Fact of it was, you can't call the other leading candidate for the Democratic nomination "a monster."

This way of formulating what occurred today is just a verbal trick. The fact of the matter is, you can do that. Hillary Clinton's a monster. Barack Obama's a monster. Mike Gravel's a monster. See?

The question is what, other than a prompt and fulsome apology, should follow from making that statement. I think the Obama campaign made a mistake in agreeing, implicitly or explicitly, that the answer shouldn't be "nothing at all."

The problem is politics is not that people say intemperate things that they regret. Everyone's human. The problem is that we give petty bullshit like this undue attention.

(P.S. Sen. Gravel: I'm sorry, I was just making a point.)

Maybe those of us who worried that Obama had never been tested were on to something. In the two competitive campaigns Obama has been involved in, he got crushed once and looked to be headed for defeat until the Tribune decided to run his oppo research.

Does Axelrod have something damaging on Hillary he can leak to Dowd, Alter or Drudge?

Something I posted elsewhere

I'm not trying to comment on whether I approve or disapprove of the tactics we've seen out of the Clinton team recently but she has certainly seized on an aggressive strategy. She is landing body blows on Obama in the last couple of weeks and so far I don't think Obama's really shown an ability to counter. The news cycles have just been bad, bad, bad for Obama and he hasn't been able to turn them around. I don't think Clinton's gone anywhere near as far as the Republican's will go in the fall and Obama needs to demonstrate he can play hardball. When she talks about "experience" this is the underlying statement she's making - she doesn't care about red phones at 3am, it's about demonstrating that he can't stand up and fight and that she can. I think he can turn it around and win but it's been interesting to watch the narrative shift and Clinton make a clear stand that seems to be working.

Take a look around the black blogosphere.

She's already an unacceptable nominee. We'll burn Denver before we let her steal this.

By we, I mean all OBama supporters. I'm white.

Rereading it, I figured I should say that before Fred showed up and started his 'look, the darkies are acting up again' crap.

I'm really fucking sick of this shit.
Ezra can look for any excuse he wants to to make Hillary's theft of this election acceptable, it isn't. It will never be.

Hillary needs to win more Delegates. Obama doesn't need to do shit.

There's plenty of time. They'll sort it out.

Maybe Tim Russert will ask about it in a debate and Obama can use it as a chance to score points.

Yep, Clinton's in Obama's OODA loop. With the press in the tank for McCain and Hillary working the refs, Obama's been put on the defensive for the first time, and he's not performing well.

Powers' dropping out may have been the smart move, but it's purely defensive. Until Obama starts actively interfering with Clinton's decision-making cycle, he'll be giving up ground from here to Denver. And both candidates will be damaged goods by then.

We've all heard that the Hillary camp has tried to make the campaign ugly in the assumption that if Obama starts punching back he'll be tarnished. On the other hand, the few open issues Obama hasn't effectively addressed yet -- the Rezko thing, his public-financing pledge, the whackjob religious/tribal rumors -- are pretty small potatoes compared to what either Hillary or McCain bring to the game. If Obama starts swinging, Hillary may find that he lands harder blows than she expected.

OK, how about this? "All we did was ask Senator Clinton to release her tax returns, and the Clinton campaign responded by likening Senator Obama to Ken Starr. Today, Senator Clinton said this was not an ad hominem attack, but a 'historical reference.' We find this behavior bizarre. We do not understand why the Clinton campaign is so fixated on the past, and we do not understand why their spokespeople become so unhinged by a routine request. But we don't believe that candidates who respond in this way are demonstrating the kind of honesty or the kind of leadership America needs."

And then there's the question of the l-word. Sooner or later, someone in the Obama camp is going to have to say, "um, Hillary was just plain lying to you about our position on NAFTA." Especially since Hillary's now trying to claim that Obama tells Americans one thing and foreign audiences another.

Josh is right, though. The Clinton campaign is deep inside Obama's head. His folks are rattled. And this is a problem.

Maybe, he just doesn't want to act like a god damn 8 year old petulant brat.

This is one of the problems with his promise to change the tone, and his oft-repeated pledges to not run a campaign he can't be fully proud of. If you've forsworn moments of rage and instances of sleaze, you can't laugh it off when your associates dip into those waters. On the bright side, you get votes for your high-minded positioning. Clinton, by contrast, doesn't get any support among folks who want to change the tone, but she can take a "that's politics" line to out-of-control advisers.

A couple of points on this:

1. The plus side to his way of running a campaign is that he's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination against HRC. That's kind of a big deal.

2. There's a lot of time between now and the PA vote. He just needs to weather this right now, and show strength before PA.

3. HRC seems to do well in votes where the whole campaign is on the line and she's the underdog. I don't think it's terrible for Obama that folks are saying she's got the momentum while Obama has a delegate lead. She didn't really win that many delegates on March 4, folks.

Michael: How about this?

"The Clintons had never owned a home (having lived primarily in Arkansas and federal-owned residences) until 1999, when they bought a $1.7 million New York house so Senator Clinton could qualify as a New York resident. Originally, they attempted to buy the house using money from Clinton fundraiser Terry McAuliffe, a move that came under heavy criticism as McAuliffe was named by Richard Sullivan under oath as a player in a campaign donations laundering scheme concocted by Teamsters political director Richard Sullivan.

"Now Senator Clinton has donated millions of dollars to her own election campaign, at a time when we are becoming aware of her husband's unusual business arrangements.

"For example, the New York Times has reported that Bill Clinton leveraged his clout to enrich business parters like Canadian Frank Giustra, Ron Burkle, and Vinod Gupta. In one case, a Giustra-owned shell company was suddenly and unexpectedly granted major uranium mining rights in Kazakhstan after Mr. Clinton publicly praised the Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev and endorsed his bid to lead the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), despite the fact that OSCE had publicly declared Kazakh elections to be neither free nor fair, and opposition political figures are imprisoned for insulting Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton marked a 2005 election that the OSCE said was marred by intimidation and fraud by sending Nazarbayev a congratulatory note and inviting him to a Clinton Foundation conference.

"Senator Clinton has been financing her campaign with money that may have been obtained by questionable means. We call upon Senator Clinton to release her tax records, as Senator Obama has already done, and to inform the American people of all business relationships that she or her husband have entered into."

I mean, if you're gonna play hardball, play hardball, right?

"Teamsters political director William Hamilton," rather.

Well, twb, that works for me the next time the Clintons mention Rezko. I just offered my "bizarre / unhinged" comeback because I'm pretty sure that Wolfson dangled "Ken Starr" as bait after Axelrod said he didn't understand why the Clintons would want to bring up land deals. I imagine that the Clinton camp is hoping that the Obama campaign will get rattled enough to start talking about Whitewater and cattle futures and the Rose law firm, etc., at which point the Clintons can revel in thae kind of post-Monica sympathy bounce they got in '99.

Michael,

I like where you went with that -- it's the right move, just needs a bit more muscle. How about: "We called upon Senator Clinton to open her finances up to the American people, and she reacted by attacking her critics. Now we find out that the Clinton Library is refusing to release documents relating to last-minute pardons issued by Bill Clinton at a time when Senator Clinton was beginning her own political career. Senator Clinton says she has nothing to hide. But so far she's done nothing but conceal. Can America afford another four years of secrecy and lies?"

"All we did was ask Senator Clinton to release her tax return"

That would however be a lie, as anyone who read both sides of the back-and-forth would know.

"Josh is right, though. The Clinton campaign is deep inside Obama's head. His folks are rattled."

What evidence, exactly, do you have for this? As long as TPM is doing nothing more than sitting on the phone trancsribing Howard Wolfson's attacks, how could they possibly know what the mindset is in the Obama campaign?

I'm assuming that, right now, the Obama camp is saying "OK, it's been a tough couple of weeks. But we've still got a substantial lead, and it's late in the third quarter. Let's re-group, and after we win Wyoming and Mississippi, all of Senator Clinton's attacks will be recognized for the foolishness that they are."

And I think I have as much evidence for that mindset as you and Josh have for your assumption that Obama is drowning in despair.

I mean, it's entirely possible they are focused on winning the next two contests rather than winning the media game. Have you ever considered that possibility?

Obama has said that if he goes on the attack, it will be over policy. That's why it's so tough for him to go after Hillary, because their positions are not that far apart. But with McCain he won't have that problem at all.

So don't take his lack of going on the offense with Hillary to imply the same will happen with McCain.

"And Obama needs to actually score some hits. Not elegantly delivered one liners, or wry takes on the Clinton camp's cynicism. He needs to make Hillary Clinton look like an unacceptable nominee."

FWIW, as a Clinton supporter, I think the Obama campaign panicked precisely by responding to OH/TX by deciding to get down in the mud.

If they'd just shrugged off the losses, they would've done themselves a world of good, just as they did after NH.

Instead, they chose the worst of all possible worlds: going negative right after a big day of contests. Now, they're going to be sitting there for 6 weeks with their Teflon coating scraped off via their own actions.

They don't seem to have thought out beforehand how they were going to respond to the inevitability of taking a punch.

" Clinton, by contrast, doesn't get any support among folks who want to change the tone, but she can take a "that's politics" line to out-of-control advisers."

Clinton has got rid of Shaheen for saying things that were considered over the line. And they were things that could have been interpreted differently.

"We'll burn Denver before we let her steal this."

Threats of violence...ahh, "new" politics!

I don't think Power should have resigned, because she's good people, and it sets a bad precedent to throw good people off the bus for saying something stupid, except for something that is clearly out of bounds. `Monster' in this case is not even close to out of bounds, it's clearly just a loss of temper.

As for the assertions that this campaign has gotten really nasty, I'm just not seeing it. More than nasty, the campaign has gotten a bit petty and mediocre, and not focused on the big, important things, like Iraq, jobs, household income & debt, financing higher education, global warming, etc.

It seems to me there are so many opportunities for either candidate to focus attention and seize the initiative on Iraq, and other issues. For example, how about proposing a bill that would instruct the military and/or State department to conduct, to the best of their ability, an honest, rigorous estimate of the number of people who have died in Iraq, and the causes of death?

It seems to me an honest acknowledgment at what has been lost in Iraq, and accounting for Iraqi lives the same way we account for our own, is key to reestablishing any credibility with the Iraqi people, and providing motivation for peace and reconciliation.

"Threats of violence...ahh, "new" politics!"

The problem of the type of messianic politics that has been fueling Obama is that when it hits a rough patch, the wheels really come off.

The problem of the type of messianic politics that has been fueling Clinton is that she will say anything to get elected. Then present token bills that actually do nothing, the childrens version of the 'clear skies' act.

Just as with the bills shes worked on in the senate they wont actually do anything other then act as talking points. At which point everyone will fawn over how good a mother she is, while the country goes down the tubes.

..and when anyone calls her on it, she can just cry about how hard the media is being on her, and that her opponents are getting all the air time.

"The problem of the type of messianic politics that has been fueling Clinton is that..."

You can characterize the type of politics fueling Clinton in many ways, but messianic is not one of those.

I'm not sure that Senator Obama really needs to score some hits as Ezra states.

His game plan appears to be to ignore the mudslinging as much as possible and run the clock out without ticking off too many Clinton supporters. If my guess is right, he figures that he has sewed up enough delegates to win the nomination as long as he remains competitive in the remaining states.

The Clinton strategy has a very high risk factor because Democrats are not going to put up with negative campaigning for much longer. You can already see the blowback over negative campaigning forming and it will only intensify after the likely Obama wins in Wyoming and Mississippi.

The nature of Blowback is that it builds in a non-linear way, and then when it finally releases itself the duration of the fury suprises the hell out of everyone.

While the HRC campaign finally learned the lesson of Bill after South Carolina, they have now started a whole new problem for themselves. The Kitchen sink strategy will boomerang soon enough.

The Clintons overshoot. Always. Hillary especially because she is tone-deaf and is fundamentally an untalented politician.

Obama with his new corrected +8 delegates from the State of California--which they reported upon Certification this week--essentially has once again "won election day." Hillary is only set to net +4 delegates from VT, RI, OH, and TX once the TX Caucus comes in. Obama won TX--in pledged delegates.

Hillary won a headline.

Obama won some more pledged delegates.

Just kick back and watch the Clintons do it to themselves, as the math bears down now in relentless fashion.

Obama has capitalized on the way the Clintons have been branded as dirty because they had the audacity to stand up and fight the right wing smear machine. He has called Hillary Clinton unprincipled and dishonest and it reasonated among some because of all that has been thrown at her in the past. He was able to do this without looking like a monster, but now that he actually has to throw the punches himself he no longer has that advantage. Obama is the one of the most ambitious ruthless politicans in recent memory. He gets opponents kicked off the ballot, he lies about representing a new kind of politics when in fact he is just as petty and two faced as anyone else. He is even worse because he pretends to be the exact opposite and rails against the very things that he himself does. If he is not doing well going negative it is because he is constrained by the lies he has built his campaign on. The truth has caught up with him and his days are numbered.

I had a thought about the tax returns - I'm sure they don't want us to see how rich they've become over the past years.
But also, there are probably some stock deals they have gotten rich on that might raise some questions. For instance, what if they owned Countrywide stock (I have no idea if they did or not but I guess that's why we want to see the Tax returns!). That would cause a ruckus. Their buddy Cisneros was the CEO of Countrywide until the end of last year. And Penn's firm represents Countrywide. The current CEO of Countrywide is appearing before Congress to answer questions today on the subprime scandal.
Is there a way to find out if someone bought stock in a particular company?

We will burn Denver before we allow Obama and his followers to strip the superdelgates of their legtimate right to decide who they feel will make the best president. Obama's lies that the pledged delegate count means anything at all will be exposed, and if he continues to try to change the rules of this process by denying the superdelegates their proper autonomy, his blatant extortion of the Democratic Party will blow up in his face. The only delegate count that matters is 2025. If you don't have that then you need to shut up and start proving you should be the nominee instead of implying that people are stealing the nomination by following both the letter and spirit of the rules. Everyone without 2025 is tied. They aren't the nominee. And in that case it is up to superdelgates to decide and not for one of candidates to tear apart the party because they were too weak to secure the nomination.

The truth has caught up with him (Obama) and his days are numbered.

Indeed. Obama has the days numbered on his wall charting his course to 1627 pledged delegates. Once that number triggers, he will have finally foreclosed upon any chance HRC has to win the race for the pledged delegates.

The winner of the pledged delegates will be the next nominee, owing to a really cool idea called: political reality. As in, the Super Delegates would have much more to lose going against the pledged delegate winner.

After Clinton wins PA, but just like this Tuesday has still not made any headway into Obama's 160 pledged delegate lead, she will go another week or two into the first week of May. Then drop out after IA and NC.

Anonymous,

I'd be interested to know where your information about Obama's ruthlessness comes from. I have felt for some time that he's ice cold, but that's not the same as there being anything that provides a "tell" to that effect.

A clever, brilliant sociopath can be very successful and never be found out if his/her goals are in synch with the needs of the country. Someone like that could in fact be a very great president, as long as the reality was hidden.

What you're saying is that there is some evidence of this? Where?

Here's the real math that probably hasn't dawned on HRC and her supporters. Assuming 20 pt (60%) blowouts for HRC leaning states (PA,IN,WV,KY, and 40pts in Puerto Rico). Then it assumes 4 point wins in BHO leaning states (WY,MS,OR,SD,NC,MT) the rest of the way...

Obama ends the primary with 1,668 pledged delegates. Add the 40% of FL delegates he should win (74) and at least 40% of MI delegates (51). Then add his current 201 Supers and he's at 1,994 total delegates. Only 31 away from 2,025.

Where could an additional 31 come from in this conservative estimate?

50% in MI +13
44% in FL +7
44% in PA +7
44% in IN +3
54% in MS +1

Magic Number 2,025.

*All numbers from the flawed Slate calculator

"The winner of the pledged delegates will be the next nominee, owing to a really cool idea called: political reality. As in, the Super Delegates would have much more to lose going against the pledged delegate winner."

The superdelegates are going to go with the popular vote winner to counteract the undemocratic caucus delegates going with Obama.

To use Patio Man's words, the enthusiasm of upper-middle-class goo-goos isn't going to trump the wishes of the voters.

"Hillary won a headline. Obama won some more pledged delegates."

Clinton won headlines and popular votes.

Obama won undemocratic caucus delegates.

And at the end of the day, headlines and popular votes are going to trump undemocratic caucus delegates in Denver.

"Obama ends the primary with 1,668 pledged delegates. Add the 40% of FL delegates he should win (74) and at least 40% of MI delegates (51). Then add his current 201 Supers and he's at 1,994 total delegates. Only 31 away from 2,025."

Of course, that would leave Obama 213 delegates short of the nomination...

Which is probably pretty close to where things are going to end up.

-----

You might want to recalculate with the 2207 threshold with FL & MI included.

Disappointed Obama veterans this summer should sell T-Shirts that read, "We had The Math in March, and all we ended up with was this lousy T-Shirt".

You notice those that take the brunt of Hillarys' attacks are usually other women.

From Jones, to Willey, to Samantha Power, Hillary sure does like to hurt other women.....

The simple fact is HILLARY IS DEPERATE AND HER CAMPAIGN IS FLAILING. Sure they may manage to get a little mud to stick to Obama but the upcoming states are going to be very hard for Hillary to swallow. Obamas going to win 90% of the upcoming contests. He's going to crush Hillary in some of thenm by more then 20%. She may eek out a victory in PA, but it will be far smaller then her current polling, as usual.

Obama should simply contuinue to rise above her and let the voters teach her a lesson. She's about to lose another one today....

Whatever, Petey. Take Obama's math, subract 150 delegates, and that's Clinton's math.

Look at the schedule and the number outstanding delegates. Plug in the numbers state by state, and for the superdelegates. Go nuts and add MI and FL. Try and find a realistic scenario that gets Clinton the nomination.

I like the exciting race. I want them to fight it out on the floor. I want to see twelve ballots. I hope they can't finish on time. I'm a stone political junky.

It's not going to happen. Look at the schedule, the delegates outstanding, start plugging numbers in, and find a plausible scenario that gets Clinton a majority. It can't be done. It just isn't there for her. It's just not there. I'm genuinely sorry.

hillary mcclinton repulses me. the way she's been talking this week, sounds like her plan B if she fails to take the nomination is to run as mccain's VP.

but clinton's body blows have raised a a real question as to whether the o-man is tough enough for the general election.

obama's run a shitty campaign for the past 2 weeks: he allowed clinton to define what winning looked like for last Tues. and he's allowed himself to look weak. if the superdelegates become convinced that this is a congenital problem for him, he's toast.

obama might want to think about spending the next 6 weeks relentlessly pounding home the argument that it's not about experience, but results. and hillary's got little to show for her much vaunted public service.

on domestic policy that means using the '90's hillary-care debacle as evidence of her inability to do the coalition-building necessary to pass progressive legislation. with a dollop of how the democrats lost control of congress thereafter.

for foreign policy, it's her AUMF vote. the biggest test of her foreign policy judgment and she flunks it, following bush, mccain, and the rest of the GOP into war w/o end.

these two pts ought to force the media scrutiny needed to moot her experience claims, and will reinforce his strengths as an alternative to failed past policies.

and assuming FL and MI are still up in the air right before the PA primary, obama should consider calling on clinton to concede if she doesn't poll over 60+% in PA, given that she can't win on pledged delegates.

such an argument lets him define what a win looks like, fair or not. clinton and the media then get to wrestle w/ the reasonableness of the claim, rather than focus on the importance of winning a particular state. obama takes control of the narrative and lands one solidly on clinton's jaw.

and the tactic often works. bush had great success in 2000 declaring himself the victor.

KD there is a thing called Google. It allows for fact checking. Something you clearly need.

"For instance, what if they owned Countrywide stock (I have no idea if they did or not but I guess that's why we want to see the Tax returns!). That would cause a ruckus. Their buddy Cisneros was the CEO of Countrywide until the end of last year. And Penn's firm represents Countrywide. The current CEO of Countrywide is appearing before Congress to answer questions today on the subprime scandal."

Cisneros wasn't CEO, he was on the board. The 'current CEO' appearing before Congress is actually the former CEO (Mozilo) and was at the time you cite. While I don't have any love for Penn I fail to see anything nefarious about a company with serious PR problems hiring a PR firm. Nor do I think would a tax return detail individual stock holdings. In short just about every fact you cite is in fact wrong and the one you do get right doesn't have any particular significance.

You are blowing smoke and claiming that somehow proves fire. We had a saying back in the early days of dKos, I may even have made it up. "This is dailyKos, you don't just get to make shit up"

Good advice for anyone on either side of any question. Because someone can and probably will fact check your ass and prove you are an idiot who will repeat every stupid talking point out there. As here.

What anonymous said about Hillary's attacks on other women. That is the core of her 35 years of experience. The truth is that both of these candidates are very lacking in experience. The ones who could truly claim it, Dodd, Biden, even Richardson are gone. But Obama said in a debate that he accepts her years as first lady as preparatory experience. That was a real mistake on his part. Notice how people involved in the Irish matter are now calling her claim to have played a role in that settlement "silly". And they are being polite. The claim is fraudulent.

Clinton won headlines and popular votes.

Obama won undemocratic caucus delegates.

And at the end of the day, headlines and popular votes are going to trump undemocratic caucus delegates in Denver.

Petey, your little theory here is sort of damaged by the fact that Barack Obama is in fact winning in the combined popular vote.

Thank you. Try again.

Obama's popular vote lead is awfully slim, though. Hillary certainly can make that up. I don't think she will, but it's possible.