A new Quinnepac poll on Pennsylvania is out. It shows Barack Obama cutting into Hillary Clinton's lead there, but she's still ahead, 49 to 43%.

The increase for Obama is attributed to the youth vote.

This biggest movement is among younger voters who went from 52 - 41 percent for Clinton February 14 to 58 - 41 percent for Obama today, a shift of 28 points.

The other numbers show:

Among likely Democratic primary voters, women back Clinton 53 - 39 percent, while men back Obama 50 - 43 percent; white voters go with Clinton 56 - 37 percent while black voters support Obama 69 - 23 percent. Democrats with a college degree favor Obama 53 - 41 percent, while voters without a degree back Clinton 52 - 39 percent.

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By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Bob Somerby:

Let’s hope last night is the very last time. Let’s hope the Democratic Party never lets NBC run another debate. In a word, the first half hour of last night’s debate was stunning. To understand why, let’s think back to October 30, when Tim Russert and his trophy wife, Brian Williams, hosted an earlier Dem debate [an all out assault on Clinton.]

. . . Afterwards, pundits lined up to say something baldly inaccurate. We always treat the front-runners this way, a long line of fantasists said. . . . We Dems have a new front-runner now; we thought he was frequently brilliant last night. But the first half hour of last night’s debate was a virtual replay of October 30. Jack Welch’s “Lost Boys” were at it again. They were choosing our nominee for us.

And as Somerby further points out, they will be trying to choose our President; NBC's (Jack Welch's Boys) choice is Saint John McCain. Will the Obama supporters in the blogs be so pleased with NBC then?

Germany's highest court today struck down a law authorizing searches of personal computers to see what users had accessed online.

The law authorized the state of North Rhine-Westphalia's intelligence agency to access personal computers, networks and Internet communications. Online searches could comprise access to hard drives, monitoring what a user is typing on a keyboard and listening in to telephone conversations via the Internet.

.... The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court said that the law ``violates the right to liberty which also guarantees the constitutional protection of the integrity and confidentiality of information technology systems,'' according to an e-mailed statement.

More....

Sean Wilentz, writing today in the New Republic, argues that it is Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, who has played the race card in this campaign.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters.

Readers are welcome to weigh in, so long as they don't call anyone, candidates or other commenters, racists. This is about playing the race card, not whether either candidate or anyone on this site is a racist.

I've got some things to attend to this morning, so here's an open thread where you can pick the topics, politics-related or not while I'm attending to them.

Our server maxed out last night from the number of people trying to access the site. We're adding another one, but it won't be fully set up for a day or two.

If you are having problems accessing the site or commenting, please know we're working on it.

By Big Tent Democrat

Digby:

The country wants change. They want Washington to stop all the partisan bickering and they want a different tone. They want their government to be serious and deal with real problems.

Can someone please explain to me how that can possibly happen until something is done about the reprehensible political press? . . .

Judging by their silly questions tonight, Russert and Williams obviously know nothing about health care policy, Iraq, Islamic terrorism, economics, global trade or any other subject that requires more than five minutes study to come up with some gotcha question or a stupid Jack Bauer fantasy. It's embarrassing.

During our live-blog of tonight's debate, Big Tent Democrat thought Hillary should have praised Obama when she had a chance to respond to his answer about whether he would reject Lewis Farakhan's support and endorsement. I didn't think she needed to do that. I thought he was trying to have it both ways -- not alienating his Jewish supporters or Farakhan's.

While many think Hillary's distinction between denouncing and rejecting was artificial, Don Frederick at the LA Times disagrees. I think he makes a good case that Obama was waffling. Hillary just called him on it. See below:

(Update (TL): Our server got overwhelmed by the number of people trying to log on to the site. Even I'm having trouble logging on. Our webmaster is working on it.If you can't get in to comment, try back in a few minutes. Thanks.)

By Big Tent Democrat

My take? NBC stinks. Tim Russert stinks. Brian Williams stinks. Keith Olbermann stinks. Chris Matthews stinks. Who won the debate? No one. Who lost? Everyone.

NBC's coverage of its coverage? We are fair. We are great. How could anyone complain? What a joke.

The Ohio debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama begins momentarily on MSNBC. They will probably stream it if you're not by a tv. Big Tent Democrat and I will be live-blogging.

You can comment same as always in the comment section below. You also can send us live messages through the software. Only comments you post below will appear on the site.

I'll be putting up some polls during it to see how you think the candidates and questioners are doing. Big Tent's posts will say BTD and mine will be TL.

The live blog stays below the fold so that it can be a bit wider than the front page allows. Just click on the "There's More" button or bookmark the permalink to go directly to it.

If comments hit 200, we'll start a new one.

The Ohio debate starts in 20 minutes. We'll have a live-blog going, but here's a thread to post your comments about the media coverage leading up to it and afterwards.

Who's the biggest Horses As*? Who did you like?

Bumped by BTD.

By Big Tent Democrat

Funny how needing to hype your own debate makes it not so superfluous. After Keith Olbermann expressed a desire to see no more debates, today in the need to hype THEIR OWN DEBATE, NBC is singing a different tune:

In many ways, tonight is Sen. Hillary Clinton’s last stand. The pressure's off Sen. Barack Obama in Cleveland this evening, he just has to keep on keepin’ on.

But if Clinton can’t dramatically convince voter/viewers of her essential point – that Obama is dangerously vague and ill-prepared for a fall campaign, let alone for the presidency – then it is very hard to see how she can stop the Obama Express in March.

Tell us what you think about all this. Jeralyn and I will liveblog tonight starting at 9 EST.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

In an earlier post, I misattributed a line that was written by Obama blogger Sam Graham Felsen to the very fine writer for the New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg. What Hertzberg actually wrote in the New Yorker, and was quoted by the Obama blogger was:

"Going negative" has been a bust. It could never be anything but a bust, because there is no audience for it in the Democratic Party... Barack Obama is a phenomenon that comes along once in a lifetime. Unfortunately for Hillary, it's her lifetime; fortunately for the rest of us, it's ours.

The line from the Obama blogger was "Let's let Hillary know that the American people are sick and tired of negative attacks and want something new."

I regret the error.