Senator Obama and Senator Clinton are two- evenly  matched candidates with two evenly matched coalitions and the Democratic Party in its wisdom or folly rewards delegates proportionally and not in a winner take all manner. This means that candidates who are evenly matched will likely contiune to fight out over a very long process. Lets begin by looking at the delegate selection plan for the three delegations that all vote on Feb 5th and  have the largest of all delegations at the convention[Texas may be bigger than Illinios I am not sure.]  Based on a quick study of these three states it is likely the Democratic race has to go be beyond Feb 5th.

      A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Jerome Armstrong called for a goal of Democrats putting up 80 House Challengers a cycle:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/1/27/1319 57/599
With the Democratic take over the House and a net gain of 30 seats, the number of seats available to challenge has shrunk, however. I believe we can still try to get to 80 Districts that can and should be challenged. What is more is that this is symbolic because it places more than a third of the House Republicans in jeopardy and limits there purely safe members to a grow not large enough to sustain a veto.
 More House seats is important if we wish to see the type of agenda we all want passed, We need both more seats and the political momentum that comes with the perceived mandate. Fortunately we are already blessed with roughly 60 very qualified House Candidates.
Over the Jump, I break down the Four Categories of Republican House Members and their relative number and list the challengers in each category. I will also then break down what the conventional wisdom is currently saying about House Races and where it is important we get out in front of conventional wisdom.

There are some fundamental things that are needed to have any understanding of national polling or else you will be caught talking about things in way that make no sense. This is the trap that www.Hillaryhub.com is currently spinning, arguing furiously that the New Washington Post-ABC News poll is good news for her campaign, when it is at best neutral and actually probably bad.   The only real way to measure polling is not across different surveys but when surveys are done over a period of time to track the trend within the polls. Last Month at the very same time the Washington ABC-Post Poll showed Hillary Clinton ahead by a whopping 33 points, 53-20, her largest margin to date in any survey. This month that lead has shrunk, from 33 points, to now 49-26 or 23 points.  That is of course is still a sizable lead but it is going in the wrong direction.  This trend is also confirmed by the Fox News poll, which showed an October 9th-10th lead of Hillary by 32 points, 50-18, shrinking all the way down to 17 at 42-25 by an October 23-24th survey.  Given the sheer number of national polls, this narrowing trend has yet to be completely confirmed. However it is a very real possibility.  It is the trend and not simply the raw numbers that are more important. Particularly given the lack of a national primary.

    So I have been somewhat closely following the Mississippi Governor race from my dorm room in Washington D.C. and there is a part of me that says Democratic John Eaves Junior has a real shot at the race on Tuesday. As far as I can tell there is no Public polling in this race. So it is all mostly guess work.  Follow me for the guess work

As has been said often throughout history, the perfect is the enemy of the good, or in this case. The perfect is in the enemy of the great. Barack Obama and his campaign are by no means perfect, and yet they represent the closest thing this country has come to a Strong Progressive President since  RFK was gunned down on that cruel June night  in Los Angeles.  That so many Progressives are currently failing to see the historic chance and finding every reason in the world to oppose it this is frankly shocking. I for one find the attacks astounding and sad, as well as universal surrender to the Clinton Political Machine, which while having the potential to pass many positive pieces of legislation and the ability to appoint positive Supreme Court Justice, does not have the ability to win over the whole country as so many ears are already closed to her, and worse still with the Clinton Machine comes simply old ways of thinking. With Barack Obama we get something different and special, if Progressives turn down that chance because of our quest for perfection, we are all indeed truly lost.

There has been much discussion in the netroots  recently about the potential power of the Youth Vote in Iowa, or its lack of power. While I clearly have a side in all this. My most important side is the truth.  There is much discussion about the potential of  Youth of Vote. This diary is about an actual example of undisputed Youth Power. Congressman Joe Courtney would not be a Congressman today were it not for the power of Youth Vote  at the University of Connecticut.  I was not a part of the effort to turnout Young Voters on the Uconn Stores Campus but the numbers speak for themselves.

While this polling and race analysis is primarily for bucking up Obama fans, it is also not completely biased. While, I want Obama to get the nomination, I also think he can and that belief could change. There will be valuable information for non-Obama fans also.
    Let me begin by saying Hillary Clinton is the front-runner. So long as she has a national polling lead of roughly 20 points, she will be the front-runner. However the polling is not anywhere near inevitability level and while Obama supporters may know that intuitively, it is important that we are able to explain why it is so. Particularly when numbers like a 33% poll come out. This poll was a major outlier based not just on the other national polls but also any intelligent analysis of the state polling.  It is also important that has much as this is a race for votes, it is also a race for delegates.  An understanding how this race may play out follows, also with the history guide such a scenario.

Barack,Hillary and Political Venom.

Based on everything we know, Democrats are way up and Republicans are way down.  
This includes money, polling, retirements and organizational power, such as Governorships, across the states.  The American people also agree with us on the issues, like getting out of Iraq, funding SCHIP, even now national security. I could pile on the Republicans but there is no need.
    The sad truth is Democratic positions have always been more popular than Republican positions. If you in 1984 had a blind test on policy between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, Mondale would have won.  To quote Bill Clinton "they need a divided America and we don't. "  What the Republicans do to win is political Venom.      They poison the atmosphere, make people less likely to vote and make all our problems seem harder and less solvable than they are.  Sometimes it is dirty tricks, like the 2002 phone jamming, the 2000 election, Blackwell's long lines, late hour robocalls, and flyers with fake endorsements in the African American Community.
     At other times it is legal, but still despicable, running Osama Bin Laden and Sadddam Hussein in an ad with Max Cleland, or Willy Horton or Swift Boat. They use Venom to win. The question then becomes how do Democrats effectively combat Venom.  This is the key question of the 2008 election because on most major policy issues, the Democratic Candidates agree.  For the shake of this discussion we will be talking about Hillary and Barack, but if you feel your candidate is better suited for it please discuss.