by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

Look out!  Hillary Clinton just passed Dennis Kucinich and is now in 3rd place both in California and nationally in the Pick Your President Poll.  Barack Obama is still leading John Edwards.  I know for sure that the Obama supporters and network are encouraging their people to vote in the poll.  What about John Edwards?  He was doing quite well before Obama supporters started working on GOTV.  Who knows maybe Clinton will catch up?

I can't share with you the actual vote margins, but suffice to say they do not match up with your average daily kos poll.  There is plenty of time for anybody to claim first place.  The poll will run until the 18th.  You can follow the results on this page.  The numbers are current as of 2 PM PST.  We will be updating over the weekend.

Here are the current California standings, which are now identical to the national rankings:

1. Sen. Barack Obama

2. Sen. John Edwards

3. Sen. Hillary Clinton

4. Rep. Dennis Kucinich

5. Gov. Bill Richardson *

by shayera [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

The L.A. Times is staying on the dirty tricks story. And tonight they've got a story naming the guy behind the funding of the campaign:BREAKING NEWS: Giuliani fundraiser was mystery initiative backer

A close friend and major fundraiser of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has identified himself as the mystery financer of the proposed California initiative to apportion the state's 55 electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all.

He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot.

There'll be more to come once the full article is published. Giuliani is claiming his campaign had nothing to do with it. And Howard Dean is demanding more answers.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Tonight in Baltimore, the GOP’s "Tiny Tent" strategy will again be in full force, with the Republican Party’s top four presidential candidates conspicuously absent from a debate focusing on minority issues.
 
The AP reports: "The four leading Republican candidates -- former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney -- cited scheduling conflicts in saying they could not attend the debate at Morgan State University, a historically black college."

This latest ingenious Republican tactic, brilliantly designed to reach out to fewer and fewer potential voters, comes on the heels of the release of a Republican polling firm’s survey that found: "Americans aren’t just having a tough time seeing themselves pulling the lever for Republicans these days. Fewer are seeing themselves as Republicans, period."

One might think that Republicans in a state like California, the most ethnically diverse state in the nation, would be vociferously opposing national Republicans’ party-shrinking efforts -- but the California GOP hasn’t uttered a peep.

Then again, considering the state GOP’s own record (or lack thereof) with respect to growing its ranks, perhaps their silence isn’t much of a surprise after all.

by Kim Stevens [courtesy of Party Line]