At any time other than in the midst of a heated electoral battle, it's hard to imagine that Nancy Pelosi would attract much controversy by opining that the Democratic Party's nominee for president should be the candidate who wins the most votes. The House speaker has done just that, last week drawing an angry backlash from wealthy supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Most Americans -- presumably including the 26 million who have participated with unprecedented enthusiasm in the Democratic primaries and caucuses -- still view this country as a representative democracy. Take a look at history, though, and the power of the popular vote in determining the next occupant of the White House starts to look a lot less absolute.

The last time the Democrats had a truly competitive fight on their hands, in 1968, the man who eventually won the nomination, Hubert H. Humphrey, garnered just 2.2% of the popular vote in the primaries. He relied instead on the 37 states that still allocated their nominating delegates by backroom fiat instead of the ballot box -- a strategy that may well have clinched his nomination even if Bobby Kennedy had not been assassinated.

The lack of serious intraparty competition in the intervening 40 years -- despite the central role now accorded to primary/caucus voting -- has been largely the result of a playing field tilted to favor establishment candidates such as Walter Mondale in 1984 and Al Gore in 2000. Iowa and New Hampshire -- both predominantly white, conservative states averse to maverick candidates like Jesse Jackson or even Howard Dean -- set the tone. The pile-up of states on Super Tuesday, requiring lavish funding and a high public profile, usually knocks out what is left of the competition. And, as an insurance policy, the party leaves any really close races in the hands of non-elected superdelegates, the issue central to the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama showdown now.

The will of the people has been even more compromised when it comes to general elections for the presidency. In fact, on every occasion in American history when the race for the White House has been close enough to be contested, the candidate with fewer votes has prevailed.

It happened in 1800 -- admittedly, an age before mass suffrage rights -- when Thomas Jefferson managed to tie Aaron Burr in the electoral college. Jefferson eventually won the election in the House of Representatives, thanks to the distorting effect of the "federal ratio" -- the rule that gave Southern slave owners an additional 3/5ths vote for each adult they enslaved.

It happened in 1824, when the House threw the race to John Quincy Adams even though Andrew Jackson won more votes and more electoral college delegates. It happened in 1876, when carpetbagger Republican administrations in Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina refused to recognize the victory of the Democrat Samuel Tilden and essentially threw the election to his Republican rival, Rutherford B. Hayes.

And, of course, it happened in 2000, when the two major parties, the authorities in Florida and the Supreme Court all, in their own ways, prevented a full recount of the votes in the Sunshine State. And thus the keys to the White House went to George W. Bush, the candidate lagging half a million votes behind in the national vote tally.

Given this long history of dogged, dirty, win-at-any-cost electioneering, Clinton's determination to keep fighting in the face of seemingly insurmountable electoral arithmetic makes a lot more sense.

When her surrogates argue that carrying big states such as California and Ohio is more important than being ahead in the overall popular vote, or when they argue that pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, they are following a well-worn playbook compiled by both parties down through the years -- which is to say and do anything that might push your candidate ahead.

In the end, the key to winning is not the number of votes but the efficacy of a candidate's political campaign. If the Clinton camp can create the perception that voters from the early primaries are now suffering buyers' remorse, and that the party's grass-roots supporters want her after all, she still has a chance. Conversely, if she comes off as a sore loser willing to risk her party's chances in November to further her personal ambition -- a perception already dragging down her approval ratings -- her gambit will most likely fail.

It shouldn't be this way, of course. Democracy should be about the will of the people, pure and simple, as Pelosi has pointed out.

American politicians are generally very good at the rhetoric of deferring to that popular will. When their careers and their futures are on the line, however, it's a whole different story, and always has been.




By Andrew Gumbel, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2008

NEW ALBANY, Ind. - Amid mounting calls from top Democrats for Sen. Hillary Clinton to step aside and clear the path for rival Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race, strategists are warning of damage to the party's chances in November if women believe that a mostly male party establishment is unfairly muscling Clinton out of the race.

"Women will indeed be upset if it appears people are trying to push Hillary Clinton out of the way," said Carol Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic chair who is backing Obama. "If you are going to ask her to withdraw, you'd better be making a strong case."

Clinton probably will end the primary season narrowly trailing Obama, but he is unlikely to have the 2,024 delegates needed to win outright, meaning that the nominee will be determined by roughly 800 "superdelegates."

Debra Starks, 53, thinks sexism is playing a role in urging Clinton out of the race. "She's a strong woman and needs to stay in there," Starks said at a Clinton rally.

Clinton insists she's in it to the end, saying a "spirited contest" is good for the party.

The Associated Press, March 31, 2008

Both Charles Krauthammer and Zbigniew Brzezinski have practically identical views of American interests -- and match those views to their divergent prescriptions. While Krauthammer and Brzezinski would probably object to the notion that they have the same view, their visions of the future of the Middle East are based on some of the same virtually meaningless geopolitical buzzwords.

For example, Brzezinski talks of creating "regional stability with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran"; Krauthammer speaks of forging "regional stability" that cements American interests. What's the difference? Brzezinski speaks of ending the U.S. involvement in Iraq "responsibly" to create "long-range stability" in the Middle East; Krauthammer wants the U.S. to "cement a long-term allied relationship with the most important Arab country in the region." (Krauthammer says that is Iraq; Brzezinski doesn't name one.)

It all comes down to "stability." Each defines it differently and then condemns any policies that he claims don't pursue it.

But I reject a purely pragmatic approach when it comes to foreign policy, just as I wince at some faux "vision" of stability or regional security -- particularly when what we're really talking about is not a vision at all but a political stance to justify withdrawal or victory in Iraq.

I wholeheartedly agree with John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that the Bush administration has royally screwed up Iraq, harmed U.S. standing in the world, and hurt U.S. national security. But the conversation we need to have is about a new ideology that might help guide future U.S. policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

I start from the assumption that the need for "stability," or even the the prevention of nuclear proliferation, is not what should drive the answer. These views hardly tell us what we should do. I also believe these concepts have aligned us with the wrong forces and put the interests of others above our own.

At this point, in fact, these goals are meaningless terms that have already been used by the Bush administration to justify its doing whatever it wanted. McCain, Obama, and Clinton would do better to rethink the core concepts that identify actual American interests.

By William M. Arkin, The Washington Post, March 31, 2008

Obama, Bill Clinton Say the Contentious Race Is Good for Democratic Party

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has a simple message for Democrats pushing her to bow out of the presidential race before the next 10 primary contests are over: forget about it.

"One thing about me, I never give up. I keep fighting every single day!" Clinton told voters in Indianapolis this weekend.

It's mathematically improbable she will overtake Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in pledged delegates, and her campaign has left a trail of unpaid vendors all over the country, with $8.7 million in unpaid debts.

Democratic officials are expressing concern as to the long-term damage of the protracted Democratic primary race, and several high-profile allies of Obama have called for her to withdraw.

Regardless, Clinton told The Washington Post, "I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started, and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests, and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we won't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention."

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, said that declaring a presumptive winner at this point in the race discounts upcoming primaries -- including the important Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

"They're trying to say to the people of Pennsylvania ? you don't count," Rendell said today on "Good Morning America."

By JAKE TAPPER, ABC News, March 31, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton's cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months - freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.

A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community - and anyone else who will listen - to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.

Their cautionary tales, combined with published reports about similar difficulties faced by a New Hampshire landlord, an Iowa office cleaner and a New York caterer, highlight a less-obvious impact of Clinton's inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton's campaign did not respond to recent, specific questions about its transactions with vendors. But Clinton spokesman Jay Carson pointed on Saturday to an earlier statement the campaign issued to Politico, asserting: "The campaign pays its bills regularly and in the normal course of business, and pays all of its bills."

Just like with other businesses, it's common for campaigns to carry unpaid bills from month to month, but in Clinton's case, it also could serve a strategic purpose.

The New York senator's presidential campaign ended February with $33 million in the bank, according to a report filed last week with the Federal Election Commission, but only $11 million of that can be spent on her battle with Obama.

The rest can be spent only in the general election, if she makes it that far, and must be returned if she doesn't. If she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills she reported as debt and had not loaned her campaign $5 million, she would have been nearly $3 million in the red at the end of February.

By contrast, if you subtract Obama's $625,000 in debts and his general-election-only money from his total cash on hand at the end of last month, he'd still be left with $31 million.

The presidential campaign of presumptive Republican nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain reported $4.3 million in debt at the end of February, but only $1.3 million of that was in the form of unpaid bills to a dozen vendors. The rest was a bank loan, which the campaign says it paid off last week.

It's not just the size of Clinton's debts that's noteworthy. It's also that her unpaid bills extend beyond the realm of high-priced consultants who typically let bills slide as part of the cost of doing business with powerful clientele whose success is linked to their own.

Some of Clinton's biggest debts are to pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn, who's owed $2.5 million; direct mail company MSHC Partners, which is owed $807,000; phone-banking firm Spoken Hub, which is waiting for $771,000; and ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who's owed $467,000.

Clinton also reported debts more than one month old to a slew of apolitical businesses and organizations, large and small, in the states through which this historically expensive Democratic primary campaign has raged.

She owed Iowa's Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees $3,500 for catering and venue costs, New Hampshire's Winnacunnet Cooperative School District $4,400 in event costs, Qwest $24,000 for phone service, various branches of the Iowa-based supermarket chain Hy-Vee $15,000 for food, beverages and catering, and $7,700 to Ohio and Massachusettsbranches of the theatrical stage employees' union, for equipment costs.

In fact, about a third of the nearly 700 individual debts Clinton reported at the end of February were for various types of "event expenses," including $319,000 for catering and venue costs, $420,000 for equipment, $11,000 for photography and $9,000 for security.

Event production is important to big-time presidential campaigns. It shapes how candidates look and sound, not just to the thousands of people who turn out to campaign speeches and rallies but also to the millions who catch snippets of them on television.

And word is getting around that Clinton's campaign does not promptly pay those who labor to make her events look good, said an employee of the event production company Forty Two of Youngstown, Ohio.

"I feel insulted by the way that the campaign treated this company and treated us personally," said the employee, who did not want to be named talking about a client.

The Clinton campaign paid the company $16,500 to set up a stage, press riser, sound system and backdrops at a Youngstown high school last month for a raucous union rally, where an aggressive Clinton stump speech drew thunderous applause. But the Clinton campaign has yet to pay Forty Two for two other February events, and the employee said the campaign has stopped returning phone calls, e-mails and didn't respond to a certified letter.

"We worked very hard to put together these events on a moment's notice and do absolutely everything to a 't' to make it look perfect on television for her and for her campaign," said the employee. "Sen. Clinton talks about helping working families, people in unions and small businesses. But when it comes down to actually doing something that shows that she can back up her words with action, she fails."

Forty Two also has done events for Obama's campaign, which has paid its bills promptly, according to the employee. FEC records show Obama's campaign paid the company $18,500.

Show Tyme Exhibits, another Youngstown event production company, has produced political events for years and had never had problems getting paid before Clinton, according to owner Jim Phillips.

He said he's still waiting for a payment for setting up the sound system and stage for Clinton's February tour of a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

"It was only $607, but I'm a small guy; I could use that," said Phillips, adding, "Everyone I can tell, I do tell about it. You tell somebody something bad about somebody, they tell 10 other people."

Both Phillips and the Forty Two employee said they voted for Clinton in Ohio's March 4 primary, which she won handily, but regret their votes and are reluctant to work for her campaign again.

Their sentiments aren't universal in the event production world, though.

At the end of January, Clinton owed $38,000 to ACS Sound and Lighting of Columbia, S.C. But the company was paid in full last month and is planning to do events for Clinton in other states, according to manager Troy Gwin.

"We don't have any problem with them," he said. "I'd continue to do business after the primaries if she is the nominee. I would love to."

And Tony Galarza, director of the Missoula, Mont., branch of a national event production company, remained committed to staging an April 6 Clinton fundraising brunch at a local hotel even after a colleague in his company e-mailed a list of Clinton's campaign debts.

Galarza said he's confident Clinton will pay his company but admitted he was surprised to see so many event production companies among the campaign's creditors.

"Once I looked at those numbes, I realized how important to our economy nationally these elections are," he said. "Just the sheer numbers listed there were immense."

By Kenneth P. Vogel, POLITICO, March 31, 2008

Hillary Clinton sought to put to rest any thoughts about exiting the race in her weekend interview with the Washington Post. "I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan," she told the paper. "And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for."

Bill Clinton is doing his all to keep the ball in play, urging those still-uncommitted superdelegates to "chill out." Speaking at California's Democratic state convention, the former president asked for patience. "Don't let anybody tell you that somehow we are weakening the Democratic Party. Chill out and let everybody have their say. We are going to win this election."

Is there a hint of desperation in the air? More than halfway through the seven-week gap leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, the pause has not worked out as Clinton's campaign might have hoped. Rather than a contemplative period for the party to re-think the idea of nominating Barack Obama, it's been a lull in which his support appears to have solidified, if not grown. And the road ahead appears daunting for Clinton.

While she continues to hold a wide lead in Pennsylvania, her supporters are now trying to tamp down the expectations that she might run up the score there. Governor Ed Rendell, an early Clinton supporter, told ABC News this morning that he expected that lead to shrink before the April 22nd primary. And Obama is just getting started with his push in the state. Yesterday he drew an estimated crowd of 22,000 in an appearance at Penn State.

Clinton could still win there but if Obama can come within five points or so it may be a pyrrhic victory for her campaign. Then, pressure will mount for her to sweep the next two states of North Carolina and Indiana. Losses in both would almost certainly spell the end to her campaign. Even one loss would prove hard to overcome. Clinton needs to pile up some victories to claim the momentum at the close of this race and prove something to those superdelegates. A smaller-than-expected margin of victory in Pennsylvania and possible losses two weeks later does not equate with that need. She needs to run up the score on April 22nd and shock Obama in North Carolina. Until then, she's still in it, whether she can win it or not.




By Vaughn Ververs, CBS News, March 31, 2008

SAN JOSE -- Former President Clinton urged Democratic Party superdelegates and activists Sunday to be patient in selecting a presidential nominee and let the primary election process play out over the coming months.

A vigorous campaign between his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will not damage the party's prospects of beating the Republican nominee in the fall, Bill Clinton said in a speech to the California Democratic Party convention.

"Don't let anybody tell you that somehow we are weakening the Democratic Party," he told the 2,100 state delegates. "Chill out and let everybody have their say. We are going to win this election."

Before his speech, the former president met privately with about 16 superdelegates who will vote at the national Democratic Party convention in August on the party's nominee. The nomination is expected to be in the superdelegates' hands; neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton appear destined to win the 2,024 pledged delegates needed to secure the nod.

The former president also encouraged superdelegates not to decide prematurely on the nominee and deny voters in upcoming states the chance for their votes to count, several superdelegates said afterward.

Of the 65 California superdelegates selected so far, about 21 have not declared a favorite, party officials say. Of those who have made up their minds, Hillary Clinton leads Obama 29 to 13. Clinton won the Feb. 5 California primary by eight percentage points over Obama.

"President Clinton urged us to let the process play out," said Christine Pelosi, an uncommitted superdelegate who is the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "It was very inspiring. The president's emphasis was clearly on electing a Democratic president."

Obama representative

The Obama campaign declined to send a nationally known surrogate to the San Jose convention to counter the former president, but enlisted San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala D. Harris, one of Obama's California co-chairs, to speak on his behalf.

"It is Barack Obama who has the ability to bring our nation together," Harris told the delegates. "Barack Obama will be the president who finally ends the era of fear that has been used to divide and demoralize our country."

For Harris, the state's first female African American district attorney but little known outside the Bay Area, the chance to address the convention on Obama's behalf was a big opportunity. But she acknowledged that going head-to-head with the former president -- one of the party's "heroes," she said -- was daunting.

"Can you say 'gulp' ?" she joked Saturday.

In her address, she likened her appearance before the convention to Obama's candidacy:

"When you really think about it, hasn't that been, from the beginning, what this campaign to elect Barack Obama has been about?" she asked. "Hasn't it been about the audacity to do things unimaginable?"

In response, supporters in the crowd began chanting "Obama, Obama."

Much of the drama at the three-day convention played out behind the scenes, where surrogates for the presidential candidates continued to woo undeclared superdelegates.

With 71 superdelegates (including six who have not been selected yet), California has more superdelegates than most states have pledged delegates. Winning over the 21 uncommitted votes would be as valuable as sweeping a primary in Rhode Island or Hawaii.

The superdelegates, made up mainly of members of Congress and the Democratic National Committee, are free to change their mind up until the August convention in Denver.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, one of Clinton's most vocal California supporters, said he was among hundreds of surrogates who have been assigned certain superdelegates to pursue. It is a process, he said, that has been going on for months.

"There are some superdelegates who just smile and say, 'Don't talk to me, don't talk to me,' " Newsom said. "They are here knowing full well that people like me are out to get them. But they don't want to be part of it because they want to maintain their neutrality until the very end. I'm just glad I'm not a superdelegate."

Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party, is one of the few superdelegates who has not been targeted -- because under party rules he cannot declare his choice until the national convention.

"I am very lonely," he quipped. "I haven't gotten wine. I haven't gotten cookies. I haven't gotten anything, no calls. I am one of the loneliest superdelegates in the nation."

Clinton has long had an edge in superdelegate support because of her early status as front-runner. But in recent weeks, Obama has chipped away at that lead even as he has held onto his advantage among pledged delegates won through elections. Clinton's task now is to win enough votes in the upcoming primaries to maintain momentum while luring the necessary superdelegates to her side.

Litany of issues

As he pressed Hillary Clinton's case, former President Clinton spoke in detail Sunday about many of the campaign issues important to Democrats: aiding homeowners facing foreclosure; ending the Iraq war; developing alternative energy; and creating universal healthcare.

"The American people know the country has to change," he said. "They know that we are not working at home and that our position in the world is badly out of place."

But he disputed the comments of some leading Democrats and Obama supporters that the prolonged campaign was going to hurt the eventual nominee in the race against the presumed Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

Recalling a bit of history, Clinton said that in June 1992, after he won the California primary and formally secured the nomination, he had been beaten up so much that he was running third in national polls behind independent Ross Perot and incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush.

But after the Democratic convention, he said, polls showed him on top. He called the harsh campaign a "blessing in disguise." (Clinton did not mention that, in part, the polls shifted because Perot left the race during the convention only to return later.)

"There is somehow this suggestion that because we are having a vigorous debate about who would be the best president, we are going to weaken this party in the fall," he said. "Don't let anybody tell you that somehow we are weakening the Democratic Party. We are strengthening the Democratic Party."

As a former Democratic nominee for Congress from Indiana, I have a great deal of interest in the current contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Having a doctorate in American history and having written a political biography adds even more fascination to the race for me. However, being the father of a 10-year-old daughter might be the most important factor of all.

I took my daughter to attend the Hillary Clinton town hall event at the Wigwam gymnasium in Anderson. It was at the Wigwam that I heard Robert Kennedy, a political hero of mine, speak during the 1968 Democratic primary campaign. After his speech, we were all invited to process across the stage to shake hands with him and his wife, Ethel.

A flood of memories came back while we listened to Sen. Clinton. I thought it was important for my daughter to see a woman running for president of the United States, to know that a young girl can be anything that she wants to be, including president. Hillary Clinton reminds me so much of Robert Kennedy, with her combination of idealism, toughness and experience of how to use power to get things done. She has my vote and enthusiastic support, along with the admiration of a little girl who sees that anything is possible for her in this country. It was a poignant afternoon.

By James P. Fadely, The Indianapolis Star, March 31, 2008

HARRISBURG, Pa., March 31 (UPI) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, despite her suburban roots, has resonated with blue-collar workers who, observers say, are keeping her U.S. presidential candidacy afloat.

For several reasons -- Clinton's focus on economic problems and solutions and her highly public story of survival -- her message resonates with financially suffering voters, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday.

"For blue-collar Democratic voters choosing a candidate, the first question is usually, 'Does he or she understand my life?'" said Mark Kornblau, who advised former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., before he left the race for the Democratic nomination for president. "I don't think it's natural and I don't think it comes from any real life experience ... but she uses language that really describes what's going on in people's lives."

The blue-collar vote in Ohio and Texas breathed life into Clinton's campaign, the Tribune said. Exit polls showed Clinton, D-N.Y., her beating Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by 15 percentage points among voters without a college degree and won among those who earn $50,000 a year or less.

Those demographics should play heavily in May 6 primaries in West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and North Carolina; and the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, where polls indicate Clinton leads, the Tribune said.

With attention focused on the Democrats' infighting for the presidential nomination, Senator John McCain is pressing ahead to the general election but has yet to sign up one critical constituency: the big-money people who powered the Bush fund-raising machine.

As he reintroduces himself to voters this week with stops like one at the Naval Air Station in Meridian, Miss., where he was a flight instructor, Mr. McCain will also attend to another crucial task by courting donors in Mississippi, Florida and Tennessee.

Building up his fund-raising apparatus is essential at this point for Mr. McCain, who struggled for much of last year to raise money. To prevail in the general election, he will need to raise substantial amounts of cash to cut into the vast fund-raising edge the Democratic presidential candidates have shown over the Republicans this election cycle.

Even though he all but secured the Republican nomination by mid-February, Mr. McCain has so far managed to enlist only a fraction of the heavyweight bundlers of campaign contributions who helped drive President Bush's two runs for the White House, an examination of Mr. McCain's fund-raising network shows.

Well over half of the top fund-raisers for Mr. Bush, who raised a record $274 million for him in the 2004 primary season, stayed on the sidelines through this year's Republican nominating contests. Others wound up working for Rudolph W. Giuliani, who signed up the most top Bush fund-raisers, and Mitt Romney, who had about the same number as Mr. McCain.

The dearth of Pioneers and Rangers, the elite fund-raisers for Mr. Bush who collected more than $100,000 or $200,000 respectively for his re-election bid in 2004, is illustrative of just how far Mr. McCain has to go to build up his financial operation.

Several former Bush fund-raisers said in interviews that they believed many more Rangers and Pioneers would mobilize for Mr. McCain, now that he was the presumptive nominee. But some also said they might not, citing reasons like personal circumstances, a lack of enthusiasm for Mr. McCain (especially compared with Mr. Bush) and exhaustion.

"It takes an enormous amount of passion," said Joyce Haver, a Phoenix businesswoman who was a Bush Pioneer in 2000 and a Ranger in 2004 and who said she was unlikely to plunge in again. "I probably don't have the passion I had last time."

Ms. Haver, who said she still believed that Mr. McCain would make a far better president than either of the Democratic candidates, said her lack of enthusiasm stemmed from a number of factors, including her frustration with politics in general and with Mr. McCain's support for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that many conservatives revile.

Other former Bush fund-raisers said they were simply tired after working for other Republican presidential campaigns in this lengthy contest.

Patrick Oxford, a Houston lawyer who was the chairman of Mr. Giuliani's campaign and was a Bush Pioneer in 2000, said he was unlikely to throw himself back into raising money.

"It's not because I'm not a supporter of Senator McCain," Mr. Oxford said. "I'm just worn out."

Several veteran fund-raisers for Mr. Bush also pointed out that Mr. McCain's campaign organization was forced to retrench after his candidacy stalled over the summer and is now straining under the burden of expanding into a national operation - it is still, for example, operating with just four finance staff members.

"I would hope they might be a little better organized by this point," said Bruce Bialosky, an accountant and former Bush Pioneer from Los Angeles who has not yet committed to raising money for Mr. McCain. "They geared down so much it's almost difficult for them to gear back up."

As Mr. McCain has focused on building up his campaign treasury in recent weeks, there are signs that the pace of fund-raising has begun to pick up. A recent event in New York City, led by former Senator Alfonse D'Amato, brought in $2 million, as did another one earlier this month in Florida.

Campaign finance records also show that contributions from former Bush bundlers increased significantly after Mr. McCain's candidacy began to catch on, and donations typically tend to pour in as the summer party convention nears.

Mr. McCain's advisers insisted they were on schedule for expanding their financial operation, including recruiting those who collected checks for Mr. Bush. They also pointed out that there was invariably turnover of fund-raisers from one election cycle to the next.

"We are meeting every deadline we have and exceeding them," said Wayne Berman, a former Bush Ranger and the deputy finance chairman for the McCain campaign.

Poor fund-raising nearly forced Mr. McCain from the race last summer, but it began to improve after his candidacy gathered momentum in January, helping him bring in almost $12 million that month. But he brought in slightly less in February, about $11 million, according to the latest filings to the Federal Election Commission.

In comparison, on the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama raised $55 million in February and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton collected $36 million. As of the end of February, Mr. McCain had collected about $60 million in contributions over all, while Mr. Obama has raised the most of any candidate with nearly $200 million.

The New York Times compared a list of 548 Pioneers and Rangers from 2004 assembled by Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group that tracks the influence of money in politics, against a list of roughly 500 McCain fund-raisers assembled by Public Citizen, another public interest group that tracks names that emerge in news articles and campaign press releases. The analysis found that only slightly more than a tenth of Bush Pioneers or Rangers were working for Mr. McCain (though some newly minted McCain fund-raisers may not have been publicly identified yet).

In terms of personal donations, at the end of last year before the nominating contests began, Mr. Giuliani had received the most money from people who were Bush Pioneers and Rangers in 2004, followed by Mr. Romney and then Mr. McCain.

By the end of February, Mr. McCain had surged ahead, with the number of former Bush fund-raisers donating to him growing by 50 percent, to about 125 from about 85.

It appears, however, that about half of the former Bush fund-raisers did not contribute to any Republican candidate.

Figures are not yet available for March, when Mr. McCain became the presumptive nominee and embarked on a major fund-raising blitz. It is also not clear if the former Bush bundlers are giving generously to other Republican groups and candidates, especially with Mr. Bush holding a series of highly successful big-money events in recent weeks.

On April 1, the McCain campaign will set up a joint fund-raising committee with the national party, McCain Victory 2008, which will have the dual tasks of raising money for Mr. McCain and the party, which is now working on his behalf.

The McCain campaign is also rolling out its own version of a Pioneers and Rangers program, offering the title of Trailblazer to anyone who raises at least $100,000 and Innovator to those who collect more than $250,000. Campaign officials are also in the midst of selecting state chairmen and assigning them fund-raising goals.

In what was seen as an important step, the McCain campaign recently signed up Mercer Reynolds, a Cincinnati businessman who was Mr. Bush's chief fund-raiser in 2004. Mr. McCain's advisers said Mr. Reynolds had already started to bring many former Bush fund-raisers and donors in his network into the fold.

McCain officials have been in discussions for several weeks with fund-raisers from the Giuliani and Romney campaigns to discuss how to integrate their respective networks.

In an unusual move, a group of McCain fund-raisers is planning to help Mr. Giuliani raise money to settle about $2 million in campaign debts, Mr. McCain's advisers said.

The campaign has not yet established a significant fund-raising presence online, as the Democrats have, but last week alone Mr. McCain courted high-dollar donors in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas and in California in Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Los Angeles and Pebble Beach.

A fund-raising event last week at the Bel-Air mansion of Jerry Perenchio, the former chairman of Univision and a Bush Pioneer, drew about 500 people, including former top Bush fund-raisers and Jon Voight, Clint Eastwood and Nancy Reagan.

"They're calling up the old network, and we're all plugging in," said Matt Fong, a former California state treasurer and 2000 and 2004 Bush Pioneer who had not committed to any candidate until he agreed to help with the Bel Air event. "It's late, but it's happening."

The veteran political operative is relentless in his drive for Democratic superdelegates.

ARLINGTON, VA. -- Harold M. Ickes never forgets a favor, especially if he's the one who did the favor. So the veteran political operative made sure that, when the time was right, he alone would call Garry Shay, former chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. As Ickes saw it, he had helped Shay; now he was looking for Shay to help him.

And once Ickes started calling, he didn't stop until Shay said the words Ickes wanted to hear -- that he would support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.

Shay, as a member of the Democratic National Committee, is a superdelegate, one of nearly 800 elected officials, party leaders and activists who -- with the state primaries and caucuses now expected to end in stalemate -- may effectively end up picking the 2008 Democratic candidate for president.

And the man in charge of Clinton's feverish effort to lock up superdelegates is Ickes, whose enthusiasm for no-holds-barred politics sometimes rattles friends and foes alike. Ickes once got so carried away that he bit another political operative on the leg. Now, some 35 years later, at age 68, he has mellowed so little that it could happen again.

"It depends on how heated the circumstances are," he says.

Mythic qualities

Aggressive, profane, openly scornful of rivals, Ickes rules Clinton's superdelegate operation with an intimidating style and a mythic persona. He is "advisor, consigliere, enforcer and strategist" all rolled into one, says Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party who backs Obama.

What's more, Harpootlian says: "He's like a shadow. You hear he's here, you hear he's there, but you never actually see him."

Ickes comes by his temperament and his passion for politics naturally. He is the son and namesake of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's famously irascible Interior secretary. And he has played the role of party maverick for decades.

He worked in Sen. Eugene McCarthy's 1968 campaign to unseat President Lyndon B. Johnson. He joined Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in trying to deny President Carter renomination in 1980. He worked for Jesse Jackson's presidential bids in 1984 and 1988.

Unhappy about the way Jackson was being treated at the '88 convention, Ickes hatched plans that included a threat to hand out 1,700 plastic whistles to Jackson supporters so they could disrupt the proceedings. Some of his ideas unnerved even Jackson; Ickes remembers him saying, "Ickes, you want to get me run out of white man's America."

Even inside the Clinton court, Ickes does not hold back. Last year, when senior Clinton aide Mark Penn appeared not to grasp the basics of delegate selection, Ickes mockingly asked, "Could it be that the vaunted 'chief strategist' of the vaunted Hillary Clinton campaign does not understand?"

In a Clinton campaign that can seem machinelike, Ickes is conspicuous for his idiosyncrasies. A female aide said that when she noticed his dress shirt unbuttoned practically to the navel, it was like glimpsing an unzipped fly.

"I thought someone should have pulled him aside to tell him. I later came to realize that's how he wears his shirts."

Temperament and eccentricities aside, with the importance of the superdelegates increasing Ickes now carries a burden that may be second only to the candidate's own. Clinton is ahead among superdelegates, but the margin has been slipping. In December, she led Obama by 106 superdelegates. In early February, the number was down to 87. Today it is 36, according to Associated Press surveys.

Ickes runs the superdelegate operation from a third-floor war room in this suburb across the Potomac River from the capital. About 20 aides are divided into teams. One woos the uncommitted; another works to prevent defections.

The intensity of the struggle was reflected in a recent note on Ickes' office door happily declaring that three Democratic congressmen were sticking with Clinton -- Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey, Gregory W. Meeks of New York and Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri:

"Pascrell and Meeks said they were '100 percent' for Clinton through the convention, and Cleaver said he would vote for her unless he died first," the note read.

Doing his homework

In courting the uncommitted, "the first order of business" is finding out "Who is this person?" Ickes said recently over an omelet of egg white, onion and tomato. "What is his or her political history? Who does that person associate with or rely on for information they take into account when making political decisions?"

To get answers, aides sit at computers ranged along a windowless hallway outside Ickes' office. They sift websites; do Google searches; talk to friends, lobbyists, campaign donors -- tapping into what Ickes calls the sprawling network of "Clinton alumni."

"You establish a relationship and keep going back, and people become friendlier and let down their guard," Ickes said, describing the campaign's methods. "And before you know it, you can pick up useful information. None of this is insidious information; it's information about what makes a person tick politically."

Ready to pounce

In the case of Shay, Ickes remembered that Shay had wanted to increase the representation of gays and lesbians within the national party. Ickes helped him over the years, speaking out in favor of Shay's project at DNC meetings.

Initially, Shay committed to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, so Ickes issued a standing order to his staff: Make sure that when Edwards dropped out, Ickes -- and only Ickes -- called Shay. As Edwards' fortunes sagged, Ickes began calling to chat up Shay every couple of weeks.

And on Jan. 30, just before Edwards publicly quit the race, Ickes pounced.

"Look, personal relationships, especially when you're dealing with this at the individual level, are sometimes very helpful," Ickes said later. "I have no reservations about calling in a chit. I don't know if I had a chit with him to call in, but I do think that our prior relationship and the fact that I was helpful may have been helpful in persuading him to be for Hillary."

Shay, for his part, says several factors played into his decision, including the fact that he liked Clinton's performance in the Los Angeles debate and that Barack Obama never called him. But he credits Ickes with keeping Clinton "within the forefront" of his mind, and in fact he committed to her very soon after Ickes placed the critical call.

"In politics, you try to move and close the deal quickly," Ickes said.

Eyeing the inconceivable

Only months ago, most people gave little thought to the superdelegates. Clinton seemed invincible. And for Democrats at least, the idea of uncommitted delegates picking the nominee evoked images of political bosses in smoke-filled rooms. Returning to that era was inconceivable.

But 2008 may be the year of the inconceivable -- not just the year a woman or an African American might be elected president, but the year the Democratic nominee was chosen by delegates unconstrained by the popular vote.

Ickes recognized early on how important those delegates might be. And, in assigning him responsibility for them, Clinton chose a veteran whose loyalty was proven -- and whose iron focus on the goal at hand matched her own.

Both the loyalty and the focus were on display in February 1999, when the Senate voted not to remove Bill Clinton from office.

In the White House residence, Ickes and the first lady were poring over New York state maps in preparation for her Senate bid.

A call came in informing the first lady that her husband had been acquitted, Ickes recalled. "She puts down the phone and says, 'Harold, we were talking about Buffalo.' "

With that, they went back to work.

What mere superdelegate could withstand determination like that?

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has set out her proposals on U.S. financial market regulation.

Below are the main aspects of her plan:

MORTGAGE LENDERS

Clinton would create a federal minimum standard for companies and people who start the process of organizing a loan, known as mortgage originators.

Standards would include subjecting such lenders to minimum licensing, supervision and capital requirements, and bringing mortgage bankers more fully under the scope of the Community Reinvestment Act.

RISK MANAGEMENT

Clinton wants to subject all institutions that are eligible to access the Federal Reserve's credit to regulations equivalent to commercial banks.

BETTER FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT

Clinton's proposals call for more transparency and oversight of "exotic financial products" such as complex derivatives. That would including ensuring that financial institutions that hold collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps are subject to minimum capital requirements.

RATING AGENCIES

Clinton called for either a change in how rating agencies are compensated -- currently they are paid by the institutions they rate -- or new measures to ensure there was no conflict of interest.

Those measures could include requiring rating agencies to certify that their practices adhere to standards adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission; establishing an independent Risk Committee with no financial incentive to rating agencies to review rating decisions; or establishing an independent rating agency ombudsman approved by the SEC.

CREDIT CARDS AND STUDENT LOANS

Clinton proposed an immediate national annual interest rate cap of 30 percent on all credit cards, which would cover the stated rate and the effective rate.

She also called for a student borrower's bill of rights.

Reuters, March 31, 2008

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton would be "fully engaged and involved" in the Middle East as U.S. president and would maintain a full-time presence there to spur the peace process, the New York senator told Reuters.

Clinton, whose husband former President Bill Clinton took a personal but ultimately unsuccessful role in negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, said the administration of George W. Bush had committed "sins of omission and commission" by not being more engaged.

"I believe that it's important for the United States to maintain an active and involved role," she said in an interview on Sunday.

"I think one of the reasons why we are seeing a very dangerous situation there now is because the Bush administration backed off from staying involved and, where they were involved, much of their advice and proposals were counterproductive."

Clinton, who is competing with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to be the Democratic presidential nominee in the November election, has argued that she is stronger on foreign policy and has a better chance of beating presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, a senator from Arizona.

Clinton said it was up to Israelis and Palestinians to determine what role in the peace process should be played by Hamas, an Islamist group officially committed to Israel's destruction, which won elections in Gaza in 2006 but seized control of the strip last summer amid factional fighting.

She said the next president would be able to get a better sense of what needed to be done to bring peace to the region.

"Once we get back to a president who is fully engaged and involved and doesn't walk away or impose unworkable conditions, we will, you know, have a much better idea about what is part of bringing the parties to some resolution," she said.

Asked whether she would be "fully engaged and involved," Clinton said, "Yes."

FULL TIME PRESENCE

President Clinton's 2000 effort to broker a peace agreement ended in failure and a violent Palestinian uprising ensued.

The former first lady often tells audiences on the campaign trail she would make her husband a goodwill ambassador to foreign countries if she wins, but she declined to say in the interview if the Middle East would be one of his destinations.

"I don't know (whether) that would be where he would be sent," she said.

"I think you need a full-time presence," she said, adding the absence of one was a key problem with the diplomacy of Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

"We haven't had a full-time presence and everything stops unless Condi Rice is there, and I think that's a mistake," Clinton said.

"That seems to be a pattern in much of their diplomacy, and I don't think that's particularly productive."

Foreign policy analysts and Arab officials have often criticized Bush for what they regard as his neglect of the conflict and his failure to empower a special envoy to focus on the issue as Dennis Ross did under President Clinton.

Israel announced plans on Sunday to ease some restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, responding to calls by Rice, who is visiting the region, to take steps to bolster peace talks.

Bush launched a peace effort in November with the goal of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement by the end of this year, but Middle East analysts are deeply skeptical that it will succeed.




By Jeff Mason, Reuters, March 31, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's plans to shake up U.S. financial market regulation are "too short on action," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Sunday, laying out her own set of proposals to address the issue.

Clinton, a U.S. senator from New York, called for new standards governing mortgage lenders, reform of rating agencies to avoid conflicts of interest, a 30 percent annual interest rate cap on all credit cards and more immediate authority for the Federal Reserve to regulate financial institutions.

Her comments, made to Reuters in an interview, came a day before U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveils proposals for broad reform of financial regulation.

"There is still a very serious gap between what the administration is proposing and the immediate crisis that we face," Clinton told Reuters.

"Although I appreciate and agree with some of the recommendations, the blueprint is simply too short on action," said Clinton, who is battling Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to become the Democratic nominee for November's presidential election.

Clinton called for new legislation to make mortgage originators -- people or organizations that start the process of organizing a loan -- subject to minimum licensing, supervision and capital requirements similar to rules that apply to banks.

She dismissed the Bush administration's proposal to establish a commission on the issue as "too little too late."

Obama has also proposed greater government regulation of the U.S. financial system and has called Paulson's proposals related to the Fed inadequate.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination, said through a spokeswoman he would study the administration's proposals.

RATING AGENCIES, CREDIT CARDS, BERNANKE

Clinton, who has argued she is better placed than Obama or McCain to steer the U.S. economy, accused her Republican rival of doing nothing.

"We cannot afford the administration's approach of 'wait and don't see.' We can't afford Senator McCain's approach of sitting on his hands," she said.

Credit ratings agencies should stop being compensated by the institutions they rate, she said, or else face new guidelines to ensure their independence.

Those guidelines could include proving they follow independence standards adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission or creating an independent rating agency ombudsman approved by the SEC.

"We should just stop talking about conflicts of interest and failures of the rating agencies and do something about it," Clinton said.

The former first lady, who often mentions the cheap loans she took out to attend law school, took aim at credit card companies, calling for a 30 percent annual interest rate cap, which she said she would try to bring down even further.

She said the Fed and the Treasury Department should issue new rules within 90 days that apply to all institutions that have access to the Fed's credit.

"They have to regulate all of the new institutions that are not commercial banks in order to have the transparency and the accountability that you need," she said.

Clinton declined to comment on whether she would reappoint Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke if she were elected president.

"I think that he inherited some difficult problems," she said. "He's obviously aware of the move toward greater regulation, but no one is yet meeting the immediate needs in the way that I think we should."

By Jeff Mason, Reuters, March 31, 2008

When President Bush pushed big tax breaks through Congress in 2001 and 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats in opposing them as fiscally reckless. But now that McCain and Clinton are running for president, neither is looking to get rid of the cuts. Instead, they are arguing over which ones to keep.

The same is true of Clinton's rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who recently blamed the Bush tax cuts for driving the nation toward recession. But he, too, wants to preserve about half the cuts, and pile on new ones.

The direction of the tax debate is frustrating deficit hawks in Washington, who worry that none of the candidates is charting a course toward a balanced budget. Meanwhile, Bush and other politicians are telling voters alarmed by a sagging economy that keeping the cuts past their 2010 expiration date can help revive the nation's fortunes, a claim many economists say is nonsense.

Far from acting as an economic tonic, the tax cuts "are neither sustainable nor beneficial" without massive cuts in government spending far beyond what Bush or any candidate to succeed him has proposed, said Alan D. Viard, a former economist in the Bush White House who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The most popular cuts -- those known as "middle-class" tax cuts -- are more likely to slow economic growth than promote it, Viard and others said.

"Those are the provisions that detract from long-term growth even if you finance them with a reduction in government spending," said Robert Carroll, a former Bush Treasury official who teaches at American University. "If you pay for them with future tax increases, I think that would be awful."

The tax cuts, the signal economic achievement of the Bush administration, are among the three biggest federal tax reductions since the end of World War II, comparable in size to the Reagan tax cut of 1981 and the Kennedy tax cut passed in 1964, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation. By the time the Bush cuts are scheduled to expire, it's projected that they will have saved taxpayers $1.6 trillion.

The cuts affected both businesses and individuals. The individual cuts, which are the focus of the current debate, are split into two main elements.

The first, growth-oriented provisions, are aimed at spurring the economy in the long term and flow mainly to the wealthy. Those provisions lowered the estate tax and will repeal it in 2009, and lowered the tax on capital gains and dividends to 15 percent. The legislation also lowered the top four income tax brackets, with the top rate falling to 35 percent from 39.6.

The second element, social-relief provisions, are aimed at providing short-term stimulus and flow to a wider spectrum of taxpayers. Those provisions created a 10 percent tax bracket at the bottom of the scale, doubled the child-tax credit to $1,000 and reduced the penalty on married couples filing jointly.

The economic impact of the cuts is unclear. A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said "it is hard to be certain what effects the tax cuts have had on the economy because there is no way to compare actual events to the counterfactual case where the tax cuts were not enacted."

Conceived during Bush's 2000 presidential campaign as a means to return what were then huge government surpluses to taxpayers, the cuts were approved by Congress in the midst of a recession, which worsened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Though the recession was mild, the recovery was sluggish and hampered by a deep decline in employment. Productivity ultimately rebounded robustly, but national savings plunged, and the country racked up a large trade deficit.

So how has Republican presidential nominee in waiting John McCain - according to the latest polls - managed to stay so close in the race against Democratic opponents, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton? Conventional wisdom has held the race for the White House is the Democrat's to lose.

One explanation, of course, flows from McCain's background - a Vietnam war hero who withstood years of captivity and torture. Also, even some Democratic detractors say he is a likable, charming figure. And beyond that, he's been able to act presidential in a relatively low-key campaign, benefiting greatly from the protracted and increasingly bitter nomination battle between Obama and Clinton.

Recent polling shows large numbers of Democrats who back either Clinton or Obama would vote for McCain if their candidate does not win the nomination. One survey, for example, shows 28% of Clinton supporters would cast their ballot for McCain ahead of Obama. Among Obama supporters, 19% would back McCain over Clinton.

Those figures are particularly distressing inside the Democratic party because the crossover effect in McCain's favor intensifies as the Illinois and New York senators focus on one another over McCain with five months remaining before the August party convention.

While there is no certainty the animosity between Clinton and Obama voters would hold steady after one of them wins the nomination, it points to the potential for a noticeable Democratic turnout for McCain, who already has significant support from independents - U.S. voters without allegiance to either party.

"The country remains very evenly divided. The demographics have not changed that much since 2000 and 2004, which were close presidential races" won by Bush, said Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant.

Brian Gaines, at the University of Illinois Institute for Government and Public Affairs, likewise cautions against expecting significant state by state shifts away from patterns seen in those years, which put Bush in the White House and kept him there for a second term.

Gaines points to the small number of states that swung between parties in those years.

New Mexico and Iowa, for example, threw their support behind former Vice President Al Gore against Bush in 2000. Those states switched allegiance and voted for Bush over Sen. John Kerry four years later. The small New England state of New Hampshire swung the opposite direction.

Former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd says McCain's strong standing so far is the result of some very good fortune on two fronts.

First, "he wrapped up the (Republican) nomination early with the least polarization." Second, he says, is the continuing and "disturbing Democratic battle" that could leave whomever wins the nomination as a "polarizing and damaged" candidate.

Dowd also says McCain has emerged as the presumptive nominee unbruised from the relatively short Republican nomination battle.

"McCain didn't really win. Instead the others (Republican rivals) lost. Interestingly, nearly every factor that created this opening for McCain has not been attributable to him, except that he was the candidate who remained standing."

So that's, briefly, how McCain got where he is today. And it now would appear a certainty that his future will be defined by his own insistence on linking his candidacy to American success in Iraq.

And with violence surging again in the oil-rich nation, McCain's argument that the U.S. troop "surge" has worked could be turned against him. Extreme violence again grips the country as Shiites fight for control of the southern city of Basra, the country's second largest and its major oil port with access to the Persian Gulf.

And one of the prime reasons the American troop increase has worked, especially in Baghdad, was the cease-fire ordered by Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who heads the Mahdi Army militia. That deal could unravel because of renewed conflict with the Iraqi military, backed by American forces.

Rocket and mortar fire blamed on Mahdi Army militants again rains down on Baghdad's Green Zone, the American nerve center in the war, which just entered it's sixth year.

McCain's strong backing for a continued and robust American presence and claims of success in Iraq are now colliding with an Iraqi reality that's beginning to mimic the extreme violence of late 2006 and early 2007, before all the 30,000 additional U.S. "surge" forces reached the battle zone.

In fact, Dowd, the former Bush strategist, sees the Iraq linkage as a key weak spot for McCain.

Recalling his recent trip to Baghdad, McCain's eighth, Dowd said the Republican nominee-in-waiting should instead have been "putting a stake in the ground on some forward-looking issue."

He said voter opinions on Iraq are not much subject to change. "Iraq is a rearview mirror issue. The winner will do it by looking forward."

And the week just passed suggests the prescience of that argument.

McCain, in what was termed a major speech on the economy, offered only vague ideas about reversing what increasingly looks to be a significant recession in American. Both Obama and Clinton hammered their Republican opponent for his lack of expertise and experience with the economy and linked him to Bush, who many say began paying attention to the mounting crisis too late and then doing too little.

The Associated Press, March 30, 2008

Clinton said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York wasn't damaging the party by staying in the race even though she is behind in delegates and unlikely to overtake the Illinois senator based on the contests to come.

"There is somehow the suggestion that because we are having a vigorous debate about who would be the best president, we are going to weaken this party in the fall," he said Sunday at the state Democratic Party convention.

"We're going to win this election if we just chill out and let everybody have their say," Clinton said.

Obama said Saturday that the decision about whether to drop out is for Hillary Clinton to make.

"My attitude is Sen. Clinton can run as long as she wants," he said in Pennsylvania.

Also on Sunday, surrogates for Obama and Hillary Clinton spoke out about a proposal by New York's former governor that the two senators should run together on the fall presidential ticket, regardless of which one wins the nomination, to avoid "a Democratic disaster."

Former governor Mario Cuomo, who has not endorsed either candidate, said in an opinion piece Sunday in The Boston Globe that Clinton and Obama should cut a deal that puts both of them on the ballot in the fall. If one won't defer to the other in the primary race, they should at least announce that whoever loses would be named the vice presidential candidate, he wrote.

"The joint statement announcing their agreement would rock the nation and resound across the globe," Cuomo wrote in a piece headlined, "How to avoid a Democratic disaster."

If the two Democrats keep battling one another through August's Democratic convention in Denver, "the 2008 primary may be the story of a painfully botched grand opportunity," Cuomo wrote.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton ally, said on ABC's This Week that he could not speak for Clinton, "but I would love that. I think that this duo, regardless, is a history-making duo."

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, an Obama ally and the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said on ABC that the combination "would be terrific in a lot of people's minds" but that decision would be Obama's to make.

USA Today, March 30, 2008

PHILADELPHIA - Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell predicts that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Obama will shrink before the April 22 primary.

Rendell, a Clinton supporter, spoke Monday morning on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America." He appeared with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa, an Obama supporter. Casey agreed that Clinton would likely win, saying Obama is "certainly the underdog in our state."

Rendell also said the Obama campaign doesn't want a revote in Michigan and Florida because Obama's supporters know Clinton would win. He predicted that she would likely win by enough votes to emerge as the popular vote leader.

Casey said any revotes in Florida and Michigan should be up to the state parties.

The Associated Press, March 31, 2008

NEW ALBANY, Ind. - Debra Starks has heard the calls for Hillary Rodham Clinton to quit the presidential race, and she's not happy about it.

The 53-year old Wal-Mart clerk, so bedecked with Clinton campaign buttons most days that friends call her "Button Lady," thinks sexism is playing a role in efforts to push the New York senator from the race. Starks wants Clinton to push back.

"The way I look at it, she's a strong woman and she needs to stay in there. She needs to fight," Starks said at a Clinton campaign rally. "If you want to be president, you have to fight for what you want. If she stays in there and does what she's supposed to do, I think she'll be on her way."

Amid mounting calls from top Democrats for Clinton to step aside and clear the path for rival Barack Obama, strategists are warning of damage to the party's chances in November if women - who make up the majority of Democratic voters nationwide, but especially the older, white working-class women who've long formed the former first lady's base - sense a mostly male party establishment is unfairly muscling Clinton out of the race.

"Women will indeed be upset if it appears people are trying to push Hillary Clinton out of the way," said Carol Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic Party chair who is backing Obama. "If you are going to ask her to withdraw, you'd better be making a strong case for it - both to the candidate and the public."

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy last week became the first leading Democrat to openly call on Clinton to abandon her bid and back Obama, a sentiment shared by many activists worried that a drawn-out nominating contest only bolsters Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain.

Other Obama supporters have echoed that view while stopping short of asking Clinton to withdraw.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday called Obama's lead all but insurmountable, while Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said the contest would be reaching "a point of judgment" very soon.

"I don't think it's up to our campaign or any individual to tell Hillary Clinton or their campaign when that is," Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "But there will be, I think, a consensus about it, and I think it's going to occur over these next weeks."

To be sure, Clinton campaign officials concede her path to winning the nomination is not at all clear.

She almost certainly will end the primary season narrowly trailing Obama in the popular vote and among pledged delegates unless the nullified primaries in Florida and Michigan are counted - an unlikely scenario at best. But Obama is unlikely to end the race with the 2,024 pledged delegates needed to win outright either, meaning the nominee will be determined by roughly 800 "superdelegates" - elected officials and party insiders who can back whichever candidate they want.

Most observers believe the superdelegates are unlikely to risk an intraparty uproar - not to mention the ire of black voters thrilled to support a black candidate - by siding with Clinton if Obama maintains his lead among pledged delegates.

But Clinton advisers believe many superdelegates remain at least persuadable, due in no small part to the influence of women voters on the party and in the general election.

"My e-mail is bursting with women who are furious, and it's grown in the last week," said Ann Lewis, Clinton's director of women's outreach and a longtime Democratic activist.

"These women are the volunteer infrastructure of the Democratic Party who've been proud to support Democratic officials for what they believe and stand for," Lewis said. "They are very angry that people they've worked for so hard would be so dismissive of Hillary and, by extension, of them and what they value."

Indeed, the gender gap in most of the primaries thus far has been stark.

In California, Clinton bested Obama by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent among women. She beat him by 54 percent to 45 percent among women in Ohio, an important general election battleground state.

Obama, in turn, has walloped Clinton among men in nearly every state. But he's prevailed among women in just a handful of places, including his home state of Illinois and states with large black populations.

For his part, the Illinois senator - whose seemingly disrespectful crack of "You're likable enough, Hillary" during a debate with Clinton may have cost him the New Hampshire primary - said Saturday he did not believe Clinton should end her campaign.

"My attitude is Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants," Obama said in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22.

Nine more primaries follow, ending June 3.

Clinton insists she's in it to the end, saying a "spirited contest" is good for the party and ultimately will produce a stronger nominee.

"There are millions of reasons to continue this race: people in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, and all of the contests yet to come," she told reporters Friday in Hammond, Ind. "This is a very close race and clearly I believe strongly that everyone should have their voices heard and their votes counted."

Campaigning across the state Saturday, Clinton was greeted by large, heavily female crowds that shouted "You go, sister!" and "We've got your back!" in support of her pioneering candidacy. Indiana votes May 6.

Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project that trains women to run for office, noted that women typically have rallied around Clinton when she's appeared most vulnerable - from the revelations of her husband's dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky to January's New Hampshire primary after the bruising loss to Obama in Iowa.

"Women have always been asked to step aside if it was somehow for the greater good. In this case, Clinton, and a lot of her female supporters, clearly feel that she would make the better president and that it would not be for the greater good for her to step aside," Wilson said.

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press, March 30, 2008

To Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Richard Mellon Scaife qualifies as a charter member of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," having bankrolled an elaborate multimillion-dollar campaign throughout the 1990s to unearth damaging information about the couple.

But in a striking about-face, Mr. Scaife now says he has changed his mind - at least about one half of the duo.

"I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today," he wrote in an opinion article published Sunday, amid her campaign for president. "And it's a very favorable one indeed."

His sudden conversion from fervid Clinton basher to lukewarm Clinton fan occurred after Mrs. Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York, sat down for a 90-minute interview with reporters and editors of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper owned by Mr. Scaife, the billionaire heir to the Mellon banking fortune.

Pennsylvania will hold its Democratic primary on April 22, and the Tribune-Review, the second-largest daily newspaper in Pittsburgh, has yet to endorse a candidate. Given Mr. Scaife's record, Mrs. Clinton could not have expected a rosy reception.

But Mr. Scaife, who attended the meeting, wrote in The Tribune-Review that the senator "exhibited an impressive command of many of today's most pressing domestic and international issues." Her answers, he added, "were thoughtful, well-stated and often dead on."

His compliments left some Clinton aides and allies stunned. "I never thought I would utter these words, but I would like to shake his hands for keeping his mind open despite the predisposed prejudice toward her," said Lanny Davis, a longtime Clinton supporter who served as President Clinton's lawyer during the late 1990s.

At the height of his anti-Clinton days, Mr. Scaife donated $1.8 million to The American Spectator magazine for what became known as the "Arkansas Project" - an unflattering excavation of the Clintons' personal lives in Arkansas.

His objective was to publicize, if not eventually validate, accusations about the supposed involvement of the Clintons in corrupt land deals and Mr. Clinton's extramarital affairs, among other things.

But once Mrs. Clinton began running for president, Mr. Scaife - and his thick checkbook - remained on the sidelines, surprising many who predicted he would leap at the chance to dredge up new, potentially scandalous information about her.

That apparent indifference seems to have morphed into tepid enthusiasm for her.

During the meeting at The Tribune-Review, Mr. Scaife said in his article, he found common ground with Mrs. Clinton on the need to pull troops out of Iraq; on the bumbling federal efforts to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; and on the "increasing instability in Pakistan and South America."

Aides to Mrs. Clinton said they had not known what to expect from the March 24 meeting with Mr. Scaife and the staff of his newspaper. But sitting next to Mr. Scaife, Mrs. Clinton quickly broke the ice, remarking that she had agreed to the meeting because "it was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do." The line drew laughter from those in the room.

There is, of course, a healthy dose of skepticism over Mr. Scaife's motives. Some wonder if he is rooting for the candidate whom some Republicans view as easier to defeat in the general election.

"I wouldn't trust Scaife's motives in this," said Robert M. Shrum, a longtime Democratic consultant who is not aligned with any campaign this year.

Mr. Scaife could not be reached for comment Sunday. Asked about Mr. Scaife's article, Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton, said, "As she showed in New York and as a senator, Hillary Clinton is in the solutions business and has demonstrated the ability to bridge old divides and get things done. Winning over Mr. Scaife is just another example."

Mr. Scaife wrote that he was not ready to endorse Mrs. Clinton over Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in the Pennsylvania primary. Mr. Obama, he noted, has yet to meet with the Tribune-Review staff.

Word of the meeting came as the Clinton campaign continued to insist that the senator would stay in the race, despite Mr. Obama's lead in delegates. On Sunday, one of her top backers, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, said he would "love" to see Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton on a ticket together.

Hillary Clinton Vows Fight To Convention, Obama Picks Up Another Superdelegate

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has feasted on adversity in the Democratic presidential primaries, is rejecting calls from some key Barack Obama supporters to drop out of the race for the good of the party, declaring she will stay until the last state primary votes are counted, even if it means what some democrats fear will be an ugly public battle at the August national convention.

Former President Bill Clinton, underscoring his wife's determination against statistically long odds of overcoming Obama's pledged delegate lead, said in California Sunday a "vigorous debate" was good for the party and those who want to see the former first lady quit the contest should just "chill out."

"We're going to win this election if we just chill out and let everybody have their say," Clinton said.

A crowd of about 20,000 was chilled as supporters waited in cool temperatures for Obama to speak on the campus lawn at Penn State University, where the Illinois senator agreed that the tough campaign was healthy if frustrating.

"As this primary has gone on a little bit long, there have been people who've been voicing some frustration," Obama said.

"I want everybody to understand that this has been a great contest, great for America. It's engaged and involved people like never before. I think it's terrific that Senator Clinton's supporters have been as passionate as my supporters have been because that makes the people invested and engaged in this process, and I am absolutely confident that when this primary season is over Democrats will be united."

After Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy last week became the first leading Democrat to openly call on Clinton to abandon her bid and back Obama, the front-runner said Clinton should stay in the race as long as she wanted. He also said he had not talked to Leahy before he issued his statement on Clinton leaving the race. But Leahy's sentiment is shared by many activists worried that a drawn-out nominating contest only bolsters Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain.

Other Obama supporters have echoed that view while stopping short of asking Clinton to withdraw.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday called Obama's lead all but insurmountable, while Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said the contest would be reaching "a point of judgment" very soon.

"I don't think it's up to our campaign or any individual to tell Hillary Clinton or their campaign when that is," Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "But there will be, I think, a consensus about it, and I think it's going to occur over these next weeks."

Obama picked up the endorsement of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar Sunday night, giving him another superdelegate supporter.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Klobuchar said Obama "has inspired an enthusiasm and idealism that we have not seen in this country in a long time."

In a statement, Obama said he's grateful for Klobuchar's support. According to the Obama campaign, Klobuchar is the 64th superdelegate to endorse him since the Feb. 5th Super Tuesday contests.

Last week, Obama picked up the support of Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., giving the candidate a boost heading into the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

Richardson, D-N.M., who chose "loyalty to the nation" over his long-standing ties to the Clintons in backing Obama, told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer on Sunday that while superdelegates should play a key role, the party "big-shots" should not ultimately determine the party's nominee. "It should the voters."

As she has fought through three-months of primary voting, Clinton has been able count on a deep well of support from women voters, many of whom see the attempt to push her out of the race now as the work of a male-dominated party structure.

In California, Clinton beat Obama by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent among women. She bettered him by 54 percent to 45 percent among women in Ohio, an important general election battleground state.

Obama, in turn, has walloped Clinton among men in nearly every state. He has prevailed among women in just a handful of places, including his home state of Illinois and states with large black populations.

As Obama crossed Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, he pounded his message of reform and said again that McCain was running for U.S. President George W. Bush's third term.

McCain, the Arizona senator and Vietnam war hero, gave a major foreign policy speech last week trying to blunt Democratic attempts to paint him as a candidate who would view the world through Bush's pre-emptive foreign policy lens.

"Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed," said in the carefully honed speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. "We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies."

Nevertheless, McCain has not backed away from his support for the unpopular Iraq war and has, in fact, said his candidacy would likely stand or fall on the outcome. Violence has flared anew in Iraq despite the U.S. troop surge that McCain said has been a success.

CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs reports that McCain has launched a new tour to reintroduce himself to the American electorate, but he's running his campaign in a way that seeks to separate him from the many woes facing the GOP.

"John McCain, it appears, is going to be a party of one," says Ververs in an analysia on the Arizona Senator's latest campaign moves.

Clinton, in vowing to continue her campaign until August if necessary, returned to the open Democratic Party sore of the negated primary votes in Michigan and Florida.

She won both contests, but the national party had said in advance the contests would not count because the state parties ignored the prohibition against holding the votes too early. Obama had taken his name off the Michigan ballot for that reason and neither candidate focused campaigning in those states.

But Clinton trails Obama by 1,624 to 1,499 in national delegates, including both those pledged as a result of state primaries and caucuses as well as superdelegates - elected and party officials who can vote for whomever they wish.

Clinton now insists the Michigan and Florida votes be added to her tally. She won in both states.




CBS News / The Associated Press , March 31, 2008