archives

• How government lowers healthcare costs (Jacob Hacker in the Washington Post)

• How to debunk a mischaracterization of what your candidate said (Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post, demonstrating that he can think rationally when defending Republicans)
  
• Small currency outlets in Amsterdam refuse to take U.S. dollars (Reuters)
  
• After a brief dip last week, Obama takes an 8-point lead over Clinton nationally (Gallup)

AP:

Superdelegates — the nearly 800 party and elected officials who can support whomever they choose at the convention, regardless of what happens in the primaries — should make up their minds before August to avoid a fight at the convention, Dean said.

"There is no point in waiting," he said. The Democratic political organization "is as good or better as the Republicans', and we haven't been able to say that for about 30 years. But that all doesn't make any difference if people are really disenchanted or demoralized by a convention that's really ugly and nasty." [...]

Dean's supporters say he's working behind the scenes to resolve some of the issues. He's been consulting with party stalwarts about how to wrap up the nomination quickly after the voting ends in June [...]

"There'll be some nasty fights if it goes to convention, and people will walk out," Dean said. "But I've also been talking to a fairly significant number of, by and large, nonaligned people about how we might resolve this."

Dean wouldn't talk in detail about what the plan is, but it likely involves encouraging superdelegates to pick a candidate shortly after the voting ends. He said he will not encourage any delegate to vote one way or another.