Nationwide polls in April on the presidential election in November are meaningless, except as barometers of how news stories or controversies are affecting the campaigns. Early state by state polling is a bit more useful, though not much.

Still, one interesting phenomenon shines through in SurveyUSA’s sampling of presidential preferences in 14 states: Despite (or because of) the media’s relentless coverage of the Democratic race — and despite record turnout among Democrats — a dramatic shift toward the Dems in Red states has yet to materialize.

Three states show potential for a shift from Red to Blue, and in Wisconsin, McCain would tie Clinton. (These states are indicated in purple). Among the three potential Red-to-Blue shifts, Obama would take Iowa, and Clinton is ahead of McCain by 1 point in Missouri but would trounce him by 11 percentage points in Ohio:

Alabama:	California:	Iowa:	Kansas:
Clinton 34 *McCain 60 Obama 32 *McCain 64 2004: Bush	*Clinton 53 McCain 40 *Obama 50 McCain 43 2004: Kerry	Clinton 42 *McCain 48 **OBAMA 49 McCain 42 2004: Bush	Clinton 36 *McCain 57 Obama 37 *McCain 54 2004: Bush
Kentucky:	Massachusetts:	Minnesota:	Missouri:
Clinton 46 *McCain 48 Obama 29 *McCain 63 2004: Bush	*Clinton 56 McCain 41 *Obama 48 McCain 46 2004: Kerry	*Clinton 47 McCain 46 *Obama 49 McCain 43 2004: Kerry	**CLINTON 47 McCain 46 Obama 42 *McCain 50 2004: Bush
New Mexico:	New York:	Ohio:	Oregon:
Clinton 46 *McCain 49 Obama 44 *McCain 50 2004: Bush	*Clinton 55 McCain 39 *Obama 52 McCain 43 2004: Kerry	**CLINTON 53 McCain 42 Obama 45 *McCain 47 2004: Bush	*Clinton 47 McCain 46 *Obama 51 McCain 42 2004: Kerry
Virginia:	Wisconsin:
Clinton 39 *McCain 55 Obama 44 *McCain 52 2004: Bush	Clinton 46 (tie) **MCCAIN 46 (tie) *Obama 49 McCain 44 2004: Kerry

Source: MyDD

* Winner     **CHANGE FROM 2004

What this may indicate is that, in the greater scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter which Democratic candidate wins the nomination. The election will play out along partisan lines.

What it portends is that, unless something dramatic happens — for example, if McCain were to have a “macaca” moment that seriously hobbled his campaign — Barack Obama, the putative nominee now, will face a challenge in the fall that is very similar to the campaigns of the last two cycles — Red states vote for McCain, Blue states go for Obama, leaving the Electoral College about even so that voters in a swing state, like Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, ultimately decide the election.

If so, the best hope for the Democrats — and, by any rational measure, for the future of the United States — is that the swing state this year is Ohio, where the Republican Party remains weak and unpopular in the wake of corruption scandals.

It’s no secret that the Bush administration used retired military officers to sell the public on its plan to invade Iraq, but now, based on 8,000 pages of reports and communications it obtained by suing the Pentagon, the New York Times has exposed the access given these military analysts by the White House and Pentagon propaganda offices — and how the spin teams at Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon used these analysts to create a pretext for war that was as elaborate as it was false:
Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

…Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

The Times says the architect of this deception was Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s chief messagemeister, Torie Clarke:

[Clarke], the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called “information dominance.” In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.

And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit “key influentials” — movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld’s priorities.

In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke and her staff sensed a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke’s team, the military analysts were the ultimate “key influential” — authoritative, most of them decorated war heroes, all reaching mass audiences.

The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration’s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war…

Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what Ms. Clarke’s team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary. “We didn’t want to rely on them to be our primary vehicle to get information out,” Mr. Meyer said.

The Pentagon’s regular press office would be kept separate from the military analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of political appointees, with the point person being Brent T. Krueger, another senior aide to Ms. Clarke.

The scheme worked remarkably well:

At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke’s staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.

“You could see that they were messaging,” Mr. Krueger said. “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over.” Some days, he added, “We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.’ ”

In the past, the Times says, the military complained about the “media filter,” but this time Clarke and her team “converted the filter into an amplifier.”