Do a Google News search on “McCain FEC” and look at the results. In the past two days, there has not been even one story from a non-biased U.S. media source about McCain and the fact that he is now in clear violation of federal election laws. Not one. You have to go back to March 3rd to find one, and that’s an LA Times piece that calls the story “a debate that only law students could enjoy.” Excuse me? The Republican nominee for president violating a law that could net him five years in federal prison?

McCain is Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, Mr. I’m Squeaky Clean, Mr. Anti-Corruption; and yet here he sits, surrounded by lobbyists, with a string of hard evidence showing that he has interceded on their behalf in governmental affairs on multiple occasions, and now he’s flipping off the FEC and saying that he can do whatever the hell he wants. McCain doesn’t like the restrictions imposed by the FEC, and the FEC chairman says he can’t withdraw? No problem: I’ll wave my magic wand–poof! I’m no longer bound by FEC rules!

Meanwhile, Obama gets steamrolled by the press on the NAFTA thing because–supposedly–it shows that his actions don’t live up to his words. Come again?

Instead, all we get is feel-good stories about McCain. The Liberal Media™ rides again!

Be honest. Considering that (a) Canada’s ruling party is staunchly conservative and favors the Republicans, (b) an Obama win today would have knocked Hillary out of the race and avoided a prolonged battle which will hurt the Democrats, and (c) the Canadian government just happened to leak a NAFTA-related memo damaging to Obama one day before the Ohio primaries, a state where NAFTA means more than in any other state… can you really brush off the whole “NAFTA-gate” affair to pure coincidence?

Not that the American media weren’t happy stooges to a smear job. If you read the whole memo, you’ll find that it was not even close to what the press made it out to be. It did not quote Obama, it didn’t even quote the advisor–it was notes taken by a Canadian official detailing his impressions of the meeting–and the whole memo shows much more than just what’s being reported. Some parts express the official’s belief that he’s being assured that it’s all just “political maneuvering” and “political positioning”–those are the only parts really quoted in the media, the ones that give the impression that Obama is lying to voters.

However, other parts of the memo contradict that impression:

On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more ‘core’ principles of the agreement.

Which is exactly what Obama has been telling voters:

Obama said he supports the foreign trade deal, which is especially important to labor and U.S. manufacturers. He said active trading is a key way to keep the United States competitive.

“We’re not going to draw a moat around the United States’ economy. If we do that, then China is still trading, India is still going to be trading,” said Obama, who voted against the recent Central American Free Trade Agreement and opposes the pending trade deal with South Korea.

“I think that NAFTA and CAFTA did not reflect the interests of American workers but reflected the interests of the stock owners on Wall Street, because they did not contain the sorts of labor provisions and environmental provisions that should have been embedded and should have been enforceable in those agreements,” he said.

So, this other part of the memo–not reported widely in the media–contradicts the idea that Obama is lying to voters. But try telling that to the Liberal Media™.

What this proves is that there is no “NAFTA-gate,” Obama is not lying to the voters. Instead, you have a very poor Canadian note-taker, a right-wing Canadian administration interfering in U.S. politics at a key juncture that could swing the election, and a media which is more interested in creating a scandal than reporting the truth. (Which doesn’t take into account why they glossed over the McCain lobbyist scandal by acting like the weak sex angle was the only relevant part–unless you remember that we’re dealing with a Liberal Media™ here, out to eviscerate the Republicans!)

I don’t blame Hillary too much for taking advantage of it–it was a slick political move, if dishonest. Obama should have handled it better, though. Of course, he could not just point out what I just pointed out–it would take too long to do so, and therefore would never play in the media even if the media hadn’t decided it was suddenly Obama Season.

Instead, he should have done what (gulp) Republicans do: call it a “smear,” a “dirty trick,” maybe even some synonym for “gutter politics.” It worked for McCain a week ago. It also worked for Bush when it was revealed that he’d been arrested for drunk driving. Even though Bush had been arrested for drunk driving and his campaign didn’t challenge that, they got through it by calling the release of the information a “dirty trick,” based solely on its timing. Well, that would apply to this situation in spades–and it would have the advantage of being true, while the charges and the impressions created were patently false. Had Obama pressed that angle, it might have actually brought him some sympathy and support. But he didn’t; as far as I can tell, he just denied it was true in a plain-vanilla fashion, and that just wouldn’t fly.

No one is sure that this is what torpedoed his campaign this week, but it certainly seems to be the strongest element to that. There are reports that a lot of people in Ohio turned to Hillary because they suddenly doubted Obama. Had Obama not lost big in Ohio, Hillary’s boost would have been significantly reduced; additionally, the NAFTA faux-scandal may have even tipped the balance in Texas. Had both those states been closer, Hillary might still be celebrating, but she would not have the aura of a comeback like she got tonight.

And to be frank, tonight’s results makes little difference in real terms: Hillary won only a few delegates, and is still about a hundred behind Obama; Obama may even diminish her gains further if the Texas caucus goes his way. Hillary’s only hope is for this win to give her a boost and break Obama’s momentum.

But the real story tonight is how the Democratic race will now continue for at least a few more months, and maybe even right up until August, in a way that could potentially split the party and lose an election that should have been a cake walk.

Tonight may have been a good night for Hillary, but it was a great night for Republicans–with a little help from their friends north of the border.

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.

If you don’t know who Marc Andreessen is, then look at the program you’re reading this with. If it’s an RSS reader, then never mind. But if it’s a browser, then Marc Andreessen is its granddaddy–he invented the modern web browser, which made the World Wide Web really possible. As a college student, he co-authored the browser Mosaic, seen as the turning-point app that made the web accessible to everyone. After leaving college, he formed the Netscape company, which became the #1 browser–until Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill them off. Still, Netscape was sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. His second venture, Opsware, was sold for $1.6 billion.

Still, he’s a multi-millionaire (or billionaire?) Internet “whiz kid” who is still active in the industry, right now with the social network Ning. And currently, he maintains a blog. Today’s topic: about a year ago, Andreessen had the chance to sit down and speak with Barack Obama, privately, for about an hour an a half–probably one of the last times the candidate was able to sit down with anyone for that amount of time. His conclusions: he was markedly impressed. I’ll let you read the whole post yourself, but at least part of the last point is worth reprinting:

Before I close, let me share two specific things he said at the time — early 2007 — on the topic of whether he’s ready.

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of his answer — political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama’s opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win — and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

This speaks well to the Senator’s ability to run a campaign, but speaks even more to his ability to recruit and manage a top-notch group of campaign professionals and volunteers — another key leadership characteristic. When you compare this to the awe-inspiring discord, infighting, and staff turnover within both the Clinton and McCain campaigns up to this point — well, let’s just say it’s a very interesting data point.

Read the second part of the experience answer on his blog.

From the WaPo:

The president of the Catholic League today blasted Sen. John McCain for accepting the endorsement of Texas evangelicalist John Hagee, calling the controversial pastor a bigot who has “waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church.”

Hagee, who is known for his crusading support of Israel, backed McCain’s presidential bid Wednesday, standing next to the senator at a hotel in San Antonio and calling McCain “a man of principle.”

But Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement today that Hagee has written extensively in negative ways about the Catholic Church, “calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’”

“Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee,” Donohue said.

So, Barack Obama catches hell in the media for being endorsed by Louis Farrakhan, and gets double-teamed by a debate “moderator” and his opponent for only “denouncing” and not immediately “rejecting” the endorsement; meanwhile, McCain is not only endorsed by a religious bigot, but makes a special trip to accept the endorsement and to say he’s “honored” to get it.

Will the “liberal media” come down on him for this? Don’t bet on it.

From The NYT:

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain said Thursday that he had no concerns about his meeting the constitutional qualifications for the presidency because of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone. A Democratic colleague said she wanted to remove even a trace of doubt.

The Democrat, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, introduced legislation that would declare that any child born abroad to citizens serving in the United States military would meet the constitutional requirement that anyone serving as president be a “natural born” citizen.

“In America, so many parents say to their young children, ‘If you work hard and you play by the rules, in America someday you can be president of the United States,’ ” said Ms. McCaskill, a supporter of the presidential bid of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois. “Our brave and respected military should never have to spend a minute worrying whether or not that saying is true for their child.”

And rightly so.

But it brings up an interesting point, in that this is a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. Had it been Obama born outside the U.S., he would likely have had no Republican trying to come to his defense–much less a Republican supporter of his presidential rival. Instead, Republicans would have exploited this to attack him endlessly, using it to suggest that he’s not a “real” American. Being a child in a military family stationed overseas would not have made a difference; partisan Republicans have shown no reluctance to defecate on members of the military in political power plays, as we saw with their debasing of McCain in 2000, Max Cleland in 2002, and John Kerry in 2004.

I know, these are common as weeds in politics, but the latest one is pretty interesting.

John McCain is not being very closely scrutinized in the media for his stated decision to “opt out” of federal funding for his campaign. Not one, but two rules prohibit him from legally opting out (FEC must approve but is currently disabled; McCain used funding as collateral for a loan and is now locked in), meaning that McCain may have already violated federal law, and is not legally allowed to spend any more money for the next six months. This is a huge development, unprecedented in any prior election, to my knowledge. And it is not a liberal-blogger maybe-this-could-stick theory; the Republican FEC chairman, David Mason, himself stated this as being a fact. The story is further significant due to McCain’s reputation as a campaign finance icon, someone who is supposed to be all about reform, not breaking campaign finance law. And yet the media somehow finds it reasonable to relegate this story to the back pages.

That same media, however, has been paying considerably more attention to McCain’s criticisms of Obama concerning Obama’s pledge to “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” A lot more media outlets are covering this, and giving it front-page attention. The thing is, this is a story about a decision Obama hasn’t even made yet–it is about a potential future action by a candidate to violate a non-legally-binding promise–something done every other hour in Washington D.C.

So the media virtually ignores it when the GOP front-runner overtly breaks campaign finance law even though he helped write those laws, and instead the media plays up a story where the Democratic front-runner might sometime in the future decide not to live up to a promise he made a while ago, which would not break any law at all.

Damn that liberal media!!

Also of note: McCain is supposed to be Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, but surrounds himself with lobbyists and can demonstrably be shown as doing favors for them beyond what is reasonable for his position; again, this gets little play. What also gets less play is the fact that Obama does not accept money from PACs or federal lobbyists at all, and that the vast majority of his contributions come from ordinary people–which means that opting in for federal funding would not make much if any difference in how clean his campaign is.

So tell me: if the press really “loves” Barack Obama as much as it is hyped to, why these disparities? Could it be that the press doesn’t really love him so much, but people get that impression simply because there’s so much good news coming his way, because whenever they point a camera at him, he’s surrounded by enthusiastic supporters?

Maybe I’m just not seeing this unreasonable media infatuation with Obama that gets him all this disproportionate fawning. Could someone point out a few instances of it for me? Please?

I’m sorry, but Clinton is starting to look unhinged. She is shooting off contradictions right and left. After Super Tuesday, Texas and Ohio were the important races, ignore those Obama wins in February; but now that Obama is winning in Texas and catching up in Ohio, they’re suddenly unimportant, and Michigan and Florida must be seated–though she initially agreed to not run in those states, when she figured she’s be nominated without them (even though she still put her name on both ballots), and now champions counting the delegates she once agreed to abandon.

On her attacks against Obama, she’s similarly of two minds. Obama’s health care plan is terrible, and what’s more, he is criticizing another Democrat’s health care plan! Obama shouldn’t lift entire passages from other people’s speeches… like I do! On a regular basis! I respect Obama and am honored to share the stage with him, so shame on him for being such a bastard! He’s misrepresenting me on my fliers, just like I’m misrepresenting him!

So, are you ready for a new one? Here it comes:

A set of talking points emailed to Clinton supporters within organized labor describes the arguments to use on uncommitted super delegates. In the email, the Clinton campaign suggests telling the uncommitted delegates that “it would be unfair and unjust to cut off the nominating process now. There might come a time when the process needs to come to a close, but that time is not now.”

Um, are we talking about the same superdelegates that Hillary was busy getting to commit to vote for her since quite some time ago? The same ones whose commitments to her she stressed were supposed to be not only counted but emphasized?

Of course, that was when superdelegates were on her side. When Obama had the lead with pledged delegates, Hillary stressed how important the superdelegates were, because she had so many that had given her their votes. But now, the supers are trending toward Obama–so now superdelegates throwing in with someone is “unfair and unjust”? Can she be serious?

She seems to be. The campaign’s email warns that “If House, Senate and DNC members try to end this process now, it would be very damaging to those institutions, the Democratic Party and our chances in November.” Funny, she was OK with that happening until up to just a few weeks ago.

I am beginning to think that she will do just about anything to win this, no matter what she has to do, and frankly, it’s getting a bit scary. She’s already tarnished her own image almost beyond repair at this point, digging so deeply in the mud that she’d have a hard time selling herself as being a better person than McCain. But now I am getting seriously worried as to what damage she’s prepared to do to the party so long as she believes there is any chance for her to pull a victory out of this. A close friend and an ardent Hillary supporter told me that she was depressed at what has been happening lately, sad to see that Hillary comes across now as a wounded animal. An appropriate metaphor, perhaps; they are the most dangerous kind.

Oh boy–Hillary with an important statement:

We do not want to be disenfranchising Michigan and Florida. We have to try to carry both of those states. I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are.

When Hillary was way ahead in Texas, Texas was make-or-break. The states that went for Obama “didn’t matter.” Now that Texas seems to be going for Obama, Texas no longer matters.

But the more significant thing here is that Hillary is embarking on a dangerous gambit here: she said she’s going to fight for Florida and Michigan, as they originally voted, to be counted at the party convention, without a re-do caucus as the party insists:

Interviewer: So your intention is to press this issue?

Clinton: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

That’s a bit worrying. I suppose the $64 question is, how hard will she push? If she’s just talking about stressing it but not taking any action if she’s turned down, then we’re okay. But that doesn’t sound like Hillary; knowing her, she’ll go to fairly extreme lengths to get this done if it means the difference between winning and losing.

And maybe some people would say, “great, we need a fighter.” But we need someone who will fight for the party, not within it; someone who will fight within the rules, and not against them for personal gain. If Clinton seriously tries to defy the party, to violate the clearly-stated rules, and to shut down any chance for a caucus (which has recent precedents), then she could create a huge divide in the party and start a major war within the ranks.

That would be selfish, probably futile, and I would even say extremely stupid. I hope she’s just posturing, and doesn’t go beyond any damaging point. But I doubt it.

Hat tip to Kos.

The story is still pretty unclear, but by now you’ve probably heard about “the photo.” The Drudge Report (not the most trusted name in news) released a story claiming that Clinton staffers circulated a photo of Obama from a 5-nation tour of Africa in 2006, in which he tried on Somali garb while in Kenya. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time with politicians traveling abroad; you see photos of congressmen and even presidents doing this a lot. Hell, every time Bush attends an APEC summit he wears something new.

But the problem with the Obama photo is that whoever chose to circulate it chose the one photo which (in the eyes of less-aware people) makes Obama look like he’s a Muslim. This is not just a photo you release randomly or casually. This is a photo you release if you want to do some serious race/religion-baiting, on the level of “accidentally” calling Obama “Osama.” This is a photo you release if you are trying to out-Rove Karl Rove. The photo itself is completely innocent; the intent behind circulating it is explosively sleazy.

Now, here’s the thing: coming from Drudge, you’d want to confirm the story before blasting Hillary for it. Drudge names no sources, though he does quote Clinton staffers. Did the Clinton campaign really release this photo? Maybe it was released by right-wingers attributing it to Clinton in hopes of taking shots at both Hillary and Obama.

However, the responses coming from the Clinton campaign seem to bolster the Drudge story. Had the Clinton campaign not been involved, one would think they would have simply said, “no, we didn’t release that photo; someone is trying to make us look bad,” or something along those lines. But they didn’t. The Clinton campaign simply says the photo wasn’t “sanctioned,” and they are not “aware” of anyone in their campaign circulating it:

“Here’s what I’d say: I’ve never seen that picture before, I’m not aware that anyone here has, I’m not aware that anyone sent any such e-mail.”

That’s not a denial, that’s more a way of saying “it was someone we can claim distance from doing our dirty work.” Hardly proof that the Clinton campaign was involved, but it does give the impression that it’s true. At the very least, it says that the campaign isn’t sure that it wasn’t them, and is covering its bases.

Along with the non-denial denials, the Clinton campaign chided Obama for being offended at nothing, and trying to “distract” people:

“If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely,” [Clinton campaign manager Maggie] Williams wrote in an e-mail to reporters. “This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry. We will not be distracted.”

One thing for certain: if the Clinton campaign really did release this photo, then it was a desperate gambit, and probably a really stupid one; Obama could benefit from this a lot more than the photo would hurt him. But then, the Clinton campaign has done a lot of stupid stuff in the past few months.

All this as a new poll shows Obama taking the lead in Texas, and another poll showing Obama coming to within 4 points of Clinton in Ohio.

Perhaps it’s a bit late, but I did take down notes on the debate, no sense in wasting it. It’s not a transcription, but a summary–maybe preferable to those who didn’t want to wade through all the details (here’s the transcript in case you do), but also were not satisfied with the press summary.

In their opening statements, Obama won the coin toss and let Clinton go first. Her speech was more of a rah-rah get-the-crowd-cheering speech; Obama was more sober, speaking of people who suffered without health care and factories where equipment was unbolted from the floor and shipped overseas. While Clinton captured the initial mood, Obama made a good choice, enabling him to play off of that and come across as more serious and presidential.

First question: On talks and relations with our enemies, in this case, for example, Cuba:

Clinton: we should meet with leaders with an eye toward normalization, but a presidential meeting should be held back as a plum to reward concessions.

Obama: we should meet with leaders with an eye toward normalization, but we should not hold ourselves so lofty as to say just meeting with our president is a prize; instead, we should realize that valuable and meaningful progress is mostly achieved in early meetings between heads of state.

Comment: both have points to make here. It may be my bias speaking, but I prefer the Obama’s idea. Hillary might a point that if we have a commodity worth something, we can use it as a coin to trade with. However, I think Obama has a better point: better to get the job done instead of waiting and hoping for other countries to pay for the privilege of being seen with our lofty leaders. It is somewhat arrogant, and there is an upside to opening dialogs with others. Being willing to talk is a commodity as well.

Second question: How do differentiate yourselves from each other on the economy?

Obama: Shift tax breaks from companies investing overseas to those investing at home; shift tax cuts from the wealthy to the middle and lower class; move to a “green” economy which will reduce dependence on foreign oil. We agree on many of these, but the difference is how they’re done. We must work together and get rid of special interests.

Clinton: I agree with Obama on the basics he laid out. Also: hold a “trade agreement time-out” until we can review those agreements to make sure they are beneficial to us. Take immediate action on the sub-prime crisis: put a moratorium on foreclosures and freeze interest rates. Next: create green jobs, invest in infrastructure, end Bush’s war on science.

Comment: Obama clearly expected to be able to respond to what Clinton said (as she was allowed with the first question), but the CNN moderator cut off the question after Hillary went over her time, and moved to the next question.

To Clinton: Would you consider stopping federal immigration raids?

Clinton: In “egregious” cases, we would have to continue raids, but otherwise we have to stop. Need to have immigration reform; crack down on employers, federal help for communities on costs for immigration enforcement, help create jobs south of the border, create a path to legalization (pay fines & back taxes, learn English).

Obama: tone down the ugly rhetoric and lessen antagonism toward immigrants; bring comprehensive reform: stronger border security, crack down on employers, require undocumented workers to pay fines, back taxes, learn English–and go to the back of the line. Fix the legal (but discriminatory) immigration system, and improve our relationship with Mexico and fix problems on that side of the border.

Comment: I like the fact that both are for cracking down on employers. In my opinion, that’s the only way to stop illegal immigration–if that’s truly what you want to do, with all the costs that move implies.

Are you for or against the border fence? (Asked to Clinton, whereupon I began to notice that Clinton is for some reason being given first shot so far at any question of interest to the Hispanic community, allowing her to score all the big points, and leaving Obama to say “me too” and mention some side point in addition.)

Clinton: our current policy is stupid. In some places, a fence is good; in other places, it’s bad; decide by asking people who live where the fence would go. (After finishing, interviewer gives Clinton another chance to explain her points.) Where there’s no fence, use technology and manpower.

Obama: We almost entirely agree. Consult with local communities; some places need fences, other places need the manpower & technology. Important point: we need to also deal with the 12 million immigrants here, and to do that, we need to address the problem of incoming immigrants. Also: an immediate solution is to allow immigrant children better access to education, to avoid the creation of “two classes.”

Comment: Both make fair points, but neither makes much sense on the fence. Do they really think we need that, or are they just saying that to get votes? The fence is stupid; it’s not hard to defeat, even without gaping holes and breaks.

By 2050, we’ll have 120 million Hispanics. How about becoming a bilingual nation? (Again, Clinton gets first shot.)

Clinton: as many Americans as possible should become bilingual, but English should remain as “common, unifying” language. English should not be the “official” language, but should be the dominant language.

Obama: important that everyone learns English, but also every student should be learning a second language. If bilingual education helps, then have it, but also emphasize foreign-language study. NCLB, with its standardized testing, has pushed out foreign language study.

For Clinton: You’ve both attacked each other. let’s haul out one of the reasons you think Obama is bad and discuss it. Do you really think Obama is all talk and no substance as you have said on the campaign trail?

Clinton: I respect Obama and this has been a civil campaign, but I offer solutions and I have better records and accomplishments. (Did I hear hissing when Hillary brought up Obama supporter’s inability to name his accomplishments?) Actions speak louder than words.

Obama: I’ve acted a lot: provided health care, tax breaks to struggling families, reformed criminal justice, reformed political financing and pork-barrel spending, helped veterans in need–I have a strong record of action. Our records differ in how we enact change. The charge against me is that everyone who supports me (gives long list) is being duped, when in fact they all recognize that the manner of affecting change is important, and they support my way. We need to inspire people to get past divisions and act at the grassroots level and get real change passed. (great defense)

The moderator jumps on the ‘attack Obama’ bandwagon and brings up “related” (?) point of Obama using speech from Deval Patrick’s speeches.

Obama: Deval Patrick is my national co-chair, advises me, and suggested I use the lines; to suggest this is “plagiarism” is “just silly.” This kind of “silly season” is discouraging and distracts us from the issues. Segues into issues he wants to press–making college affordable, change tax code, get us out of Iraq–specific, concrete proposals. We should spend time on these, not tearing each other down. (OK, that was masterful–especially his “admission” that some of his speeches were “pretty good.” The attack backfired.)

Clinton: if your campaign is “about words,” then they should be your words; if you sell “change you can believe in,” you should not lift “whole passages” and sell “change you can Xerox.” (Obama mutters disapproval, crowd echoes.) Look at the YouTube to see the plagiarism. (Segues into biting attack on Obama over health care and mandates. Hillary is then allowed to ramble on for a while about her accomplishments, despite being way off topic.)

Obama: Responds to health care accusation; explains features which are similar. Defends stand on mandates: it’s not that people don’t want it, it’s that people can’t afford it. It is not true that my plan “leaves out” 15 million people. Clinton’s ’93 was poorly done because it closed out everyone else, even other Democrats; an Obama plan would bring everyone to the table. The point: unless we change the way things are done in Washington, we won’t accomplish anything. (Obama fumbled a bit and was hard to follow in the beginning, but eventually came back and got off enough of an answer to satisfy.)

Comment: This is where I got the distinct impression that CNN was for some reason was trying to throw the debate to Hillary. Not only did they give her first shot at all Hispanic issues, allowing her to score all the points on questions important to a key demographic in Texas, but now they’re essentially doing a “best of” hit-parade of let’s-trash-Obama. They start by suggesting that both of them went negative, which is highly unbalanced (Hillary has been way more negative), but then they just pile on with attacks against Obama. Obama is inexperienced, Obama plagiarizes, Obama’s not ready–huge openings to allow Hillary to attack Obama, where Obama has to go on constant defense. Here’s the last one:

To Clinton: Are you saying Obama’s not ready to be president?

Clinton: I’m ready, you decide about Obama–but I wanna talk about health care. [Moderator tries to stop her, but she steamrolls through.] If we don’t have mandatory health insurance, it won’t work because so many people will not pay.

Comment: See? Not only that, after giving Hillary a chance to rip Obama one more time, the moderator tries to stop Obama and move on before he even gets a chance to speak! Obama won’t have that, however–and the moderator “patiently” allows him a “brief” comment:

Obama: Mandatory programs have a problem: some cannot afford to pay; if you have non penalties, people won’t buy in anyway. If they can’t afford to pay, they are stuck paying fines and still don’t have insurance–so mandates are not a good answer either. We have to debate how to work this out.

Clinton : (Talking over moderator and insisting on taking another turn) Points out that Obama has mandatory insuring of children and fines for people who don’t pay but show up sick after not having insurance. Restates that Social Security and Medicare only work because they are mandatory.

Obama: Point one: everyone will be able to get insurance; two, mandates for children can be effective. If people game the system, we can penalize them. But I am not leaving out 15 million people.

Again, to Clinton: Are you saying Obama’s not ready to be president? (Um, when will get get off the “attack Obama” kick? It’s been almost half the whole debate so far.)

Clinton: I’m experienced. Here’s a list of things I’ve done, and things that are happening that need experience to manage. I am prepared to be president on day one.

Obama: I am ready, I will protect America. We need a strong military, better management, using military wisely. I have shown good judgment where Hillary was wrong, and that has had serious consequences. I decided right on Iraq, I decided right on Pakistan, hillary did not.

Comment: In some ways, Obama is a bit off his mark tonight; he pauses, hems and haws too much. Still, if nothing else, the constant moderator-driven attack against him does allow him to answer the charges directly. Still, you will notice that they never got around to pointing out what Obama criticized Hillary about. They start off by insinuating that Obama attacks Hillary as much as she attacks him, and they leave it with this?

You’re going to face a decorated veteran in the election; things in Iraq are going swimmingly, don’t you agree that the Surge™ has worked?

Clinton: the Surge™ was not just about stopping violence, it was about giving the Iraq government the chance to fix things, and they have not. I would start pulling us out in 60 days, forcing the Iraqis to move faster. I will bring the troops home; we should not continue to be there.

Obama: we’ve seen violence drop in Iraq, that’s thanks to the troops. This is a tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder. Being against invading Iraq in the first place will be a greater advantage against McCain than it would be to argue smaller differences. The Iraq War has cost us greatly, and has benefitted Iran. This war has been too great a burden on families and veterans, we need to give them what they need. Spending $12 billion in Iraq means we can’t deliver on infrastructure and health care–McCain wants them there for 100 years, meaning we can’t do what we need at home.

Comment: I’m disappointed that neither pointed out that the al-Sadr cease fire had more to do with the drop in violence than Bush’s strategy; I suppose both either disagree with that analysis, or they fear being painted as soldier-haters for not giving the troops full credit for the drop.

Obama, you say you’re against earmarks and pork, but you asked for $91 million in earmarks and you refuse to say why.

Obama: that’s not true. We’ve disclosed all earmarks, I am for transparency in governance. We created Google for Government, to allow people to be aware of what’s being done.

Clinton, you’ve gotten $342 million in earmarks, but McCain says he’s never asked for an earmark and never will. Is he better than you on this?

Clinton: that’s meaningless because he voted for massive tax cuts for the rich and for the Iraq War. (Good point!) Bush got a surplus and balanced budget, and he blew it, and are looking at debts and deficits. I’ll get us back to fiscal responsibility. I’ll stop all tax cuts over $250 million a year and have tax cuts for the middle class. I will move us back to the path of fiscal responsibility and prosperity. (She hints that Bill got us those benefits, and that’s part of what she offers.)

For Clinton: should super-delegates decide a nomination if it goes against the popular vote?

Clinton: Don’t worry, that’ll sort things out, and we will get a nominee and be victorious in November.

Obama: Primaries and caucuses should count for something; the will of the voters will determine the nominee. Having a government that listens to the voters is the most important thing.

What moment of crisis tested you the most?

Obama: The trajectory of my life. Things were hard, I made mistakes, and what was most important was learning to take responsibility and help the community, fight as a civil rights attorney–these made me capable of working together with people and to bring the best out in people.

Clinton: I’ve lived through crises and challenging moments!! But these are nothing to what most Americans face. Others have faced terrible challenges; I have been blessed with a good life, and I want to help others. I am honored to be here with Obama. We’ve gotten support and the American people should too.

Comment: Call me paranoid, but I got the feeling that there was some Clinton-camp audience pre-planning here. If you watched the debate, you’ll note that Hillary supporters did foot-stomping in their cheers for her answers, and it didn’t seem spontaneous. That when she finished her last reply and the audience gave a standing ovation made me more suspicious. It doesn’t take the whole crowd to plan that–if just a few people stand up, most will rise as well. Some say that the ovation was for both candidates, but watching it, it looked like it was for Hillary. Again, on this point I may just be being a bit paranoid.

Overall, I kind of thought that Obama did not do as well as I expected, This was the first debate I have watched, and I expected Obama to be smoother, more confident-sounding. Instead, he seemed to stammer a bit and not get replies off to a rolling start. Hillary seemed more practiced there. But maybe that was just expectation–people who have commented on the debate have said that Obama did better than he had in the past, and that he held his own tonight.

As for Hillary’s performance, I think she sunk herself more than anything else. Her negativity was palpable. When she mentioned Chris Matthew’s stupid “gotcha” question, the crowd actually hissed; when she delivered the obviously scripted “Change you can Xerox” line, there were boos. Had Hillary not pressed these attacks, I think she could have come out with a win (especially with CNN pushing the debate in her favor like they did). She won particular distaste from me with yet another patently false claim–“lifting whole passages” was bogus, especially when Clinton’s rousing debate-ending speech was lifted from a Bill Clinton speech from years back. Again, Clinton tried to say her copying was OK but Obama’s was not because his campaign is “all about words.” What a crock. If someone is eloquent, then they’re only about the words? Get real.

Well, my bias may be showing again, but I really think that Hillary’s attacks were hollow and unpopular, as they have been since South Carolina–but I suppose that with her back to the wall, she must figure she’s got nothing to lose. And after the debate, she took the negative campaigning up a few notches, especially with the “Shame on you, Barack Obama” deal, where she tried to say that he was lying about her campaign with mailed fliers–when, of course, her campaign was sending out mailers with patent lies about Obama’s health plan. And then she decried him for criticizing another Democrat about health plans.

I’ll leave it at that.

Clinton must know how to work the press, because her sudden “outrage” at an Obama flier (which has been out for some time) is getting big play in the media, it seems. She claims Obama is misrepresenting her stand on the NAFTA issue. “Shame on you, Barack Obama,” she chides condescendingly.

The problem: Hillary has rather spectacularly misrepresented Obama’s stand on several issues. Remember back in South Carolina, when she made the patently false claim that Obama approved of Reagan’s policies in the 80’s, actually having the gall to say, “We can give you the exact quote,” knowing that she wouldn’t have to right then, and that the exact quote would show her to be wrong. Just a few minutes ago, I wrote a post on how Hillary is making crap up about how many millions of people will be “left out” of Obama’s insurance plan, when that is also patently false. Then there’s the whole “plagiarism” charge, how he “lifted whole passages”–even though she does the same thing, but that’s OK and Obama’s bad because Obama’s campaign is “all about the words” and nothing about substance, according to her.

In short, despite the relative civility of this campaign, Hillary has been the one stooping to Rovian tactics, not Obama. For her to express such obviously self-serving “outrage” at the Obama flier comes across as extraordinarily manipulative and hypocritical–but only if you are aware of her past actions in the entire context of the race.

Again, this is not the kind of thing I want to see in a Democratic candidate. If it were possibly the work of someone on the team and not the candidate herself, maybe it could be overlooked–but in each of these cases, it’s Hillary herself generating attacks that are clearly baseless, obviously untrue. You don’t get to do that and then express such outrage when you claim to catch the other candidate doing it.

Addenda: right after posting this, I came across this quote by Clinton:

In her criticism of Obama, she asked, “Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?”

Immediately I thought, “hey, she just got through lambasting Obama on live TV about his lack of mandates!” Then I read the next line, where Obama’s response was given:

Obama had a ready reply to that. “Well, when she started to say I was against universal health care … which she does every single day,” he said.

Yep. Pretty much.

Tapper’s blog on ABC has a pretty good rundown on the whole matter.

Something else I may be missing: Hillary constantly attacks Obama for “leaving 15 million Americans uninsured” (see PDF of her mailer claiming this).

As far as I understand it, the difference being referred to is that her plan forces everyone to get insurance, while Obama’s doesn’t. So the decision is made by each individual.

How does that “leave” millions of people uninsured?

Also, where does the 15 million number come from?

Forgive me for saying so, but it sounds like the Clinton campaign is pretty much just pulling this stuff out of their rear ends. If you want to argue about people gaming the system, fine; Obama says he’ll debate that, and the topic was covered in the Texas debate. But the 15 million claim is total fiction. Unless, as I said, I am missing something.

By the way, Japan has a system that works a bit like Obama’s: it’s possible to stay off the insurance radar, simply by moving out of your city and establishing a new address, and not signing up for insurance. But if you get sick later and try to get back on insurance, you pay a penalty–usually the amount of fees you would have paid had you stayed on the insurance plan.

What puzzles me is that nobody’s suggesting a plan to start a true national health insurance program, one that is rated to income. Again, unless I misunderstand things, the plans both candidates are pushing are really just regular insurance plans, but people have to buy into them. Yes, they lower costs this way and that, but as far as I can see, people who make very low incomes don’t get much of a break. It would work a lot better if it was actual socialized medicine, and not a half-assed compromise. Maybe that’s just not possible, but to me it’s the only solution that would really make sense.

I watched some CNN this morning and quickly grew sick of it. It was a news-like discussion of why the charges against McCain are completely baseless and are nothing but “left-wing bloggers” trying to assassinate his character. They focused only on the affair part of the NYT story; they showed McCain’s “I’m not going to talk about this anymore” statement in full. They reported that Huckabee trusts McCain. They concluded that nothing would come from the story.

Not a single mention of the lobbyist side of the report, which is the real story. Not one mention that McCain indeed did favors for lobbyists back then. Nor that McCain is surrounded by lobbyists now, around 30 on his campaign, more than any other campaign. Nor that McCain has been caught in at least one and maybe two major lies in the story. None of that–just a clean sweep of “McCain’s completely innocent” claptrap.

What’s with this? In a little while, I’ll be posting a post-debate summary of the Texas “showdown” between Obama and Clinton, where CNN was the host–and showed a similar tendency toward rather overt bias.

Remember back in last year, when the Republicans disabled the FEC in a political power game? Well, it may be coming back to bite them in the ass now.

I blogged on this last October: the Federal Elections Commission is down to just two commissioners, far short of its normal six. Bush and the GOP want to put a political stooge, Hans von Spakovsky, onto the commission. This nominee has been implicated in the US Attorney scandal, is sharply partisan, and so was seen as completely unacceptable by Democrats, led by Barack Obama and Russ Feingold. But Republicans wanted von Spakovsky on the commission badly, so they said that either von Spakovsky gets approved, or nobody gets approved. They refused to consider the other three nominees if their boy was not seated. They probably thought they were being ever so clever: either seat a Bush stooge on the elections commission, or have no commission at all, either way allowing for all sorts of GOP hanky-panky leading up to November.

And so there was no confirmation, and the FEC remained understaffed, with only two commissioners; as a result, the quorum of four cannot be made and the commission cannot function.

That doesn’t mean the commission can’t be inconvenient, however. The way Republicans have set things up, they may wind up completely disabling the McCain campaign for the next six months:

The nation’s top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.

You see, McCain opted into the program for the primaries, but did not yet take federal funding that would lock him into it. And now that he’s all but won the nomination, he wants to opt out, as he’s reached the top spending limit for anyone in the program.

Here’s where the irony comes in. If you’ve opted in to public funding, you can only withdraw if the FEC votes to let you leave. But since Republicans have left the FEC with only two commissioners, they can’t do that. Like I said, sometimes dirty tricks can come back to bite you in the ass.

But even if the FEC were to be re-enabled, McCain still might not be able to leave. Why not? Because of McCain’s sweetheart deal to get a $1 million loan from a bank in order to keep his struggling campaign afloat before the New Hampshire primary. In getting the loan, McCain had to promise the bank that were his campaign to flounder, he would opt for public financing to pay back the loan. In short, he used public money as collateral for the loan. And that, according to FEC rules, is the same as accepting federal money, and locks you into the system.

So McCain might be locked into public financing from two different directions, which means that he is not allowed to spend more than $54 million until September, when the primary season ends and the Republican convention is held. But McCain already spent $49 million by the end of January–which leaves him a paltry $5 million to spend over the next six months, money he may have already spent in February.

McCain’s solution seems to be to take the Bush route: break the law and then insist you didn’t break it. McCain’s lawyer is already claiming that McCain is somehow magically no longer tied to public financing. Now, he may be able to get away with this, but even if he does, it’ll be a big blow against him politically. He has been running as Mr. Clean, using that image to bash Obama for even considering to reneg on an oral pledge, not even legally binding, to use public financing for the general election later this year. But now that McCain is probably going to knowingly violate campaign finance laws himself, it would appear as extremely hypocritical for him to go after Obama on this.

In fact, Obama could use McCain’s actions to get him out of his pledge. Obama never made a statement that he would break his pledge, and his pledge was not to use public financing, but to “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” But if McCain breaks the law on public financing, Obama could say, “I can’t trust any deal with someone who so cavalierly violates campaign financing laws,” thus dealing McCain a double blow–Obama gets to raise huge amounts of money in the general election, and paints McCain as a hypocritical scofflaw on campaign finance at the same time.

It will be interesting to see how this story develops in the press over the next few weeks, especially after McCain’s trouble with the lobbyist connection. All in all, not a good week for the Republican nominee apparent.

Addenda: The McCain-lobbyist story is now morphing from a sex scandal into a lobbyist scandal, and rightly so. As a sex scandal, it’s more juicy for the press, but McCain could deny it more easily. But as a lobbyist scandal, he’s in real trouble. First, John “Mr. Campaign Finance Reform” McCain has admitted that his campaign staff is riddled with lobbyists, and second, McCain has been caught in a lie concerning his involvement in the Iseman/Paxson favoritism scandal.

Time Kane, long-time and very thoughtful commenter on BlogD, has an excellent analysis of why Obama is doing so well despite having started so far behind Clinton:

When I was growing up I had a friend who said there were two kinds of people: Salesman and Accountant types. A salesman never let’s cost get in the way of doing something or buying something, he just figures he’ll have to go out and sell more stuff to pay for it: they tend to be optimists. Accountants, on the other hand, are belt tighteners by nature. If they see something or want to do something they either for go it, forgo something else or look around elsewhere to save costs. My friend was the former of the two, and not by a small margin. Though an electrician, He could sell ice to Eskimos.

Myself, in a similar vein, I think there are two kinds of mindsets: strategic thinkers and tacticians. Strategic thinkers take the long view, they don’t want to swim against the current, they’d rather try to figure out how to make the current work with them as opposed to against them. They are along the lines of Sun Tzu’s ‘all battles are won before they are fought’ types. Tactical thinkers are the opposite. They’ll swim against the current, they’ll fight for fighting sake, they see everything as contest, and their human relations are often dominated over who will be the dominate person in the relationship. I am definitely one of the former. Perhaps I’m merely pointing out the difference between deductive and inductive thinking.

I think what you point out here is that Hillary is a tactician. She’s a great fighter. She’s probably a hard worker and was a great lawyer. She’s also a pretty good campaigner. From what I’ve seen of her campaign, she’s lacking good strategic judgment. Everything she does is tactical.

Here’s the thing. I think Obama is a both-er: he’s got good strategic and good tactical skills – and he’s got good judgment for balancing the two off of each other – and on top of that he’s got good oratorical skills, no doubt a function of being a both-er. He’s like a guy who sees things at street level and top down like a map, simultaneously. In a dead even street fight, Hillary might be able to take Obama by simply out-working and out-hustling and out-fighting him. But she’s not in a dead even street fight. She’s in a fight that involves equal amounts of strategy and tactics and oratorical finesse. Hillary, despite having the obvious advantages going into this campaign as the virtual incumbent, constantly finds her self in a tactical struggle, swimming against the current where she is increasingly battling against greater odds. Meanwhile she keeps bumping into Obama and each time he looks as if he’s hardly broken a sweat.

As the campaign drags on, I think Hillary is becoming a better tactical fighter but she can’t overcome her strategic shortcomings, causing her to take bigger strategic risks which increasingly results in tactical set backs. Perhaps this is becoming more and more evident, at least on an intuitive level, to the electorate.

Obama isn’t perfect. But he’s a naturally gifted as a politician. First, He’s got the booming vocal chords, and he knows how to use them. He’s got both good tactical skills and good strategic skills and importantly, he seems to have good judgment in balancing the two off of each other. Obama obviously has the skills for becoming president, and the way he has run his campaign, it looks like he has the skills for being President as well. Increasingly it looks like we will find out.

Meanwhile we have to cross our fingers and hope that Hillary doesn’t go nuclear and undermine the entire Democratic party in her tactical struggle to become president.

Just as McCain has tied up the Republican nomination, this out from the New York Times:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

Ouch.

A lot of people are calling this a non-story, but I’d say that remains to be seen; once reporters get through with it, if all that there is is rumors, then I’ll agree. Or, if they mean that it should be considered a non-story until something tangible comes up, I’d go along with that as well. But if the story is true to any degree, then it is anything but a “non-story.”

If the story does come to anything, it’ll be a double threat: not only would McCain (already divorced after committing adultery in his first marriage) be guilty of adultery again, but he’d be in bed with a lobbyist–Mr. Squeaky-clean I’m-against-lobbyists campaign-finance-reform John McCain. Literally in bed with a lobbyist, and he even wrote letters to government regulators on behalf of this lobbyist/mistress.

Even if the adultery part is not true, then the showing-favoritism-to-a-lobbyist part should be somewhat damaging all by itself.

But in all fairness, it’s refreshing to see a story like this take hold on a Republican the same way it has on Democrats in the past; from a fairness perspective, if Dems get smothered by the press when stories like this come out, then Reps should get the same treatment. Bush has been, for some reason, unusually exempt from this kind of scrutiny. And this while McCain is calling Barack Obama “deceitful”–if it turns out to be true, then McCain deserves to be walloped big-time. Some even suggest that this is actually a slam from the right–from Republicans who don’t want McCain to be the front-runner. Whatever the case, it should focus more heat on McCain than on Obama for the whole public-financing non-issue McCain has been trying to push lately.

Some days, you kind of have to wonder at the blessed political life Barack Obama enjoys; he seems to catch all the breaks.

Wow. What Obama did yesterday was less of a win and more of a rout. He was supposed to be in danger in Wisconsin, with a few polls giving Hillary a lead. Obama came away with a 17.4-point landslide, almost double what even the most optimistic poll results were for the candidate. And Hawaii? A 52-point win? Okay, it’s a small state, mostly “minority” (Asian-Pacific Islander, though), and is Obama’s birth state. Still. 52 points.

And Obama is gaining in pre-Wisconsin polls in Texas and Ohio, getting to within a few points of Clinton in Texas and halving Clinton’s lead over him in Ohio over the past week. Two big unions just endorsed Obama, which will probably help him big in Ohio, and we still haven’t seen any polls that show what the score is after yesterday’s big wins.

People are already starting to call this one for Obama. I’m still waiting for it to become more definitive; even after a Texas and Ohio loss, Hillary still may not quit, even if Bill says it’ll mean they lose. Hillary could still launch a movement to count the non-counted Florida and Michigan primaries, messy and probably fruitless as such a move might be.

For all people have talked about Hillary’s experience and how she’ll be “ready from day one,” there is evidence that she’s less a sharp operator than people have presumed. Her campaign fumbled badly–maybe fatally–by not preparing for a post-Super-Tuesday challenge, assuming they’d simply walk off with the vote. Part of that showed up when Hillary did not even get all her delegates on the Pennsylvania ballot in time–something that won’t cost her any delegates if she wins the vote there, but which shows up a lack of organization and discipline. She supposed to have her act together.

Her attempts at attacks have all failed; setting Bill on Obama in South Carolina backfired badly, and the latest plagiarism ‘scandal’ is being more or less universally dismissed as trivial and meaningless. Mark Penn, her senior strategist, has been a lead weight around her neck, coming across as Rovian at times; when he said that states which don’t vote for Hillary “don’t matter,” it was seen as yet another snub-like gaffe by this political operator. And just recently, a Hillary campaign officer actually told a reporter that Hillary would try to steal Obama’s pledged delegates–a move which not only reeks of desperation, but is seen as underhanded and dishonest. That, along with most of her senior staff quitting or being fired, and having to loan herself $5 million, all adds up to make Hillary seem a lot less slick and experienced than we’ve been led to believe.

In the meantime, Obama has done pretty damned well up to this point. He has organized smartly and out-raised Hillary by as much as a 2-1 margin. Their 50-state strategy has been paying off handsomely, and despite shared language with a friend who shares the same campaign manager, despite “little experience,” despite everyone thinking that he’s “just about words,” he has made an incredible come-from-behind steamroller campaign happen and happen big.

For a guy who is supposed to be inexperienced and not ready for big-time politics, he has so far run the best campaign out there, has made the fewest mistakes, and has won the support of the most people, generating historic turnouts and massive excitement.

In a candidate for president, I’ll take that over a long Washington career.

As the new front-runner, Obama is now taking some beatings from both sides, but he seems to be weathering them just fine, while still staying on-message. The attacks seem substantial from the outset, but then tend to die from anemia.

McCain tried to attack over the public-financing pledge, for example. Both campaigns made early pledges to use public financing, but now, Obama has proven very adept at raising money, and is hedging on his earlier pledge. The thing is, the public financing pledge is intended to show that the candidate isn’t beholden to special interests–but Obama’s strength is in raising money through small donations from regular people, something that’s even better than public financing. So while there’s no getting around that he made the pledge, he would have to be an idiot to give up the advantage of his popular tidal wave of low-end contributors. McCain’s being sly here–he knows that Obama’s not selling out, but he can make a few points by trying to paint Obama as a flip-flopper, or worse, as corrupt.

But there is a way out. First of all, since the campaign finance route is a way to avoid politicians being bought by special interests and fat cats, Obama could make a reverse offer: that both campaigns hold contributions down to $200 or less. While this would not get Obama off the hook for reneging on his pledge, it would be a counter-offer that would force McCain to refuse something that is just as reasonable, and would stifle McCain’s claims that Obama is getting special interest funding. McCain would have to reject it, because outside of public financing, his strength will be with the fat cats. Keep it to $200-or-less contributions, and I’m guessing that Obama would wipe the floor with McCain. Others have different ideas for Obama to argue.

Second, Obama can point to McCain’s own troubles with supporting public financing. McCain voted against it in 1995 when it suited his interests, and just recently, it was revealed that McCain has a sweetheart deal with a bank that loaned him big bucks on the condition that he switch to public financing if his campaign faltered. So McCain is hardly snow-white on this issue.

And it seems that over the past few days, the issue has kind of sputtered out. Still, it could come back later–but McCain might not be taken as seriously next time.

The latest attack against Obama comes from his other flank: Hillary is accusing him of plagiarism, because he used almost exact lines from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in a speech without giving attribution. Again, it sounds kind of bad–this kind of thing has sunk candidacies in the past, after all–but there is growing recognition that this is not quite so much of an issue as it may seem.

Why not? Because Obama and Patrick “regularly” borrow from each other; they are friends and seem to have an agreement about this. If you and I agree to write and share each other’s material, is it plagiarism if we don’t footnote every use? That would be a hard argument to make. Not to mention that most of the words and phrases that were “stolen” have been uttered by a lot of different politicians over time; it is less plagiarism and more of a common type of rhetoric.

Furthermore, there are shades of hypocrisy in Clinton’s charge: her campaign would not guarantee that Clinton never “borrows” lines from others herself. Their explanation: our campaign is not about the rhetoric, so it’s OK for us to steal, but not for Obama.

Um. Yeah, okay.

The Friday Gallup Daily National Tracking Poll is out, and it shows a complete reversal from eight days before; then, Hillary was ahead by 7 points, 49% to 42%; today, Obama leads by that exact amount.

There are a couple of significant details to be found here. The last time Hillary was this far down (January 29th), she was still ahead of Obama by 6 points. This could lead to two interpretations, neither one good for Hillary. First, it could signal that Obama is capturing all of the undecideds while Hillary virtually stands still; or second, it could be that Obama is slowly siphoning off Hillary’s supporters and putting them in his pocket.

The second interpretation is more likely, once you account for the anomalous stretch between January 29 and February 2, where both candidates gained 5-6 points with neither losing any. This period represents Edward’s pullout from the race, where his supporters split between the two candidates almost equally. Other than that time, every Obama gain matches roughly to a Hillary loss. If you split Edwards’ supporters between Clinton and Obama from the start, the trends come out more clearly:

Even the mutual Clinton/Obama gain in early January can be matched to a 4-point loss by Edwards. What this all means is that, at least since early January, this has really been a fight between Clinton and Obama; Edwards lost his relevance some time before then.

And as an Obama-Clinton race, Obama has been doing very well; in the last month, despite a few one-day hiccups, he has been gaining steadily on Clinton. Now that he is ahead by a touchdown, it’s looking much better for him.

Of course, a lot of Obama’s new-found support is coming from states which have already voted; those switchers don’t matter in this race any more. So, the question becomes, how is Obama doing in the key future states–Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania?

Ohio:

Texas:

Pennsylvania:

Now, you’ll have to note not only the trend lines, but also the dots which represent the actual poll results. Ohio and Texas give a fairly accurate trend line, but notice that in Pennsylvania, Obama has closed the gap between himself and Hillary much more significantly then the trend lines would suggest. There also is no poll for Pennsylvania for the past week, a week in which Obama has made big gains.

While Obama does not exactly seem poised to take away all of these states, he could easily win Texas, and nothing is sure about Ohio or Pennsylvania. And remember, Hillary has to not only win these states, but win them by a comfortable margin. If she loses Texas, that could be big; while Ohio and Pennsylvania have 161 and 188 delegates respectively, Texas has 228. A loss in Texas could offset gains in Ohio and Pennsylvania, especially if Obama makes up more ground in those states.

And if that happens, Clinton will go into high gear to fight for Michigan and Florida delegates to be seated–using their current voided-primary numbers, which favor her considerably. This will probably be viewed as questionable, considering that Obama pulled out of Michigan’s race and Hillary did not, as well as because the states were duly warned (though it was Republicans in Florida that made the decision to violate the DNC’s rules) and alternatives offered. In fact, the DNC still has an open offer to fund caucuses in both states, which could be arranged for as late as June this year. If Hillary fights for both states to be counted, it is likely that the DNC will agree–but only in the form of later caucuses, which are by no means unprecedented: in ’96 and ’00, Delaware violated party rules and then held make-up caucuses, as D.C. did in 2004. And although party heads in both states are speaking negatively about such prospects, I feel it is much more likely that the DNC will be comfortable with not seating the two states’ delegates so long as they offer a viable alternative. After all, if the DNC caves, how likely will it be that their rules are followed in the future? Clinton may be out of luck on this one.

Hillary might also not be able to count on the super-delegates; already, some key delegates have either abandoned Hillary or fully switched over to the Obama side. GA Rep. John Lewis, a former civil rights leader, has been a key supporter of Clinton; he is now reportedly ready to back Obama, though there has been some fence-sitting involved, and nothing is clear yet. But a trend for the supers to lean to Obama is clearly in progress; it has been noted that the supers are the kind of people who like winners, and that seems to be Obama right now.