Tomorrow Virginia is holding a primary to select general election candidates for its 11 congressional districts. I have been receiving mailings from both Democratic candidates for the 11th CD, Leslie Byrne and Gerry Connolly, along with endorsements from high profile officials within Virginia Democratic Circles, including Jim Webb and Tim Kaine.

Excuse the short diary.  Today's Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll shows a big jump for Barack Obama over John McCain in a general election matchup.  Today he leads 48-40, up from 46-42 the day before and 43-41 two days before that.  When leaners are included, the lead is 50-43.

DailyKos today has been full of handwringing Obama supporters worried that the Reverand Jeremiah Wright has sunk the Obama candidacy by reappearing today at the National Press Club and generally not shutting his trap.

My message to Obama supporters - get a friggin' clue! If the original controversy did not sink Obama, with the clip showing "God damn America" repeated ad nauseum, and in fact Obama's national standing relatively unchanged since before the hubbub, how is a much tamer interview going to do squat to Obama?

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I took Northern Sky's excellent diary today noting that after Pennsylvania, Clinton now needs 71% of the remaining vote to catch Obama in pledged delegates.  I decided to expand upon this analysis and add in currently pledged superdelegates and split the remaining unpledged superdelegates evenly to see how much Clinton will need to overcome in order to catch Obama.

That's it.  Having watched this campaign over the last year, I am ready to declare my candidacy for President in 2012.  After all, I have the experience it takes to be the leader of the free world, and since none of it is on YouTube, nobody can come up with any embarrassing fact-checking to disqualify me.

There was a request on Scoopster's Diary for a new thread on this breaking story.  CNN now finally has a story up about it as well.

There have been a spate of diaries lately intensely worried that Obama has taken a bit of a dip in several recent polls.  While it would be preferable to be comfortably ahead at this point, the angst expressed is misplaced.

In honor of the upcoming St. Patty's Day, I thought I would try penning a limerick or two.  As my attempts promise to be lame, perhaps, dear reader, you may come up with your own.  If we come up with enough scintillating verse, then I can follow up with a limerick (or other poetry welcome) contest.  As I am one of those nutjobs responsible for clogging up Daily Kos with candidate diaries, my topics will be political - yours need not be.

"Only the lobbyists."

-- New York Lt. Gov. David Paterson, quoted by New York magazine, when asked by a reporter if he knew any prostitutes.

http://politicalwire.com/...

Since Super Tuesday it has been pretty clear that Obama had an overwhelming advantage in the race for the Democratic nomination.  The mass media would not acknowledge it, and Hillary Clinton certainly has not acknowledged it.  With each succeeding contest, the odds go even further against her, yet she becomes even more set in her determination to fight to the end.  I think, however, we have reached a tipping point in the last several days that will unequivocally settle the nomination BEFORE Pennsylvania.

I am an ardent Barack Obama supporter. My girlfriend just adores Hillary Clinton. When we talk politics, we have a hard time even agreeing on the facts - she gets her info from Hillary-friendly places, and I get mine from the folks busy fluffing Barack's pillow.

One of the predominant memes in this campaign is that Hillary Clinton has more experience (35 years she says) than Barack Obama, and thus better able to handle the rigors of the Presidency.  I don't necessarily give her all the credit she claims for experience - Obama's 8 years in the Illinois state legislature and 4 years as U.S. Senator are comparable to Clinton's 8 years as U.S Senator.  There is an interesting article today on Electoral-Vote.Com which examines how President's have been judged compared to the amount of experience they had coming in.

Here on DailyKos and throughout the country we have had an ongoing heated battle between supporters of Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama.  I have participated on the side of Obama, though I have tried to keep it civil, only occasionally giving in to the temptation to recommend diaries and comments that slam Clinton.  I do object to the level of rancor displayed by supporters of both sides and would like to call for a greater level of civility among Democrats as we decide who will represent us in the general election.

Using that recent Survey USA 50-state tracking poll for the general election http://www.surveyusa.com/ I decided to test some of the conventional wisdom regarding the effect of a Clinton nomination seen to be somehow less than legitimate or satisfying.  My assumption was that this would have a horrible influence on African American turnout for the general election, and would cause defections among non-African Americans to McCain.

Like many Obama supporters I am deeply disappointed in the results from yesterday.  While they are not radically different from what most predicted, many of us had hoped to come closer in Ohio and actually come out on top in the Texas primary.

But all is not doom and gloom.

The Scene, March 4th, 7pm EST, Vermont polls close, the same day the Bush FCC just approved the CNN/MSNBC/FOX mega-merger.  Howard Wolfson and David Axelrod are guests on the new super television duper network (STD Network - STDN).

This morning on Morning Joe on MSNBC there was the umpteenth interview about Tony Rezko and Barack Obama. I heard a rebroadcast yesterday of This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC playing the same story.  It got me to thinking about the decisions to run stories, and what are the network's and reporter's responsibilities in terms of deciding which stories to run.

OK, OK, this is just a cheap attempt to be the first to diary today on speculation that Bill Richardson will endorse this morning.  We have been down this path before, and he has remained solidly on the fence.  But I believe today is the day he finally decides to endorse ... Barack Obama.

The evidence is pretty thin, but here goes:

1. On Tuesday he announced that he was considering endorsing this week, but refused to say whom: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...

2. Today at 10:30 am EST, Richardson will be on Face the Nation at CBS.  What better time to endorse than on a nationally broadcast Sunday morning news show?

3. If he is going to endorse, I think Sunday is the absolute last day to do it that would have any impact.

4. It would be insanity at this point to back Clinton, regardless of how close his ties to the Clinton family.  The fact that he has waited this long indicates that he plans to go with the winner, but just soon enough that he can claim to have had some small part in the process.  He will go with Obama.