Clinton wins. This is a nice pickup. A few weeks ago, she had a giant lead, but the fact that Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Deval Patrick were all backing Obama let him make up a lot of ground. In the end, though, she seems to have held back the tide. And that’s basically what she needs to do nationwide; there’s no doubt that the momentum was shifting toward Obama, but Clinton had plenty of room to give up and still hold the line.

Meanwhile, an unsurprising win for HRC in New York.

With facial hair, Bill Richardson looks a bit like a Klingon from the original Star Trek series.

UPDATE: Here’s the photo you crave:

It’s an odd look.

Clinton wins. Southern states with large black populations are good for Obama, but those like Tennessee and Oklahoma with relatively small numbers of African-Americans are bad for him.

Clinton wins Oklahoma. Obama wins Illinois. Both expected, though I’m a bit surprised the Obama campaign hasn’t even attempted any “Hillary’s from Illinois” spin. After all, she is from Illinois.

Obviously, McCain’s going to win tonight. It’s striking, though, to see McCain even winning in places like Georgia where he only draws 38 percent of the vote. In short, even where anti-McCain sentiment runs strong it doesn’t run nearly strong enough to unite people behind Mitt Romney.

UPDATE: Sorry, brain fart. Georgia hasn’t been called. I was looking at some random interim figures.

On issue after issue, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee have shown themselves eager to carry on President Bush’s legacy. There has been almost no distinction between their rhetoric in recent GOP debates and Bush’s 2008 State of the Union address. What they have promised, essentially, is a third Bush term. A look at the issues:

Taxes: “[M]ake the tax relief permanent.”

Immigration: “America needs to secure our borders.”

Iraq Surge: “[S]ome may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt.”

Iraq Withdrawal: “We will not rest until this enemy has been defeated.”

Health Care: “The best way to achieve that goal is by expanding consumer choice, not government control.”

ThinkProgress has put together a video showing the conservative candidates’ eagerness to mimic Bush’s policies and carry on his legacy. Watch it:

Transcript: Read more

Obama wins. That’s fairly expected. Of course when the dust settles we’re going to be most concerned with the delegate counts.

UPDATE: Chuck Todd says Obama may have gotten as much as a 35 delegate advantage out of Georgia.

Following up my observations on Obama as the cool candidate, another way of looking at it — indeed, probably the correct way of looking at it — is in terms of Garance Franke-Ruta’s old observation (that I can’t find on Google for some reason) that Hillary Clinton is the middlebrow candidate in the race. That, more than cool/uncool, captures the Wire versus Ugly Betty dynamic.

And it’s also, of course, Clinton’s big advantage. TV critics like The Wire but Ugly Betty has a much bigger audience. At the end of the day, how many people know who will.i.am is?

In announcing his new budget yesterday, President Bush proclaimed that it “achieves balance by 2012.” Congress, however, pointed out that the budget didn’t include billions of dollars in Iraq-related spending.

In fact, Bush’s $70 billion budget for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars account for costs only up to the first half of FY2009. In a budget hearing today, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson confirmed that the budget drastically lowballs Iraq war-related costs:

PAULSON: What we’ve got in terms of 2009, you have $70 billion which is a placeholder. And that will be needed to be updated when Gen. Petraeus comes back and reports and so on. In terms of what we’re going to spend this year, Congress, I believe, is yet to appropriate $108 billion which is going to be needed right now.

SEN. BINGAMAN: So we need the $108 billion plus we need the $70 billion plus we need whatever Gen. Petraeus says in his report in March? And the amount that Gen. Petraeus asked for is not included in the budget?

PAULSON: It’s an unknowable amount. … That’s a placeholder and it will change based on what the requirement is.

Watch it:

Bush’s proposed budget will likely lead to a deficit of over $400 billion by 2009, “just shy of the record $413 billion set four years ago.” While Bush foresees a balanced budget by 2012, the unaccounted war costs will lead to a “deficit that remains in the $200 billion range in 2012,” according to Rep. John Spratt (D-SC).

Today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also declined to specify the war costs, claiming there are “too many variables.” “There’s a lot of games, smoke, mirrors, incomplete numbers, basically there’s not much realism” in the budget, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the Budget Committee’s top Republican, charged. “They’re playing the usual games.”

Read more in today’s Progress Report.