Update: Hillary's speech focused on policy. More on the dinner is here.

Update: As others have noticed, Obama didn't realize Montana holds primaries, not cacuses. See below.

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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are speaking two hours apart tonight at the Mansfield-Metcalf Democrats Dinner in Butte, Montana. Obama's speech has already concluded.

“I know that there’s some people who have been saying that these caucuses — the caucus states out West with these small populations, they don’t really count all that much,” Obama said in a thinly veiled reference to Clinton.

“I don’t know about you but I think they’re pretty important,” he said to loud applause. “I think it’s important to note that we have seen record number of Americans who turned out for us in Idaho, and in Wyoming, and in Utah, and in Colorado.”

It's not just the size of the states, it's their composition that's the point. There is no chance Montana, Wyoming, Idaho or Utah will go Democratic in November. (More...)

In Oregon today, Hillary Clinton explained why the FL and MI votes count:

"Some say their votes should be ignored and the popular vote in Michigan and Florida should be discounted. Well, I have a different view," Clinton said at a rally here. "The popular vote in Florida and Michigan has already been counted. It was determined by election results, it was certified by election officials in each state, it's been officially tallied by the secretary of state in each state, and the question is whether those 2.3 million Democrats will be honored and their delegates seated by the Democratic party."

...Both states saw record turnout in their primaries and the former first lady won both contests.

5,000 Oregonians came out to see her at one stop.

And Helen Thomas weighs in, arguing Hillary should hang in there: [More...]

Florida selected 27 delegates for the Democratic Convention today.

Of the 27, three will go to the Convention not pledged to a candidate: Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller and House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber. The other 24 were allocated based on the statewide results from the January 29th Presidential Primary: 14 pledged to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and 10 pledged to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

In May, the delegation will be completed with 40 at-large delegates. In March, 121 delegates were elected at the Congressional District-Level. Florida has 23 unpledged delegates ("superdelegates") - 13 Members of the Democratic National Committee and 10 Democratic members of Congress.

By Big Tent Democrat

A new North Carolina poll:

Democrat Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 35 percent to 26 percent among likely voters in North Carolina's May 6 Democratic primary. But nearly four in 10 are still undecided. . . . Among likely primary voters, the two virtually split the support of white voters and women while Obama has a strong -- 59 percent to 7 percent -- lead among African Americans.

This poll seems extremely suspect to me. The undecided number is ridiculously high. The demographics of the expected turnout is not offered. Obam's A-A number are obviously too low (his white numbers seem high as well).

By Big Tent Democrat

I do not link enough to Bob Somerby. I thought this was pretty funny:

This week, we emitted a low, mordant chuckle at one part of this David Sirota piece, to which we’d been linked by the person who has kidnapped Josh Marshall.

Some days I feel like the entire Left blogosphere has been kidnapped.

By Big Tent Democrat

The normally astute Mark Schmitt writes something incredibly absurd:

With the elected officials who are superdelegates now split evenly between Obama and Clinton, it seems that there are now two congressional parties, defined not by ideology but by attitude: On one side, older liberals like Ted Kennedy joined with those elected more recently who have the combativeness necessary in the Bush years; on the other side, a middle-generation elected and brought up under the assumptions of the '80s and '90, very roughly speaking.

(Emphasis supplied.) Say what? Ben Nelson? Tom Daschle? Kent Conrad? Claire McCaskill? This is one of the silliest statements I have read in a season of silly statements. Yes, the post partisan Obama Unity Schtick has been VERY appealing to the Fighting Dems. What a freaking joke.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Who was Trina Bachtel? According to this NYTimes story:

Trina Bachtel . . . die[d] last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio.

This has become a new source for Clinton Derangement Syndrome at an Obama blog because:

I'll be out and about today. If you've got something to talk about, here's a place. Please be civil.

Richard Crawford, a founder and past national president of the American Society of Trial Consultants (not a lawyers' group) lists his top ten myths about jury trials.

I haven't yet read them all, but No. 7 leapt out at me. " 7. A trial is about discovering the truth."

I agree that's a big myth but I would give a different explanation. Mr. Crawford says trials are about justice, not truth. One can hope truth (or justice) will be reflected in the outcome, but a criminal trial is only about a testing of the evidence and whether the prosecution can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Semantics, maybe, but it's an interesting list on the whole.

By Big Tent Democrat

With Obama's new 50-50 proposal for the Michigan delegation (BTW, I guess the whole deterrence thing is out the window now), it is now fashionable with some Obama supporters to forget that it was Barack Obama who blocked a Michigan revote. This memo from the Obama campaign establishes that Obama did block the Michigan revote:

Assuming there will be no new primaries, how would you solve the problem with FL and MI?

The raw vote numbers:

• Florida Primary Results (Jan. 29, 2008)(from the Secretary of State's Office)

Clinton 870,986 49.8%
Obama 576,214 32.9%
Edwards 248,604 14.4%

• Michigan Primary Results (Jan. 15, 2008)(from MI Secretary of State's office)

Clinton 328,309
Chris Dodd 3,845
Dennis Kucinich 21,715
Mike Gravel 2,361
Uncommitted 238,168

Two murderers were sentenced in federal courts in Missouri yeterday.

Lisa Montgomery got the death penalty in federal court. She will be the third woman on federal death row. Her crime: She cut the fetus out of a woman who was 8 months pregnant. She wanted the baby because she had told her husband she was pregnant and felt she had to produce one. She is mentally ill, likely a result of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. The baby lived and is healthy, and has been returned to the family.

Other women on federal death row:

Since 1927, only two women have been executed under the federal system, both in 1953. Ethel Rosenberg was the first, sent to the electric chair after her and husband Julius were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

Bonnie Heady was sent to the gas chamber with her lover Carl Hall for the kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old boy in Kansas City. Mary Surratt was hanged by the U.S. government in 1865 for her involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln.

Timothy Krajcir, 63, is a serial killer who pleaded guilty to murdering five woman on separate occasions. He got a life sentence by making a deal to plead guilty in exchange for the Government not seeking the death penalty. [More...]