The new NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) out today has Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 45%. The margin of error is 3.7%. The poll was of all registered voters, not just Democrats. Both Hillary and Obama's unfavorability ratings increased somewhat from two weeks ago. Combining the "somehat "and "very negative" categories, Obama was at 28% unfavorable two weeks ago and is at 32% now. Hillary was at 43% and is now at 48%.

Given that these numbers include Republicans, I'm not surprised. What did surprise me is that the poll says it oversampled African Americans.

In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup.

I don't get it. Does anyone have an explanation or think the results are more reliable or less because of the oversampling?

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake filed a fundraising complaint against John McCain yesterday with the FEC.

Yesterday, on behalf of a large number of progressive bloggers and activists, Jane went to the FEC and filed an official complaint against John McCain's alleged campaign finance violations. We've been asking a lot of questions about this, and the answers have been less than forthcoming. So, instead of just sitting here and stewing about yet another GOP ethical problem, we decided to put our action where our concerns were.

....As Markos of DailyKos pointed out in joining the complaint, “John McCain has officially blown past campaign spending limits mandated by his original acceptance of public campaign funding. While he has signaled his intent to withdraw from such financing, that has been hindered by the fact that he used the promise of public funding to secure a campaign loan.” Guess the campaign finance laws only apply when they aren't inconvenient for McCain's ambitions.

McCain will be fundraising in Denver tomorrow. [More...]

Now we are getting . . . nowhere:

Twenty-two percent (22%) of Democratic voters nationwide say that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that an identical number—22%--say that Barack Obama should drop out.

A solid majority of Democrats, 62%, aren’t ready for either candidate to leave the race.

Time to let this issue go until Pennsylvania at least.

Harris County (Houston, TX) Clerk Beverly Kaufman today turned over 1,167 names of voters suspected of voting in more than one primary to the District Attorney.

Some of them, she says, voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. Others, she says, voted twice in the same primary.

“I’m convinced that there are some instances where people had strong feeling on both sides of the aisle where they wanted to vote for a candidate on both ballots thinking they wouldn’t get caught,” Kaufman said.

The DA will investigate. Was it confusion or voter fraud?

“Those people who actually voted in the Republican primary and then tried to mess with Democratic primary committed crimes, and they should be prosecuted,” said Gerry Birnberg, who is the Harris County Democratic Chair.

The sniping continued today between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns.

Hillary says she mispoke about her Bosnia trip. Obama aides pounce. Hillary aides pounce back.

After Mr. Obama’s campaign mocked her Tuesday for her misstatements, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign went on the offensive, citing news reports that identified instances where Mr. Obama had exaggerated.

“Senator Obama has called himself a constitutional professor, claimed credit for passing legislation that never left committee and apparently inflated his role as a community organizer, among other issues,” said a Clinton spokesman, Phil Singer. “When it comes to his record, just words won’t do.”

McCain's aides took a more sensible approach:

A senior adviser to the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, cited the Democratic skirmishing to note that politicians sometimes made misstatements.

This is such a non-story for me, but it's in the news, so if you want to discuss it, go ahead, beat it to death.

Rev. Wright will not be speaking in Tampa this weekend after all.

The Rev. Earl Mason cited security concerns and said the three-night revival featuring Wright was turning into an "event" and media circus, rather than the celebration of the church's 10th anniversary that it was intended to be, so Mason asked him to stay in Chicago.

Good. Perhaps now we can get back to important issues like universal health care and ending the war in Iraq and how to count the votes of the 2.2 million voters in Florida and Michigan.

Rev. Wright is a distraction. Focusing on him puts us right in the midst of the Republican playbook. If he weren't Barack Obama's pastor, his remarks would be a blip on the radar screen.

Update: Comments mow closed.

Law Prof Paul Caron has examined the tax returns released by Barack Obama today for the years 2000 to 2006. You can read the returns over at his blog.

What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity -- well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years. In two of the years, the Obamas gave far less than 1% of their income to charity; in three of the years, they gave around 1% of their income to charity. Only in the last two years have they given substantially more as their income skyrocketed -- 4.7% in 2005 and 6.1% in 2006. (Of course, it is possible that the Obamas may have made gifts to other worthy causes that were not deductible for federal income tax purposes.)

An online petition drive by Florida and Michigan voters to have their delegates seated so their votes count has generated 8,500 signatures so far. The goal is 10,000. The petition will be delivered to Howard Dean and the DNC.

2.2 million voted in Florida and Michigan. The petition argues: [More...]

New polls from Rasmussen are out today.

Nationally, Hillary maintains her recent and slight (and subject to the margin of error) lead over Obama. Today it's Hillary 46, Obama 43.

In the McCain contest (one I truly believe doesn't matter until we actually get a candidate): McCain beats Obama by 9 and Hillary by 5.

As to favorability,

Clinton is currently viewed favorably by 74% of Democrats nationwide, Obama by 67%.

As to the electoral college math,

Democrats l[are]leading in states with 200 Electoral College Votes. Republicans are favored in states with 189 Votes. When “leaners” are added to the total, the Democrats lead with 247 Electoral Votes to 229 for the GOP. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House. Leaners are states that narrowly lean to one party or the other at this time but remain competitive.

[More...]

Update: I hear Rush is criticizing what I said on his radio show today, apparently confusing "posting online" with e-mails, as if I suggested the Government search e-mails for evidence of voter fraud. I never mentioned e-mails. What someone posts on a public blog or message board is hardly private. After all the times I stuck up for Rush, my feelings are hurt. (/sarcasm.)

Above is a 40 second clip of my answer to Dan Abrams on his show tonight on whether Rush Limbaugh could be liable as an aider and abettor to voter fraud for telling his listeners to register as Dems to vote for Hillary Clinton to give John McCain a better chance in November. (MSNBC has full segment here.)Backstory here, and from Wired and Alternet.

After Ohio, Rush moved on to induce Republicans in PA to register as Dems and vote for Hillary. [More...]

The latest Gallup poll shows Hillary and Obama in a statistical tie.

The results confirm Gallup's March 22 report showing that Clinton's recent lead in the race -- apparently fueled by controversy dogging the Obama campaign over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- had evaporated.

At the same time, thus far Obama has not been able to reestablish the clear frontrunner position he enjoyed in late February, and again in mid-March. As has happened so often over the past six weeks, the race among national Democratic voters has become "too close to call."

As to the popular vote, pledged delegates, super delegates, electability and electoral votes, here's some things to think about:

By Big Tent Democrat

Chris Bowers writes:

Basically, after fourteen months of hashing out the differences between the candidates on virtually every other metric, with four weeks until the Pennsylvania primary, with no revotes in Florida and Michigan, and with less than 20% of the voting actually remaining, it seems that all we have left is a long argument about electability. That is a problem because, let's face it, long arguments about electability are really boring because they are ultimately unprovable and go nowhere.

I would go further. Whether Obama is the inevitable nominee is also unprovable now. We must wait for the voters (be they the voters in the upcoming primaries or the delegates) to decide. All we can do is bloviate about it. Thus, while I agree with Chris that: