Gallup says Obama has tightened the gap separating himself from Hillary:

The latest Democratic numbers show Hillary Clinton with a 43% to 39% advantage over Barack Obama among Democratic voters nationwide. That four-point lead is the narrowest since early January, and it is a continuation of gains by Obama. The impact of John Edwards' exit from the Democratic race is less clear.

The Page:

*Matches his previous three-month record.*

The most ever raised by a Democrat in the January of an election year.

Campaign manager Plouffe on media call says they also added 170,000 new donors. Strongest money-raising day was after losing New Hampshire primary. Listen to audio here.

A sign of the times, via Romenesko:

The Charlotte Observer said Wednesday it will cut 25 of 41 jobs in its ad design group as it sends the work abroad, joining other large companies using foreign outsourcing to trim costs.

The newspaper has been testing outsourcing options for the work since last summer and chose Affinity Express, an Illinois company with facilities in the Philippines and India.

Eric Fehrnstrom, the traveling press secretary for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, is best known for his recent verbal tussle with AP reporter Glen Johnson, which erupted after Johnson challenged Romney's statement that lobbyists weren't running his campaign.

As it happens, Fehrnstrom, who is profiled this week by my Boston Phoenix colleague Adam Reilly, graduated ahead of me from BU, and we crossed paths a few times back when he was reporting for the Boston Herald.

Over at Anchor, Marc seems to have been first with the news that Forbes is calling Providence the 10th most miserable city in the United States.

Misery is defined as a state of great unhappiness and emotional distress. The economic indicator most often used to measure misery is the Misery Index. The index, created by economist Arthur Okun, adds the unemployment rate to the inflation rate.

We took a look yesterday at how Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch is virtually alone among high-profile Rhode Island Democrats in remaining neutral in the presidential race.

The other high-profile neutral is US Senator Jack Reed, who faces reelection this year. Chip Unruh, the senator's press secretary, got back to me after the close of business yesterday with a response, via e-mail, to my question about why Reed remains neutral.

Writing in the Phoenix, Sharon Steel describes how, in a time of global upheaval, many Americans are turning to Hello Kitty, Lolcats, and Juno, among other elements of what she dubs the cuteness surge.

“We’ve had manifestations of this cute business, through good times and bad, militaristically,” says Robert Thompson, a professor of television and pop-culture at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School.

This just in: in advance of Super Tuesday, when Massachusetts' voters go to the polls, the Phoenix is endorsing Obama:

The 2008 election is guaranteed to enjoy a special place in history. For the first time since 1825, when James Monroe left office after succeeding James Madison, the nation will have seen two presidents, William Clinton and George W.

Darrell West sends this along:

National Public Radio’s JUAN WILLIAMS will speak about “Election 2008” in the next Religion and Politics Lecture held at Central Congregational Church at 7 p.m., Thursday, January 31, 2008. The church is located at 296 Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island, at the corner of Cooke and Angell Streets.

Back in 2001, I reported on how the Belo Corporation, owner of the ProJo, was among the corporate entities convinced they had the next big thing:

Belo, which bills itself as the nation's ninth largest media corporation, was far from alone in its grand expectations for Digital:Convergence's signature product, the :CueCat -- a bar code scanner that attaches to computers -- and related software that can link televised "cues" with particular destinations on the World Wide Web.

Speaking of endorsements, the ProJo's Scott MacKay noted the different dynamic between Rhode Island and Massachusetts when, on Monday, he previewed the Kennedys' backing of Obama.

While many top Massachusetts Democrats, including Governor Patrick, Sen. John F. Kerry and U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, are backing Obama, Patrick Kennedy becomes the first major Rhode Island Democrat to back the Illinois senator.

While a lot of political endorsements don't mean much, there are some -- as with the Kennedys's backing for Obama earlier this week -- that carry considerable weight.

With the the Latino vote being an important part of Super Tuesday particularly in the Western states, Bill Richardson has yet to weigh in. The Washington Post, via Kos, has a good piece on this:

I was pleasantly surprised to learn, via the sports section of today's ProJo, that Johan Santana is being dealt to the Mets. Sure, he's a great pitcher, but this is the best of both worlds: we kept him away from the Yankees, and we keep such exciting young ballplayers as Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, and Clay Buchholz, as well as Lowrie and Masterson.