The AP reports on the national primary/caucus numbers, only the numbers don't include an unspecified number of absentee ballots or early voters. Nonetheless, it's a handy partial guide:

State Dem Total Obama Clinton GOP Total
N.H. 284,104 104,772 112,251 233,381
Mich. 593,837 X 328,151 867,271
S.C. 530,322 295,091 141,128 442,918
Fla. 1,684,390 569,041 857,208 1,920,350
Ala. 539,743 302,684 226,454 563,822
Ariz. 422,460 181,416 218,064 500,341
Ark. 307,318 80,774 217,313 224,581
Calif. 4,228,134 1,827,485 2,226,622 2,370,142

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By Big Tent Democrat

For once I agree with Move On. Via TPM, which fails to note that Move On has endorsed Obama (poor journalism again from TPM by ME. My apologies to Greg Sargent) :

"The superdelegates are under lots of pressure right now to come out for one candidate or the other," reads the petition from MoveOn, which has endorsed Obama. "We urgently need to encourage them to let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama -- and then to support the will of the people."

Of course the problem with this is Move On, an Obama endorser, does not REALLY mean the will of the people, which is reflected in the popular vote, but in the pledged delegates, which are selected in a very imperfect and undemocratic process.

The rules allow Super Delegates to vote their conscience. That is their design. But I believe they should reflect the will of the people, as reflected in the VOTES of the people. That means following the popular vote. Move On seems not to believe in the will of the people, despite its protestations to the contrary.

Barack Obama unveiled an economic plan this week. From the Chicago Sun Times:

Obama's plan today is the most shameless piece of potential plagiarism that I have ever seen," McCain economic advisor Kevin Hassett said.

"He basically took Clinton's words and Clinton's policies and called them his own," Hassett said. "If I were a professor I'd give him an F and try to get him kicked out of school for something this terrible ... I remember Mrs. Clinton saying shared prosperity and I remember the bill that she introduced in August for infrastructure. The fact is these are things Obama has taken as his own without crediting the source of the ideas which was Mrs. Clinton."

Hillary's campaign responds: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

I expect Barack Obama to win Wisconsin easily, by at least 10 points. but the Rassmussen poll (which imo has consistently underpolled Clinton) says it is close:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows Obama with a narrow four-point advantage over Clinton, 47% to 43%. . . . Clinton leads by ten points among women but trails by twenty-three points among men. Clinton leads among voters over 65 while Obama has the edge among younger voters.

Now here is the good news for all Dems:

Obama is viewed favorably by 80% of Likely Democratic Voters in Wisconsin, Clinton by 79%.

A new report (pdf) by the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research finds:

• More than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002.

• All interrogations conducted at Guantánamo were videotaped. Thus, many videotapes documenting Guantánamo interrogations do or did exist.

• The Central Intelligence Agency is just one of many entities that interrogated detainees at Guantánamo.

The press release on the report is here. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Mark Halperin, the latest Quinnipiac polls for Ohio and Pennsylvania:

Ohio: Clinton 55, Obama 34

Pennsylvania: Clinton 52, Obama 36.

Dates conducted: Feb. 6-12. Error margin: 4.1 points.

I've seen nothing new on Texas.

By Big Tent Democrat

This article, featured at TPM, discusses the Clinton position that she will accept the nomination even if she loses the popular vote. I think it is rather academic myself in that if Clinton loses the popular vote, the majority of the Super Delegates are not likely to support her.

However, I do wonder if the Media and TPM are willing to ask Barack Obama the same question - to wit, is he willing to accept the nomination if he loses the popular vote? Not the pledged delegate count, the popular vote.

Anyone concerned about Obama thwarting the will of the people? Media? TPM? Hello?

NOTE: Comments are now closed.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has tossed a law that made it illegal to sell for promote sex toys.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The Court's reasoning:

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

Newsday has a five-step plan for Hillary Clinton to rebound from the post-Super Tuesday wins of Barack Obama. It was created by "experts and Clinton backers."

1. Recapture "Hillary voters," starting in Wisconsin.

The Feb. 19 Wisconsin primary, which the Clinton campaign has downplayed, will provide her with a chance to regain her footing with blue-collar whites and women in Milwaukee and its suburbs. A Strategic Vision poll taken before this week's losses shows Obama leading by just 4 points and one Clinton aide said the "game would change if we can sneak a win there" by focusing obsessively on the economy.

Her campaign has convinced her to spend three days there this week, rather than spending all week in Texas or Ohio.

2. She has to win Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Win Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. If Obama wins even one, Clinton's primary-night speech could be her farewell address. Citing internal polling, Clinton's people believe she has a very strong advantage in Texas, where she will bank on Hispanic voters who propelled her to wins in California, Nevada and Arizona. She's also strong in Pennsylvania, leading by 20 or more points, although recent poll data is scarce.

Ohio, say the experts, is a little different.

Obama is expected to perform very strongly in Cleveland's big African-American community and in Columbus, a mini-Seattle with a high concentration of college students and professionals. Clinton is expected to do well in rust-belt cities like Youngstown and Toledo and conservative parts of the state, including Cincinnati and its suburbs.

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By a vote of 51 to 45 today, the Senate voted to ban waterboarding.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning.

The House adopted the provision back in December. Bush has threatened to veto the bill.

As I wrote yesterday, Hillary Clinton wrote Bush Monday and urged him to withdraw his veto threat.

Today Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin and other senior Democratic Senators wrote to Bush and called on him to revise his Executive Order on CIA interrogation to comply with our treaty obligations and to prohibit explicitly a number of torture techniques that the Administration has used. The Senators wrote: [More...]

The Senate Ethics Committee today issued a public letter of reprimand to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig.

In a letter signed by all six members of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, the members affirmed the initial guilty plea that Craig signed after an undercover officer in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport arrested him in a men's room sting.

....In addition, members admonished Craig for trying to use the influence of his office to avoid arrest and failing to notify the committee that he had used his campaign funds to pay his legal fees, a violation of Senate rules.

The full letter is here (pdf.)[More...]