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An estimated 75,000 rallied to hear Barack Obama speak in Portland today, just days before the Oregon primary.  Blue Oregon has video of the massive rally that gives a good feel for the size of the crowd.

Imagine John McCain drawing a crowd of this size.  Betcha can’t.

The official NRCC Blog doesn’t typically generate much of a conversation—a few comments here and there, maybe a dozen or so in a really active thread.  So perhaps NRCC chair Tom Cole might want to pay attention to the 1255 comments on his most recent post, “Republican Solutions and a Positive Agenda.“

And all of them negative. Really.  I’ve been browsing the thread for an hour and haven’t found a single supportive comment.

You want to watch the Republican meltdown in action, go read this thread.

George Bush is not, apparently, willing to attend soldier’s funerals. But, perhaps, we shouldn’t be quick to judge him as a selfish prick. He has given up a lot for this war (besides his approval ratings).

Here is a medley of commentary on Bush’s recent Farewell to Clubs:

(These and some 60 other media clips from the past week in politics are posted at Hominid Views.)

35 years ago, in the early days of the Pinochet regime in Chile, folk singer Victor Jara was murdered. Yesterday, one of the people involved, colonel, Mario Manriquez Bravo was found guilty. It’s really an amazing story, and I recommend that you read the whole thing here.

The dictatorship ultimately banned Jara’s music. They even banned some of the folk instruments often used to play it.

That day is over.

The boxing arena where he was murdered is now called Victor Jara Stadium.

Almost thirty-five years later, and nearly two decades after the end of the dictatorship, a Chilean court has found a retired colonel, Mario Manriquez Bravo, guilty in the murder of Victor Jara.

Unfortunately, they also closed the case, despite the clear involvement of numerous others. The Jara family’s attorneys believe that the court is still protecting the rest for political reasons. Now come appeals.

… are you doing inside reading a blog on a beautiful day like today?  Go outside and get some exercise.

Now scram!

The Democrats aren’t the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they’re finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They’re busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They’re frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

That’s Peggy Noonan.  In the Wall Street Journal, for chissakes.  Mourning the death of her party.

At least one Republican isn’t in denial.

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

This is and will be the great challenge for John McCain: The Democratic argument, now being market tested by Obama Inc., that a McCain victory will yield nothing more or less than George Bush’s third term.

That is going to be powerful, and it is going to get out the vote. And not for Republicans.

Ouch.

As Goldy pointed out, there was a new poll for the Washington gubernatorial race released today by Rasmussen Reports. The poll was taken on May 12 on a sample of 500 likely voters, giving it a margin of error of about 4%.

The poll shows Governor Christine Gregoire is leading Dino Rossi 52% to 41%. This double-digit (+11%) lead is substantially better that her +5% lead in a late-April Elway poll poll and her +4% lead mid-April SurveyUSA poll. Finally, the previous Rassmussen poll, taken in late March gave Gregoire a slim +1% lead.

My Monte Carlo analysis of the Elway poll indicated that Gregoire had an 89.9% chance of beating Rossi (but only if the election were held when the poll was taken). It is precisely because that probability is less than 95% (a rather arbitrary number offered as a reasonable cut-off “significance level” by the great statistician Sir. R.A. Fisher early in the last century), that the results are considered a “statistical tie” or “within the margin of sampling error.” But having a nearly 90% probability of winning is not the same as having a 50% probability of winning—something that is implied by the phrase “statistical tie.”

So lets repeat the Monte Carlo exercise to estimate Rossi’s or Gregorie’s probability of winning a hypothetical election held right now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 500 voters each election. Each person had a 52% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 41% chance of voting for Rossi, and a 7% chance of voting for neither.

The result? Gregoire won every single one of the one million elections. In other words, the poll results indicate that, in an election held right now, Gregoire would win with certainty. There are some assumptions involved: the Rasmussen poll is unbiased and the sample was truly selected at random. So violations of those assumptions may offer Rossi slight chances. Furthermore, there is no question that things can and will change before November. But right now the best evidence available suggests that Gregoire wins.

There was another interesting finding in the poll. When the likely voters were asked their views on each candidate, 49% viewed Rossi favorably; 55% viewed Gregoire favorably; 45% viewed Rossi unfavorably; and 41% viewed Gregoire unfavorably. That gives Rossi a +4% spread between favorable and unfavorable, and Gregoire a +14% spread.

I’m thinkin’ the “We Wuz Robbed” meme isn’t really working out for Rossi….

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views)

I guess this is what passes for humor amongst the Guns & God wing of the Republican Party:

Ever wonder why there are so few Republican comedians? It’s because this is what passes for humor During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

One thing you can say about Huckabee, he sure knows how to play to an audience.

UPDATE:
Here’s the video:

Listen to the audience laugh.  Somebody aimed a gun at our first African American presidential nominee… oh man that’s funny, isn’t it?

I keep hearing about a hush-hush poll that’s been conducted, that bodes very well for a Sound Transit Phase 2 package, should one appear on the fall ballot. Hmm… I wonder if the popular support for transit has anything to do with this?

I’m not sure who conducted the poll, or what size the sample, but I’ve been assured by those who have seen it that it wasn’t a puff piece, and that it strongly tested the proposal’s negatives. (And by “negatives” I’m assuming they mean the price and the taxes.) This leads me to believe that it was probably conducted on behalf of folks weighing the risks of getting behind an ’08 ballot measure.

The US Senate voted last night to nullify an FCC rule that would have allowed media corporations to own both a newspaper and a television station in the same major market, no doubt warming the cockles of Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen, who lacks the deep pockets of the rival P-I’s corporate parent Hearst.

So I thought it a good time to remind Frank and his editorial board flunkies that this measure, adamantly opposed by the Bush administration, never would have gotten to the floor for a vote had the Republicans still controlled the Senate. Never.

See, the little letter in parentheses next to the name of the candidate really does matter. Perhaps the Times’ editors should keep this in mind the next time they’re tempted to base their endorsements solely on the issue of repealing the estate tax?

And keep in mind that Rasmussen is widely considered to be a Republican leaning pollster:

The re-election prospects for Washington Governor Christine Gregoire (D) have improved significantly over the past two months. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Washington voters shows Gregoire leading her Republican challenger, Dino Rossi, by eleven percentage points. It’s Gregoire 52% Rossi 41%.

What’s changed?  Largely it appears that the Democratic base is coming home to Gregoire, as one might expect as the election approaches.  But I’ll leave further analysis to Darryl.

FYI, Rasmussen also has Barack Obama opening up an 11-point lead over John McCain amongst WA voters.  Coincidence?

The Tri-City Herald’s Chris Mullick was rummaging online when he came across the state House Republican Organizational Committee’s new website.

It looks pretty sharp. It’s a bit more colorful than the previous version. It’s got a nice photo of House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, with his family. He’s looking all everymanish in blue jeans and polo shirt. The dog is a nice touch.

And if you look to the right you’ll note a fundraising target they’ve set of $35,000 by September. To date, they’ve raised $40.34 and they’re pretty excited about it.

“0% received!” it reads just above the mostly vacant bar chart.

And, it’s interesting to note that at least half HROC’s contributors are HA regulars. And who says this blog isn’t a fount of bipartisanship?

Jesus… was Bush drunk when he gave this speech? It certainly sounds like that from the way he slurred his words. Or maybe he’s suffered a stroke—that would explain a lot of things.

UPDATE:
At the suggestion of Don Joe in the comment thread, I’ve added this clip of Chris Matthews spanking some clueless righty. (This guy is paid to do talk radio, and I’m not? I could have answered Matthews question in a heartbeat.) As Matthews points out, if you’re going to accuse somebody of Neville Chamberlain style “appeasement,” you should at least understand what it is that Chamberlain did: let Hitler take the Sudetenland.

Appeasement is not talking to your enemies. It’s giving in to them.