A few weeks ago I wrote a long post on why Barack Obama's suggestion that he and Hillary split the Michigan delegates 50/50 was tanatamount to vote-stealing:

On January 15, 2008, 594,398 Democrats went to their polling places and voted in their state's primary. The official Michigan election results are here.

328,309 Democrats in Michigan voted for Hillary Clinton. She won all but two counties, Washtenaw and Emmet. 238,168 voted uncommitted. 21,715 voted for Dennis Kucinich. 3,845 voted for Chris Dodd. 2,361 voted for Mike Gravel.

Hillary got 55% of the vote. The uncommitted, who either were truly uncommitted or for Obama, Edwards or Biden, all three of whom voluntarily withdrew their names from the ballot, got 40%. Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel won 5% of the vote.

Barack Obama now proposes he get 50% of the state's delegates. That would be vote-stealing. It would be disenfranchising 5% of Hillary's voters. It would be assuming that every uncommitted voter and every voter for Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel now want their vote to go to Obama.

That's called stealing an election.

Obama prevails in this crazy theory at his peril. There will be hundreds of thousands of Democrats across the country who will refuse to vote for him in November, thinking better a Republican than a cheat.

Obama is still pushing this unfair solution. My DD has a copy of the e-mail his campaign sent out today: [More...]

Has Barack Obama peaked? That's one reading of the NY Times/ CBS poll of registered voters of both parties released today:

Senator Barack Obama’s support among Democrats nationally has softened over the last month, particularly among men and upper-income voters, as voters have taken a slightly less positive view of him than they did after his burst of victories in February, according to the latest New York Times/CBS The survey suggests that Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, may have been at something of a peak in February, propelled by a string of primary and caucus victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and that perceptions of him are settling down.

More...

Both candidates agree the popular vote count will be an important factor for superdelegates to consider in deciding how to cast their vote. It's one of several, others being their view of the candidate's electability in November and the pledged delegate totals.

So, how many human beings have gone to the polls so far and cast votes for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

The popular vote total is the votes cast by individuals in state primaries. Caucus votes don't count in the popular vote total because they are counted in terms of delegates, not votes, and many states don't count the number of people attending caucuses. More on this below.

Sources and Methodology below:

Hillary and Bill Clinton released their tax returns today for the years 2000 to 2007. Previous years had already been released.

The Clintons have now made public thirty years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service. None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information.

What the Clintons' tax returns show is that they paid more than $33,000,000 in federal taxes and donated more than $10,000,000 to charities over the past eight years. They paid taxes and made charitable contributions at a higher rate than taxpayers at their income level.

The individual tax returns are available at the above link. Now, let's talk about John McCain:

Following Clinton's tax return release, DNC Communications Director Karen Finney released a statement "on John McCain's 26 year history of refusing to release his tax returns":

"While both Democratic candidates for president have released several years worth of full federal tax returns, John McCain has not. As a self-professed champion of disclosure and ethics, John McCain should explain why for the past 26 years he has not seen fit to provide this important financial information to voters. Presidential candidates have disclosed several years worth of returns for decades, John McCain stands as a disturbing exception."

Update: Comments at 200, thread now closed.

Tonight is the BSG premiere. So who is the unrevealed Cylon? Guesses only. No spoilers. This is an Open Thread. I won't be around but J should be back later.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

The magic number. That is not a phrase you hear much in reference to the Democratic nomination. We hear about pledged delegate counts and how sacrosanct they are of course. But never is that tied to the concept of a magic number. But the magic number exists. Two are possible - one with FL/MI (2214) and one without (2025). And this Chris Bowers post truly illustrates why not revoting Florida and Michigan makes getting a legitimate nominee extremely difficult:

Add this in to the above numbers, and it comes to a grand total of Obama 1,948--1,824 Clinton, with only the 255 remaining superdelegates to go. Obama would need 74.5, or just 29.3%, of the remaining superdelegates to reach the 2,022.5 magic number. At that point, he would be able to dictate what happens in Florida and Michigan.

(Emphasis supplied.) Chris assumes the non-MI/FL magic number will be considered legitimate by all. I am confident it will not be so. A solution to Florida and Michigan must, at the very least, be provided and agreed to PRIOR to the nominee being chosen. It can not be done after the fact. You can not truly claim legitimacy unless the nominee achieves the MI/FL magic number - 2214, through an agreed upon process. After the fact will not cut it. The legitimacy of the nominee depends upon it.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via Todd Beeton, I think the Clinton camp is getting it on the popular vote issue:

Both Rob Reiner in his intro and Hillary Clinton in her remarks framed the issue as the disenfranchisement of millions of voters, which really got the crowd exercised I have to say, especially when Clinton phrased it in these terms:

I thought it was Democrats who wanted to count every vote. If we had counted every vote in 2000 Al Gore would be finishing his second term

. . . Rob Reiner hinted at what's really going on here in his introductory remarks[:]

We're Democrats, we let everyone vote. If at the end of the process, there's a candidate who has more votes...When all the dust settles and Puerto Rico has voted, you're going to see that more people voted for Hillary Clinton.

This is the smart political play AND the right thing to do for the Clinton campaign. Kudos to them.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

It always amazed me how well Barack Obama was able to sell his "new politics" schtick. It is not like it is actually a new schtick. Heck some pol or other uses it every cycle. Well, via Taylor Marsh, we've found a reporter that noticed that the Obama campaign has used negative tactics:

A new PA poll by Muhlenberg College and the Morning Call show Hillary ahead by 11 points. Full poll results are here.

Key findings:

1. With the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary under three weeks away, Senator Hillary Clinton maintains a double digit lead over Senator Obama in the Democratic race.

2. Democratic voters in the Keystone State were most likely to rank the economy as the key issue in terms of their vote in the Democratic Primary, with the Iraq War and health care also prominently mentioned.

3. Pennsylvania Democrats have generally favorable views of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. However, Obama receives a larger percentage of unfavorable ratings than Clinton among likely voters in the state.

4. Keystone State Democrats are evenly divided on which of their candidates is more likely to beat John McCain in the general election.

5. Democratic voters in the Commonwealth are more likely to want Hillary Clinton to choose Barack Obama as her running mate than they are to support Obama choosing Clinton as his Vice President.

6. A majority of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania do not believe Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race if she loses the Pennsylvania Primary.

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

As a supporter of NAFTA and free trade, I hope it is clear that my call for the firing of Mark Penn is not based on objections to a free trade agreement with Colombia, but because Penn (who I believe is an incompetent political operative) can not serve both Burson Marsteller and Hillary Clinton's campaign for President. He needs to go. Immediately.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

It's official. TPM's M.J. Rosenberg murders irony when he writes:

Krugman is making two big mistakes. The first has to do with his influence as a columnist. By constantly attacking Obama, he is turning off the 50% of Democrats who favor Obama as our nominee. People like me can no longer read him without thinking "What's up with this guy? Has he really developed such a personal animus to our likely nominee based on his differences with him on health care? What's his agenda here?"

(Emphasis supplied.) Yes, Paul Krugman has substantive critiques of Barack Obama and he loses Obama fanboys like the ones writing a TPM. The shallow, fallacious and empty attacks on Hillary Clinton by TPM, not to mention the legion of Obama supporters from Senators on down, is sure to make for a wonderfully unified Democratic Party. Writing from the TPM glass house with its tattered reputation, Rosenberg chooses to throw stones at Paul Krugman? Yes, irony is now dead and buried. More . . .

Good news for forensic pathologist and tv pundit Cyril Wecht. After 9 days of deliberation in his federal trial on theft of public services for using the state coroner's office to conduct autopsies and private business, the jury is deadlocked. The jury's note:

"After considering all counts in a variety of ways and in reconsideration of all individual opinions according to the court instructions, we have unanimously agreed we have reached an impasse," the note read. "We agree additional deliberations would not be helpful."