If Bruce says Auburn Hills is in Ohio, it's in Ohio, and that's all there is to it.

Google Maps says it's 90 minutes, tops.

A few Monday links.

* NJ-GOV Watch: As yet another ethics scandal hits Chris Christie, a poll shows him down 42-33 to Corzine. I think this particular poll is probably an outlier, but nonetheless I think Corzine may actually win this thing.

* Looking through Steve Benen's newsfeed this morning I was struck by how many stories he's found in the last few days about Republicans baldly misreporting clearly labeled satire as fact. Glenn Beck: Nancy Pelosi to ban Fox News! Rush Limbaugh: Obama's nonexistent thesis hates America! Of course, they just make things up, too.

* Airlock Alpha says Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is worse than Razor. That's too bad, because Razor really wasn't very good. The reviewer makes a great point here:

At the same time, the most interesting parts of the Cylon story were cut out or not even considered for this film. Really!

I mean, look at this way. You had the Final Five who show up in the middle of the first Cylon war. They offer the Centurions evolutionary advancement in terms of resurrection and becoming more like their human creators, so the war ends. After the skinjobs are created, the Cylons try to simply live their lives away from the humans, but Cavil wants revenge.

When the Final Five get in his way, he kills them, and then resurrects them, depositing them all over the Twelve Colonies, giving them a front-row seat to the holocaust he's about to unleash.

This is great storytelling by itself. Except we only get the end of this tale in "The Plan." We don't get to see the Final Five arrive, we don't get to see Cavil's betrayal. Instead, we pick up with Cavil already having deposited the Final Five in the Colonies and go from there.

It's very odd to see them go the clip-show route when a better story really was just sitting there unused.

* And via Atrios, Detroit can't give away land. The unemployment and outmigration numbers in Michigan are just staggering. From a policy perspective I have no idea how you fix this.

The last of our pictures from Michigan and Indiana are now online at Flickr. There's a lot, but keep in mind we had at least two cameras going at all times. Special shout-outs to the Labor Legacy Monument, one of the best monuments to anything I've ever seen, and Ann Lislegaard's SF-centric project "2062" at MOCAD. Oh, and zombies.

Sunday links.

* More well-deserved heat is being directed at the Obama administration for its inscrutably sluggish stance on gay rights: this time it's about the Defense of Marriage Act.

* The Dow has erased its 2009 losses.

* New revelations of HIV in the porn industry.

* The great unwinding: Michigan roads shifting from pavement back to gravel.

* 'Fallen Princesses.'

The geography of the recession. Atrios's comment is, I think, perceptive:

I think the colors chosen for this map actually make things "look" a bit better from a national perspective. It's important to realize the second lightest color goes all the way up to 10% unemployment. And then realize a non-trivial numbers of counties are seriously into holy fuck levels of unemplomeny.

The map also demonstrates the extent to which the Northeast (and Durham and the Research Triangle, for that matter) have gotten off relatively light thus far. California and Michigan, in contrast, are looking like disaster areas.

Tuesday morning links.

* If movie posters were honest. See also: if covers of marginal SF/fantasy series were honest.

* Who knew full moons had names? Via G-Lens.

* Is California the new Michigan?

* Tough times in the USA: people are eating racoon. This has nothing to do with the recession, apparently—some people are just choosing to eat it because they are gross.

* Potsdam University is offering a graduate how-to course on flirting for computer geeks.

* Arm-Chair Logic has your elementary logic test for the day.

* Solar apocalypse: NASA warns of 'Space Katrina.' My production company has already optioned the rights to this headline, don't even think about it.

* Harper's Index: Bush retrospective mega-edition.

* A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem. That's right: online sexual predators have infiltrated top-level attorneys general offices in 49 states. We must redouble our efforts.

* And Whedonesque asks, appropriately forlorn: Has it really been five years since Angel ended? That is a little hard to believe. The Armchair Critic ranks the twenty-five best episodes, and the five worst, of one of the best (and surely the most underappreciated) SF series of all time.

Nobel economics prize winner Paul Krugman said Sunday that the beleaguered U.S. auto industry will likely disappear. Now, I'm no Nobel Prize winner, but this seems very unlikely to me, about as unlikely as it does to Paul Rosenberg.

Three quick links.

* The Michigan GOP gets spanked over their illegal scheme to disenfranchise foreclosed homeowners.

* Green recovery watch: California’s emphasis on energy efficiency has created more than 1.5 million jobs over the last 30 years and boosted payroll in the state by nearly $45 billion, according to a report from the University of California, Berkeley.

* Is college for everyone? Marty Nemko argues in The Chronicle of Higher Education no, it's not. As a PhD candidate looking to go on the job market in the next few years, I must strenuously, strenuously disagree.

Colorado: Obama 52%, McCain 43%

Michigan: Obama 54%, McCain 38%

Minnesota: Obama 51%, McCain 40%

Wisconsin: Obama 54%, McCain 37%

Pollster Peter Brown of Quinnipiac: "Sen. Obama's leads in these four battleground states are as large as they have been the entire campaign. Those margins may be insurmountable barring a reversal that has never been seen before in the modern era in which polling monitors public opinion throughout the campaign."

Another good sign: John McCain is pulling out of Michigan.

Three new polls out from Michigan tonight all show Obama leaping to double-digit leads.

MI/Selzer
Obama 51 / McCain 38
Spread: 13 points
Dates: 9/22-24 (Monday-Wednesday)
Movement from last poll: +6 toward Obama

MI/National Journal
Obama 47 / McCain 39
Spread: 8 points
Dates: 9/18-22 (Thursday-Monday)
Movement from last poll: n/a (first poll?)

MI/EPIC-MRA
Obama 48 / McCain 38
Spread: 10 points
Dates: 9/20-22 (Saturday-Monday)
Movement from last poll: +9 toward Obama

The new SurveyUSA poll puts Obama up 6 (!) in Virgnia, 51% to 45%. (Looking at the trend and the internals, I think it's fair to say that those pay equity ads should be airing nationwide.) I've been a VA booster for months because the fact is that without Virginia, McCain just can't win; taking the states which Obama seems to have locked down (the Kerry states - NH + IA + NM), he just needs nine more for a tie (which he wins) and ten for an outright victory.

So flipping either Colorado or Virginia, by themselves, is enough, provided he doesn't slip in Michigan or Pennsylvania—and right now he's ahead in all four...

Actually existing voter fraud: following up on the Michigan outrage from earlier today, a MetaFilter thread collects vote-suppression stories from across the nation:

Wisconsin
Mississippi
Virginia

Greg Palast has more. More and more I think we need a Voting Rights Act for the 21st Century—attacking the right to vote, increasingly the national policy of the Republican party, is the deepest, darkest betrayal possible in a democracy. The games have to stop. Elections must be fair.

And good for Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner for taking a stand on it.

In Michigan, Republicans think if your house is foreclosed, you should lose your right to vote.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

...

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

As for the practice of challenging the right to vote of foreclosed property owners, Hebert called it, “mean-spirited.”

We saw these tactics before in 2000 and 2004, and I imagine we'll keep saying them in 2012, 2016, 2020, and on and on, until somebody starts prosecuting officials who screw with elections.

Undercutting the foundation of our democracy is not part of the campaign game.

Politics bites.

* Daily Kos's BarbinMD marvels at the quick education of Sarah Palin: from not knowing the most basic facts about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yesterday to writing an op-ed on the subject in the Wall Street Journal today.

* The first post-convention swing-state polls are coming out, and the news suggests a tight race, albeit one our side still has a slight edge in.

• In Colorado, Obama leads by a 49%-46% margin, actually an improvement for him since McCain's 49%-48% edge three weeks ago. Both results are within the margin of error.

• In Florida, the race is tied 48%-48%, compared to a 48%-46% McCain edge from about three weeks ago.

• In Ohio, McCain leads 51%-44%, compared to a 48%-43% lead for McCain from almost three weeks ago. Rasmussen has been the most favorable pollster for McCain in Ohio.

• In Pennsylvania, Obama has a slim 47%-45% edge, not significantly different from his 48%-45% lead two and a half weeks ago.

• In Virginia, McCain has a 49%-47% lead, not significantly changed from a 48%-47% McCain lead from over three weeks ago.

McCain needs both Virginia (13 EVs) and Colorado (9 EVs) to win, especially in light of the fact that he likely won't retain New Mexico (5 EVs) and Iowa (7 EVs), states Bush carried in his 286-251 victory over John Kerry in 2004. Likewise, if he loses Ohio or Florida, it's game over, and there's been a lot of speculation that the Palin pick could backfire with Jewish voters in Florida.

For Obama's part, he's really only playing defense in Michigan and (to a lesser extent) Pennsylvania, two states I would be quite surprised to see him lose.

* McCain comes out hard against Obama for... having the same position John McCain himself has held for years.

* And, via TPMtv, even Fox News's Chris Wallace has had enough of the Bridge to Nowhere lie.

Michigan independents don't like Sarah Palin. Via Ezra Klein.

“I was completely underwhelmed. She was a Republican novelty act with a sophomoric script. It was not even a speech I would expect for a someone running for the local PTA, much less for vice president.”

-- George Lentz, 66, Southfield independent

“Who is Sarah Palin? I'm sorry but I still don't know anymore about this young lady tonight than I did last night ... The way it looks to me, she's the Republican vice presidential nominee for one reason: because Hillary wasn't selected.”

-- Mike Kosh, 38, West Bloomfield independent

"Sarah Palin is a self-described ‘pitbull with lipstick.’ She spent little time helping Americans learn who she is. She is a cool, poised speaker, but her speech contained few statements about policy or the party platform. … I am not convinced that Palin's experience as a mayor or governor in Alaska meet the qualifications to be vice president much less one stroke or heart attack away from being commander in chief.”

-- Ilene Beninson, 52, Berkley independent

“Nothing worked for me. I found her barrage of snide remarksand distortions to be a major turn off. She is not a class act. The most important point she made is that she will be an effective attack dog.”

-- Jan Wheelock, 58, Royal Oak independent

“Sarah got as much applause as Hillary did, and had a friendly, appealing appearance.
Her delivery style reminded me of a high school valedictorian who also might have been a cheerleader. I thought she would appear more professional, more stateswomanly. She's no match for Joe Biden.”

-- Joellen Gilchrist, 64, Beverly Hills independent

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has just ruled that the Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated at half-strength in Denver.

The committee agreed on a compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party that would give Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59. Each delegate would get half a vote at the convention in Denver later this summer, according to the deal.

They also agreed to seat the Florida delegation based on the outcome of the January primary, with 105 pledged delegates for Clinton and 67 for Obama, but with each delegate getting half a vote as a penalty.

The net result is +24 for Clinton, but the more important result would seem to be the delegitimization of the last Clinton gambit, the bogus popular vote argument predicated on Clinton's having received one gazillion votes in Michigan to Obama's zero.

I also hope the obnoxious behavior of her supporters in the audience has also been noted for the record.

During his angry tirade before the Michigan vote, Harold Ickes threatened to take the matter to all the way to Denver. Let's hope, please, that it doesn't really come to that.

Let's have a Friday night ill-advised primary prediction post. Although Obama did slightly worse in Texas and Ohio than I expected, the rest of my original prediction has so far come to pass (especially the bit about the media backlash, which has been unreal, today particularly).

The big question is this: can he actually win Pennsylvania?

At this moment I put the odds on that at a rather pessimistic 20%. Pennsylvania's a very tough state for him demographically, he's got problems with the machine in Philly because he endorsed the other mayoral candidate, and he's coming at things from a significantly weaker position that I expected he would be. I thought he'd have won Texas, and I certainly didn't expect the Wright shitstorm that's going on in the media right now. (It's worth saying that I don't think the Wright story is that bad for Obama long-term, because many Americans who go to church have this sort of relationship with their pastors and nearly everyone knows that Wright is just a crazy old man—but it's certainly bad press right now.)

So let's say:

* 25% says he wins Pennsylvania outright, is clearly the nominee, and Hillary drops out.

* Another 33% of the time he loses Pennsylvania but takes the nomination anyway on the strength of his February and post-PA victories, even if it takes him all the way to Puerto Rico or (god forbid) Denver.

* 10% of the time Hillary is somehow able to pull out a crazy spin victory in the press, possibly on the grounds of a strong showing in a Florida revote, and gets to be on the top of the ticket with Obama almost-certainly the VP.

* 10%: something even more crazy and unpredictable happens.

That leaves around 20%. And I'm going to lay out a scenario now to account for that last 20% that is just starting to congeal for me. I might even secretly put its likelihood at more than 20%—I like it, a lot, but I'm still thinking hard about it. It goes like this:

As Matt Yglesias laid out nicely earlier today, Clinton's campaign thrives on uncertainty. The only pretense she has to a legitimate candidacy is the uncertainty in the process, the superdelegates in particular. And as we all know, one of the bigger uncertainties at the moment is Michigan and Florida. With the mail-in revote looking increasingly doomed, the most likely resolution seems to be this one, in which the Florida delegation is seated but halved and Michigan either does a revote or is simply split down the middle. (Based on the polling, these Michigan options amount to more or less the same thing in the end.) Ben Nelson came out in favor of this plan today, and frankly it's seemed to me like the least worst option, particularly for Obama fans, precisely because it denies Clinton the chance to declare a Florida revote she's likely to win big the be-all and end-all of the primary.

I think we could see an agreement like this announced in the next two weeks, seating Florida as-is at half-price and doing X or Y with Michigan.

If this happens, it sucks a lot of uncertainty out of the air and therefore a lot of air out of Clinton's candidacy. If Florida and Michigan are at last settled, and she's already had her "big comeback" in Ohio and Texas and gotten nothing out of it, she's left with almost no leverage with which to grab the nomination. The supers won't swing it to her in that situation, and I think even she knows it.

So what does she do? Maybe she decides to destroy Obama so she can win in 2012. But I think she wants the nomination so badly precisely because she knows either one of them can beat McCain in almost any circumstances; she can't destroy Obama and keep her hands clean enough to have a chance in 2012. So instead she decides she'd rather be Senate Majority Leader (as she always should have been) or else Governor of New York (I hear there's an opening) than the woman who elected John McCain. So she makes a speech declaring that she kept her word to the people of Florida and made sure that their votes counted.

And then she drops out. Before Pennsylvania.

Put the odds on that, tonight, at a rather optimistic 20%.

Michigan gives in—sometime in the next few days the state will announce plans for a caucus. More here. This doesn't do anything to make Clinton's math problems go away; in fact, it just made them a whole lot worse...

"You need a process that both sides can buy into. You cannot let these internecine battles create a war." That was Chuck Schumer on Meet the Press a few minutes ago, speaking without specificity about how the superdelegate and FL/MI situation should shake out.

Let's parse this out.

"You need a process that both sides can buy into." Assuming both sides want to win, and that both sides consider themselves to be within striking range of victory, what kind of process could both sides "buy into" when clearly any process would result in one or the other losing?

I think Clinton's camp is going to argue going into the convention that the only possible mutual buy-in result is a joint ticket, and then assert she should obviously be the head of that ticket and/or quietly refuse to be VP. I think this is how she thinks she can still be the nominee.

UPDATE: I decided to post this as a diary on Daily Kos, with a poll: "Is a joint ticket the only solution to this mess?" After about twenty minutes, "no" was far and away the winner, with "There should not be a joint ticket under any circumstances" edging out "No, there are other possible solutions" by about ten points.