A new Texas Rasmussen poll shows Obama at 48%, Hillary at 44%. But, those numbers should be within the margin of error, and:

Eight percent (8%) remain undecided and another 12% say it’s possible they could change their mind. That latter figure includes 3% who say there’s a good chance they could change their mind.

Also,

• 73% of the undecided have a favorable view of Hillary compared to 69% for Obama (among all voters, it's 76 favorable for Hillary and 75 for Obama.
• Obama leads by sixteen points among men, but trails by nine among women.
• Hillary is still leading among Hispanic voters by 7 points.
• 79% believe Hillary "would be at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated" compared to 78% for Obama.

A negative: Obama's NAFTA spin about Hillary is working.

Bottom line: This is a fluid race where either candidate could win.

(Update (TL): More than 1 in 100 Americans are now in jail or prison. As TChris writes below, it's staggering. America: Prison Nation. #1 incarcerator in the world.)

Consider this:

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.

Before you start chanting "We're number 1," consider the cost of living in Prison Nation:

More than one in 100 adults Americans is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.

If you're thinking "there must be a better way," you're right:

By Big Tent Democrat

So says Hillary campaign on conference call.

$30 million of it in grassroots donations. 300K total donors in Feb., over 200K new donors.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

I agree with Kos about 85% of the time. You have been reading a lot about the 15% we disagree about. Here is one where we agree. Markos wrote:

The "reformer" groups betrayed their idiocy during their efforts to regulate blogs, and now confirm that early prognosis by putting pressure on Obama's law-adhering behavior while continuing to ignore McCain's blatant lawbreaking.

The Common Causes and Democracy 21s and Public Citizens like to rail about "compromised" politicians, but they're proving in vivid color that they, themselves, are not immune to being compromised . . .

More than that, the "reforms" they obsess about are empty platitudes about nothing of substance. But that does not change this fact - Obama is losing and will continue to lose the spin war on public financing in the general election. Rip the scab now Senator Obama while Senator Clinton is your opponent -- break the pledge NOW. The Media will take it easy on you now, not later if you are running against McCain.

If passing a FISA fix is "an urgent priority," as the president insisted today, one wonders why he won't agree to sign a temporary extension of the last fix that he thought was so "urgently" needed. As Harry Reid noted today, the president's refusal to sign any law that doesn't immunize telephone companies from their allegedly illegal behavior demonstrates the president's true priority ... and it isn't national security, as much as he tries to spin it that way.

If the final legislation does not include protection for the companies, a wave of lawsuits could reveal how the United States conducts surveillance “and give Al Qaeda and others a road map as to how to avoid surveillance,” Mr. Bush said.

Lawsuits might reveal that the administration conducted surveillance illegally, but that information is more harmful to the administration than it is helpful to Al Qaeda. As for a "road map," the president doesn't explain why classified information would miraculously become public simply because a lawsuit proceeds. Surely courts are positioned to balance the need to protect legitimate national secrets against the need to remedy violations of the law.

The president's back-up argument is that lawsuits are "unfair" to telcoms that were told by "government leaders" that "their assistance was legal and vital to national security." If such assurances were actually given (by whom exactly, we might wonder), and if telcoms had reason to believe the administration's interpretation of the law was reasonable, perhaps the telcoms would have a gripe. In the absence of litigation, however, none of those facts are established. And if the telcoms indeed acted legally, they have no need for immunity, a point stressed today by Senator Kennedy:

This is pretty funny. Last night I wrote a very positive post on Matt Gonzale's article about why he is not supporting Barack Obama. (Comments now closed on it, so you can continue to address it here.)

I mentioned that he was a former Democrat, public defender and the Green candidate for Mayor in San Francisco in 2003, garnering 47% of the vote against the traditional Democrat, Gavin Newsom.

He's also a change progressive who isn't buyng Obama's change meme. He detailed Obama's legislative record as U.S. Senator to explain why.

Just two days earlier, I wrote an op-ed, Will the Real Ralph Nader Please Stand Up? critical of Ralph Nader's decision to run for office.

And in the "you can't make this stuff up" category, Ralph Nader has just announced he has selected Matt Gonzales as his running mate.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Media Matters documents this. I am sure I am just being hysterical here in seeing this also. Nah, I am a man. I can not be hysterical. But I am a hot head. Latino man. Check. That description works.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Josh Marshall and John Cole write as if they just discovered what Republicans do. Cole cites Marshall thusly:

Hopefully, everyone can now see the McCain strategy for running against Barack Obama. Yes, we have some general points on taxes, culture wars and McCain as war hero who can protect us in ways that flash-in-the-pan pretty boy Barack Obama can’t.

But that’s not the core. The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty thrown in, but we’ll have to see. The details and specific.

Um, duh? But they miss the bigger point -- to withstand this onslaught Obama will need to retain his Media Darling status. NOW we see Marshall is worried about NBC. After spending months defending NBC for its outrageous bias against Hillary Clinton. As Bob Somerby regularly notes about Marshall and TPM, it is a little late to get religion on the outrageous work of NBC.

Just out at The Nation:

A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in.

Obama's campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors. (Hillary Clinton's staff did not respond to repeated requests for an interview or a statement on this issue.)

Bottom line, according to Obama's senior advisor:

. "I can't rule out, I won't rule out, private security contractors." He added, "I will rule out private security contractors that are not accountable to US law."

More...

Due to the volume of people trying to access TalkLeft during live events like debates, our server has had "issues" to say the least. The site slows down and often becomes inaccessible. One reason is there are controls on how many people can try to access it at once so the server doesn't crash. TalkLeft is on its own server and it's a big and powerful one, but it's just not enough to handle the intense traffic bursts that these events bring. Also, the average time visitors spend on TalkLeft is huge compared to other sites...almost 5 minutes.

In anticipation of Tuesday's election night, we're adding another server today to share the load. Colin at Scoophost, our webmaster, is also tweaking some other things.

Normally we'd do this at night, so that if the site goes down during the process, fewer readers will notice. But, we're doing it now.

Should the site go down today, that's why and it will be back up as soon as any kinks get ironed out.

Thanks for your patience and your readership. And yes, site donations are always appreciated.

You can use this as another open thread if you'd like.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

That Crazy Lanny Davis:

Hillary supporter Lanny Davis added a new dimension to the Hillary camp's bash-the-press-for-being-soft-on-Obama strategy, asserting on Morning Joe that "it's very hard to criticize Senator Obama without being accused of playing the race card"...

Greg Sargent thought that was over the top. I would have thought so too. But then I read this from Attaturk:

And now Gail Collins comes forward today and says:

...people here worry that Barack Obama is getting show-offy

I believe the word all of you are thinking, but not typing, is...

U-P-P-I-T-Y

Let's just get it out in the open and call it for the racist bullcrap it is.

As I card carrying member of the PC police, I would urge that Gail Collins take care with her words in general. But Attaturk just called her a racist. I wonder what Hilzoy and John Cole think about that?

Via Attorney D.D. in MO:

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages. Surely, you'll want to be the first to make a contribution to this great man's legacy.

The library will include:

• The Hurricane Katrina Room , which is still under construction.

• The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can't remember anything.

• The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't have to even show up.

• The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

[More...]