Two Clinton backers have offered up a plan to re-stage the Florida and Michigan primaries.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Sunday that they would be willing to raise half the $30 million it would take to run new contests in those two states. Mr. Corzine and Mr. Rendell submitted their proposal to The Washington Post.

The two governors argue that the Democratic National Committee, and not taxpayers in Florida and Michigan, should pay for a re-election in those states.

Meanwhile The NY Sun reports that Al Sharpton is now threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it uses the results of the Florida primary to seat delegates.

Rev. Sharpton is traveling to Florida today to compile lists of residents who skipped the January contest because they thought their votes would not count. He plans to have those residents sign affidavits saying they would be disenfranchised by the seating of the Florida delegation, in the event the Democratic Party allowed that to happen.

The party had promised to exclude Florida and Michigan from the nomination process after the states scheduled their primaries in January, earlier than party rules had allowed, but the close contest between senators Clinton and Obama has turned attention toward those primaries, prompting debate between the campaigns and party leaders over how to handle the lockout.

photo credit: daveiam

I am amazed by the number of people thinking the Clinton vs. Obama arguments have been mean spirited, dirty or really anything close to tuff politics. If you read your political history everything said and done at this point has been pretty soft, the big guns have been in their holsters. So will we see a truly ravenous, vengeful and hate filled primary contest? I highly doubt it, but for those hoping for one there is at least the following few glimmers of hope. For those who aren’t hoping for one and have had enough, well, sorry, at the very least we have two candidates who will be launching some attacks against one another.

From The Page Obama on Clinton’s foreign policy premise:

“Over the coming weeks we will join her in that argument. Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crisis? The answer is ‘no.’”

Campaign chief David Axelrod from Politico:

“If Sen. Clinton wants to take the debate to various places, we’ll join that debate. We’ll do it on our terms and in our own way but if she wants to make issues like ethics and disclosure and law firms and real estate deals and all that stuff issues, as I’ve said before I don’t know why they’d want to go there, but I guess that’s where they’ll take the race.”

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Obama and McCain swept their respective party primaries last night, leading to a further decline in the national media’s attention span concerning Mike Huckabee and the continued speculation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is over. The AP now says Clinton is “fading” and that this is Obama’s race to lose and it seems like many are embracing that sentiment.

I have two thoughts. One is that Huckabee should do whatever he wants and face the consequences. It isn’t the media’s job to decide when a candidate is done. It is the job of the candidate, the party and the voters to make that decision.

The second thought concerns Hillary’s chances.

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Barack Obama is the projected winner of Wisconsin.

Yesterday James Carville said if Hillary doesn’t win Texas and Ohio the campaign is over. Today on a conference call new campaign head Maggie Williams reportedly said “March 4 is when our movement meets their movement.”

Clinton herself responded to Carville’s comments on Good Morning America saying ‘My job is to do the best I can’ adding:

“These two states are big states and are very reflective of our population as a country. And I’m going to do the very best I can to be successful in both of them. We’re running a vigorous campaign. We have a lot of support and we are going to be here working hard until we find out what happens on March the 4th.”

Also check out Bid Hinges on Ohio & Texas in the New York Times.

Meanwhile as Clinton movies through Ohio the Politico notes the new populist tone in her message.

Today is the Potomac primary where Virginia, Maryland & District of Columbia vote. You can watch live results as they come in. When a candidate is declared the winner their name will go into bold and of course (winner) will be put next to them.

ALSO make sure to discuss the results and more in the new Election Geek Forum

Polls Close at 7:00 PM Eastern

Polls Close at 9:30PM Eastern (BAD WEATHER HAS KEPT POLLS OPEN AN EXTRA 90 MINUTES)

Polls Close at 8:00PM Eastern

From the Obama Blog:

The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after receiving widespread reports from Democrats across Louisiana who reported that they were not allowed to vote because their party affiliation had been switched. Hundreds of Louisiana democrats went to the polls to vote in today’s presidential primary and found that they were now on registration lists as Independent or Unaffiliated voters.
What Louisiana voters to need to know:

Democrats who are told at their polling places that they are now registered Independent or Unaffiliated voters and aren’t eligible to vote - but never switched their party affiliation - can still vote in today’s primary by requesting a provisional ballot. The Secretary of State has confirmed that all voters have the right to vote a provisional ballot if there is a problem with the registration lists.

- Blacks were close to half the Democratic electorate, while nine in 10 Republican primary voters were white.

- Men predominated in the GOP electorate while more women voted in the Democratic contest.

- Close to one in 10 voters in both primaries were under age 30 and one in four were over age 65.

- About one in five voters said gender was an important factor in their vote and about as many said that about race.

From Associated Press.

From partial samples of 709 Democratic primary voters and 368 Republican primary voters conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International in 30 precincts across Louisiana on Saturday. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 5 percentage points for the Democratic primary and 6 points for the Republican.

More exit polls information and reports of low voter turnout here.

CNN calls Georgia for Senator Barack Obama.

Because of what appears to be the massive turnout for Barack Obama some are speculating he could win as many as 35 delegates from Georgia.

Today South Carolina Democrats go to the polls.

The site will have live results as they come in tonight, polls close at 7:00PM tonight so be sure to come back and watch the returns.