I was polled this evening by Zogby International.

Wanted to know if I was registered to vote in PA. (check)

Wanted to know if I was very likely, somewhat likely, or not likely to vote in the primary. (Whadda you think?)

Wanted to know if I was a registered D, R, NP, or other/minor party. (Whadda you think?)

Do I currently consider myself a Catholic? (Nope.)

Thank you. [Click.]

I was kinda surprised to not be asked my preference on candidate, but I guess they’re polling the Catholic vote.

The lad has been having trouble with anxieties around bedtime. While we’re working harder at winding down the day with relaxing activities, he’s coming up with some of his own ideas about soothing his jumpy nerves:

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a robotic version of you? Then you could just come in here at bedtime, and flip the switch on robot dad, and he could sing to me, and stay with me all night to watch over me, and you could leave. That would be so cool.

But who gets the goodnight kisses?

I wouldn’t have to hug or kiss a robot!

I take it that’s a feature, not a bug.

This was the conversation as he was getting ready for bed this evening:

Lad: I think that George Bush was worrying way too much about Iraq. That was his big mistake. It’s like he wanted to start a war. He should have worried about other things, and not started another war.
Dad: Wow, that’s a  serious thought.
[Beat.]
Lad: But now, I want to know who started the Vietnam War and why they did that.

If Michigan revotes and Obama wins, will Clinton drop out then? Doesn’t that take the remaining wind out of the big state fallacy? Just wonderin’

It’s a little hard to get your message out with Ferraro ranting and Spitzer folding, but Obama had a good event today in which he received the endorsement from a lineup of retired flag officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. It was a good counter to the insinuations from the Clinton campaign in recent weeks that Obama fails to meet some vague threshold of Commander-in-Chiefness.

Since it’s drowned out by the other news of the day, I’m posting the link to the Obama news conference to help give it a tiny bit of play.

Best line of the speech:

After years of being told that Democrats have to talk, act and vote like John McCain to pass some Commander-in-Chief test, how many times do we have to learn that tough talk is not a substitute for sound judgment?

I’ll also note that in addition to the support of these retired generals and admirals, Obama has the enthusiastic support of two of my favorite fighting Dems–Bryan Lentz and Patrick Murphy.

I’ve been one of the Obama supporters who has also been quick to defend Senator Clinton. To date, I’ve been proud of them both.

But as the crossroads for the Democratic Party approach, I’m getting increasingly disgusted with the tortured logic of the Clintons and their surrogates. Barack Obama has the lead in pledged delegates, popular vote, and contests won. The entire Clinton claim to the nomination now rests on making a flawed argument to superdelegates that infers November outcomes from Clinton’s modest big-state victories among Democrats.

Ed Rendell was on Meet the Press this morning, where he intoned repeatedly that caucuses are undemocratic, which is meant to discredit much of Obama’s success.

So goes the Clinton/Rendell argument: primaries > caucuses.
Here’s the problem: primaries > caucuses > letting the machine decide.

I greatly respect the superdelegates who have refrained from announcing their endorsements while voters are waiting to weigh in. But if it really is a problem that we’re having an increasingly damaging intra-party war, the remaining superdelegates can announce what their criteria will be. Then the war rooms can do the math in each of the campaigns, and one of them can start to position themselves for a face-saving, graceful exit.

I would make this argument to the Obama campaign: you’ve built your case for a different kind of politics around the concept of grassroots power. Whatever you think about the rules that currently exclude Michigan and Florida, you have to recognize that it was career machine politicians in both parties that created the situtation. I think Obama should be championing little-d democracy by being full-throated about the importance of letting Michigan and Florida voters count. Michigan should be winnable for him, anyway, so why choose to stop being a movement candidate now?

So, my son is standing in front of the TV a few minutes ago yelling:

What is a superdelagate? I don’t understand what a superdelegate is? Will SOMEBODY PLEASE tell me what a superdelegate is?

Kid, you and just about every other little-d democrat in the world.