Logan needed to write a column and couldn't think of anything else. Bilbray is so safe it is scary.

Bilbray may just have the first "easy" election since he commandeered a bulldozer in Imperial Beach. Go Brian - HE'S ON OUR SIDE!!!

Ok, here's my issue with this posting: the fact that the Primary is closed does not help Republican candidates, and it is false to assume that because of the closed primary, independents who could not vote for Bilbray in June will suddenly vote for him in November. In psychology, there is a well-known principle of persuasion theory known as "consistency." In layman's terms, this principle says that it is easy to get someone to act in a manner consistent with their previous actions, and difficult to get them to change their behavior. By closing the Republican Primary, the party has denied those independent voter the opportunity to invest themselves in Republican candidates. Furthermore, by causing them to vote more often in the Dem primary, the party has caused those independent voters to invest themselves more often in Dem candidates. Because of this, independent voters who might normally vote for Bilbray in both the primary and the general will vote Dem in the primary. Then, if their primary candidate wins, will be far more likely to vote for him/her in the general than if they had been able to vote for Bilbray in the Primary.

This isn't to say that I think Bilbray is going to lose. The registration differential in the 50th is a tough hill to climb. But, with the Party having pushed independents away in a manner that will cause them to vote for Democrats more often, with Obama's appeal to affluent whites, and knowing how close 2006 actually was, I agree with Jenkins that this one might not be a landslide; and hope that Bilbray's campaign team is running a little more scared than his legislative team.

In regards to Mr. Morton's comments, it is equally false to assume, as Logan did in his column, that all Independents will vote for Obama. My point was that McCain has more Independent appeal than Bush did, Dole did, Bush Sr. did and so on. To say that Republican GOP candidates will be in jeopardy simply because Clinton/Obama received more votes in the primary than the GOP nominees is faulty logic because Independents had nowhere to go to vote but the Democratic Primary. That is not the case in the General. That's not to say they will vote for Bilbray, but the point is they will not necessarily vote for Obama either.

Mr. Bardella: The real question then becomes who did independents vote for in the Dem primary? I ask this rhetorically because I can almost guarantee that if/when Obama gets the nom (I agree that he will), that ind's who voted for him in the primary will vote for him disproportionately in the general. Likewise, in the scenario that Obama gets the nom, ind's who voted for Clinton will split in the General in similar proportion to the national average. This is based on years on the quantitative, proven, and replicable scientific data that had made the consistency principle almost universally accepted in academic discourse; and it means that regardless of who the Dem nom is, ind's in CA will vote disproportionately for the Dem candidate. I do not, however, think this means that Bibray is going to lose. I do think that as a result of this and the fact that national politics is not favorable to reps at the moment, a margin of victory that is slightly less than a landslide is reasonable. Therefore, this campaign cannot afford to be anything less than on the ball.

Scientific data may work well in academic settings, but their applicability to on-the-ground campaigns is a completely different story. As this campaign has unfolded, the one thing that has proven consistent is that conventional wisdom can be thrown out the door. I'm not saying Obama doesn't win Independents but consider his lead over McCain is less than 8 points and shrinking. More than 60% of Independents feel that Obama hasn't defined his policy objectives and ideas for the country enough. To say that any candidate has a lock on the Independent vote is just wrong. Moreover, it is equally questionable to suggest that the election in November will mirror the results from the February Presidential Primary and therefore, Republicans in San Diego County should be concerned.

Academic science observes what happens and seeks to establish fact by replicating results in different situations. There are certainly weaknesses of these processes (such as an structural inability for ingenuity), but this is not one of them; especially when many of the studies that established the consistency principle were in fact applied field studies.

Nonetheless, if Obama gets the nom, an ind who voted for him in the primary would have to admit to themselves that they were wrong and act inconsistently with their previous behavior in order to vote for McCain. This is not an issue of politics, "on the ground campaigns", or of "conventional wisdom". It is about psychology. This is not to say that this is a huge swing. Remember that inds who voted for the Dem that lost the nom, or who did not vote in the primary, are not affected by this principle. However, because of the consistency principle, the outcome of the ind vote will be different than if the Republican Party allowed inds to vote in our primary. The size of this effect will depend on how many inds who voted for the losing Dem, or didn't vote in Feb, turn out for the General.