Tomorrow there are big primaries in Virginia, Washington DC and Maryland. The so-called Potomac Primary. But tonight if you were in New York you could have seen Clinton’s message-spin-poll guru Mark Penn giving a reading from his book Microtrends at The Strand.

Good to see Penn’s got his eye on the ball, right?

TPM Reader RM checks in from Minnesota …

I took part in a discussion about the Minnesota DFL caucus system last night with a three people who had attended their respective precinct caucuses and been elected delegates. In all three cases the overwhelming ballot count went for Obama, but my friends are Clinton supporters. Obama’s supporters tended to cast their ballots and go, and thus Clinton people, often longtime local party activists, were given
the nod for just being willing to take on the responsibility, i.e., without even being asked their preferred candidate.

The other thing to know is that these are not Presidential convention delegates. There are four levels, from precinct to state level, state senate and congressional district in-between I believe. As one goes up the ladder party functionaries play an increasingly prominent role. This is where Hillary probably has an
advantage, at least if she can hang on that long. I imagine the process and dynamic is similar in many other caucus states.

If you look at the topline poll numbers on the Republican side, it looks like John McCain is headed to a much more commanding showing in tonight’s Potomac Primary than he did over the weekend. But there’s at least a chance that Mike Huckabee could knock McCain for a loop in Virginia.

Remember that the last poll of Washington state had McCain almost 30 points over Huckabee. And McCain only managed to ‘win’ by less than 2 points with the help of Boss Esser’s creative vote counting.

Now let’s look at some polling from Virginia. SurveyUSA has polled the state three times in the last week.

Feb. 7th: McCain 45%, Romney 22%, Huckabee 20%

Feb. 8th: McCain 57%, Huckabee 27%

Feb. 11th: McCain 48%, Huckabee 37%

As you can see, over the weekend, McCain dropped a net -9 and Huckabee went up a net +10. Not bad for a couple days.

It’s still a comfortable margin for McCain. But you also have to think about the comparative motivation of potential McCain and Huckabee voters. My hunch is that McCain is more accepted than embraced by most Republican voters, certainly primary voters. And at this point, to them, the race is over. McCain’s got it. So how many of them are going to come out and vote for a foregone conclusion? On the other hand, if you’re a Huckabee supporter at this point it must mean you’re really not crazy about John McCain. Why else would you be holding out for a guy who seems almost certain not to be the nominee in the face of the guy who almost certainly will be.

There’s obviously a lot of speculation and inference here. But I think it’s reasonable to think that the Huckabee voters have a lot more motivation to show up and make their point at the polls on Tuesday than the McCain voters do. After all, for the McCain voters, what is it? Gotta turn out tomorrow to prevent McCain from being humiliated by Huck!!!

A bit too much of a bank shot to get a mass of voters too jazzed up. So with that and a quickly tightening race, there’s at least enough of a chance of an upset to make the Republican side of the race interesting.

(ed.note: Two other polls of this race have been released over the last week. One by the chronically inaccurate ARG has it McCain 54%, Huckabee 32% and the respected Mason-Dixon has it McCain 55%, Huckabee 27%)

Did you hear? Fred Thompson endorsed John McCain.

Don’t worry. No one else heard either.

Oops. Looks like four Washington State counties reported incorrect results Saturday night in the GOP caucus.

But rest assured. With the corrected tallies in, the outcome remains the same. McCain wins!

Although what he won exactly remains hard to figure.

In his interview with Hillary Clinton, The Politico’s John Harris asked whether she really wanted MSNBC’s David Shuster fired. Here’s what she said.

Late Update: We’ve now seen the video of the Harris interview. And having seen it, I think the Politico’s transcription is at least somewhat misleading about what Clinton meant. You can click the link above to see the transcription. Meanwhile, here’s the video. The relevant passage comes in the last 30 seconds of the clip.

Thanks to TPM Reader DT for the catch.

From the WaPo:

At a private meeting of conservatives in the House of Representatives last month, Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.) ridiculed Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), asking why his fellow right-wing activists “shouldn’t be physically ill at the prospects of a President McCain.”

On Monday, McHenry — apparently feeling fine — joined the chorus of voices calling for conservatives to unify around McCain as the likely Republican nominee, and he accused former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee of waging a pointless nomination battle because he is “in there for himself.”

Today is FISA day in the Senate.

We’ll be keeping track of the series of votes on various amendments through the day at TPMmuckraker.

The biggie, of course, is the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip retroactive telecom immunity from the bill.

Stay tuned.

Late Update: So far, the Democratic amendments that would rein in the bill and put additional legal limits on surveillance are going down. It’s not boding well for the effort to strip out telecom immunity.

The Senate vote on the Dodd-Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity from the new FISA bill wasn’t even close: 31-67.

Late Update: We’ve got the complete list of Democratic crossovers up at TPMmuckraker.

Later Update: Also going down in flames was Arlen Specter’s amendment that would have required the federal government to indemnify the telecoms, essentially stepping into the shoes of the telecoms to defend any suits and pay any judgments.

TPM Reader MK checks in from Tacoma …

I can vouch somewhat for your reader’s experience in Minnesota, and I have three related questions I hope you or your readers can answer. In Washington, where I caucused, the pattern was similar. Obama cleaned house, but many of his voters left before the delegates were chosen. Probably 90% of the people there were caucusing for the first time. Even many of the people in charge seemed like newcomers, and often the rules were not spelled out clearly. The old hands, by in large, were Hillary supporters. My precinct went 11-6 in delegates for Obama (100+ votes over all). After the vote and as people gathered to decide on delegates, I looked over at the Hillary side and realized they had more people than we did, even though we’d outvoted them. Most of the Obama voters simply got up and left after they knew it was in the bag. Without intending to, I ended up as a alternate, simply because the Obama group didn’t have enough bodies left for any of us not to get involved.

My questions, which weren’t answered fully at the caucus:

1. As we move on in Washington to the Legislative District Caucuses (April 5), the County Conventions (April 19), the Congressional District Caucuses (May 17), and then the State Convention (June 14), can Hillary supporters try to twist a few arms and swing one delegate here, two delegates there, etc. to Hillary?

2. In the case of your reader’s example from Minnesota, if a Hillary backer was given the responsibility to represent Obama voters at the next level, can he/she simply switch sides without anyone noticing?

3. Generally speaking, is a delegate duty-bound to vote the way he/she pledged at the caucus, or can he/she change his mind later? Are there any ramifications if someone changes their vote?

Such scenarios, intriguing as they are underhanded, make me hope this election is over before the next stage of caucusing…

I’m not in a position to vouch for what MK is saying. But we’ve gotten similar emails from a number of readers in different states with similar stories. If you can add anything to the mix — your experience or why MK’s missing something — let us know.

Late Update: CR from Minnesota says that RM and MK have it wrong. And it’s worth noting that he says that he’s been caucusing for many years and RM and MK are first timers …

I’ve already e-mailed twice to correct the take on the Minnesota caucus from reader RM. I don’t know what more I can do.

Reader RM’s concern is unfounded.

I’ve been through the Minnesota convention process many times. I have been a state delegate, as has my wife on a different occasion. I know how this works.

It does not matter how many Clinton and Obama supporters make it to the congressional district and state conventions. The number of Obama and Clinton national delegates has already been determined by the precinct caucus vote. If Obama got two-thirds of the vote in a six-delegate congressional district, he gets four of the six delegates, period.

At both the congressional district and state convention, a subcaucus of just the Clinton supporters will choose the Clinton delegates, and a subcaucus of just the Obama supporters will choose the Obama delegates. If there are a hundred Clinton supporters and twenty Obama supporters, that doesn’t affect the number of delegates. It just means there will be a meeting of a hundered Clinton supporters to choose their designated number of national delgates, and another meeting of twenty Obama supporters to choose their (larger) designated number of national delegates.

I have no doubt that other states with a ballot process at the precinct level — that is to say, other states where a vote-and-leave process is possible — have a similar rule.

There’s really nothing here. Obama isn’t going to lose any delegates from the caucus process.