Obama, at a press conference right now, is explaining his decision to leave Trinity church right on the cusp of the general election.

The gist: He's leaving because he knows that he has to distance himself from the church at this juncture, given the political imperatives before him, and also because his presence in the church is resulting in too much media scrutiny to the church itself.

Obama noted that members of the church are being harassed, noting that anonymous members of the church are getting calls from news organizations.

Obama also revealed that he and Michelle have been discussing the possibility of leaving since Wright's disastrous press conference at the National Press Club a few weeks ago -- suggesting that they've known for some time now know that going into a general election without ditching Wright and his church is untenable.

Late Update: Here's the video:

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.

The Obama campaign confirms to us that he has resigned from the church of controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright.

More in a sec.

Late Update: Obama himself will address this soon in South Dakota. Details coming.

Late Update: Here's what may have triggered Obama's final break from the church: Rev. Michael Pfleger mocking Hillary as "white" and "entitled," a performance that was disavowed by Obama himself...

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has officially voted, in a unanimous motion, in favor of the compromise measure for the Florida Democratic delegation, seating all pledged delegates and super-delegates at a half-vote each.

The compromise was endorsed by the Obama campaign, and even received the evidently-reluctant support of pro-Clinton members of the committee.

Bottom line: Hillary Clinton will net a +19 edge in pledged delegates for Florida, not enough to significantly change the math. Up next will be the debate on Michigan, which is a much tougher issue to settle.

As expected, the motion to fully seat the Florida delegation according to the results of the January rogue primary has gone down in defeat, following a brief formal debate.

The vote tally: 12 votes in favor, 15 opposed. The committee is now proceeding to debate on a compromise motion that would seat the delegates at half-voting strength, which is expected to carry the day.

The vote was followed by chants of "Denver! Denver!" from a contingent of Clinton supporters in the audience.

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.

And now for some real political drama.

On the trail today in South Dakota, Barack Obama will keep up the pressure on John McCain for wrongly saying that the troop numbers in Iraq are now at "pre-surge" levels, using McCain's refusal to admit error over the gaffe as yet another way to strap him to George W. Bush. From the prepared remarks sent over by the Obama campaign:

We all misspeak sometimes. I've done it myself. So on such a basic, factual error, you'd think that Senator McCain would just admit that he made a mistake and move on. But he couldn't do that. Instead, he dug in. And the disturbing thing is that we've seen this movie before -- a leader who pursues the wrong course, who is unwilling to change course, who ignores the evidence. Now, just like George Bush, John McCain refused to admit that he made a mistake. And that's exactly the kind of leadership that we've had through more than five years of fighting a war that should've never been authorized, and should've never been waged.

We don't need more leaders who can't admit they've made a mistake, even when it's about something as fundamental as how many young Americans are serving in harm's way.

It's clear that McCain's campaign misplayed this one. He could simply have said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I misspoke. I meant to say we're in the process of drawing down to pre-surge levels. Sorry. Now can we get back to the issues?"

But instead, the McCain camp tried to turn this into a debate about "verb tenses" -- the sort of error more often committed by Dems, and more often exploited by Republicans. Who knows how big an impact this will have, but the fact that Obama camp isn't letting up on this will cheer Dems wondering how aggressive the Obama team will be in the general.

It's official: The Obama campaign is supporting a compromise for Florida that would seat all the delegates at half a vote each -- giving Hillary a net gain of 19 delegates.

Obama's representative at the Rules meeting, Florida Rep. Robert Wexler, just endorsed the idea during his presentation.

"Senator Obama should be commended for his willingness to offer this extraordinary concession," Wexler said, adding that he's offering this concession "in order to promote reconciliation with Florida voters."

Though Hillary's team will still insist on a full seating, it's tough to imagine that this compromise won't end up being the final outcome. But again, the real morass is Michigan.

Wow, this will be quite an optic.

Some folks have already reported this, based on anonymous sources, but now the Obama campaign has made it official via a press release: He and his wife, Michelle, will hold a big rally on Tuesday evening -- the night of the last voting in the Dem primary -- at the site of the 2008 Republican National Convention.

It will be at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. Expect Obama to use the occasion to frame his entire argument against McCain.

It's a pretty ballsy move. To state the obvious, the event will strongly symbolize that the real significance of the completion of the Dem primary voting is that the general election has begun, with Obama as the standard-bearer challenging McCain and the GOP.

Jon Ausman, the puckish and bemused Florida DNC member who's trying to get the Florida delegation seated, is bringing the house down with his challenge -- to the extent that any presentation before Rules and Bylaws can bring the house down, of course.

He just wrapped things up, and his final word is this: Seating half the delegates is "acceptable to the challenger."

That's shaping up more and more as the likely outcome. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein cites two sources saying that a deal has already been reached to seat the delegation with each member having half a vote -- which would give Hillary a net gain of 19 delegates.

Of course, few expected Florida to be as tough to resolve as Michigan, which is the real morass. Hillary adviser Harold Ickes will argue that the committee has no legal authority whatsoever to award "uncommitted" delegates to any candidate, meaning that the only legal outcome (in Ickes' view) is Hillary's preferred one.

Howard Dean delivered some strong words in his opening remarks at Rules and Bylaws, telling an anecdote about his bitter, hard-fought loss in 2004.

"I was very very angry at my party for some of the things that had been done," Dean said, going on to recall getting a phone call in the middle of the night from Al Gore, to whom Dean ranted and raved about his loss.

"What do I owe the Democratic Party?" Dean recalled telling Gore. "Why should I be a Democrat after what the party did to me?"

According to Dean, Gore responded: "Howard, you know, this is not about you. It's about your country."

"Nobody could have said that to me except for Al Gore," Dean continued, since Gore had had the presidency snatched from him by "five intellectually bankrupt Supreme Court justices who did the wrong thing."

"This is not about Barack Obama," Dean went on, speaking about the current primary. "This is not about Hillary Clinton. This is about our country. This is about restoring America to its greatness" and "moral authority."

"There have been very tough disagreements and ugly moments. Emotions have run very high. There have been blatantly sexist comments, particularly by some members of the media. And blatantly racist remarks. And we know that those comments have no place in our society."

"We need to come together."

So the meeting is about to get underway at the Rules and Bylaws committee -- the meeting at which a decision may be reached about what to do about the Florida and Michigan delegations, a decision that could effectively end the Democratic Primary.

Dems on the committee met until 1:30 A.M. last night, and were still unable to reach an agreement on how to resolve the impasse.

The key sticking point is how to allocate delegates in Michigan where Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., took his name off of the ballot.

There appears to be more agreement on how to proceed with Florida.

The most likely scenario is for the Sunshine State's entire delegation to be seated -- each member with 1/2 vote.

DNC chair Howard Dean is getting ready to deliver opening remarks. We'll be blogging the meeting -- somewhat intermittently -- right here.

The Obama campaign is in good spirits as Friday's happy hour rolls around, chiefly because they clearly won today's political skirmishes with John McCain. They got McCain to admit he was wrong to use General Petraeus' photo in a political attack. And they put him on the defensive over his flubbing of a fact about troop levels in Iraq.

And Obama will continue to squeeze the troop-levels gaffe -- in which McCain wrongly said that we'd drawn down troops to pre-surge levels -- in a Montana speech tonight. Prepared excerpts from the campaign:

He's been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that's nothing more than a political stunt. He's even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like Senator McCain's a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday - in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy - he stood up in Wisconsin and said, "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq.

"That's not true, and anyone running for Commander-in-Chief should know better. As the saying goes, you're entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We've got around 150,000 troops in Iraq - 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer - that's still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Senator McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to "nitpicking."

"Well I don't think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

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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Nancy Pelosi, in an interview today, cranks up the warnings to Clintonites who may or may not be plotting to take things all the way to the convention:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Friday warned supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are threatening to take the delegate fight as far as the Democratic National Convention, that they are pursuing "a scorched earth philosophy" that would seriously damage the chances of electing a Democratic president in November.

"There is too much at stake in our country for us to be thinking that we can afford the luxury of intra-party battles eight weeks before the election," said Pelosi, in her strongest words yet on the battle over seating delegates from Florida and Michigan.

Meanwhile, Hillary struck an even tone today when asked about pressure from party leaders to end this, saying: "I think that after the final primaries people are going to start making up their minds. I think that's the natural progression that one would expect."

The question, though, is whether the Clinton camp will fight on even after the super-dels have made up their minds.

John McCain, asked on the trail today whether he should have used a picture of General Petraeus in uniform to raise money and attack Barack Obama, said:

"No. It won't happen again."

That's a victory for the Obama campaign, which today bashed McCain's use of the pic as politicizing the military.

But it raises a question: What, specifically, won't happen again? The McCain campaign won't use any images of Petraeus again for political or fundraising purposes for the rest of the campaign? They won't henceforth politicize the images of any members of the military?

Not a chance.

The Obama and McCain campaigns are battling it out today over whether a McCain comment about Iraq troop levels was a gaffe that betrayed his lack of knowledge of the facts on the ground -- and the early media coverage suggests that the Obama team is winning this spin war.

The comment in question was made by McCain yesterday to reporters. He said: "I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet."

Pre-surge troop levels? Not so much, countered the Obama campaign, which pointed out that troop levels are at 155,000 right now, well above the 130,000 pre-surge mark.

The McCain campaign is battling aggressively to limit media pickup of McCain's mistake, telling reporters that they shouldn't be nit-picking about what was merely a "verb tense" mistake. But judging by the first round of coverage in The Washington Post, the Obama team is getting the story told its way...

McCain Asserts Return to Pre-Surge Iraq Troop Levels

Sen. John McCain has attacked Sen. Barack Obama for not traveling to Iraq to see the "facts on the ground." But a recent statement by McCain about troop levels has his opponents raising questions about his own knowledge.

That's exactly the coverage the McCain camp doesn't want, and that the Obama camp does want. Will the rest of the coverage follow suit? It seems like flubbing a fact about troop levels is a bit of a gaffe for someone who regularly attack his opponent's experience and fitness to be commander in chief.

The Hillary campaign has taken a great deal of heat for their demand that Hillary be awarded all her delegates in Michigan and that none of the so-called "uncommitted" delegates go to Obama.

On a conference call with reporters this afternoon laying the groundwork for tomorrow's DNC meeting about the delegations, top Hillary adviser Harold Ickes extensively rebutted that criticism, pointing out that in addition to Obama, John Edwards and Joe Biden also weren't on the ballot (only Hillary was).

"It's impossible to discern what was going on in the minds of the uncommitted [voters]," Ickes said. "Some may have voted for Senator Obama. Some may have voted for Senator Biden. And some may have been voting for just plain 'uncommitted.'"

"The Rules and Bylaws Committee does not have the jurisdiction or the power to take uncommitted delegates," Ickes continued, "and award them to Senator Obama, or any other presidential candidate, any more than it has the power to take uncommitted delegates that were awarded to Hillary Clinton and give them to another candidate."

This is a pretty striking conclusion. If this committee lacks the power to award the uncommitteds to anyone, as Ickes said, it's hard to see why Hillary supporter Lanny Davis proposed a solution that would have split the uncommitteds between Hillary and Obama.

What's more, if this is true, how can the Committee craft any compromise solution? How can it split the whole delegation 50-50, or by any other percentage, between the two candidates? Wouldn't that involve doing what Ickes says the Committee lacks the power to do -- that is, award the uncommitteds to a candidate?

This legal reading seems designed to make the case that the only legal solution that the Committee has at its disposal is the Hillary solution. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Late Update: Ickes' position is apparently not that these delegates never go to a candidate. It's that the Committee can't pick which candidate they go to -- at the Convention, the uncommitteds can support whomever they wish. Of course, under this scenario, they wouldn't count in Obama's column in the short term, while hers would count.

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

Click To Play

With Barack Obama and John McCain battling again today over foreign policy, the question is worth asking: Which candidate is actually winning the argument over Iraq right now?

The new Pew poll we posted on yesterday has some fascinating numbers buried in it that shed some light on this question. The survey found that more people trust McCain than Obama to handle Iraq, with a big, big caveat...

Since April, McCain has lost much of his advantage in opinions about which candidate is better able to make wise decisions about what to do in Iraq. Currently, 46% favor McCain while nearly as many (43%) favor Obama. In April, McCain held a 50%-38% lead on handling Iraq.

It's interesting that McCain holds any advantage over Obama on Iraq at all, given that majorities continue to favor withdrawal.

Still, the more important point here is that Obama has, since April, closed the gap on this from 12% to three percent in a period when the public has been focusing more on the prospect of Obama as nominee and on the developing clash between him and McCain over Iraq. Does it mean Obama is getting the better of the exchange? Unclear, but the narrowing gap is decent news for Obama.

As noted below, the McCain campaign is already using a member of the military -- General Petraeus, to be precise -- as a prop in an attack on Obama, sending out a campaign email bearing Petraeus' image to raise money and slam Obama on Iraq.

The Obama camp's response? On a conference call with reporters moments ago, Obama advisers pointed to a rather relevant letter sent out just a few days ago by the Joint Chiefs urging that members of the military stay out of the presidential race.

"The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways," wrote the Joint Chiefs chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen. "It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway."

On the call, Obama spokesperson Josh Earnest argued that McCain had used Petraeus' image politically even though the ink was barely dry on the Joint Chiefs' directive. "It's interesting that just days later, the McCain campaign jumped in with both feet," Earnest pointed out, adding that the McCain camp had both politicized Iraq and used Petraeus to raise money.

Petraeus himself, presumably, wouldn't want his image used in such a context, given the Joint Chiefs' preference. Indeed, as it happens, Petraeus' own spokesperson has already weighed in on this topic. Last September, when Rudy Giuliani used Petraeus' image in a political ad, Petraeus spokesperson distanced the General from it, saying he had "not condoned the use of his photo" in the spot.

Late Update: Here's the audio from the Obama campaign's conference call:

Click To Play

Looks like the skirmish between Obama and McCain over Iraq is going to continue today -- and this time, General Petraeus is getting dragged into the fray.

The Obama campaign is holding a conference call this morning to respond to this fundraising pitch from McCain, in which the Arizona Senator uses the image of Petraeus in uniform to raise cash and attack Obama...

In the email, McCain sought to keep the issue of visiting Iraq alive, blasting Obama yet again for refusing to accompany McCain on his next "Baghdad Stroll."

"He has only been to Iraq once, on a trip two years ago. Senator Obama speaks openly about his willingness to sit down with our enemies and engage in open talks, but he hasn't gone to Iraq in over two years to meet with our leaders and see that progress is being made on the ground," McCain's email read.

"Something is wrong with your judgment when you want to sit down unconditionally with Raul Castro and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but you don't take the opportunity to sit down with General Petraeus and learn about the situation in Iraq firsthand," the email continued. "My friends, this is not the `change' we need in our next president."

More on this soon.

Late Update: McCain's full email is after the jump.

Late Late Update: The Obama campaign responds.

Read more »

Last week we brought you an amazing gay-baiting ad from Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), a spot that attacked his Democratic opponent for supporting "San Francisco values" and even featuring gaudily-dressed people dancing to cheesy disco music.

Well, Graves is apparently undeterred by the outraged response that greeted his first effort, because now he's got another gay-baiting spot up on the air:

This new ad singles out support that former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes has received from gay rights organizations, with a cover feature from a local gay newspaper, and accuses Barnes of having an agenda "to make same-sex marriage the law in Missouri."

Keep a close eye on this House race -- it's probably going to get even uglier.

The editorial board of the Argus Leader of South Dakota -- to whom Hillary made her remarks about Robert F. Kennedy's assassination -- gives her a glowing endorsement today:

Her mastery of complex policy detail is broad and deep, and her experience as a senator and former first lady matches that...

As those who have attended her South Dakota rallies can attest, she is quick on her feet and energetic. She frames her ideas clearly in speeches and answers questions with genuine directness.

Her resilience and determination never should be questioned. She has met or overcome every challenge or roadblock in her way, and there have been many. Her determination to carry the nomination process through to its real conclusion has perhaps earned her a grudging respect from those who would never support her.

Clinton might not win this race. In fact, it's a long shot. But whatever some might say, the race is not over, and her name is on the ballot. Win or lose, she's also the best Democratic candidate for South Dakota.

The Argus Leader is the state's largest paper. Clearly, the people who actually heard her make the assassination comments first hand were not terribly offended by them.

In another indication that the Obama camp is shifting gears into the general election campaign, Joe Biden told the Washington Times that Obama has approached him about being a campaign surrogate. Biden has not publicly endorsed either of the remaining Democratic candidates.

"He has asked me to play a more prominent role - not in an administration, in the campaign," Biden said, "meaning would I be more available, would I travel with him occasionally, and I said once he gets the nomination, if he gets the nomination, then I'll do whatever he wants."

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."

In a quick phone interview with me just now, prominent Hillary supporter James Carville diverged from the Hillary campaign message on several key "electability" questions, saying that he thinks Obama "will" win the general election.

Carville, surprisingly, also seemed to downplay Obama's problems with non-college whites -- a cornerstone of Hillary's electability claim -- saying that if Obama gets the same level of non-college whites that John Kerry did in 2004, he "will" win the general.

Asked if he thought Obama would beat McCain, Carville said: "I think he will. I think Democrats will win in November...There's a crushing desire for change in this country. No one has seen a party or brand held in such low esteem" than the Republicans.

Carville's repeated suggestions that Obama "will" beat McCain contrast with the core Hillary message -- repeated frequently by Hillary advisers -- that Obama merely "can" win a general election, while Hillary "will" win it. Carville's comments also suggest that with the fall contest looming, it's becoming tougher for prominent Hillary backers to sustain any argument that doesn't show full confidence in Obama's chances against McCain.

Carville stressed that he thought Hillary was a better bet against McCain, but reiterated his confidence in Obama. "Hillary would be a stronger candidate, but I think he'll win this thing," Carville said.

Asked about claims that Obama has a problem with non-college whites that could hamper his electability, Carville said that thanks to changes in the electorate, to win Obama merely has to match the performance of Kerry, who underperformed with that group.

"I would argue that if he gets what Kerry got he will still win the election, because the dynamics have changed," Carville said, pointing to likely larger turnout among young voters, African Americans and other demographic changes. Carville joked, however, that he'd be loath to see Obama fall below Kerry's performance.

MSNBC reports on a possible new compromise for Florida and Michigan:

This plan would halve the votes for all of the Florida delegates, netting Clinton 19 and, more importantly, counting that popular vote. But Michigan's primary results would not be accepted and, instead, that state's delegates would simply be split 50-50 between Clinton and Obama.

All of the delegations, under this compromise, would be seated in full, but each delegate's vote would be counted as 0.5, including the superdelegates.

MSNBC says this is gaining some traction in the right circles, adding that it would make the new magic number for victory become 2,118.

So, under this scheme, Hillary would net an overall total of 19 delegates from Florida. Add in Michigan's 50-50 split, and she would get roughly 84 delegates, Obama would get 65. That would hardly make up much ground for her, since at that point it would bring the total delegate counts (assuming no others decide in the next couple of days) to this:

Obama 2,046

Hillary 1,866

That would mean she'd still have to pull in a huge percentage of the remaining super-dels to prevent Obama from getting to the magic number of 2,118. Of course, she could argue that Florida's popular vote should now be added to the tally, though even that would almost certainly fail to overcome his lead by that metric.

Going into the general election campaign, Barack Obama's favorable ratings have taken a hit between the attacks from the Clinton camp and the increased scrutiny that comes with being the frontrunner -- but overall he's still in pretty good shape, a new Pew poll finds.

Obama's favorable/unfavorable rating stands at 51%-42%, slightly better than John McCain's 48%-45% rating. When he was flying high in February, Obama's numbers were 59%-35%.

One source of his decline, from Pew's analysis: "In turn, favorable opinions of Obama have tumbled among women who support Clinton - from 58% in March to 43% currently."

In the general election match-up, Obama edges out McCain by a 47%-44% margin, within the ±3.5% margin of error but not bad.

So what's Obama's route to the White House in a general election? How can he make the electoral map work for him? How dramatically does he have to remake that map to gain the Oval Office?

Here's a first stab at trying to answer that question.

Read more »

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.

In yet another indication that Senate Republicans are really playing on defense everywhere this year, a new Rasmussen poll has bad news for them in even the deep-red state of Mississippi, with appointed Sen. Roger Wicker (R) now trailing former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) in a race that's within the margin of error:

Musgrove (D) 47%
Wicker (R) 46%

Sample size: 500 likely voters.
Margin of error: ±4%

As we noted a few days ago, Wicker is already up on the air -- having to introduce himself to voters in a state that President Bush carried with 60% of the vote in 2004.

If the Dems were to manage to knock off a GOP Senator in the Deep South, it really would be a massive victory.

The Obama camp releases a letter from his doctor detailing the health of the would-be next president...

His family history is pertinent for his mother's death from ovarian cancer and grandfather who died of prostate cancer. His own history included intermittent cigarette smoking. He has quit this practice on several occasions and is currently using Nicorette gum with success.

For some old-fashioned souls, this might prove to be a tad on the racy side...

Senator Obama's last medical checkup was on January 15, 2007; he had no complaints. He exercised regularly often jogging three miles. His diet was balanced with good intake of roughage and fluids. A complete review of systems was unremarkable. On physical examination, his blood pressure was 90/60 and pulse 60/minute. His build was lean and muscular with no excess body fat.

The conclusion...

In short, his examination showed him to be in excellent health. Senator Barack Obama is in overall good physical and mental health needed to maintain the resiliency required in the Office of President.

Full letter after the jump.

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Here's a bit more on what the actual impact could be of the DNC's legal memo yesterday saying that the Rules and Bylaws Committee only has the authority to seat half the delegations.

It appears that Rules and Bylaws can proceed down one of two tracks here if they seat half the delegations. Either they can seat the whole delegation and have each vote counted as a half-vote, or then can cut the delegation in half and seat that.

And as if this weren't complex enough already, it turns out that each of those solutions would give the candidates a different number of delegates. Chuck Todd explains:

As for the actual meeting itself, there's one more angle you ought to be aware of: a 50% cut and a halving of the delegates is not the same thing. For instance, if Florida delegates are seated in their entirety, but only have their vote counted as a .5, then Clinton will net approximately 19 delegates out of the state. But if the delegation is cut in half, that's done in every congressional district as well as statewide, then suddenly Clinton's advantage is only a net of six.

So, a net gain for Hillary from Florida of roughly six or 19 delegates. Marc Ambinder says there is reason to believe that the Obama camp might be able to accept a 19-delegate net gain for Hillary. Michigan, meanwhile, is an entirely different morass...

Hillary goes up on the air in Montana with a pretty standard spot about the Bush economy and taking on the special interests -- with no mention of Obama...

As best as I can determine, no Hillary ad has mentioned Obama at all since the Indiana and North Carolina results suggested that the outcome of the primary is now pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Late Update: I should add that this and other spots have drawn an implicit contrast with Obama.

Here's one other nugget I meant to bring you from yesterday's Obama campaign conference call: Obama top adviser David Plouffe said flatly that reports saying Obama has a massive number of super-delegates secretly banked to roll out after June 3rd are untrue.

"That's not accurate," Plouffe said, when asked about such reports. "You know, we announce super-delegate support as people commit to us. We have done three so far today. So we are announcing them as they pledge their support to us...no, we do not have a bunch of super-delegates in our back pocket."

There's a simple reason that these rumors of blocs of super-dels secretly plotting to move en masse keep proving to be false: This isn't how the dynamic actually works. The reality is that getting indivdiual super-dels to commit -- and getting them to go public -- is hard enough on its own, let alone getting them to do so in a big group.

Once either campaign has got an individual super-del privately locked down, it rushes that super-del out the door and makes it public as quick as possible, in order to make it official. The campaigns don't privately hoard super-dels, because to do so would risk losing them.

You couldn't ask for a clearer declaration from the Obama campaign that the general election is underway -- and the primary is behind us -- than this.

The Obama campaign has just sent out a fundraising pitch that explicitly appeals for donations to take on John McCain and the GOP -- and calls on Obama's vast donor base to prove, right now, that they can stand toe-to-toe with the Republican money machine. In the email, Obama writes...

This week, John McCain and George Bush gathered behind closed doors, away from the cameras, to raise money for McCain's campaign.

McCain used Bush to raise a reported $3.5 million from a group of about 500 Republican contributors.

That's a lot of money that will undoubtedly be used to attack us and make the case to continue George Bush's failed policies.

But I have an idea about how we can match it....

As we prepare to take on John McCain, now is our first chance to show that a grassroots movement of people giving only what they can afford can go toe-to-toe with the Bush-McCain fundraising machine.

John McCain can run from the cameras, but he can't hide from the fact that he's aiming to continue George Bush's policies for a disastrous third term.

Let's show that we're ready to take him on.

Though it's unclear whether the money would go to the primary or the general, this is a pretty clear declaration that the general is under way -- from Obama himself. We'll try to track how much this appeal brings in and will keep you posted.

Full email after the jump.

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In a possible recognition that his position on meeting with hostile foreign leaders could become more of a liability than a plus, Barack Obama has now clarified his views in an interview with the New York Times, saying there is a difference between meeting without preconditions versus an unconditional meeting.

Instead, Obama is saying that any meeting would of course have to involve preparations and judgment on whether it would be helpful, but he would not demand up-front policy concessions from the other side that amount to the subject of the whole negotiation.

"I didn't say that I would meet unconditionally as John McCain maintained, because that would suggest whether it was useful or not, whether it was advancing our interests or not, I would just do it for the sake of doing it," Obama said. "That's not a change in position, that's simply responding to distortions of my position."

In the latest round of the foreign policy debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, McCain said he is glad to hear of reports that Obama is considering taking another trip to Iraq -- a trip that McCain says will change Obama's whole position.

"It's long overdue," McCain said. "It's been 871 days since he was there and I'm confident that when he goes he will then change his position on the conflict in Iraq because he will see the success that has been achieved on the ground."

Although all analysts give Hillary Clinton long odds to win the nomination, her major union backers and other big donors clearly haven't given up. The American Leadership Project, the pro-Hillary 527 group, is running a new pair of ads in the upcoming contests of Puerto Rico, where she's favored, and Montana, where Obama is ahead.

Here's the Montana spot, promising that Hillary will help middle-class families and end tax breaks for oil companies:

And here's the Puerto Rico ad, centering around health care:

Bill Clinton has taken another step in the Hillary campaign's arguments about the Democratic popular vote, bluntly telling a crowd in Puer