The bad news, of course, is the surprisingly small percentage of undecideds. 10% aint much at this stage. In this scenario, Pollina’s high name recognition works against him, as most voters already know and have an opinion of him. He’s going to have to change their minds.

Galbraith, however, is likely to be a blank slate to most, and therefore has an opportunity to define himself. If the undecideds were higher, Pollina would have the advantage among the two leftist candidates, but its gonna be easier to win folks if they haven’t already formed an opinion. The problem is, of course, he has to get off his duff and start that process if he’s serious, because it takes time.

And there’s no soft-pedaling that this poll is neither what Pollina supporters likely hoped for or expected. Coming in a solid third against a Dem nobody has heard of completely undercuts their argument that he should be the sole candidate of the left precisely because people have heard of him. And realistically, Dems should avoid the inclination to project this number onto all Progressives. Pollina is a unique figure in Vermont politics who generates strong feelings from people. It’s likely that, had the Progs run someone like Zuckerman or Pearson, those numbers could be different – and in either direction (I suspect Zuckerman’s would be higher and Pearson’s would be lower).

But the hidden good news is Douglas’s 53%, coming right smack in between his favorability ratings and generic re-elect numbers from the previous CAX poll, further suggesting that those favorability numbers in excess of that November re-elect value (43%) could be soft. It’s also a smidgin down from his support at this stage two years ago, but only by a couple percentage points.

It’s likely, looking at these early numbers, that once Galbraith kicks in, he and Pollina will go into direct competition for the anti-Douglas vote, while also trying to peel off that percentage of the Douglas vote that they each feel entitled to (for Pollina, rural northeast kingdom voters, and for Galbraith, business-oriented Democrats). This could generate enough heat and light to spark interest among the media and press, drawing attention in a way that Clavelle and Parker never could by themselves. That would be a good thing.

Now if we could just get these two into a primary so one of them could have a clean shot come November, we could have the best of both worlds.

Spotted in the statehouse: Republican Senator and political dynastic heir Diane Snelling (R-Chittenden) sporting an Obama button.

Shumlin waxes Churchillian on education funding: While commenting that the current, recently tweaked school funding scheme should be given more time to work before resorting to another wholesale overhaul, Shumlin commented to reporters that Act 60 and Act 68 amounted to “the worst system for funding school budgets in the country – except for all the others.” Heh.

Why I’m giving Al Franken money for his US Senate campaign in Minnesota: Because he sent me the best fundraising letter I ever read. My favorite part was the salutation – no mail merged “Dear John”, but rather “Dear Person I’m Asking For Money,”

Freaking priceless!

The news from the Free Press today was a shocker:

Beset on all sides by regulatory challenges, the beleaguered Intervale Center announced Wednesday night it will close its majorbig [sic] composting operation sometime the coming months.

The facility cannot afford to answer pollution concerns and obtain recently mandated permits, Perkins said.

At the Chittenden Solid Waste District, General Manager Tom Moreau said the district will urgently seek alternatives.

The Intervale has been a crown jewel, not just of Burlington, but of Vermont. Find another city which has increased its agricultural base in the last two decades. The reclaimed dump of a site has not only been a thriving economic engine and community-enhancer, it has maintained a uniquely successful, large scale composting operation, diverting tons of waste in Chittenden and neighborig counties that was otherwise destined for landfills, and generating agricultural products in the process. It is something I’ve heard Democrats, Progressives, Republicans and Independents speak of with pride.

But not all Republicans. A couple in particular became fixated on the Democrats and Progressives involved in its operation – particularly Democratic Speaker of the House Gaye Symington and Progressive Representative (and organic farmer) David Zuckerman. When it came out that runoff from the composting operation was not up to specs, Governor Jim Douglas and his attack dog, Agency of Natural Resources Secretary George Crombie could hardly maintain their glee. They tied the discharge violation around Zuckerman’s and Symington’s necks as tightly as they could, despite a continuing history of ignoring meaningful permit violations that don’t have high profile Dems and Progs associated with them.

But the problem was that they were dealing with environmentalists, and unlike their GOP business buddies who might mutter and fume about having to cowtow to the tree-huggers, the folks at the Intervale were fully and humbly prepared to comply – providing, in the process, an example to others.

That would never do for Douglas. So what does he have Crombie do? Revoke the Intervale’s classification as a farm, retroactively making it subject to all the Act 250 provisions it had never built into its business plan. The new, unexpected burdens – particularly ones relating to concerns about possible siting on archeological sites – suddenly dumped never-accounted for costs that, with an unfriendly agency, would clearly go well into six figures.

If you’re still entertaining the notion that this wasn’t a political hit job, consider the rumor in circulation that I was able to confirm with a source close enough to know. In a conversation with the Intervale Director, Crombie openly gloated that he had the Intervale “in a noose” and wasn’t about to let go.

That’s right. He actually said “in a noose.”

So an operation that has diverted tens of thousands of tons of solid waste from landfills and kept nearly a million gallons of liquid waste from wastewater treatment facilities over the last two decades, serving as a model of urban agriculture and green economic success is closing its doors.

And all for one reason, and one reason only: pure, vindictive, political thuggery. Congratulations, Jim. You win.