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:

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.”

In its weekly survey of inside the Beltway types, National Journal’s Polltrack posed the following question:

Which Democratic presidential candidate would do better against John McCain in November?

Democrats (41 votes)
Hillary Rodham Clinton 41 percent
Barack Obama 54 percent
No difference (volunteered) 5 percent

Clinton
“She has the experience and knowledge to be the stronger candidate in the general election. She’s battle-tested and will be prepared for a tough fight against Sen. McCain.”

“Only because I believe that she is better equipped to take the Republican crap and give it right back. Sen. Obama has all the attributes that we know about, but he has not dealt with Karl Rove yet. (Oh, yes, [Rove] will be around in the fall. You can bet on that.)”

“I hope he won’t be bitter for my saying it, but HRC is the better candidate.”

Obama
“November will be all about voter turnout. Barack will be a tidal wave.”

“Change versus Stay the Course in the ultimate change cycle.”

“Obama has shown constant growth as a candidate in every respect. And he is too gifted not to master the art of connection to working-class voters before November. In addition, the ticking time bomb on a Clinton nomination would be the bundle of unseemly donors tied to the Clinton Foundation. By October [if Clinton was the nominee], the superdelegates would be wondering what on earth they were thinking.”

No difference
“Either Democratic nominee will do just fine, because Sen. John McCain is a Bush-Cheney third term: a failing war, a failing economy and the failure to address issues hurting the American people, from health care to global warming to bailing out Wall Street while foreclosing on Main Street.”

“Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama have records and platforms that offer a clear, stark contrast with Sen. McCain, who has tied himself closely to President Bush’s war in Iraq and his disastrous economic policies.”

Republicans (40 votes)
Hillary Rodham Clinton 53 percent
Barack Obama 45 percent
No difference (volunteered) 3 percent

Clinton
“Obama’s suddenly become a politician, and a bitter one at that! Obama may be great someday, but this year his résumé is too light and his rhetoric too vapid to fool the American people.”

“In isolation, Obama’s comments, his wife’s comments and Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright’s comments could perhaps be forgiven. When seen together, however, they create a pattern that is leading more and more Americans to ask: ‘Who is this guy? And, what does he really believe?’ ”

“This has changed as Obama looks more like [Michael] Dukakis than [John F.] Kennedy.”

“Clinton is a stronger general election candidate than Obama. He is further to the left than Clinton, less experienced than Clinton and has no significant accomplishments that stamp him as presidential. Moreover, he is a very unlikely commander-in-chief at a time of war. An Obama candidacy will give McCain an opening among white women, seniors, working Democrats, and Hispanics … If the Democrats nominate Obama, they will have a bad case of buyer’s remorse in the fall … Democrats would rather choose the devil they don’t know than the devil they do.”

Obama
“Both Democrats have serious weaknesses in a McCain matchup, but Hillary has decades of negatives that will be difficult to overcome.”

“Sen. Clinton is certainly battle-tested and has a familiarity with Republican-style tactics, as she employs them herself. That being said, sometimes the events shape the debate more than the candidates do. There is a clear mandate for change and disenchantment with traditional politicians. Obama is just a different breed. He is prone to some mistakes, but has been flexible enough to adapt and withstand the Republican-like attacks of the Clinton campaign.”

“Hillary has known negatives; Obama keeps making his negatives daily. We dreamed of Hillary as the best Democrat for us to defeat, but to our surprise Obama is getting better and better with his words, his wife’s words and his pastor’s words. Keep him talking!”