By Big Tent Democrat

Commenter Coral Gables, watching the Florida news wires for us, brings us this:

The poll, conducted March 10th and 11th by The Kitchens Group in Maitland, Florida, sampled 600 of the 1.7 million registered Democratic voters throughout the state who participated in the January 29th primary.

The respondents were asked whether (1) state leaders should maintain their position of insisting that the votes cast on January 29th be counted, though it risked rejection by the Democratic National Committee, or (2) hold a new Democratic primary election, at no cost to the taxpayers, through the use of a prepaid mail-in ballot sent to all registered Democrats.

Fifty-nine percent supported option (2). . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

By Big Tent Democrat

So say his MI Campaign Co-Chair:

State Sen. Tupac Hunter, D-Detroit, said a mail-in caucus "is clearly the wrong path. "We don't like it one bit," Hunter said. "It disenfranchises people who need to participate and there are many questions with regard to security."

Hunter said the Obama campaign will accept nothing but a 50-50 split of Michigan delegates between Clinton and Obama, who removed his name from the January ballot here in protest of the early date.

(Emphasis supplied.) I guess the Obama MI Co-Chair does not agree with Obama's previously held positive view on mail in voting, agreeing instead with Obama's newly minted distaste for mail in voting. Oh and a 50-50 split is the ONLY thing Obama will accept in Michigan. Hope we are clear now on how Obama feels about the will of the people of Florida and Michigan.

The University of Wisconsin Advertising project has released an interesting report (pdf)on ad spending in Ohio by the candidates and interest groups supporting them:

Obama outspent Hillary 2 to 1 on ads.

In the high-profile Ohio presidential primary campaign, the campaigns of the two Democratic candidates for president aired over 16,000 spots, spending approximately $6.8 million. Obama outspent Clinton by a margin of nearly two-to-one, with the Illinois Senator spending over $4.4 million to air just over 10,000 spots. Clinton spent $2.3 million and aired just over six thousand spots. Republicans were largely absent in Ohio; neither John McCain nor Mike Huckabee aired a single ad leading up to the Ohio primary.

The SEIU and United Food and Commerical Workers Int'l Union spent $1 million in Ohio on ads for Obama. The 527 group supporting Hillary took spent $80,000. [More...]

Update 2:45 MT: Looks like we've fixed the problem. Let us know in comments if you're still having problems. And welcome to our new readers.

***

There have been many e-mails from readers since Monday saying they are having problems creating accounts at TalkLeft. They get a message that their IP has already been registered for an account and there's a limit of two per day. We just changed the limit to five and the same message comes up (with five rather than two as the limit.)

We went to a new caching system over the weekend so some pages now load statically rather than dynamically (or something like that) to speed up the site, and since then, we've been getting these emails.

Colin, our webmaster, says it may be related to the new caching system and he hopes to have a solution shortly.

Thanks for your patience, and please use this thread for any issues or questions related to TalkLeft.

Bonnie Erbe, writing in her Scrips-Howard column today, quotes from a copy of a memo forwarded to her that was written by a professor in North Carolina who volunteered for Hillary at the Washington State Caucuses. The prof is a volunteer and was writing to warn other Clinton volunteers of tactics the Obama campaign reportedly used in other states.

First, the background from Bonnie:

I have obtained a copy of a memo written by a Clinton campaign volunteer in Washington state intended only for other Clinton volunteers in subsequent caucus states (specifically for Texas campaign volunteers). It warns them of "caucus disruption strategies" by supporters of Sen. Barack Obama.

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Marc Ambinder has more detail on Barack Obama's decision to lawyer up against counting Florida and Michigan votes.

I'll discuss the merits of this in a later post, but I first want to take a moment to consider the shameless hypocrisy of the Obama campaign. Barack Obama is out there having his campaign argue that mail in voting has some type of impact that requires a Voting Rights Act review that could be troubling. That it will take more than a rubber stamp. Let's be clear, if the implication is this is just filling out a form, then no one would be bringing this up. Even the time frame is not a particular problem. No, Barack Obama is intimating that HE will raise a Voting Rights Act issue about mail in voting.

The SAME Barack Obama who is co-sponsor of the Senate version of this bill, "The Universal Right To Vote By Mail Act", which declares that NOT ALLOWING mail in voting in every state (28 do through absentee balloting) disenfranchises voters, now opposes a mail in revote. I have heard of chutzpah, but this one takes the cake.

By Big Tent Democrat

Gallup numbers:

Obama 47% (-1)
Clinton 45% (+0)

Vs McCain

Obama (D) 46%, McCain (R) 44%
Clinton (D) 47%, McCain (R) 45%

It is soooo obvious that my candidate, or yours, is so gonna lose and to McCain too. Now here are the ground rules of this thread. Be nice to each other. On topic, to wit, why will one candidate perform better against McCain than the other. And do not insult either candidate. Let's try to be civil, intelligent and on point, shall we?

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

As if NBC could do something more to convince you it is the Obama News Network, its MSNBC election night anchor is apparently going to do a Special Comment attacking Hillary Clinton. One hopes he will urge her to leave the race just for the cherry on top.

I have always accepted that Keith Olbermann's Countdown show was a biased broadcast. And that he favored the progressive and Democratic point of view on things in his choice of stories, tone and reporting. He was the Dems' Faux Noise, but sticking to the facts (while admittedly ignoring others.) But I never expected him to become Barack Obama's Bill O'Reilly/Rush Limbaugh. But he has.

In some respects, his "Special Comment" tonight comes too late for Obama, as Olbermann is already thoroughly discredited as an observer of this campaign. Might as well have Chris Matthews do it. That is where Olbermann's credibility is in this race. Will I watch it? Honestly, no. I do not enjoy his broadcasts anymore. But more than that, I never really cared for his bombastic Special Comments after the novelty of the first few wore off. But some will enjoy it. And more power to them.

NOTE - Comments closed. A particularly poor performance by the TL commenting community in this thread. Thanks for nothing.

I'll be at work and the jail the rest of the day, so here's an open thread. I'll be back tonight.

Is anyone thinking about things other than Spitzer and Michigan and Florida? If so, please weigh in.

Update: Comments now closed.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia has released a statement saying that no deal on criminal charges has been reached with Gov.Eliot Spitzer.

Did anyone else notice Libby lawyer Ted Wells entering the press room right ahead of Spitzer?

Shorter version: Negotiations are ongoing.

By Big Tent Democrat

If you were in doubt if what posture the Obama campaign was going to take on revoting Michigan and Florida, wonder no more:

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is raising red flags about the idea of a revote in Florida to solve the mess over the state's delegates to the presidential nominating convention. David Plouffle, campaign manager to Obama, noted that the lead advocate for a mail-in revote is Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, is a supporter of his opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton. Plouffle said any revote would need to get U.S. Justice Department approval.

Does the DOJ need to approve a revote, presumably under the Voting Rights Act? There seems to be no Constitutional claims that could be made. Bill Nelson's lawsuit might have prospered if there were. If it does, then it is time to take another look at all the contests to see if the DOJ approved them and/or needed to approve them. The Texas contests (see in particular below my discussion of the last minute changes in the caucus system) in particular seemed to be institutionalized voter dilution of Latino votes in South Texas. Was that approved by the DOJ? Did it need to be? Would it be?

But what this really means of course is that Obama will say and do anything to stop the voters of Florida and Michigan from having a representative delegation at the Democratic National Convention. More . . .