Hotline After Dark -- Off To The Polls

Michelle Obama was on "LKL" last night:

On Obama: "He wouldn't have taken us down this path if he didn't think that he had a very good shot at it. And that's something that we talked about. I mean I looked at Barack as were making this decision and I said, do you think not only can you do this, but should you do this? And he looked me in the eye and he said, yes. He said I can be a good president."

On possibly being the next first lady: "I think wow, what an opportunity. What a platform that I'll have, potentially, to talk about a whole range of issues that could affect the country. What a privilege it will be to have the opportunity to speak to peoples' hearts, to be a part of moving this country in a different direction. So I try to embrace the exciting parts of it."

More: "We're not new to politics. We're new to the national scene, but Barack has been in the U.S. Senate for several years. He was in the state senate in Illinois for eight years."

M. Obama, asked about the competition: "I'm not thinking about Bill or Hillary. I'm not even thinking about Barack. I'm thinking about the people in front of me and what their pains the level of unfairness -- this gap of inequality that is happening with working folks out here, regular folks trying to make it. So with that, I don't have time to focus on the competition."

CNN's L. King: "When you were a small, little girl, wasn't it one of your dreams to see the first female president?"

M. Obama: "You know, I have to honestly say no. That's, you know, because that wasn't even a possibility for me. I mean the truth is, when I was a little girl, the thought of a woman or an African-American being president was the furthest thing from what could be possible. So it's only now that I am seeing, in this race, these two phenomenal candidates that I know, as some have said, that we now can move beyond those issues and we can go for who we think is the best candidate."

Asked about super delegates: "I think a lot of people, more and more, I'm hearing, that they don't want this race to be decided by super delegates. I mean they want the voters to decide" (CNN, 2/11).

[EMILY GOODIN]

HE'S STILL HERE

And after M. Obama was on, Mike Huckabee stopped by "LKL":

Asked what's going on in WA state: "It is bizarre. ... It's one of the most remarkable things. We were stunned and still are that with 87 percent of the vote count in, the state party chairman just said, we're going to quit counting the votes. We're going to declare John McCain the winner and congratulate him and went home. Obviously, that's unacceptable. It's not just unacceptable to us. It's unacceptable to any American who believes that you don't disenfranchise somebody when they vote. If they take the time to do it, you count their vote. So we've had attorneys there, working, trying to get to the bottom of it, asking for a full accounting an audit of the process. We want all those votes counted. Then we want to make sure there was an integrity in the process and even the chain of possession of the forms themselves, to make sure that we, in fact, didn't end up winning that thing."

Asked how he could still win the nod: "A couple of things can happen. One, you may have some delegates that defect, people who are committed to somebody else who decide to go elsewhere when they're released. The main thing is that until somebody has 1,191 delegates, we don't have a nominee. Now other things could happen. Senator McCain could say something on any given day, as I could, that would end the campaign. Candidates are capable of having those moments. The other thing that could happen is, if nobody gets 1,191, we go to the convention. That's when the delegates at the convention would actually pick their nominee. That's a possibility" (CNN, 2/11).

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SAYS ...

And there was a lot of political talk from the pundits last night. Some highlights:

Bloomberg's Hunt, on the Tuesday primaries: "We have big enchiladas every week. It's a Mexican delight" ("Money & Politics," Bloomberg, 2/11).

NBC's Todd: "The timing of the announcement of the campaign manager switch was actually pretty smart by the Clintons because now it gives an excuse as to why they're going to have this losing streak. We're in the midst of retooling. Give us a little time. And it buys them time to March 4 with their donors and with their key supporters, and probably at least freezes the superdelegate because the thing with a bandwagon like this, that Obama is in the midst of creating, is that it could shake lose some more superdelegates" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 2/11).

CNN's J. King: "Maggie Williams is more open to outside ideas and is willing to speak up and challenge Senator Clinton if she thinks she's wrong. But that has been one of the long criticisms, that her team is a very insular team, that they essentially form a circle, and are impervious to outside advice" ("AC 360," 2/11).

Karl Rove: "The key tomorrow night is going to be how big the gap is. And if the gap is as big as Mason Dixon predicts for both Virginia and Maryland, it's difficult because she's losing both of them by better than 3 to 2" ("O'Reilly Factor," FNC, 2/11).

Washington Examiner's Sammon: "Hillary Clinton is becoming in danger of becoming the Rudy Giuliani of the Democratic Party. All this talk about firewalls -- I can afford to lose five contests over the weekend, three tomorrow, even two next week in Hawaii and Wisconsin, as long as I can win Ohio and Texas three weeks from tomorrow, or, if not then, maybe I can win the final fire wall of Pennsylvania" ("Special Report," FNC, 2/11).

NBC's Mitchell: "I was told by Tom Daschle, who is, you know, wrangling superdelegates for Obama today, that Bill Clinton has not only called every one, but he had just gotten off the phone -- Daschle had -- with a superdelegate that Bill Clinton had called for 50 minutes while this poor superdelegate was in the car wash" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 2/11).