Hillary Clinton is upping the pressure on Barack Obama to hold new debates before the next round of primaries, challenging him to what she referred to as Lincoln-Douglas style debates, sans moderators.

"Just the two of us going for 90 minutes asking and answering questions. We'll set whatever rules seem fair," Clinton said. "I think it would give the people of Indiana -- and I assume a few Americans will tune in because nearly 11 million watched the Philadelphia debate, and I think they would like seeing that discussion. Remember that's what happened during the Lincoln and Douglas debates."

Meanwhile, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the campaign is reluctant hold any more debates before the next primaries: "Over the next 10 days we believe it's important to talk directly to the voters of Indiana and North Carolina."

(Ed. Note: This is not in fact the format used by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas -- which in turn would be anathema to a modern viewing audience. In those famous debates, one candidate would speak for a solid hour, the opponent would go for an hour and a half, and then the first candidate would make a half-hour rebuttal. In this format, there was simply no active role for a moderator to play.

A better term for Clinton's proposed format might be "Santos-Vinick," after the fictional West Wing debate acted out by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda.)

Although Bill Clinton's remarks throughout the campaign have been the object of some controversy, that isn't slowing him down. Bill is doing his best to get out on the trail as much as possible -- and according to the Wall St. Journal is as responsible as anyone else for the campaign's harsh tone:

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."

On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.

A new national poll from Newsweek has some bad news and some good news for Barack Obama post-Pennsylvania: On the one hand, his lead over Hillary Clinton has been cut significantly since last week -- but on the other hand, he's still ahead of her in the horse race and on other measures of popularity:

Obama 48% (-6)
Clinton 41% (+6)

Obama's favorable ratings stand at 53% favorable and 40% unfavorable, compared to 47%-49% for Clinton.

Another example: On the charge of elitism that has dogged Obama since the "small town" flap, 25% of respondents said he looks down on people like them, with 65% saying he does not. This was in fact slightly better than Clinton's 32%-61% rating on this issue.

In an interesting example of how the views of many high-profile Clinton supporters have changed regarding the status of rogue primaries, blogger Mark Nickolas has spotted a key passage from Terry McAuliffe's 2007 book.

McAuliffe recounted how he stared down Sen. Carl Levin's (D-MI) attempt to move up the Michigan primary during the 2004 cycle, and held firm on his threat to strip the state of delegates:

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."

McAuliffe is currently a vocal advocate for seating Michigan's claimed delegates, and for counting the popular votes for Hillary Clinton in that state's primary, in which Barack Obama had taken his name off the ballot.

Barack Obama has this new ad running in Kentucky, a stock ad he's long used to promote his work on ethics reform and his independence from special interests in Washington:

Kentucky may very well be Obama's worst state in the country, both in terms of how he polls against Hillary Clinton in the primary and against John McCain for the general election. So for him to be running an ad here shows the degree to which his campaign is leaving no stone unturned in using their big cash advantage over Hillary Clinton.

Hillary goes up in Indiana with a gas prices spot, in keeping with her campaign's awareness that she's been outworking Obama among big-state blue-collar and lower-middle-class voters worried about the economy.

No mention at all of Obama, though there is this one line at the end: "With gas this expensive, talk is cheap."

The Hillary campaign has the same ad on tap for North Carolina.

The McCain camp has just blasted out a statement saying that Obama's alleged "endorsement" by Hamas will "definitely be an issue in the election," an indication that McCain intends to honor his promise of a "civil" campaign more in the breach than in the observance.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers called the supposed endorsement by Hamas, something that McCain hit Obama for earlier today, "a legitimate issue for the American people to think about," on the basis of Obama's call for negotiations with Iran.

Rogers added: "It is not only responsible to raise these critical issues in this election, but it would be the height of irresponsibility not to have this discussion with the American people."

Read more »

Updated below.

As I've noted here before, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has a bizarre tendency to listen to the substance of criticism against him. Even more strange, considering that he's a top-shelf media star, is the fact that he apologizes for his conduct when he's wrong.

Today Olbermann apologized in response to criticism of a crack he made the other night about Hillary.

The barb in question came in a discussion with a guest about the fact that the super-delegates were going to have to resolve the Dem primary. Olbermann said: "Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

This line drew some very sharp criticism from The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar, who noted acidly that Olberman could "only mean one thing: Beating the crap out of Hillary Clinton, to the point where she is physically incapable of of getting up and walking out."

Which prompted Olbermann to send Sklar an apology:

It is a metaphor. I apologize: the generic "he" gender could imply something untoward. It should've been "only the other comes out -- from a political point of view." You could've called for reaction first if your main motive had merely been criticism.

Not to quibble with the great KO, but does he really call people for reaction before pillorying them as "The Worst Person In The World"?

The larger context here, obviously, is the hostility that MSNBC has shown towards Hillary for months and months now. Recall that David Shuster apologized for his "pimp" comment about Chelsea and that Chris Matthews apologized for effectively saying that Hillary would be cleaning toilets in a Dunkin' Donuts if it weren't for Bill.

And now Keith has apologized for suggesting that a burly super-del should manhandle Hillary into unconsciousness. Seems like the boys over at MSNBC have done a lot of apologizing to Hillary of late.

Late Update: A bunch of people have pointed out that I was wrong to say that Olbermann is responsive to criticism and admits it when he's wrong. Let me clarify this. I'm not talking about -- or defending -- Olbermann's night-to-night opinions here or saying that he's right on a nightly basis. I'm not saying that he's responsive to criticism of his nightly opinions.

I'm simply saying that in cases where he's been criticized for straying into particularly egregious journalistic conduct, as opposed to when he's merely criticized for spewing wrong opinions, he's been more willing to admit wrongdoing than some other top-shelf media stars have been.

I'm talking about episodes such as the above, where he suggested that perhaps a super-del should leave Hillary unconscious, or another recent one where he inadvertently had a guest on his show to talk about the presidential race despite the fact that he'd published some ridiculous anti-Edwards diatribes only days before. In cases such as these he's been willing to admit wrongdoing in a way some other media stars haven't been. That was the sole point here.

In the meeting with the Indy Star edit board that's going on right now, Obama pushed back against the National Journal's recent rating of him as the number one liberal in the Senate, a ranking that will no doubt be one of the GOP's chief attacks against him this fall.

The push-back is worth a quick look, since he'll have to come up with a strong way of countering this in the general election, presuming he's the nominee.

Obama questioned NJ's methodology, arguing that "they selected 10 votes out of the many hundreds that I've cast" which the mag thought were indicators of his liberalism. One of those votes, he said, was a bill that he'd sponsored calling for a new "office of public integrity."

Obama then questioned "the notion that the National Journal scored that as a quote-unquote liberal vote," adding: "I don't think there's anything liberal about wanting to reduce the appearance of questionable ethics in the Senate."

Now, that's a good line. And Obama is obviously talking to a wonkish group here, so getting down into the policy weeds to refute the "most liberal" claim is an understandable approach.

But during the general we'll be hearing this claim at the soundbite level ad infinitum. So Obama will need to come up with a sharp and pithy way of knocking this one down without getting into a debate about the study's flawed methodology.

In an interesting experiment, the Indianapolis Star is broadcasting via live streaming its editorial board interview with Barack Obama.

Obama started speaking to the board moments ago.

You can watch it right here.

More soon.

The Obama campaign is clearly determined to use their financial advantage over Hillary Clinton by flooding the airwaves in remaining states well in advance of their votes.

Obama has this new ad in West Virginia, in which he promises to get to work on lowering gas prices and creating an overall better energy policy:

The one poll out so far in this particular state showed Obama losing by a 2-1 margin. As such, he needs to seriously narrow the gap in time for the May 13 primary, assuming the race is still going after the May 6 contests in Indiana and North Carolina.

Separately, the Obama campaign confirms to us that they are going up on the air in all the remaining states, as first reported by The Page.

Obama spokesperson Bill Burton just confirmed to me that the campaign has set up a joint fundraising committee with the Democratic National Committee, a development that was first reported today by Mark Halperin.

The move is unusual in the sense that it's typically the sort of thing that's done once there is a nominee.

That the DNC has done this with Obama before the contest is settled reflects two realities: First, that Obama is the likely the nominee; and second, that McCain is forging ahead with the building of a campaign apparatus while the two Dems continue to pour resources into an intra-Dem contest with no immediate end in sight.

"This is an effort to be a team player and make sure we have the resources we need," Burton says.

The joint committee can raise cash in far larger chunks than candidates -- they can take in $28,500 from individuals, more than 10 times the $2,300 contribution limit for candidates.

Similar discussions are ongoing between Hillary and the DNC, but no deal has been struck yet, Halperin reports.

Today's Gallup tracking poll shows that Hillary Clinton is definitely enjoying a bounce in the wake of her Pennsylvania primary win. The numbers, compared to yesterday:

Obama 48% (-1)
Clinton 47% (+3)

From Gallup's analysis:

The latest results, based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking from April 22-24, include two days of interviews conducted entirely after Tuesday's Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Support for Clinton is significantly higher in these post-primary interviews than it was just prior to her Pennsylvania victory, clearly suggesting that Clinton's win there is the catalyst for her increased national support.

A new Rasmussen poll of Pennsylvania shows Hillary Clinton running stronger than Barack Obama against John McCain here -- the sort of number likely to be touted by the Clinton campaign to demonstrate superior electability:

McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 43%
Clinton (D) 47%, McCain (R) 42%

While Obama is able to outperform Clinton among independent voters, Clinton is doing a better job at holding down the core Democratic base -- meaning that some of those Pennsylvania Dems who don't like Obama are at least seriously considering going for McCain.

Other polls have shown a similar situation: The current Pollster.com averages have Clinton beating McCain in Pennsylvania by 45.7%-43.2%, but McCain beating Obama by 45.2%-42.7%.

Here is Hillary's long-shot best-case-scenario game plan, as best as I can understand it:

1) Make North Carolina unexpectedly close, showing that she can compete on his turf and using this to try to make the "Obama is weak" argument stick -- and use any future revelations about Obama or gaffes by him to feed that argument as aggressively as possible

2) Eke out a win in Indiana, partly offsetting Obama's popular vote gain from North Carolina, and making it possible to continue arguing that he can't win over blue-collar whites in big industrial states

3) Rack up huge popular-vote gains in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, and keep it unexpectedly close in Oregon -- making it not completely out of the question that she wins the popular vote, or that she gets within one percent of Obama, when you include Florida

4) Push hard for Michigan to be included in the popular vote count, so that including just Florida in the tally looks like a reasonable fall-back position

5) Turn the argument over who won into a two-front spin war

6) The first spin war: Get into an argument over whether Florida should count in the popular vote tally, making the case that not including the state disenfranchises its voters and that Obama's refusal to count those votes is imperiling his general-election chances there

7) The second spin war: Argue that the fact that she "won" the popular vote with Florida "included," or basically tied it, shows that the Democratic primary electorate didn't really deliver a clear verdict on its choice as nominee -- and that the "will of the people" has not been clearly established

8) Argue that the fact that the electorate allegedly didn't deliver a clear verdict frees the super-delegates to use their own judgment -- and that if they do, they will not be bucking the "will of the people"

9) Argue that the fact that she kept it close in the popular vote, despite having been counted out multiple times, shows that she has the tenacity and staying power to take on the GOP -- and that Obama lacks the toughness and killer instinct necessary to finish off a tough opponent for good

So there you have it.

Is this likely? Of course not. Is it absolutely impossible? Of course not.

Outstanding question: If Obama emerges as the clear victor in the pledged del count and the popular vote even with Florida included -- which is far and away the most likely conclusion -- will she continue to press the case to the super-dels that they should follow her, even though not one, but two metrics showed him to be the Dem primary electorate's clear choice?

So much for John McCain's promise of a "civil" campaign. In a conference call with bloggers today, McCain defended his campaign's fundraising e-mail declaring that Hamas wants Barack Obama to win.

"All I can tell you Jennifer [Rubin] is that I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States," McCain said. "So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare ... If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly."

A senior Obama adviser vows that he will "take Fox on" when he appears on the network this Sunday, though it's unclear yet just how.

Obama's decision to go on Fox News has prompted a lot of discussion about the Illinois Senator's relationship with Rupert Murdoch and whether Obama is trying to "court" the media mogul in advance of the general election.

It's also been met with some dismay in the blogosphere, where folks had worked hard to push Dems to boycott Fox as a way of snuffing out whatever is left of the network's credibility.

But how do Obama and his advisers view this? What do they have to say about it?

The senior Obama adviser insists that Obama is under no illusions about Fox and what it represents, and that this isn't about courtship at all, and vows a confrontational approach on Sunday.

Here is what the adviser IM-ed me about this today:

We are clear-eyed about Fox’'s role in the dissemination and amplification of Republican talking points this election. They have been the tip of the spear when it comes to repeatedly broadcasting some of the most specious of rumors about Obama. He is going on their Sunday show to take Fox on, not because we have any illusion about their motives or politics in this election.

The Obama adviser declined to detail how he'd be taking on Fox. But if Obama does this, it could end up playing to his advantage. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has an interesting peek inside the thinking of an uncommitted super-del:

Barack Obama needs to "demonstrate he can connect with blue-collar, working-class people," says U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle.

"Up to this point, I don't think he's shown that yet. That causes me some concern," said Doyle, a Forest Hills Democrat whose 14th District includes much of Pittsburgh....

"I told him I wasn't real pleased" with his approach and that "he can't win campaigns in Western Pennsylvania on television," Doyle said in an interview. "You have to go out there amongst the people, and I felt Hillary was outworking him in Western Pennsylvania, and she got a result for it."

Before Pennsylvania, the super-dels were moving over to Obama, though not in the numbers that the Obama campaign was hoping for. And one thing the Pennsylvania outcome has clearly done is put off any wholesale movement of supers for at least ten more days.

If Obama wins both Indiana and North Carolina, there will be some serious super-del movement, but if she posts strong showings in both states, they'll continue sitting tight -- and the contest will drag on.

Barack Obama goes into the North Carolina primary with a big advantage in money raised in-state: In March, the Charlotte Observer reports, Obama raised three times as much cash from North Carolinians as compared to Hillary Clinton. It's an indication of on-the-ground support that could do him well in the primary -- after all, donors large and small are guaranteed to come out to vote, and also to do everything they can to recruit their friends.

Ace Smith, the Clinton campaign's state director, says this only increases the stakes for Obama. "It's proving in this campaign cycle that money don't buy you love," said Smith. "The fact of the matter is, they spent just absolutely mind-boggling and historic amounts of money and haven't been able to close the deal. And to close the deal here in North Carolina, they'd have to beat us by high, high double-digits."

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In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, top Hillary strategist Geoff Garin has laid out the campaign's most detailed case yet that the truly negative campaign is being run not by Hillary, but by Obama.

"The bottom line is that one campaign really has engaged in a mean-spirited, unfair character attack on the other candidate -- but it has been Obama's campaign, not ours," Garin writes. "You would be hard-pressed to find significant analogues from our candidate, our senior campaign officials or our advertising to the direct personal statements that the Obama campaign has made about Clinton.

"The problem is that the Obama campaign holds itself to a different standard than the one to which it holds us -- and sometimes the media do, too."

Despite Barack Obama's apparent edge in North Carolina -- much like Virginia before it, it has a lot of both African-Americans and urban white liberals -- Hillary Clinton is by all appearances making a major play for the state, in the hopes of making it a close race or even winning on friendly turf for Obama.

For example, the Clinton campaign has sent Averell "Ace" Smith, the leader of their efforts in both California and Texas, over here to run their operation. "He's their top primary manager," said former top Edwards adviser Joe Trippi. "They didn't send Ace Smith if they weren't going to try to compete."

While John Edwards has stayed on the sidelines since he dropped out of the presidential race, Barack Obama has succeeded in getting far more of Edwards' organizational support than Hillary Clinton -- all of which could help him in the upcoming North Carolina primary.

FEC records show that Obama has raised almost $1 million from previous Edwards donors, compared to only $427,000 for Clinton. Another key statistic: Nine of Edwards' former Congressional backers have now endorsed Obama -- compared to zero for Clinton.

A poll of Indiana by the Midwestern firm Selzer & Co. has the Indiana primary looking close, with Barack Obama posting a very slight lead within the margin of error: Obama 41%, Clinton 38%.

This shows a statistical dead heath like the Research 2000 poll that also came out tonight, but with a much higher undecided number. In other words, it looks like Indiana is going to be a very tight race.

A new Research 2000 poll of Indiana shows a dead heat in this key primary: Obama 48%, Clinton 47%. With a five percent margin of error, this one is anybody's game.

This is the only state left that doesn't have a clear frontrunner going in. As such, expect both campaigns to put a lot of resources here leading up to the May 6 primary. A Clinton win would give her campaign a big boost of momentum, while an Obama victory could potentially lock up the nomination for him.

Bill Clinton is now coming under fire from House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), for his recent accusation that the Obama campaign had long planned to play the race card against him.

Clyburn characterized the former president's behavior throughout this campaign as "bizarre," and said that there is now a nearly-unanimous view among African-Americans that the Clintons are "committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win."

"When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar," Clyburn said. "I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation."

Clyburn has not publicly endorsed in the Democratic race.

The North Carolina Republican Party is hitting a wall in their efforts to run that attack ad against Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright: Finding a TV station that will run it.

WRAL-TV, the CBS affiliate in the "Triangle" region of Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville, has officially rejected the ad. WTVD, the ABC outlet in that same media market, is also saying they haven't been asked to run the ad but would have reservations about doing so.

John McCain promised at a town-hall meeting today that he would bring "every pressure to bear" to stop the North Carolina GOP from running that ad hitting Obama over his controversial pastor, an issue that McCain said wasn't a legit one.

Take a look:

The North Carolina GOP's spot has McCain in something of a jam. He has come out and condemned the ad and said he doesn't want it to air, but he's now taking hits from Democrats who are demanding that he do more as the GOP's standard bearer to stop it from running. And if he can't get that done he risks looking weak.

Indeed, a top McCain strategist is now telling Time magazine that the ad won't be running at all -- the implication being that McCain managed to put the kibosh on it behind the scenes.

But guess what -- a spokesperson for the North Carolina GOP just told me that this isn't the case. Here's the statement I just got from the spokesperson, Brent Wilcox:

I'm not sure where this gossip is coming from but that is not the case. The ad is still scheduled to run early next week.

The spokesperson added that it's set to run statewide.

Hmmm. It looks like McCain still has a bit of work to do if he really wants to stop this thing from running.

Barack Obama is going where his campaign has never gone before: Fox News, where he'll be interviewed by Chris Wallace this weekend on Fox News Sunday.

The Obama camp has more or less shut out Fox ever since they ran with the fake story about him supposedly being educated in a madrassah, so this is a big break from the standard practice. Even before that, Obama didn't have much time for Fox -- by the channel's count, the time between his last sit-down interview with them and this upcoming one will have been 772 days.

Late Update: Another fun thing here is that the Fox gang seem to be practically trashing Obama in their celebration of his decision to come. From their statement:

Wallace said if Obama had won Pennsylvania, he may not have accepted the invitation.

"If he had won he'd probably on a Caribbean island this weekend. The fact that he's going to be on Sunday television and on FOX News may be an indication he figures he has to reach out to working-class Democrats, moderates and conservative Democrats and FOX News is a good place to do it," he said.

Today's Gallup tracking poll shows that Barack Obama is still ahead of Hillary Clinton nationwide in the wake of his defeat in Pennsylvania, but there has also been a slight narrowing of the race.

The numbers, compared to yesterday:

Obama 49% (-1)
Clinton 44% (+2)

From the pollster's analysis: "Notably, he outpolled Clinton slightly in Wednesday night interviewing, the first night of post-Pennsylvania primary data collection. The full impact of the Pennsylvania results will be apparent in the coming days, though the initial indications are that it has helped Clinton, so far her win has not dramatically altered the dynamics of the race at the national level."

Jeremiah Wright had some tough words for his media detractors in an interview with Bill Moyers -- his first since YouTubes of his sermons put him in the national spotlight -- and some backhanded remarks about his friend and parishioner Barack Obama, too.

From an advance transcript of the yet-to-be-broadcast interview:

Moyers: You performed his wedding ceremony. You baptized his two children. You were, for 20 years, his spiritual counsel. He has said that. And, yet, he, in that speech at Philadelphia, had to say some hard things about you. How did those words...how did it go down with you when you heard Barack Obama say those things?

Wright: It went down very simply. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they're two different worlds.

I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician.

Wright also had this to say about the suggestion that he is the one who has miscommunicated his message:

When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public, that's not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a "wackadoodle."

A bunch of you have written in to express skepticism about the Hillary campaign's claim that they raised $10 million in the 24 hours following her Pennsylvania victory.

But the Hillary camp is now saying that, yes, in fact they did raise that sum.

Here's what happened. Yesterday afternoon top Hillary adviser Terry McAuliffe said on MSNBC that the campaign was on track to raise that amount by the end of the day. He also said that there were 50,000 new donors.

A lot of people understandably questioned those numbers, because they would mean that the average donation yesterday was $200 -- an unusually high sum.

But here's the deal. Hillary's top internet adviser, Peter Daou, tells me that McAuliffe was talking about the number of donors they had counted by that moment, not the projected total number of donors. Meanwhile, other Hillary advisers gave other reporters different donor numbers at different times, adding to the confusion.

But Daou clarifies that by 11 P.M. yesterday, the campaign had in fact taken in the $10 million, from a total of 100,000 donors -- 80,000 of them new.

That would mean an average contribution of roughly $100 -- which makes much more sense.

Separately, it looks as if Tech President's Micah Sifrey -- who first sounded the alarm about this -- has now updated with the same new info.

So that's where we are on this now. More if we get it.

Howard Dean -- trying to soften up McCain even as the Dem candidates continue bludgeoning each other -- is jumping into the battle over the North Carolina GOP's anti-Obama ad, demanding that McCain show some leadership and get the ad pulled.

As you know, the North Carolina Republicans are preparing to run a spot attacking local Dems over Obama's ties to controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright. As you also know, McCain has said that he doesn't think Wright is a legit issue.

McCain has asked the NC GOP not to run an ad -- but it's unclear whether he's really tried to get it yanked.

Now Dean is hitting McCain for his inaction.

"This is a test of leadership for John McCain. If he can't pick up the phone and make members of his own party stop airing a television ad he claims to oppose, how can he lead our country through an economic crisis or the war in Iraq?" Dean said in a statement just emailed over by the DNC. "If he is serious, he will get this ad pulled."

This one bears watching. We're going to see if any North Carolina GOP officials also occupy spots on McCain's campaign.

If so, McCain could simply threaten to fire them from his campaign until the local party agrees not to air the ad. Couldn't he?

There's a pretty interesting debate about Obama's supposed likeness to past Dem nominees simmering on various sites around the web, so I'd be remiss if I didn't set up a thread for it here.

* It all started when TNR's John Judis asked whether Obama's Pennsylvania loss meant he risked becoming the "next McGovern."

* Judis' colleague Jon Chait dissented, arguing rightly that the fact that people voted for Hillary against Obama doesn't necessarily mean they won't vote for Obama against McCain. Of course, one can broadly agree with this argument while simultaneously asking whether Obama's failure to win over big-state blue collar whites in the primary might have some relevance of some sort for the general election.

* TPM Cafe's Ed Kilgore, meanwhile, also dissented from the Obama-as-McGovern line, going big by arguing that McGovern's candidacy differed in a thousand ways large and small from Obama's. And Kilgore should know -- he was there! He was a McGovern precinct captain, it turns out.

* Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias argues that we should just junk the McGovern analogy altogether, because it does more harm than good to our efforts to understand what the heck's going on in this race.

* And Karl Rove, for reasons entirely different from Judis', also comes up with a historical analogy of his own, comparing Obama to Adlai Stevenson.

Rove's piece, obviously, is only worth reading as a blueprint of the coming GOP campaign against Obama. It hits all the high -- or low -- notes: His patriotism, his alleged inability to understand salt-of-the-earth working folks, his alleged lack of experiences or accomplishments, the fact that he's a fancy talker, etc., etc. It's unbearably predictable, but you have to read it, anyway.

A key freshman House Democrat, Zack Space of Ohio, is now facing a much better playing field for his re-election campaign than many people would have expected a year ago. The latest fundraising numbers show Space with almost $1 million on hand, compared to only $36,000 for his low-profile opponent, former state agriculture director Fred Dailey.

The district voted 57%-42% for President Bush in 2004, and went Democratic in 2006 due in large part to the spectacle of GOP Rep. Bob Ney's corruption, resignation and replacement on the ballot by an unpopular candidate.

But with the GOP's finances in overall disarray -- Dailey apparently wasn't able to raise much money after he won the nomination -- Space may very well be on his way to re-election unless the Republicans can get their act together. CQ has changed their rating from "Leans Democratic" to the much more solid "Democrat Favored."

The round of negative stories about Al Franken's failure to properly pay business taxes in all the states he was active now appears to be damaging him and endangering his effort to oust Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), a new poll finds.

The latest numbers from Rasmussen, compared to last month:

Coleman (R) 50% (+2)
Franken (D) 43% (-3)

National Democrats have viewed this seat as a top pickup opportunity, but unless Franken can figure out a way to deal with his travails, the bad publicity hitting him may cause Dems to squander the chance to oust one of the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents.

Here's a quick round-up of super-delegate-related news:

* After Pennsylvania, many super-dels are accepting the fact that the contest won't end until the voting is over, and some even say that's a good thing for the party.

* Hillary's Pennsylvania win has persuaded many super-dels to remain neutral for the time being -- in hopes that the voters will render a clear verdict and relieve them of the burden of having to pick sides.

* A Hillary adviser says that her Pennsylvania win was what persuaded Tennessee Rep. John Tanner to come out for her yesterday.

* Fifteen House Dems gathered at Hillary headquarters yesterday to strategize about how to corral more super-dels for her -- the goal being to erase the sense of inevitability that surrounds Obama's candidacy.

* Howard Dean reiterated his call for the super-dels to make up their minds promptly after the voting ends.

In a sign that the Clinton camp is worried about more super-delegates endorsing Barack Obama, major Clinton-backer Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) has pressed his state's House members to delay endorsing, rather than lobbying them to come out in favor of Hillary.

"Why should they get crosswise with some of their friends if they really don't need to?" Bayh said, adding that he expects Hillary to carry many of their districts no matter how the endorsements turn out. "My advice to you is to follow the voters of your district."

Hillary Clinton might have just reached Terry McAuliffe's prediction of raising $10 million since the polls closed in Pennsylvania. The Washington Post reports that the campaign has taken in more than $10 million, according to campaign aides -- a sum that was badly needed in light of her recent money problems.

On the other hand, the New York Times puts the number at only $8 million, though it's not clearly sourced. It's possible that the number was $8 million when the Times reporters found out, and then rose to $10 million afterward, or that different staffers have heard different numbers themselves.

Another thing that's unclear is how much of this money will be available for the primary. What is nearly certain, however, is that Barack Obama will still have more overall cash, as he went into this month with over $40 million on hand and barely any debts.

Late Update: The Times has updated their numbers, confirming that Clinton did in fact succeed in raising $10 million.

Another red state super-del comes out for Obama this afternoon, the campaign announces: Audra Ostergard, Associate Chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party.

Both campaigns were looking to roll out super-del support today, to show momentum heading out of Pennsylvania, and there was some talk in political circles to the effect that Obama would be showcasing a bunch of them today.

As of now, Obama has rolled out two super-dels today to Hillary's one.

The Democratic National Committee has seriously upped its ad campaign against John McCain, with the latest FEC filing showing a $500,000 buy to run the spot on the economy that they previewed over the weekend.

With the Democratic candidates still beating each other up, the DNC has had to step in and do some of the heavy lifting in taking on John McCain rather than let him enjoy a free ride in the press. And this is not a small problem, either -- the DNC has been the one area of Democratic fundraising to seriously lag behind its Republican counterpart.

A DNC staffer told us that the ad will run on national cable.

A top Hillary surrogate appears to disagree with Bill Clinton's now-infamous assertion the other day that the Obama campaign played the race card against him.

New York governor David Paterson, who's African American, was asked on a Hillary campaign conference call moments ago whether he agreed with Bill's assertion.

"I don't think that either of the candidates has played the race card in this campaign," Paterson said, after wondering aloud a bit about the context of Bill's remarks.

In a reference to both race and gender, Paterson continued: "I don't think either candidate pushed that button."

It's obviously a delicate spot for Paterson, but he could have sidestepped the question, and he didn't.

Late Update: Here's the audio from the call:

In the wake of Hillary's Pennsylvania victory, both campaigns are working feverishly to project renewed momentum heading into the next contests by rolling out new super-delegate support.

• The Obama campaign announced this morning the endorsement of Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, whose state voted for Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday.

• Camp Hillary just announced the backing of super-del and Blue Dog dem John Tanner, a Congressman from Tennessee.

• The Obama campaign also just announced the support of Ed Turlington, the former national general chairman of John Edwards' campaign and an important North Carolina Dem activist. While Turlington is not a superdelegate, he could presumably bring quite a bit of organizational infrastructure over to Obama in North Carolina.

On MSNBC just now, top Hillary adviser Terry McAuliffe claimed that by the end of today, the Hillary campaign will have raised $10 million since she was declared winner yesterday.

The number of new donors to the campaign, according to McAuliffe: Fifty thousand.

Such numbers won't really shift the underlying financial dynamic of the race, as Obama had over $40 million in cash on hand at the beginning of this month, while the Hillary camp was in the red. Still, such numbers are good for morale, something Hillaryland was in sore need of heading into yesterday.

In a major upset that shows just how strong opposition to the Iraq War is in even very red states, the Democratic candidate came out on top in the first round of the special election to succeed Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) in his old House seat, in a district that by all rights should have had an outright win for the Republican candidate.

Democrat Travis Childers finished with 49% of the vote in last night's special election, Republican Greg Davis 46%, and the remainder going to the defeated candidates from the primaries for the regular election in November, plus third-party candidates. Without anybody getting 50% of the vote, this goes to a runoff in three weeks.

Read more »

The North Carolina Republican Party is attempting to find out whether tying a down-ticket Democrat to Barack Obama can inflict serious damage, with this new ad against both of the Dem candidates for governor that plays the infamous "God damn America" footage of Jeremiah Wright:

Both candidates in the hard-fought Democratic primary have endorsed Obama. Will the message that Obama is too extreme, on the basis of his membership in Wright's church, be enough to damage the eventual gubernatorial nominee?

Meanwhile, the national GOP is asking the state party to not run the ad, calling it "not appropriate" and "unhelpful."

I noted below that it was unlikely that the Obama campaign would use Whitewater, cattle futures or any other 1990s anti-Clinton flim-flammery against Hillary in the days and weeks ahead.

Well, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was just asked whether the campaign would be raising such stuff.

"We're not gonna do that," Plouffe said. "We have not talked about those issues in the campaign, and won't."

Guess that's the end of that.

Late Update: Here's the audio of the call:

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, on a conference call with reporters just now, shares the campaign's official delegate count in the wake of last night's results.

The campaign estimates that her net will be either 10 or 12 pledged dels.

Granting her 12, Plouffe says, Obama's delegate lead has dropped from 171 to 159.

There are 408 pledged dels remaining to be allocated in upcoming contests -- which means that time is running out, to put it mildly, for Hillary to make up her delegate deficit.

Bottom line: Factoring in super dels and pledged dels, Plouffe maintains, "we are less than 300 delegates from securing the nomination."

Here's something to keep an eye out for. In the wake of Hillary's Pennsylvania victory yesterday, one meme many in the political press will be eager to sound is that Obama will now be forced to go much more negative on Hillary than he has in the past.

Today's Washington Post, for instance, works very hard to get that story. The paper gets an unnamed Dem who isn't even on the Obama campaign to say that it's likely that Camp Obama will hit Hillary with Whitewater, cattle futures, and even Bill's impeachment, and then asks Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to respond to this unnamed Dem:

In the two weeks leading up to the Indiana primary, a Democratic strategist familiar with the Obama campaign said aides are likely to turn to the controversies of Bill Clinton's White House years -- Hillary Clinton's trading cattle futures, Whitewater and possibly impeachment.

"Everyone knows the history of the Clintons," the strategist said.

Plouffe would not say the campaign planned to address that period, but seemed open to the possibility in the future: "The Republicans certainly are going to look at those issues, the Clinton finances, the record issues. We have chosen not to go there."

I don't think it's going to happen in any meaningful sense. Obama's case that he's the high-road politician beset upon by Hillary's Lady-Macbethian efforts to tear him down would obviously be tougher to make if the Obama camp starts seriously invoking Whitewater, cattle futures, and other ghosts and goblins from the 1990s that continue to haunt the wingnut imagination.

It would also be tough to justify raising this stuff by saying that it's a case the Republicans would make against her, too. One of the Obama campaign's most effective push-backs against the Bin Laden ad and other attacks has been to point out that Hillary is employing slimy Rovian and GOP tactics against him -- push-backs that would be compromised by any systematic effort to raise the 1990s stuff.

So my bet is that Whitewater and cattle futures won't be making any serious appearance in the Dem primary.

Here's are MSNBC's most recent numbers tallying up the breakdown of Pennsylvania's 158 delegates:

Hillary 75

Obama 65

Not allocated yet 18

According to MSNBC's political team, Obama now leads by 156 pledged delegates: 1,482-1,326.

And the current superdelegate total is Clinton 262, Obama 237.

That means that Obama now leads by 131 delegates overall: 1,719-1,588.

Other networks have different counts. Total required to win: 2,025.

Meanwhile, here's the Associated Press' popular vote breakdown of yesterday's vote, with 99% reporting:

Hillary 1,258,245

Obama 1,042,296

Our handy Election Central calculator tells us that gives Hillary a net popular-vote gain of 215,949.

So emails Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer:

As of 11:30PM tonight, we are at nearly $2.5 million since PA was called for HRC -- 80% of that money is coming from new donors to the campaign. It's our best night ever.

Obama just kicked off his Pennsylvania concession speech, and when he mentioned Hillary, there were boos from the audience. But Obama pushed back, and said:

"No, no. She ran a terrific race."

Late Update: Here's the Video:

Late Update: Full text of Obama's prepared remarks after the jump. It looks like his praise of her campaign was ad-libbed.

Read more »

In her victory speech tonight, Hillary primes her supporters for the bitter struggle ahead:

"We still have a lot of work ahead of us. But if you're ready, I'm ready."

Also, though the vote tallies could still show her winning by less than a double-digit margin, and possibly as little as six points, she spins the moment as a turning point of the race:

"You made your voices heard, and because of you the tide is turning."

And she twists the knife a bit, mocking Obama supporters' "yes we can" slogan by saying: "Yes. We. Will."

Video soon.

Late Update: Here's the video:

MSNBC just announced some new Pennsylvania exit poll numbers that show -- again -- that Hillary supporters would be more reluctant to support Obama against McCain than the reverse.

The numbers:

* Seventy-one percent of Pennsylvania Dems would be satisfied with Hillary as the nominee, while 64% would be satisfied with Obama.

* Six out of 10 Hillary backers would not be satisfied with Obama as the nominee, while only half of Obama backers would be dissatisfied with her as the nominee.

* In a startling finding, only 53% of Clinton supporters say they'd vote for Obama against McCain, while 69% of Obama backers would vote for her as the nominee.

These numbers obviously reflect the passions of the moment, and would likely shift dramatically after the party united behind a nominee. Nonetheless, this is inarguably a pretty grim starting point for either Dem in a state that will be so crucial to Dem hopes of retaking the White House this fall.

Interviewed on MSNBC just now, Hillary top adviser Terry McAuliffe continued Camp Hillary's efforts to make the case that the pledged del count isn't the metric that should determine the winner of the Dem primary.

Asked directly whether the winner of the pledged del count should be seen as the winner of the primary, McAuliffe sidestepped the question, then said:

By the time we finish this process Hillary Clinton will have moved ahead in the popular vote.

McAuliffe added, unsurprisingly, that he was including Florida in his count. But even including Florida, this is an optimistic projection, to say the least.

Asked directly whether we should see the popular vote as a more important metric than the pledged del count, McAuliffe demurred -- reminding us again that the Hillary camp's main goal will be to obscure the idea that the Dem primary electorate rendered a clear verdict on who their choice as nominee is.

MSNBC, Fox, ABC and CBS call it for Hillary.

With three percent reporting, it's 53%-47%.

Late Update: Clinton spokesperson Mo Elleithee gives us the instant spin from the Hillary camp about the impact tonight's victory will have on the super-delegates:

"There's beginning to be a subtle shift of psychology of a lot of the uncommitted supers," Elleithee said. "[They] are beginning to wonder why Obama has been unable to win this thing despite all the advantages he has."

"There's a lot of questions that are beginning to surface about him," he said, while superdelegates are learning that "every time she's got her back up against the wall, she delivers."

There were reports today that a bloc of supers were preparing to break to Obama. It will be interesting to see if that materializes -- and also interesting to see if Hillary's Pennsylvania win translates into a greater corralling of super-del support than she's been able to pull off thus far.

Late Update: Hillary top adviser Terry McAuliffe spins Hillary's victory, arguing that the pledged del count shouldn't necessarily decide who the Dem primary winner was.

McAuliffe also brazenly predicts that Hillary will win the popular vote in the end -- Florida included, of course.

Late Update: New exit poll numbers from tonight show that whoever wins the nomination, many Dems in Pennsylvania are at risk of defecting to McCain.

Late Update: The latest numbers: With 57% reporting, Hillary leads by 10 points, 55%-45%. Of course, as Chuck Todd just said on MSNBC, some precincts likely to heavily favor Obama have yet to be counted. So we'll see.

Late Update: In her victory speech, Hillary primes her supporters for the tough road ahead.

Late Update: Obama kicks off his concession speech, and graciously concedes that Hillary "ran a terrific race."

Late Update: With nearly 80% reporting, Hillary leads by 10 points, 55%-45%.

Obama spokesperson Bill Burton argues, via instant messaging, that the exit polls show already that in Pennsylvania Obama is doing better among key groups than he did in Ohio, a state with similar demographic advantages for Hillary:

Significant improvements over Ohio, especially among white men and seniors overall.

With voters over 60 in OH, Clinton won 69%, Obama got 28%. In PA, Obama earned 41% of the vote among voters over 60, and Clinton won 59%. The gap among seniors was cut by more than half, from 41 to 19.

Among white men, in Ohio, Obama got 39%, in PA, 46%. Clinton was at 58% in OH and dropped to 53% in PA. The gap narrowed from 19% to 7%.

It's worth keeping in mind that for various reasons Pennsylvania is actually more demographically advantageous to Hillary than Ohio was -- a fact that could either redound to her benefit or to her disadvantage, depending on what happens tonight.

MSNBC reports that Obama has already outspent Hillary two-to-one on TV ad time in Indiana and North Carolina.

This, combined with Obama's massive cash-on-hand advantage -- he has over $40 million, she's in the red -- make it that much tougher for her to make a credible case for staying in the race without a very decisive victory tonight.

The Hillary campaign, relying on figures supplied by its media buyer, sends out these startling facts about Obama's ad spending in Pennsylvania:

In PA, Sen. Obama spent a total of $11,246,573 on media, which is the most he has spent in any state to date...

The average viewer in PA would have been exposed to more than 100 viewings of an Obama spot.

Sen. Obama's spots ran almost 10,000 times on TV [estimated 9550]

If the Obama campaign contests these figures, I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, the question is this: Did the Hillary campaign send these stats out to minimize the damage of what they're expecting to be a smaller-than-projected win? Or did they send them out to maximize the impact of what they project will be a sizable victory?

We'll find out soon enough.

Hillary backer Lanny Davis, the self-appointed raging id of the Hillary campaign (or one of them, anyway), pushed the envelope pretty hard in a Fox News interview a little while ago, saying that Howard Dean should resign as DNC chair if he had anything to do with killing the North Carolina debate.

Davis said:

If Howard Dean had anything to do with this he should resign as national chairman. He has compromised himself completely.

Asked if he thought Dean did in fact have something to do with nixing the debate, Davis demurred, and pivoted off the question into a denunciation of Obama.

As I've noted here before, the tensions between Dean and Hillary's top fundraisers and surrogates has simmered behind the scenes for weeks now over Dean's inability to get the Florida and Michigan standoffs resolved.

The other day, those tensions boiled over when Hillary's top donors teed off on Dean publicly for his suggestion that super-delegates should begin deciding who to support "starting now."

But no one in the Clinton camp had ever thought to use the "R" word -- "resign" -- until now.

Late Update: Here's the video:

There's been a bit of confusion out there about supposed "ballots" that have been popping up in Pennsylvania today bearing the name of only one candidate.

Some alarmed readers have written in about them, suggesting voting irregularities. Others have made similar points in the blogosphere.

But these aren't irregularities at all, it turns out.

First, the visuals. Here's one that was sent to us by the Clinton campaign that only has Obama's name on it (click to enlarge)...

...and here's one, courtesy of Wonkette, with only Hillary's name on it (click to enlarge)...

Philly-resident Atrios has an explanation of what this is all about. These are not actual ballots. Rather, they are "sample ballots," handed out by a given candidate's supporters, basically telling voters who to vote for and how to vote for him or her.

To be clear, the Hillary campaign is not alleging irregularities around this. The Hillary camp sent over the Obama-only sample ballot only to clarify that this is happening on both sides and that it isn't irregular. The Obama campaign is not alleging irregularities around the Hillary-only sample ballot, either.

You're supposed to use that teeth-grindingly awful cliche on days like today, so I thought I'd give you a whole post with that name.

So here, in no particular order, is today's reading list on expectations for tonight, the setting of expectations for tonight, the spinning of expectations in advance of tonight, and all things expectation-related...

* The Obama campaign puts out a memo saying that Hillary needs a huge win tonight but adds that even a huge win wouldn't make any difference in the long run, anyway.

* Mark Blumenthal says that the polling showing a Hillary win is inconclusive, and rather aptly describes the polls as "blunt instruments."

* Adam Nagourney says that if the Hillary camp wins by less than 10 points and tries to spin it as a victory, things will "get murky."

* Jake Tapper quite rightly wonders why it is that we've all decided that frontrunner Barack Obama, who's outspending Hillary by three-to-one, isn't supposed to win in a big state like Pennsylvania.

* Hillary wonders, or pretends to wonder, why it is that Obama can't "close the deal' with voters.

* Atrios, after remaining scrupulously neutral for this whole primary and heaping much disdain on the whole process itself -- and on the two candidates from time to time -- votes today for Obama, increasing the chance of an Obama victory by one vote.

* And finally, because you all forgot this, I reported a few weeks ago that Obama privately told a group of California donors that a Hillary win of less than 10 points would be a "victory" for him.

Hillary Clinton has a new ad in North Carolina, part of her NCAskMe.com campaign. In this one, she takes a question from a North Carolinian about what she'll do to help veterans:

This ad uses the combination of an outdoor setting and handheld cameras to give a more common, down-to-earth feel, presenting Hillary as an accessible candidate to the average voter.

And furthermore, the fact that the campaign has launched a 60-second ad means they're confident enough about both the race continuing and their own ability to pay for longer TV spots.

The final InsiderAdvantage poll of the Pennsylvania primary gives Hillary Clinton a good-sized lead here, but with some possible last-minute momentum for Barack Obama. The numbers, compared to yesterday:

Clinton 49% (+0)
Obama 42% (+3)

From the internals: Clinton leads 53%-38% among women, while Obama leads 48%-45% among men.

The polls close in six-and-a-half hours.

Bill Clinton, in a new interview, appears to deny that he said yesterday that the Obama camp was playing the race card on him:

NBC/NJ: "Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?"

CLINTON: "When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?"

NBC/NJ: "On WHYY radio yesterday"

CLINTON: "No, no, no. That's not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I'm not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day."

Yesterday, Bill said: "I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it [all] along."

The Clinton campaign confirms that Bill was refering to this memo written by an Obama campaign aide, which sought to highlight a pattern of race-based politicking on the part of the Clintons. It was never clear who the intended recipient of it was. And it's true that Obama himself said during a debate that he regretted the memo.

But while the memo appeared to encourage people to see a Clinton camp pattern of race-based politics, it didn't reveal any plan to play the race card against him all along, as Bill said.

Separately, Ben Smith offers this poignant observation on Bill's latest: "It is a reminder of what an utterly different era it was in which he was the reigning political master."

Late Update: Here's vid of Bill...

This is an interesting little battle that says a great deal about just how complex the causes really are of job loss in aging industrial states like Pennsylvania -- a phenomenon that's really driving this Democratic primary.

I've just obtained a new mailer that Obama dropped in Pennsylvania hitting Hillary by referencing her support for Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and suggesting that it's to blame for the closing of a Corning plant in central PA. Click on the below images to enlarge:

The factory in question is a cathode ray tube plant that Corning, a $6 billion company specializing in the manufacture of high-tech glass and ceramics products, closed down a few years ago.

By quoting a dislocated worker saying that the "factory was shipped to China," the mailer seems designed to imply that Corning moved the jobs there while staying in the cathode ray tube business. The mailer implies that PNTR, which Hillary supported, is to blame for this. The mailer doesn't say outright that this is the case, but the implication is there.

But a spokesperson for Corning disputes this version of the facts.

Read more »

In another sign that Hillary has no intention of seeing this race end tonight, she hits the airwaves in Indiana with this straight-up spot on the economy...

Late Update: Hillary also has these last-minute ads in Pennsylvania, promoting her as a champion of working people and their economic concerns:

President Bush has reached a new milestone: He now has the highest disapproval ratings ever of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll.

The newest ratings: Approve 28%, Disapprove 69%. The previous high disapproval was held by Harry Truman during the depths of the Korean War in 1952, at 67%.

That's what a new Siena College poll out today finds.

It suggests that the harsh campaign Hillary is running against Obama could be blowing back on her in her home state. Hillary has a favorability rating of less than 50% in New York -- 48%, to be exact. It's the lowest ever in Siena polling.

Meanwhile, Obama has a fave rating of 54%.

Even John McCain has a higher fave rating than Hillary in New York -- he checks in at 54%, too.

Nonetheless, Hillary is beating McCain 46%-42% in the state, while Obama is beating him 45%-40%.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton by ten points nationwide, a slight improvement on the poll from last month:

Obama 50% (+1)
Clinton 40% (-2)

Obama has been through a lot since that last poll -- the Jeremiah Wright controversy and the "small town" flap, for example -- but seems to have weathered the storm.

Another key number: Half of Democratic voters say the long contest is hurting the party, and that party leaders should get together to put a stop to it. But another half say it isn't hurting the party, and it should continue until one candidate definitively clinches the nomination.

Today is the big day: The Pennsylvania primary. Heavy turnout is expected for a race in which the candidates have been pummeling each other for six weeks, and long lines have already formed at voting stations.

Hillary Clinton is expected to win the primary, with the margin being the big question. If Barack Obama is able to keep it close, then Clinton will be unable to make much of a dent in either his delegate and popular vote leads.

The polls close at 8 p.m., with results set to come in soon afterwards. We'll be live-blogging the results here at TPM.

In a further indication of just how perturbed Bill Clinton has been with this campaign, Bill made the following accusation against the Obama camp on a local Philadelphia radio show yesterday: "I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along."

It's not entirely clear what "memos" Bill might be referring to. The closest such memo in existence is one the Obama campaign put out a while ago, accusing the Clinton people of playing the race card on various occasions.

After the interview had officially ended, but while his microphone was still on, Bill upped the ante: "I don't think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?"

Late Update: Bill is now denying that he made this accusation, despite the widespread publication online of the audio from yesterday.

Zogby's final tracking poll numbers in Pennsylvania find Hillary expanding her lead to beyond the margin of error:

Hillary 51% (yesterday 48%)

Obama 41% (yesterday 42%)

The poll finds Hillary edging over 50% and into a double-digit lead. She's up five points from two days ago and six from five days ago. The latest expansion of three points is larger than other recent gains, suggesting the possibility (if Zogby is right) that the late-breakers are turning her way.

Still, six percent remain undecided. So Obama could still make the outcome much closer than the decisive victory she needs, something that would significantly ratchet up pressure on her to drop out of the race.

During an interview set to air tomorrow on Good Morning America, Hillary Clinton used some graphic and direct language to phrase the standard promise of protecting Israel in case of any attack by Iran or another country.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

In another sign of just how badly the House Republicans are struggling with candidate recruitment, the NRCC has now failed after multiple entreaties to recruit a big name for the open seat in Arizona -- even though a strong Republican would probably be favored to win it.

State Senate President Ken Bennett announced today that he will not be running for the seat of Rep. Rick Renzi, who is retiring due to ethics scandals. The Democrats have a strong candidate lined up in former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, while Republicans have been struggling to find a big name -- Bennett even turned them down previously, before they got him to briefly reconsider.

The district voted 54%-45% for President Bush in 2004, and having native son John McCain at the top of the ticket could only help the GOP nominee. But it would seem this is another case of Republicans being less than eager to run for the House -- perhaps the biggest risk is winning, and then serving in what is expected to be a powerless GOP minority.

I've just obtained audio of a harsh new robocall the Hillary campaign is pumping into Pennsylvania -- it directly accuses Obama twice of lying about his position on the Second Amendment, and says explicitly that it's an issue that John McCain will use against him in November.

Give it a listen...

Here's the transcript:

Hello, this is Hillary Clinton for president calling. Barack Obama is not telling the truth about his past position on the Second Amendment.

As an Illinois state Senator, he supported a ban on all handguns, and he even personally filled out a questionnaire saying he supported the ban. Now instead of telling you the truth about that, he's trying to cover it up, saying he never saw the questionnaire -- even though his handwriting was on it.

And Obama voted to give millions of dollars to anti-gun organizations that are trying to take away our gun rights.

This is just another example of Barack Obama saying one thing, and doing another -- and yet another issue John McCain will use against Obama to win in November.

A piece on Obama's handwriting being on the gun questionnaire is here, and one on the anti-gun group Obama voted to financially support is here.

The Hillary campaign confirmed that the call was theirs, but I was unable to determine where in Pennsylvania the call is being made.

The assertion that McCain could use this against Obama in November dovetails with the larger "values" and "electability" argument the Hillary campaign has been making in the wake of Obama's "small town" comments -- that his positions on guns and other matters render him incapable of winning over the blue collar whites that defected from John Kerry in 2004. This robocall adds the extra charge that Obama has been falsifying his positions on the core gun questions.

The Obama campaign has rushed out a new ad hitting back against Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania spot that asked which candidate "has what it takes" to deal with Osama bin Laden:

The Obama camp poses its own rhetorical question: "And who in times of challenge will unite us, not use fear and calculation to divide us?"

The new InsiderAdvantage poll of Pennsylvania gives Hillary Clinton a ten-point lead here, not significantly changed from their last poll on April 9:

Clinton 49% (+1)
Obama 39% (+1)

From the internals: Clinton leads 46%-40% among men, and 51%-39% among women. She also leads 54%-33% with white voters, while Obama is ahead 71%-25% among African-Americans.

This poll gives Clinton a wider lead than many others, but it's not wildly out of the ballpark.

There are still more robocalls flying around in Pennsylvania -- and the latest one from the Obama camp hits Hillary on guns, an apparent effort to push back on her criticism of his "small town" remarks about guns and religion.

The call is being pumped into the Pittsburgh area, and it features Obama backer and local sportsman Dick Lanzoni, lambasting Hillary for voting -- unlike Obama -- against an amendment to an appropriations bill banning the confiscation of weapons in emergencies.

"Barack Obama respects our traditions," he says. "Senator Clinton voted to allow guns to be confiscated, and this raises real doubts."

Over the weekend the news broke that Hillary was hitting Obama with a robocall of her own on energy.

Listen to the Obama guns call here.

In a blow to Hillary, this is just in from the North Carolina Democratic Party:

North Carolina Democratic Presidential Debate CANCELLED

We regret to inform you that the proposed Democratic Presidential Debate scheduled for April 27 has been cancelled due to time constraints and logistical issues associated with such a large, national event.

You have shown tremendous passion and interest in being a part of history as Democrats are poised this year to elect the first female or African-American President. However, there were also growing concerns about what another debate would do to party unity.

Both Hillary and Obama had agreed to the debate, but they'd quarreled over the date, with the Hillary campaign wanting to do it after the Pennsylvania primary, presumably so they could ride into the debate with momentum after a PA victory.

Obama leads Hillary in many North Carolina polls, and the cancellation of the debate denies her a chance to use what's been a traditional advantage for her in debate settings to put a dent in his lead there.

In yet another sign that the Dems are poised to expand their majority in the Senate, perhaps dramatically, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has built up a big cash advantage over their Republican counterparts, the latest filings show.

During the first quarter of this year, the DSCC took in $16.9 million and had $37.9 million cash-on-hand.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, by comparison, took in just $11.7 million for the quarter and was left with $17.3 million on hand -- just slightly more than the Dems' take for the quarter alone.

The Democrats will be able to use that cash advantage extensively this cycle, thanks to multiple GOP vulnerabilities and barely any Dem-held seats where they'll have to play defense.

Late Update: The House committees show a similar situation, with the DCCC ending March with $44.3 million on hand, compared to the NRCC's mere $7.2 million.

The only good area for the GOP is in the Republican National Committee, which has $31.1 million on hand to the DNC's $5.3 million. The RNC's cash is expected to be spent largely on helping John McCain's cash-strapped campaign, while the Dems have focused more on organization and fundraising for the other party committees.

Today's Gallup tracking poll shows Barack Obama regaining a lead over Hillary Clinton that is outside the margin of error. The numbers, compared to yesterday:

Obama 49% (+2)
Clinton 42% (-3)

Clinton was briefly able to grab a one-point lead over the weekend, in the wake of last week's debate, but Obama has since recovered.

Here, from Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton, is the Obama camp's official response to the new Hillary ad flashing Bin Laden imagery:

"When Senator Clinton voted with President Bush to authorize the war in Iraq, she made a tragically bad decision that diverted our military from the terrorists who attacked us, and allowed Osama bin Laden to escape and regenerate his terrorist network. It's ironic that she would borrow the President's tactics in her own campaign and invoke bin Laden to score political points. We already have a President who plays the politics of fear, and we don't need another."

It's one of the Obama camp's most explicit and direct accusations yet that Hillary is employing campaign tactics that are indistinguishable from Rove's trademark fear-mongering.

Late Update: It's worth pointing out that this statement appears to blame Hillary for allowing Bin Laden to escape. The point, of course, is that the Iraq War diverted resources from Afghanistan, which led to Bin Laden's escape and the regeneration of his terror network, but this ties Hillary to the escape in a surprisingly direct way.

Is the new ad just released by Hillary -- which flashes imagery of Bin Laden and says that if you can't stand the heat, you should get out of the kitchen -- a positive or negative ad?

According to Hillary chief strategist Geoffrey Garin, there's nothing negative about it.

"It states the reason why Hillary Clinton is the right choice to be president now," Garin said on a conference call with reporters just now. He added that "the premise of this ad and this campaign is that we're at a moment where we need a president who's got the strength and the knowledge to take on very tough challenges."

Garin said: "To say that she is the best choice on those things, there's nothing negative about that."

Pressed on whether the "get out of the kitchen" line was a direct reference to Obama, given that the Hillary campaign alleged that Obama was "complaining" about the Philly debate, Garin said:

"We would well have used that phrase before the debate, and in my conversations, I did use it before the debate."

Worth noting: Just after the "red phone" ad appeared, former Hillary chief strategist Mark Penn argued that it was a "positive ad."

Dropping a last-minute bomb in order to sow doubts about Obama among the late-breaking undecideds -- and doing it in the guise of an ad only mentioning Hillary -- worked in Ohio and Texas. Camp Hillary is hoping that the tactic will deliver a second time.

We'll see tomorrow.

Late Update: I should add that opinions differ on whether the "red phone" ad worked -- some have argued that it didn't really affect the outcome. The point, however, is that the Hillary team thinks it worked, which obviously explains why they're trying this tactic again.

Late Late Update: Here's the audio from the call:

Hillary's up with a new, last minute spot in Pennsylvania designed to swing the late-breaking undecideds -- and it includes a brief appearance by none other than Osama Bin Laden.

Though there's no mention of Obama here, the crisis imagery, combined with the line "who do you think has what it takes," are clearly designed to sow last-minute doubts about Obama's fitness to be commander-in-chief, just as the "red phone" ad did...

Late Update: The Obama campaign is already out with a response: It's directing folks to this video of Bill Clinton saying the following in 2004:

"Now one of Clinton's Laws of Politics is this: If one candidate's trying to scare you and the other one's trying to get you to think; if one candidate's appealing to your fears and the other one's appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That's the best."

Late Late Update: Hillary's new chief strategist says that there's "nothing negative" about the new ad.

Here's a quick rundown on where Hillary, Obama, and their key surrogates will be campaigning in the state in advance of the big showdown tomorrow:

Hillary:

* Hillary will hit rallies in Scranton, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia.

* Bill Clinton will hit events in Greensburg, Arnold, Pittsburgh, Ebensburg, and Philadelphia.

* Chelsea is meeting with voters in Philly and attending events in Erie and Gettysburg.

* Hillary backers Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and Terry McAuliffe are canvassing across PA today.

Obama:

* Obama is meeting with working families in Philly, attending a town hall in McKeesport, and hitting a rally in Pittsburgh.

* Michelle Obama is with Obama on the trail today.

* Senator Bob Casey is making stops in Johnstown and Mount Lebanon.

A new Rasmussen poll of Pennsylvania gives Hillary Clinton a five-point lead going into tomorrow' primary, a potential increase from her lead three days ago:

Clinton 49% (+2)
Obama 44% (+0)

This is the fifth consecutive Rasmussen poll that gives Clinton only a single-digit lead here. At this point, how the seven percent undecideds break will make the difference between a big Clinton victory or perhaps even an Obama upset win.

An interesting statistic from Hillary Clinton's latest fundraising numbers: With $10.3 million in debts and only about $9 million on hand for the primaries, on paper the campaign is in the red.

One thing to remember, however, is that a campaign is usually able to let debts linger for a while. Thus the campaign is far from broke in practice -- though she is nevertheless far behind Obama in the money game.

A key number: Out of that total debt, $4.6 million is owed to Mark Penn's firm.

Bloomberg News takes a look at what Hillary needs to do to earn a popular vote win, and finds that she basically needs to do the political equivalent of pitching a no-hitter, hitting for the cycle, and pulling an unassisted triple play -- all in one game:

Clinton would need a 25-point victory in Pennsylvania, plus 20-point wins in later contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Even that scenario assumes Clinton, 60, would break even in Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon -- a prospect that's not at all certain.

More than just big margins, Clinton would need record voter turnout too. In Pennsylvania, she would need a turnout of 2 million, about half the state's registered Democrats; in the 2004 primary, about 800,000 voted. She would also need turnout to almost double in other states where she leads, and reach some 1 million in Puerto Rico, which is about how many Democratic- leaning voters went to the polls in a 2004 gubernatorial election.

As I reported here recently, Hillary advisers and major supporters are divided over the question of whether she can continue to woo super-dels without a popular vote win, with top adviser Harold Ickes saying it can be done, and many others saying they think it's politically untenable.

The problem for Hillary is that without a popular vote win she has no way of muddying the waters or arguing that the Democratic electorate didn't deliver a clear verdict in favor of Obama.

Late Update: It should be pointed out that the Bloomberg article doesn't include Florida or Michigan, for what that's worth.

A new survey of Pennsylvania form Public Policy Polling (D) gives Barack Obama the lead here. The numbers, compared to last week:

Obama 49% (+4)
Clinton 46% (+4)

A caveat: PPP has been the outlier among pollsters, the only one to give Obama the lead. That said, they've had a fairly good track record this primary season.

The newest SurveyUSA poll of Pennsylvania shows a serious tightening in the Democratic primary race, with Hillary Clinton now leading Barack Obama by only six points. Here are the numbers, compared to last week:

Clinton 50% (-4)
Obama 44% (+4)

Assuming this margin holds up, Clinton would be unable to win the primary by enough to get any sort of large net delegate or even popular vote advantage.

John McCain is kicking off a new campaign tour to focus on poverty in America, a sign that his campaign might be feeling the heat of the latest Democratic attacks against him as being out of touch on the economy.

"This week, I will be traveling to places in America that aren't enjoying the prosperity many other parts of America enjoy, but where people are walking a long, hard road to make sure that their children will know the opportunities that other American children possess," McCain will say in Selma, Alabama.

"They are places that for too long suffered too many disadvantages, but where people of good character and stout hearts believe in the possibility of making the future better than the past, the essence of the American Dream."

The full prepared speech is available after the jump.

Read more »

Barack Obama had a simply astounding cash advantage over Hillary Clinton heading into this month, the latest FEC filings show: Obama had $42.5 million on hand for the primaries, compared to Hillary Clinton's only $8 million.

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson insisted that the campaign has had an upswing in donations since March 31, but it's hard to imagine them not being at a serious disadvantage. The next question: What will the money race look like after Pennsylvania, assuming Barack Obama has spent heavily there and Clinton has just gotten a big win?

The latest round of polls from Pennsylvania show Hillary Clinton ahead going into tomorrow's big primary. Keep in mind, a big win for Hillary could very well give her a boost in momentum, ensuring that this primary campaign goes on for quite a while longer.

From Quinnipiac, compared to a week ago:

Clinton 51% (+1)
Obama 44% (+0)

From Suffolk (no prior numbers):

Clinton 52%
Obama 42%

And Zogby, compared to yesterday:

Clinton 48% (+2), Obama 42% (-1)

From Zogby's analysis: "A big one-day of polling for Clinton. If a 10-point victory is the pundit-driven threshold she needs on Tuesday, it looks like she can do it. This does not look like a one-day anomaly--undecideds dropped to only 5% in this latest single day of polling, and they are breaking Clinton's way."

A new poll of Pennsylvania by Strategic Vision (R) gives Hillary Clinton a seven-point lead going into Tuesday's primary. Here are the numbers, compared to their last poll from a five days ago:

Clinton 48% (-1)
Obama 41% (+1)

The match-ups with John McCain also show that the attack-filled Democratic campaign here hasn't helped either of them:

McCain (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 42%
McCain (R) 48%, Obama (D) 40%

During his appearance today on This Week, John McCain said it was "probably" a mistake to seek out the endorsement of John Hagee, the apocalyptic Texas preacher.

On the other hand, McCain did say he was "glad to have" Hagee's endorsement: "I admire and respect Dr. Hagee's leadership ... I admire and appreciate his advocacy for the state of Israel, the independence of the state of Israel."

Somewhat awkwardly, this line of questioning was in the middle of the same interview where McCain condemned Barack Obama's past associations with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers.

Barack Obama is finding himself caught in a new gaffe, when he conceded that any of the current candidates -- including John McCain -- would be a better president than George W. Bush.

"You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama told a town hall event in Pennsylvania. "But what you have to ask yourself is, who has the chance to actually, really change things in a fundamental way?"

Hillary Clinton was quick to pounce, in light of this seeming violation of this standard Dem line that McCain is simply running to carry out Bush's third term: "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain."

John McCain is seizing on an opening provided by last week's Democratic debate, attacking Barack Obama for his past associations with William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground.

"I'm sure he's very patriotic," McCain said of Obama. "But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question."

McCain added: "He became friends with him and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities as a member of a terrorist organization, the Weathermen."

This is on top of the McCain campaign's other recent move associating Obama with terrorism, a fundraising letter saying Obama has the endorsement of Hamas. In short, prepare yourselves for a lot more fun moments like this, should Barack Obama ultimately win the Democratic nomination.

Today's Gallup tracking poll has Barack Obama grabbing a two-point lead over Hillary Clinton -- not statistically significant, but a reversal of Clinton's one-point lead from yesterday:

Obama 47% (+2)
Clinton 45% (-1)

Obama led by 11 points less than a week ago, an indication that the last few days such as the ABC debate might have taken a toll on him for now.

Hillary goes up in Pennsylvania with a new statewide spot saying Obama "couldn't answer tough questions in the debate" and responding to an earlier Obama ad on health care...

And Obama's up with a new spot hitting back at an earlier Hillary ad and reiterating his message that he doesn't take "one dime" from PACs and lobbyists...

A new Mason-Dixon poll of Pennsylvania gives Hillary Clinton the lead for Tuesday's primary, but it's not a big one: Clinton 48%, Obama 43%.

According to the pollster's analysis, "the lead doesn't indicate she's going to win by a large enough margin to make a serious impact on Obama's overall delegate lead."

The poll also indicates that Obama may have had some small success in reaching out to blue-collar voters -- in a very fun statistic, the two candidates are tied at 44% each among beer drinkers.

The Democratic National Committee just released this new ad hitting McCain on the economy -- its first run is this morning on ABC, during George Stephanopoulos' interview with the Arizona Senator...

The DNC promises a sizable cable buy for the ad. The spot reflects a recognition in Democratic circles that while the two leading Dems continue to tear into each other in a contest that could continue for months to come, McCain has thus far been able to build his campaign apparatus and define himself with a relatively free hand.

The difficulty for the Dems right now is that as long as the Dem primary drags on, it will continue to suck up much of the media oxygen, making it all but impossible to mount any sort of effective effort to frame McCain the way Dems hope to.

Without a Democratic nominee to directly take on McCain and command media attention for the Dem message about him, this will continue to be a serious challenge for Dems. It remains to be seen whether such efforts by the DNC change this at all.

In an early sample of the sort of rhetoric we might expect in the general election campaign, John McCain's campaign has sent out a fundraising e-mail warning recipients that Hamas is rooting for Barack Obama.

"Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," the e-mail says. "Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, 'We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America.'"