Check out this quote from the New York Post that's supposed to scare people from voting for Obama due to tax issues, "Right now [it] is 35 percent, Obama wants to take that to 39 percent . . . We're talking about people who make over $200,000. That's not rich. So it's actually going to impact more people than you may think."

This diary was inspired by MSNBC breaking into their regular news cycle to cover a speech by Boxer/Schumer.  It turned out not to be about the race but rather about an environmental issue that they cared about.  

So what?  They got free coverage for a while before they pulled the plug.  This is a great chance for the Democratic party and the issues we care about.

The flip side to, "Why didn't Obama's team just give Clinton the 4 extra delegates?" is, "Why is Clinton's camp so hard over something that won't make the slightest difference in the race?"  Four delegates - at 50% voting power no less - is trivial.  That's not the real argument though, and compromising about that won't stop the complaining.  Why are those two votes so important?  It's all about the delegate slate.

I've been accepting a lot from the Clinton camp.  They self identify as fighters so you have to accept a lot of bizarre behavior.  This though, is a new low.

They're filing a lawsuit about Florida.  So what you say?  Check out the grounds they're using.

OK, before going on, I should clarify that I'm separating add-on delegates from currently existing supers who haven't already pledged to anyone.  At any rate, I just ran the numbers, and barring some incredible collapse like Oregon or Puerto Rico going 80/20 Clinton, I believe Obama can clinch the nomination without having one more superdelegate commit.   The crunching is below.

His town hall is streaming on CNN.com.  He's about to go into details about it now.

Comments are below the fold, but you can watch it yourself.

Like most of you, my reaction to the ending of the same sex marriage ban was mixed.  Most of me was excited than an obvious case of discrimination was struck down.  A small part of me was still worried about November.  We've already seen the God and guns; here comes the gay issue.

Of course, even if this meant President McCain, I couldn't say this ruling was wrong.  You can't keep oppressing a minority out of fear of the voters.  In that case you won't stand for anything other than winning.  Fortunately though, I think this time, it's not going to be that big of a deal.  Follow me below the fold for the reasoning.

People have been talking about this for a while now, the party has some serious divisions which lead to normal supporters wondering if they can even vote for the standard bearer for President, let alone donate money.

Today though, the posts aren't coming from the Democrats.  In an installment of, "I'll go there, so you don't have to," let's look at some leading Republican blogs.

I know that 2209 is the new talking point, but if - as expected - Obama hits 2024 before the rules committee meets, 2209 isn't going to matter.  Why?  Once again it's math.

In the first place, the odds of a new magic number being 2209 is minimal.  The rules committee is likely to at least enact the Republican 50% penalty which would lower that number.  I'm going to assume the best case for Clinton and give the states no penalty.

What was the common wisdom of the past 7 weeks?  Obama would close, but not catch up.  The media would spin it as a Clinton win for a few days.  We'd then notice that she didn't really catch up and then move on.

Sure enough, Obama closed tighter than anyone would have expected.  The media still spun it at as a Clinton win.  We're now in the process of moving on.  And yet, despite being forewarned that this would happen, we all still fell victim to the roller coaster.  You'd think that the advance notice would calm us down but I was giddy yesterday afternoon and depressed this morning when I saw that 9.4% rounds up to 10 in the reporting.

This is probably too short for a diary but if you're like me and trying to read any tea leaf out there, you might find this interesting.

With that Drudge leak of her internal polls, I thought I'd read a live blog of her conference call on Talk Left.  It doesn't look like they're expecting a big win.  In fact, it seems like they think it will be a close race.  

I was running some numbers on MyDD today and I really saw how close we are to the end game.  Even if you give Clinton some rather favorable assumptions, Obama only needs 40 of the unpledged non-add on superdelegates to endorse him.

The reality is probably 30-35 will be enough, but I think that 40 will clinch.  Someone correct my math if I'm off somewhere.

Yes, I myself have been guilty of freaking out over the last two days.  I couldn't believe that we were going there, that something as silly as a slightly awkward word choice was going to somehow sink Obama - like the entire core of Clinton's campaign hasn't been pursuing those who are bitter and therefore don't like hope.

Then I took a deep breath this morning and reflected.   This is the same thing that Clinton has tried at every other recent election.

In today's New York Times, there is a claim that Clinton is going to have a superdelegate problem:

Yet Mrs. Clinton’s once formidable lead among superdelegates who have announced preferences has shrunk to 34 by the Obama campaign count. The pool of remaining uncommitted superdelegates for her to draw from has dwindled to around 330, fewer than half the overall total of 795 superdelegates

Believe it or not, that actually understates her problem.

I'm heading out in a few to go to the 46th District caucus.  I'm not expecting any shenanigans but I'm bringing my camera (which records video) and my old copy of Robert's Rules of Order just in case.

Our district should break down 40/20 to the state convention if everyone shows up.  I'll give an update about that plus anything else that might happen as the day goes on.

Political Wire got an advance look.  

They have Clinton's lead at 8 points; their previous poll had it at 18.  The trend does seem pretty unmistakable.  PA is tightening up drastically.

I don't know if Obama can close the gap to win the state, but the likelihood of a 15 point lead is falling.  As for the expectations game, it's much better at this point to have a 3 point loss spun horribly than a 15 point loss spun well.  There's a bigger game than just PA.  If she's going to argue popular vote, she needs to make up a ton of room in PA; if NC can cancel out Pennsylvania, she'd need some 85-15 wins to have a chance there.

She's starting to run out of arguments and this poll shift is going to force her to use what resources she has left in PA rather than also focusing on IN and NC.

When I was in my freshman year of college, I was friends with Oren Bauman.   He was the resident optimist in our group of friends.  In a table full of people who are jaded in only the way that intellectuals in their late teens can be, he made the case for the good in humanity.  He wanted to be a rabbi and for some reason, he thought that attending Bard would be a logical step along that path.  We used to debate a lot about the relative importance between math and religion; I suspect you can guess which side I took.

I remember one particular conversation that happened right before Spring Break.  We started telling him all of the ills of the world (corruption, pollution, Ronald Reagan) and how they were destroying everything.  He kept explaining that things would get better.  "In 20 years," we said, "we'll tell you that we told you so."  

"No, I'll be telling you guys that I told you so."