It is more than just a little coincidental, that in the few days leading up to the critically important Ohio primary, the Canadian government just “happens” to leak an explosive document which could severely damage the Obama campaign in that state. The “coincidence” starts to become more dramatic when one reflects on the fact that the memo is a subjective account from a politically biased administration: Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, is a “George W. Bush Republican.” And his “statement of regret” over the leaking of this story at just the right time to undermine the Obama campaign, and even sounds like it is confirming the accusation; Harper said, “The Canadian embasy in Washington has issued a statement indicating its regret at the fact that information has come out that would imply Sen. Obama has been saying different things in public than in private.” Already, opposition politicians in Canada have accused Harper of trying to sabotage the Obama campaign at a critical moment.

The memo, at worst, is not really that damaging. It is notes taken by a second party, not quotes, putting to paper their interpretation of something said by an Obama advisor, not Obama himself. Furthermore, if you read past the explosive sentence which seems to suggest that Obama is lying to the American public about his NAFTA stand, the rest of the memo makes pretty clear that Obama’s public statements were in sync with the representation understood by the Canadian memo-taker.

Instead of saying that Obama actually supported NAFTA as it stands, the rest of the memo goes on about how Obama wishes to renegotiate the treaty, “clarifying” language in the treaty that would keep jobs from being exported to other countries so easily (confirming Obama’s public statements about renegotiating labor provisions), and restricting the expansion of the treaty to new countries. None of this contradicts Obama’s campaign language concerning NAFTA. It is just that early excerpt saying Obama’s message is “more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans” that sounds pretty bad; though the rest of the memo contradicts this, the press coverage and attacks from the Clinton campaign make it difficult to point this out.

What seems to be most damaging is the initial denial by Obama that the meeting even took place; Clinton is using that as an opening with which to give other accusations more credence.

In an otherwise near-perfectly-run campaign, this is a less-than-perfect day for Obama. Obama has slipped back to a dead heat with Clinton in Texas after being ahead, and Clinton seems to have regained some ground in Ohio, even before the memo leak. Despite impressions that the media is in love with Obama, they love nothing more than a timely scandal and will lustily jump all over this one (and you can bet they won’t play it like they played the McCain lobbying scandal, where they went whole-hog in trying to clear him of any suspicion). Despite impressions that Obama is still carrying momentum and is expected to win fairly big, Obama could in fact be slipping and might not win either state; even a narrow win for Hillary in both states could be played up to put her back in the race. Tomorrow will be very interesting indeed, especially with terrible weather brewing over Ohio.