• "Prayers can help and so can the government." That's Bush on the tornadoes that have killed 50 people throughout the south. Oh right he's still president! I think that means you're better off with "prayer." [Washington Post]
  
• Total votes cast in Dem primaries last night: 7,347,971 for Clinton, 7,294,851 for Obama. [Time]
  
• Hillary Clinton loaned $5 million to the Hillary Clinton campaign. We hope she negotiated some good terms...[Politico]
  
• That $5 million will not be used to actually pay her staff...[Time]
  
• Justice for tainted pet food peddlers from China... [WSJ]

• American Apparel sent a memo to its employees instructing them to vote for Obama or McCain in yesterday's primaries BECAUSE THEY HATE WOMEN. Except illegal alien women. [Politico]
  
• And speaking of illegal, that whole American Apparel stunt was... [Politico]
  
• Not that it matters bc no one in California voted for Obama anyway. [Time]
  
• But the unprecedented under-30 vote in Missouri carried Obama...and Huckabee (?!) to victory. [MTV News]
  
• It's actually a good thing Bush was such a distinctly horrible president bc if he wasn't his brother or that "macaca" guy might have the nomination...[Wash Times]
  
• "Michelle Obama looks good in anything, and Cindy McCain looks scary in everything." [XX Factor]
  
• "Wish I looked that scary..." [XX Factor]
  
• Vladimir Putin's love story: now a heartwarming rom com. [Yahoo! News]

MOE: So uh, Barack Obama won Alaska! It's just because they hate women there. Check out this Super Tuesday map as compiled by the Germans. No, better yet, check this SuperTuesday map of California as compiled by the LA Times. It's funny how in most states, Obama wins the, like, black counties, whereas in California, he won the whitest white counties. Humboldt...Santa Cruz...Santa Barbara...San Francisco...all those counties where snowboarding is the economic engine.
MEGAN: Well, Idaho and Alaska are pretty white, too. And, if I recall correctly, he won a majority of white Democratic party voters in Georgia, too.
MOE: Really? Georgia??? I'd like to see the county readout of that.
MEGAN: That what the exit polls were reporting in the 7:00 hour, but here you go. He didn't win a majority among white men, though.
What's REALLY interesting to me is that if you compare the national maps of which candidate took which state — like the ones on the home page of the Washington Post this morning, how similar McCain's majority and Clinton's majority states are.
MOE: Chris Matthews was making a big deal about that. When was the last time the Republican candidate was chosen by the least Republican states, did not play to the base etc. etc. Um... when was it? Like I'd know. Was Nixon popular in the Bible belt?

MEGAN: Oklahoma and Missouri aren't exactly liberal bastions or something
MOE: Obama won Missouri, don't forget!
Yeah, and that's what I kept saying about Oklahoma.
MEGAN: but Matthews sometimes doesn't like to let facts get in between his brain and his mouth.
MOE: Uh yeah he talks with his gland.
MEGAN: see, i would've said "his ass" but either way

MOE: So basically delegate wise the two Dems are both in dead heat, McCain is pretty much a lock as much as the cable news channels love Huckabee because he will actually show up and talk to them about how he hates Mitt Romney for hours and hours...and...oh yeah, we were supposed to tell our readers what this actually means. I think it means YOUR VOTE STILL COUNTS, Megan Carpentier! So don't be makring your your calendar
MEGAN: Yay!
MOE: Although I'm wondering if mine does. I'm registered in Pennsylvania.
MEGAN: Their primaries are April 22
MOE: Oh god.
Spring Break!
MEGAN: Oh, let me source that for anyone wondering when their state's is.
MOE: Well that will be fun. I love my polling place, it's this little South Philly social club and I'll get dinner at a BYOB afterwards. The first time I went in '04 all the little old people wanted to know if gay marriage or abortion was on the ballot. After hearing that neither were, they promptly voted for Kerry and tried to kick the local Republican boss out of dodge. Those people are not going to be Obama voters, something tells me. Although something tells me they may not be still alive.
MEGAN: I want to see old people drive a Republican party boss away with torches and pitchforks and walkers!
My polling place is a senior center, staffed by seniors. It is soooooooooo slooooooow
MOE: Yeah mine's pretty slow too but so is everything in Philly. SO. Who's better for winning all those old school blue states plus Oklahoma? McCain or Clinton?
And seriously, why are Californians still voting for John Edwards?

MEGAN: Well, part of that is absentee ballots, undoubtedly.
And part of it is people probably thinking that it would get him another couple of delegates, which it doesn't because he's no longer seeking them. Protests votes only work when cast for someone actually still in the race.
I mean, I think in a general election, Hillary probably takes California and New York, and McCain Oklahoma. The question is whether Republican voters turn out for McCain in swing states an/or which of them can inspire voters in the middle. Because neither particularly inspires me to wait in a 45 minute line with the old-people smell to spend 30 seconds touching a computer screen.
Also, I would like to make a plea here for my local election boards to remove all those annoying fuckers with "sample" ballots from my polling place, because walking that gauntlet makes me fucking cranky.
Thanks, assholes. I'm pretty sure I can figure out who your party's candidates' are, what with the big Rs and Ds next to everyone's name.
Sorry, pet peeve.

MOE: I generally think that turning out well in Hillary's states means good things for McCain in the swing states. But who actually knows. I have a feeling he'd be a much nastier debater vis a vis Hillary than Obama, plus there's the whole thing where their positions are actually different. But I can also see him slamming her inconsistency on, say, immigration, just for fun? Because he doesn't have to talk to Republicans anymore? The interesting part is we've never really gotten to see McCain throw down with anyone but his fellow Republicans.
Oh I guess we should also talk about how the people of Massachusetts don't just blindly follow wherever Ted Kennedy would try to steer them...
MEGAN: That's true. It's hard to paint McCain as a flip-flopper over anything other than his willingness to suck up to the hard right this time (unlike in 2000).
MOE: (insert your own tasteless joke)
MEGAN: Doesn't that make Obama a body of water?
That we all might drown in?
MOE: "Slutty anxious females" beware!!!

MOE: So this just in from Politico... Obama won the delegate race possibly maybe.
MEGAN: I dunno, CNN and the WaPo have him behind by about 20, give or take, not including New Mexico where it's so close that if his lead holds he'll only be about 1 delegate ahead
MOE: Hey, dumb question, how did Obama win New Mexico and lose Arizona and California so hard? Did they forget to put John Edwards on the ballot there? How does that bode for Texas? And when is the primary in Texas again?
MEGAN: which then puts him about 5 delegates short of her in terms of pledged delegates and about 74 short of her if you include superdelegates overall
The primary in Texas is March 4.
And, I have no idea. I know that Obama was there this week, and I'm not sure if Hillary was, and I'd bet NM doesn't get a lot of candidate love?
CNN's exit poll for NM here. Not that it's helpful.
MOE: Is it big? And also: don't they have Mexicans there? You know, the types that hate Luo tribesmen like Obama?? Or are they the assimilated Ingles speaking Mexicans that actually like Obama? The only people I've ever known to live in New Mexico were hippies who got unwittingly rich off software company options. All white.
MEGAN: Hillary won big among Latinos there, yes
MOE: Oh wow, Obama won every age group under sixty.
But it's an OLD state.
And yeah there weren't enough Latinos between 18-29 to tally up their vote in NM.
MEGAN: Or they couldn't find enough to agree to be interviewed
MOE: Right, actually Latinos between 18-29 allegedly made up 3% of the electorate there.
Also, it should be pointed out that Hillary wins the churchgoers.
MEGAN: Huh. I would not have guessed that one.

MOE: One state that I forgot to talk about last night was Paul Westerberg's home state of Minnesota, which I think brings up the interesting phenomenon of his campaign, which is, like, okay, it's one thing to win the college/idealist/"trendy" vote and the urban vote. But then he's got these states like Idaho and Colorado. It's an interesting collection of voters. I can, like, "see" the average Hillary voter a lot more clearly. With Obama it seems more nebulous.
And he won Minnesota by a long shot.

MEGAN: I mean, that's really been the essence of Obama's "uniting America" campaign, though, right? Appealing to non-traditional voters and the like. It's probably also worthwhile noting that many of the states Hillary won last night are closed-primary states.
So, it could be argued that Hillary's the nominee that Democrats want to vote for and Obama's the nominee lots of other people kind of want to vote for, which is then a discussion of whether it's good/appropriate/whatever for non-Democrats to be picking the Democratic nominee.
MOE: Hahaha it's only fitting when non-Republicans seem to be picking the Republican nominee! I don't think I was registered with a political party until I lived in Philly. Prior to that I voted, like, Green. Ha.
MEGAN: I am actually not registered in a political party at all, deliberately so. I never have been.
MOE: Can you vote in your chosen state?
MEGAN: Not that I want to state exactly where I live, but even if I could vote in a primary, I still would choose not to because I feel strange about picking the candidate for a party to which I don't belong.

8:31 ET: Fox is calling Arkansas for Huckabee, but not for Clinton. They're also calling Tennessee for Clinton, Alabama for Huckabee and everything else remains too close to call.
Also, for your reading pleasure, join Moe on a brand new thread coming up soon!

8:01 ET: MSNBC calls: Illinois for Obama; Okahoma for Clinton; Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey for McCain; and Massachusetts for Romney, sparing him further humiliation today. Everything else is too close to call on polls alone.

7:25 ET: I just looked up and the crawl says the Montana Republican caucus is too close to call. Maria Theresa Peterson from Voto Latino says that there's a generational divide and that their experience is older Latinos (over 40) tend to be more supportive of Hillary and younger Latinos of Obama. The Latino population, though, is also pretty evenly split between people over and people under 40. So, they're kind of as divided as everyone else.

7:20 ET: MSNBC projects that Obama will take about 35 more delegates than Clinton in Georgia. They still don't know wtf is up with the Republicans.

7:10 ET: Obama was long expected to win the Georgia primary, but exit polls on MSNBC show that the African-American vote in Georgia went 83-16 for Obama and the white vote went 54-43 for Obama. African-Americans make up 52% of George Democratic voters.

7:00 ET: The polls closed in Georgia and MSNBC called Georgia for Obama. There are 87 pledged delegates at stake for the Dems.
The exit polls are showing that McCain, Romney and Huckabee are all too close to one another to call. There are 69 delegates at stake for them.

6:59 ET: Before tonight, the pledged delegate standings were as follows:

• McCain: 95
• Romney: 85
• Huckabee: 44 (which includes West Virginia)
• Paul: 6

• Obama: 72
• Hillary Clinton: 55
• Edwards: 26

Megan: So, the reason I wanted to interview you is that a couple months back, Jezebel invited its readers to take a candidate match survey and an absurd proportion of readers found you at the top of their lists when going on issues alone. Mike: Actually, I get that a lot. It's really interesting to me because it just shows that when people know where I stand they end up finding out we have a lot in common. The problem is that the corporate owned media has gone out of its way to stop me from being visible.

Megan: So, it's not just Jezebel readers? Interesting. I did notice that you were kept out of the (many) recent debates, and then they did it to Kucinich too.
Mike: Kucinich didn't lift a finger when they did it to me, actually.

Megan: Sort of like, when they came for the labor unionists, I didn't say anything, huh? But, why do you think that is that they decided to keep people out? It's not like you got an equal amount of time to talk, or that the most recent debates were more interesting because they were smaller.
Mike: In my case, I'm well know to the Powers That Be, and they know that I'm not politics and usual and that I'm not afraid to go out and do stuff even if people disagree with it. Those that are informed, particular those companies [like GE, parent company of NBC] that are part of the military industrial complex, they know me very well and they know that I'm the last person in the world they want to see in power. Unless they're looking for good government, they know there's no way to influence me.

As for the body politic, the elected officials in Washington, they don't understand that the most important change we can make is to empower the American people with the same power they have: to make laws. They're opposed to that. They don't even understand it. What I want to do is give the power of lawmaking back to the people, by allowing ballot initiatives and referenda at the federal level.

Megan: Well, by those metrics, how do you think your campaign is going so far? It's obviously been difficult attracting attention despite a relatively simple series of policy messages.
Mike: Well, I've spent $300,000 so far, half of which came from me and the other half from small, individual donations. It makes it hard to compete with candidates that can and will spend $300 million and more. But, we're getting along. I'm getting some earned media, like this interview, based on my positions which is really helpful.

Megan: Well, that's kind of cool. But, if you wouldn't mind a terrible segue, can we talk about some of your positions? One of the issues of utmost importance to Democratic voters is the War in Iraq. You've been a strong anti-war advocate for your entire political career. Has there been a war you were keen on?
Mike: I am strongly against war- all of them. Vietnam, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and soon Iran. While I think that World War II was necessary, it only became necessary because Woodrow Wilson got us involved in World War I and the aftermath of that.

For me, that's the crux of the matter. Wars do not solve problems, they merely beget other wars. That's the tragedy of history... Iraq is not a problem. The problem is that we will go into another war, in part because the military-industrial complex needs conflict to justify production. The underlying structure that permits this to go forward is this attitude of American imperialism. We have a military presence in 130 countries and 700 military bases around the world. If Americans understood this, they wouldn't be for it. They don't want to to be the world's policemen- not when we have an educational system that is shameful, a health system that is shameful and a crumbling infrastructure. What we're doing is following the pattern of prior empires, particularly the Spanish empire who became the sword-makers to the world and were lost in the fog of history.

The people that are running for President, that are left on the scene today, are all supporting this imperialist trend, particularly McCain and Hillary Clinton and even Obama, who doesn't even know that he's supporting it.

Megan: But, let's draw a distinction between you and another candidate who's against American imperialism — Ron Paul. He's for isolationism. That's not your position, I'm given to understand.
Mike: Oh, goodness, no, I'm not an isolationist. Ron would retreat to Fortress America. What I want us to do is to take our place as an equal in the world and commit to the United Nations and work for world governance and world peace. We now have globalization of the economy; of science; of the ability to destroy the planet; and of the environment. You can't just turn back time. He's steeped in that redneck philosophy that we can't give up sovereignty. I'm suggesting that we move some of that sovereignty away from the nation-state structure and into a world governance structure. We will never have peace on earth until we have global governance. The United Nations is a good charter but it's not functioning on its charter, it's become paralyzed and non-functional as states seek to use it to protect sovereignty at all costs. That's not how to get to world peace.

Megan: That's an interesting perspective. Not too many candidates are advocating world government, so to speak. How does this tie into your position on immigration? Do you feel that your experience as a first generation American informed your position on immigration?
Mike:: Although my parents were both French-Canadians who immigrated here in the twenties, I wouldn't say that their experience motivated my position on immigration, except to realize that you come to love your country through choice. They were really proud to become Americans. My attitude toward immigration comes from living various parts of the country, knowing a lot of various minorities in the community I grew up in and where I studied ... I was never exposed to Latinos until I lived in California when I developed a great deal of respect for their willingness to work hard in this country, which is a value that I got from my father.

But, the immigration issue is nothing more than scapegoating. We have an immigration problem in the minds of our leaders, not in the economy. Because our economy is failing, though, they're looking for someone to blame. There's an interesting parallel: the EU, which is surging ahead of us in many facets of development, they just had 6 countries which lowered all their barriers to the movement of people and capital. But we're erecting a fence on the Southern border. If I were President, I would lower barriers, and I would like to see some of further unity in North American, some sort of central economic entity, to try to match the EU and China on the global stage

Megan: Ok, I apologize, I'm really awful at interview segues, but I do want to take a minute to talk about women's issues for our readers. You are a really progressive candidate on the issues of importance to Jezebel readers, and I just wanted you to talk about them for a minute.
Mike: It's not just women's issues. It's gay rights. It's the drug war, too. It's about individual rights. Let's start with the drug war. Everyone knows marijuana isn't addictive or a gateway drug or anything. But, we arrested 800,000 people last year for marijuana crimes. This is appalling, especially when you consider that we could have spent this money on things like health care. Women are in more danger at childbirth than in any other major industrialized country in the world. It's appalling, and yet we're spending the money that could change that on jailing people who smoke marijuana.

When it comes to abortion, we have a government that, whether it's run by Republicans or even Democrats, has failed to make education about sex, sensuality or love the preeminent education of our children. What is more important in life than that? We make out that something's dirty about sex, and let religion get a hold of what we can do in the bedroom. It's appalling, and there's no reason for this. We're free people, and the definition of freedom is the participation in power. When you as a woman lose power over your body by virtue of people determining when you can procreate, then you're not free. Whether you want to talk about LGBT rights or sex education or anything to do with procreation, the dispensing of condoms, needles... health should be the preeminent concern and the government should get out of the equation after that.

We need more women getting elected to public office, definitely. But I have not seen in my career that women who get into power act that much differently than men. For instance, since I'm in California, Barbara Boxer is very liberal and very good, but Diane Feinstein is more politics as usual. Nancy Pelosi is a liberal politician by virtue of her district, but as Speaker she has governed the same way as any man did before her, and it's disappointing. I would love nothing more than to see a minority or a woman as President. But I want the right woman, or the right minority person: one who believes in civil rights, and who believes in peace and not in defense spending. Otherwise, what's the use? It's just voting for the same policies in different clothing.

Megan: That's a really harsh indictment of some pretty seniors Democratic politicians, and I'm not brave enough to delve any deeper than that. So, let's talk a little about you. On a more personal note, what would you say is your biggest regret?
Mike: My biggest regret was when I was in the Senate, I was very controversial. I was a maverick. I used to get a lot of pressure from my staff, and peer pressure, to be more like everyone else. And I regret not being hard enough, not being more partisan, because that's when I got things accomplished. Today there is this whole attitude that we have to reach across the barriers of parties to accomplish anything. But, by reaching across barriers, they don't actually end up accomplishing anything. Whether it was ending the draft or building the Alaskan pipeline, reading the Pentagon papers or stopping nuclear testing in the North Pacific, all of that was done in my first four years, and none of it was done by reaching across the aisle. By reaching across, what it means is that you put the lobbyists in charge, by giving them more control.

Megan: One thing I hear a lot from some readers is that it's supposedly really important to band together and vote for the candidate most likely to win against the "other" guy rather than voting one's conscience. It's something that really frosts my ass [Yes, I really said this] because it seems to me that it flies completely in the face of the whole point of voting. I thought you might have something to say about that.
Mike: You have it absolutely right. If you vote for power over substance, then you won't ever get either. You've got to vote for substance regardless of who you think will win, because you'll see that substance will win out in the end.

Megan: Any last thoughts?
Mike: The key to everything I stand for is: the definition of freedom is participation in power. The American people at the federal level do not participate in power. They give it away on election day, because they vote for people to make laws rather than the laws themselves. So, we don't have the freedom we think we have, and it shows.

Related: Should I Vote For Clinton Or Obama? [Salon]

Question: Isn't it usually over by now? Why do I keep hearing that the Republican race is probably going to be over but not the Democratic one? Answer: While the Republicans' insistence on winner-take-all primaries may result in a definitive front-runner after their 21 contests today, the proportional awarding of delegates designed by the Democratic Party means that neither Clinton nor Obama are likely to come out far ahead in the delegate race in the 22 Democratic contests being held today.

This means that the late-voting states' Democratic voters (but not their Republican ones) will be able to influence the party's choice of a candidate more than initially expected. (Late voting states include Virginia, Wisconsin, Washington and Ohio.) Paradoxically, Michigan and Florida moved their primaries despite DNC rules and warnings that it would cost them their delegates at the convention in order to have more influence over the process and ended up with none, while relatively red states like Virginia will actually have more power than anyone expected.

Question: Who do I vote for? And where?
Answer: Need some information about how or where to vote in your state's primaries? The League of Women Voters has tons of information to help. (Are you an American expat in Indonesia? Sorry, Obama already "won".) And, in the meantime, contemplate the above image of intra-party affection and hug your opponent's supporter today.

A Super Guide For Super Tuesday [CNN]
Related:Obama The Choice Of Democrats In Indonesia [CNN]
Grateful Dead And Deadheads Reunite For Obama [Reuters]
Who Said: "The Clinton Administration Was The Best Years For The Adult Industry, And I Wish That Clinton Would Run Again?" [Politico]
Vote411.org [League of Women Voters]