Seems there’s an aspect here of protesting a bit much on the State Department’s part. Amazingly, within 24 hours of the news of the snoops into Sen. Obama’s file, we have news that the same thing has happened to each of the other presidential candidates. Presumably if Gov. Huckabee had done better in South Carolina we’d be hearing that he got a look too. The look at Sen. Clinton’s file was done by a trainee during a training session after an instructor asked a class to practice with random names. So, really not in the same category. And McCain’s breach, well … not much information at all about that one, other than that it was done by one of the same people who snooped Obama.

Adding to the oddity is that the fact that the State Department seems much more solicitous of the privacy of these fired rule-breakers than the privacy of the president candidate(s) being snooped. State is still refusing to release the names of the snoopers or the contractors they worked for.

From the Journal …

“The time that he could have been effective has long since passed,” [Penn] continued, “I don’t think it is a significant endorsement in this environment.”

Perhaps sensing that it may not be effective to dismiss out of hand a popular Hispanic governor’s political clout, campaign spokesman Phil Singer chimed in. “We respect Gov. Richardson,” he clarified, “But at the end of the day this campaign is about Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama.”

As Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen argue in this piece in The Politico, the press has been largely complicit in maintaining the fiction that the Democratic nomination race is not for all intents and purposes over. The obstacles in the way of Hillary Clinton are virtually insurmountable. And her now-sizable deficit among pledged voters is only one of them. Everyone in the press, probably including us, should be much more candid about that.

Chris Wallace has had enough Faux News:

The girl, now a young woman, in the Hillary red phone ad has made a web video for the Obama campaign, rejecting the “politics of fear.”

This will probably bring the emails out of the woodwork. And that’s fine; we can take it. But usually when we publish something that doesn’t reflect well on either of the remaining Democratic candidates (was the same when Edwards was still in) we get a flood of really not very happy emails from readers. Yet this afternoon, just before going to a meeting, I posted a link to The Politico article on Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the nomination and expressed my agreement with it. When I returned I fully expected an avalanche of emails from Hillary supporters. But when I did return, nothing, or nearly so. Even the few we did get barely seemed to have their heart in it.

This is, I grant you, a highly unscientific measure. But I wonder whether the collapse of the revote negotiations, the revelation that the campaign is in debt and the Richardson endorsement together are collectively forcing a moment of realization.

TPM Reader MR disagrees …

I have to say that I disagree with your entry stating that Clinton supporters have thrown in the towel and accepted that Barack Obama will be the nominee. Let me be clear, we will never back down until the fat lady sings. And that performance, which will be for the better, will be on the convention room floor. It will be an all out brawl!

We’re not backing down! The fight has just begun!!!! Pennsylvania is around the corner and a large victory is excepted. Polls in West Virginia also strongly favor her. Polls in North Carolina that have favored Obama are now virtually tied. There will be big surprises in North Carolina.

It’s not over. And I might also point out how inaccurate the Politico article that you quoted/linked to really is. If the superdelegates support Clinton there will be “a backlash of historic proportions”!?!? THEY WOULD BE DOING THE JOB THEY WERE CREATED FOR, JOSH. The superdelegates weren’t created to add fluff to the popular vote, but to make the educated decision that voters sometimes can’t. They’re there for the same reason the electoral college is. For example, picking a glorified motivational speaker over an experienced leader (good example, eh?). The SD’s are there to put the better qualified and more electable candidate in charge. And in poll after poll, that’s Hillary.

I’m sorry Josh, but you have it wrong.

[ed.note: A few readers seem to have had the misimpression that we might agree with DT’s email. Ummm … not so. And in case there’s any question, most of DT’s claims are patently false. Actually I’m not sure there’s a single claim that has any factual validity to it. But sometimes I think it’s worthwhile to know what folks on the fringes are thinking, especially when the fringes are growing in toward the center.]

From TPM Reader DT …

I won’t get upset about Hillary being called a loser. Why? Because I already have plan B figured out.

I got really emotional about it before I realized that I would vote McCain and a straight top to bottom GOP lineup if Hillary isn’t the nominee and leave the party if Florida isn’t counted.

Its not about winning anymore. Its about whether the Democratic party and its anti democracy is worth defending or if the most liberal GOP presidential candidate in decade is a better use of my vote.

Obama has done the following

1) Sat idly by as Jessy Jackson Jr called Hillary a racist and Wright likened what Bill Clinton did to Monica to how he treated Black people.

2) Acted to avoid democracy both in caucuses and in Florida and Michigan

3) Threatened the party both in terms of his voters not voting and in terms of his supporters often threatened rioting in Colorado if the rules are followed where super delegates vote as they please or with the majority vote not as the pledged delegates which are mostly determined by caucuses.

4) Called anyone a racist who challenged his 2 years on the national scene as not being enough experience for commander in chief

5) Minimized the connections with Rezko while refusing to answer questions about what appears to be a $600,000 bribe that likely comes directly from a Saddam loyalist.

6) Claimed that his Independent and GOP voters are better than Hillary’s Democrats.

In a revolution words don’t matter. Actions matter. I am at peace with my voting actions come general election.

White House: Sorry, we threw away the hard drives.

To follow up on the emails I posted last night, it’s worth saying that over the last couple months, during each campaign’s moments of extremity, we’ve had supporters of each candidate (probably in roughly equal quantity) writing in and saying they wouldn’t be able to vote for the opponent in the general election. In general I just think that people are deeply invested in the campaign (which is a good thing), and in moments of disappointment and frustration need some outlet, even if only expressed within themselves, to put some contemplated action to their angst. Threatening to upset the applecart in November is the most emotionally satisfying way to do that. Certainly too, when a campaign gets this intense and hard fought, there’s just too much cognitive dissonance for people to be on the one hand seething at the other candidate and then also contemplating working for and voting for the same person.

So I see most of these promises as the emotional equivalent of things friends or lovers can say in the midst of heated fights — the vast number of which they recant later and wish they’d never said.

Clearly though there are some people who really do mean it. A very small fraction I think, but there nonetheless. And there’s really no better example of emotional infantilism that some people bring to the political process . One can see it in a case like 1968 perhaps or other years where real and important differences separated the candidates — or in cases where the differences between the parties on key issues were not so great. But that simply is not the case this year. As much as the two campaign have sought to highlight the differences, the two candidates’ positions on almost every issue is extremely close. And the differences that do exist pale into insignificance when compared to Sen. McCain’s.

That’s not to say that these small differences are reasons to choose one of the candidates over the other. But to threaten either to sit the election or vote for McCain or vote for Nader if your candidate doesn’t win the nomination shows as clearly as anything that one’s ego-investment in one’s candidate far outstrips one’s interest in public policy and governance. If this really is one’s position after calm second-thought, I see no other way to describe it.