Hillary Clinton appears to be putting the brakes on Barack Obama's momentum in Texas. According to an exclusive 11 News BELO Texas poll, Clinton and Obama remain in a statistical dead heat, with Clinton ahead by a single point, 46 to 45.

Nine percent of likely voters remain undecided in the Democratic race. Our poll continues to indicate that the undecided voters tend to care more about the economy than voters that have made their pick.

That could be a good sign for Obama, because he leads Clinton among voters who believe the economy is the most important issue in this election.

However, the undecided voters also tend to be more heavily Democratic than those who tell us they have decided - which is good news for Clinton. She is leading among people who describe themselves as strong Democrats.

Most of the trends we have been following held steady between Wednesday and Thursday, when the calls for this tracking poll were made. However, one key indicator for Clinton surged upwards.

Her support among Hispanics has jumped 11 points, to 67 percent to Obama's 27 percent. On Thursday, this number was 61 to 32.

Obama is maintaining his formidable lead among African Americans, at 79 percent to Clinton's 12.

Clinton continues to lead among white voters, 49 percent to 42 percent. The margin of error in our Democratic numbers is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

On the Republican side, it continues to appear that John McCain has little to fear from Mike Huckabee. Our tracking poll continues to show McCain ahead by 32 points, with support of 59 percent of Republican likely voters, to Huckabee's 27. The margin of error in our Republican numbers is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

One interesting item we've been watching is the early vote totals. We've been reporting that more voters have shown up to the polls so far in this election than in any other early vote cycle in Texas history.

About 18 percent of the people we reach in our random phone calls to registered voters tell us they have already voted early. Of the people who have already voted early in the Democratic primary, 58 percent say they have voted for Barack Obama, and 42 percent say they have voted for Hillary Clinton.

Over the weekend, we are going to examine these numbers further as we add new respondent data to our tracking poll. By Monday, we expect to have a demographic snapshot of who voted early - which could give some insight as to whether African American and/or Hispanic turnout is higher or lower than usual in this election.

By Lee McGuire, 11 News, February 29, 2008

HANGING ROCK, Ohio -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an emotional townhall with working mothers here on Thursday, said that her rival only wanted to provide health insurance to the women's children -- not the women themselves.

"He has a mandate to cover children; he does not have any requirement for adults," Clinton said afterwards at a news conference with reporters.

It was a sharp dig from Clinton just as her campaign was hoping to turn a corner heading into the March 4 contests here and in Texas. Clinton seemed, for the first time in days, to show new life. Fresh off the news that her campaign had raised $35 million in the last month, Clinton said the fundraising "says a lot" about the condition of her campaign. "Contributions are another way of judging" how much support a candidate has, Clinton said. "When people found out we didn't have the resources to compete, and I did put my own money in, it just set off a chain reaction across the country."

In the midst of a strong thematic push leading up to March 4, Clinton wound her way through the Appalachian edge of Ohio to talk about poverty and the economy -- and to demonstrate her gentler side, which was a factor in helping her win her last surprise victory, in New Hampshire on Jan. 8.

At the townhall in Hanging Rock, Clinton listened as downtrodden voters described their hardships. She introduced two women, a single, 21-year-old mother and an older mother of four, as examples of who would benefit from expanding childcare and healthcare programs. It was part of a forceful, if potentially belated, drive to demonstrate that she was far from pulling out of the contest that included not only the fundraising announcement but also proclamations by the campaign that organizations are up and running in Pennsylvania and Wyoming, which have contests in the weeks ahead.

Her events have been downscaled in recent days, taking place in smaller rooms, with limited and sometimes invitation-only crowds that paled in comparison to the massive mobs that Obama was bringing out to stadium-sized venues. But her campaign advisers said it was by design, giving Clinton a chance to look more personable and connect with people. And she did appear at ease, well within her comfort zone of discussing policies and other people's problems -- rather than her struggling campaign.

At her news conference, Clinton declined to criticize the media coverage of her campaign as she and her advisers have done repeatedly in the past. "I'm going to leave that to you, that's your job," she said, asked what, exactly, she felt the media had failed to ask about Obama. "I'm just saying that I'm running my campaign and that's all I can do; that's all I have any control over."

Late Thursday, Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor reacted to news of Clinton's critique of Obama's health coverage plan. "Senator Clinton knows that anyone who wants health care under Senator Obama's plan will have it, and that his plan does more to cut costs than any other that's been proposed, " he said. "President Clinton's former Secretary of Labor even said that his plan would cover more people than hers. The difference between the two plans is that Senator Clinton would force even those who can't afford health insurance to buy it."

By Anne E. Kornblut, The Washington Post, February 28, 2008

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- While Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have spent most of the past two weeks focused on delegate-rich Texas and Ohio, tiny Rhode Island -- with 21 pledged delegates at stake Tuesday -- is reveling in its unaccustomed position of relevance in a Democratic presidential nominating contest.

This state has long been seen as strongly favorable to Clinton. She and her husband, Bill Clinton, visited so often during their White House days that the former president once joked that he ought to pay state taxes. The senator from New York has also lined up the support of most of the state's Democratic establishment, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who hosted a fundraiser for her last Sunday, and Claiborne Pell, the respected 89-year-old former senator.

The demographics here would also seem to provide an advantage to Clinton -- Rhode Island is heavily blue-collar, working-class and the most Catholic state in the country. White Catholics have provided strong support for Clinton in other New England states.

But if there is any question that the momentum in the race is with Obama, consider the view of Rudy Almada, an electrical inspector who, based on voting so far, should be one of Clinton's most loyal backers.

"I don't know who to vote for," Almada said, shaking his head on a breezy day in Providence's old downtown. "I normally would support Hillary," he said. "She has a serious answer for every question you can come up with. . . . But I want to hear more from Obama."

"Now that he has the country's attention, I want to listen to him," Almada said. "There must be something I'm missing."

Almada will have the chance to hear Obama directly on Saturday. In a testament to the importance being placed on every state and delegate in the hard-fought Democratic contest, the candidate will take time away from Texas and Ohio to stump in this state as well as in Vermont, which will also hold a primary on Tuesday.

Hoping to deal a morale-crippling blow to Clinton, Obama opened an office in Providence a little more than two weeks ago, with 25 paid staffers working out of a prime location on Westminster Street. One of the staffers, communications director Caleb Weaver, came here from Missouri, where Obama was able to eke out a victory by just 10,000 votes on Feb. 5. The team has organized more than two dozen "house parties," recruited several hundred volunteers to work phone banks and is "outspending her three to one on TV here," according to Weaver.

Obama also has his own big-name supporters, particularly Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy and ex-senator Lincoln D. Chafee, a former Republican who became an independent after losing his 2006 reelection bid. Chafee said Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war, coupled with Clinton's vote to authorize the war, is the main reason he is backing the senator from Illinois.

But Obama's supporters are calling Rhode Island a tough state for their candidate. "I think the Obama people are pretty apprehensive. They know what they're up against," said Chafee, now with Brown University. "The Clintons have really invested here. . . . They've been working Rhode Island through their contacts."

Here's a change that Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign really can believe in: There is no chance whatsoever that she will lose to Barack Obama this week.

That's because, after a remorseless march of contests that began 48 hours after the new year dawned, there are no Democratic delegate selection contests until March 4. For a candidate on an 11-game losing streak, a break in the action offers a moment for an exhausted team to regroup and to refocus a strategy that hasn't worked.

The pause before the battles next Tuesday in Ohio and Texas - as well as in Rhode Island and Vermont - hardly represents an automatic Clinton advantage. Time has typically been Mr. Obama's friend, allowing his charismatic presence, grass-roots energy and cash advantage to
overcome her familiarity. Mr. Obama's strategists - and most others, too - see the same pattern emerging as the contests draw closer.

Yet public surveys have not shown Mr. Obama ahead in Ohio or Texas, or in Rhode Island. Clinton aides, meanwhile, cling to their decisive Feb. 5 victory in California as evidence that their candidate remains a commanding force in big states. That leaves everyone else to wonder: Can the primary campaign yield one more momentum-turning surprise?

Clinton's Ace

For Harold Ickes, a Clinton adviser and a Democratic player for decades, the pause presents an opportunity beyond the absence of another defeat. It is a chance to counter Obama campaign techniques that Team Clinton has largely ignored.

"The hiatus is giving us a chance to make deeper penetration with our voter contact," Mr. Ickes said.

In Ohio, that means more time to fortify Mrs. Clinton's blue-collar defenses in Akron and Toledo against onrushing Obama forces - blacks, upscale liberals and, lately, working-class men - in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus. In Texas, it means working the Rio Grande Valley to maximize her margin among Hispanics.

She is deploying the same organizing ace - named Ace Smith, as it happens - who oversaw her nine-point victory in California. There, by two to one, she dominated a Latino constituency that outpaced pre-election estimates by amounting to 30 percent of the voters.

In Texas, both campaigns say, the Hispanic vote could reach 40 percent of the turnout. Capitalizing on early voting procedures tied to satellite polling locations rather than mail-in ballots, Mr. Smith sees dividends already, with early South Texas turnout exceeding that in the Obama strongholds of Austin and Houston.

Mr. Smith minimizes the importance of Mr. Obama's financial superiority in television advertising and direct mail, since Mrs. Clinton is already universally known. More significant, he argues, is her campaign's commitment to compete with Mr. Obama in Texas caucuses far more earnestly than in past caucus fights. Those caucuses occur the same day as the primary and will select about one-third of the state's convention delegates.

"We're going to be highly organized," Mr. Smith said, "and every bit as aggressive as the Obama people."

On to March

Neither Mr. Obama nor his campaign aides lack confidence. While winning every contest this month since Feb. 5, he has overtaken Mrs. Clinton in national Democratic polls and in delegates won.

In other signs of Mr. Obama's strengths, John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, has turned his fire toward him, while news coverage of Mrs. Clinton has turned to internal bickering, strategic mistakes and spending priorities. And David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's strategist, said election returns were "not the only barometer of progress," citing the public conversion of some erstwhile Clinton superdelegates to Mr. Obama.

Obama aides also find reason for optimism while working from behind in Ohio and Texas. Both states allow independents, a constituency that has favored Mr. Obama, to participate in their "open" primaries. With 20 offices in each state, said Steve Hildebrand, an Obama adviser, the campaign can spend extra time leveraging their edge in TV advertising and their organizing advantages through phone banks and canvassing.

Mr. Hildebrand also sees early turnout up across the board, and delegate allocations in Texas could yield extra dividends for Mr. Obama if fellow blacks vote in large numbers. As for Hispanics, Team Obama has more time to court them and has set a goal of 40 percent of that vote, higher than his 32 percent share in California.

Nevertheless, two weeks as the underdog on the brink of elimination could cast Mrs. Clinton in a more sympathetic light. And the lull before March 4 could lower the temperature for the hotter candidate.

"Winning 11 in a row is helpful," Mr. Axelrod said, with each victory giving a little boost. "I'd be lying if I told you we won't miss February."

By Jon Harwood, The New York Times, February 25, 2008

SAN ANTONIO - As recently as two weeks ago, Rudy Davila III, a pharmacist, was part of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's political firewall, the bloc of Hispanic voters from here to the border with Mexico whom she counted on to keep her presidential campaign from collapse. But the firewall is showing signs of cracking.

The Davila family has been doing business in this overwhelmingly Mexican-American city for more than 100 years, beginning with a corner grocery that in four generations has become a $16 million medical supply company. The same neighborhoods that propelled the Davilas' business gave rise to powerful Mexican-American civil rights organizations, whose leaders built a following that has largely remained loyal to the Democratic Party.

It was loyalty to Mrs. Clinton that initially motivated Mr. Davila to support her candidacy. He said that not only had his family's business prospered during Bill Clinton's time in the White House, but that he also saw improvements across the city's impoverished West side.

Mr. Davila's loyalty weakened, however, after Mrs. Clinton began losing primary after primary. Then, after watching the effect Senator Barack Obama had on his community last week, feelings of loyalty were overcome by a sense of pragmatism.

"The lines to get into the plaza went more than a mile," said Mr. Davila, showing photographs his assistant had taken at the Obama rally held less than half a block from his pharmacy. "The crowd was one-third white, one-third black and one-third Latino. I had never seen anything like it in San Antonio. And I knew right then he was the best candidate to defeat the Republicans in November."

Here in the heart of Hispanic Texas, voters like Mr. Davila are being pulled hard from both directions. It is hard to interview a Clinton supporter at a coffee shop or taco joint without next running into someone supporting Mr. Obama. A P.T.A. meeting that started with polite applause during the presentation of the bilingual spelling bee awards ended in prickly political debate.

Recent polls have found the same trend that foiled Mrs. Clinton in her string of recent losses has begun to play out in Texas. Her double-digit lead over Mr. Obama has plummeted to a virtual tie. Mr. Obama has a significant lead over Mrs. Clinton among blacks and white men. His support among white women is about even with hers. And although she still has an advantage among Latinos - an estimated 25 percent of the electorate and some of her most steadfast supporters - that gap has begun to narrow.

With the Texas primary just over a week away, political pundits are reluctant to predict how things would ultimately play out among Texas' Latino voters. Still, there is endless hashing over how Mr. Obama has made considerable gains in such a short time with an electorate whose ties to Mrs. Clinton date to 1972, when she registered voters along the border with Mexico in support of George McGovern.

But today's Hispanic voters are a generally younger, more educated and more affluent electorate than they were two decades ago - qualities that make them impervious to Mrs. Clinton's big-name endorsements.

For Hispanics in South Texas who live along the border, their ties to Mexico are little more than symbolic. Lydia Carrillo of the Southwest Voters Registration and Education Project said that most Hispanics here had been in this country for generations, and that they were just as concerned about issues involving education, the economy and health care as they were about an immigration overhaul.

Veterans groups pointed out that Houston and San Antonio had suffered the second- and third-highest numbers of fatalities from the war in Iraq, after New York, so Mr. Obama's opposition to the war from the beginning resonated strongly here.

"Predicting a winner in the March 4 primary would be foolhardy," wrote Jaime Castillo, a columnist at The San Antonio Express-News. "Hillary's supporters are die-hards, the kind of voters who cast ballots in every Democratic primary. Obama’s backers are energized, but their commitment is untested over the long haul. They are an amalgam of party regulars, young kids, independents and the politically disenchanted."

Other pundits and politicians echoed Mr. Davila, saying heart had less to do with Hispanic voters' choices than hard-headed calculations about which Democratic candidate had the better chance of winning the White House.

"Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have strong platforms," said Representative Charles A. Gonzalez, who has endorsed Mr. Obama. "It may sound clinical, but Hispanic voters, like all voters, not only want someone who speaks to their hearts. Obama is not only the best positioned to win in November, but also to live up to the promise to unite the country."

Those who have managed statewide campaigns in Texas said the state had two important dividing lines: the one that marked the border with Mexico and the one marked by Interstate 10 from El Paso through San Antonio to Houston that divides North Texas from the south. North of the interstate are Texas's prosperous, racially diverse economic capitals. The south is overwhelmingly Hispanic, and poorer, though the region has enjoyed some growth since the North American Free Trade Agreement turned the Rio Grande Valley into one of the most bustling commercial zones in the world.

Political analysts said Mrs. Clinton's base of support had been the south, and they added that she remained stronger than Mr. Obama here. But because of the complicated way Texas selects its presidential nominee - a contest that is part primary and part caucus, and which assigns delegates to state Senate districts according to turnout during the 2004 presidential contest - the regions with the largest numbers of delegates are in the north, where Mr. Obama is expected to receive significant support.

"Texas is more like the South than the West," said Antonio Gonzalez of the Southwest Voters Registration and Education Project. "Institutions, unions, community organizations are weak. Voters are increasingly individualistic. They are not organized on either the left or the right. So a charismatic candidate can come in and run the table."

Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund agreed, saying, "Mrs. Clinton was counting on the old ward captains, and I'm not sure they're really there anymore."

Mrs. Clinton has endorsements from more than 100 Hispanic community leaders, businesspeople and elected officials. She has retained considerable support among Hispanic men. But Mrs. Clinton's staunchest support is from Hispanic women, who see their own struggles in hers.

"I think as a female she'll have more compassion for the elderly," said Mary Louise Arce, 63. "We've become a lost group. Even doctors don't take care of us the way they take care of the young."

Mary Perez, wife, mother of two and president of the 20,000-member student body at San Antonio Community College, served as host to Chelsea Clinton at the campus last week. She said that she identified closely with Hillary Rodham Clinton's drive and determination and that electing a woman would make a much bigger, and better, difference to the country, than electing a black man. And as a mother without medical insurance who said she had occasionally put her own health at serious risk in order to keep the rest of her bills paid, Ms. Perez said universal health care was much more important than affordable health care.

"I blocked out the pain as long as I could," Ms. Perez, 26, said of a recent kidney infection that she waited several weeks to treat. "And then, when I started getting 105-degree fevers, I decided to go to the hospital."

When asked whether she was still paying off the $10,000 bill, Ms. Perez voice cracked, "Yes."

But Mr. Obama has made an aggressive play for some of Mrs. Clinton's southern stronghold, with forays into the Rio Grande Valley to talk to students about his plans to offer tax breaks that would defer the costs of their loans, to veterans about building more military hospitals, and to single mothers about improving public schools.

As has been the case elsewhere, the tight race between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama has produced divided loyalties in Texas.

Mary Olga Montez, a retired military aircraft mechanic, said she had been focused on keeping the peace in her house. In her 53 years of marriage to her husband, Robert, an accountant, she said they had differed on presidential candidates numerous times. But Mrs. Montez typically kept her choice to herself - until this year.

"He kept telling people that both of us were supporting Clinton, so finally, I told him, 'No. I'm supporting Obama,' " recalled Mrs. Montez, 73. "I said, 'We need change. We need something different, new ideas.' "

Mr. Montez, 75, said: "How soon people forget. The Clintons did a lot for African-Americans, for Hispanics, for everybody. Now it seems like everyone's forgotten."

Referring to his wife, he half joked, "Some people, you just want to send them to the corner with a dunce cap on."

When asked whether all the talk of politics had put a strain on their relationship, Mrs. Montez got the last laugh. "I just feed him a good dinner," she said, "and that's the end of that."

By Ginger Thompson, The New York Times, February 25, 2008

Appalachian Ohio Will Get Plenty Of Attention From The Democratic Campaigns This Week


Appalachian Ohio, a rural region struggling with high unemployment and where residents often feel they are ignored by people living in the rest of the state, will get plenty of attention from presidential campaigns this week.

Former president Bill Clinton scheduled a daylong swing through the region Monday on behalf of his wife, whose campaign for the Democratic nomination is looking for crucial victories in the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas.

Hillary Rodham Clinton also planned appearances in the region, home to 1.5 million people scattered over the southern and eastern parts of the state, later in the week.

Although the region traditionally leans Republican, Democrats have made inroads in recent elections, giving the party hope that it can continue to pick up votes outside of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and other urban areas.

Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who grew up grew in the Appalachian region, said voters there may determine the outcome of the state's Democratic primary.

"I think the people in Appalachia support people who they think pay attention to them ... who have a genuine empathy for their circumstances," said Strickland, who endorsed Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama months ago. "People of Appalachia are common sense kind of folk; I think they're less likely to get caught up in the euphoria and excitement that has surrounded Senator Obama."

Clinton's emphasis on working-class issues such as health care coverage and her history of interest in the region will attract support, Strickland said.

Obama doesn't have a publicly scheduled appearance in the region, but his campaign says he considers it important and has had surrogates working there, including former Bill Clinton campaign manager David Wilhelm, another Appalachian native.

Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and other members of Obama's foreign policy team planned a town hall meeting Monday in Athens.

Obama has shown increasing strength among voters similar to those who dominate the Appalachian region. In the Wisconsin primary last week, exit polls showed Obama running evenly with Clinton among lower-income, lower-education whites and drawing heavy support from white men without college degrees.

Wilhelm, who has worked to provide venture capital for business investment in the region, said he was impressed by Obama's plans for rural development, including attracting investment, rebuilding small-town infrastructure and promoting sustainable agriculture.

"His potential to be a coalition builder, who can actually bring change about for things that really matter, should impress Appalachian Ohio," Wilhelm said.

In Peeples, about 60 miles east of Cincinnati, residents said they were following the race closely.

Sharon Hamilton, a working mother of four children, said she's seen previous campaign visits to the region by Bill Clinton and by both presidents Bush and wasn't too impressed.

"They come to town and they have all these nice vehicles taking them places," she said. "They could take all the money they're spending on that and help these poor people pay for their prescriptions."

Here in Adams County, unemployment is near 8 percent, and the per capita income of $22,000 is $10,000 below the state average.

Sitting at a diner in nearby Seaman, Judy Alexander said she's backing Clinton.

"I think it's great that she has come forward," Alexander said. "It would be nice to see a lady get in there. I think she could straighten you men out."

Jenny Fenton, a farmer, planned to vote for Obama.

"Just the fact that she's (Clinton) a woman doesn't mean much to me," she said. "He's young, he has energy, he has public appeal. I like the way his ads come across."

Michael McTeague, a political analyst and historian at Ohio University, said the region's voters are traditionalists, and some will have issues with a black candidate and others with a female.

"It's probably breaking new ground for everyone," McTeague said.




Associated Press, February 25, 2008

(CNN) - Hillary Clinton holds a clear lead over rival Barack Obama in Ohio according to three new polls out Monday, though the Illinois senator is gaining ground in the crucial March 4 primary state.

New surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University, the University of Cincinnati, and the American Research Group all show Clinton with roughly a 10 point lead over Obama, with eight days to go until Ohioans head to the polls.

In the Quinnipiac University poll, Clinton leads Obama by 11 points (51- 40 percent). She holds an 8 point lead in the University of Cincinnati poll (47 percent to 39 percent), and a 10 point lead in the American Research Group poll (49 - 39 percent).

While Clinton still holds a lead in Ohio, a Quinnipiac poll released on February 12 showed Clinton with a 21-point lead over Obama, and a Columbus Dispatch Poll released late last month had Clinton up 23 percent there.

After 11 straight Obama wins, the Clinton campaign has said that victories in Ohio and Texas are crucial to the New York senator's White House hopes.

By Alexander Mooney, CNN, February 25, 2008

Detailing a world facing "global poverty, global warming and global health pandemics," and "countries rushing to acquire nuclear weapons," Sen. Hillary Clinton, while not naming Sen. Barack Obama, suggested that electing her top rival would lead to the kind of foreign policy problems she believes have defined the Bush administration.

"We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security," Clinton said in a foreign policy speech at George Washington University. "We cannot let that happen again. America has already taken that chance one time too many."

She added, "The American people don't have to assess whether I understand the issues or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis."

She did criticize Obama by name while mentioning the Illinois senator's campaign statements that he would meet leaders of rogue countries like North Korea without preconditions and that he would consider an attack on terrorists in Pakistan regardless of whether its leaders approved.

"He wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions solves the world's most intractable problems to advocating rash, unilateral military action," Clinton said in front of a crowd of more than 100 in a small room on the university's campus. "In this moment of peril and promise, we need a president who is tested and ready."

Her criticisms of Obama are familiar, although they have grown more pointed in recent days as Clinton views coming primaries in Texas and Ohio as must wins. The speech appeared a preview of a debate on Tuesday in Cleveland, where Clinton has suggested she will take on Obama more directly than in last week's debate in Austin.

By Perry Bacon Jr., The Washington Post, February 25, 2008

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Feb. 24 -- Blasting "companies shamelessly turning their backs on Americans" by shipping jobs overseas and railing that "it is wrong that somebody who makes $50 million on Wall Street pays a lower tax rate than somebody who makes $50,000 a year," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton increasingly sounds like one of her old Democratic rivals, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Eager to recapture the white, working-class voters who favored her in some of the early primaries but who have since shifted to Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton traded her usual wonky style this weekend for a fiery, populist tone in speeches in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island.

Instead of giving precise policy details, she repeatedly pointed her finger skyward, declared that Americans "got shafted under President Bush" and cast herself as a fighter, as Edwards often described himself, promising to help most Americans, not just the "wealthy and the connected."

In an appearance here Sunday afternoon, she mocked Obama's hopeful rhetoric, declaring that it is not the answer to fighting entrenched interests.

"I could stand up here and say, 'Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,' " she said, as people cheered and laughed. "You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear."

But her rhetoric did not go unanswered. In trying to reach the same working-class voters, Obama continued to emphasize over the weekend that Clinton was part of the White House that pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress and highlighted remarks Clinton made in support of the deal.

On Saturday, Clinton charged Obama with sending out a mailer that unfairly quoted her as saying that NAFTA had been a "boon" for America, a word that Obama acknowledged Clinton had not used. But the senator from Illinois kept up his attack on Sunday while speaking to dozens of workers at a gypsum plant in Lorain, Ohio.

"Yesterday, Senator Clinton also said I'm wrong to point out that she once supported NAFTA. But the fact is, she was saying great things about NAFTA until she started running for president. A couple years after it passed, she said NAFTA was a 'free and fair trade agreement' and that it was 'proving its worth.' And in 2004, she said, 'I think, on balance, NAFTA has been good for New York state and America.' "

The senator from New York has tried to distance herself from NAFTA, which is unpopular among workers in manufacturing who believe the deal has contributed to the movement of jobs overseas. In Ohio on Saturday, Clinton argued that while NAFTA "passed" during husband Bill Clinton's administration in 1993, President George H.W. Bush actually "negotiated" the deal. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D), a Clinton backer, told Bloomberg News this weekend that Bill Clinton told him Hillary Clinton had opposed NAFTA in 1993.

In Lorain, Obama blamed NAFTA for the loss of 1 million jobs since 1994, including 50,000 in the Buckeye State, and ridiculed Clinton's efforts to distance herself from the trade deal. "It was her own husband who got NAFTA passed," Obama said. "In her own book, Senator Clinton called NAFTA one of 'Bill's successes' and 'legislative victories.' "

Clinton is trying to assume the populist mantle of Edwards -- whom she described in December as "screaming," in his critiques of special interests -- with March 4 looming as the decisive day for her candidacy. Four states will vote that day, but Bill Clinton, among others, has said that his wife must win the two largest -- Ohio and Texas -- to continue her campaign.

Her campaign aides say wooing both working-class voters and middle-income people concerned about the economy is crucial, particularly in Ohio.

"These are the voters who are up for grabs," said Doug Hattaway, a Clinton adviser.

During the campaign, Clinton has often criticized trade agreements and the movement of jobs overseas. Over the weekend, she adopted a far more pointed tone and spent a lot of time emphasizing her populist message, reducing mentions of issues such as balancing the budget that have been standard in her speeches. She spent less time on the intricacies of her health-care plan and her proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq, heeding advice from aides who have urged her to speak in broader terms.

Clinton is seeking to get past the loss of 11 straight contests to Obama and to shore up the support of groups that have been key to her candidacy. In the states where she has performed strongly, Clinton has won among households with less than $50,000 in income, among people without college degrees and among families with at least one member in a labor union. But in last week's primary in Wisconsin, she lost all three groups.

White, working-class men, in particular, are a key voting bloc in a race where blacks have overwhelmingly supported Obama and white women have backed Clinton. A Washington Post-ABC News poll last week showed Clinton leading overall in Ohio, where she led among white men, while the candidates were tied in Texas, where Obama had an advantage among white men.

James Rivard, a Cleveland technician who was polled and whose family makes less than $50,000, said he is leaning toward Obama but wants to hear more about the economy. "My income has been stagnant for like 12 years now, but my expenses have continued to go up, while all of this capital is leaving the country every year," he said.

Edwards's campaigns in 2004 and 2008 targeted working-class voters, and both Obama and Clinton have adopted some of his language about the plight of low-income voters as they seek to win over the group. In the weeks since Edwards dropped out of the race, Clinton and Obama have enthusiastically courted his endorsement and noted their support for reducing poverty, one of the key planks of his candidacy.

At a debate Thursday night in Austin, Clinton closed with a statement similar to one Edwards often used.

"Whatever happens, we're going to be fine. . . . I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that's what this election should be about," she said.

At a Dec. 13 debate, Edwards said: "All of us are going to be just fine, no matter what happens in this election. But what's at stake is whether America is going to be fine."

By Perry Bacon Jr. and Alec MacGillis, The Washington Post, February 25, 2008

Clinton appeared before an audience of about 300 at George Washington University in a low-key appearance that contrasted with Obama's boisterous rallies. She was flanked by six retired military officials.

In a detailed 30-minute review of her plans for U.S. diplomacy that would "deploy both the olive branch and the arrows," Clinton took several shots at her rival. Obama has won 11 straight presidential contests, and new polls in Ohio and Texas show him surging in those states in advance of primaries there next week.

The New York senator criticized her Illinois colleague for his vow to meet U.S. adversaries without conditions. "I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions," she said.

Clinton also tacitly likened Obama to President Bush. "We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy," she said.

Clinton supporters echoed the theme of experience over Obama's eloquence. "We need a president who has already walked the walk in addition to talking the talk," said Togo West, a former secretary of the Army. Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown said he respects Obama, his former Harvard classmate, but believes Clinton "has the experience" to be president.

Clinton's appearance here came as Obama won the endorsement of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory before a rally that drew about 13,000 at the University of Cincinnati.

Clinton adviser Harold Ickes raised the possibility that losses on March 4 might spell the end of the campaign. "If we lose Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decision as to whether she goes forward," he said.

The two campaigns exchanged angry words after blogger Matt Drudge reported that Clinton aides were circulating a photo of Obama dressed in traditional Kenyan garb and a turban during a 2006 visit to that country, his father's homeland. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the aides of "shameful, offensive fear-mongering."

Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams charged the Obama side with "an obvious and transparent attempt" to detract from "serious issues."

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY, February 25, 2008

WASHINGTON - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to portray herself as the strongest candidate on foreign policy in a speech Monday afternoon, telling an audience that she was "tested and ready" to be commander in chief.

She sharply criticized Senator Barack Obama, who she said seemed to believe "that mediation and meetings without preconditions will solve some of the world's most intractable problems."

"With me this is not theoretical," Mrs. Clinton said, speaking to a small group of supporters at George Washington University. "This is very much who I am, what I have done, and what I will do. The American people don't have to guess whether I understand the issues or whether I would need a foreign policy manual to guide me through."

To bolster her case, Mrs. Clinton stood on stage with a half-dozen retired military officials, including Gen. Wesley Clark, who introduced her. "I'm convinced that when the going gets tough, Hillary Clinton will never let America down," Mr. Clark said.

Mrs. Clinton pointed to her time in the Senate and in the White House as first lady as evidence that she was the candidate most knowledgeable and prepared for the presidency.

"Electing a president should not be an either-or proposition when it comes to national security," she said. "We need a president who knows how to deploy both the olive branch and the arrows, who will be ready to act swiftly and decisively in a crisis."

At the Democratic debate last week in Austin, Tex., Mr. Obama defended his proposals to meet with foreign leaders - even dictators like Fidel Castro's successor - with what he termed having the appropriate preparations made.

The two meet Tuesday night in Cleveland for another debate.

At a fundraiser Sunday night in Boston, Mrs. Clinton told supporters that in the coming days, she planned to highlight what she called "the experience gap" between her and Mr. Obama. The candidates are a week away from the pivotal next round of nominating contests in Ohio and Texas; Rhode Island and Vermont also will hold primaries on March 4.

In her speech, Mrs. Clinton also criticized President Bush for what she called "cowboy diplomacy," a line she uses frequently on the campaign trail. "We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security," she said. "We can't let that happen again."

By Julie Bosman, The New York Times, February 25, 2008

Hillary Clinton set to appear, along with industry leaders

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will join energy and environmental luminaries in Houston on Thursday at a summit to tackle the bedeviling issue of energy security.

While scheduled just days before the crucial March 4 primary in Texas, the event - called America's Energy Future: Houston's Presidential Summit - at the George R. Brown Convention Center won't be the dramatic, potentially decisive encounter between the top candidates the sponsoring Greater Houston Partnership once envisioned.

Clinton is the sole presidential hopeful scheduled to attend the event. The New York senator will cap off a forum featuring top executives addressing topics such as energy supply, conservation and renewable energy sources.

"Houston rightly needs to be recognized as a center for thought for energy policy," partnership President Jeff Moseley said.

Confirmed speakers or panelists include Marathon Oil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Clarence Cazalot Jr.; Shell Oil Co. CEO John Hofmeister; Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope; Mayor Bill White; and former U.S. Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher.

Clinton is scheduled to speak for 40 minutes, starting at 6 p.m. The cable network MSNBC plans to air at least part of her appearance.

Prodded by the Clinton campaign to open up the forum to voters who might not be able to afford tickets costing as much as $750 apiece, member companies of the partnership are donating 500 to 1,000 tickets for voters interested in attending Clinton's speech.

"The partnership has been incredibly helpful and gracious to allow us to invite members of the general public to our event," said Adrienne Elrod, a spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign.

Partnership officials were still working out the details Monday as to how the free tickets will be distributed.

Houston's business community has been trying since last summer to lure the candidates to Houston to discuss what many industry leaders describe as an incoherent energy strategy at a time when oil is trading near $100 a barrel and gasoline prices are averaging more than $3 a gallon,

"My goodness, what a mess we're in when it comes to energy security," Shell's Hofmeister said recently.

Short-term needs

On the campaign trail, the candidates have talked at length about approaches to solving the nation's energy problems for the longer term, Hofmeister said. But there's been an absence of "conversations about short-term solutions, namely oil and gas."

Clinton is the only presidential candidate now planning to participate in the summit.

Rival Democrat Barack Obama will be campaigning in Texas this week, but the Illinois senator's schedule does not include a stop at the partnership event.

On the Republican side, John McCain and Mike Huckabee have declined, and Rep. Ron Paul of Lake Jackson backed out last week.

Initially, partnership officials scheduled their forum for November. MSNBC promised to air the event. Organizers believed they had attracted Clinton, then the perceived Democratic front-runner.

But with the front-loaded caucus and primary schedule, organizers were unable to persuade the candidates to take time out of campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.

So partnership officials decided to delay their event until this week, in hopes the candidates would be more willing to come to Houston as the Texas primary drew near.

As McCain emerged as the clear front-runner in the Republican race, partnership officials focused their attention on attracting Clinton and Obama to face off in what they hoped would be must-watch television.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert had committed to moderate the event.

Agreed to two debates

As voters were going to the polls on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, Clinton challenged Obama to meet her in a series of debates ahead of the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, including the Houston forum.

But Obama agreed to participate in only two debates. And he picked the locations - Austin for a debate last week and Cleveland for one scheduled for today. Ohio also has its primary March 4.

"There's been a lot of jockeying ... about where the debates should be held," the partnership's Moseley said. "In Texas, Austin was seen as a preferred site for Sen. Obama."

When the hoped-for debate died, Williams and Russert decided not to attend.

Partnership officials have sold about 1,000 tickets for the event and have room for 2,000.

Tickets for the daylong forum cost $750 a head, or $450 for workers whose employers are members of the partnership. Its officials said the forum was directed toward business leaders.

But potential participants including Leslie Schulman, a 25-year-old law school student at the University of Houston, argued charging such hefty fees would give the forum an "elitist feel."

She warned that would turn off young voters in particular.

Late Monday, organizers said member companies of the partnership who are helping to underwrite the event have offered to donate the 500 to 1,000 tickets for voters who want to hear Clinton - or one of the other presidential hopefuls if another candidate signs on at the last minute.

Jennifer Graves, a 34-year-old Houston sales representative and still-undecided voter who had inquired about the conference, applauded that new effort.

If attendance had been limited to those who could afford pricey tickets, she said, "I don't think that would have been received well."

By DAVID IVANOVICH, Houston Chronicle, February 25, 2008

Hillary Clinton held a rally in Columbus earlier in February full of high energy and excitement; this time around she chose to have a more personal discussion with voters. The presidential hopeful invited four Ohio citizens she met along the campaign trail to facilitate a discussion of how she plans to fix the nation's dwindling economy.

"These people represent the stories of Ohio," Clinton said. "The challenges we face, but also the opportunities we would have if we had a president who cared about Ohio."

Clinton spoke Friday at Columbus State Community College in a town hall forum titled "Solutions for the American Economy." Close to 350 voters filed into the Center for Workforce Development ballroom to listen to Clinton's guests share their stories of sustainable energy, the Iraq war and health care. Audience members asked Clinton their own questions about health care, home foreclosures and the public school system.

Sustainable energy was a big topic for two of the guest speakers. Jason White, 29, told the audience about how his education in construction management from Columbus State gave him the chance to work with a company on rebuilding schools with energy efficient materials.

"We're going green in the new millennia," White said. "Over 50 percent of a school is recycled when we rebuild them."

Tom Robbins, a faculty member at Columbus State, shared information about the school's new Program of Sustainable Design. The program has been running for two years and is comprised of students studying architecture, manufacturing and construction management.

"We are trying to educate people into an awareness of sustainable energies," Robbins said.

Ohio State students who attended the forum said they were all very impressed with Clinton's performance.

"Her connection was great in the small setting," said Chris Skovron, a freshman in political science. "I wasn't convinced about her until her rally at OSU. I saw the humanity in her."

As the March 4 Ohio primary approaches, students are taking clear stances on who they support for the Democratic nomination. Some students who came to the discussion said they would have a hard time even thinking about voting for Barack Obama if he wins the nomination.

"I would have to consider it," said Richard Crouse, a sophomore in French. "I don't trust him like I trust her."

David Cross, a sophomore in political science, said it is not an easy choice. "I will support Obama if he is the nominee, but he is not as qualified as Hillary. We need someone qualified."

Students at the forum named health care and the Iraq War as the issues of most importance to them.




By Billy Ashley, The Lantern, February 25, 2008

Democrat Hillary Clinton said today she is the only candidate in the presidential race who will be able to reverse President George W. Bush's foreign policy and warned that the U.S. can't gamble on putting the White House in inexperienced hands.

Without mentioning rival Barack Obama by name, Clinton said the country can't afford to repeat the last seven years under the Republican president.

"We have seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience or the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our nation,'' Clinton said in a speech today in Washington. "America has already taken that chance one time too many.''

The New York senator is trying to regain her footing in the Democratic nomination race by emphasizing her experience as a senator and first lady, arguing that makes her better prepared for the presidency than Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois.

The two, who are competing March 4 in primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, also kept up their sparring over trade and past statements about the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trade figures to be a major issue in Ohio, where manufacturing jobs have declined 23 percent since December 2000. Clinton is counting on wins there and in Texas to keep her campaign going after 11 consecutive losses to Obama.

Obama in Ohio

Obama, 46, campaigned today in Cincinnati and talked about the economy, trade and health care.

While he didn't directly respond to Clinton, his aides released a statement from an adviser, retired Major General J. Scott Gration, calling it "ironic'' that Clinton compared Obama to Bush "when she voted to authorize the war in Iraq, supports the Bush policy of not talking to leaders we don't like, and gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran and Pakistan.''

In Washington, Clinton said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, changes in Cuba, Kosovo's declaration of independence and other recent events demonstrate "how essential it is we have sound strategy and sound leadership.''

"The American people don't have to guess whether I understand the issues,'' she said. The U.S. faces many dangers as well as "unprecedented opportunities,'' Clinton, 60, said, "if we have the right leadership.''

Meeting With Adversaries

Clinton criticized Obama's positions while mentioning him only near the end of her remarks. She referred to his past statements that he would meet with U.S. adversaries such as the leaders of Iran and Venezuela without conditions and would consider unilateral military action against terrorist hideouts in Pakistan.

"He wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve some of the world's most intractable problems, to advocating rash, unilateral military action without cooperation from our allies in the most sensitive region of the world,'' Clinton said.

Clinton also tied trade to national security, saying a "level playing field'' for U.S. workers and companies "has direct and serious implications for our capacity to operate effectively on behalf of our strategic interests in the world.''

Clinton Mailer

Her campaign released a mailer being sent to voters in Ohio citing news articles from Obama's Senate campaign in which he said the U.S. should continue working with the World Trade Organization and pursue free-trade accords such as Nafta.

"In 2004 Senator Obama was quoted or was reported to have said very positive things about Nafta,'' Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said on a conference call.

Obama's campaign said the passages cited by Clinton's mailer don't accurately portray his position.

"This idea that Barack Obama's position on Nafta isn't clear is nonsense,'' Bruce Raynor, general president of labor union federation Unite Here, said on a conference call.

Obama told about 11,000 people at a rally today in Cincinnati that the U.S. must have a "trade system that is free and fair.''

Obama's aides say Clinton has shifted from supporting the treaty to criticizing it since becoming a presidential candidate. Clinton and Obama both have promised to revise Nafta to include tougher labor and environmental standards.

Wolfson said Clinton is on record as far back as 2000 as being critical of Nafta, which was approved in 1994 while Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton, was president. Some union leaders blame the accord for job losses.

Clinton Memoir

In her memoir, "Living History,'' Clinton wrote that Nafta was one of her husband's "successes'' and that creating a free- trade zone for the hemisphere would "ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization.''

Clinton needs victories in Ohio and Texas, with a total of 334 pledged delegates available, to blunt some of Obama's momentum in the presidential nomination race.

He has the edge among pledged delegates nationwide, with 1,124.5 to Clinton's 1,006.5, according to unofficial estimates by The Green Papers, a nonpartisan Web site.

The totals don't include the 795 so-called superdelegates, Democratic Party officials and officeholders who aren't bound by election results and have tilted toward Clinton. A candidate needs 2,025 votes at the party convention to become the nominee.

By Christopher Stern and Julianna Goldman, Bloomberg, February 25, 2008

Even in the reddest counties in a deep red state, Texans are streaming to vote in the Democratic primary at double and sometimes triple the number voting in the Republican primary.

Early vote tallies compiled since Tuesday - the day early voting opened for the March 4 primary - show huge numbers of suburban voters turning up to vote Democrat. Texas suburbs have long been Republican strongholds, but the numbers indicate a huge shift.

You can probably chalk that up to the excitement generated by the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But if - capital "I," capital "F" - Texas Democrats hold onto those votes in November, they have the best chance in years to come back from the wilderness they've been mapping since the mid-'90s. It's IF because the party's organization has been in tatters, its bench isn't deep - and if the party has a clear, coherent message, I haven't heard it.

Big Democratic turnouts in Travis County are to be expected, but the early votes so far are record breaking - 23,132 as of Thursday - making any number of local races difficult to handicap because the big turnouts dilute the influence of the Democratic in crowd.

Where the Democratic surge is truly impressive is in the suburbs that were once the exclusive property of Republicans. In Collin County, at the heart of the Metroplex - a heavily Republican area - county officials recorded the Democratic turnout at 5,021 early voters as of Thursday. That represented an increase of 4,294 early votes in the 2006 Democratic primary.

A wow would be in order here.

That kind of increase can't be explained away as Republicans crossing over to pick a Democrat they'd most like to run against. That's indication that people want change, confirmation of the runaway success Sen. Barack Obama has found by promising change.

Which brings us to the Texas Legislature. A big turnover in the Legislature might cause Republicans to quit yelling about who can and can't legally marry and whether our family trees shelter monkeys and address the issues facing a growing state. Our prospects are pinned to nurturing an educated, healthy and productive citizenry. Social issues aren't playing well in the presidential race, but economic equity issues are.

It is way too early to make November predictions, but those numbers should worry Republican officeholders looking to retain their posts or move up in 2010 when Texans will choose a slew of statewide offices, starting with governor. There might even be a U.S. Senate race in the mix if Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, finally decides to run for governor.

A strong showing by Texas Democrats in November holds the promise of rebuilding a financial and political base. With few statewide offices up on the November ballot, what does a strong showing look like?

Success, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but I'd say even a modest gain in the Texas House would be a big show of strength. Picking up a statewide judgeship will lift party morale but won't do Democrats much good politically. Judges are barred from most partisan political activity, and their ability to raise money is heavily restricted.

That means winning legislative seats. Democrats are five seats away from a House majority. Picking up even three seats would embolden GOP challengers to Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, If voters stampeding to vote in the Democratic primary stick with the party in November, they could do even better than three.

If so, Democrats will become increasingly attractive to big donors who were ducking phone calls only two years ago. But if there isn't a strong lineup of talent to put those dollars to work effectively, then nothing will change.

That's all promise right now, and even if it comes true, Democrats still won't have a statewide platform to audition talent for governor and lieutenant governor.

Some of the candidates we've been interviewing for the past month and a half indicated that Democrats don't have a good handle on their prospects this year. Two statewide candidates recounted conversations they had with party people who foresaw them running into the GOP buzz saw. In 2007, it might have been difficult to foresee the excitement of the hard-fought race for the presidential nomination in 2008.

The suburban numbers indicate that Democrats have an advantage offered up by the former Texas governor turned president.

Ironically, it was George W. Bush who led Texas Democrats into the wilderness, and George W. Bush fatigue could lead them out.

By Arnold Garcia Jr., The Statesman, February 25, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton on Monday accused China of paying back the United States for a landmark trade deal with "tainted fish and lead-laced toys and poison pet food."

The New York senator warned in a major foreign policy address that China's trade and currency policies were punishing US workers, and hammered President George W. Bush's policies towards the communist giant.

Risking another row with Beijing, which accused her in November of slandering its manufacturers, Clinton said China "has become a global superpower that needs to be convinced to play by the rules in the global marketplace."

"Over the course of the last seven years, Bush policies have allowed the Chinese government to become our banker," Clinton said in a speech at George Washington University here.

"Today, China's steel comes here and our jobs go there. We play by the rules and they manipulate their currency," she said in remarks apparently aimed at the economically distressed state of Ohio which holds a crucial primary vote March 4.

"We get tainted fish and lead-laced toys and poison pet food in return. that will change when I am in the White House," she said, recalling several product safety scares surrounding Chinese-made goods last year.

Clinton's remarks appeared to be a reference to the aftermath of the US decision in 2000 to grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China, a policy backed by the administration of her husband ex-president Bill Clinton.

The move ended the annual review of US trade ties for Beijing and speeded China's entry into the World Trade Organization.

It was not the first time that Clinton had adopted populist anti-China rhetoric in her campaign.

In November, the Chinese government accused her of "slander" after she had warned of a tide of dangerous Chinese-made Christmas gifts.

"China bashing" has been a staple of past US campaigns but the candidate that wins the presidency often tempers the rhetoric as geopolitical concerns take on more importance once the White House is secured.

Populist anti-trade rows have risen to the top of the 2008 Democratic presidential race, as Clinton tries to revive her flagging campaign in Ohio and Texas, which also votes on March 4 in a nominating showdown her campaign admits she must win.

Surging Barack Obama has targeted the former first lady over her past support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) enacted by her husband's administration, which unions say has driven millions of US manufacturing jobs overseas.

Clinton says NAFTA has failed to deliver on its promises, but Obama says the trade issue exposes her poor judgement, as does her vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

AFP, February 25, 2008

WACO, Texas (AP) - Recasting what would keep her campaign alive, Hillary Rodham Clinton's advisers said Friday that if rival Barack Obama loses any of Tuesday's four presidential primaries, it would show Democrats are having second thoughts about him.

In an e-mail and conference call to reporters, Clinton's campaign sought to raise the stakes for the Illinois senator in next week's primaries and also laid the groundwork to keep her campaign alive if the results are disappointing.

Obama heads into Tuesday's primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont riding a streak of 11 consecutive primary and caucus wins and leading the former first lady in the popular vote, committed delegates and fundraising.

In the conference call, senior Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson seized on those facts to reshape expectations about the Democratic contest.

"They are outspending us at least two to one in Ohio and Texas," Wolfson said. "If they are unable to win these states, it sends a very clear signal that Democrats want this campaign to continue. Obama has every advantage going into this election. If Senator Obama is in fact the de facto nominee, he ought to win all four."

A loss for Obama in even one of the four states Tuesday would indicate Democrats have developed a case of "buyer's remorse," Wolfson said. "It would show that Senator Obama is having trouble closing the deal with Democrats."

As recently as Feb. 20, Clinton's husband, former President Clinton, was singing a different tune about what it would take to keep her candidacy afloat beyond Tuesday.

"If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she'll be the nominee," the former president told a Beaumont, Texas, audience. "If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be."

Bill Clinton's assertion that his wife must win both Texas and Ohio to keep her campaign alive reflects a widely held view among political analysts.

Polls now give her a modest lead in Ohio and show Texas is a toss-up; earlier she had large leads in both states.

The New York senator campaigned with a backdrop of military leaders Friday in Texas, which has a large military presence.

She's spending all day Sunday rumbling across Ohio and plans to stump there again Monday morning. Clinton will then return to Texas for a televised town hall meeting, and she's purchased time to broadcast it across the state.

Her aides said no decision had been made on where to spend election night, but most betting was on Ohio, where the polls are more favorable.

Obama has announced he'll spend Tuesday night in Texas, one of the biggest prizes of the campaign. A win in Texas would allow him to counter the Clinton campaign's argument that although he's won more states, she's carried the big states like California, New York and New Jersey.

Clinton closed her campaign with a noisy rally before about 4,000 people in San Antonio, a high-energy event aimed at boosting voter turnout in Tuesday's primary. Aiding her effort, Clinton appeared with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, elected largely with the backing of Hispanics.

He's one of a series of high-profile surrogates flooding the key primary states on the final weekend, building on a network of an estimated 40,000 campaign volunteers.

"I am not offering just speeches, though speeches are fine," said Clinton, returning to her core theme of experience. "I am offering 21st century solutions that address the problems we face."

"When the crises come, and they do, we need a commander in chief ready to make the tough decisions," she said.

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press, February 29, 2008

Shifting Campaign Tone Reveals Internal Debate Over How to Wage the Battle

Heading out of last week's debate and into the final week of campaigning before the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas, which have become must-wins for Hillary Clinton, the New York senator has taken to mocking her Democratic rival's oratory.

"Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know that the world is perfect," Clinton said in Rhode Island Sunday, belittling Obama's soaring oratory.

It's the latest in three distinct tones Clinton has used about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the last few days. On Thursday, she almost hugged him, taking his hand on the debate stage as she emphasized, "I am honored to be on the stage with Barack Obama."

On Saturday, she berated him over two mailings circulated by his campaign that she said created division within the Democratic Party that misrepresented her views on the North American Free Trade Agreement and health care.

"Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That is what I expect from you."

Appearing frustrated - if not furious - Clinton clutched the two Obama campaign fliers during a news conference in Cincinnati and challenged her party rival to a Ohio debate.

"Enough of the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook," she said. "This is wrong, and every Democrat ought to be outraged."

NAFTA hits a particular note among union voters in Ohio: Union households, one of former President Clinton's major legacies, make up a quarter of the state's Democratic voters and say the free trade agreement cost them jobs.

Clinton's shifting tone may symbolize internal tensions within the campaign as to how to wage the fight this week amid headlines speculating depressed Clinton staffers and the New York senator's exit from the race for the Democratic nomination if she doesn't win those contests.

Obama tried to shrug off Clinton's attacks last night in Toledo.

"She said, 'well, you know it's just an illusion, it's a delusion to think that somehow you're just going to wish all the special interest power in Washington away.' Well, she's right about that but it doesn't help if you take a million dollars ... from lobbyists for the special interests," Obama said.

Playing his part on the trail, Bill Clinton is working his heart out. The former president held six events Saturday - more than anyone else actually running for president - ready to shake every hand in Texas while defending his wife.

"The obvious bias of the pundits dancing on Hillary's grave. It's the only dance they know," he said.

The former president will campaign in Ohio today while his wife delivers a major foreign policy address in Washington, D.C., trying to drive home the point that she is ready to be commander in chief in a troubled world, while Obama is not.




By JAKE TAPPER, ABC News, February 25, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Fighting to survive, Hillary Rodham Clinton is counting on female power to energize her faltering presidential bid.

She's hoping a double-digit lead among women in Ohio is the answer.

"I am thrilled to be running to be the first woman president, which I think would be a sea change in our country and around the world," the New York senator said this week in Cleveland, emphasizing anew the pioneering aspect of her candidacy.

A woman in the White House, Clinton said, would present "a real challenge to the way things have been done, and who gets to do them and what the rules are."

The remarks had a call-to-action flair and underscored just how much she is relying on women, always a key part of her support, to help her win Ohio and, perhaps, Texas on Tuesday as she seeks to get back on track in the Democratic nomination fight.

She has urgent reason to prod the sisterhood into action.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has racked up 11 straight wins to lead the convention delegate hunt. Clinton hasn't won a primary in a month and is looking for big-state victories to breathe new life into her campaign.

Clinton leads in Ohio in recent polling, while Obama has a slight edge in Texas.

Women may hold the key for Clinton, particularly in the Midwestern state. Polls in the past week have shown her with a wide advantage - 17 percentage points in one poll, 18 in another - among Ohio women. She also leads among Texas women, but the margin is slimmer.

"If Hillary is going to regain the front-runner status and win the nomination, it starts with and ends with women," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist who is not aligned with either candidate. "She has struck a chord with women, especially in Ohio."

On Thursday, Clinton stopped at a Bob Evans Restaurant in Rio Grande, Ohio, and made a bee line for the counter and the all-female wait staff. She posed for pictures, arms around them for a photo op worthy of the "Nine to Five" song that often is featured at her events. "I've waited tables before," she told them. "That was when I was much younger."

Ohio Democrats say women here admire her for the barriers she has broken and the troubles she had overcome. That good will, they say, coupled with the support of popular Gov. Ted Strickland and her jobs-focused economic message, has resonated with women across economic lines, education levels and ages.

The conquering-obstacles element is a theme Clinton embraced during a debate in Austin, Texas, last week, when she appeared to allude to her husband's infidelity.

Asked to describe a moment that tested her the most, she said: "Well, I think everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life." The audience clapped knowingly.

Margie Bennett, 44, a laid-off accountant from Zanesville, calls herself a feminist but says she's been a Clinton fan for years because of who the senator is, not because she's a woman.

"She's a tough fighter. She's been through a lot. And, she's the best candidate," Bennett said after a Clinton-led economic round-table this week.

That sounded much like the rationale Kay Israel, 67, gave minutes earlier. "I respect Hillary's strengths as far as overcoming obstacles against all odds," the teacher from Zanesville said. "I admire her effort to make history. She's smart. She's educated. She knows the issues."

Kelly Adams, 24 and a college financial aide adviser, cited Clinton's push for universal health care and her promise to bring jobs to Ohio as the main reasons she's lending her support. Also, she added: "I like the strength that she's shown and her work as first lady."

Many women backing Obama praise Clinton's strides as a woman, too, but they say that's not reason enough to vote for her.

"I would love to see a woman in the White House. I just don't think she's the right woman," said Ruth Ziegler, 51, a high school teacher from Newark as she waited for Obama to take the stage at Ohio State University on Wednesday. "It's about winning and I really don't think she can win against the Republicans."

Her friend and fellow teacher, Linda LaRue, 54 and also of Newark, seconded those sentiments and added: "His passion speaks to me. He excites people. She just doesn't inspire."

It's not surprising that women have been a primary constituency for the woman with the best chance in history to break through the highest of glass ceilings.

"If she can put the combination together for women that she understands their lives while also representing change, she's got a lot going on there. It completely works," said Page Gardner, the president of a group - Women's Voices. Women Vote Action Fund - working to encourage unmarried women to participate in the political process.

While Clinton has been strong throughout the campaign among white and Hispanic women, black women overwhelmingly support Obama.

She often includes him in referring to the unprecedented character of the Democratic contest: "I believe strongly that the fact that we have an African-American and a woman running for the Democratic nomination is historical and I'm very, very proud of that."

In recent weeks, Obama has made inroads into Clinton's overall hold on female voters.

Before primary voting began, Clinton had an enormous lead over him among all women. An AP-Ipsos poll in December showed her with 52 percent support to 19 percent for him.

Exit polls for the AP and television networks from 22 Democratic primaries where the candidates have competed showed her with a slimmer lead among women, 51 percent to 45 percent.

The apparent erosion was acute in the most recent primaries where exit polling was conducted. Obama won among women in the Louisiana, Maryland and Virginia primaries, while the two candidates tied most recently in Wisconsin.

As she campaigns, Clinton tries to strike a balance. She often tells audiences that while she's proud to be running as a woman, she should be elected because she's the best candidate and not because of her gender.

Still, at pivotal times, she has campaigned alongside daughter Chelsea and mother Dorothy Rodham, and invoked an us-versus-them pitch.

"In so many ways, this all-women's college prepared me to compete in the all-boys club of presidential politics," she said in November at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, speaking about the challenges of being a woman in a campaign environment that men long have dominated.

The candidate has, however, struggled with just how much of her femininity to show.

After women turned away from her in Iowa, Clinton grew emotional days before the New Hampshire primary.

"This is very personal for me," she said, adding, "Some of us are right, and some of us are not. Some of us are ready, and some of us are not."

That moment of humility has been credited with helping her win back women who ultimately brought her victory in New Hampshire.

She hopes they deliver again Tuesday.

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - She's reminded of it all the time around here, so Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton couldn't have been surprised when her failed 2000 campaign promise to bring 200,000 jobs to economically desperate upstate New York became part of the latest presidential debate.

In her first term in the Senate, the region saw a net loss of 26,500 jobs, according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics by the Business Council of New York State.

"All one has to do is listen to talk radio to know that's on a lot of people's minds," said Kevin Hardwick, a political science professor at Canisius College in Buffalo.

Clinton recently called the promise "a little exuberant." During Tuesday's debate with Barack Obama, the New York senator said she was figuring Al Gore would be in the White House.

"When I made the pledge, I was counting on having a Democratic White House, a Democratic president, who shared my values about what we needed to do to make the economy work for everyone and to create shared prosperity," she said.

"And as you know, despite the difficulties of the Bush administration and a Republican Congress for six years of my first term, I have worked very hard to create jobs, but obviously as president I will have a lot more tools at my disposal," she said.

The failed 200,000 number got its share of attention during Clinton's 2006 bid for re-election, but it hardly hurt her. She easily beat back a challenge from former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer.

THE SPIN:

By saying her job-creation efforts for upstate were stymied in the Senate by a Republican administration and policies, Clinton hopes to deflect doubt about her ability to fulfill a new pledge as president to create 5 million new jobs over 10 years.

THE FACTS:

From 1990 to 2000, New York state jobs grew at a rate of about 13 percent, while the nation saw a 20 percent jump. If the upstate region, with 3.1 million jobs in 2000, had broken out of its sluggish 5 percent growth to be on par with the entire state or the nation, that could have meant a couple hundred thousand jobs.

But upstate New York had not grown at the overall state or national pace for decades - and there was no imminent change on the horizon. As they had before Clinton became senator, manufacturing jobs continued to disappear upstate after the election - from Rochester-based Kodak, flatware-maker Oneida Ltd., Carrier Corp. in Syracuse, western New York's auto and auto parts manufacturers, and others.

Two months after arriving in the Senate, Clinton introduced her first legislation, a package of seven bills designed to spur job growth through tax incentives, entrepreneurial incubators and job training programs.

In late 2003, she announced her participation in a New Jobs for New York initiative, a private, not-for-profit corporation formed by investment banker Roger Altman, who served as deputy treasury secretary in her husband's administration. The goal was to stimulate economic development upstate by matching Wall Street investors with businesses in depressed areas.

By Carolyn Thompson, The Associated Press, February 28, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a remarkable financial recovery, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $35 million in February even as Democratic rival Barack Obama was outspending her in key March 4 battlegrounds.

His financial superiority has been evident in the primary states of Texas and Ohio, which vote Tuesday and where he has purchased $7.5 million in advertising to her $4.6 million, targeting early voters, young voters and voters in regions with concentrations of delegates.

Clinton's fundraising more than doubled her January fundraising, when she collected $14 million to Obama's $36 million. Clinton has lost 11 straight contests since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 and her ability to raise money was all the more notable coming in the midst of defeat.

"It was incredibly gratifying to see people come forth with this vote of confidence in me," Clinton told reporters in Hanging Rock, Ohio. "Obviously this is a tremendous benefit to my campaign."

But Obama has been raising money at an even greater rate and spending it, too. Some estimates place his February fundraising at more than $50 million - which would be about half of what he raised in all of 2007. Obama spokesman Bill Burton would not divulge a total but said: "We've raised considerably more than" Clinton.

Obama's campaign had spent $2.4 million on ads in Ohio as of Tuesday, to her $1.3 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads. Clinton spent $3.3 million in Texas; Obama spent $5.1 million, the firm's figures show.

Clinton began running a new ad in Ohio Thursday, with Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland promoting her as a "fighter." "I think she's a person who has devoted her life to caring about other people, making sure that America works for everyone, not just the privileged few," Strickland says in the ad.

Obama is targeting younger audiences in his ads, buying expensive prime time spots on programs such as "American Idol" and evening sitcoms. On Tuesday, for instance, Obama bought 38 spots on "American Idol" broadcasts in Ohio and Texas, and in the two other March 4 primary states - Rhode Island and Vermont. Clinton bought only six spots on the show in relatively small markets.

"She's where most of the traditional political buying is," said Evan Tracey, an ad analyst and president of TNS Media. "He is in the choice real estate - it's the luxury end of political buying."

Obama also bought ad time on such Tuesday night programs as "Big Brother," "The Biggest Loser," and "Jericho," a CBS series with a devoted fan base.

Obama also was getting help from labor unions, even though in the past he has criticized rivals who received help from outside groups.

The Service Employees International Union began spending $1.4 million on ads supporting Obama in Ohio and Texas. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union was spending nearly $200,000 on ads in Ohio. What's more, the SEIU was spending a total of about $1.4 million supporting Obama through phone banks and door-to-door canvassing in Texas and Ohio.

"We are facing a real wall of money from the Barack Obama campaign," senior Clinton adviser Harold Ickes acknowledged during a call with fundraisers Thursday. "But based on everything we know today, we are confident we have very strong operations there."

Clinton entered February with $9 million cash on hand for the primaries and about $7.5 million in debts. Obama had $18 million for the primary and $1.1 million in debts.

If both candidates raise more than $35 million each this time, that would make February an astounding fundraising month for the Democrats. At that rate, both candidates would break records for contestants in a primary fight.

Obama told reporters on his campaign plane, "I have no idea how much money we've raised, but we've been paying our bills. Right now, I believe we're doing very good."

In their call to fundraisers, Clinton's advisers announced that the campaign had raised the money from 300,000 donors, including 200,000 new contributors, most of them donating through the Internet. Aides said almost all the money was for the primary election.

"We have resources to play in big states coming up: Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont and states beyond," campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said.

Clinton said reports of her relatively weak fundraising in January and her decision to lend the campaign $5 million started a wave.

"People want this campaign to go on," she said. "It just set off a chain reaction around the country. People start paying attention at different points in a campaign. Now people are engaged."

But some Democrats wondered whether the additional money was too late and not enough to match Obama.

"The Clinton campaign clearly has much more money than they had before, but they are still being dramatically outspent by Obama," said Simon Rosenberg, head of the New Democratic Network, a think tank. "And things don't seem to be trending their way and they don't have a lot of tools to deal with it anymore."

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

Former President Bill Clinton Wednesday urged Texans to vote for his wife in next week's presidential primary and again at post-election caucuses.

"You will be the only people in the country who can vote twice in this election and not break the law," he said.

The Texas contest is a hybrid primary-caucus, where most delegates are awarded based on the primary vote and others by caucuses held later in the evening. Voters can participate in both.

He warned that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton could beat rival Barack Obama at the polls, only to have a clear victory snatched away at the caucuses, where 35 percent of the state's delegates will be up for grabs.

"A lot of people think Hillary will win in the day time and her opponent will come in the night and take back the votes she won," he said.

Bill Clinton campaigned Wednesday in Houston and Austin, including rallies at Houston Community College, Austin Community College and the University of Texas, where police estimated 5,000 to 6,000 came to hear why the New York senator should be their next president.

He described his wife as someone who has spent a lifetime pressing for change.

"She was making changes in other people's lives when she was a very young person," he said, telling of her work long ago helping abused and handicapped children.

At an Austin Community College campus in heavily minority east Austin, Bill Clinton gave what he called "my pitch" for why Texans should vote for the former first lady over Obama.

Chief among the reasons, he said, is her commitment to universal health care, expanded college and training opportunities for high school graduates and balanced budgets.

He asked those who knew someone without health insurance to raise their hands. Most of the crowd of several hundred did so.

"This is the only rich country in the world where this question could be answered in that way," he said, going on to explain that his wife's health care plan would allow people to keep their private insurance or buy into one of several government plans.

After losing 11 straight contests, Hillary Clinton has pinned her campaign on victories in delegate-rich Texas and Ohio on Tuesday.

Earlier in Houston, at four rallies in Hispanic, black and Asian communities, the former president promised crowds of 200 to 400 their lives will be better if his wife is elected president.

"We have a future out there that could be the most glorious, peaceful prosperous time in human history, or it could be more unraveling, growing more unequal at home and more isolated from the rest of the world," he said. "She is the best person to take us in the right direction."

Bill Clinton focused largely on explaining his wife's energy, health care and education plans, urging supporters to pass the details on to their undecided friends, or even to Obama supporters.

"They're trying to figure out what kind of change they want and who best represents it," he said. "I hope I have persuaded you that she does."

He also emphasized her commitment to manned spaceflight. About 100,000 people in the Houston area work for NASA's Johnson Space Center or related industries.

Hillary Clinton's plan to increase Pell grants and provide a $3,500 tuition tax credit drew big cheers from about backpack-wearing students at each college stop.

The crowd that gathered just down the street from Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, cheered most enthusiastically for her universal health care plan.

"Will you be able to afford it? Absolutely," the former president said, referring to Obama's contention that Hillary Clinton would force Americans to buy insurance whether or not they could afford it. Bill Clinton said tax credits will be provided to ensure nobody is paying more than a small percentage of their annual income.

Universal health care is a top concern for Rosemary Amaro, whose brother is battling thyroid cancer but doesn't have health insurance. The slight nurse's aide stood at the back of the crowd, straining on tiptoes to see the former president as she shielded her eyes from the sun with a campaign sign.

"I think she's going to make a good president and help a lot of people," said Amaro, 50.

By KELLEY SHANNON, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

ARLINGTON, Va. - Harold M. Ickes may be Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's last hope for winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

Nearly 40 years after attending his first Democration National Convention, Mr. Ickes - who has survived losing presidential campaigns, grand jury investigations and a tumultuous stint in Bill Clinton's White House - is back at another campaign. He has a good 30 years of presidential history on nearly everyone in the Clinton campaign headquarters, but he is as sassy and dyspeptic as he was when he worked for Eugene J. McCarthy.

"I'm a little dismayed by the lack of fight on the part of our staff," Mr. Ickes, the assistant to the campaign manager, scolded an audience of Clinton staffers dispirited after Mrs. Clinton's losses last week, before beginning a roll call of the presidential campaigns he had helped win and lose.

Mr. Ickes, who has typically been a behind-the-scenes player, is stepping out front to make the public case for Mrs. Clinton, at a time when campaign advisers have pressed to lower the profile of her chief strategist, Mark J. Penn.

But most of all, he is serving as the campaign's general in the fight for superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who may well determine whether Mrs. Clinton can grasp the nomination from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. In doing so, Mr. Ickes is drawing on his intimate knowledge of the Clintons and their political networks - as well as delegate selection rules he helped write at the Democratic National Committee.

It is not the most rewarding of jobs these days. Mr. Ickes recounted one "very long" telephone call with a Democratic leader he had known for decades - Mr. Ickes would not say who - who finally, and decisively, informed the persistent Mr. Ickes that Mrs. Clinton should not count on his vote.

It was the latest reminder of how an aggressive campaign has turned into a rear-guard action; he has been reduced to asking delegates to wait until Tuesday to see whether Mrs. Clinton wins Ohio and Texas before doing anything. "There is a real emphasis on holding what we have," said Mr. Ickes, with a combination of resignation and good cheer. "We are very aware of the pressure on delegates and the need to hold them."

For anyone who has followed Mr. Ickes's career, there is something almost poignant about his re-emergence at the side of the Clintons. At 68, he is in the midst of what his friends assume will be his final presidential campaign. Rather than enjoying history in the making and watching a second friend become president, he is trying to offset what he openly describes as the failures of Mrs. Clinton's political aides and advisers.

"She is better than her campaign," he said.

Mr. Ickes went South to battle in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and was a senior adviser to Jesse L. Jackson when he sought to become the nation's first African-American president. He is now fighting against Mr. Obama's effort to be the nation's first black president. Were Mrs. Clinton not in the race, Mr. Ickes said, he has no doubt he would be happily working for Mr. Obama.

And he is back in the circle of a political family that has a history of turning to him when it has skated into trouble - he directed the White House response into the Whitewater investigation, an effort that almost got him indicted - and then discarded him when it proved necessary. Mr. Ickes was removed from his job as deputy White House chief of staff three days after he helped direct Bill Clinton to re-election in 1996.

"I mean, I was fired publicly three days after the general election," he said. "Learned it from The Wall Street Journal. Front page. Upper left hand quarter. You don't forget that."

Now he finds himself, again and again, answering questions about what he is doing back here, given his history with Mr. Clinton and the obvious burdens of this campaign.

"I recognize he has his frailties, as we all do, and some of them are pretty profound," he said. "You're wary but you accept it. And with Hillary, I've always had a good relationship with her."

In truth, while he has known Mr. Clinton longer - they met during Vietnam protests in the early 1970s - friends say is closer to Mrs. Clinton, particularly since Mr. Clinton dispatched him from the White House.

"I think this could be his last presidential campaign, and it's extraordinarily important to him for a lot of reasons," said Patti Solis Doyle, who was ousted as Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager two weeks ago.

Legalistic and argumentative, Mr. Ickes is a man of tough manner and tough tactics with a notoriously dramatic temper, though one he orchestrates to calculated effect. "Harold isn't Mr. Charm," said Herman D. Farrell, a superdelegate from New York. "But he is Mr. Mechanic. He's good at the nuts and bolts and doing the counting, less so at the persuading."

Mr. Ickes's battles have often been as much inside the campaign as outside it. He and Mr. Penn have a long history of enmity - they did not talk when both worked for Mr. Clinton when he was in the White House. In a campaign that often exhibits a decidedly corporate and somewhat antiseptic air - personified by Mr. Penn - Mr. Ickes is intense, emotional and, his friends say, idealistic.

He barely tries to hide his view of Mr. Penn. "Many pollsters, many pundits - including our chief strategists, dare I say - didn't think we were going to win New Hampshire," he said pointedly at his breakfast with journalists.

Mr. Ickes is something of a relic, still keeping his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his torso in the manner of a man one-third his age heading out for a night on the town in the 1970s. He not only refuses to carry a Blackberry but orders campaign workers he spots tapping at a meeting to leave the room and communicate outside.

"He's like a racehorse who, even when he is retired, still wants to race," said Tina Flournoy, who met him when he was running the Rules and Bylaws Committee for the Democratic National Committee and is part of his circle at Mrs. Clinton's headquarters today.

Mr. Ickes is by training a lawyer, but works as a lobbyist in Washington. He has also been at the center of an enterprise to create a national list of registered Democrats - cross-referenced to include everything from their voting history to consumer habits that might give a hint of their political tastes - to try to catch up with a similar effort by Republicans.

For the Clinton campaign, Mr. Ickes went to great lengths assembling data on all the superdelegates - their friends, supporters, contributors, history with the Clintons and interactions over the years. He sits at a desk with an old-fashioned Rolodex.

Every day, he and aides churn through the list of the superdelegates, and he sends a list of names to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Clinton of Democrats to call.

"They just thought the delegates would be there," he said. "I remember Bill Clinton talking about how many delegate votes you need to get and he was like, 'We didn't have do to that in 1992.' I said, 'We sure did Mr. President.' "

By Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, February 28, 2008

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton each had a record-breaking month of fund-raising in February, bringing in more than $80 million combined, but with Mr. Obama again far outraising Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Obama's campaign did not release an official estimate of its February fund-raising on Thursday. But several major donors estimated it to be about $50 million, based on their calculations and knowledge of tallies during the month, when on many days the campaign took in as much as $2 million.

The large sum underscores the challenge facing Mr. Obama in his decision whether to accept public financing for the general election if he becomes the Democrats' presidential nominee and abide by the spending limits that come with it, something he indicated last year he would do if the Republican nominee also signed up for the campaign finance program. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has criticized Mr. Obama for wavering on the issue.

Obama campaign officials were still tabulating their numbers and said only that their total was "considerably more" than the $35 million that Senator Clinton's campaign announced Thursday that it had raised in February.

"It's a leap year," said Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesman. "There's one more day."

Clinton campaign officials, meanwhile, held a rousing conference call with donors on Thursday to trumpet their results.

"It's an extraordinary number for us, $35 million in February alone," said Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton campaign chairman.

Clinton campaign officials also sought to buck up donors dismayed about being on the losing end of 11 straight contests and emphasized that they still believed they could win the nomination. The officials underscored that their successful month in raising money meant they had more than enough resources to be competitive in the contests on Tuesday in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, and beyond.

"Hillary Clinton's not going anywhere," Mr. McAuliffe said. "Hillary's going to one place. She's going to Denver as the Democratic Party nominee."

But Mr. Obama's fund-raising appears once again to have sharply outstripped Mrs. Clinton's, just as it did in January, when Mr. Obama brought in $36 million and Mrs. Clinton raised just under $14 million.

After spending enormously to compete in Iowa, in New Hampshire and heading into the 20-plus Feb. 5 nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton finished the month essentially in the red, forcing her to lend her campaign $5 million.

Mr. Obama's total is expected to exceed the $44 million that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts raised in March 2004, a month that set a record in a presidential campaign. Mr. Kerry, however, was already clearly on track to being the Democratic nominee when he raised the then-extraordinary sum.

The Clinton campaign offered some details about its February resurgence: $30 million came in over the Internet or in other small donations; 200,000 of the 300,000 people who contributed were new donors; the average contribution for the month was just over $100.

Perhaps most important, $34 million can be used for the primaries, with the rest set aside for the general election.

The breakthrough moment, Mr. McAuliffe said, came after Mrs. Clinton announced early in the month that she had lent money to her campaign. "Our Internet exploded, and it has never stopped," Mr. McAuliffe said.

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, was similarly ebullient Thursday afternoon at a news conference in Hanging Rock, Ohio.

"It's incredibly gratifying to see people coming forward with their vote of confidence," Mrs. Clinton said.

She said her loan had not yet been paid back, despite the flow of money.

A closer look at the candidates' spending on television commercials heading into Texas and Ohio on Tuesday illustrates how the disparity in cash is playing out in concrete ways on the campaign trail, with Mr. Obama outspending Mrs. Clinton by a significant margin.

In Texas, Mr. Obama had spent $5.1 million as of Tuesday, compared with Mrs. Clinton's $3.1 million, said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks advertising spending.

In Ohio, Mr. Obama had spent $2.4 million, Mrs. Clinton $1.3 million.

Mr. Obama's outspending of Mrs. Clinton in prime time appears to be a major reason for the difference, Mr. Tracey said. About 35 percent of his advertising spending has been for prime-time spots, compared with 20 percent of Mrs. Clinton's.

"You buy that if money's not an issue," Mr. Tracey said.

The difference between the two is also pronounced in Vermont and Rhode Island. In Vermont, Mr. Obama has spent $256,000 to Mrs. Clinton's $63,000; in Rhode Island, he has spent $311,000 to her $130,000.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, is starting to focus less on the Democratic primaries and more on the general election. In recent days, he has spent more time skirmishing with Mr. McCain than with Mrs. Clinton.

Asked by reporters if he was counting Mrs. Clinton out, he declared: "I am not. I am not. Remember New Hampshire?" Mrs. Clinton was thought to be behind in New Hampshire, but pulled off a surprise victory in that primary.

Clinton campaign officials insisted in their conference call that their spirits were high, contrary to news accounts of flagging morale.

"We believe we can win this thing," said Maggie Williams, the campaign manager, though Harold Ickes, a campaign adviser, acknowledged that Mrs. Clinton was "facing a real wall of money from the Barack Obama campaign."

By Michael Luo and Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times, February 29, 2008

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton looked right at home behind a restaurant counter on Thursday, chatting with several waitresses and writing up an order with a flourish. And now we know why.

"I've waited tables before," she said.

Mrs. Clinton stopped at the restaurant, a Bob Evans in the southern Ohio town of Rio Grande, on a campaign swing in the Appalachians. Mobbed by diners and news personnel, she slipped behind the counter, where she talked with the waitresses about grits, stuffed pancakes and more.

"I might as well take a few orders," she said, reaching for a pad and beginning to scrawl with a flourish.

This prompted one waitress to say Mrs. Clinton handled it like a pro.

Mrs. Clinton replied that she had been a waitress before, when she was much younger. An aide said later that Mrs. Clinton worked at a family restaurant in high school, when she lived in Park Ridge, Ill., and did a short stint at a Chinese restaurant when she was in law school at Yale. What is more, the aide said, she washed dishes in a restaurant-lodge in Alaska, on the midnight shift, in the summer of 1969.

"In case this other endeavor I'm involved in doesn't work out," Mrs. Clinton told her fellow waitresses Thursday, "I know I can come back to Bob Evans."

By Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times, February 28, 2008

BEAUMONT, Tex. - While Senator Barack Obama said he was keeping his focus on his Democratic rival, he said he would not "leave unanswered" the criticisms from Senator John McCain, the Republican front-runner.

"John McCain seems to be talking about me a lot," Mr. Obama told reporters as he flew through Texas on Thursday. "Obviously, I want to make very clear to voters in the Democratic primary that I am very confident about being able to make the case for why John McCain is looking backwards and we need to take this country forwards."

"To the extent that he's initiating this debate a little bit early - and maybe a little bit prematurely - that's something that we don't want to leave unanswered," he said.

In recent days, Mr. Obama has spent less time dwelling on his Democratic foe, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Asked if he was counting her out, he declared: "I am not. I am not. Remember New Hampshire?"

(While polls showed him with a huge lead in the Granite State, he lost to his fellow senator there.)

Mr. Obama pressed his economic message to Texas voters on Thursday in Austin and Beaumont. He was scheduled to attend an evening rally in Fort Worth. He said he was aware that he did not have the political landscape to himself.

"Senator Clinton is working tirelessly, as is Bill Clinton, in both Ohio and Texas," Mr. Obama said. "These races are extraordinarily tight and I want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to win these next two contests. That's how we've won in the past, is just focusing on what is in front of us."

In a statement, Mr. Obama responded more forcefully to the Republican criticism.

"Americans of all political persuasions are calling for change," Mr. Obama said. He added, "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will offer the clearest contrast to John McCain's call for four more years of George Bush's policies, because I want to fundamentally change our foreign policy to secure the American people and restore our standing in the world."

By Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times, February 28, 2008

Lost Amid the Stresses Are Gains in Standard of Living

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declares, "The economy is not working for middle-class and working families," noting the typical American family earns less now than it did seven years ago. Citing the same trend, her Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama, promises "to put America back on the path to prosperity." Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, says, "It is harder for families to weather hard economic times."

The candidates' pitches are aimed at wooing the vast majority of Americans who consider themselves middle class. Those people tell pollsters that they are increasingly anxious about their financial security, a feeling that has intensified in recent years because of flattening wages, rising income inequality, increasing consumer debt, soaring health-care costs, spiraling energy prices and, now, declining home values.

But as Americans' wage growth has slowed, their rate of consumption has accelerated, leaving some economists dubious about claims that the middle class is worse off than before.

"There are clearly some challenges out there, and it is easy to worry. But it is a mixed picture," said Stephen Rose, a Washington economist who is writing a book about the middle class.

Median family income in the United States has decreased about $1,000 since peaking in 2000. The income decline came after more than a quarter-century of slow growth. Between 1973 and 2000, incomes increased at just a third the rate of worker productivity, a sharp break from the previous generation when family incomes and productivity both doubled, fueling an unprecedented expansion of the middle class.

The wage stagnation experienced by many Americans has been accompanied by a sharp growth in income inequality. After-tax family income for the nation's middle tier of wage earners increased 21 percent between 1979 and 2005, to $50,200. Incomes of the top 1 percent of wage earners, meanwhile, tripled, to just over $1 million, even as the after-tax income of the bottom fifth of income earners grew just 6.3 percent, to $15,300.

Rose says that if total compensation -- which includes the increasing cost of health and other benefits -- is included, American workers have done better than census numbers would indicate. Also, he said, upward mobility allowed 13 percent more Americans to earn inflation-adjusted salaries of $100,000 in 2004 than in 1979.

And while workers change jobs more frequently than in years past, they are less likely to be laid off than in previous years, said Steven J. Davis, a University of Chicago economist who recently concluded a study on the matter. Moreover, median household net worth increased from $69,000 in 1989 to $93,000 in 2004, pushed in part by an increasing home ownership rate.

Some analysts liken the plight of the middle class to an increasingly perilous high-wire act guarded by a steadily shrinking safety net: Americans pay for a steadily improving lifestyle by sending more family members to work and by juggling more debt. The savings rate, which topped 11 percent in the early 1970s, plunged below zero in 2005, as more people turned to credit cards and home equity loans to pay their way.

Items once considered luxuries -- dishwashers, central air conditioning, video cameras -- are now common. The average size of new homes has increased 40 percent in the past generation. And as many consumer items cost less, Americans are shopping more. In 1991 the average American bought 33.7 pieces of apparel; by 2002 he or she bought 48 items, according to Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor. In 2005, she said, Americans were projected to discard more than 63 million computers.

Americans are twice as likely to travel overseas than they were in 1980, and overall they spend more than ever for other recreation, including sporting events, movies and plays -- the mark of an ever-improving quality of life, some researchers say.

"The amount of leisure enjoyed by the average American has increased substantially over the past 40 years," University of Chicago researchers Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst concluded in a recent study.

Citing that study, Heritage Foundation labor economist James Sherk wrote that the stereotype of the overworked American is mistaken. "Americans today can earn a good living while having free time to focus on their own pursuits," he said.

Few economists dispute that typical Americans have improved their standard of living in recent decades. What many worry about is whether they are squeezing themselves more than ever to sustain that lifestyle, as more of the benefits of an ever expanding economy accrue to those on the top rungs of the income ladder.

AUSTIN, Texas - Early voting in urban areas being targeted by Barack Obama has swelled to record numbers in Texas, outpacing the otherwise high turnout in areas of the state viewed as more favorable to Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy.

But a large percentage of Democrats in Clinton's targeted areas have cast early ballots, especially the heavily Hispanic areas along the Rio Grande in South Texas - indicating her strategy of wooing early voters also may be bearing fruit.

The early voting patterns are one just measure of what to expect in the state's pivotal March 4 contest. After losing 11 straight primaries and caucuses to Obama since Feb. 5, Clinton has pinned the future of her struggling candidacy on wins in Ohio and in Texas, delegate-rich, diverse states. Clinton is ahead in Ohio, but the contest in Texas is much tighter, polls indicate.

The latest early voting numbers suggest Obama is seeing great success in the big cities in Texas, which have large but limited delegate totals. Clinton's strategy is to accrue smaller delegate numbers over broader areas of the state, with the hope of topping Obama overall.

Both campaigns' efforts to have supporters vote early have produced startling images in a state that has not seen a competitive Democratic primary since 1988.

Voters have flooded early balloting locations in places like grocery stores, Kmarts and recreation centers across the state, overwhelming county election officials unaccustomed to handling such turnout. Some 512,000 people in the state's 15 largest counties have already cast votes in the Democratic contest, more than four times the level of turnout seen in 2004.

At rallies, Obama and Clinton always urge supporters to cast ballots early. Bill Clinton was even persuaded to stand on the back of a red Chevy truck after an event in El Paso, pointing to a nearby early voting location and asking supporters to cast a ballot for his wife.

"Texas is on the leading edge of early voting in this country - they have a lot more locations available and are more creative about putting them in places where people actually go," said Paul Gronke, a political scientist at Oregon's Reed College who studies early voting.

"Most other states make you go to county buildings and libraries. I am not familiar with any other state that makes locations as available as Texas does," Gronke said.

Indeed, the state's complicated electoral system has led both campaigns to push for early voting. The state holds both a primary next Tuesday and precinct caucuses later that evening, placing a burden on millions of voters who may not have time to show up twice in the same day to a voting location.

By contrast, early balloting has allowed people a 10-day window, Feb. 19 through Feb. 29, to vote in locations throughout their county. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., even on Saturday and Sunday.

Early voting is also a great organizing tool, giving the campaigns a ready-made list of people who have already voted. They can then contact those voters directly and encourage them to attend the caucuses.

"Early voting is easy voting. I wanted to get it out of the way so that if something comes up on election day, I'm set and ready to go," said Robin Schneider, 47, after casting her ballot outside an HEB grocery store in Austin. "I definitely want to show up at my polling place Tuesday night for the caucus, but that's after work. So this gets the voting part out of the way."

State election officials predict that one-third to one-half of the total Democratic primary vote will be cast early.

"Texas is in play for the first time in many years, and it's encouraging a lot of people to participate. The campaigns are also really well-organized and are paying a lot of attention to them," said Scott Haywood, a spokesman for the Texas Secretary of State's office.

Officials are collecting data on early voting each day from the state's biggest counties, offering a snapshot of turnout as it happens. They've begun seeing some distinct patterns.

The state's two largest counties - Dallas and Harris, where Houston is located - are home to educated, affluent Democrats and blacks, groups that typically favor Obama. Officials estimate that early voting turnout in those places is as much as eight to 10 times higher than it was in 2004.

"We're pleased to see a strong turnout in those counties," Obama Texas spokesman Josh Earnest said. "Our supporters are very enthusiastic and eager to get out and vote for him."

But Clinton's campaign officials warn not to make too many assumptions, noting that the majority of voters in both counties were women, many over the age of 50. Older women are among Clinton's only remaining demographic strongholds.

Meanwhile, Clinton's other stronghold, Hispanic voters, are casting early ballots at a rapid clip in South Texas and are projected to wait until primary day to vote in other parts of the state.

"If you factor it all in, overwhelmingly more women than men will vote early in this state," Clemons said. "In terms of delegate math, we're going to hold our own."

But even that prediction is risky, based on the complicated way the state apportions its 228 delegates.

Under the turnout formula, Houston gets seven delegates and Dallas gets six while the poorer Hispanic counties that tend to favor Clinton get only three. Clinton hopes to build up delegates in these smaller counties and isolate Obama to the heavily black urban areas.

"There are only so many delegates in Harris County, no matter how big a turnout Obama produces," said Bob Stein, a political scientist at Houston's Rice University who studies voter turnout. "Clinton is working to win in smaller areas across the state where there are Hispanics and not a lot of black voters."

But Stein said Clinton needs a heavy early vote showing more than Obama, noting his voters are more independent and have tended to break later. Such was the pattern in California, where Clinton dominated early voting while Obama came on strong at the end.

The fact that Obama is doing as well as he is in early voting bodes well for him, Stein added.

"The conventional wisdom suggests yeah, it favors her. But look at what's happening in Harris County," he said.

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas -- People here like to say everything is bigger in Texas, and their oversized presidential contest is no different with not just a primary election, but a caucus added on, too.

The unique combination pits Barack Obama's skill in caucus organizing against Hillary Rodham Clinton's success in big-state primary campaigns.

Their different strengths have created the remarkably close race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Obama was able to keep pace and eventually collect more convention delegates than Clinton in part by building wins in the smaller caucuses in places like North Dakota, Idaho and Minnesota. He's won 13 caucuses to her two.

Those are votes that Clinton's campaign often overlooked in pursuit of a more traditional campaign focused on racking up big primary victories in places like California, New Jersey and her home state of New York. Obama has won more primaries overall, 14 to her nine, but she won four of the five biggest prizes so far.

Texas, with 193 delegates up for grabs Tuesday, is the third-largest contest in the country and has some advantages for Clinton with its large Hispanic population and voters being more familiar with her. Of those delegates, 65 percent will come from the primary, and 35 percent from the caucus.

But Bill Clinton warned voters Wednesday that his wife could beat Obama at the polls, only to have victory snatched away later at the caucuses.

"A lot of people think Hillary will win in the day time and her opponent will come in the night and take back the votes she won," he said.

Hillary Clinton has said she thinks primaries are more fair and democratic because voters make their decisions in private polling booths, as in a general election. In the caucuses, participants must gather at a set time for sometimes lengthy party-run meetings where they publicly declare their choice, and turnout is inevitably lower.

Obama's campaign realized early on that caucus contests could be an opportunity for an upstart candidate, like himself, to build support.

Flush with cash after successful early fundraising last year, his campaign dispatched professionals to organize those states months before Clinton's campaign paid any attention to them. Despite her support from the Democratic establishment nationwide, she often was too slow to catch Obama's head start.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton spent almost three hours Wednesday trying to persuade a college gym full of Ohioans that her detailed plans to revive the failing economy can also resuscitate her dwindling campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"Obviously, the economy is the No. 1 issue in the country, and it's unbelievably important here in Ohio," said Clinton. "I think, absent any intervening circumstances, the economy will be the domestic driver with all the related issues like health care and energy costs and home foreclosures."

The former first lady said voters in key swing states are beginning to focus on "the big questions," such as bedrock economic issues, that she said will drive both the remaining Democratic nomination contests and the fall general election.

"What's important is we have a lot of people yet to vote," said Clinton. "We've got four states coming up on Tuesday, we've got 16 contests after that."

Trailing her rival Barack Obama in popular vote, committed delegates and fundraising, Clinton emphasized the struggling industrial economy throughout the upper Midwest as she swung through Ohio less than a week before its crucial primary. She is counting on her performance in the March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas to keep her candidacy afloat.

In this southeastern Ohio city that's been hammered by plant closings, she held nearly three-hour round-table on economic issues in the gymnasium of Ohio University-Zanesillve and Zane State College. In addition to political heavyweights like Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and former Sen. John Glenn who have all endorsed her, Clinton also heard tales of economic stress from workers in excruciating detail that reinforced her reputation as a policy wonk.

Robert Landry, of Dayton, told Clinton about how his home was foreclosed on Christmas Eve and the emotional struggle he faced.

"You feel alone and the bottom drops out of your whole life," said Landry. "The bottom line is you don't know what to do and you're lost."

That underscored a core message of her campaign.

"What are we going to do to improve the lives of hardworking Americans," said Clinton. "That is my mission. I see a middle-class comeback. I see it starting in places like Zanesville."

She heard Florine Mark of Weight Watchers tell stories about obese children struggling with self-image, Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher talk about state economic development and Christine Pambianchi of Corning Inc. talked about change.

Clinton praised Corning for moving into new product lines like fiber optics. "They used to make glass," she said. "If they were still about glass they wouldn't be around."

Diving into the deep details of a struggling economy was aimed at reinforcing her argument that she's ready to tackle the big problems facing the nation, compared to Obama whom she labels as inexperienced.

`What I intend to do is draw attention, not only to the problem side but the solution side," said Clinton. As the campaign moves to the industrial Midwest, voters are responding, she said.

"What I feel is happening is people are starting toward the big questions they should have to answer, who can be the best commander in chief, who do you want in the White House answering the phone at 3 a.m.," said Clinton. "I feel good about these upcoming states. What keeps me optimistic is the success I've had so far and what I think the prospects are for Tuesday."

She emphasized the value of patience and experience.

"Change does take consistent, concerted effort," said Clinton. "The people of Ohio are ready. We just need to stay with you."

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Oh. -- Just as her campaign needed to add a little zoom, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came to this colorfully named spot in eastern Ohio ready to talk about the chief topic on people's minds: The economy.

But there was nothing zippy about the economic roundtable Clinton held here on Wednesday, with six days of campaigning left until the Mar. 4 primary.

Joined by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and former Sen. John Glenn, Clinton listened patiently as the real-world participants who had been invited to speak described their financial challenges.

"I think you learn more when you're listening than when you're talking," Clinton said, invoking the tour she took during her 2000 Senate race. The event was invitation-only, closed to the public, with just a few hundred guests.

While Clinton was politely comparing Ohio to the landscape she has encountered in upstate New York (a place whose job losses since she took office Clinton was asked about during a debate on Tuesday night), her campaign issued a memo accusing Sen. Barack Obama of being all talk on the subject of national security.
The tough-talk Clinton memo said the public had seen "a glimpse of the real Barack Obama" in the debate, accusing him of failing to carry out his responsibilities as the chairman of a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee by not holding hearings related to Afghanistan.

But Clinton did not join the fray -- instead sticking to her script, which involved doing very little talking herself.

She heard from a seemingly random assortment of guests, including a Texas woman who runs an organization dedicated to advancing Latinos and a man from Rocky River, Ohio, who has worked at General Motors for 40 years.

"Do you know how many kids are failing school because they're fat?" asked Florine Mark, president of the Weight Watchers Group, Inc., one of 13 people who sat on the panel onstage.

Clinton nodded and listened. Clinton shared her own experiences as a student going to gym class, pointing to former Sen. Glenn as "one of the real examples of physical fitness" as they discussed the importance of prevention in health care.

Meanwhile, Obama and Sen. John McCain were exchanging sharp words over Iraq -- a debate that Clinton did not, at least initially, choose to join in.

By Anne E. Kornblut, The Washington Post, February 27, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's half delegate has a new friend - one of equal stature no less.

The Democrats Abroad, a group sanctioned by the national party, has confounded delegate counters, graphic artists and political journalists since it awarded Clinton 1.5 delegates from its global primary last week. How do you explain that Clinton has 1,276.5 delegates?

Explain no more. Clinton picked up a half superdelegate on Wednesday, increasing her overall total to 1,277.

The anomaly happened because the Democrats Abroad will send 22 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, each with a half vote. The system is designed to enable the group to send more people to the convention, without inflating its voting power.

The global primary, in which expatriates voted by mail, fax and the Internet, awarded nine delegates, with a total of 4.5 votes. Sen. Barack Obama won three delegate votes and Clinton won 1.5.

Democratic parties in U.S. territories use similar systems, in which they send twice the number of delegates, giving them each a half vote. But their systems are designed to ensure that that candidates do not end up with fractions of delegates.

The Democrats Abroad take it a step further. They also have twice the number of superdelegates - eight - and they each get a half vote. Superdelegates are elected and party officials who can vote for whomever they choose at the convention, regardless of the outcome of the primaries.

The Associated Press surveyed the Democrats Abroad superdelegates this week and found that four supported Obama and one supported Clinton. That's two votes for Obama, and a half vote for Clinton. The other three had not responded.

Clinton lost a superdelegate to Obama on Wednesday when Rep. John Lewis of Georgia became the fourth one to switch from Clinton to Obama. None have gone the other way, according to the AP tally.

But Clinton replaced Lewis with superdelegate Elizabeth Smith of Washington, who confirmed Wednesday that she will support the New York senator.

That gives Obama 1,375 delegates, to 1,277 for Clinton.

The breakdown:

Pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses: Obama, 1,187; Clinton, 1,035.5.

Superdelegates: Obama, 188; Clinton, 241.5.

It takes 2,025 delegates to claim the Democratic nomination.

Robert Bell, the new half superdelegate for Clinton who lives in Toronto, said he has no problem getting only half a vote at the convention.

"We're not discriminated against in any way," Bell said in a telephone interview.

Bell's endorsement of Clinton, however, is only a temporary solution to the half delegate issue. The Democrats Abroad are scheduled to hold their global convention April 12, when they will award their final 2.5 delegate votes.

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

Hillary Clinton adopted a sharper tone as she came face to face with Barack Obama in a bid to revive her ailing campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

But she never achieved a "knockout blow", US political pundits have said. The former First Lady's campaign is struggling as her rival takes advantage of momentum from wins in the last 11 contests in the race to the White House.

Tuesday night's debate, the 20th of the Democratic contest so far, was the last before next week's crucial contests in Texas and Ohio.

Former president Bill Clinton has even said publicly his wife probably needs to win both of them on March 4 if she is to win the nomination.

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, called the debate a "tense encounter" and added that Mrs Clinton "showed her frustration" in the "high-stakes" battle.

Writing in the Washington Post's political blog The Fix, Chris Cillizza said neither candidate "scored a knockout or even a knockdown".

"Clinton dominated much of the debate - for good or bad," he said. "She repeatedly sought to take the fight to Obama ... But Obama successfully parried most of Clinton's offence and even turned some of her aggressiveness against her."

For the Los Angeles Times, the debate was a "nudge match" which saw each candidate "trying to push the other off balance, but neither of them struck knockout blows".

Stephen Braun wrote: "It was billed as Hillary Rodham Clinton's last chance to revive her flagging campaign, and she gave it her best shot. Yet judging from Obama's unruffled composure and measured responses through much of the debate, that moment of truth never came."

The Caucus, the New York Times' political blog, noted it was a "debate of several strong, sharp moments that may not have added up to a game-changer for Mrs Clinton but it gave her a chance to get back to basics".

The Press Association, February 28, 2008

HANGING ROCK, Ohio - Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign raised $35 million in February, its biggest monthly haul ever -- but far short of the $50 million Barack Obama was expected to raise over the same period.

About $30 million came online from small donors in the days following Clinton's January announcement she had loaned her campaign $5 million from her share of the family wealth. Clinton is using her new cash to pay for do-or-die campaigns in Ohio and Texas -- and hasn't paid herself back, she told reporters here Thursday.

"I was sure excited by the generosity of thousands of new donors," said Clinton after hosting a town hall on rural poverty in this hard-hit Appalachian Ohio town. "It's incredibly gratifying to see people coming forward with their vote of confidence. It was very heartening to see the outpouring of support."

Obama is on pace to raise $50 million in February -- a record for monthly fundraising in a primary, according to a person familiar with his fundraising. Obama press secretary Bill Burton wouldn't confirm that amount but did say, "We raised considerably more than Clinton."

A day after Georgia Rep. John Lewis defected to Obama, Clinton suffered the loss of another Georgia superdelegate Thursday when Savannah congressman John Barrow announced he too was switching to the Illinois senator.

Still, Clinton's national campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe saw the number as proof that the former first lady is still viable despite losing 11 consecutive primary and caucus contests.

"Hillary Clinton's not going anywhere," he said during a conference call with reporters and supporters. "Hillary's going to one place. She's going to Denver as the Democratic Party nominee."

The windfall represents a radical shift for a Clinton fundraising strategy long predicated on attracting a relatively small group of large contributors. About 200,000 new donors gave an average of $100 each, most of them galvanized by word of loan to the campaign.

All but $1 million can be used in her primary campaign.

Clinton spent yesterday in economically depressed southeast Ohio, a region that has been hard hit by the foreclosure crisis and the loss of industrial jobs. She began her day visiting with nine residents of Pomeroy, where the poverty rate tops 20 percent, double the state average.

Bryan Holman, a 40-year-old correction officer, asked Clinton if her proposed mandate that all Americans sign up for health insurance would result in fines if he failed to pay premiums -- as Obama has charged.

"That's misleading -- that's not at all what's going to happen," she said. "It would be limited to a very small percentage of your income, like 6 or 7 percent. You would pay that and then you would have access to health insurance."

Clinton distanced herself from Delfa Callejo, an 84-year-old Hispanic leader from Dallas who was quoted as saying that, "Obama's problem is that he happens to be black." After initially refusing to renounce the statement during a TV interview Wednesday, Clinton's campaign put out a statement yesterday saying, "After confirming that they were accurately portrayed, Sen. Clinton, of course, denounces and rejects them."

By GLENN THRUSH, Newsday, February 28, 2008

It's tough to imagine Hillary Clinton giving up her conservative pantsuits and perfect hair for a cowboy hat and holsters on each hip. And so far she hasn't.

But like a gunslinger out of America's mythical past, Texas is where she is making her stand.

Clinton's campaign is in trouble. Barak Obama has beaten her in eleven consecutive primaries and is ahead in votes, opinion polls and money.

Tuesday, voters will decide in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island. Even Bill Clinton has publicly acknowledged that "If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If (they) don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be."

Texas is the state to watch, though, because it awards more delegates than any other state still in play and, because, it's Texas - a place with the perfect poetry for a one-on-one do-or-die contest between two determined rivals. Have you ever heard of a shoot-out in Ohio?

Clinton knows Texas

Back in 1972, when she was still in law school, she volunteered to recruit voters along the Rio Grande. Even she concedes that "Hispanics in South Texas were, understandably, wary of a blond girl from Chicago who didn't speak a word of Spanish."

But she persevered. She made friends in Texas politics and cultivated them while husband Bill was governor of neighboring Arkansas and then president.

Obama hasn't got that history, but he has excitement. And Texas has strange rules: excitement is an asset.

Bill Clinton jokes that "Texas is the only place in America where you can vote twice in the same election without going to jail.''

He's right - Texans can cast a ballot in a voting booth and then vote again at a caucus meeting.

Who would care enough to turn-out twice? People who care passionately about their candidate - Obama supporters.

A few months ago, Hillary Clinton had a clear lead in the public opinion polls conducted in Texas. Now it's a statistical dead heat.

The outcome Tuesday could either restore her campaign, or end it entirely.

Texas may be No Country for Old Men. But it's crucial country for Clinton.

By Jonathan Mann, CNN, February 28, 2008

CLEVELAND - Hillary Rodham Clinton went on the attack to halt Barack Obama's momentum Tuesday night -- but she saved her sharpest blow of a bruising Ohio debate for the news media, accusing MSNBC's moderators of coddling the Illinois senator.

Clinton, who has lost 11 straight contests and her front-runner status, didn't score a knockout, with an unruffled and confident Obama parrying her point by point during a contentious 90-minute showdown at Cleveland State University.

But it wasn't for lack of trying. An aggressive Clinton spent most of her time criticizing his positions on health care, Afghanistan and economic reform, while accusing him of not forcefully rejecting the support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, after Obama said he denounced the minister's anti-Semitic statements.

"If the word 'reject' is important, I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce," he said, vowing to rebuild what he called a "frayed" relationship between blacks and Jews.

Obama, taking a page from Clinton's conciliatory final statement in last week's Texas debate, said Clinton would be a "worthy nominee" who "would be a much better president than John McCain."

In a startling expression of her campaign's bitterness toward what they perceive as a pro-Obama bias in the news media, Clinton suggested the moderators were giving Obama preferential treatment. As proof, she cited a "Saturday Night Live" skit portraying journalists fawning over Obama.

"In the last several debates I seem to get the first question all the time -- and I don't mind," Clinton said when moderator Brian Williams asked her about her stance on NAFTA.

"If you saw 'Saturday Night Live' last Saturday, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and get him another pillow," she quipped as some in the crowd booed.

The debate, staged with the candidates sitting at a conference table, had the air of a job interview, with moderator Tim Russert grilling both on a range of issues, often forcing them to defend statements they made in video clips.

The Illinois senator took his own shots at Clinton, suggesting that she whined about campaign fliers slamming her positions on health care and NAFTA.

"I have endured over the course over this camp repeated negative mail ... on the other hand I don't fault Sen. Clinton," he said. "We haven't whined about it because that's the nature of these campaigns."

Obama also sharpened his attack on Clinton's 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion, accusing her of having "facilitated and enabled" George Bush to "drive the bus into a ditch."

Clinton still holds a 6- to 7-point lead in Ohio, according to polls released this week. But that's down from double-digit lead two weeks ago -- and her once-solid lead in Texas has evaporated.

She repeated her denial that her campaign circulated a photo of Obama wearing Somali tribal garb and Obama accepted, saying, "I take Sen. Clinton at her word."

Earlier in the day, Clinton's national finance chairman Terry McAuliffe told a business group in Madison, Wis., that it "sure is" possible Obama and the former first lady would be running mates -- although he didn't specify who would top the ticket.

A few hours before the debate, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd endorsed Obama, saying, "It's now the hour to come together. ... This is the moment for Democrats and independents and others to come together, to get behind this candidacy."

By GLENN THRUSH, Newsday, February 26, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Ohio - Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday held an economic summit and discussed her plans to fix the home foreclosure crisis, reinvest in a sagging manufacturing sector and help students pay for college.

The roundtable, with 15 panelists and an audience of 300, kicked off the Democratic candidate's two-day tour of Appalachian Ohio.

Mrs. Clinton promised to close tax loopholes that benefit companies moving jobs overseas, reinvest in the manufacturing sector, put a moratorium on home foreclosures, and create 5 million "green collar" jobs in the clean energy industry.

"I think we've got some great opportunities here. We hear a lot about the problems and they are serious, but I believe for every problem there is at least one solution," Mrs. Clinton said.

"We just have to start acting like Americans again, and roll up our sleeves and actually solve our problems. No more whining, no more finger pointing. Let's get to work."

Mrs. Clinton assembled plenty of horse power for the Zanesville summit: two governors, two lieutenant governors, former U.S. Sen. John Glenn, labor leaders and business executives, as well as Robert Landry and Beth Dlabay of Dayton, who lost their home to foreclosure on Christmas Eve.

Mrs. Clinton said she invited Mr. Landry and Ms. Dlabay to put a face on the staggering numbers: 150,000 home foreclosures in Ohio last year and 13,000 notices sent out in January.

The Dallas Morning News, February 27, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Ohio, Feb. 27 -- Aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), coming to terms with the idea that she must win contests in both Texas and Ohio next week or face enormous pressure to drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, are pouring all of the campaign's dwindling resources into the March 4 primaries.

With each passing day, her climb appears steeper. The latest setback came Wednesday when, after weeks of equivocation, Rep. John Lewis of Goergia, a civil rights leader, officially switched his support from Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Despite a subdued mood inside her campaign, Clinton soldiered on Wednesday, holding an economic roundtable in Ohio, and her dash across the two states will culminate in a "Texas-size" town hall event to be broadcast on cable next Monday.

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, who is backing Clinton, said the New York senator would win his state's April 22 primary, the next major contest on the calendar after March 4, if she were to beat Obama in Texas and Ohio on Tuesday. Without those victories, he said, the campaign will not get to Pennsylvania.

Rendell accepted the conclusion of former president Bill Clinton, who said recently that his wife must win both states to keep her candidacy viable. "I'm assuming the only way to proceed on is, as President Clinton says" to carry both big states, Rendell said in an interview. "I'm not close enough to the campaign, I don't know their monetary situation, I don't know any of that. But from a vantage point of a supporter who's not in the inner circle of the campaign, I think that would make sense."

Other Clinton supporters also see the importance of Tuesday's results.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, another Clinton backer, said winning Texas and Ohio, even narrowly, would change the dynamic of the race and, given the nature of this battle, could lead to more surprises. But he said victories Tuesday are crucial.

"I think that Senator Clinton has to stop Senator Obama's momentum and start picking up some momentum of her own in order to turn around the dynamic," he said in an interview.

Does that mean winning both, he was asked? "That's the expectation. There are only so many states left, and I think the math is such that, yes, I think she probably needs to win them both."

Clinton advisers anticipate that she will come under immediate pressure from prominent supporters to consider leaving the race if she loses on Tuesday. That pressure probably would be conveyed privately at first, but quickly become public if she fails to heed the message.

A split decision Tuesday would be likely to lead to similar pressure, her advisers said. Only by gaining ground against Obama in the delegate fight would she find the justification to keep going. Aides described Clinton as realistic about her precarious standing.

Clinton was dealt a blow when she learned that Lewis, who had declared for her early in the process, would reverse course to back Obama. Confusion had arisen a week earlier when Lewis said he might do just that but his office denied it. The Obama campaign issued a statement after the endorsement became official. "John Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the civil rights movement, and I am deeply honored to have his support," Obama said in the release.

Inside the Obama team, the mood Wednesday was a mixture of relief that the last scheduled debate with Clinton was over, believing their candidate delivered a solid performance, and wariness about where the Ohio and Texas races are headed.

"We believe we're going to do well, but we just don't know," said David Axelrod, Obama's senior political adviser. Given the many twists and turns of the Democratic race so far, he added, "I don't think anyone at this point feels comfortable making predictions."

Internal polling shows Obama trailing in both states, although the gap is narrowing. The Obama game plan for the next six days is simple: Combine personal appearances with heavy advertising and strong grass-roots organizing, and hope that late deciders break their way. Obama officials are more optimistic about Texas, where Clinton's natural working-class white constituency constitutes a smaller portion of the electorate. Obama is also significantly outspending Clinton on television advertising in Texas and Ohio, and his advertising edge has been compounded by a raft of commercials being aired by two labor unions that are supporting him.

Since the candidates began advertising in the two states around Feb. 12, Obama has spent a bit more than $7 million, while Clinton has spent about $4 million, according to Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks network advertising. Obama was running far more ads over the past two weeks, but in recent days, the two candidates have been on a similar footing.

The Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers now have spots in major Texas markets airing in English and Spanish, and they are blanketing most of the major Ohio markets.

Tracey said the damage may already be done. "Obama's had a very big and significant running head start in these states," he said.

Obama returned to Texas on Wednesday afternoon and will campaign around the state until Saturday morning, targeting suburban areas outside of major cities where the delegate allocation is disproportionately large because of a weighted distribution system based on turnout in previous elections. Obama held a town hall meeting in Duncanville, outside of Dallas, in the late afternoon, then flew to Austin for a late-evening event in San Marcos.

Clinton, meanwhile, was joined at an economic roundtable in Zanesville yesterday by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D), New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) and former senator John Glenn (D-Ohio).

Clinton's campaign issued a memo Wednesday accusing Obama of being all talk on the subject of national security. The tough-talk Clinton memo said the public had seen "a glimpse of the real Barack Obama" in the debate, accusing him of failing to carry out his responsibilities as the chairman of a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee by not holding hearings related to Afghanistan.

By Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray, The Washington Post, February 28, 2008

Six days before Hillary Rodham Clinton puts her political future on the line in Ohio and Texas, one pressing question remains: What qualifies as a "win" next Tuesday?

Is a victory official only if Clinton claims victories over Barack Obama in both Ohio and Texas AND secures more delegates than the Illinois senator?

Is it a win if she narrowly carries the raw vote in both Ohio and Texas but loses the delegate race in Texas -- a unique possibility given the primary-caucus mix the state uses to allocate delegates?

What about if she splits the two states? Winning Ohio but losing Texas? Or vice versa?

Former president Bill Clinton made clear where he stands on the question last week during a speech in Beaumont, Texas. "If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee," the former president said. "If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be. It's all on you."

Is the former president right? Are Ohio and Texas must-wins? Seeking some guidance, The Fix spoke with a handful of top Democratic strategists who remain unaligned in the contest. Most spoke with their names attached (hooray!) while a few did not (boo!). Their responses generally fell into two different categories:

* Two Wins Plus: It's easy to forget amid the full-court coverage of Ohio and Texas that Vermont and Rhode Island also hold primaries on March 4. Clinton has generally run strong in the Northeast to date, and several party strategists said that she has to win at least one of the two New England states -- in addition to Ohio and Texas -- to keep her campaign viable.

"To declare victory, she needs to win both states and more delegates on March 4," said Steve Murphy, a former senior adviser to the presidential bid of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. "A win in Rhode Island would help too."

Doug Schoen, a former partner of Clinton pollster Mark Penn, echoed that sentiment. "My own sense is that she needs to win Rhode Island and Ohio certainly and convincingly," said Schoen. As for Texas, Schoen argued that Clinton "needs to win the popular vote by some margin, however small."

Given the fact that Clinton has lost ten straight contests to Obama, that she now trails by double digits in national polling and that she is being outspent on television almost everywhere by Obama, winning three out of four March 4 contests seems like a stretch. Of course, a victory in the New Hampshire primary last month also seemed far-fetched until it happened.

* Win the Big States Big: Forget Vermont and Rhode Island -- all that matters are the margins in Ohio and Texas.

This theory, espoused by the likes of former John Edwards campaign manager Joe Trippi, puts significant emphasis not just on Clinton winning in the big states but winning by wider-than-expected margins. "She has to win big," said Trippi, pointing out that because of Texas Democrats' arcane rules a small margin for Clinton likely means Obama will walk away from the state with more delegates. "She has to win big to prevent that," added Trippi. "Two narrow wins won't be enough."

Mark Mellman, a prominent Democratic pollster, said that while Clinton could certainly declare victory if she won both Ohio and Texas narrowly, it would be a hard case to make given the delegate reality. "At one level, if she wins both states she's a 'winner'," said Mellman. "But in reality, winning delegates is the coin of the realm and she's got to be closing that delegate gap in a meaningful way."

Speaking of that delegate gap, here's a reminder of where things stand. Obama has 1,370 delegates to Clinton's 1,274 delegates. At stake in Texas are 228 delegates -- 126 of which will be handed out proportionally based on the candidates' showings in the 31 state senate districts; another 67 will be doled out at a caucus/convention in early June. Ohio has 162 delegates at stake in its primary.

What's clear from our conversations is that the expectation among party poobahs is that Clinton needs -- at a minimum -- popular vote victories in Ohio and Texas to continue her campaign until the next big showdown in Pennsylvania in late April.

We couldn't find a single person who thought Clinton could/should go on if she split the raw vote with Obama in Ohio and Texas. "Right now it feels like air going out of a tire very slowly and you'd have to believe that they could not hold the superdelegates with a loss in either [state]," said one Democratic consultant granted anonymity to speak openly.

Not everyone was so down on Clinton's prospects. Nick Baldick, a senior party strategist and campaign manager for Edwards's 2004 race, said that if Clinton can manage to win Ohio and Texas, she would effectively overturn the expectations game played by the media -- a turnabout that would dramatically reshape the race and greatly increase her chances.

"Considering the expectations the press has set for her, if Senator Clinton wins both it will shock them and then the game is back on and everyone heads to Pennsylvania," said Baldick.

Six days and counting...

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, February 27, 2008

In a debate often defined by sharp clashes between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the final 20 minutes were largely cordial, as both candidates sounded vaguely wistful about a campaign that has gone on far longer than either of them expected.

Asked to describe what question Clinton would have to answer to be chosen the party's nominee and the eventual president, Obama demurred -- choosing instead to offer extended words of praise for the New York senator.

"Senator Clinton has campaigned magnificently," Obama said. "She is an outstanding public servant. I think she would be worthy as a nominee."

Almost half-heartedly, Obama lapsed into his standard stump pitch for why he would be better. "I can bring this country together in a unique way," he said.

Clinton, asked the same question of Obama, seemed to project forward to what things might look like if she comes up short in the nomination fight -- reprising her stick-to-it-tiveness following her inability to pass universal health care through the Congress in the early 1990s.

Of Obama she said: "Both of us feel strongly about our country. Both of us bring enormous commitment and energy to this race." Perhaps catching herself, Clinton quickly added: "I still plan to do everything I can do to win."

We'll be back tomorrow with our standard rundown of the winners and losers from tonight's proceedings, but here are a few initial thoughts:

* Neither candidate scored a knockout or even a knockdown. That's probably good news for Obama, who came into the debate on a roll and simply wanted to make it through the night without breaking that momentum.

* Clinton dominated much of the debate -- for good or bad. She repeatedly sought to take the fight to Obama over his campaign tactics, his commitment to universal health care, his alleged naivete on foreign affairs, and even his initial unwillingness to use the word "reject" when decrying the endorsement he received from Louis Farrakhan. But Obama successfully parried most of Clinton's offense and even turned some of her aggressiveness against her -- as when he painted the difference between rejecting and denouncing Farrakhan as part of the old politics he was running to change.

* Republicans will likely be pleased with at least two of Obama's answers tonight. On public financing for the general election, Obama insisted he would "sit down with John McCain and make sure we have a system that works for everyone." Maybe. But if Republicans see this as an issue where they can paint Obama as a flip-flopper or as a candidate who says one thing and does another, they won't give him the chance to sit down with their nominee. Second, pressed on his rating by National Journal magazine as the most liberal senator in 2007, Obama's answer ("People don't want to go back to those old categories of what's liberal and what's conservative") left something to be desired. Presidential elections are the most partisan of all, and it's hard to see how Obama's current answer on one of the main Republican talking points for the fall will convince those skeptical about his ideology.

* The grueling debate schedule is impacting The Fix's health and social life. To wit, here's what the Fix ate tonight: 1/2 block of cheddar cheese, seven chicken tenders, one Diet Coke with lime, one bottle of Poland Spring sparkling water (raspberry lime flavor). Not exactly the dinner of champions.

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, February 26, 2008

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debated for the 20th time Tuesday night about health care, trade, Iraq and their own campaign tactics. And though it sometimes took a magnifying glass to measure their differences on policy, the distinctions in their personal styles were visible from satellite.

Clinton was clearly intent on positioning herself as a fighter who could take on Republicans in the fall and all enemies, foreign and domestic, after that. Obama by contrast seemed far more interested in establishing himself as a cool conciliator, who could bridge the differences that divide his party and the nation.

The 90-minute affair, sponsored by MSNBC and held on the campus of Cleveland State University, had most of the same features we have come to expect of the last round of Clinton-Obama debates: strong jabs, deep dives into health care policy, pointed arguments over the meaning of words—and another cordial, high-road finish.

For most of the debate Obama, taking advantage of his front-runner status, played good, error-free baseball as Clinton tried to score on him from every imaginable direction. Beyond that, the tenor of the evening depended in part on what you were shopping for. Clinton tried time and again to draw sharp distinctions between herself and Obama, and argue that the differences matter; while Obama, turning aside most of the distinctions large or small, used his time to rise above the arguments, elevate the conversation and invoke the larger causes that dominate his campaign speeches. In this regard, Obama narrowly but unmistakably outpointed Clinton, with the potentially decisive Ohio and Texas primaries less than a week away.

The emotional high point in the debate came on a discussion of the Iraq war, when Clinton accused Obama of having given a good speech against the war at first but then, in essence, having an identical record to hers' after he came to the Senate. Obama dismissed that argument dramatically, saying Iraq "was a big strategic blunder" and then arguing that Clinton "facilitated and enabled" George W. Bush in driving "the bus into the ditch."

Shown a tape of her mocking Obama on the stump for being naive about politics, Clinton said, "I was having a little fun. The larger point is that I know that trying to get health insurance for every Americans that's affordable is not gonna be easy... I know it takes a fighter." Emphasizing her skills as a fighter, the Clinton campaign had clearly calculated, would help her in economically stricken Ohio.

But Obama, in response, came very close to implying that Clinton has at times seen her role as that of only a fighter. "I have made it clear that hope is not enough. What I also believe is that the only way we are going to get this stuff done is to mobilize the American people so that they pay attention to what their government is doing. There is nothing romantic or silly about that."

There were moments when the debate was about the debate itself: Clinton complained early on that she seemed to get all the questions first - suggesting that this trend gave her opponent more time to formulate an answer, and echoing her campaign's recent line of attack that the media has given Obama a free ride. That was a somewhat curious complaint from someone running for President, but may have been an effort to pick up some last-minute support from female voters.

At times, Obama showed a lawyer's flair for conceding the small points that aren't worth arguing about. This pattern was most visible in an unexpected exchange over whether Obama has sufficiently distanced himself from Louis Farrakhan's expressions of support for his candidacy. After Obama had said he has long denounced Farrakhan's anti-Semitic statements, Clinton said Obama had to do more and flat-out reject his support. Obama, sensing a tiny opening that Clinton had carved in his performance, asked whether there was much of a semantic difference between the words "reject" and "denounce," but then defused the situation by ceding the point to Clinton and agreeing to do both.

Clinton seemed intent upon painting Obama as unready to be commander in chief, criticizing her opponent for not holding oversight hearings of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and suggesting Obama had once talked of bombing Pakistan. Obama criticized Clinton for voting for the war; Clinton criticized Obama for voting for "Dick Cheney's energy bill." Obama dodged a question from Tim Russert about whether he would abide by a promise to accept public financing in a general election campaign, while Clinton vowed to release her personal tax returns "upon becoming the nominee." If not sooner, she added.

The two candidates played to a draw during their 16-minute discussion of their respective health care plans and how each of their campaigns had used accurate or inaccurate allegations to describe them. Nor did the conversation about NAFTA and who was most for it or against it yield a lot of clarity, though Obama's record on the issue is less muddled than Clinton's.

At the end, each candidate threw a bouquet at the other, a now predictable - and shrewd - coda for both of them, whether they were in a conciliatory or a fighting mood.

By Michael Duffy, Time, February 27, 2008

Republicans owe Hillary our gratitude. She has road-tested several versions of attacks on Obama that don't work. Obviously, and first, don't come out against change and hope -- the perennial themes of successful election campaigns. In 1984, even my old boss Ronald Reagan campaigned for re-election in response to the claim that America needed to change, on the words: "We ARE the change," as well as on the hopeful theme of "morning in America."

If a candidate is not for change, he is not for us. It has been almost two centuries since Prince von Metternich gained the first ministry of the Hapsburg's Austrian empire by assuring the emperor that his administration consciously would avoid any "innovation."

Nor will Americans ever vote for presidential candidates based on what the candidates have done for us already. In American politics, gratitude is always the lively expectation of benefits yet to come. The question is always, What will you do for us tomorrow? Americans will not give Sen. McCain the White House because we are grateful for his heroism 40 years ago at the Hanoi Hilton. We are grateful, and he was heroic. Americans might gladly vote for him to receive a medal, or even an opulent retirement home, but not the presidency.

Beyond these obvious points, Republicans should learn from Hillary's campaign that Obama is remarkably adept at ridiculing the old style of campaigning. He cheerfully and in a cool, understated tone will slice and dice overly broad charges, such as Hillary's "inexperience" taunt or her ill-considered "words vs. action" charge. (And by the way, after seven years of Bush's verbal infelicity, there is a hunger for eloquence. Moreover, eloquence is good. Consider Lincoln, FDR, Churchill, Reagan -- even Bill Clinton in a cheesy, insincere way.) Obama must have been tempted to use that old Humphrey Bogart line, when Bogart asked of someone who couldn't keep up with him: "What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?")

Overly broad charges against him are dangerous. Republicans will make a mistake if they take to calling him "too liberal for America." He is too liberal, but they need to make the charge specific point by specific point. If they try to pigeonhole him as a liberal, he will refuse to perch in such a hole. He is a golden falcon, not a fat pigeon. He will swoop down verbally on his accuser and point out how he is not liberal at all on that point -- but his accuser's record is.

For instance, if he is accused of being in bed with the teachers union, he will point out (even while still in his pajamas after a motel night with the union, metaphorically speaking) that he once told a Milwaukee newspaper he was open to considering vouchers -- even though he is against them -- if it would be good for the kids. Make no mistake, this guy isn't only good with inspirational rhetoric; when it comes to policy slipperiness, he makes Bill Clinton look slow-witted and honest.

The overall lesson to take away from the Democratic primary season so far is that big charges against Obama backfire on the accuser. Beware of Hillary's ill-fated decision to play Sonny Liston to Obama's Cassius Clay. (Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali after the first Liston fight.) In that fight, Sonny Liston threw slow, heavy roundhouse punches, which Clay easily slipped while delivering a flurry of combinations at the off-balance Liston. Sound familiar?

When Liston refused to respond to the seventh-round bell (claiming a sore shoulder), Clay stood up, shouting, "I am the greatest! I shook up the world!" Whether Hillary refuses to compete after the March 4 bell (perhaps on the claim of a sore head), we don't know yet. But we can be sure that Obama is too disciplined to scream to the world that he is "the greatest." Although it would not surprise any of us if he thinks to himself as he looks into the mirror while shaving: "Am I good or what!"

If Obama can be defeated, it will not be with a meat cleaver but with a surgeon's scalpel. This is difficult in a national campaign in which the public, almost of necessity, must be communicated with by slogans. But Obama is the master responding to blustery charges with wry, dry irony.

The Republicans must systematically make a hundred tightly argued, irrefutable critiques of very specific examples of Obama's policy being wrong for at least 60 percent of America.

America may be going through one of our episodic style shifts. In 1932, FDR's conversational style trumped Hoover's old oratory. In 1960, JFK's coolness and wit caught the emerging post-World War II sophistication of our culture. Twenty years later America, tired of sophisticated cynicism, was ready to return to Reagan's old-fashioned sentiments and values.

Obama is tapping into a curious alchemy of youthful idealism tempered by Internet edginess. Republicans must communicate their values and policies through that prism, or they will not communicate at all.

By Tony Blankley, Real Clear Politics, February 27, 2008

The big-state primaries in Ohio and Texas are less than a week away, yet Sen. Hillary Clinton has already forfeited.

Oh, she's still running against fellow Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination - harder and nastier than ever, in fact.

But through a long and growing list of blunders, slights and nefarious maneuvers, Mrs. Clinton has forfeited her right to any remaining benefit of the doubt from Democratic voters.

She forfeited her "readiness to lead" image when she had to reluctantly and belatedly fire Patti Solis Doyle because the Clinton campaign manager's leadership style created a dysfunctional atmosphere for top staffers. Are we to believe the New York senator is ready to "lead on Day One" a massive bureaucracy of recalcitrant federal employees when she cannot properly lead a far smaller staff of dedicated loyalists?

Mrs. Clinton also had to loan herself money for failing to manage her finances properly. When things looked bleak on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Clinton staffers gave assurances that her campaign was paid in full through the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries. But we now know that little, if anything, was budgeted for the 11-state contest to follow because Team Clinton apparently expected to have wrapped up the nomination by then. A $100 million campaign, mind you, is a pittance compared with a $2.5 trillion federal budget.

Then there is the matter of deploying her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to play the race card. Three days before the South Carolina primary, I attended an event at which Mr. Clinton opened his remarks by boasting that the Palmetto State gave him only his second primary win in 1992, at a moment when his nomination seemed imperiled. Yet three days later, on the morning of the primary, Mr. Clinton made a semi-coded reference to the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the 1984 and 1988 winner of that state's primary, as if to imply that South Carolina merely goes for the black candidate.

Along with the earlier "false premise" and "fairy tale" sneers lobbed at Mr. Obama, Mr. Clinton made plain his willingness to destroy the Democrats' multiracial coalition if he and his wife couldn't lead it.

Mrs. Clinton further forfeits the respect of millions of Democrats when, every time she loses a state nominating contest, her strategists offer some creative new excuse as to why that defeat was irrelevant.

Caucus states don't count. Red states don't count. States in which she didn't mount any serious effort don't count. In short: States that she didn't win and the Democrats who live there? Well, they don't count.

Mrs. Clinton also forfeited the trust of Democrats with her transparent attempt to steal delegates not actually won in the two noncontests in Michigan and Florida. Her campaign agreed last year to the Democratic National Committee's ruling that any state except Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina that moved its primary ahead of Feb. 5 would not have its delegates seated at this summer's Democratic National Convention.

Now she wants to ignore that decision, a ploy that should offend every capital-D Democrat and any small-d democrat disgusted by the 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore.

Mrs. Clinton is trailing in pledged delegates won thus far. She has won fewer states than Mr. Obama, and fewer total votes cast in those states. Though she leads among superdelegates, five weeks ago she had pledges from 71 percent of all superdelegates announced for either her or Mr. Obama, but that share has slipped to 57 percent. National polls also show her faring worse than Mr. Obama would in potential match-ups with Republican Sen. John McCain in November. A recent Iowa poll shows her trailing Mr. McCain in that swing state by nine points but Mr. Obama leading the Arizona senator by 17 points - a 26-point differential.

The message is clear and becoming clearer: A growing number of Democrats, even those who like Mrs. Clinton personally and respect her as a public servant, have seen enough. They want the Clinton machine to just go away - to forfeit for real.

By Thomas F. Schaller, The Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2008

Clinton and Obama Clash Over Tactics In Ohio Showdown

CLEVELAND, Feb. 26 -- In their final debate before critical primaries in Ohio and Texas, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton clashed sharply on familiar ground, arguing Tuesday night over who has the better health-care plan, who has been right about Iraq and who would move most aggressively to rethink trade policy as president.

In contrast to their debate five days ago in Texas, Clinton and Obama butted heads from the opening moments, starting with a clash over whether the senator from Illinois had mischaracterized her plan for universal health care in his campaign mailings, and continuing throughout the 90-minute session.

"We should have a good debate that uses accurate information, not false, misleading and discredited information, especially on something as important as whether or not we will achieve quality, affordable health care for everyone," said Clinton (N.Y.).

Obama pushed back with equal aggressiveness. "Senator Clinton has, in her campaign at least, has constantly sent out negative attacks on us, e-mail, robo-calls [prerecorded telephone messages], fliers, television ads, radio calls, and we haven't whined about it, because I understand that's the nature of this campaign," he said.

The tone of the debate was generally civil but rarely relaxed. Throughout, there was no mistaking the stakes involved for the candidates, especially Clinton, who has lost every contest since the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses of Feb. 5. Polls show Clinton and Obama in a very competitive race in Texas, while Clinton holds a narrow lead in Ohio. Obama has closed the gap with Clinton in both states.

Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, has said that she must win both Ohio and Texas in order to keep her campaign going, and throughout the debate Clinton pressed her rival and displayed the greater sense of urgency about getting her points across. Unless she wins both states by wide margins, Obama will still hold a lead in pledged delegates to the national convention.

The debate -- the 20th involving the Democratic presidential candidates in the past 10 months -- did little to change the overall shape of the race, which may play to Obama's advantage but will also make the final six days of campaign crucial to both candidates. Earlier in the day, Obama picked up the endorsement of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, who dropped out of the race for the nomination in January.

Clinton's frustration with her political situation flashed through early on, when she noted that she seemed to always get the first questions in these debates and made a reference to a "Saturday Night Live" skit aired last weekend that mocked reporters for fawning over Obama. "Maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs a pillow," she said.

Obama did not respond to that swipe, but he missed few other opportunities to parry Clinton's charges. Toward the end of the debate he used humor to counter Clinton, who had interjected herself into a question about whether Obama had been strong enough in stating his objections to Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam.

Asked to respond to an endorsement of his candidacy by Farrakhan, Obama described the Chicago figure's anti-Semitic comments as "reprehensible." Adding that "I obviously cannot censor him," Obama said he had not sought the support and would do nothing to make use of it.

"I have been very clear in my denunciation" of Farrakhan's past anti-Semitic remarks, Obama said.

Clinton jumped in to note that, in her 2000 Senate campaign, she had gone to greater lengths to distance herself from people who had made anti-Semitic remarks. "There's a difference between denouncing and rejecting," Clinton said, implying that Obama had not gone far enough. "I just think we've got to be even stronger."

Obama laughed. "I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting," he said, adding that he would both reject and denounce Farrakhan if it would satisfy Clinton, a remark that drew laughter and applause.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Early voting in urban areas targeted by Sen. Barack Obama has swelled to record numbers in Texas, outpacing the otherwise high turnout in areas of the state viewed as more favorable to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy.

But a large percentage of Democrats in Clinton's targeted areas have cast early ballots, especially the heavily Hispanic areas along the Rio Grande in South Texas - indicating her strategy of wooing early voters also may be bearing fruit.

The early voting patterns are just one measure of what to expect in the state's pivotal March 4 contest. After losing 11 straight primaries and caucuses to Obama since Feb. 5, Clinton has pinned the future of her struggling presidential candidacy on wins in Ohio and Texas, delegate-rich, diverse states. Clinton is ahead in Ohio, but the contest in Texas is much tighter, polls indicate.

The latest early voting numbers suggest Obama is seeing great success in the big cities in Texas, which have large but limited delegate totals. Clinton's strategy is to accrue smaller delegate numbers over broader areas of the state, with the hope of topping Obama overall.

Both campaigns' efforts to have supporters vote early have produced startling images in a state that has not seen a competitive Democratic primary since 1988.

Voters have flooded early balloting locations in places like grocery stores, Kmarts and recreation centers across the state, overwhelming county election officials unaccustomed to handling such turnout. Some 512,000 people in the state's 15 largest counties have already cast votes in the Democratic contest, more than four times the level of turnout seen in 2004.

At rallies, Obama and Clinton always urge supporters to cast ballots early. Bill Clinton was even persuaded to stand on the back of a red Chevy truck after an event in El Paso, pointing to a nearby early voting location and asking supporters to cast a ballot for his wife.

"Texas is on the leading edge of early voting in this country - they have a lot more locations available and are more creative about putting them in places where people actually go," said Paul Gronke, a political scientist at Oregon's Reed College who studies early voting.

"Most other states make you go to county buildings and libraries. I am not familiar with any other state that makes locations as available as Texas does," Gronke said.

Indeed, the state's complicated electoral system has led both campaigns to push for early voting. The state holds both a primary next Tuesday and precinct caucuses later that evening, placing a burden on millions of voters who may not have time to show up twice in the same day to a voting location.

By contrast, early balloting has allowed people a 10-day window, Feb. 19 through Feb. 29, to vote in locations throughout their county. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., even on Saturday and Sunday.

Early voting is also a great organizing tool, giving the campaigns a ready-made list of people who have already voted. They can then contact those voters directly and encourage them to attend the caucuses.

"Early voting is easy voting. I wanted to get it out of the way so that if something comes up on election day, I'm set and ready to go," said Robin Schneider, 47, after casting her ballot outside an HEB grocery store in Austin. "I definitely want to show up at my polling place Tuesday night for the caucus, but that's after work. So this gets the voting part out of the way."

State election officials predict that one-third to one-half of the total Democratic primary vote will be cast early.

"Texas is in play for the first time in many years, and it's encouraging a lot of people to participate. The campaigns are also really well-organized and are paying a lot of attention to them," said Scott Haywood, a spokesman for the Texas Secretary of State's office.

Officials are collecting data on early voting each day from the state's biggest counties, offering a snapshot of turnout as it happens. They've begun seeing some distinct patterns.

The state's two largest counties - Dallas and Harris, where Houston is located - are home to educated, affluent Democrats and blacks, groups that typically favor Obama. Officials estimate that early voting turnout in those places is as much as eight to 10 times higher than it was in 2004.

"We're pleased to see a strong turnout in those counties," Obama Texas spokesman Josh Earnest said. "Our supporters are very enthusiastic and eager to get out and vote for him."

But Clinton's campaign officials warn not to make too many assumptions, noting that the majority of voters in both counties were women, many over the age of 50. Older women are among Clinton's only remaining demographic strongholds.

Meanwhile, Clinton's other stronghold, Hispanic voters, are casting early ballots at a rapid clip in South Texas and are projected to wait until primary day to vote in other parts of the state.

"If you factor it all in, overwhelmingly more women than men will vote early in this state," Clinton field organizer Nick Clemons said. "In terms of delegate math, we're going to hold our own."

But even that prediction is risky, based on the complicated way the state apportions its 228 delegates.

Under the turnout formula, Houston gets seven delegates and Dallas gets six while the poorer Hispanic counties that tend to favor Clinton get only three. Clinton hopes to build up delegates in these smaller counties and isolate Obama to the heavily black urban areas.

"There are only so many delegates in Harris County, no matter how big a turnout Obama produces," said Bob Stein, a political scientist at Houston's Rice University who studies voter turnout. "Clinton is working to win in smaller areas across the state where there are Hispanics and not a lot of black voters."

But Stein said Clinton needs a heavy early vote showing more than Obama, noting his voters are more independent and have tended to break later. Such was the pattern in California, where Clinton dominated early voting while Obama came on strong at the end.

The fact that Obama is doing as well as he is in early voting bodes well for him, Stein added.

"The conventional wisdom suggests yeah, it favors her. But look at what's happening in Harris County," he said.

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press, February 28, 2008

The Former First Daughter Has Come Out of Her Shell and Burst Onto the Campaign Trail

Chelsea Clinton has changed dramatically from her days as an awkward teenage first daughter.

Now the poised, well-spoken former White House dweller is on the campaign trail, stumping for her mother, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as a powerful surrogate who knows the Democratic presidential candidate's policy positions inside and out.

One thing that hasn't changed since her White House days is that she remains extremely private, not granting any interviews with the press or talking on the record.

However, in the last three months, Clinton, who turns 28 today, has gone from silent daughter to confident campaigner. She has visited more than two dozen states since December and has visited 50 college campuses.

The strain of it all is getting harder to hide.

"Forgive my voice. I've been working hard for my mom. Unfortunately, I'm not as practiced at this as some are, so my vocal chords are a bit out of whack," she told students at Texas Tech University.

Despite the weak voice, she spent more than an hour arguing passionately for her mother, speaking of the senator in the way only a daughter could.

"My mom has been making positive change in people's lives for longer than I've been alive," she told the crowd at Texas Tech.

She knows her mother's stand on the issues, sometimes better than the staff who accompany her. She's fielded questions on everything from health care to net neutrality, becoming a consummate politician.

Putting Her Life on Hold

If Clinton is bothered that she's had to put her life back in New York on hold, she never lets it show. She's on leave from what she jokingly calls her "geeky" hedge fund job, where she reportedly pulls in more than $200,000 a year.

Occasionally, back in New York, she is spotted at a Starbucks, sipping on an iced espresso, or with boyfriend Marc Mezvisnky.

"Chelsea and Marc lead a pretty quiet life," said New York Magazine's Lloyd Grove, who wrote a cover story profiling Clinton this week. "The one thing Chelsea does here is she is on the board of the American Ballet school, couple of galas and such she is involved in - Marc will come to those, but he is careful when the paparazzi is there to keep his distance. The two of them don't like to pose for pictures together."

Tight-Lipped Around the Press

Clinton's no-interview policy was a decision she made in order to maintain some level of privacy. The logic is that if she opens the door even an inch, it will open a mile and she will become a public persona and will have to talk to everyone.

According to Lisa Caputo, Hillary's press secretary when she was first lady, it's an extension of what her parents began.

"When President Clinton was elected, he and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton made a decision to draw a line in the sand around Chelsea and her zone of privacy," Caputo said.

Caputo was asked to help protect Clinton from the prying media. Her mother was acting on advice she had sought out from Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

"We talked about raising children in the public spotlight because she had done it with such grace and success," the former first lady told Barbara Walters in a 2003 interview. "She stressed how you could never let your child become kind of an object of all this public interest, because it would ruin them. You had to keep making sure they didn't feel entitled or indulged. And I took those lessons to heart."

Hollywood film director Harry Thomason - who is a close friend to the Clintons - said that during her father's presidency, Clinton kept a low profile.

"I don't think Chelsea is one of those people that she has ever wanted to be the center of attention," Thomason said. "We can all see that over the following years - she had plenty of chances to be the center of attention in the White House and in her college years, and she's just always chosen not to. I think that speaks well of the people who raised her."

Caputo agrees and thinks that the zone of privacy set up by her parents is one of the reasons Clinton is so grounded today.

"I think she is one of the most poised, elegant, grounded insightful intelligent young women I know," she said. "She has been able to live her life that has not been in the public eye but rather had her life have some kind of privacy and protection to it. That I think has enabled her to live this normal life that otherwise would have been very difficult to lead."

Jumping In

Clinton has kept out of politics until relatively recently. She gave her first political speech four years ago in support of Sen. John Kerry. Now she is a constant presence on the campaign trail.

"I think she's more vocal now because she has her own place in the world, and she's a highly successful businesswoman," Thomason said. "And I think she feels she can speak out and nobody thinks it's necessarily because she's been manipulated by the campaign or anything else."

It's clear she never expected to be as involved in her mother's presidential bid as she is now. Back in Iowa before the holidays, she told reporters she might spend her Christmas holiday doing a little campaigning. Instead, she hasn't had a day off in 22 days.

Her role is to parachute in to the places the senator and former president can't reach. With Illinois Sen. Barack Obama enormously popular among young people, Clinton is the one surrogate for her mother who can draw big crowds on college campuses.

But to some in the crowd, she could be the Clinton with the most political promise.

After a speech in Youngstown, Ohio, a voter asked her, "Are you sure you don't reconsider and run for office?" Clinton dismissed the question as mere "flattery," and told the voter that "my political aspirations stretch to having my mom be my president."

Caputo doesn't think that she is the political animal her parents are.

"I don't think she is at all, you know," Caputo said. "I think she's got her own life, she's pursuing her own career interests, which are outside of politics, and I think she's involved in this campaign because it's her mom and she deeply believes her mom would make a great president. And she wants to do everything she can to help her become president."

But with her genes, it's not entirely clear she will be able to resist the pull of politics.

By KATE SNOW and JEANMARIE CONDON, ABC News, February 27, 2008

CLEVELAND,, Ohio (AFP) - Democrat Hillary Clinton hurled a volley of jabs at White House rival Barack Obama at their final debate before crucial primaries, but Obama parried the blows and scored some hits of his own.

The former first lady came out fighting at the debate late Tuesday, which was billed as her last chance to derail Obama's stunning momentum heading into the nominating clashes in Ohio and Texas on March 4.

Clinton accused the Illinois senator of copying the scare tactics of health insurers and Republicans in attacking her healthcare plan, and once again portrayed him as a political neophyte unprepared for foreign policy crises.

But Obama, 46, counter-punched with the argument that Clinton had betrayed a critical lack of judgment on the Iraq war, and insisted that he was best placed to take on Republican heir apparent John McCain.

"I still intend to do everything I can to win, but it has been an honor, because it has been a campaign that is history-making," Clinton, 60, said at the end, pointing to the prospect of the first female or black president.

Obama said Clinton would be "worthy as a nominee" and would be a "much better president than John McCain," but that he himself would be better at healing America's political wounds.

The emollient tone at the debate's close was in sharp contrast to much of the 90-minute encounter in Cleveland, with the New York senator berating the "false, misleading and discredited information" in Obama's campaign literature.

His leaflet on her plan for universal healthcare read "almost as if the health insurance companies and the Republicans wrote it," she said as the freshman senator, seated close by, shook his head.

Clinton pressed Obama to go further in condemning the anti-Israel leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. "I would reject and denounce," he said, drawing laughs.

Jabbing back, the man bidding to be the first African-American president took aim at Clinton's campaign theme that because of her long experience in Washington, only she was ready to be commander-in-chief on "day one."

Clinton was part of the Washington crowd that "had driven the bus into the ditch" by voting for the war in Iraq, said Obama, who opposed the invasion from the start.

"And the fact is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but in fact she was ready to give in to (President) George Bush on day one on this critical issue."

The candidates also sparred over trade and how best to pursue Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, while Clinton denied her campaign was the source of a photograph published on the Drudge Report website Monday showing Obama in Somali garb.

The stakes were high for Clinton heading into the 20th and possibly last Democratic debate of this extraordinary primary season, with a clutch of polls suggesting that her support from Democrats nationwide is collapsing.

But she failed to land a knock-out punch, drawing boos at one point for a sarcastic criticism of the MSNBC moderators that implied the media was giving Obama a free ride.

New York Times political analyst Adam Nagourney noted that Clinton grabbed every opportunity to try to undermine Obama's readiness for the Oval Office.

"Yet by the end of the night, there was little evidence that Mrs Clinton had produced the kind of ground-moving moment she needed that might shift the course of a campaign that polls suggest has been moving inexorably in Mr Obama's direction for weeks," he wrote, echoing other pundits.

In a debate last week in Texas, Clinton had been expected to go on the offensive, but only unleashed a few poorly received attacks before ending on a valedictory note.

This time, she was far more aggressive with her White House dream on the line heading into next Tuesday's battles in Ohio and Texas, following 11 straight victories for Obama.

Obama rode a head of steam into the Cleveland debate, as national polls suggested Clinton's support was dwindling fast and as newspapers reported infighting among her campaign staff.

A CBS News/New York Times survey gave Obama a 54 percent to 38 percent lead among Democrats nationwide. A USA Today poll had him up 51 percent to 39 percent nationally among Democratic voters.

AFP, February 27, 2008

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) - White House hopeful Hillary Clinton slammed her Democratic rival Barack Obama Tuesday for suggesting he would order a raid against Al-Qaeda inside Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf failed to act.

Clinton, who has sought to paint Obama as lacking the foreign policy experience to be commander in chief, questioned the wisdom of Obama's threat during a key debate here before crucial nominating contests in Ohio and Texas.

"Last summer, he basically threatened to bomb Pakistan, which I don't think was a particularly wise position to take," Clinton said.

"I have long advocated a much tougher approach to Musharraf and to Pakistan and have pushed the White House to do that," she said ahead of next Tuesday's do-or-die nominating contests.

The former first lady argued that she has a wider breadth of foreign policy experience that makes her more qualified to face off against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November 4 general election.

"I will have a much better case to make on a range of the issues that, really, America must confront going forward, and will be able to hold my own and make the case for a change in policy that will be better for our country," she said.

Obama denied that he threatened to bomb Pakistan in a speech last year.

"What I said was that if we have actionable intelligence against (Osama) bin Laden or other key Al-Qaeda officials ... and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should," he said.

Obama, who opposed the Iraq war from the start, also countered by criticizing Clinton's Senate vote in 2002 authoritizing the war.

"The fact is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but in fact she was ready to give in to (US President) George Bush on day one on this critical issue," he said.

McCain, a 71-year-old former navy pilot, Vietnam prisoner of war, and Iraq hawk, criticized Obama last week over his Pakistan remarks, as he also sought to paint the Illinois senator as too green to be commander in chief.

"Well, the best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do. That's naive," McCain told reporters in Columbus, Ohio.

AFP, February 27, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Ohio - James Zbinovec is 60 years old. His only income these days is unemployment, $139 each week.

Things used to be better. For 11 years, Zbinovec worked as an assembler at Lear Corp. in Zanesville, making electrical parts for Detroit automakers. A week before Christmas, he was laid off. For a time, he earned the minimum wage making cardboard products. Now, nothing.

He has company: His wife, who worked at Lear for 17 years, and his sister, who worked there for 32, also lost their jobs at different points as American carmakers entered their sharp decline.

Zbinovec believes Senator Hillary Clinton, whom he came to see here yesterday at a satellite campus of Ohio University, is the Democrat who can turn things around.

"I trust her," he said. "She seems sincere."

Tales like Zbinovec's abound in Ohio, a state hit especially hard as the country's manufacturing base dried up over the past couple of decades. Residents tick off company after company that has shed jobs, moved overseas, or shut down altogether.

Clinton is banking on these disaffected voters to stand with her in Tuesday's Ohio primary, one she must win to remain competitive with Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic nomination race. She spent yesterday promising to be their advocate in the White House.

"It's time that we had a president who's going to be a fighter and a champion for our people again," Clinton said at an economic summit she convened here with Ohio's governor, Ted Strickland, and a host of other political and business leaders from across the country.

In contrast with her sharp words for Obama in other recent public appearances, Clinton offered little, and only implicit, criticism of him at the summit. Her goal was to demonstrate her mastery of the economy, economic development, and job creation, and to show her capacity for empathy. She said she would wake up every day in the White House and ask, "What are we going to do today to improve the lives of hard-working Americans?"

Clinton vowed to reinvest in manufacturing and reiterated her pledge to create 5 million jobs, and she cited Germany's public investments in solar power as a model.

"The government said, 'Look, we've got to help start the market for this,' " she said.

There was also a whiff of protectionism in the air as Clinton and the business and political leaders hashed out economic solutions and promoted her candidacy. Clinton vowed to "close every tax loophole that gives one penny of your tax dollars to any company that exports jobs." At least two of the panelists said it was critical that people buy products made in the United States.

"If we cannot buy American, fix America first, there's something wrong," said Gary Dwyer, secretary-treasurer for the Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council. To which Clinton replied, "You're absolutely right - we have to create a new ethic."

Two of the featured speakers were a couple from Dayton, Robert Landry and Beth Dlabay, who had lost their home to foreclosure on Christmas Eve. "The bottom drops out of your whole life," Landry said, and Strickland leaned over and gave him a hug.

Clinton acknowledged the economic challenges facing Ohio, but she also sounded, as any presidential candidate would, a bullish note about America's prospects.

"At the end of the day we have to decide what kind of future we want. It doesn't happen by coincidence," she said. "It's our chance now to seize the 21st century."

By Scott Helman, The Boston Globe, February 28, 2008

CAMPAIGN '08 | Wooing blue-collar voters, she pledges to create 5 million new jobs

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio -- Clinging to a lead in the polls here, White House hopeful Hillary Clinton toured hilly, small-town southeastern Ohio on Wednesday, telling working-class voters she has the best plan to rescue them from tough economic times.

Blue-collar rural and small-town voters have been big supporters of the New York senator in some of the last contests in the Democratic presidential primary, and many responded with interest to her proposals to freeze mortgage foreclosures and pour $10 billion into infrastructure rebuilding programs.

"I work in the steel mill and . . . we're not getting any help," a man in the high school gym told Clinton. "The Chinese are killing us."

"Yes, they're dumping steel on us," Clinton agreed, pledging to go after the Chinese for unfair trade practices.

At a round-table discussion Clinton hosted in Zanesville, a couple from Dayton told how their home was foreclosed on Christmas Eve even though they never missed a mortgage payment. Former Sen. John Glenn told of Ohio's last General Motors automotive plant closing.

"We used to have nine," the former astronaut said.

Clinton told them she had answers.

"I see a middle-class comeback, and I see it starting in places like Zanesville," Clinton said.

Her prescription includes investment in new green technology, which she says will help bring 5 million new jobs.

In Tuesday night's debate, NBC News personality Tim Russert tried to call Clinton on her claim of creating 5 million new jobs, noting that when she ran for the Senate eight years ago, she pledged to bring 200,000 new jobs to New York, but instead there was a net loss of 30,000.

"I thought Al Gore was going to be president," Clinton told Russert. "I will have a lot more tools at my disposal [as president.]"

The rest of Clinton's economic blueprint includes: $30 billion to help stop foreclosures; cutting tax breaks for corporations that move jobs overseas; $100 million more to encourage the growth of manufacturing jobs; more college aid, and job training for those who aren't going to college.

While Clinton still leads Barack Obama in Ohio polls, her margin has tightened. And in Wisconsin and other states, Obama's popularity has been growing among these blue-collar voters who used to go for Clinton.

By Abdon M. Pallasch, Chicago Sun-Times, February 28, 2008

Hillary Clinton last night hammered away at Barack Obama on his commitment to universal healthcare and his grasp of foreign policy, using a last debate before a set of crucial primaries to try to expose her opponent's potential flaws.

Following 11 straight primary wins for Obama, the debate was seen as critical to Clinton's chances of reviving her campaign for the Democratic nomination and she came out swinging. However, her attacks at times seemed more flailing than focused.

After so many debates, there was little new material. However, Clinton came the closest she ever has to date to expressing contrition for her 2002 vote authorising the war on Iraq. She acknowledged she wished she had not cast the vote.

The contentious start set the stage for a 16-minute exchange on healthcare, which saw Clinton repeatedly speaking over the presenters to accuse Obama of failing to provide coverage to all Americans in his healthcare proposals.

"It would be as though Franklin Roosevelt said, let's make Social Security voluntary. That's, you know - that's - let's let everybody get in it if they can afford it. Or if President Johnson said, let's make Medicare voluntary," Clinton said.

But in what was perhaps a sign of the high stakes for Clinton, her attack seemed somewhat desperate. Amid raising substantive points on such issues as healthcare, the Nafta free trade agreement and mastery of world events, she betrayed peevishness and self-pity.

She accused Obama's campaign of producing misleading campaign literature, and said the US media had treated her unfairly. Later on, she teamed with the moderator to increase the pressure on Obama to disavow the pastor of his Chicago church, who has links with Louis Farrakhan.

For Obama, who has been cutting into Clinton's lead in the opinion polls ahead of next week's contests in Texas, Ohio and other states, there was comparatively little pressure to deliver a knockout punch.

While Clinton was focused on showing up the differences with her opponent, Obama's demeanour was relaxed and conciliatory. He repeatedly noted points of agreement with Clinton and praised her as an able senator.

When Clinton once again accused him of lacking substance to back up his soaring rhetoric, Obama responded mildly. "I am not interested in talk," he said. "I would not be running if I wasn't absolutely convinced that I can put an economic agenda forward that is going to provide them with healthcare, is going to make college more affordable, and is going to get them the kinds of help that they need not to solve all of their problems, but at least to be able to achieve the American dream."

Clinton did not have the luxury to appear relaxed. Her campaign has cast the next set of primaries as a last stand. If she cannot extract wins in Ohio and Texas next week - by convincing voters she is prepared to fight for their economic interests - Clinton may well be out of the race.

Polls this week suggest Clinton's once imposing lead over Obama in Ohio has evaporated. She now leads by as little as five or six points in the state; the two are in a dead heat in Texas.

The pressure was telling - as well as the duration of this contest. The debate was the 20th such encounter between Obama and Clinton, and there were signs that they were long past the point of tolerating each other's company.

A petulant Clinton complained that she was always asked the first question in debates, and then mentioned a skit on Saturday Night Live sending up the American media's soft spot for Obama. Obama, on a number of occasions, seemed to smirk or laugh as Clinton was speaking.

But despite Clinton's claims of favoritism for Obama, her opponent also came in for tough questioning from the moderator, Tim Russert, about whether he would live up to a written pledge to accept public financing of his general election campaign.

Obama faced even tougher questioning about Louis Farrakhan. Although Obama said repeatedly he disavowed Farrakhan's anti-semitic views, Clinton egged on the moderator, Tim Russert, for Obama to issue an even more strenuous disavowal. "If the word 'reject' Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word 'denounce,' then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce," Obama said to applause.

By Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, February 27 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leads rival Barack Obama by six percentage points in Pennsylvania, down from 16 points two weeks earlier, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.

The final two Democratic contenders face off in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, which could prove significant if the race for the Democratic nomination in the November election is still close.

Following March 4 primaries in Texas and in Ohio, Pennsylvania is the biggest state left on the state-by-state election calendar.

The Pennsylvania poll, conducted February 21-25, showed Clinton, a New York senator, with a lead of 49 to 43 percent among likely Democratic voters. A previous Quinnipiac poll, conducted February 6-12, showed her with a lead of 52 to 36 percent.

The biggest shift in preference was detected among younger voters, aged 18 to 44, who went from 52 to 41 percent in favor of Clinton in the earlier poll. They moved to 58 to 41 percent in favor of Obama, an Illinois senator, in the more recent poll, Quinnipiac said.

"If Senator Clinton survives next week (in Texas and Ohio) to fight another day, Pennsylvania could become the last battleground of the long Democratic contest. But an Obama win in Texas and Ohio would make it difficult for Clinton to halt her rival's momentum," Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.

The poll surveyed 506 likely Democratic primary voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Quinnipiac also surveyed 1,872 Pennsylvania voters who favored either Clinton or Obama over the leading Republican candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Clinton led McCain in a hypothetical match-up by 44 to 42 percent in Pennsylvania while Obama led McCain 42 to 40 percent. That poll had a margin or error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

By Daniel Trotta, Reuters, February 27, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Ohio -- In last night's debate, Hillary Clinton sought to emphasize her fitness to be commander-in-chief, but today in Ohio she is campaigning for a different job: champion-in-chief for the working class.

Knowing that blue-collar workers in this blue-collar state are key to her survival as a presidential candidate, Clinton is trying to demonstrate her mastery of the economy, economic development, and job creation as she stumps across Ohio ahead of Tuesday's primary here.

Hosting an economic summit in Eastern Ohio, she showed off her technocratic side -- talking about Denmark's windmills, Germany's successes with solar power, the $12,000 per year the average family pays for a health care policy, and the particulars of the mortgage crisis.

"It's time that we had a president who's going to be a fighter and a champion for our people again," Clinton said, adding that she will get up every day in the White House and ask, "What are we going to do today to improve the lives of hard-working Americans?"

Not coincidentally, there was also a whiff of protectionism in the air here at Ohio University Zanesville as Clinton, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, and a host of other political and business leaders held a pow-wow to promote Clinton's candidacy.

Clinton vowed to "close every tax loophole that gives one penny of your tax dollars to any company that exports jobs." At least two of the panelists said it was critical that people buy products made in the United States. "If we cannot buy American, fix America first, there's something wrong," said Gary Dwyer, secretary-treasurer for the Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council. Clinton replied, "You're absolutely right we have to create a new ethic."

With Clinton and Barack Obama expressing deep concern about trade deals and the consequences of globalization, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told officials and business leaders in Mexico today that enacting protectionist trade policies would be severely damaging at home and abroad. "Protectionist policies would be devastating for our economy and to economies around the world," he said, according to Reuters.

By Scott Helman, The Boston Globe, February 27, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Ohio -- Trying to maintain her lead in the polls in economically challenged Ohio, Sen. Hillary Clinton held a roundtable discussion with experts and victims of the economy in a college gymnasium.

A couple from Dayton told how their home was foreclosed on Christmas Eve even though they never missed a mortgage payment. Former Sen. John Glenn told of Ohio’s last General Motors automotive plant closing.

"We used to have nine," the former astronaut said.

Clinton told them she had answers.

"I see a middle-class comeback and I see it starting in places like Zanesville," Clinton said.

Her prescription for a cure includes investment in new green technology, which she says will help bring five million new jobs.

NBC News personality Tim Russert tried to call Clinton on her claim of creating five million new jobs in Tuesday night's debate, noting that when she ran for senate eight years ago, she pledged to bring 200,000 new jobs to New York but instead there was a net loss of 30,000.

"I thought Al Gore was going to be president," Clinton said. "I will have a lot more tools at my disposal [as president.]"

The rest of Clinton's economic blueprint includes: $30 billion to help stop foreclosures, $10 billion to help states rebuild infrastructure, cutting tax breaks for corporations that move jobs overseas, $100 million more to encourage the growth of manufacturing jobs.

"My economic blueprint for the 21st Century reins in corporate special interests, stops the tax giveaways George Bush has given out to the oil and drug companies," Clinton said.

She pointed to the loss of Robert Landry and Beth Dlabay's home on Christmas Eve as an example of the scams that have been partially to blame for the mortgage foreclosure crisis around the country.

"It's one of many scams these lenders get away with," Clinton said. "They say you're late. Then they use those late payments to force a higher interest rate on you. It's just a terrible abuse."

Ohio's foreclosure rate is the 9th-worst in the country.

In past primaries, Clinton has been doing better among lower-income white voters than her main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, has been doing, though her edge has been slipping. Wisconsin has very similar demographics to Ohio, and Obama won that state by 17 points a week ago. But the polls show Clinton maintaining her lead here in Ohio as Tuesday's primary approaches. Her husband has said she needs to win Ohio and Texas to stay in the race.

About 300 people attended today's roundtable, including Margaret Penotte, 52, for whom Clinton's message hit home.

"My husband and my son both drive to Columbus to go to work because there's nothing in this area," she said.

By Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times, February 27, 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may be unable to match Barack Obama in the party's delegate race even if she pulls off wins in the Texas and Ohio primaries next week.

While the math says she can still catch him, the odds are daunting because the Democratic Party doesn't have winner-take- all contests. Clinton instead may need to rely on chemistry, a chain-reaction set off by big wins in the March 4 races and in Pennsylvania in April that will persuade wavering delegates that she's the stronger candidate to face the Republican nominee in November.

"Because of proportional representation, if one candidate gets a significant lead of pledged delegates, it's difficult -- but not impossible -- for the trailing candidate to make up the delegate disadvantage,'' said Tad Devine, a strategist for Democratic Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. It would take "overwhelming'' victories in the remaining primaries. "You really need to beat someone by 20 percentage points.''

Obama is ahead of Clinton by as many as 156 pledged delegates, who will vote on the nomination at the Democratic convention in August, according to an unofficial count by NBC News. There are 370 delegates at stake on March 4, and party rules for how they are awarded make it unlikely Clinton will cut much, if at all, into his lead.

Superdelegates

Clinton, a senator from New York, continues to have an edge among superdelegates, Democratic officeholders and party officials who aren't bound by primary and caucus votes, according to a tally by The Green Papers, a nonpartisan Web site. Still, Obama, an Illinois senator, has momentum on his side, gaining backing from superdelegates such as Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, who dropped his own presidential bid in January, and Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

Next week's contests, which include Rhode Island and Vermont, illustrate Clinton's challenge. A narrow victory by her in Ohio will lead to an almost equal distribution of the state's 141 delegates. In Texas, with 193 pledged delegates available, the arithmetic for Clinton is worse.

State party rules will "create some interesting distortions,'' said Jack Martin, a Texas Democratic strategist.

Clinton, 60, could win statewide in Texas and still collect fewer delegates than Obama because 126 of them are awarded by state senate districts, and those won by Democrats in the last two elections get more delegates.

District Math

The most delegate-rich districts -- those with five to eight delegates each -- are in Houston, Dallas and Austin, many with concentrations of black voters. That will be Obama territory. Most of Clinton's strongholds are among the heavily Hispanic districts along the Texas-Mexico border areas, most with no more than four delegates.

Even losing the "South Texas vote by as much as a 2-to-1 margin, Obama could be down as few as two delegates'' statewide, Martin said.

The remaining 67 pledged Texas delegates are awarded in caucuses convened after polls close for the primary. Obama, 46, has beaten Clinton in all but two of the caucuses held so far. In one of those losses, Nevada, Obama still managed to gain one more delegate than Clinton.

Early voting has already started in both Ohio and Texas.

After March 4, with about a fifth of the pledged delegates still available, Obama may have the upper hand.

A private Obama delegate projection shows Clinton's challenge even with victories next week. The calculations are conservative. For example, they showed Obama losing Maine on Feb. 10 and he ended up winning there.

Obama's Projections

The Obama campaign's projection assumes Clinton will win Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. It shows Obama winning more states, including Wyoming, Mississippi, North Carolina, Indiana, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota.

Under that scenario, he would get slightly more delegates than Clinton, letting him build his lead in pledged convention votes and giving him an opportunity to win over more of the 795 superdelegates, only about half of whom have publicly taken sides. Still, it shows neither candidate with the 2,025 total delegates needed to win the nomination.

Democratic political strategists not associated with either campaign, independent experts and even some Clinton supporters concur in that outlook.

"I don't think superdelegates are going to go against the flow,'' said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington. "Politicians hate to get on the wrong bandwagon.''

Momentum

Again, Obama has the momentum. In the 11 contests he has won since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, he has pocketed 65 percent of the pledged delegates, according to William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Clinton will need to match that yield to pull even.

"It's difficult to imagine that Clinton can win'' in the March 4 states "with sufficiently large margins to appreciably close her delegate deficit with Obama,'' said Charlie Cook, an independent political analyst in Washington. "She'd have to win with landslide margins.''

"The powers that be in the Democratic Party'' won't call on Clinton to leave the race before March 4, said Cook. Starting on March 5, "you will hear a chorus calling for her to drop out.''

By Hans Nichols and Catherine Dodge, Bloomberg, February 28, 2008

ZANESVILLE, Ohio - Through some driving snow and chilly winds, Hillary Clinton arrived in southeastern Ohio from Cleveland this afternoon, embarking on a campaign trip to discuss her economic plans but finding her effort in danger of being eclipsed by an intense back-and-forth on Iraq between Democratic rival Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

Enroute from Cleveland, Clinton told reporters aboard her campaign plane that the economy was of significant concern to Ohioans, who have seen manufacturing jobs decline and home foreclosures increase. Further worsening the news, she said, was that "we're sliding into a recession and the price of everything is going up at the same time."

"This," she said, "is a very difficult terrain to try to navigate through."

Clinton said she was pleased by her performance against Obama in last night's debate and was "pleased to talk about issues that I both care a lot about and know something about."

Asked by reporters if she agreed with the sentiment that no knockouts were scored, Clinton said "that's a prize fight, that's not a debate."

Instead, she said, "I think that a lot of people who watched it would come away and feel very positive and comfortable about what I said and what I presented as my credentials and my positions on these issues and I think there were some real contrasts that were drawn."

In an event at Ohio University Zanesville and Zane State College, Clinton assembled a sit-down panel to talk about the economy that included prominent political allies, such as former Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) and Govs. Ted Strickland of Ohio and John Corzine of New Jersey along with local business leaders.

But Clinton's campaign effort paled on the political attention meter as McCain, the Arizona senator and likely GOP nominee, and Obama, the Illinois senator and Democratic frontrunner, went back and forth over defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The sharp rhetoric between the two men threatened to marginalize Clinton's efforts to try to halt Obama's momentum with less than a week remaining until two must-win primaries in delegate rich Ohio and Texas on Tuesday.

By Frank James, The Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2008

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY | Clinton fails to slow down Obama's momentum in debate that spends a lot of time on health care

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, try as she did Tuesday night, could not throw Sen. Barack Obama off the course he is on to win the Democratic nomination.

Health care dominated much of the debate on the campus of Cleveland State University hosted by NBC's Tim Russert and Brian Williams -- almost solidly for the first 16 minutes -- and Clinton is right when she says her plan has a better chance than the proposal offered by Obama of covering more people.

Obama has always had a tougher time defending how he is for mandating insurance for kids and not adults; Clinton has called for enrolling everyone in an insurance plan as the starting point of negotiations with Congress.

And after all this time, Clinton finally found a way to explain why she is calling for a mandate: No one suggests making Social Security or Medicare coverage voluntary, insurance that is covered by payroll deductions every working person in the United States has to make. Both campaigns believe health care is a central issue, and Tuesday Clinton was aggressive in pushing back against an Obama direct mail piece on her plan alleging she was threatening wage garnishments.

But Clinton had a very steep challenge as she faces votes on March 4 in the delegate-rich states of Ohio and Texas, with smaller payloads in Rhode Island and Vermont. She needs not only to win, but needs landslides to catch up with Obama's delegate counts.

She did not help herself with what seemed like another lame joke -- I think it was supposed to be a joke -- and she should banish whoever is giving her these bad lines because it made her look small.

"Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don't mind. I -- you know, I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious, and if anybody saw 'Saturday Night Live,' you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow." That's a mocking reference to the softball press treatment her campaign thinks Obama has been getting -- and with some justification.

But if Obama is headed toward the nomination, he will be facing enormous pushback from Republicans, if not from presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Things will be magnified. Clinton hit him for never calling a substantive hearing on the subcommittee he chairs on Europe. Obama became chairman at the beginning of 2007, and he lamely conceded the point, saying he was busy campaigning this year.

He may not get off so easy in a general campaign; taking year off in a three-year Senate career won't be so easily explained away.

By Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times, February 27, 2008

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized Sen. Barack Obama on health care, NAFTA, Iraq and his political tactics Tuesday night in one of her most pugnacious debate performances, as she fought for momentum before four potentially decisive nominating contests next Tuesday.

Obama, pursuing a front-runner's strategy of nonconfrontation after winning 11 straight contests, defended his positions and views, and said he and his team had not "whined" about the Clinton camp's attacks on him.

The debate was the final one before the March 4 contests in Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio and Texas, the last two states ones the Clinton camp has labeled as must-win if she is to keep her campaign alive.

Questions about which approach Clinton would take to sway voters were quickly answered as she immediately confronted Obama. She insisted on responding to virtually every point that Obama made, often interrupting the debate moderators, Brian Williams and Tim Russert of NBC, as they tried to move on.

Unlike their debate Thursday, this exchange had a far more belligerent edge. Clinton did not nod along as Obama made standard Democratic points, as she has been known to do. She was more apt to call him "Senator Obama" than the friendlier "Barack." She did not smile at him.

At one point, after the moderators asked her a series of pointed questions, Clinton vented her frustrations with news coverage of Obama, citing a "Saturday Night Live" sketch from last weekend that portrayed debate moderators as fawning fans of Obama.

"Can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time?" Clinton said, to a mix of boos and applause. "I do find it curious, and if anybody saw 'Saturday Night Live,' you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow."

(Indeed, in their two other one-on-one debates, Clinton was asked to answer the first question and then was asked more questions overall, though only slightly. In other debates before the Democratic field narrowed, she received the first question at six of the 10 most recent events.)

The tenor of the debate was set from the beginning, when the moderators played clips of Clinton praising Obama at the Thursday debate and then declaring "Shame on you, Barack Obama" on Saturday, after his campaign sent fliers to voters in Ohio suggesting that she viewed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a boon.

NAFTA is hugely unpopular in Ohio, and the two candidates have records of praising and criticizing it, though Clinton never used the word "boon." In some of her strongest language to date, she said at the debate she would "opt out" of the trade deal if Canada and Mexico did not renegotiate it.

Saying Obama had sent mailings that were "very disturbing to me," Clinton defended her newly aggressive tone: "I think it's important that you stand up for yourself."

Obama denied misleading voters through the NAFTA flier or another one about her health-care plan's mandate that would require all Americans to buy insurance.

Clinton criticized the health- care flier. "What I find regrettable is that in Senator Obama's mailing that he has sent out across Ohio, it is almost as though the health-insurance companies and the Republicans wrote it."

Obama responded to the accusation, and for 16 minutes they engaged in a terse back-and-forth over their health plans.

Their plans are similar; they both seek to make health insurance more affordable, and both have universal coverage as their goal. But the Clinton campaign has argued that 15 million Americans would go uncovered under Obama's plan, a number that relies on estimates by health-care experts but is difficult to pin down.

"Senator Clinton, her campaign at least, has constantly sent out negative attacks on us," Obama said. "We haven't whined about it."

Defending her support for a health-insurance mandate, Clinton said that without one, "It would be as though Franklin Roosevelt said let's make Social Security voluntary" or "if President Johnson said let's make Medicare voluntary."

Clinton stared steadily at Obama with pursed lips and a furrowed brow as he answered questions. She spoke forcefully at every turn, as she did while arguing she was the strongest Democrat to face the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

"I will have a much better case to make on a range of the issues that, really, America must confront going forward, and will be able to hold my own and make the case for a change in policy that will be better for our country," she said.

Obama rested his chin on his hands and smiled as Clinton criticized him on his experience in foreign policy and said their views on Iraq had been virtually identical in the Senate. When she finished speaking, Obama began a stern criticism of her record on Iraq and her own judgment calls.

"Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on Day 1, but in fact she was ready to give in to George Bush on Day 1 on this critical issue," Obama said of the Iraq war. "So the same person that she criticizes for having terrible judgment - and we can't afford to have another one of those - in fact she facilitated and enabled this individual to make a decision that has been strategically damaging to the United States of America."

The first half-hour of the debate, which was held at Cleveland State University and broadcast by MSNBC and Ohio networks, focused heavily on tactics, with Clinton on the defensive. For instance, she said she did not believe her campaign was responsible for distributing a photograph of Obama wearing a robe and a white turban in a 2006 trip to Africa. The image surfaced Monday on The Drudge Report.

"I certainly know nothing about it," Clinton said. "That's not the kind of behavior that I condone."

As the debate drew to a close, Obama was asked whether he would reject the support of Louis Farrakhan, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, who announced last weekend that he would back Obama's presidential bid.

"I obviously can't censor him," Obama said. "It is not support that I sought."

Asked why he had taken steps to back away from his pledge to accept public financing in a general election, Obama said he had yet to make up his mind and would sit down with McCain "to make sure we have a system that is fair for both sides."

Yet he left open the door to not taking public financing, a departure from a statement he made a year ago.

Asked about the $5 million loan she made to her campaign, Clinton dismissed suggestions that outside groups - or foreign concerns that have paid her husband for speeches - were funding her campaign.

"The American people who support me are bankrolling my campaign, that's obvious," said Clinton, who added that she intended to release her tax returns at some point. Asked if she would do it before voting Tuesday, she demurred: "I'm a little busy right now."

By PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY, The New York Times, February 27, 2008

My American politics undergraduate students tease me without mercy for predicting a year ago that the Democratic nomination was Hillary Clinton's to lose. (I also predicted that Mike Huckabee would outlast all the Republican hopefuls except maybe John McCain. "Professor D's latest lucky guess," they joke.)

But when the teasing stops the questions start. "Do you think there is any way that Barack Obama can lose?" they ask. I say nothing, and they share self-reassurances: "There's no way for Clinton to beat him now...right?" "C'mon, McCain is way behind him in the polls!" I can no longer stay mum: "Well, Hillary led by double-digits in all but a few polls for over a year, and she's still ahead in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania." Their somber faces make me wish I had said "Hey, nine straight with Wisconsin; he's in!" or handed out "Yes We Can" buttons.

Hillary-backers and College Republicans are not extinct on my campus. But the undergraduate enthusiasm for Obama transcends gender, race, religion, region, income, and party affiliation. I have been teaching American politics for a quarter-century and never have I seen so many students inspired by a candidate. And it's not just an Ivy League or secular-elite university phenomenon. The national polling data prove as much, as do exit poll numbers on young voters. Colleagues who teach at religious and other colleges attest to it too.

My students may yet get their wish. But for all that Obama has achieved so far as a hope-inspiring, crowd-swelling candidate with great appeal to young voters, and despite the successive thrashings that Clinton has received since Super Tuesday, she can still win the Democratic nomination. And if Obama does get by Clinton, an even steeper challenge awaits in John McCain.

Obama has had some stirring, even brave, things to say: most notably concerning how public education has failed too many low-income children in urban America. Organizationally, the teachers' unions are the Democratic party's throbbing heart. Obama, to his credit, was not on their Valentine's Day list. They will lean against him in several upcoming big-state primaries, and as a super-delegate bloc too.

And Clinton can deflate Obama's "change" balloon by relentlessly asking him why he decries the "politics" of the "past 15 years." Does he dislike the Clinton-era presidential politics that expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, widely regarded as the single most successful anti-poverty initiative of that period? Does he mean the bipartisan bills of the 1990s that led to work-based welfare reform? Does he mean the politics of the "past" that yielded the State Children's Health Insurance Program? Or maybe he means rolling back post-1993 expansions in Medicare coverage or college loans or spending on low-income (Title I) schools.

Older Democrats, respectful of legislative accomplishments, particularly may not like that Obama often voted "present" as an Illinois legislator, or that his state and federal records seem so thin. Blue collar voters who earn $50,000 a year or less defected from Clinton in the Potomac primaries and again in Wisconsin. But in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania she may hold voters who can't cut work the way college kids can cut class to attend midday campaign rallies.

Indeed, with big Latino turnouts expected in Texas, older working-class Ohio voters sticking to her like rust, and friends in Pennsylvania like Governor Edward Rendell and Philly's popular new mayor Michael Nutter, Clinton can still nab the nomination. Fence-sitting super-delegates would quickly warm to a three-state sweep.

Obama and his proxies keep repeating that "party insiders" (aka Clinton-backing super-delegates) should not decide the election against the "will of the people." Obama also favors the Democratic National Committee (it doesn't get any more "inside" than that) denying Clinton the delegates she won when millions of people expressed their will by casting ballots in the Florida and Michigan Democratic primaries.

Clinton herself agreed to have Florida and Michigan penalized for moving up the date of their primaries. But that won't keep her from trying to turn Obama's public relations flank and use the "will of the people" against him - while also depicting front-running him as the "establishment" candidate. Listen for her to get at how the people's will squares with deference to national insiders' right to punish the states' insiders for holding their primaries before the former "party bosses" had dictated. Listen for her seconds to echo this: Situational solicitude for the "will of the people" might be expected from politicians drenched in the "past," but from the "change" candidate? With the press now dialing back its year-old Obamamania, the disingenuous whining might just work.

Clinton and Obama have not had a serious debate about Iraq. As Obama proclaims, almost as often as he says "change," he opposed from the start giving the president war-making authority. Stipulate that he was right - as most Democrats and a public plurality do - and then ask how, exactly, he reasoned his way to that decision when Colin Powell, John Kerry, and many others with no less information and much greater experience did not? Did he analyze the available prewar data differently, and, if so, how? Unlike Democrats from Joe Biden to Joe Lieberman, why did Obama never offer a serious plan to fix the poorly executed, pre-surge occupation?

As pleasing as his pledge is to the party faithful, how can he be so absolute about bringing all troops home by a date certain? How does that year-before-the-act pledge constitute being "as careful" getting out as we were "careless" going in? Conceding that a "new" global politics would be welcome, what wisdom is he seeking with crusty old foreign policy hands like Zbigniew Brzezinski on his national security team?

If Clinton does not have this debate with Obama, McCain surely will. There is no reason to trust any pre-October 2008 polls showing Obama beating McCain, including those now showing him beating McCain by a larger margin than Clinton would. Obama would be the second consecutive Democratic standard-bearer ranked the Senate's most liberal member by nonpartisan outlets like National Journal. He leapt leftward as he positioned himself to run for president: a "composite liberal score" of 95.5 out of 100 in 2007, up from 82.5 and a 16th-place finish in 2005. (Clinton's 2007 score was 82.8, and her lifetime score is 79.4.)

In a general election, there will be some McCain Democrats. Obama Republicans are more of a question, and independents could be either man's flock. Many general election scenarios remain possible, but, as I reckon it, the only one forecasting a Democratic victory that respects mass-electorate math and state-by-state statistics is a few-point win over McCain that involves McCain getting millions fewer evangelical votes than Bush did in 2004, the Democratic ticket getting as many or more African-Americans as Kerry-Edwards did in 2004, and the sleeping giant Latino vote going decisively against McCain.

Other scenarios for a Democratic win against McCain all pretty much assume that the stubborn post-1996 red state-blue state realities will be changed by a change-agent candidate. Obama generated voter enthusiasm even in Republican Kansas, and he may prove to be a party-realigning candidate, but believing so at this stage requires, well, the audacity of hope.

If Obama wins any two of the Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania primary trio, then he is virtually certain to be the nominee. One thing is for sure: If he doesn't win, I won't be teasing my sure-to-be down-hearted students.




By John DiIulio Jr., The Weekly Standard, February 26, 2008

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was on the offensive in Tuesday night's make-or-break debate, sparring with Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois but also with the debate hosts. It was the last one before the crucial March 4 primaries in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island.

The moderators, NBC's Brian Williams and Tim Russert, immediately jumped into the Cleveland State University event by replaying recent attacks the candidates made against each other, prompting both candidates to go on the offensive over health care, trade and campaign tactics, among other issues.

Both candidates seemed to try to be cordial throughout the disagreements, but it was Obama who earned audience applause at one point for deferring to his opponent.

Four hundred forty-four delegates will be at stake on Tuesday. The two candidates are currently separated by just under 100 delegates, according to the Associated Press. Neither could win enough on Tuesday to secure the nomination.

Clinton's campaign had been eager for her to appear in a national debate with Obama in advance of the March 4 primaries, to try to regain some of her earlier momentum. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has said she needs to win both Texas and Ohio to win the nomination.

The following are CQ Politics' Mosts and Bests from the debate:

- Most Baiting: NBC. At the outset of the debate, NBC recapped the recent attacks the candidates made against each other. Williams asked Clinton if there has been a difference in her "tone" since the candidates met last week during a friendly Texas debate and then shared some moments of cordiality, and the past week's attacks. The network aired a clip of Clinton denouncing Obama campaign fliers in Ohio which she said inaccurately portrayed her health care plan and her record on the North American Free Trade Agreement. "Shame on you!" Clinton said in the clip.

Clinton chalked the change in tone up to a competitive race. "Well, this is a contested campaign," Clinton said, adding that she was "disturbed" by Obama's campaign tactics.

NBC then noted a photo of Obama in traditional Kenyan dress that has been circulated on the Internet and was rumored to have been sent out by the Clinton campaign. Clinton said she had no knowledge of the photo and Obama said that he believed her "at her word."

-Most discussed issue: Health care.

After a lengthy back-and-forth on who has a better universal health care plan, Williams noted that the candidates just had a "16 minute discussion on health care."

Obama faults Clinton's plan because it mandates that everyone have health insurance and Clinton argues that Obama's plan leaves out millions of Americans. Each argued that the other has misrepresented their opponent's plan.

But in the end, both candidates have the same general goal. "I believe in universal health care as does Sen. Clinton," Obama said.

- Most contentious issue for the Ohio audience: Trade

Obama and other critics have hit out at Clinton for her past support for NAFTA, signed into law by Bill Clinton. Ohio lost many manufacturing jobs in the past decade and many workers believe NAFTA is at least partially to blame. Clinton has consistently stated during the current campaign that she finds fault with NAFTA, and repeated that opinion Tuesday.

"We do need to fix NAFTA. It is not working," Clinton said.

But Tuesday's moderators and Obama jumped at her for past statements. Russert noted several past instances when Clinton praised the agreement and Obama chimed in.

"I think it's inaccurate for Sen. Clinton to say she's always opposed NAFTA," Obama said. "I think that Sen. Clinton has shifted positions on this."

Russert pressed both candidates to answer whether they would end NAFTA if elected, but both candidates demurred, each saying that renegotiating the deal would be the path to a trade solution.

- Best Dodge-Obama: On Campaign Finance

Russert pressed Obama to adhere to his signed pledge to accept public financing for the general election asking Obama whether he would "keep his word."

Obama said that he is not yet the nominee, so he can't presently make that decision, but that if he was to win the Democratic nomination, he would then sit down with the (presumptive) GOP nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, and "make sure we have a system that is fair for both sides."

- Best Dodge-Clinton: On Tax Returns

Russert posed questions to Clinton regarding the release of joint tax returns she holds with her husband, asking what is the former president "hiding" by withholding the documentation.

Clinton said that she will release those documents when she becomes the nominee.

Russert asked if she could do it before March 4, but Clinton said she would be unable to complete the process by then, adding "I'm a little busy right now. I hardly have time to sleep."

- Most pushback on the debate itself: Clinton.

Early on, Clinton complained about the debate format, saying "Well, could I just point out that, in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time." She went on to say "I don't mind" but added "If anybody saw 'Saturday Night Live,' you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow," attempting humor to criticize what she believes to be lopsided treatment in the debates.

Later, Clinton and then Obama answered questions on Mid East troop levels. When Obama finished his answer, Clinton attempted to jump in with her additional thoughts, but Brian Williams wasn't having any of it. He noted he was trying to go to a commercial break and sternly said, "Television doesn't stop." Clinton attempted again to speak and Williams asked her "Can you hold that thought?" as they cut to a commercial.

- Best Use of Deference to Get Ahead: Obama

Moderators asked Obama to address his endorsement from Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam who has generated controversy for making anti-Semitic comments. Obama said that he has "consistently denounced" Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and no formal or informal support has been arranged with Farrakhan.

Clinton interjected that when she ran for Senate, she "rejected" support from an anti-Semitic Independent party, noting that she was "willing to take that stand."

Russert asked if Clinton was suggesting Obama is not doing the same thing, to which she responded, "No."

But Obama took it a step further, turning Clinton's words back on her.

"If the word 'reject' Sen. Clinton feels is stronger than the word 'denounce,' then I'm happy to concede the point. And I would reject and denounce," Obama said to wide applause from an audience that had remained virtually silent throughout the debate.

By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Politics, February 27, 2008

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - What will likely be the final debate of the Democratic primary cycle worked wonders for MSNBC, giving it the news channel's highest ratings ever.

More than 7.8 million viewers tuned in to the sometimes caustic debate between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, according to data released Wednesday afternoon by Nielsen Media Research. It ranked as the third-most-watched debate this election season, behind only ABC's Democratic presidential debate on the eve of the New Hampshire presidential primary in January and CNN's Kodak Theatre showdown this month.

It was far above anything else in MSNBC's 11-year history, surpassing the previous record of 3.7 million viewers on March 19, 2003, at the beginning of the Iraq War. Tuesday night's debate averaged 3.2 million viewers in the news demographic of adults 25-54. It aired from 9-10:36 p.m. ET.

The debate, which was moderated by "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams and Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, aired also on NBC's broadcast affiliates in Ohio. Since it aired with the same commercials on broadcast TV and MSNBC, the 744,000 or so viewers who made it Ohio's top TV broadcast of the night were counted in MSNBC's national rating.

It beat "American Idol" by 44% in the Ohio markets, which included Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus.

By Paul J. Gough, Reuters, February 27, 2008

CLEVELAND (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton will get her last, best chance Tuesday night to slow Barack Obama before the March 4 primaries in the latest debate of an increasingly contentious Democratic presidential race.

Obama has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses, and even some of Clinton's supporters concede she must win in both Ohio and Texas next week to keep her candidacy alive.

"I think things have gotten a little hotter in the last couple of days," Obama said at a news conference where he collected an endorsement from a former campaign rival, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

There was unlikely to be any debate about that, after a four-day span in which Clinton accused Obama of distorting her record on trade and health care in mass mailings, then criticized him as ill-prepared to take charge of the nation's foreign policy.

Spicing the race further was a photograph of Obama that surfaced on the Internet, an image of him wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya.

The gossip and news Web site The Drudge Report posted the photograph Monday and said it was being circulated by "Clinton staffers."

It offered no evidence of that, and Clinton aides said the campaign had not known the photo was being circulated and never sanctioned its distribution.

There were fresh signs of Clinton's campaign woes, including an AP-Ipsos poll that charted significant gains for Obama among male voters and others two months into the primary season.

In mid-January, Clinton held a seven-point lead among all men, a group she now loses by 25 points. The two were about even among college graduates six weeks ago, and Obama now holds a 20-point margin.

The former first lady's most reliable base of support continues to be older voters, women, and lower-income workers.

Clinton campaigned in Lorain, a blue-collar city went of Cleveland several hours before the debate.

One man in the audience waved his arms and spoke emotionally about the legal struggles he has faced trying to hold onto his home.

"I can't help everybody, but I try," Clinton said, after listening calmly. "There are a lot of people who really need help. We can't treat each other like we are invisible."

Obama's only pre-debate public appearance was his news conference with Dodd, who said it was time for Democrats to unite for the fall campaign. He denied it was a nudge to Clinton to quit the race.

In addition to Texas and Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont hold primaries on March 4, with a total of 370 delegates at stake.

By DAVID ESPO, Associated Press, February 26, 2008

WASHINGTON -- As he emerges from a sometimes- bitter primary campaign, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain poses a stiff challenge to either of his potential Democratic opponents in the general election, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The findings underscore the difficulties ahead for Democrats as they hope to retake the White House during a time of war, with voters giving McCain far higher marks when it comes to experience, fighting terrorism and dealing with the situation in Iraq.

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have made ending America's involvement in the war a centerpiece of their campaigns. And even though a clear majority of those polled said the war was not worth waging, about half of registered voters said McCain -- a Vietnam vet who has supported the Bush administration's military strategy -- was better able to deal with Iraq.

In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%). Neither lead is commanding given that the survey, conducted Feb. 21-25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The Arizona senator is viewed favorably by 61% of all registered voters, including a plurality of Democrats.

The survey showed that McCain's potential advantages extend even to domestic issues, where he is considered to be most vulnerable. Even though McCain has joked about his lack of expertise on economic issues, voters picked him over Obama, 42% to 34%, as being best able to handle the economy. However, Clinton led McCain on that issue, 43% to 34%.

"I just think he's older, he's more experienced, and he's got the betterment of the country in mind," said Robert Fear, 79, a registered Democrat from Newton, Ill., who said he planned to support McCain in November.

In the Democratic race, the survey showed, Obama's support has increased across all of the party's key constituencies.

The Illinois senator now leads Clinton, 48% to 42%, among Democratic primary voters nationally -- a far cry from his double-digit deficits throughout 2007 and the first weeks of 2008.

The poll, which surveyed 1,246 registered voters, was conducted under the direction of Times Polling Director Susan Pinkus.

Obama's lead over Clinton in the Times/Bloomberg poll comes in the wake of his 11 consecutive primary and caucus victories. He is ahead in the closely contested race for delegates to the party's national nominating convention and in recent days has made gains in the key states of Ohio and Texas, which hold primaries Tuesday.

At least two other national surveys released this week have shown Obama taking the lead among Democratic voters -- a development that puts further pressure on Clinton to win the upcoming primaries or face calls from some party leaders to drop out.

One hopeful sign for the New York senator: Of Democratic voters whose home states have yet to hold primaries or caucuses, the former first lady maintains a 13-point edge over Obama.

But the findings also showed that Obama has successfully broadened his coalition, which once was limited primarily to wealthier and better-educated Democrats.

While Clinton's support has remained steady at 42% since the last Times/Bloomberg survey, in January, Obama's has surged 15 points. That may be due to backing from voters who had supported John Edwards -- who dropped out of the race Jan. 30 -- as well as many previously undecided voters.

Obama now splits the vote with Clinton among Democratic primary voters without college degrees and among working women, two areas in which Clinton had been strong.

But the findings showed that whoever wins the nomination could face challenges in unifying the party. Older white women remain fiercely loyal to Clinton, while the contest has revealed a sharp race gap -- with blacks overwhelmingly supporting the man who could become the country's first African American president.

The poll suggests that the once-muscular grip on the Democratic base held by Clinton and her husband, the former president, has loosened quickly as they have intensified their attacks on Obama and tried to paint him as ill-prepared for the presidency.

One of the most striking findings is that when Democratic voters are asked whom they support now, regardless of whom they voted for in an earlier primary or caucus, Obama leads by nearly 20 points, 55% to 37%.

"I liked Bill [Clinton], and I liked the combo of both of them," said Monica Butler, 48, an executive assistant who lives in Orlando, Fla. "But then Bill just started running off his mouth again, and then you really think about things, and you think, 'Oh, my God, are we going backward again? We need to go forward.' "

As for the New York senator, Butler added: "I just don't relate to her anymore. She came out with good intentions, but I think she was more true to herself in the beginning than she is now."

Poll respondent Valerie Grivas, a 49-year-old graphic artist in San Antonio, said she decided in the last few days that she would vote in the Texas primary for Obama, even though she has been excited about the prospect of electing the first female president.

She said she "couldn't bear to watch" as Clinton attacked Obama during their debate in Austin last week. Playing off Obama's campaign slogan of "Change you can believe in," Clinton called his recent repetition of language spoken in 2006 by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama friend and supporter, "change you can Xerox."

"I can't stand to hear her try to shame him or insult him," Grivas said. "It makes her look petty and small, and I don't want them to attack each other. I want them to be on the same team."

Democratic voters are divided over what should happen if neither Clinton nor Obama attains the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination by the time the national convention begins Aug. 25 in Denver.

The survey's participants are evenly split over whether the 796 superdelegates should vote for the candidate they personally support or for the one who won their state. But a majority (52%) thinks the party should allow delegates from Florida and Michigan to participate, agreeing with the position taken by the Clinton campaign. The national party stripped those two states of voting delegations for setting their primary dates ahead of the party's election schedule.

But whether Clinton or Obama emerges with the nomination, McCain will be a force to reckon with.

When compared to either Democrat, McCain is rated as the "strongest leader." He easily outpaces both when voters are asked who has the "right experience to be president," beating Obama by 31 points and Clinton by 12.

But the survey did expose some weaknesses for McCain.

Nearly one in four Republican primary voters said they were "unhappy" that he would win the GOP nomination. And of those voters, about half said they would either vote for another candidate in November or stay home, an ominous sign for Republicans at a time when Democrats are expected to be highly motivated.

Both Clinton and Obama beat McCain when voters are asked who would best handle healthcare and "substantially change the way things are done in Washington."

And on an issue dear to core conservative voters -- battling illegal immigration -- Clinton scored slightly better than McCain, a result of the Republican's past support for creating a path to citizenship for those here illegally. Against Obama, McCain scored better on that issue.

The long campaign has taken some of the fight out of the Big Dog.

Bill Clinton is dutifully traveling from state to state and small town to small town on behalf of his wife's presidential candidacy. But the growling and snapping Bill Clinton that the country saw before the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries has been muzzled and leashed.

He is being kept as far from the media as possible to prevent any more of the red-faced, finger-wagging tirades and freelance political commentary that polls say cost Hillary Rodham Clinton a lot of support, particularly among black voters.

So what audiences in venues like Lancaster, a working-class town of 33,000 about 35 miles, about 55 kilometers, southeast of Columbus, are seeing is a subdued and substantive former president going on at length about Iraq, health care, education, job creation and what he portrays as the multiple sins of the Bush administration.

What he lacks in passion he makes up for in sheer volume of words.

In the Lancaster High School gymnasium Monday night, Bill Clinton spoke for a full hour to about 2,000 people. The room could have held 1,000 more, but the rest of the gym was curtained off. Earlier in the day, at a college campus in Chillicothe, Ohio, he spoke in a gym that was two-thirds empty.

Instead of waxing nostalgic about his years in power or highlighting his own accomplishments, Clinton now peppers his remarks with phrases like "Hillary wanted me to tell you" and "Hillary has a plan for that." He is as humble as he is as capable of being about his own role.

"You know, I'm a little out of practice at this political stuff," he said at the beginning of his remarks Monday night. "Every election time I feel like the old horse they drag out and lead around the track one more time."

The Lancaster crowd, a mix of older citizens and students receiving extra class credit for attending, was attentive and cheered when Clinton promised that if elected president, Hillary Clinton would end the war in Iraq and dismantle the Bush No Child Left Behind Program (which she voted for in 2002).

Some left before he finished speaking.

Keith Crabtree, a 47-year-old airport technician from Lancaster, said after listening to Bill Clinton that he still remained undecided how he would vote in the primary Tuesday. "He convinced me more than Obama did," he said. "Obama says what he's going to do but he doesn't say how he's going to do it or how he's going to pay for it."

Crabtree said he had no doubt that Bill Clinton was an asset to his wife's campaign.

"He knows what it's like," Crabtree said. "He's been there."

But he is still not certain that four or eight more years of the Clintons in the White House would be good for the country.

"Like a lot of people, I'm waiting until the last minute to decide," he said. "This thing is a lot tighter than anyone expected it to be."

Shana Blank, 53, a social worker, said that Clinton was a more effective advocate for Hillary Clinton's candidacy than she is.

"I think he brought a really good message to Lancaster and explained a lot of the issues that I care about," she said. "He's probably better at it than she is. But he's got a lot more practice."

The reason the Clinton Big Dog is on such a short leash is obvious from polling data. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, only 22 percent of respondents said they were more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her husband, while an equal number said they were less likely to support her because of him. In December, 44 percent said they were more likely to vote for her because of Bill Clinton while only 7 seven percent said they were less likely.

Bill Clinton's approval numbers have fallen as well. Last summer, 51 percent of poll respondents said they had a favorable view of him, while 32 percent said their opinion was unfavorable. By early February of this year, the split was 46-39.

It was not hard to find low opinions of Bill Clinton in Lancaster among those who stayed away from the evening rally.

Tom Mertz, who runs an insurance office on Main Street, said, "If I was advising her, I'd get him out of there."

"He's not done her any good," he said. "He threw his mouth in gear before his brain."

Mertz, who is 77 and usually votes Republican, added, "He basically was a popular president, even if some of the things he did were not quite kosher. But he weathered that storm, I guess."

Clare Walker, who runs a family-owned shoe store up the block, called herself a political independent who has not made up her mind how she will vote in the primary. She said she thinks Bill Clinton is a liability and should not be out campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

"It all has to do with Monica," she said, referring to Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern that led to his impeachment. "That was it for me."

An equally troublesome matter for her, Walker said, was the $5 million loan Hillary Clinton made to keep her campaign afloat before the coast-to-coast Super Tuesday nominating contests on Feb. 5.

"Where did that come from?" she said. "A lot of people in this area who thought she was for the working middle class and the poor are wondering about that. That's a lot of money. That really hurt her in this area."

"That $5 million came out of nowhere," she added. "I think even more than her husband that will cause her to lose. The people here are poor but they're not stupid."

By John M. Broder, International Herald Tribune, February 26, 2008

Reminding voters of the high-stakes Texas and Ohio primaries next week, former President Bill Clinton recognized rival Barack Obama's likeability Tuesday but warned his wife's supporters not to slip into an "amnesia" about the successes of the 1990s.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is facing a make-or-break stand for her slumping campaign in the March 4 primaries, and her husband predicted that victories in the delegate-rich states would propel her to the Democratic presidential nomination.

But Bill Clinton told supporters, who numbered from about 300 to 1,000 during three separate rallies, that the New York senator should not be penalized at the voting booth simply because she embodies experience.

"I realize that Vice President Cheney and President Bush have given experience a bad name," Clinton said. "I know that. But this is not about experience versus change. This is about electing the best change-maker."

Bill Clinton arrived more than an hour late to the first of six rallies in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. A mariachi band played until he appeared standing in the back of a pickup truck that toted a rusty oil drum.

Speaking at the last of three Dallas stops, Clinton acknowledged the eloquence of Obama, who has won the last 11 state contests. Clinton, in turn, has taken an increasingly mocking tone to Obama's campaign theme that he would bring change to American politics.

Rhetorically asking why Hillary Clinton wasn't "winning by a lot," Bill Clinton suggested that people wanting change believe the only way to achieve a fresh start is by electing someone with no link to the past.

But Clinton said that requires "historical amnesia" and the false belief that the 1990s were no better than the past decade for Americans.

"The argument being made by the other side is the only way you can really change America is to eliminate for consideration from the presidency anybody that ever did anything good in the 1990s and stopped anything bad from happening in this decade," he said. "That somehow, miraculously, the less you were involved in making something good happen the more likely it is to be good in the future. Just think about that."

The Texas contest is a hybrid primary-caucus, where most delegates are awarded based on the primary vote and others by caucuses held later in the evening. Voters can participate in both.

"You have to vote twice if you really want her to be president," Clinton said.

By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press, February 26, 2008

Democrat Barack Obama, preparing for tonight's last debate with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton before the crucial March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas, sought today to turn down the heat in their increasingly bitter contest.

"It is important for me as well as Sen. Clinton to communicate to our staffs as well that . . . we're both trying out for quarterback, but we're on the same team," he said in a press conference, where he picked up the endorsement of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).

With tensions rising between the two remaining Democratic candidates, Obama was asked about Clinton's mocking comment that he was selling a vision of "celestial choirs" in attempting to persuade voters he could solve problems.

"I think things have gotten a little hotter over the last couple of days, but these things have gone, sort of, in ebbs and flows," Obama said.

One day after allegations that the Clinton campaign had circulated a photo showing Obama in Somali native dress, a reminder to voters of his African ancestry, Obama attempted to move on from the controversy.

"At this stage of the campaign, there are going to be dust-ups, particularly at the staff level," Obama said. "Certainly I don't think that photograph was circulated to enhance my candidacy. I think that's fair to say. Do I think it's reflective of Sen. Clinton's approach to campaigning? Probably not. And so at this point, my interest is just moving forward and talking about the issues that are going to be helpful to the people of Ohio.

Dodd, who dropped out of the presidential race last month after his poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, embraced Obama as the candidate who can make a difference in world politics.

"He's ready to be president and I am ready to support him in this campaign," Dodd said in Cleveland, where the biggest storm of the winter is forecast to dump 8 inches of snow on the city. "I believe Barack Obama has the experience, the ability, the vision to lead this country and to make a difference for us both at home and abroad. A significant difference."

Rebutting claims by rival Clinton that Obama is untested, Dodd said the Illinois senator has been "poked and prodded, analyzed and criticized, called too green, too trusting and for all of that has already won" a majority of states and votes.

Obama smiled when Dodd quipped that he himself had campaigned on his years of experience, to poor results.

"It isn't just experience here, it's maturity, it's judgment, it's balance, it's the ability to speak in a way that touches people, that I think people are looking for in the national leadership this time around," Dodd said.

He added that he feared that if the campaign grew uglier, it could undermine Democratic hopes in the fall. "It's now the hour to come together," he said, "... to get behind this campaign."

But Dodd explicitly stated that he was not calling for Clinton to get out of the race. "No, I'm not suggesting that at all," he said.

Clinton's hopes to use Ohio as a firewall in her falling campaign suffered another blow today when former Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White, who had earlier backed Clinton, also endorsed Obama.

"As an African American, I am proud to see Barack Obama make such an extraordinary effort to become the president of the United States," he wrote in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "But being black is not enough for me to vote against my friend. I am voting for Barack because he has rekindled my hope again through his experience, vision and leadership for change in a political system that has gone so awry."

Meanwhile, Clinton plans a noon town hall meeting in Texas before flying to Cleveland for tonight's debate, the 20th among Democrats since the campaign began.

"I'm sure we're going to have a vigorous debate," Obama said. "I would expect her to argue vigorously her case for why she should be president and I'm sure she'll point out the differences she has with me. I will do the same, but I'm sure it will be conducted in a civil fashion."

Referring to Dodd's call for unity, Obama agreed, saying: "I think we're getting to the point now where, hopefully, a lot of differences have been picked over and it's a good time to remind ourselves, as Chris just did, how much we have in common."

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain distanced himself from comments by radio talk show host Bill Cunningham, who introduced the presumptive Republican nominee at a rally in Cincinnati.

In his introduction, Cunningham repeatedly emphasized Obama's middle name -- at least three times calling him Barack Hussein Obama -- and derided Obama as a "hack, Chicago-style Daley politician."




By Johanna Neuman and Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2008

CLEVELAND (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama clashed over trade, health care and the war in Iraq Tuesday night in a crackling debate at close quarters one week before a pivotal group of primaries. Charges of negative campaign tactics were high on the program, too.

"Senator Obama has consistently said I would force people to have health care whether they can afford it or not," said Clinton, insisting it was not true.

Responding quickly, Obama countered that former first lady had consistently claimed his plan "would leave 15 million people out ... I dispute that. I think it is inaccurate," he said.

The tone was polite yet pointed, increasingly so as the 90-minute session wore on, a reflection of the stakes in a race in which Obama has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses and Clinton is in desperate need of a comeback.

Clinton also said as far as she knew her campaign had nothing to do with circulating a photograph of Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya.

The gossip and news Web site The Drudge Report posted the photograph Monday and said, without substantiation, that it was being circulated by "Clinton staffers."

"We have no evidence where it came from," Clinton said, making clear that's not the kind of behavior she wants in her campaign.

"I take Senator Clinton at her word that she knew nothing about the photo," Obama said.

The two rivals, the only survivors of a grueling primary season, sat about a foot apart at a table on stage at Cleveland State University. It was the 20th debate of the campaign, 10 months to the day after the first.

The race was far different in April 2007, Clinton the front-runner by far. Now Obama holds that place, both in terms of contests and delegates won.

Both Obama and Clinton were on the receiving end of pointed questions from Tim Russert of NBC News, one of two moderators for the event.

Asked whether he was waffling on his pledge of agreeing to take federal funds for the fall campaign, Obama said he was still contesting the primaries.

"If I am the nominee I will sit down with John McCain and make sure we come up with a system that is fair to both sides," he said. Obama could presumably raise far more money than the federal system provides, but accepting government money precludes that.

The equivalent question to Clinton concerned the income tax returns that she and her husband, former President Clinton, file jointly.

"I will release my tax returns," Clinton said, if she becomes the Democratic nominee. She then added she might do so "even earlier," but not before Tuesday's primary.

The two rivals also debated NAFTA, the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that is wildly unpopular with blue-collar workers whose votes are critical in any Democratic primary in Ohio.

Neither one said they were ready to withdraw from the agreement, although both said they would use the threat of withdrawal to pressure Mexico to make changes.

"I have said I would renegotiate NAFTA," said Clinton. "I will say to Mexico that we will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it."

Obama said Clinton has tried to have it both ways, touting the trade deal in farm states where it's popular while finding fault with it in places like Ohio.

"This is something I have been consistent about," said Obama, who said he went to the American Farm Bureau Federation to tout his opposition and used it as an issue in his 2004 Senate campaign.

"That conversation I had with the Farm Bureau, I was not ambivalent at all," said Obama.

On the war, both candidates denounced President Bush's record on Iraq, then restated long-held disagreements over which of them was more opposed.

Clinton said she and Obama had virtually identical voting records on the war since he came to the Senate in 2005.

The former first lady voted in 2002 to authorize the war, at a time when Obama was not yet in Congress, and he tried to use the issue to rebut charges that he is ill-prepared to become commander in chief.

"The fact is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but, in fact, she was ready to give in to George Bush on day one on this critical issue," Obama said.

Obama also sought to distance himself from an endorsement from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, the controversial Chicago-based minister who has made numerous anti-Semitic comments in the past.

Obama said he hadn't sought the endorsement, and that he had denounced the remarks.

Clinton interjected at one point, saying that in her initial Senate campaign in New York in 2000, she was supported by a group with virulent anti-Semitic views.

"I rejected it, and said it would not be anything I would be comfortable with." She said rejecting support was different from denouncing it, an obvious jab at Obama.

He responded by saying he didn't see the difference, since Farrakhan hadn't done anything except declare his support. But given Clinton's comments, he said, "I happily concede the point and I would reject and denounce."

The audience applauded at that.

The debate offered Clinton her last, best chance to slow Obama's drive toward the nomination. Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont hold primaries next Tuesday, with 370 delegates at shake.

Obama has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses, and even some of Clinton's supporters concede she must win in both Ohio and Texas to keep her candidacy alive.

"I think things have gotten a little hotter in the last couple of days," Obama said at a news conference earlier Tuesday where he collected an endorsement from a former campaign rival, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

Dodd's decision aside, there were other signs of Clinton's campaign woes.

A stream of party leaders has begun to move toward Obama, and an AP-Ipsos poll charted significant gains for him among male voters and others two months into the primary season.

In mid-January, Clinton held a seven-point lead among all men, a group she now loses by 25 points. The two were about even among college graduates six weeks ago, and Obama now holds a 20-point margin.

By DAVID ESPO, Associated Press, February 26, 2008

WHEN people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.

It's not just that her candidacy's central premise - the priceless value of "experience" - was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination - "It will be me," Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November - she was routed by an insurgency.

The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would "be over by Feb. 5," Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year's. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.

That's why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn. Like his prototype, Mr. Penn is bigger on loyalty and arrogance than strategic brilliance. But he's actually not even all that loyal. Mr. Penn, whose operation has billed several million dollars in fees to the Clinton campaign so far, has never given up his day job as chief executive of the public relations behemoth Burson-Marsteller. His top client there, Microsoft, is simultaneously engaged in a demanding campaign of its own to acquire Yahoo.

Clinton fans don't see their standard-bearer's troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naive young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones's Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.

But it's the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it's a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate's message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama's organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall - the March 4 contests - she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she "had no idea" that the Texas primary system was "so bizarre" (it's a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had "people trying to understand it as we speak." Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama's people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn't file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

This is the candidate who keeps telling us she's so competent that she'll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin resume, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker resume is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.

Given that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offer marginally different policy prescriptions - laid out in voluminous detail by both, by the way, on their Web sites - it's not clear what her added-value message is. The "experience" mantra has been compromised not only by her failure on the signal issue of Iraq but also by the deadening lingua franca of her particular experience, Washingtonese. No matter what the problem, she keeps rolling out another commission to solve it: a commission for infrastructure, a Financial Product Safety Commission, a Corporate Subsidy Commission, a Katrina/Rita Commission and, to deal with drought, a water summit.

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and - talk about bizarre - against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

Bill Clinton knocked states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because "they disproportionately favor upper-income voters" who 'don't really need a president but feel like they need a change." After the Potomac primary wipeout, Mr. Penn declared that Mr. Obama hadn't won in "any of the significant states" outside of his home state of Illinois. This might come as news to Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Iowa, among the other insignificant sites of Obama victories. The blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has hilariously labeled this Penn spin the "insult 40 states" strategy.

The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists' union, derided Obama supporters as "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies." Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters.

If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama's "plagiarism." And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall.

The other persistent gripe among some Clinton supporters is that a hard-working older woman has been unjustly usurped by a cool young guy intrinsically favored by a sexist culture. Slate posted a devillish video mash-up of the classic 1999 movie "Election": Mrs. Clinton is reduced to a stand-in for Tracy Flick, the diligent candidate for high school president played by Reese Witherspoon, and Mr. Obama is implicitly cast as the mindless jock who upsets her by dint of his sheer, unearned popularity.

There is undoubtedly some truth to this, however demeaning it may be to both candidates, but in reality, the more consequential ur-text for the Clinton 2008 campaign may be another Hollywood classic, the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy "Pat and Mike" of 1952. In that movie, the proto-feminist Hepburn plays a professional athlete who loses a tennis or golf championship every time her self-regarding fiance turns up in the crowd, pulling her focus and undermining her confidence with his grandstanding presence.

In the 2008 real-life remake of "Pat and Mike," it's not the fiance, of course, but the husband who has sabotaged the heroine. The single biggest factor in Hillary Clinton's collapse is less sexism in general than one man in particular - the man who began the campaign as her biggest political asset. The moment Bill Clinton started trash-talking about Mr. Obama and raising the specter of a co-presidency, even to the point of giving his own televised speech ahead of his wife's on the night she lost South Carolina, her candidacy started spiraling downward.

What's next? Despite Mrs. Clinton's valedictory tone at Thursday's debate, there remains the fear in some quarters that whether through sleights of hand involving superdelegates or bogus delegates from Michigan or Florida, the Clintons might yet game or even steal the nomination. I'm starting to wonder. An operation that has waged political war as incompetently as the Bush administration waged war in Iraq is unlikely to suddenly become smart enough to pull off that duplicitous a "victory." Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin' Donuts in January alone, this campaign simply may not have the cash on hand to mount a surge.

By Frank Rich, The New York Times, February 24, 2008

HOUSTON - She served as first lady through her husband-s two terms, suffered the indignities of his impeachment and then made history running for his office on her own.

No, not her. It was Miriam Amanda Wallace Ferguson, known as "Ma," the first woman elected governor of Texas, back in 1924.

So you'll pardon the women of Texas (and Ma Ferguson was known for her generous pardons) if they don't go all wobbly over the idea of the first female president.

Texas is no stranger to powerful women, which is why it was scarcely accidental that in Thursday night's debate, both Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama bowed to such trailblazers as former Representative Barbara Jordan and former Gov. Ann Richards.

"While all those redneck bubba cowboys were driving the cattle, the women were running the ranches," said Terri Burke, a longtime Abilene newspaper editor who was recently named executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

As Texas prepares to deliver a giant and perhaps decisive verdict on March 4 on the two closely matched Democratic presidential contenders, women - who traditionally outnumber men at the polls in this state and around the nation - may well hold the key to victory. And while many women champion Mrs. Clinton's bid for the White House as the obvious next leap across the gender gap, others say her historic candidacy no longer carries the same urgency as it would have, say, for their mothers' generation.

"We're beyond feminism," said Kathy DeLange, 64, a retired school psychologist, who wore her heart on her head - an Obama cap - as she arrived at the polls here on Tuesday for the first day of early primary voting. "We're into personism now."

But not so for Jane Tillinghast, a certified public accountant who said she had just cast her ballot for "somebody seasoned and experienced" - Mrs. Clinton. "I grew up at the beginning of the women's movement," said Ms. Tillinghast, 61. "There's an awful lot of prejudice against Hillary."

Experts say the women's vote in Texas is likely to be sliced and diced by age, race and economics, fragmenting any unity and making assumptions risky, particularly with the party crossovers of the open primaries.

With younger women gravitating to Mr. Obama, there are still many women like Melanie Carter, 31, an accountant and mother of a 12-week-old son, who said: "I definitely would like a woman as president. I don't know when we'll get another shot."

But Frances T. Farenthold, 81, a prominent national Democrat who is known as Sissy and served from 1969 to 1973 as the only woman in the Texas House of Representatives, said she could not forgive Mrs. Clinton's vote for the Iraq war and was supporting Mr. Obama.

"I'm not going to set aside everything because a woman is running," Ms. Farenthold said, adding that the state's tradition of strong women went only so far. "There's a tradition of having pets, too," she said.

As a top Texas Republican, Comptroller Susan Combs is unlikely to vote for either Democrat, but she said Mrs. Clinton's candidacy was not the automatic draw for women it once might have been.

"Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto - for us to be looking at a woman as president, it's a little late," said Ms. Combs, who also served as state agriculture commissioner.

"Women have gotten comfortable in their own skin, regardless of whether they are Republicans or Democrats," she said. "They don't have to vote for 'The Woman.' "

It was different when Ms. Richards first ran for governor in 1990, Ms. Combs said, adding, "There was a disproportionate shift of women voting for a woman."

Since then, she said, Kay Bailey Huchison, a Republican, became the first woman elected to the Senate from Texas and is one of the state's top vote-getters. She is a likely candidate for governor in 2010 or possibly even for vice president this year.

Ms. Richards, who lost the governor's mansion to Goerge W. Bush in 1994 and died in 2006, would not have taken Mrs. Clinton's bid so lightly, said Cathy Bonner, one of her confidantes.

"Her legacy to us is, it would matter when the first woman became president and the leader of the free world and commander in chief," said Ms. Bonner, a marketing executive who was director of the State Commerce Department from 1991 to 1994. "It's very important for generations to come after 220 years of never having a woman's voice at that level."

Ms. Bonner said Mrs. Clinton was in the mold of the Texas pioneers, "women of true grit, survivorship and independence," who, she said, were out "pulling the wagon, just like the men."

Gretchen Ritter, director of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, said the state had a dual legacy. "We have long produced strong women leaders, but we're also a Southern state, not supportive of the position of women," Dr. Ritter said.

The civil rights and feminism movements of the 1960s and '70s, she said, propelled a wave of memorable Texas women into public life: Ms. Jordan, the first black woman in the Texas Senate, who later became the first black woman to represent a once-Confederate state in the House of Representatives; Irma Rangel, the first Mexican-American woman in the Texas House; Eddie Bernice Johnson, the first woman to lead a major Texas House committee and now a member of Congress from Dallas; and Sarah Weddington, who argued Roe v. Wade.

And Texas would hardly have been the same without the columnist and author Molly Ivins, who died of breast cancer last year at 62 and used her last column to denounce the war in Iraq. "Raise hell," she wrote. "Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous."

But few Texas matriarchs matched the antic record of the groundbreaking Ma Ferguson, who won office at 49 after her husband, James, was impeached in his second term in 1917 after feuding with the University of Texas and taking a $156,000 "loan" from the state's beer brewers. (Wyoming had become the first state to inaugurate a woman as governor two weeks earlier.)

Mrs. Ferguson vowed to share leadership with her ousted husband, offering "two governors for the price of one," and battled the Ku Klux Klan. But she became notorious for her prolific and possibly lucrative executive pardons that sprang about 100 convicts a month from prison.

Once in the Texas Capitol, a legendary story goes, she nearly collided with a man, who said, "Pardon me." "Sure," she responded. "Come on in. It'll only take a minute or two to do the paperwork."

She fended off an effort to impeach her as well, finished her two-year term, and ran again and won in 1932.

Texas politics has sobered up some over the years, but this year's Democratic presidential primary contest is likely to be as hard-fought as any, with the contenders vying to exploit differences among women and Hispanics and wrest the slightest advantage from otherwise obscure hot local races.

"A lot is generational in Texas," said Dr. Ritter, a political scientist and the author of "The Constitution as Social Design." "Women 40 and older are more aware of gender discrimination, and maybe more distrustful of a charismatic man in the public arena. But tons of younger women are going out for Obama."

State Representative Ana E. Hernandez, 29, Democrat of Houston and the youngest woman in the Texas House, is a case in point. She is a Mexican-born lawyer, "both female and minority," who resisted widespread Hispanic support for Mrs. Clinton and cast her vote for Mr. Obama.

So did Kelly Greenwood, 37, a lawyer who said she changed her mind every week before deciding on Mr. Obama. "I think the world will adore him," she said.

But Janis Hutchens, 58, a flight attendant originally from Arkansas - where, she volunteered, "I loved the Clintons" - said she cast her vote to send a woman to the White House.

By Ralph Blumenthal, The New York Times, February 24, 2008

ON Feb. 9, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed his place in the history books by telling a crowd in Wheeling, W.Va., that the State Department was full of Communists. "We are not dealing with spies who get 30 pieces of silver to steal the blueprint of a new weapon," he said. "We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity because it permits the enemy to guide and shape our policy." The claim was baseless, scurrilous - and plagiarized. The same words, practically verbatim, had been spoken on the floor of the House of Representatives two weeks earlier, by Representative Richard M. Nixon of California.

Senator McCarthy's wholesale borrowing was discovered only years later. Had reporters noticed it sooner, he might have run into a different kind of trouble than he did, for the press loves a plagiarism quarrel. Consider the well-aired sins of numerous writers in recent years - and last week's back-and-forth over Senator Barack Obama's uncredited use of the words of others.

Last weekend it was reported that Mr. Obama used on the presidential campaign trail a rhetorical set-piece first spoken by Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a friend and co-chairman of his campaign. The sequence contained famous political lines followed by the refrain "Just words" - a gibe meant to rebut the taunt of his rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, that he offers voters only speeches, not deeds. Mr. Obama acknowledged that the failure to cite Mr. Patrick was an error, if an unimportant one. In Thursday's debate, Mr. Obama said he thought it was "silly" that this was even under discussion. Mrs. Clinton pressed the case, saying, "If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words."

Mr. Obama is unusual among politicians for having written a memoir praised for its literary skill and for being the author of at least some of his own finely wrought speeches. That reputation is partly why the suggestion of plagiarism was startling to some. Hendrik Hertzberg, who was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, wrote on his blog at newyorker.com that Mr. Obama's was "not a mortal sin," but rather a "damaging mistake ... given that Obama's eloquence and 'authenticity' are so central to his appeal."

When professional writers borrow words without attribution, they're frequently censured, sometimes fiercely. It's natural, however, that when politicians do something similar - and particularly when the words are spoken - they are forgiven.

As Thomas Mallon, author of "Stolen Words," a book about plagiarism, points out, "Political language is unusually fluid." Politicians routinely borrow from one another, especially during campaigns, when they make use of any themes or mantras that seem to work. What Democratic candidate hasn't vowed to "fight for working families"?

Historically, most politicians who fail to credit sources emerge unscathed. In 1970, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew gave a speech that lifted chunks of prose from two N.A.A.C.P. policy experts. One of the experts said he was "delighted," since it meant that Mr. Agnew was adopting his liberal policies. In 1987, it came out that the Democratic House speaker, Jim Wright, had given a speech in Berlin that presaged President Reagan's "tear down that wall" remarks two months later. Though reportedly miffed, Mr. Wright let the matter go, saying, "I'm not going to sue him for plagiarism."

There is "a different standard for writing and for speaking," said Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University. "Spoken words are more in the public domain."

But even cases of written appropriation in politics tend to cause little fuss. In 2004, the conservative newspaper The New York Sun reported on writings by the Democratic presidential nominee, John F. Kerry, that closely tracked other people's published articles. The accusations went all but unnoticed. In the 2006 Virginia Senate race, the Republican George Allen accused his Democratic challenger, James Webb, of putting a historian's published words into his novel without giving credit. Mr. Webb won the race.

The public tends to dismiss these episodes partly because the use of speechwriters has changed the standards for originality in politics. Audiences don't kid themselves that politicians invent the words they speak. Theodore C. Sorensen, the speechwriter for John F. Kennedy who is aligned with Mr. Obama's campaign, said that precisely because speechwriters are ubiquitous, they're seen as extensions of the politician. "It's the speaker who puts his name on it, who takes responsibility for it," he said. "If the speech fails, he'll reap the consequences. If it's a success, he should get the credit, even if he didn't pen the words."

The tacitly accepted distinction between reciting a hired hand's slogans and usurping paragraphs from another individual led to the end of the 1988 presidential bid of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. Mr. Biden, then 44, appropriated the content of a speech from the British politician Neil Kinnock - including biographical details, like being the first in his family to attend college, that didn't apply to Mr. Biden. More uncredited borrowings surfaced, including phrases from Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Soon, the news that Mr. Biden had committed plagiarism in law school led him to end his campaign.

Not even the Clinton camp is suggesting that Mr. Obama's infraction matches Mr. Biden's. "The one parallel," says Mr. Mallon, who like most others interviewed for this article considers the Obama incident to be trivial, "is that Biden was seen as the best orator in the field in 1988. It went to the heart of his candidacy."

Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, author of "The Little Book of Plagiarism," suggests that Mr. Biden's offense had a special element of falsity. "What did Biden in was he seemed to be appropriating someone else's life. That was creepy," he said.

Another key difference, as Mr. Obama has stressed, was that Mr. Patrick "gave me the line and suggested I use it."

But, the Obama case aside, having the blessing of the source doesn't necessarily render uncredited use benign. Those potentially hurt include not just the originator of the words but the audience. "It seems to me the focus should be on the audience - is the audience hurt, is the audience deceived?" Judge Posner said.

And the competition may be hurt too. Just as a student who plagiarizes gains an unfair advantage over others, Judge Posner said, a candidate's rivals may suffer in comparison to a plagiarist.

It may be that the Obama incident has sparked debate because his orations have struck many as a welcome exception to the poverty of political speech in general. "Political language today is less idiosyncratic, less original, certainly less literary and less inspiring," Mr. Mallon said. "These candidates have got to treat words as cheap because they do so much to cheapen language by their endless droning and repetition."

David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead," said, "It's very common for politicians to issue talking points that are then deliberately repeated almost verbatim by tons of people. These people are not in the originality business. The point is to create an echo chamber."

Mr. Sorensen suggested that television was partly to blame for the decline. "TV is in the living room, it's in the bedroom, it encourages casual talk. Casual talk is fine, but there's something to be said for the elevated and inspiring level of rhetoric that John F. Kennedy provided and that," he added, in support of his current candidate, "Barack Obama is providing today."

It's immigration, stupid.

That's the message from Hispanic faith voters -- the de facto swing vote in this year's presidential election. The candidate who hears and heeds it may well win the White House in November. And despite the patterns of the past, that candidate may not be a Republican.

Hispanic evangelicals won't be squeezed into a Republican barrio. The question in our hearts and minds this election season is this: Is the Republican Party the party of xenophobia, nativism and anti-Latino demagoguery, or is it the party of faith and family values, regardless of skin color or language proficiency? Should we vote for Sen. John McCain because of his support for comprehensive immigration reform, or should Latino evangelicals shy away from a party that has refused to repudiate the polarizing and vicious rhetoric that has accompanied the immigration debate.

Hispanic faith voters include both evangelical Christians and Catholic charismatics. Many of us are the children of the Reagan revolution, the Moral Majority and the antiabortion movement. Where our parents championed the cause of economic equality and supported the Democratic Party, our generation wanted to connect the dots from the pulpit to the voting booth. Today, we also include large numbers from Generation X and Generation Y, younger adults who speak both Spanish and English fluently and hold strong social conservative beliefs but also embrace populist economic policies.

Without Hispanic faith voters, George W. Bush never would have won Florida in 2000 and 2004. Today, we play a major role in such swing states as New Mexico, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada and others. Without us, the Republican Party cannot succeed in a national election.

Until recently, the GOP stood ready to capture more than 50 percent of the Latino vote, thanks to evangelicals. In 2004, 44 percent of Hispanics voted for Bush -- but among Hispanic Protestants (chiefly evangelicals), according to the Pew Research Center, this figure was 56 percent. Last year, a Pew survey revealed that Latino evangelicals are twice as likely as Latino Catholics to identify with the Republican Party (37 percent vs. 17 percent). And Latino evangelicals are far more likely than Latino Catholics to describe themselves as conservative (46 percent to 31 percent).

The Pew survey reveals a constituency even more conservative on social issues than its white counterpart. Eighty-six percent of Hispanic evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage, compared with 67 percent of white evangelicals. While 61 percent of white evangelicals oppose abortion, an overwhelming 77 percent of Hispanic evangelicals repudiate the practice.

These factors alone would seem to make Hispanic faith voters a natural GOP constituency, but in the past two presidential elections, we also can't deny the Bush Factor. George W. Bush reached out to Hispanics like no other GOP candidate in history. He matched Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" outreach to the black community with his "I speak your language" mantra. The border-state, taco-eating, baseball-loving, broken-Spanish-speaking Texas governor resonated with the Latino community. He wooed us as we had never been wooed, and argued that we personify the idea of compassionate conservatism.

So why would these compassionate conservatives break away from the Republican Party? Two years ago, meeting with former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, then-Speaker Dennis Hastert and Sens. Trent Lott and John McCain, I expressed the possible ramifications for the GOP if immigration-reform legislation did not succeed. I predicted a definitive decline in Latino support in the 2006 midterm elections. I was right. Support for Republican candidates among Hispanic faith voters fell from 44 percent in 2004 to 27 percent in 2006.

Hispanic Christian voters overwhelmingly support an end to illegal immigration and the protection of the borders. The great divide between us and the GOP is over the question of what to do with the 12 million undocumented workers currently in the United States. While Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo and his supporters last year reinforced a xenophobic thread within the Republican establishment, Hispanic faith voters fought for immigration reform that reconciled the three pillars of our nation: the rule of law, our Judeo-Christian values system and the pursuit of the American Dream.

But we have learned that our white brothers and sisters who believe in a pro-family agenda also embrace a predominantly anti-immigration-reform agenda. Reina Olmeda, a Pentecostal Latina pastor, expressed the sentiment of many Hispanic evangelicals: "We're caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. We either vote for a party that resonates with our beliefs but does not want us, or with a party that wants us but does not resonate with our beliefs."

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton likes to remind Texans that she first came here to ask for their votes in 1972 as a young Democratic campaign worker.

Hillary Clinton dramatically changed tactics in a bid to boost her ailing White House campaign today by launching a fierce attack on Barack Obama, accusing his campaign of "shame" for spreading information about her.

Days after appearing to strike a conciliatory note with her main rival for the Democratic candidacy when she said she was "honoured" to appear alongside him in a debate, Ms Clinton last night told a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, that he had deliberately misrepresented her positions on healthcare and trade in mail shots to voters.

"Shame on you, Barack Obama," she said, clutching two of the mailings in her hand.

Referring to tactics used by Karl Rove, former top adviser to President Bush, she added: "Enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook."

Analysts say Mrs Clinton's tactics are a dramatic change of direction, as she tries to win two crucial primaries on March 4, and stop the Obama bandwagon from getting out of sight after 11 consecutive primaries.

It is a complete reversal from a softer image she portrayed only a few days ago when she ended a nationally televised debate by saying she was "honoured to be here" with Mr Obama in a historic race between a black man and a woman.

In her criticism of her Democratic challenger, she asked: "Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?"

Mr Obama defended the mailings as accurate and rejected Mrs Clinton's complaint as a political ploy. He said that despite her current criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, Mrs Clinton supported it when it passed during her husband's administration.

"You can't be for something and take credit for an administration ... and then when you run for president say that you didn't really mean what you said way back then. It doesn't work like that," he said to cheers at a rally in Akron, Ohio.

The attacks come as the simmering row over healthcare intensified between the two candidates.

In the last few days, the Clinton camp has criticised two of the Obama campaign's mailings.

One says that her plan for universal coverage would "force" everyone to purchase insurance even if they cannot afford it. Her plan requires everyone to be covered, but it offers tax credits and other subsidies to make insurance more affordable.

Mr Obama's plan does not include the so-called "individual mandate" for adults. He has argued that people cannot be required to buy coverage if they cannot afford it. He has said his first priority is bringing down costs.

The Illinois senator's plan does include a mandate requiring parents to buy health insurance to cover children.

In the overall race for the Democratic nomination, Mr Obama leads with 1,362 delegates. Mrs Clinton has 1,266.5, getting the half-delegate from the Democrats Abroad primary. It will take 2,025 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination at the party's convention in August.

On the Republican side, John McCain inched closer to clinching the party's presidential nomination by picking up a total of 18 more delegates yesterday at Republican conventions in American Samoa and the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

They gave him a total of 976 delegates, well ahead of the former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who only has 254 delegates overall. It takes 1,191 delegates to secure the Republican nomination at the party's convention in September.

Meanwhile Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate accused by many Democrats of handing the presidency to President Bush in November 2000, announced today that he would run again.

Mr Nader won more than two per cent of the vote when he stood as the Green Party candidate in 2000, with the election so close that only a small proportion of his support would have put Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, into the White House.

The 73-year-old explained his candidacy by saying that many Americans were disenchanted with the two main parties, but he is thought to have insufficient support to play any major role in the 2008 contest.

By David Byers, Times, February 24, 2008

TRENTON, N.J. - Gov. Jon S. Corzine - a strong supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton - said Sunday that the New York senator should review her presidential bid if she doesn't win the upcoming Ohio and Texas primaries.

"I do think it is important that we get on to coalescing around a candidate, but I think it ought to be the one that will serve the nation best, the one that actually has the talent and the ability to make sure that we lead the country in the proper direction," Corzine said in an interview with on Fox News.

The governor - who endorsed Clinton in April and campaigned for her in many states - reiterated his support for her. However, he added that if she lost in Ohio and Texas "then I think the time to move on probably is at hand."

Both those states will hold their primaries a week from Tuesday.

Corzine said he does not believe the race between Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was over, even though Obama has won 11 straight contests and recently grabbed the overall delegate lead.

The governor cited the April primary in Pennsylvania as another important contest and the ongoing disputes over whether delegates from Florida and Michigan should be counted. The Democratic Party stripped the latter two states of their delegates for holding early primaries, though Clinton won both.

Corzine's remarks echo those of former President Bill Clinton, who has said his wife probably needs to win both Ohio and Texas if she's to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

"Those of us who are supporters of Sen. Clinton believe and feel pretty positive about what's going to happen in Ohio and Texas. Our read is that she's doing well; she turns that momentum around if she does well there," Corzine said.

No matter the outcome, Corzine predicted New Jersey would back a Democratic presidential candidate - as it has every election since 1988.

"There's a lot of enthusiasm about both candidates in our state, and I think Democrats are going to do very, very well in New Jersey in the fall," Corzine said.

Corzine discounted the affect of Ralph Nader's independent presidential candidacy, which Nader announced on Sunday. However, Corzine said a potential candidacy by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg could prove interesting.

"I think that would have major impact on the outcome of the race, and I think it's unpredictable which side would be hurt the most on that," Corzine said. "But that's a question that's much more relevant, I think, to the end game of who the next president of the U.S. is."




By TOM HESTER Jr., Associated Press, February 24, 2008

The Texas and Ohio Democratic primaries on March 4 are critical to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has lost the last 11 contests. The latest polls show that the races are close. In Texas, Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama are neck and neck. In Ohio, Mrs. Clinton has a slight lead.

Those likely to vote consider Mrs. Clinton to be a stronger leader, while Mr. Obama is seen as more electable. But voters are more evenly split on the question of which candidate will bring change to Washington, a main tenet of Mr. Obama’s campaign.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Feb. 16-20 among 603 likely Democratic voters in Texas and 611 in Ohio. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points.

The New York Times, February 24, 2008

Although he's entered into a phase of decompression - riding his horse, getting a full night's sleep and even growing a beard - Bill Richardson is telling reporters that he's still in the hot seat a month after ending his Democratic presidential bid.

Richardson, Hispanic governor of New Mexico and influential superdelegate, says he gets daily calls from the Clinton camp and slightly less frequent ones from the Obama folks. And he's genuinely torn about who to support.

Joseph Soliz can relate.

Although the 53-year-old Houston oil and gas attorney doesn't have quite the sway of a former presidential candidate, Soliz is one of those rare Democratic voters who's still on the fence about whether to support New York Sen. Hillary Clinton or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the game-breaking Texas presidential primary.

In a race that's dividing families and generations, and at a time - a week before Election Day - when it seems nearly everyone has a picked a side, a few voters are still agonizing over their choices.

Some remain unconvinced by several presidential debates, traditional gender- or ethnic-related loyalties or the seductive serenade of change.

Others are lamenting their last-minute flip-flop.

Soliz, a past director of the Hispanic Bar Association of Houston, says he thinks both candidates would make fine presidents, but neither has won him over yet, leading to intense lobbying and a little teasing from family and friends.

"I imagine I'll probably get more pressure as the week goes on," he said.

Soliz has a sister who's working as a Clinton consultant, and two college-age kids and a bunch of attorney friends who are rooting for Obama. He is a longtime supporter of former President Clinton, has met Hillary a few times and usually votes for a candidate he knows.

But while he's never met Obama, Soliz said the Illinois senator's campaign has called him twice as many times as Clinton's. And he's been bitten a little by the Obama bug.

"I guess it's the momentum that he seems to have built," Soliz said. "He's inspirational."

A prominent Latino leader I met last week at a debate-watch party said that a few months ago, he almost could have guaranteed his support for Clinton. After all, the Houston businessman, who asked not to be named, said he attended President Clinton's last Christmas party.

And he's concerned about Obama's lack of experience: "You already see McCain getting ready to chew him up on his lack of foreign policy and lack of overall knowledge of being able to run our government."

But he said he's begun to worry about Clinton's electability and whether Republicans' disdain for her would mobilize them. And he's touched when he sees Ted Kennedy singing in Spanish while stumping for Obama in Laredo.

Still, at the debate-watching party last week, when everyone else in the home of attorney Roland Garcia gathered for a pro-Obama portrait, the businessman stayed behind with me, saying he just couldn't make the leap yet to Obama's camp.

"I think what tears you - you see the desire for change," he said, adding that his decision will most likely "come down to the wire."

Some high-profile Democrats are facing a similar conundrum. Even the spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party, Hector Nieto, told me Monday he's having trouble making up his mind. Others like Karen Wheaton, a 49-year-old precinct chair in Spring, thought they'd chosen one side only to be lured into the arms of the other at the last moment.

Wheaton, a Clinton loyalist from the get-go because, as she put it, "I'm a woman who's 50 years old," said she had a revelation during the latest debate when the New York senator indicated she was less eager to engage certain world leaders in diplomatic talks.

"I was just on the fence because I wanted a woman president so badly, but I just can't do it and be a true Democrat," she said.

She made the "devastating" decision to switch to Obama. "It broke my heart," she says.

E. Dale Wortham was struggling until a couple weeks ago.

"I had quite honestly, literally, dreamt about it," said the Harris County AFL-CIO president.

Wortham said Obama, with his uncanny ability to energize young and first-time voters, finally won him over in the first days of early voting.

"I'm going to be 50 in April, and I'm not going to be one of those old guys who won't open my eyes to new ideas, as crazy as that sounds," Wortham said.

"Most of my friends seem to think I've gone crazy. But that's fine. Like I said, you can't vote for two. You have to make a decision."

Maybe not. Soliz, the oil and gas attorney, said he'll likely spend the weekend studying up on each candidate. But if he still can't pick between choice A and B, he has cleverly devised a Plan C: taking advantage of Texas' precinct caucuses held the evening of March 4, after the primary.

"One way I may resolve this is to vote for one person in the primary and caucus for another," Soliz told me. "That may soothe my conscience at least."

By LISA FALKENBERG, Houston Chronicle, February 25, 2008

CLEVELAND - "We are all witnesses," the giant Nike billboard downtown proclaims. Tonight, more than ever, that's true.

Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will supplant the man on the billboard, LeBron James, as the biggest stars in Cleveland tonight, when they debate at 9 p.m. at Cleveland State University.

It's the political equivalent of a playoff atmosphere. The debate is the last faceoff between the Democratic presidential candidates before next week's critical primaries in Ohio and Texas. For Clinton, who trails Obama in delegates and has lost every nominating contest since Feb. 5, it could be her final chance to change the tide of a race that is on the brink of slipping out of her grasp. For Obama, who is tied with Clinton in Texas and has cut her early Ohio lead to single digits according to recent polls, it could be his night to all-but clinch the nomination - or commit the sort of mistake that opens the door for a Clinton comeback.

The hype has electrified the local media (though the city itself seems to be hiding inside from a snowstorm today). The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's local newspaper, devoted its entire front page to a debate preview (sprinkled with weather forecast) this morning. Television coverage is ramping up. Ohio is used to this sort of presidential frenzy, but not usually until the general election, when it proudly assumes its role of pivotal swing state.

Tonight, we'll be watching for how the candidates address Ohio's struggling economy, how they reassure "security mom" voters in the state's suburbs that they can keep America safe and how populist they get in their economy-themed pitches to blue collar voters.

Mostly, though, we'll be watching to see how Clinton tries to change the race. Will she attack? Emote? Pull a surprise of some kind?

The Swamp's own Jason George will be live-blogging those answers, and everything else debate-related, here tonight. Tune in and join him. Remember, you're a witness too.

By Jim Tankersley, The Baltimore Sun, February 26, 2008

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) - Beset by slumping poll numbers, Hillary Clinton had a last chance in a one-on-one debate Tuesday to slow Barack Obama's roaring momentum before two White House nominating clashes next week.

The besieged former front-runner, her hopes on the edge ahead of must-win contests in Ohio and Texas on March 4, hopes to halt an Obama surge that has seen her Democratic rival snap up 11 straight electoral victories.

Obama, carving out wide leads in national Democratic polls, landed Tuesday's first morale-sapping blow, capturing the endorsement of former party White House hopeful and liberal champion Senator Chris Dodd.

"I am sure we will have a vigorous debate," Obama said as he accepted the Connecticut senator's backing here Tuesday.

"I would expect her to argue vigorously her case for why she should be president and I am sure she will point out differences that she has with me."

Obama, 46, said he expected the clash to be conducted in a "civil fashion" but knows Clinton may try to snare him with the same searing tone seen in her recent barrage of attacks on his presidential credentials.

His campaign manager David Plouffe previewed a possible Obama line of defense in a fundraising email to supporters, after the New York Times reported she was preparing a "kitchen sink" negative barrage.

"This is the same stale, Washington playbook that has driven so many Americans away from the political process," Plouffe wrote.

Obama rode a head of steam into the Cleveland debate as new polls suggested Clinton's support was collapsing and as newspapers reported internal conflict was battering her campaign.

A CBS News/New York Times survey gave Obama a 54 percent to 38 percent lead among Democrats nationwide. A USA Today poll had him up 51 percent to 39 percent nationally among Democratic voters.

There was more alarming news for Clinton, a day after a poll showed Obama leading in Texas for the first time. A Rasmussen Reports survey Tuesday showed Obama had cut her lead among Ohio Democrats to just five points, as she led 48 percent to 43 percent. Last week, Obama had 40 percent, and the week before 38 percent.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, trying to deliver his state for Clinton, said her campaign's blanket get-out-the-vote bid would go on full tilt until Tuesday.

Clinton's tone in the debate will be closely watched. In a debate last week in Texas, she had been expected to go on the offensive, but only unleashed a few poorly received attacks before ending on a valedictory note.

Another of the New York senator's supporters, Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern, said Clinton would zero in on issues, and not be distracted by polls of the Democratic "horse race."

"She needs to talk to the American people and forget about all this other stuff that the media and the chattering class seem to be obsessed with," he told MSNBC.

The debate takes place a day after a photograph emerged of Obama dressed in a Somali robe and turban, a reminder of his African heritage in a campaign where the issues of race and religion have always lurked in the background.

Plouffe accused the Clinton team of "shameful, offensive fear-mongering," but Clinton's camp denied it had passed the photo to the Drudge Report website.

Aides to presumptive Republican nominee John McCain meanwhile accused the Democrats of playing election games in a legal row over his attempts to back out of receiving public money for his White House campaign.

"Everything we did here was legal, ethical and proper," McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said, accusing Obama of "backpedalling" on whether he too would take public funds.

Senator McCain is trying to withdraw from an agreement with the Federal Election Commission to take FEC funds, which carry a strict limit on how much a candidate can spend in primary and general election campaigns.

Obama, buoyed by record-breaking fundraising, is accused by McCain of reversing a pledge to accept public spending limits. But the Illinois senator says he never made the kind of outright promise claimed by McCain.

AFP, February 26, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are paying a price for artful dodges on trade over the years.

Thanks to past equivocations, the Democratic presidential candidates have left themselves open to the criticisms and misrepresentations they are now turning against each other as they scramble to dissociate themselves from a trade agreement they once praised - with qualifications.

The root of their ambivalence is their shared belief in "free and fair trade," which, on the surface, almost anyone can subscribe to.

The problem is that "fair" trade means restrictions on "free" trade, a gloss-over that allows politicians to have it both ways when saying where they stand on NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and similar deals.

In picking apart the other's this-but-that position, they are seizing on the "this," and ignoring the "that," in the interest of winning voters in the primary next week in Ohio, where the trade deal is blamed for lost jobs.

The dustup spilled into the streets Tuesday when dozens of protesters who oppose free trade gathered outside Clinton's office in New York City. Several apparently shackled themselves to a front door of the building before police came.

THE SPIN:

Obama on his position: "I don't think NAFTA has been good for Americans, and I never have."

Obama on her position: "She was saying great things about NAFTA until she started running for president."

Obama campaign mailer in Ohio: "Hillary Clinton believed NAFTA was a 'boon' to our economy," and "Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA."

THE FACTS:

Obama has been consistently ambivalent.

In his 2004 Senate campaign, he said the U.S. should pursue more deals such as NAFTA, and argued more broadly that his opponent's call for tariffs would spark a trade war. AP reported then that the Illinois senator had spoken of enormous benefits having accrued to his state from NAFTA, while adding that he also called for more aggressive trade protections for U.S. workers.

"We need free trade but also fair trade," he said, taking the dodge.

Obama is correct that Clinton has praised NAFTA in various ways, but he leaves out the qualifications she's expressed along the way.

And she did not say NAFTA was a "boon," as the mailer states on its ominous cover, depicting a locked factory gate. "Boon" was a newspaper's characterization of her position, which is reprinted inside the mailer.

THE SPIN:

Clinton on her position: NAFTA was "negotiated under President George H.W. Bush and it was passed during my husband's presidency. But I was always uncomfortable about certain aspects of it, and I have always made that clear."

Clinton mailer on Obama's position: "Ohio needs to know the truth about Obama's position on Protecting American Workers and NAFTA."

THE FACTS:

Her implication that NAFTA was simply a spillover from the first President Bush and passively made law under President Clinton ignores the fierce lobbying Bill Clinton engaged in to get the deal ratified by Congress. Hillary Clinton helped him in that effort.

President Clinton used his faith in free trade as a core issue to distinguish himself from Democratic orthodoxy and establish a "third way" between politics of the left and right.

Hillary Clinton counted NAFTA among her husband's leading accomplishments, despite her publicly expressed misgivings about parts of it.

In 1996, when the pact was three years old, she said the trade deal with Mexico and Canada was giving U.S. workers a chance to compete. "That's what a free and fair trade agreement like NAFTA is all about," she said. "I think NAFTA is proving its worth."

In a speech to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council in 2002, she said this of her husband's record:

"The economic recovery plan stands first and foremost as a testament to both good ideas and political courage. National service. The Brady bill. Family leave. NAFTA. Investment in science and technology. New markets....

"All of these came out of some very fundamental ideas about what would work. The results speak for themselves."

The Clinton mailer accurately quoted news stories from 2004 describing Obama's call for more NAFTA-like agreements and his belief that the deal has brought benefits to his state. But the mailer was strikingly selective, leaving out qualifications he emphasized at the time, and were closely linked in the news stories.

In one such example, he said: "The problem in a lot of our trade agreements is that the administration tends to negotiate on behalf of multinational companies instead of workers and communities."

By Calvin Woodward, The Associated Press, February 26, 2008

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Feb 24 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sharpened their attacks on each other on Sunday as they headed for showdowns in Texas and Ohio on March 4.

Clinton, who trails Illinois Sen. Obama in delegates to this summer's national convention that will pick the Democratic candidate for the November election, needs wins in both Texas and Ohio to keep her campaign afloat.

"I'm working as hard as I can," the New York senator told reporters in Rhode Island, which also votes on March 4. "I have good campaigns in Texas and Ohio and I feel really positive about what's going to happen on March 4."

The former first lady, who would be the first woman U.S. president, toughened her attacks on Obama and some leaflets he circulated in Ohio criticizing her health care plan and past support for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Nobody believes Senator Obama's plan is universal because it's not. Mine is," she said in Rhode Island, which also votes on March 4. "So raise legitimate questions but don't engage in, you know, this kind of false and misleading advertising."

"There's a big difference between what is said in that campaign and what is done in that campaign," she said.

Obama, who would be the first black president, has said Clinton's anger was just a frustrated campaign tactic since the leaflets had been in circulation for several weeks and she had not complained before.

But Clinton said she thought the Obama campaign had withdrawn them after her team pointed out errors so she was surprised when a woman handed her one Saturday in Ohio.

"I thought they'd stopped," Clinton said. "They had been discredited and we'd called their hand and I thought they'd stopped, or at least that it would have been revised."

Obama fired back in Lorain, Ohio, criticizing Clinton for changing her position on NAFTA pushed through by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"Senator Clinton's premise in her candidacy throughout this campaign has been 35 years of experience, including eight years in the White House, right? She has essentially presented herself as co-president during the Clinton years," he said.

"So the notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense," he said.

A FAMILIAR FACE

As the two U.S. senators went after each in the race to be the Democratic nominee in November's election, a familiar face joined the presidential race. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, blamed by many Democrats for their 2000 White House loss, said he would run again as an independent.

Nader ran as an independent in 2004 and as the Green Party nominee in 2000 when he won enough votes in Florida to play a part in Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore's loss of that state and the White House.

Nader called Washington "corporate occupied territory" that turns the government against the interests of the people. "In that context, I have decided to run for president," he said.

Democrats dismissed his announcement.

Clinton called Nader's decision "a passing fancy" and said he had "prevented Al Gore from being the greatest president we could have had and I think that's really unfortunate."

Obama, who has won 10 straight Democratic contests, hopes to knock off Clinton in either Ohio or Texas, where she once held big leads. The two face off in their last scheduled debate on Tuesday in Ohio.

In the Republican race, reaction to a New York Times article last week continued to reverberate. The Times hinted at the possibility that presidential front-runner John McCain was having a romantic affair in 1999 with a female lobbyist 31 years his junior.

McCain, the Arizona senator who has all but clinched the Republican nomination, has said the story was untrue.

Conservatives railed at the Times for trying to smear McCain with a story based on unidentified sources. On Sunday, they were joined by the Times' own public editor.

"If a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair ... it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide," wrote Clark Hoyt, who writes a weekly critique.




By Claudia Parsons, Reuters, February 24, 2008

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - On Saturday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton showed her angry side, admonishing Senator Barack Obama for a campaign mailing that she called misleading.

On Sunday, before a rally of several thousand, she added a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"Now I could stand up here and say, let's get everybody together, let's get unified the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing," she said, to a smattering of giggles. "And everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect."

She added: "But I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and make the special interests disappear."

Campaigning for votes before the pivotal primary contests in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont on March 4, Mrs. Clinton has sought to deflate Mr. Obama's message of hope and change by portraying herself as a hard-nosed realist who understands the rigors of the presidency. Mr. Obama and his supporters, she has repeatedly suggested, are wide-eyed and naive.

In Huber Heights, Ohio, on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton said, referring to Mr. Obama, "I'm not asking you to take a leap of faith on me. I'm asking you to look at the record."

At the Democratic debate on Thursday night, Mr. Obama addressed her criticisms directly. "The implication is that the people who have been voting for me or involved in my campaign are somehow delusional," he said. "What they see is that if we don't bring the country together, stop the endless bickering, actually focus on solutions and reduce the special interests that have dominated Washington, then we will not get anything done."

Polls suggest a tightening race in Texas and Ohio, states that Mrs. Clinton's surrogates - including her husband - have suggested are critical to her candidacy. She has lost 11 straight primary contests to Mr. Obama.

On her campaign plane Sunday morning, Mrs. Clinton sounded an upbeat, if slightly cautious, note about her prospects in Texas and Ohio. "I'm working as hard as I can," she said. "I have good campaigns in Texas and Ohio. And I feel really positive about what's going to happen on March 4. I really believe that we're going to do well."

By Julie Bosman, The New York Times, February 24, 2008

HUBER HEIGHTS, Ohio, Feb. 23 -- In perhaps her sharpest attack of the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her Democratic rival Saturday of "using tactics that are straight out of Karl Rove's playbook," declaring at one point, "Shame on you, Barack Obama."

Clinton's comments in Cincinnati represented a marked shift from just two days ago, when she and Obama engaged in a generally good-natured debate in Austin. The Illinois senator responded by noting "the sudden change in tone" and questioning Clinton's timing, ahead of Sunday newspaper deadlines and with another debate three days away.

"It makes me think there's something tactical about her getting so exercised this morning," he said in Columbus.

Clinton took strong exception to Obama mailings that criticized her views on health care and trade. Both mailings have been sent before by the Obama campaign, and her aides had expressed frustration about them, but the New York senator had not previously addressed them in such a pointed way.

"I have to express my deep disappointment that he is continuing to send false and discredited mailings," Clinton said, holding the fliers in her hand. "He says one thing in his speeches, and then he turns around and does this. It is not the new politics the speeches are about. It is not hopeful. It is destructive."

She added, "Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public."

One mailing says that Clinton's health-care plan would force people to purchase insurance, even if they cannot afford it. The other quotes a Newsday article that says Clinton regarded the North American Free Trade Agreement as a "boon" to the economy. The Long Island newspaper has acknowledged that was the word it chose to describe her view of the controversial agreement.

Obama defended the accuracy of the mailings, although he granted that it was "fair" to question that Clinton used the word "boon." He said the mailing had been produced before Newsday clarified that Clinton herself had not used the word.

But he added that the overall thrust of the publication stood.

"Senator Clinton, as part of the Clinton administration, supported NAFTA. In her book, she called it one of the administration's successes," he said. "We're pointing that out in a state that's been devastated by trade and is deeply concerned about the position of the candidates on trade."

It was indisputable, Obama added, that Clinton's plan required people to buy health insurance even if they did not think they could afford it. She may not want the plan described that way, he said, just as he did not like her characterizing his plan, which does not include a mandate, as leaving out 15 million people.

"We have been subject to constant attack from the Clinton campaign except when we were down 20 points. They need to take a look at what they've been doing," Obama said.

Clinton and Obama have agreed to a debate Tuesday in Cleveland, and Clinton hinted that she would use the opportunity to press her point.

"Meet me in Ohio; let's have a debate about your tactics," she said. "Enough about the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics right out of Karl Rove's playbook. This is wrong, and every Democrat should be outraged."

Clinton's health-care plan is estimated to cover more people than Obama's in part because it requires people to purchase insurance, although it stipulates that Americans would have to pay only a certain percentage of their income for health-care costs. If government subsidies are large enough, Clinton's plan is not likely to force people to pay excessive amounts for health care, although it is difficult to define what is "affordable."

Clinton has sought to distance herself from NAFTA throughout the campaign. In Cincinnati, she said the administration of George H.W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, had "negotiated" NAFTA. But her husband was an enthusiastic backer of NAFTA in the 1990s, helping get it passed despite opposition from some Democrats in Congress. Obama's campaign put out on Saturday a long list of statements from the 1990s in which Hillary Clinton expressed enthusiasm about NAFTA.

Obama has won 11 straight contests in the Democratic campaign, heading into March 4 primaries in four states, including Ohio and Texas. Clinton's husband has said both are must-wins for his wife, and Clinton added a campaign stop in Houston last night to an already packed schedule.

Obama said that if Clinton had enjoyed such a string of victories, he would be getting more pressure than she is to quit the race. But, he said, "She's the champ, she's part of the Democratic network in Washington, and if you're the title holder, then you don't lose it on points. You've got to be knocked out."

By Perry Bacon Jr., and Alec MacGillis, The Washington Post, February 24, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The Senate long has been considered a poor springboard to the White House. But it provided a crucial step in the political rise of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, giving them a priceless chance to burnish their records and shore up weaknesses before launching their presidential campaigns.

Clinton has used her seven years in the Senate to begin rehabilitating her reputation as one of the most polarizing figures in American politics and the architect of a failed healthcare plan. Obama's brief tenure has allowed him to establish himself as a national figure in a way he never could have as a mere Illinois state legislator.

They took divergent approaches to their Senate careers, however. And their strategies reflected both their own political needs and the distinctive ways they tackle challenges -- differences that could ultimately make them very different presidents.

Clinton chose to build a reputation as a skilled insider: She mastered the levers of Senate power, developed a record of delivering for her state, and proved she could work effectively with diverse colleagues -- including Republicans who had demonized her as first lady.

Obama cast himself as more of an outsider: He challenged some of the Senate's treasured ways of operating -- especially in the field of ethics. At the same time, he bulked up the foreign policy credentials he would need to run for president and cultivated the profile of a "post-partisan," reform-minded politician.

The contrast between the candidates' approaches to the Senate mirrors the choice now facing Democratic primary voters -- between Clinton's emphasis on competence and kitchen-table issues, and Obama's focus on broad themes and overarching issues.

But it does more than foreshadow campaign strategy. It gives voters an unusual glimpse into the kinds of presidents they might turn out to be.

Their Capitol Hill tours have not been without political risks. The Senate has a tradition of giving the cold shoulder to newcomers who arrive with glittering reputations and outsized ambitions but fail to defer to senior members. Even the appearance of failing to succeed in the Senate could have damaged Clinton's and Obama's White House chances.

Neither Clinton nor Obama can claim credit for groundbreaking legislation. They have partly been hampered by their relatively short tenure and by the fact that Democrats were in the minority until 2007. If major bills with a candidate's name on it were the best test of leadership, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) would win hands down: He has top billing on major campaign finance, immigration and global warming measures.

Clinton and Obama each arrived in the Senate in a spotlight. They were being asked if they planned to run for president even before they were sworn in.

Clinton was one of the best-known women in the country; Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention had brought down the house, and his memoir of his early life was a bestseller.

In a sign of the buzz over his 2005 arrival, Obama soon after was invited to don a tuxedo and speak at a dinner of the Gridiron Club, an insiders' press event.

"I am so overexposed, I make Paris Hilton look like a recluse," Obama joked. The challenge was to show that he had substance too.

She keeps her head down

Clinton's challenge was different: A decade-long national reputation preceded her, but she was loathed by many Republicans as the embodiment of liberalism and the face of socialized medicine because of her role in President Clinton's ill-fated healthcare plan.

Members of both parties feared she would be a prima donna and treat the Senate as a mere springboard to the White House.

Clinton surprised her colleagues with her diligence and deference. One of the earliest examples of her strategy involved fellow Democrat Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the most senior member of the Senate.

Not long after she won her seat in 2000, the former first lady approached Byrd as a humble student seeking lessons in the arcane ways of the tradition-bound institution. It was a gutsy gesture, because the powerful Senate elder had been openly hostile to President Clinton after his scandalous dalliance with a White House intern.

After a series of private tutorials, Sen. Clinton won Byrd as an ally. Months later, after the Sept. 11 attacks, he helped her secure $20 billion in aid for her state. "Count me in as the third senator from New York," he said.

Clinton's insider game also was reflected in the way she shunned the national press and deflected questions about her presidential ambitions during much of her first term. She focused on issues of concern to her New York constituents -- which helped her counter complaints that she, an Illinois native, was a carpetbagger.

Hoping to detoxify her reputation among Republicans, she charmed conservatives into cosponsoring legislation on consensus issues. She even found common cause with Republicans who had once led the impeachment drive against her husband -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on veterans benefits; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on health policy; then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) on promoting foster care.

She also joined one of the Senate's private weekly prayer groups, a move that allowed her to build bridges to the many conservative Republicans and show a religious side that is rarely recognized.

Clinton clearly delighted in the lawmaking process. But the hallmark of her first term was what she achieved for New York after Sept 11: securing aid for the stricken city, derailing efforts to close military bases in the state and winning hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked funding for local projects.

The base-closing victory was a tribute, in part, to the clout and expertise she gained as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, an assignment that also helped establish her bona fides on military matters.

On her signature issue of healthcare, she learned from the collapse of her ambitious plan in the 1990s. She focused on incremental measures, such as increased regulation of pediatric drugs and health benefits for veterans of the National Guard. She has called her strategy "the school of smaller steps."

He makes a splash

Obama's initial approach to the Senate bore similarities to Clinton's, but there were telling differences.

He too made a pilgrimage to see Byrd, but the first time he heard Byrd speak -- on the Senate's history and traditions -- an admiring but conflicted Obama pondered the fact that this was an institution that for much of its history did not include blacks, and that Byrd had once been in the Ku Klux Klan.

"Listening to Senator Byrd speak, I felt with full force all the essential contradictions of me in this new place, with its marble busts, its arcane traditions, its memories and ghosts," Obama wrote in his second book, "The Audacity of Hope."

Still, the celebrity freshman soon was helping to raise campaign money for the Senate's most senior member.

Early in his term, Obama tried to be a good, humble backbencher. He delivered his share of pork barrel projects for Illinois. However, he also moved quickly to less parochial issues such as foreign policy and government reform -- issues with wide national appeal.

Within days of his election, Obama was talking to Republican Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lugar encouraged him to join the committee. Before long, the foreign policy novice won an invitation to accompany the chairman on an overseas trip to inspect nuclear weapons in Russia.

After the two traveled to Russia in 2005, they cosponsored and won enactment of legislation to expand international efforts to destroy nuclear and conventional weapons stockpiles.

Obama formed another odd couple with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), to enact a law making it easier for taxpayers to monitor federal spending.

He also had an early, though rocky, alliance with McCain on congressional ethics, a signature issue for both. The two met with other senators in 2006 about forming a bipartisan task force to develop an ethics bill.

When Obama decided against that approach in favor of one that would give Democrats the upper hand, McCain accused him of reneging on a promise.

Obama was asked to be the Democrats' point man on the ethics bill because he dealt with such issues in the Illinois Legislature and was willing to take on a subject that rankled many colleagues. He pushed unpopular ideas, such as new restrictions on senators' use of corporate jets, creation of an outside panel to conduct ethics investigations and new disclosure rules for fundraisers.

As their competition for the Democratic nomination has moved forward, both Clinton and Obama have pointed to their Senate experience -- for Clinton her claim of greater experience, for Obama his professed ability to effect change.

There is one lesson of their Senate service that neither emphasizes, though: how hard changing things really is.




By Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2008

After struggling for months to dent Senator Barack Obama's candidacy, the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now unleashing what one Clinton aide called a "kitchen sink" fusillade against Mr. Obama, pursuing five lines of attack since Saturday in hopes of stopping his political momentum.

The effort underscores not only Mrs. Clinton's recognition that the next round of primaries - in Ohio and Texas on March 4 - are must-win contests for her. It also reflects her advisers' belief that they can persuade many undecided voters to embrace her at the last minute by finally drawing sharply worded, attention-grabbing contrasts with Mr. Obama.

After denouncing Mr. Obama over the weekend for an anti-Clinton flier about the Nafta trade treaty, and then sarcastically portraying his message of hope Sunday as naive, Mrs. Clinton delivered a blistering speech on Monday that compared Mr. Obama's lack of foreign policy experience to that of the candidate George W. Bush.

"We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security," Mrs. Clinton said in a speech on foreign policy at George Washington University. "We can't let that happen again."

With a crucial debate on Tuesday night in Ohio, both Mrs. Clinton's advisers and independent political analysts said that, by going negative against Mr. Obama at a time when polls in Texas and Ohio show a tightening race, Mrs. Clinton risked alienating voters. Mrs. Clinton has always been more popular with voters when she appeared sympathetic and a fighter; her hard-edged instinct for negative politics has usually turned off the public.

"There's a general rule in politics: A legitimate distinction which could be effective when drawn early in the campaign often backfires and could seem desperate when it happens in the final hours of a campaign," said Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist working for neither candidate.

In Mrs. Clinton's speech Monday, she also portrayed herself as "tested and ready" to be commander in chief, while accusing Mr. Obama of believing "that mediation and meetings without preconditions will solve some of the world's most intractable problems." Mr. Obama has said he would go further than Mrs. Clinton to meet with leaders of hostile nations, but he has also said he would prepare for those meetings carefully and would not be blind to the leaders' motives.

On another matter, Mrs. Clinton's aides criticized Mr. Obama on Monday for not distancing himself from outside groups running advertisements that promote his candidacy, a practice that Mr. Obama has sometimes criticized. An Obama spokesman said in response that Mrs. Clinton had tacitly permitted similar spending without comment.

But the attack that received the most pop, on cable television and blogs, came after a photograph of Mr. Obama in ceremonial African garb appeared on the Drudge Report, and the item's author, Matt Drudge, claimed that the image was provided by a Clinton staff member.

Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said that the Clinton campaign had "engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party." It has not been independently verified that the photograph came from the Clinton campaign.

Mrs. Clinton's new campaign manager, Maggie Williams, recently appointed to bring a tougher hand to the operation, issued a withering reply, not taking responsibility for the photograph but attacking the Obama campaign for suggesting that the photograph amounted to fear-mongering imagery.

"Enough," Ms. Williams's statement began. "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."

"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," she added. "We will not be distracted."

Clinton advisers said the attacks were partly an effort to knock Mr. Obama off balance before the debate on Tuesday.

They also said they were sending a signal to supporters that Mrs. Clinton was still resolutely fighting to win the presidential nomination, despite news reports in recent days about her dispirited campaign operation and her own somber outlook on the race.

To bolster her case at the George Washington speech, Mrs. Clinton stood on stage with a half-dozen retired military officials, including Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who introduced her. "I'm convinced that when the going gets tough, Hillary Clinton will never let America down," General Clark said.

Mrs. Clinton pointed to her time in the Senate and in the White House as the first lady as evidence that she was the candidate who was most knowledgeable and prepared for the presidency.

"Electing a president should not be an either-or proposition when it comes to national security," she said. "We need a president who knows how to deploy both the olive branch and the arrows, who will be ready to act swiftly and decisively in a crisis."

The sharpened tone reflected a vacillating style that had her reflective about her political fate at the end of last Thursday's debate in Texas, and offering an apology of sorts for Bill Clinton's comments in South Carolina several weeks ago that many people viewed as racially insensitive.

By contrast, at a fund-raiser Sunday night in Boston, Mrs. Clinton told supporters that in the coming days, she planned to highlight what she called "the experience gap" between her and Mr. Obama.

Indeed, her advisers said Monday that she planned to hit this theme during the candidates' Tuesday debate, though they said she would try to avoid making harsh personal attacks on Mr. Obama, particularly since Mrs. Clinton drew widespread attention and praise at the debate last week for saying she was "honored" to be on the same stage with him.

By Patrick Healy and Julie Bosman, The New York Times, February 26, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton was speaking at a fundraiser Monday on the campus of The George Washington University when Ellen DeGeneres popped up.

"Sorry to interrupt, but how's everybody doing?" quipped the talk show host, who was beamed into the auditorium by satellite from her studio in New York, prompting loud cheers from the audience.

She and Clinton joked about whether the former first lady might be persuaded to ban glitter as president.

"What on earth would grade school children do for their special projects?" Clinton asked, then said she'd consider banning it for anyone older than 12.

"That's what I like about you. You have solutions. You're a problem solver!" DeGeneres said, echoing Clinton's message of solving problems.

She then turned serious, asking Clinton how she could change the momentum in her campaign after 11 straight losses to Democratic rival Barack Obama.

"We're going to win Ohio and Michigan," Clinton said, then acknowledged she misspoke. "We're going to win Ohio and Texas! I already won Michigan."

Clinton has pinned the future of her candidacy on Ohio and Texas, both of which hold primaries March 4.

The New York senator was the only Democratic contender to leave her name on the ballot in Michigan after the Democratic National Committee sanctioned the state for violating party rules by holding its primary in mid-January.

The DNC stripped the state of all its delegates, rendering the primary outcome meaningless. But Clinton has pushed to have them seated at the party's national convention in late summer.

"What can your supporters do to help you now?" DeGeneres asked.

Clinton invited anyone who could do so to volunteer in Ohio and Texas.

"I don't know if they'd let me out of my job, but I'd love to," DeGeneres said. "Maybe I'll do this - I'll just interrupt everywhere you go."

The segment was scheduled to air Tuesday on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." It was Clinton's fourth appearance on the program.

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press, February 25, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - History shows the folly of counting out a Clinton.

If Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is looking more and more like the Titanic, she may yet prove to be the unsinkable Molly Brown.

Ask Mike McCurry about the Clintons' resilience. McCurry worked for Bob Kerrey, one of Bill Clinton's chief rivals in the 1992 presidential campaign. He remembers the day details broke about Clinton's efforts to avoid the Vietnam draft, just weeks after allegations had surfaced of an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

"He's toast," McCurry told co-workers on the Kerrey campaign. "He's never going to survive this." McCurry went on to become Clinton's chief White House spokesman.

Hillary Clinton was a huge factor in her husband's 1992 victory - and in any number of other recoveries during his agony-and-ecstasy political career. Now, she's the one attempting to rebound from 11 straight primary and caucus losses to Barack Obama.

Obama is well aware of the Clintons' supersized survival instincts. Aides say privately that's one reason the Illinois senator has continued to go after her so directly rather than adopting a traditional front-runner's strategy of ignoring his rival.

"I'd hold the obituary" for Clinton, says David Gergen, who served as an adviser to four presidents, including Bill Clinton. "She, like he, has enormous inner reserves upon which to draw. That's why, no matter what else happens, you can't discount the possibility that she's going to bounce back."

She's already done it once this year, pulling off an upset in New Hampshire after taking a shellacking in the leadoff Iowa caucuses.

"We're going to keep pushing as hard as we can," she promised after placing third in Iowa. She's been saying much the same thing as she fights for victories in Texas and Ohio next week to revive her candidacy.

Trite as that may sound, it's part of the secret to the Clintons' success.

"They never say die," said Mary Matalin, who served as deputy campaign manager of the unsuccessful Bush re-election campaign in 1992. "In all the years I've been watching them, it never occurs to them to throw in the towel. There's no 'What's my graceful exit strategy?' They don't have that gene."

Democratic strategist Jennifer Palmieri, an eight-year veteran of the Clinton White House, sees the same mettle.

"They take a very long view of things, and they expect to win," said Palmieri. "It's something that not enough people perhaps on the Democratic side do - expect to win."

The notion of a former first lady running for a Senate seat from a state in which she had no political connections was written off at first, but now Clinton is in her second term holding the New York Senate seat once occupied by Robert F. Kennedy.

The Clintons' boom-and-bust cycle began long before they arrived on the national scene.

It started with a bust: In 1974, Bill Clinton made an unsuccessful run for Congress at age 28. Two years later, he bounced back and was elected Arkansas attorney general. And two years after that, at 32, he became the nation's youngest governor.

Then, defeat again: In 1980, done in by what he admitted was the arrogance of youth, Clinton lost his bid for re-election to a second term as governor. Two years later, redemption. He pulled off a comeback and never lost another race.

Along the way, the Clintons proved themselves to be tough street fighters.

In 1990, when Gov. Clinton faced a strong re-election challenge, it was first lady Hillary who crashed a news conference held by the opponent and undercut him with documents showing he had praised Clinton's performance as governor.

"That is a group that can take a punch and they can lay a punch," said Palmieri. "They are smart and they're fearless, but they're not reckless."

The Clinton roller coaster ride was far from over.

The 1992 presidential campaign amounted to a running revival show for the Clintons, and the presidency unfolded like a sequel.

It was almost always a team effort, and Hillary Clinton had a starring role in one early and prominent defeat, the ill-fated health-care reform effort.

In 1994, after Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against Bill, it was Hillary who first interviewed lawyer Robert Bennett about helping fend off what Clinton insiders were calling the latest "bimbo eruption." There were other problems, as well. The Whitewater mess had followed the Clintons north from Arkansas, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating.

The midterm elections that year, in which Republicans seized control of the House and Senate, served as resounding repudiation to the president.

By mid-1995, the Clinton presidency was in free fall. Internal polls found that two-thirds of Americans ruled out voting to re-elect him. Aides cringed when Clinton felt compelled to insist at a news conference, "The president is relevant."

Through it all, Hillary Clinton was "a steadying force," Gergen said. "One of the reasons this marriage has worked for both of them is that he could always look to her for help in getting through things."

Bill Clinton was chastened but forged ahead, adapting to the changed political dynamic. In his 1996 State of the Union address, the president who had come to office promising to do so much instead declared, "The era of big government is over."

Voters in 1996 rewarded him with re-election, and he set out to exceed the low expectations set for second-term presidents.

Those efforts were overshadowed by his involvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The ensuing investigation and impeachment melodrama tested the Clintons' resilience and their marriage as never before, but they persevered and Hillary Clinton emerged stronger than ever.

She gave a hint of that last week when she told the audience at a Democratic debate, "I think everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life." And that may explain her ability to press forward when the odds appear so daunting.

When it comes to the Clintons, says Palmieri, "The one thing you can almost always say about whatever situation you're in is that you've seen worse. So they don't get rattled. They have a much better perspective about how to deal with difficult days."

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press, February 25, 2008

Aides to Sen. Hillary Clinton today accused rival Sen. Barack Obama of flip-flopping because of union efforts in Ohio on his behalf.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said the United Food and Commercial Workers, which endorsed Obama earlier this month, was planning television ads supporting him. Another union, the Service Employees International Union, reported spending more than $900,000 in recent days to pay for phone banking and direct mail supporting Obama.

Wolfson said Obama complained bitterly about union efforts on behalf of former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) in Iowa, but seems content to accept the support in Ohio.

"The Clinton campaign applauds and supports involvement of unions in the process," Wolfson said, noting that Clinton has been a major beneficiary of labor spending during the primaries. "We are concerned about Senator Obama's flip-flopping on outside political spending."

Obama did raise concerns about outside groups during the Iowa contest, although his complaint was rooted in the departure of a senior Edwards adviser who then oversaw union work on the candidate's behalf, said Bill Burton, Obama's campaign spokesman. Union spending is permitted, but it cannot be coordinated with the campaign.

Burton declined to respond to Wolfson's complaint.

By Matthew Mosk, The Washington Post, February 24, 2008

Two polls show Clinton with a sizable lead. But in one, her edge has slipped from 21 points to 11. Obama, McCain make campaign stops in Ohio.

The Democratic presidential candidates battled today in different parts of the country as new polls showed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continued to run ahead of Sen. Barack Obama in must-win Ohio, but that her lead is shrinking.

Clinton stressed foreign affairs in a speech in Washington, D.C., while Obama campaigned mainly on domestic issues in Ohio, where polls showed him narrowing the gap between him and Clinton before next week's primary.

Clinton is backed by 51% of those surveyed, compared with Obama's 40%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning. That is down from a Feb. 14 Quinnipiac survey that showed her ahead by 21 points.

"Sen. Clinton's lead remains substantial, but the trend line should be worrisome for her in a state that even her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has said she must win," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Brown attributed Obama's growing support to national momentum, fueled by 11 straight wins in February.

"If she is to stop his momentum in Ohio, she must retain her margins among her core backers -- women, older voters and those lower on the social-economic and education scale," Brown said in a statement on the Connecticut university's website.

A second poll this morning, the Ohio Poll, sponsored by the University of Cincinnati, showed Clinton ahead 47% to 39%.

Both polls show New York's Clinton, who is trying to become the first woman to be elected president, running very strongly among women, while the pair were about even among male voters. Illinois' Obama, seeking to become the first African American elected to the White House, is running ahead among blacks and the young.

Obama is ahead of Clinton in the race for delegates, but both are well short of the 2,025 needed to sew up the Democratic presidential nomination. Ohio and Texas, the largest primaries on March 4, are worth 334 delegates. Vermont and Rhode Island will also hold primaries on March 4.

Victories could lengthen Obama's lead. Clinton, whose campaign has been flagging, needs a strong showing to slow down her rival.

In her speech on foreign policy, Clinton outlined her vision of a United States that can use force and diplomacy, but is also concerned with a restored moral authority and helps deal with humanitarian issues.

"On my first day in office, I will announce, as I have repeatedly in this campaign, that the era of cowboy diplomacy is over," she said in a swipe at the Bush administration. "That includes the doctrine of preemptive war. . . . We need a new national military strategy that employs military power wisely instead of squandering it."

Clinton and Obama have battled over the Iraq war, with Obama often pointing out that he opposed the invasion that Clinton voted to authorize. She has insisted that she and other Democrats were misled by the Bush administration.

Clinton again said she would bring American troops out of Iraq within 60 days of taking office, but added: "Withdrawing troops is not easy. One does not wake up in the morning and say let's bring them home. It requires planning that looks at every possible contingency."

She criticized Obama, who she said "represents another choice. He wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve the world's most intractable problems to advocating rash unilateral military action without cooperation from our allies in the most sensitive region of the world. Electing a president should not be an either/or proposition when it comes to national security. We need a president who knows how to deploy both the olive branch and the arrows."

Obama today was on a different course, looking at domestic issues in his first public event of the day, sitting down in Cincinnati with a panel of five invited guests to talk about retirement security.

Reading from prepared remarks before turning to the group discussion, Obama reiterated his call for reforming Social Security by boosting the payroll tax beyond the current $97,500 annual ceiling. While the retirement program is strong, he added, "we have to make sure Social Security is there for future generations."

Obama also called for measures to encourage greater personal savings and for overhauling the nation's bankruptcy laws to allow people facing large medical bills to avoid crushing debt.

His comments about Clinton were more measured today, a day after he scraped with her over the North American Free Trade Agreement -- which Clinton's husband signed into law and that both Democratic candidates now criticize.

When a panel member said she was having a hard time choosing a candidate, Obama said she should pick one of the two Democrats. "Whether you choose myself or Sen. Clinton, I think we're all concerned about creating a better social safety net," Obama said.

He minimized their differences over healthcare -- which has been a focus of some of the most heated discussion of the campaign -- suggesting: "The truth is, the differences between my healthcare plan and Sen. Clinton's are relatively modest."

After a low-key policy chat, Obama went to a packed rally at the University of Cincinnati, where more than 11,500 people filled the Fifth Third Arena and spilled into the aisles. Before speaking, he picked up the endorsement of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, one of the Democratic superdelegates who could help decide the party's nomination.

Obama never mentioned Clinton in his nearly 50 minutes of remarks, but took a swipe at the GOP front-runner, Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has questioned Obama's preparedness for the presidency.

"He has embraced Bush's economic policies and tax cuts for the rich and he has said we will stay as long as it takes in Iraq, even if it takes 100 years," Obama said. "And let me tell you, we don't need any more politics of the past. We need a politics of the future, a politics of tomorrow. I want to have that debate, because I think we need to take our country forward not backward."

Another rally was planned at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. From there, Obama planned to travel to Cleveland, where he and Clinton are set to hold a debate -- the 20th of the Democratic race -- on Tuesday night.

As for the Republicans, today's Ohio Poll has McCain, the party's presumptive nominee, leading former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 55% to 20%. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has suspended his campaign, was drawing about 9%, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul was at 5%.

McCain also campaigned today in Ohio, where he was asked about the Iraq war. McCain said he wanted to clarify remarks he had made in Derry, N.H., where he said that U.S. troops might be in Iraq for 100 years in a peacekeeping role.

"The insurgency will go on for years and years and years," McCain said today at the Rocky River Civic Center. "But it'll be handled by the Iraqis, not by us. And then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis."

"My Democrat friends like to distort that [100 years] comment, but the fact is that the benchmarks are very clearly the capability of the Iraqi military. And every single day that is improving, and we take American young men and women out of harm's way," McCain said.

Huckabee campaigned in Rhode Island.

A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign insisted Monday that the Democratic presidential nomination process is far from over but declined to provide a road map for his candidate to win a majority of the "pledged" delegates before the Democratic National Convention.

Speaking to Washington reporters at a breakfast held by the Christian Science Monitor, Harold Ickes said there has been "a rush to judgment" by front-runner Barack Obama's camp "to shut this process down" before voters have cast ballots in a significant portion of the country.

"We're only two months into a five-month process," said Ickes, who was deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. "There is no compelling reason to shut this process down."

But with the Texas and Ohio primaries looming on March 4, most analysts say the clock is running out on the Clinton camp. And Ickes bowed to that notion during Monday's breakfast: "If we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decision."

Polls over the last week have indicated a tight race in Texas, and that Clinton's once-large lead in Ohio is narrowing.

Bill Clinton admitted as much last week, saying his wife probably could not win the nomination without victories in both states.

Obama has significant leads in both in popular votes and the race for the "pledged" delegates to the Democratic convention who are chosen in primaries and caucuses on a state-by-state basis. Though Clinton leads Obama in endorsements from "superdelegates" - a set of 795 elected and party officials who may vote for whomever they choose - Obama's lead among pledged delegates gives him a bigger tally among all delegates.

Obama has 1,181 delegates and Clinton has 1,025, according to the Associated Press. Clinton won Florida and Michigan, but those states were stripped of their delegates for scheduling primaries ahead of the party's sanctioned dates. As a result, the number of delegates needed to win the nomination is 2,025.

Obama's campaign aides have said there is no reasonable scenario by which Clinton could jump into the lead in pledged delegates.

Ickes made no effort to refute their math with numbers of his own.

"Those markers are nice to play games with," he said.

Still, he argued that Clinton will have "substantially closed the gap" in pledged delegates by the August convention in Denver and can win the nomination even without delegations from Florida and Michigan.

But Ickes, a member of the Rules Committee who once favored punishing the states for moving up their primaries, said a settlement should be brokered by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to avert a fight over seating their delegations at the convention.

"She thinks it is a mistake to slap them in the face," Ickes said, because "it will give a real opening to Republicans, which we can ill afford."

By Jonathan Allen, CQ Politics, February 25, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - White House contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Monday hurled barbs over foreign policy and fought over an alleged anti-Obama smear, heading into do-or-die contests for the former first lady.

A day before a crucial debate in Ohio, Clinton used a speech here to portray her Democratic rival as a risky choice on foreign affairs, implying Obama would need a beginners' guide to the world's hot-spots if elected president.

Before the speech, an Obama aide had already said sound judgment was the most important presidential attribute, highlighting Clinton's Senate vote in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war.

The policy sparring came as a photograph emerged of Obama in African dress, at the start of the candidates' final week of campaigning before primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4 that are must-win nominating contests for Clinton.

Obama's campaign accused the Clinton camp of "shameful, offensive fear-mongering" after the picture of Obama dressed in a Somali robe and turban appeared on gossip website Drudge Report.

The picture of Obama, who is bidding to be the first African-American president, was taken during an emotional visit by the candidate to his father's homeland of Kenya in 2006.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the photo represented "exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world."

The website said the photo had been circulated by Clinton aides, a claim denied by her campaign, which said the Obama team should be "ashamed" for suggesting the image could prove divisive in the hard-fought election.

"Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely," campaign manager Maggie Williams said.

"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," she said.

The campaigns also crossed swords over trade, with Obama highlighting Clinton's past support for a North American pact passed by her husband's administration that many in Ohio blame for the loss of thousands of jobs.

With Obama basking in 11 nominating wins in a row, new polls in Ohio and Texas cast doubt on Clinton's capacity to pull off the emphatic victories she needs to chase down Obama's lead in nominating delegates.

A CNN/Opinion Research survey found Obama leading in Texas for the first time, with 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters backing him, compared to 46 percent for Clinton.

Given the poll's 3.5 percentage point margin of error however, the race was still a statistical tie, in line with other state surveys.

In Ohio, a Quinnipiac University survey showed Clinton leading 51 percent to 40 percent among likely Democratic primary voters -- down from her 55-34 percent lead in a poll by the same organization 11 days before.

"Senator Clinton's lead remains substantial, but the trend line should be worrisome for her in a state that even her husband, former president Bill Clinton, h