Here's some early morning news items:

• A new Alabama poll shows McCain would sweep the state in November by double digits, and it might happen throughout the deep south.

McCain's double-digit lead emerged even though poll respondents' biggest concern was the economy, an area not considered one of his strengths. The poll results also offered evidence that despite President Bush's slumping approval ratings, the GOP retains a tight grip on the region, at least in national races.

"My expectation is that Alabama and Georgia and maybe all of the Deep South is going to end up in the Republican column, regardless of who the players are," University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said. "If they don't, it's going to be a massive Democratic blowout."

....McCain is well-known for his appeal to independents, about two-thirds of whom would support him over either Democrat, according to the Press-Register/USA poll.

• Hillary and Obama both spoke at the Founder's Gala dinner in Wisconsin last night. Here's where they differ:

The Times constrasts "the cult of personality" with charisma. It's a long article. Here are the quotes I took from it:

I'll give the first round to the challenger, Barack Obama:

From the day Mr. Obama announced his candidacy, he has billed it as a movement, and himself as the agent of generational change. He has mocked his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for accusing him of raising “false hopes.” “We don’t need leaders who are telling us what we cannot do,” he said in New Hampshire. “We need a president who can tell us what we can do! What we can accomplish! Where we can take this country!”

Next round goes to Sean Willnetz, a Princeton Historian and friend of Hillary's, who says:

“What is troubling about the campaign is that it’s gone beyond hope and change to redemption,” said Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton (and a longtime friend of the Clintons). “It’s posing as a figure who is the one person who will redeem our politics. And what I fear is, that ends up promising more from politics than politics can deliver.”

Next round goes to Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom I've never had the pleasure of meeting, but nonetheless, when she's on teevee, I am mesmerized by her stories. In this case, its: [More...]

Title: Here's One for the Girls.

A good way to end a blog day filled with debate over sexism.

Not surprisingly, here, there and everywhere.

He believes (as do I) that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms. But, he supports reasonable regulations on those rights. So where does reasonable regulation end and infringement on an individual's rights begin?

Obama is actually straddling the issue somewhat like the Bush Administration did when it filed a brief in the [D.C. gun] case last month. He does support individual rights, but says—and this is the qualifier--the government can impose reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. And he then suggests that pretty much any existing laws are reasonable.

Here's Obama's position and the video of his remarks. Shorter version: He straddles.

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By Big Tent Democrat

A very well written letter from a group of feminist intellectuals who support Hillary Clinton was e-mailed to me, also at HuffPo. I reprint it on the flip:

NOTE: Comments are now closed

The TimesOnline says the right wing is set to attack Barack Obama s the ultimate "liberal socialist" in the mold of George McGovern.

LEADING Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist. They are increasingly confident that his campaign could collapse by the time their attack machine has finished with him.

Sample attack:

Obama has the voting record of a “hard-left” socialist, according to [Grover]Norquist, from his time in the Illinois state legislature to the US Senate. He was recently judged by the nonpartisan National Journal to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 of any senator.

“It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary,” said Norquist. “Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don’t know him who he is.”

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As Congress haggles over a new FISA bill and President Bush has threatened a veto, here comes a new terror alert.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a bulletin Friday to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, one day after the Lebanese militia group vowed to avenge the death of a top commander by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

Even though the bulletin says it's unlikely Hezbollah would attack in the U.S., the FBI told the 18,000 state and law enforcement agency recipients of its bulletin:

...it was intensifying its domestic intelligence-gathering efforts to identify any potential Hezbollah threats in the United States in the aftermath of Tuesday's car-bomb assassination of Imad Mughniyah in Syria.

The targets of the new activities:[More...]

Rhode Island holds its primary March 4. It's another state with an open primary, meaning Independents can vote in the Democratic contest.

This may not bode well for Hillary Clinton, even though recent polls have her ahead of Barack Obama in the state (poll results here (pdf)) and the Clintons are very popular in the state. There's been a surge in voter registrations..

About 6,800 of the voters who registered in the last four months are Democrats, 1,900 are Republicans and 12,000 are independents, who can vote in either party's primary.

The new voters this year are also young voters. About 20,000 are between the ages of 18 and 29, the Journal reported.

Rhode Island has 21 delegates. Hillary will campaign there Feb. 24. It's true that Independents and young voters tend to favor Obama. But, this statement by an Obama organizer at Brown University is just silly:

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By Big Tent Democrat

The floor is yours. Go Gators!

This is an Open Thread.

By Big Tent Democrat

Even the Media gets that there is a problem here:

Earlier this month, speaking at Tulane University, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said this about the attacks coming his way from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY:

"You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out," Obama said.

The CLAWS come out? Really?

Then yesterday Obama told reporters who had asked about Clinton's latest attack ad, "I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal." . . .

Jake Tapper of ABC notes that even NBC reporters noticed the problem:

The bad news is voting machines malfunctioned in Harlem and many Obama votes didn't get counted. The good news: It's being rectified.

The tip-off: Several Harlem precincts recorded 0 votes for Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

Neither campaign nor experts attribute the errors to anything but human error and the way the ballots were laid out.

Wisconsin's Democratic primary, open to Independents, is Tuesday. Hillary Clinton is now campaigning in the state. Here's her schedule:

• 02/16: Join Hillary at the Brat Stop
• 02/17: Join Hillary "Solutions for America" Town Hall in De Pere
• 02/17: "Solutions for America" Rally in Madison with Hillary

Both Hillary and Obama will attend and speak at the Founders Day Gala tonight at 6pm CT in Milwaukee.

Here's the exit polling (pdf) from the 2004 Wisconsin primary between John Kerry and John Edwards. NAFTA was a big issue.

The latest polling by Research 2000 has Obama ahead, but within the margin of error. [More...]