The March 10, 2008 issue of the New Yorker has a very long profile on Michelle Obama. It's mostly a big puff piece, but I wonder what the evangelicals will make of this:

Barack had a more bohemian attitude toward romance. “We would have this running debate throughout our relationship about whether marriage was necessary,” Obama told me. “It was sort of a bone of contention, because I was, like, ‘Look, buddy, I’m not one of these who’ll just hang out forever.’ You know, that’s just not who I am.

He was, like”—she broke into a wishy-washy voice—“ ‘Marriage, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s really how you feel.’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah, right.’ ” Eventually, he proposed to her over dinner at Gordon, a restaurant in Chicago. “

Right now, I'm on the Hillary Clinton press conference call today with Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn. They choose the topic and start with a little speech but then reporters can ask questions on any topic.

Here's a rough live blog (because it's a live blog it's not in complete sentences, and it's not a transcript, I can't type quite that fast.)

Their topic today: recent polling data.

Their points: There are changes happening with voters. While Obama was declaring himself the frontrunner, the polls show his lead with Democrats nationally is evaporating.

Cites the Gallup daily tracking poll and Zogby/Reuters polls. Obama's lead is down from 14 points to 3 points, suggesting a strong swing of momentum for Hillary after Ohio and TX.

As Obama is finally going through the vetting and testing process, his ability to beat McCain is dropping. Some new polls show Hillary is better able to beat McCain. Cites USA Today/ Gallup, PPP poll. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

The trend continues:

New Gallup Poll Daily tracking finds Hillary Clinton with a 49% to 42% lead over Barack Obama in national Democratic voters' presidential nomination preference. . . . The initial indications are that the speech has not halted Clinton's gaining momentum, as she led by a similar margin in Tuesday night's polling as compared to Monday night's polling.

Time will tell where this is heading.

Update (TL): Comments now closed.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

No excuse left for Barack Obama and his ardent supporters. Once so outraged by so called attempted "disenfranchisement" by Hillary Clinton, prove that their concern for the voters was false, as they either cheer or stand silent to Barack Obama's attempts to stop the revote in Michigan. The DNC has given the the thumbs up to the MI revote plan:

We have recently been asked whether the legislation as proposed by Michigan would fit within the framework of the National Party’s Delegate Selection Rules. Our review of this legislation indicates that it would, in fact, fit within the framework of the Rules if, it were, passed by the state legislature and used by the Michigan State Democratic Party as the basis of drafting a formal Delegate Selection Plan. If a formal Delegate Selection Plan is received we will convene a meeting of the RBC to consider such a Plan.

No more excuses Barack Obama. No more excuses Obama supporters who claimed a love for voters rights. Your hypocrisy is revealed. As they love to say, this is a question of what type of Democratic Party we will be - one that aims to enfranchise voters or disenfranchise them.

At a time when the country's struggle to overcome racial divisions is deservedly making front page news, the Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana conviction after concluding that a state prosecutor deliberately excluded a black student from serving on the defendant's jury. The opinion reinforces an earlier decision that called for stronger judicial scrutiny of the bogus explanations that prosecutors often give for their decisions to remove minority group members from criminal juries.

The decision (pdf) was 7-2, with Justices Scalia and Thomas joining in an unsurprising dissent. More surprising is that Justice Alito did not join them. In fact, he wrote the majority opinion.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Now she wants to fight for revotes:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s hopes of ending the primaries with game-changing victories from new contests in Florida and Michigan grew dim on Tuesday as Florida officially scuttled plans for a new vote and Michigan lawmakers appeared far from a deal.

In a sign of how badly she thinks she needs the Michigan delegates to catch the Democratic front-runner, Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton made a last-minute schedule change and planned to fly to Detroit on Wednesday to plead with Michigan lawmakers to approve a new primary election in June to replace the January contest that awarded no delegates.

“We will go and make the case for a revote,” said Mo Elleithee, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama’s campaign has resisted a new contest, saying that Michigan Democrats are divided, that a revote would not make much difference in the overall delegate count and that the Clinton camp was trying to change the rules to suit itself.

(Emphasis supplied.) I hope this ends once and for all the silly theory that it was Clinton who was resisting revotes. The Clinton Uncertainty Theory propagated by Mark Schmitt and adopted by pro-Obama bloggers should be officially dead now. BTW, Clinton was too slow on this. She needed to do this last week.

The Government's star witness, Stuart Levine, took the stand Monday in the corruption trial of Tony Rezko. He's a defense dream for a witness.

Levine was charged with corruption along with Rezko but pleaded guilty and agreed to testify. Technically, Levine could be sentenced to life in prison, but he said he hoped prison time would be limited to about 51/2 years in return for his cooperation with the government.

Levine dressed for and sounded the part assigned to him by the Government:

He displayed the demeanor of a practiced public speaker and lawyer and hardly the picture of a strung-out drug abuser that Rezko's attorneys hope will damage his credibility.

What about that drug use? [More...]

The Kinks. All day and all of the night. In recognition of the incessant news coverage today and tonight of Barack Obama's speech. Enough already.

This is an open thread.

Bumped by BTD. Please contribute if you can.

Bumped: Between fixing site and server issues, moderating comments and writing new posts, TalkLeft has consumed almost all of my non-working hours for the past six weeks.

With our server bill due tomorrow, I'm making today TalkLeft Appreciation Day. If you have a few dollars to chip in and haven't donated recently, they would be most welcome.

Here's the paypal link, it's very easy. If you don't like paypal (which takes credit cards if you don't have a paypal account) feel free to pull a few dollars out of your pocket and send it snail mail. The address is below the fold.

If you'd like to donate anonymously, here's the Amazon link.

If you can't afford a few dollars, don't worry about it. This is only meant for those who can. Thanks to all of you for reading TalkLeft. You are all appreciated, including those who politely disagree with us.

A new St. Petersburg Times, Bay News 9 and Miami Herald poll finds one in four Florida Democrats may abandon the party if their Jan. 29 votes aren't counted.

Howard Dean and Barack Obama may insist Florida’s Democratic presidential primary was meaningless, but a new poll shows Florida Democrats aren’t buying it, and one in four may not back their party's nominee in November if Florida winds up with no voice in the nomination.

Twice as many Clinton supporters -- 56 percent -- want the Florida primary to count as do Obama supporters -- 27 percent. Still, even among Obama supporters, the idea of counting that primary is slightly more popular than holding a new election or dividing Florida’s delegates evenly between the two candidates.

Key findings: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

I hope Obama's speech worked politically today, for the sake of the Democratic Party. It was certainly a beautiful speech.

Meanwhile, PPP released a PA poll today. It is not surprising that Clinton leads Obama by 40 points among whites. What is surprising is PPP's finding that Clinton gets 27 percent of the African American vote.

Chris Bowers at Open Left has been numbers-crunching:

Obama needs 471.5 of the 875 remaining delegates, or 53.9%, in order to reach the magic number.

Clinton needs even more, 489.5 of 875, or 56.0%. Both scenarios are extremely unlikely.

Those numbers are very close to each other. Put another way, Hillary is only 18 delegates behind Obama in the race for the next 875.

Chris then makes predictions. But they all start with his (probably educated)guess that the credentials committee will refuse to seat MI and FL because it will have more Obama supporters than Hillary supporters on it. But these committee members like superdelegates can change their support at any time, and not all of them have declared, so I'm not prepared to agree with that. That said, here's how Chris sees it playing out: