Again, like most of the other primaries, Pennsylvania apportions their delegates by both Congressional district and by state-wide percentages.  There will be 161 delegates determined, in some way, by the primary contest on April 22nd.  The largest group, 103 delegates, will be determined by vote totals in each of the 19 congressional districts of Pennsylvania.  There will be another 35 delegates that will be determined strictly by the state-wide vote on April 22nd.  Finally, there will be 20 pledged elected officials (PLEO's) that will also be determined by the state-wide vote and 3 unpledged add-ons split 2-1 depending on the primary vote.

Obviously, the big portion of the delegates will be determined by the vote breakdown in each of these 19 districts.  Again, much like Texas, the delegate amounts in each district is determined by the Democratic turnout in previous elections.  They range from a low of 3 delegates in the solidly Republican 9th district to a high of 9 delegates in the 2nd district (Chaka Fattah's district).  Here is the list of delegates per Congressional district.

Take it for what it's worth, but the latest poll out of Massachusetts has it Obama 46%, Clinton 44%.

http://www.suffolk.edu/offices/20580.htm l#anchor26797

The Kennedy endorsement seems to have had a big effect on these numbers.

The recent Kennedy endorsement is a key factor for Obama overall.  Asked to size up the impact of three endorsements for Obama and Clinton,  Democratic respondents cited Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's endorsement of Obama (43 percent) as the most influential, followed by Bill Clinton's of his wife (23 percent) and Oprah Winfrey's of Obama (9 percent).

This past weekend I voted early in my nearby Chicago suburb with my wife.  I was heartened to hear from the election judges that many more people were voting early this year.  When they started early voting here in the 2006 primaries, I don't think they even had 10% voting early.  My hope is that we get at least 25% voting early this year.

No matter who people are supporting I'm glad to see so many people paying attention and being involved.  It's a good thing for our democracy especially after the gutting of it with our current president.

So why in Illinois where Obama will clearly win, did I "waste" my vote on Edwards?  Check after the fold on my reasons.

During a town hall meeting this past Sunday, Senator Clinton got a question from Tod Bowman, a high school teacher, inquiring what the harm was in either raising or eliminating the Social Security tax cap.  He asked this because he said was confused by her answer at the AARP debate in September.  At that debate, former Senator Edwards reiterated his support for raising the cap to $200,000 from $97,500 as it stands now.  Judy Woodruff, the moderator, then asked the other candidates whether they agreed with Edwards.  Senator Clinton responded and both Edwards and Woodruff interjected "so thats a No".  She smiled and nodded in agreement.

http://www.iptv.org/video/detail.cfm/634
(Go to minute 44 & 45 for the exchange)

Just to get a little background on what the Social Security Tax cap is, all you have to do is look at your paycheck.  The FICA tax is for Social Security and the tax is 12.4%, half of which comes out of your paycheck and half paid by the employer.  So if you make $50,000 a year, about $2,600 a year comes out of your paycheck.  Likewise, if you make $75,000 a year about $4,700 a year comes out of your paycheck.  At this point, it is a progressive tax, where the more you earn, the more money comes out.  Now, if you make $100,000 a year, you are only taxed on the amount up to $97,500 (about $6,000 a year taken out).  What the cap does is saves money for all those who make over $97,500 a year.  So if you make $200,000 a year, again only $6,000 a year is taken out of your paycheck.  Likewise, if you make $500,000, 1,000,000, 5,000,000, it's still only $6,000 a year you pay into Social Security.

Edwards, rightfully so in my opinion, thinks this is wrong.  His proposal was to make those people making more than $200,000 pay the tax as well.  What, you say, is wrong with that?  That is what Mr. Bowman was wondering as well when he asked Senator Clinton on Sunday.

As many of us have seen, the proliferation of pro-Hillary bloggers was quite pronounced after the 2nd quarter and I for one have always wondered if this influx was due to the Clinton campaign paying for people to blog on her behalf or if it was just a coincidence.

Well, here we finally have the expenditures from the 2nd quarter on Opensecrets.org.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/expend _detail.asp?id=N00000019&code=M30&am p;cycle=2008

Under Internet Media expenditures and only counting expenditures since April, there was over $300,000 paid to the Mayfield Strategy Group.  Josh Ross, formerly head of Kerry's Internet staff, is the head of Mayfield.

So I went ahead and did a little search on some of the most pro-Hillary posters here at MyDD.  I checked when they first posted a diary and first made comments here.  Check after the fold for what I found.

Ever since Hillary Clinton's quote from Yearly Kos,

A lot of those lobbyists whether you like it not, represent real Americans, she said. "They represent nurses, social workers"

I've been trying to track down where all this lobbyist money is coming from, who do the lobbyist represent and if the other candidates are truly not taking lobbyist's money.  It's been a long process and I may well divide these into separate diaries, but here goes.

First, I started by looking at who the top lobbying firms in 2006 were and our friends at opensecrets.org were a big help.  Here's the link.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/ind ex.asp?showyear=2006&txtindextype=l

Next, since I knew that spending from year to year may fluctuate depending on certain issues being discussed on the Hill, I went and found out who the top lobbying firms from 1998-2005 were.  Here is the link for that.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/ind ex.asp?showyear=a&txtindextype=l

For the compilation of the two follow me after the fold.

Remember this?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/25/1447 26/925

Jerome posted that Richardon's internal polling had him ahead of Obama in "likeliest" caucus goers.  Most of the comments dismissed the poll, but I don't know if we should be so quick to do that.

I say that because of this little nugget I found online. Check below the fold for this info.

I submitted a shorter entry on this in Jerome's Edwards campaign diary, but I thought this might merit a diary of its own.  Let me first start out with the standard disclaimer that the list of states participating in the February 5th primaries is still changing and obviously as more states are either added or dropped from this date, the early voting dates will change as well.

Let's first start by looking at which states that are either already set to have the primary on Feburary 5th or changed it by legislative action.  Then we can look at whether each of these states has no excuse early voting and if so, how early does early voting start there.  See the list below the fold.