Looks like the Republican money machine is really gearing up to go after Barack Obama.

The Republican National Committee -- the one arm of the GOP that has consistently out-raised its Democratic counterpart -- is planning to throw its formidable cash advantage into a new round of ads going after Barack Obama, set to air in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Roll Call reports that the RNC's initial ad campaign will cost $3 million, and go after Obama on "energy security" -- clearly part of McCain's current efforts to rephrase the issue of fuel prices in terms of national security rather than economics. The RNC's ad campaign was first reported by the Politico.

Despite all the talk about Barack Obama's fundraising prowess, it's worth keeping it in some perspective. The most recent numbers up through May showed that the RNC had a $50 million advantage over the DNC, way ahead of Obama's cash lead over McCain -- thus giving the GOP the real advantage in this area for now, unless the June numbers and Obama's decision to opt out of public finance can change things drastically.

Barack Obama is well-positioned to win a set of key swing states, a new round of Quinnipiac polls suggests -- and some of these aren't even close. The numbers:

Colorado
Obama (D) 49%, McCain (R) 44%
Margin of error: ±2.7%.

Michigan
Obama (D) 48%, McCain (R) 42%
Margin of error: ±2.6%.

Minnesota
Obama (D) 54%, McCain (R) 37%
Margin of error: ±2.5%.

Wisconsin
Obama (D) 52%, McCain (R) 39%
Margin of error: ±2.5%.

Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin all voted narrowly for John Kerry and Al Gore, while Colorado gave its nine electoral votes to George W. Bush twice. So it's definitely a good sign for Obama that he's way ahead in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and has decent-sized leads in both Colorado and Michigan.

Another swing-state poll suggests that the damage done to Democratic unity by the bitter primary has been exaggerated. The new Michigan numbers from Public Policy Polling (D): Obama 48%, McCain 39%, with a ±4.1% margin of error.

Obama previously trailed McCain in this state according to most pollsters, due in large part to the controversy surrounding the rogue primary keeping him out of the state. However, recent numbers have shown him moving into a lead as he's been able to freely campaign here.

Here's what the pollster has to say about the larger trend at work here: "Every new poll PPP does in a swing state provides more evidence that talk of long term Democratic disunity because of the drawn out contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was over blown."

The Gore event yesterday gives Obama exactly the headlines he wanted today in the Detroit papers...

Obama has edged into a lead in polls of the crucial state, now that he's started to campaign there in earnest.

The fact that Al Gore is campaigning for Barack Obama -- as the Obama campaign announced today -- could give Obama a big boost among undecided Dems, particularly people who are still embittered by the divisive primary.

That's because Gore is the man who suffered the ultimate electoral highway robbery when he was robbed in 2000. Furthermore, his presence will serve as a warning to any disgruntled Hillary supporters: Just as the Nader voters' obstinacy gave us Bush, a lack of party unity can hurt us all by helping to elect McCain.

Gore announced his endorsement of Obama in a post on his own blog, with a teaser about the Detroit rally tonight.

Barack Obama is campaigning today in Michigan, a must-win state where he's facing something of a late start.

Obama will speak in Flint, a blue-collar area where a Democrat has to run up big totals in order to win statewide, with a speech on maintaining competitiveness in the global marketplace.

The primary controversies kept him out of here for much of the year, hurting his poll numbers against McCain, but recent surveys show he's starting to take the lead.

John McCain is making a major play for Michigan, a must-win swing state for Barack Obama, with ad buys estimated at $500,000 per week.

Obama was hurt somewhat by the controversies surrounding Michigan's rogue primaries, mainly due to his inability to actively organize and campaign here as he did in almost all of the other states.

A recent poll gave Obama a narrow lead here, as he plays catch-up in campaign appearances. But make no mistake -- given Michigan's historically close results in the presidential race, both nominees will be spending a lot of time and money here.

The controversy over the failed revote in Michigan -- a crucial state for Dems -- may not be hurting the Dem nominee after all, a new poll suggests.

The new Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead of John McCain 45%-42%, a result within the ±4% margin of error. A month ago, it was McCain who had the statistically insignificant edge, coming in at 45% to Obama's 44%.

There was previously some concern that the battle over the state's delegates might hurt Obama's electability here. But with those questions settled and Obama now the presumptive Democratic nominee, expect him to making even more appearances here in order to secure this Dem-leaning swing state -- and except McCain to be stopping by, too.

In a huge blow to Hillary's hopes, such as they are, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has now voted in favor of a compromise measure for Michigan, giving 69 pledged delegates to Hillary Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama at a half-vote each.

This effectively ends Hillary's bid to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations in full -- which she was hoping for in a last-ditch effort to close the delegate count and, more importantly for her campaign's moral arguments, to try to narrow Obama's unofficial popular vote lead.

Still, Hillary's chief delegate counter, Harold Ickes, seemed to signal that there's still a possibility that she might fight on. In a harsh tone of voice, Ickes told the committee that Hillary personally informed him that she reserves the right to take the dispute over Michigan to the Credentials Committee in Denver, on the grounds that the committee had no right to transfer "Uncommitted" votes over to Obama.

The 69-59 measure was put forth by the state party's leadership, with Sen. Carl Levin arguing for full voting rights for each delegate. It remains to be seen whether he will fight on over the question of half-votes, or whether the matter is now effectively over.

The vote was 19 in favor to eight opposed, less than the unanimity received by the Florida half-vote compromise.

Hillary's total advantage in pledged delegates for Michigan and Florida is now set at +24 -- well short of the advantage of more than +100 that she once hypothetically enjoyed.

Former Michigan Governor James Blanchard, the Clinton campaign's representative at the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing, has just laid out the campaign's position in favor of a full seating of Michigan delegates on the basis of the January 15 rogue primary.

Blanchard argued that the primary was not flawed, as many have argued, and criticized Barack Obama and three other candidates for removing their names from the ballot. "It doesn't make the election flawed," said Blanchard. "In my opinion, they had a flawed strategy."

"It makes no sense for our party's rules to be used to disenfranchise voters," Blanchard later added. "That is not the Democratic way, that is not the American way."

Former Congressman David Bonior (D-MI), the Obama campaign's representative in the Rules Committee's hearing on Michigan, has laid out the campaign's position on his state's rogue primary: Split the pledged delegates evenly between the two candidates.

"Due to all these circumstances, the unfortunate reality is that this primary that happened on January 15 was not anything that came close to a normal primary election, and cannot allocate delegates in a normal fashion as a result," Bonior said.

"This does not mean that Michigan should be not represented at the national convention. but it does mean that the delegates should be split evenly between the two remaining candidates, out of simple fairness."

Bonior was then greeted by a mixture of applause from Obama supporters, and a fair amount of booing from Hillary-backers.

As the DNC prepares to decide the fates of the Florida and Michigan delegations tomorrow, a key question has to be asked: Did those rogue primaries truly reflect the will of their states' Democratic voters?

The case against that proposition, it turns out, is a fairly compelling one in statistical terms.

Here's why: If you take a close look at the numbers, it turns out that while the Florida primary turnout was high relative to past primaries within the state, the relative Democratic turnout vs. the Republican primary lagged way behind relative party turnout in other primaries and caucuses across the country, where the voting counted from the start. And in Michigan in particular, the voting level there was simply abysmal.

This suggests the possibility that far more Democratic voters would have come out in both states if they'd expected the contests to count, meaning that it's hard to argue that the primaries that actually took place really reflected the will of the people.

This is important context to keep in mind given that the Hillary campaign will argue tomorrow that the only way of preserving the people's will is giving them the solution they want -- a full seating of both delegations in accordance with the primary voting.

A detailed explanation after the jump.

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In a further sign that the Clinton camp is setting low expectations for the Rules Committee meeting tomorrow, Harold Ickes is now warning that not all of the Clinton-backing committee members -- representing a plurality, but not a majority -- might not vote for the campaign's position of seating all the Florida and Michigan primary delegates.

As for himself, Ickes humorously told the Wall St. Journal that he could "possibly" vote against Hillary's interests, "but it's highly unlikely."

So, would Hillary as veep give Barack Obama a better shot of holding on to the crucial industrial swing state of Michigan? It all depends on which poll you read.

The latest polls of Michigan from SurveyUSA and Michigan-based EPIC-MRA agree that John McCain has a narrow edge over Barack Obama in a pure match-up, with a very high number of undecideds. But testing tickets of McCain with Mitt Romney against Obama and Clinton yields dramatically different results between the two reputable firms:

SurveyUSA
McCain (R) 41%, Obama (D) 37%
McCain/Romney (R) 45%, Obama/Clinton (D) 40%

EPIC-MRA
McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 40%
Obama/Clinton (D) 51%, McCain/Romney (R) 44%

The EPIC-MRA poll has Hillary bringing an astonishing 11 points into Obama's column, putting him well ahead of McCain in this must-win state. On the other hand, SurveyUSA shows her not really bringing anything at all.

Here's some audio of a stunning rebuke that a top Hillary supporter gave her in response to her comparisons of the Michigan/Florida controversy to the country's historical civil rights struggles.

The supporter, New York Governor David Paterson, said flatly on a local radio show that Hillary was starting to show "a little desperation."

Listen below:

"I would say at this point we're starting to see a little desperation on the part of the woman who I support and I'll support until whatever time she makes a different determination," Paterson told a New York radio station, clearly weighing his words very carefully.

On the Michigan primary in particular: "You have to rule out the undecideds in Michigan. You have to assume she won 100 percent to nothing in Michigan. I don't think anybody in their right mind would do that, nor would they see it as a civil rights issue."

Here's another effect of the John Edwards endorsement that has passed unnoticed.

If Obama gets the support of the vast majority of Edwards' delegates, which is likely, that will mean that Obama could potentially secure a majority of pledged delegates on May 20 -- even if Florida and Michigan are fully seated.

Assuming that Obama is awarded all of the uncommitted slots from Michigan and also wins the support of all the Edwards delegates from Florida, that gives Hillary a total gain of 178 delegates from these two states to 135 for Obama, plus all 18 remaining Edwards delegates from other states switching to Obama.

As such, Obama would have 1,752 total pledged dels to Clinton's 1,625 for Clinton, and only need 32 more delegates to get the new pledged-del majority number of 1,784. A strong win in Oregon and a decent showing in Kentucky would be all that's necessary to pull that off.

Camp Hillary is rejecting the new plan floated today by Michigan Dems that would seat the delegation by awarding 69 delegates to Hillary and 59 to Obama.

Hillary spokesperson Isaac Baker emails over this:

"This proposal does not honor the 600,000 votes that were cast in Michigan's January primary. Those votes must be counted."

This is hardly surprising, since the proposal gives Hillary a 10 delegate margin -- a significant cut from the 18-delegate margin of victory she enjoyed over "uncommitted" (Obama wasn't on the ballot) in the Michigan primary.

Late Update: A good post from Chris Bowers on the Michigan proposal's larger implications for the race overall.

We may be on the verge of a compromise on the Michigan situation -- with the key being that a new solution wouldn't actually change the overall delegate race.

The Michigan state party's executive committee voted to submit a proposal to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, to send 69 delegates for Clinton and 59 for Obama.

The +10 margin for Hillary would be a significant cut from her +18 over "Uncommitted" in the state's rogue January primary, would take away any chance of getting at any of the 55 slots for Uncommitted, and would still allow the seating of a full delegation.

Meanwhile, the Wall St. Journal points out that we might soon see a softening of Obama's position on this issue. With the likelihood of his nomination now significantly increased, he is free to approve any plan that would seat delegates but wouldn't swing the nomination over to Hillary.

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.

A new pair of polls from Michigan and Florida casts some doubt on the argument over whether the arguments over the states' rogue primaries would make one Democrat more electable than the other in these particular states:

Michigan (EPIC-MRA)
Obama (D) 43%, McCain (R) 41%
McCain (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 37%

Florida (Rasmussen)
McCain (R) 53%, Obama (D) 38%
Clinton (D) 45%, McCain (R) 44%

A failure to hold a revote or honor the January primary doesn't appear to have made Hillary Clinton more electable than Barack Obama in Michigan. On the other hand, it is possible but not conclusive that Obama has been hurt in Florida by the primary fiasco.

More news late on a Friday afternoon: In the wake of reports today that the Michigan revote is really, truly, unequivocally dead, the Obama campaign is now calling for a 50-50 split of the delegation.

Here's the statement from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe:

“Senator Obama firmly believes that the Michigan delegation should be seated in Denver. A 50/50 split of the delegates is an eminently fair solution, especially since originally Senator Clinton herself said the Michigan primary wouldn't 'count for anything.' It's now up to the Clinton campaign: they can agree to a fair resolution or they can continue trying to score political points and change the rules. It's time to move forward. Senator Clinton should accept an equitable solution that allows Michigan to participate fully in the convention."

From the Hillary campaign's perspective, of course, this is like nullifying the vote completely and not seating the delegation at all.

It's really, finally, definitely official now. The Michigan re-vote is dead, with the state Democratic Party releasing the following statement:

The Michigan Democratic Party has carefully reviewed several proposals for a Party-run primary or caucus as a means of resolving the dispute over the seating of the Michigan delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. We have concluded that it is not practical to conduct such a primary or caucus. We will continue to work with the Working Group, the DNC and the candidates to resolve this matter in a manner which is respectful of the views of Democrats in Michigan, and which is fair to those who voted in the January 15th Democratic primary.

Next stop: The credentials committee.

Late Update: Howard Dean and Sen. Carl Levin, plus some other major Michigan Dem names, have released this statement:

"We are united in our commitment to doing everything we can to ensure that a Michigan delegation is seated in Denver this summer. We also know that any solution needs to be acceptable to both Democratic presidential campaigns. While there may be differences of opinion in how we get there, we will continue to work together to ensure that a Michigan delegation is seated and that the logistics are in place for a Michigan delegation in Denver. We have every expectation that we will succeed in that endeavor, and then go on to win in November."

Late Late Update: Jason Horowitz of The New York Observer reports that Dean got an earful from a roomful of Hillary donors upset that he hasn't done more to resolve the Florida and Michigan standoffs.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), a former Edwards supporter who is now neutral, has floated a new plan for seating delegates from Michigan. Under his proposal, Hillary Clinton would get 47 delegates, Barack Obama 36, and the remaining 73 delegates would be doled out on the basis of the national popular vote — thus seating the delegation with only a very small impact on the delegate math.

The plan is similar to one offered in Florida by two state legislators there — but if their proposal's lack of traction is any guide, Stupak's plan probably doesn't have too bright a future.