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No time to blog today. Here are some things you should be reading in my absence:

+ Obama picked up 8 more Super Delegates today. I'm expecting the flood to come next week. Obama will clinch things a week from Tuesday, so joining the bandwagon after that point will produce no tangible benefits for the Supers. Therefore, most will almost certainly move before then.

+ Google and YouTube are looking to force their way into the presidential debate process. If they succeed, it will be very, very good news for our democracy.

+ Barack Obama is simultaneously rebuilding and transforming the Democratic Party. Why this worries progressives is beyond me. Why this worries the Clintons is beyond clear: if he wins, their era is over.

+ Obama's campaign has a huge advantage that I think hasn't been very widely recognized: not only is their McCain response team quick, they are pretty damn funny, too. That may not matter much to voters, but within the world of the elite media its likely to play a fairly big role.

+ Obama now has the lead among the Super Delegates.

+ Publius has a must-read post on why Iraq doomed the Clinton campaign. All of what he writes is true, but it is missing one thing: in the absence of a better alternative to Clinton, even with Iraq its likely she would have run. Unfortunately for her, and fortunately for us, she happened to find herself in a situation not all that different from many future NBA Hall of Famers in the 1990s - no matter how good they were relative to the rest of the league, they just couldn't beat Michael Jordan's Bulls. Had Charles Barkley or Patrick Ewing played in any other era, for example, they likely would have won at least one championship. But in the Michael Jordan era? It was just impossible

+ Cindy McCain says she will never - never! - make her tax returns public. Her husband built a reputation as a campaign finance reformer, but no matter. Those rules are for other, less honorable people. St. John don't need no stinkin' rules!

+ Mr. Super is Ed Espinoza, a former field director for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's presidential campaign. The information I received last week appears to have been part of an RSS-based disinformation campaign designed to hide his identity after a previous RSS-based slip-up. Oh, and he's just endorsed Obama.

+ I really wish Krugman would stick to writing about economics. When he writes about the primary process, he turns into a hack. And not even a very good hack.

+ It never ceases to amaze me how even very educated people in the country have no idea what socialism actually is.

+ At least he finally made it explicit. The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb says that we need not concern ourselves with the impact of our policies on terrorist recruitment. So long as we keep killing them, recruitment is irrelevant, because eventually they will give up. Yes, that is precisely what human history tells us about nationalism and religious extremism, isn't it?

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.

When McCain's legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal.

The Audubon Society described the exchange as the largest in Arizona history. The swap involved more than 55,000 acres of land in all, including rare expanses of desert woodland and pronghorn antelope habitat. The deal had support from many local officials and the Arizona Republic newspaper for its expansion of the Prescott National Forest. But it brought an outcry from some Arizona environmentalists when it was proposed in 2002, partly because it went through Congress rather than a process that allowed more citizen input.

Although the bill called for the two parcels to be of equal value, a federal forestry official told a congressional committee that he was concerned that "the public would not receive fair value" for its land. A formal appraisal has not yet begun. A town official opposed to the swap said other Yavapai Ranch land sold nine years ago for about $2,000 per acre, while some of the prime commercial land near a parcel that the developers will get has brought as much as $120,000 per acre.

In an interview, Betts said there is "absolutely no" connection between his contributions to McCain's presidential bids and the deal involving rancher Fred Ruskin and the Yavapai Ranch Limited Partnership. While his company's possible involvement was discussed casually before the bill's passage, Betts said SunCor did not sign on to the project until afterward. "At no time during the consideration of this legislation was there any involvement by officials of SunCor," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in a written response to questions.

Betts is among a string of donors who have benefited from McCain-engineered land swaps. In 1994, the senator helped a lobbyist for land developer Del Webb Corp. pursue an exchange in the Las Vegas area, according to the Center for Public Integrity. McCain sponsored two bills, in 1991 and 1994, sought by donor Donald R. Diamond that yielded the developer thousands of acres in trade for national parkland.

In the late 1990s, McCain promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates.

With the federal government owning vast stretches of Arizona land, and with pressure to meet increasing housing demands, McCain now views land swaps as beneficial, Rogers said. "He certainly recognizes that there have been well-documented abuses of legislative land exchanges, but every land exchange bill introduced by Senator McCain has been written with the highest regard for the public interest."

I always love this defense of corruption. "Sure, it looks really, really bad, but really, its nothing! So what if one of my big fundraisers got special legislative treatment. Its really just one big coincidence. And even if its not, its all in the public interest, so who cares?"

Do these people not realize how absurd this defense is? In a nation of 300 million people, there is only a tiny, tiny fraction that gets treatment like this. And all of them - yes, all of them - are in some way personally connected to legislators. That's how corruption works.

Now McCain and his people say "no lobbying happened here," so its all OK. But lobbying isn't the issue. The legislation is so specific that no lobbying was necessary. It has one purpose, and only one purpose - to set up a land swap between the federal government and one of McCain's biggest financial supporters. To have not recognized that fact, McCain and his people would have had to not ever actually read the legislation they were proposing. And if that's true, that's actually worse.

Tell me something I didn't already know.

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.

The numbers are based on a review of Senate roll-call votes since 1999 that ended in a tie or were settled by one vote. The closest votes in that period included momentous, partisan-charged legislation, such as President Bush's tax cuts. More often, they were procedural votes on deal-breaking amendments to bills that would otherwise pass.

They partly reflect how rarely Senate votes come down to a single person, even though the chamber has been narrowly divided on party lines most of the past decade. But the votes also suggest that when McCain broke from Republicans, others often joined him, keeping the votes from being so close.

And his chronic absence in the Senate has seldom come in the most divided debates, the records show.

"Senator McCain puts the interests of Arizonans first and supports the principles of the Republican Party," said Crystal Benton, a spokeswoman for the campaign. "He also has the courage and the integrity to do what is right."

The voting pattern seems at odds with the popular narrative that McCain's maverick tendencies make him an unreliable conservative.

"He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues," said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego. "By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate."

There have only been a small handful of dynasties in American history - Adams, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush - and the Clintons were aiming to add their names to that list. It is a dream that has consumed their entire life's work. And last night, that dream died.

We beat the Clinton machine. Unbelievable.

Marc Ambinder:

IN RETROSPECT, the decision of Clinton to contest North Carolina and give Obama an expectations victory was costly, although many analysts, including this one, believed -- still believe -- that in order for her to really give superdelegates that moment of terror, she had to upset Obama in a state where the demographics favored him. Bill Clinton parked himself in the research triangle, Clinton herself hinted about game-changing expectations, the campaign sent their best state director, Ace Smith, as a sign of their confidence in being able to reduce the margins.

And yet Obama beat her by 14 points. Despite Bill's best effort, Obama won rural NC 52/45.

Forget the talk of a unity ticket. That's not gonna happen. No way, no how. It makes no sense.

Obama isn't going to pick her as a VP, no matter what the heads endlessly talking on my TV might say. He'll let things settle down, wait until late June or July, and then make the announcement, picking someone who will either help him turn a red-state blue (Jim Webb (VA), Brian Schweitzer (MT), Ted Strickland (OH), Ken Salazar (CO)) or who can reinforce his narrative of changing a broken system from the inside out (Bloomberg, Napolitano, Webb, Schweitzer, etc). Clinton doesn't help on the first point, and on the second she's a direct contradiction. How can you turn the page on the politics of the past if one of its prime movers is your running mate? Obama's not stupid. He didn't defeat the Clintons only to resurrect them. It's not gonna happen.

And from Clinton's side, why on earth would she accept this bargain? After everything she has worked for, to spend another 8 years in the shadow of a more powerful man... Do you really think she would accept that? That Bill would accept that? That after serving as President of the United States, he would be content to serve as the nation's Second Man?

Bill Clinton will never allow himself to be second to anyone. And why should he? There are only 42 men in history who have had the honor and privilege to serve at this nation's president, and only 3 who are still alive. Bill Clinton is one of them. Do you really think he's going to trade that for 8 years as second fiddle to someone else's second fiddle? No way, no how.

It's not gonna happen. 0% chance, as they say on PTI.

0% chance.

Not all that long ago, John Cole was a stalwart Republican. But a few years back he saw the light, recognizing that his party no longer stood for the things that once made it great. And so he switched. And now he's a man on a mission. The whole rant makes for a great read - he's an Obama man now - and I particularly loved the conclusion:

If Barack Obama was not your your preferred candidate, I am sorry that person did not win, but it is time to remember that the target is John McCain and the Bush/Cheney way of doing things. If you can not accept that and help move us forward, please at least get out of the way.

I don't think it has really quite sunk in yet, but we beat the Clinton machine. I've always, ever since 2004, been confident he would win, but still... we beat the Clinton machine. I mean... wow.

UPDATE: John's on fire this morning:

Twenty years in the desert, you miserable failures. Maybe by then I will be ready to support a Republican again. Yeah, I am fucking bitter.

Go read Jonathan Cohn. Now.

After describing the battle between Clinton and Obama, Cohn pivots to describe how the fall race between Obama and McCain will be different. Here's the key part of Cohn's argument:

But this fight may not play out the same way with McCain, for one simple reason: If Obama's slogan is "yes we can," McCain's is "no we can't."

Obama wants to invest heavily in better schools and public infrastructure? McCain says it will cost too much money. Obama wants to make sure every American has health insurance? McCain says it's socialized medicine. Obama wants to make free trade more humane? McCain's says no, no, no--that's messing with the free market.

Even Obama's calls to change political discourse for the better--the most familiar and, at times, most empty part of his pitch--play into this dynamic. When Obama says he wants to end the politics of division, McCain dismisses it as just a slogan.

This is exactly, precisely why I have always believed Obama will win big in the fall. It is what I've always believed about Obama, all the way back to the first time I saw him speak at the convention in 2004. As Cohn explains, it is precisely the same rhetorical dynamic that played out in 1980 between Reagan and Carter, and even more so in 1932 between FDR and Hoover. "Yes we can" always - always - beats "no we can't" in times when the nation's mood is bleak. And judging from the national polls, the bleakness has reached historical levels.

The realignment is coming. Forget the Reagan Democrats coming home. The Obama Republicans are finding their new home. It's coming...

Text here.

My favorite part here:

Yes, we know what's coming. We've seen it already. The same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all their ideas. The same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy in the hope that the media will play along. The attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences to turn us against each other for pure political gain - to slice and dice this country into Red States and Blue States; blue-collar and white-collar; white and black, and brown.

This is what they will do - no matter which one of us is the nominee. The question, then, is not what kind of campaign they'll run, it's what kind of campaign we will run. It's what we will do to make this year different. I didn't get into race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for President because this is the time to end it.

We will end it this time not because I'm perfect - I think by now this campaign has reminded all of us of that. We will end it not by duplicating the same tactics and the same strategies as the other side, because that will just lead us down the same path of polarization and gridlock.

We will end it by telling the truth - forcefully, repeatedly, confidently - and by trusting that the American people will embrace the need for change.

Because that's how we've always changed this country - not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up; when you - the American people - decide that the stakes are too high and the challenges are too great.

The other side can label and name-call all they want, but I trust the American people to recognize that it's not surrender to end the war in Iraq so that we can rebuild our military and go after al Qaeda's leaders. I trust the American people to understand that it's not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies - like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

I trust the American people to realize that while we don't need big government, we do need a government that stands up for families who are being tricked out of their homes by Wall Street predators; a government that stands up for the middle-class by giving them a tax break; a government that ensures that no American will ever lose their life savings just because their child gets sick. Security and opportunity; compassion and prosperity aren't liberal values or conservative values - they're American values.

Most of all, I trust the American people's desire to no longer be defined by our differences. Because no matter where I've been in this country - whether it was the corn fields of Iowa or the textile mills of the Carolinas; the streets of San Antonio or the foothills of Georgia - I've found that while we may have different stories, we hold common hopes. We may not look the same or come from the same place, but we want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

That's why I'm in this race. I love this country too much to see it divided and distracted at this moment in history. I believe in our ability to perfect this union because it's the only reason I'm standing here today. And I know the promise of America because I have lived it.

It is the light of opportunity that led my father across an ocean.

It is the founding ideals that the flag draped over my grandfather's coffin stands for - it is life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It's the simple truth I learned all those years ago when I worked in the shadows of a shuttered steel mill on the South Side of Chicago - that in this country, justice can be won against the greatest of odds; hope can find its way back to the darkest of corners; and when we are told that we cannot bring about the change that we seek, we answer with one voice - yes we can.

So don't ever forget that this election is not about me, or any candidate. Don't ever forget that this campaign is about you - about your hopes, about your dreams, about your struggles, about securing your portion of the American Dream.

Don't ever forget that we have a choice in this country - that we can choose not to be divided; that we can choose not to be afraid; that we can still choose this moment to finally come together and solve the problems we've talked about all those other years in all those other elections.

This time can be different than all the rest. This time we can face down those who say our road is too long; that our climb is too steep; that we can no longer achieve the change that we seek. This is our time to answer the call that so many generations of Americans have answered before - by insisting that by hard work, and by sacrifice, the American Dream will endure.

Whew. He was on fire tonight.