Watching MTP and ABC's This Week, the pundits roundtable demonstrates that Barack Obama's most important constituency, the Beltway Media, remains firmly in his corner.

It should not matter, but it matters a lot. It is why I believe Barack Obama is more electable than Clinton.

This is an Open Thread. Below is my live blog of Obama on Fox. Jerome Armstrong has a nice post on it. Open Thread bonus - Indiana demographics and North Carolina demographics.

On "Face The Nation," when asked about Jim Clyburn's outrageous comments about the Clinton camp, David Axelrod went out of his way to categorically reject Clyburn's conspiracy theory. It seems clear to me that Clyburn was off the reservation there and the Obama camp wants no part of Clyburn's delusions. More . . .

I stopped by Larry Johnson's No Quarter and found his latest post on Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. We've both written about Ayers before, but we have different views of Ayers and his wife.

As I've said many times, I admire the work the Ayers' have done for children and education and in trying to keep them on the right track rather than go down the wrong one. Larry tends to view Ayers as a terrorist. I don't. I also like what I know about Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorn for how they took in Chesa Boudin and raised him while his parents were in jail for many, many years over their activities.

So Larry and I disagree a bit on which aspect of Ayers' connection to Obama is or is not a problem.

This is an open thread.

Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics examines the popular vote totals, including caucus states, and says Hillary Clinton is ahead.

Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama.

If you add in the votes, as estimated by the folks at realclearpolitics.com, in the Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine caucuses, where state Democratic parties did not count the number of caucus-attenders, Clinton still has a lead of 12,000 votes.

Barone says even with a loss in North Carolina, Hillary may keep the lead if she does well, as expected in W.Va and Kentucky and Puerto Rico. [More....]

The Associated Press reports on the state of the electoral map and says right now it favors Democrats. It includes 14 states as battleground states that could go either way.

William Arnone, long-time Democratic party activist and the author of the key state series I've quoted many times, has just finished his preliminary electoral vote preview and again graciously agreed to let me publish it.

Arnone says there are 17 battle ground states among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, which also has electoral votes.

As to Hillary or Obama, who's more likely to get the Dems over the 270 mark? Arnone says it's Hillary.

Here's his breakdown of the 538 electoral votes:

• 15 states are likely will go Democratic (196 EV)
• 19 states are likely to go Republican (152 EV)
• 17 are toss-ups or battleground states (190 EV)

The 17 battleground states are broken down as follows: [More...]

Paul Rosenberg, who like me has been a critic of Barack Obama's political style, speculates that Obama will go after Fox tomorrow in his appearance on Fox News Sunday:

Obama could--potentially--go on Fox News, and counterattack the very essence of the Versaille narratives deployed against him, and yet gain a fair amount of Versailles support, because his supporters could act as if he's only attacking Fox News, and not their own identical behavior.

NOTE: It turns out the interview already took place and it was a lovefest. Stoller does not believe Fox. I do. I think it would have been quite shrewd of Obama to do so and I agree with Rosenberg that Obama could have pick up Media Elite support for doing so. But I think Obama is clearly too cautious a politician to even try it. More . . .

Hillary Clinton today asked Barack Obama to participate in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate without moderators. They would each ask the other questions.

Obama tells Fox News in a segment that will air tomorrow there will be no more debates before May 6, when Indiana and North Carolina vote.

Hillary's challenge:

“You know, after the last debate in Philadelphia, Senator Obama’s supporters complained a little bit about the tough questions. And you know, tough questions in the debate are nothing compared to the tough questions you get asked when you’re president and you have to answer them to make tough decisions,” she said.

“So here’s my proposal: I’m offering Senator Obama the chance to debate me one-on-one, no moderators. Just the two of us, going for 90 minutes, asking and answering questions. We’ll set whatever rules seem fair.”

Update: Comments now closed.

Just out from Newsweek:

After an important primary win in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton has reduced Democratic rival Barack Obama's double-digit lead among registered Democrats and voters leaning Democratic by more than half, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Plagued by controversies over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments and the candidate's own "bitter" remarks, Obama has seen his favorability rating slip significantly in the last week, the poll found.

The survey found that Clinton now trails Obama by seven points, down from 19 just one week ago. The previous NEWSWEEK poll, conducted on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, found that more than half (55 percent) of registered voters believed Obama was more electable, while 33 percent gave the edge to Clinton. The current poll finds Obama leading 46 percent to 38 percent.

Complete poll results are here.

I actually think this post has a lot of insightful analysis but I do chuckle that its central point is that a 50 State Presidential strategy this year is a pipe dream:

Even West Virginia, once one of the most Democratic states in the country—it voted for Dukakis and was one of the six states won by Jimmy Carter in 1980—is now moving in to Republican territory for Presidential years. It's not as Republican as Kentucky, but like Kentucky it's unlikely to go Democratic regardless of the Democratic nominee, even if it were Clinton.

More . .

Flamboyant attorney and legal analyst Geoff Fieger, perhaps best known for his defense of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, is on trial in federal court in Detroit. He and his law partner, Van Johnson, are charged with having employees at their law firm and others donate to John Edwards' presidential campaign and then reimbursing them, in violation of federal campaign laws. Fieger is also charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly concealing a memo and tampering with grand jury witnesses. (Background here.)

Gerry Spence, a legendary jury communicator, is representing Fieger. From his opening argument:

[More...]

Some Congressional Obama (I know some pretend to be "neutral") supporters seem intent on damaging Barack Obama's candidacy.

I have already mentioned Jim Clyburn's disastrous behavior. Nancy Pelosi has been a disaster for a while now. Now a new WaPo article provides more of the same:

"If you have any, any kind of loyalty to the Democratic Party, perhaps you need to rethink your strategy and bow out gracefully in order to save this party from a disastrous end in November," Rep. William Lacy Clay (Mo.), an African American Obama supporter, said in an appeal to Clinton.

(Emphasis supplied.) What an insulting, divisive and stupid remark. With friends like these, Obama needs no enemies. They seem intent on making Obama unelectable. More . .

After years of isolation in detention at Guantánamo, is Salim Ahmed Hamdan competent to assist his lawyers in mounting a defense? His lawyers say he's not.

They say Mr. Hamdan has essentially been driven crazy by solitary confinement in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo “boil his mind.”

A defendant who isn't competent to understand the proceedings or to assist in his own defense has a due process right not to be put on trial. But due process seemingly has little meaning at Guantánamo. Hamdan's lawyers want their client placed in a less restrictive setting until he's able to focus on his defense. The government's response is less a defense of Guantánamo than an indictment of the American prison system. (more...)

Alice Palmer is campaigning for Hillary Clinton today in Indiana:

Joining Chelsea Clinton and other women leaders to campaign for Hillary Clinton today is Alice Palmer, the former state senator who picked Obama to be her successor back in the mid-90s. When she tried to reclaim her spot, though, Obama got her booted from the ballot.

Her story is an interesting one, since it shows how Obama plays hardball.

Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.

More...