What's with Dominic Recchia? Tonight he was supposed to attend a Candidate's Forum at Brooklyn Democrats For Change. This Forum was originally scheduled for March but Mr. Recchia cancelled at the last minute because his daughter was ill.

Tonight, again he was a no show. I don't even know if he gave a reason for not attending but this isn't going to look good on his resume.

Steve Harrison did speak and was warmly received by all members. After he spoke the members were able to ask Steve questions and many of them took full advantage of the opportunity.

MSNBC has just assigned the 9 remaining delegates from Texas that were still up in the air. Seven went to Obama and two to Clinton. Plus, they reassigned one Mississippi delegate from Clinton to Obama.

Their current total of pledged delegates is 1,416-1,252. With 567 pledged delegates left to choose, that means Clinton now needs:

366, or 64.6%, to pass Obama,
341, or 60.1%, to get within 50,
316, or 55.7%, to get within 100.

The odds are she won't get even 316. Here's why:

Let's say she actually gets 58% of Pennsylvania's delegates. It's unlikely, since her recent 16% seems to be fading, and also the areas where Obama is strongest are the more "Democratic" areas and will count for more delegates, but let's give it to her anyway. That's 92-66 for Clinton. New total: 1,482-1,344. And that's just the start.

Brownsox at Daily Kos posts the DCCC's 2008 target list in its entirety here; the DCCC, of course, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party body charged with electing Democrats to the House.

The list for New York is long, grand, a thing of beauty.

NY-03 Peter King
NY-13 Vito Fossella
NY-25 Jim Walsh*# (Dan Maffei opposing)
NY-26 Tom Reynolds*
NY-29 Randy Kuhl# (Eric Massa opposing)

We're going to be very busy this year, because there's no reason why we shouldn't win all of those races. Get busy raising money, candidates.

Another one bites the dust. Liz:

GOP sources confirm that Rep. Tom Reynolds, a Western NY Congressman since 1999 and ex-NRCC chairman, will announce around noon tomorrow in Buffalo that he will not seek re-election this fall. Reynolds spokesman LD Platt did not return an e-mail seeking comment. [...]

But the recent NRCC fraud scandal - some of which took place on his watch - has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year (increasingly Democratic state, presidential election etc).

That makes things a lot easier for this guy:

The question now becomes whether Jack Davis, the guy who ran for the seat last time - and couldn't defeat Reynolds despite the latter's role in the Foley scandal - will now run as a Democrat in a primary against Jon Powers, or as a republican against likely contender George Maziarz.

Another bit of irony: if Reynolds is retiring over the NRCC scandal, it will prove once and for all that while you can get away with molesting underage boys in the GOP, you had better not lose their money, or you're toast.

On the web: Jon Powers for Congress

Per email, Senator Obama's speech as prepared for delivery.

[Update]: There's video.

"A More Perfect Union"
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Constitution Center
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

As Prepared for Delivery

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

The New York Times is now reporting that Clinton supporters are demanding that their donations to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) be returned. This is merely the latest cheap tactic, straight out of the “divide and destroy” playbook of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, that Hillary Clinton and her campaign have resorted to in a desperate attempt to pull victory out of certain defeat. Or perhaps it’s her way of ensuring a Democratic loss this fall so that she can run again in four years.

Whatever her reason, she should be ashamed of herself. She isn’t, of course, because she, like her husband, never gave a damn about the Democratic Party. All either of them cares about is their own personal power. Maybe, 35 years ago, they actually cared about making things better, but somewhere along the line they lost sight of that goal.

Today, March 15, is Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 75th birthday. Next month, John Paul Stevens will turn 88. Chances are, the next president will get to name their replacements. Do you want a right-wing-controlled John McCain to be the one?

Yup -- I'm playing the fear card, and I'm fine with that.

On the street corners of many a black congressional district, you would often hear soul-folks saying: “no big thing but a chicken wing”. This can be heard whenever there is a fuss about something or the other that soul-people think is being overblown. On corners of white congressional districts (and by white and black, I am only alluding to where the majority of the residents are of that color; that’s all), you may hear the same sentiments expressed this way: “much ado about nothing”. Well that’s how I feel about all this super-delegate noise, coming out from many tense corners of hot and heavy political competition; like the kind taking place between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama- as they compete for the Democrat’s presidential nomination.

Look people, rules are rules. That’s it; period. Once you agree to play by the rules, then ethics dictate you are bound to abide by said rules. So here we have both camps talking all kinds of “stupid shit” about the super-delegates, in attempts at chicanery; they ought to be ashamed of themselves. And this goes for both campaigns. Both campaigns need to chill.

There's a primary brewing the 26th Congressional District that Democrats should avoid.

The contenders are Jon Powers, an Iraq War veteran and teacher, and Jack Davis, a local businessman who ran for this seat in 2006, narrowly losing to republican incumbent Tom Reynolds. Some background on the race is sketched out by Robert Harding of The Albany Project, here.

The reason this primary should be avoided is this: it would take away resources better used elsewhere, would damage the Democratic brand, and might result in an outcome, a Davis victory, that would likely lead to defeat in November.

Why, over the fold.

One of Hillary Clinton's arguments that she should be the party's nominee is that she is winning all (or almost all) of the "big states." Fortunately, this argument is falling flat, because it is a sure recipe for continued Democratic failure.

Those small states that Barack Obama is winning are exactly those states Democrats have ignored for decades, to the party's detriment. Many of us enthusiastically support Howard Dean's "50-state strategy" for gaining and maintaining a long-term Democratic majority. We believe that the answer to "you fight the fights you can win" is "you can only win the fights you fight."

Democrats have made significant gains in the mountain states, and now have five governors (out of nine states), and a few state legislatures. Both U.S. Senators from theoretically "red" states like Montana and North Dakota are Democrats, and Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico could soon join that club.