McCain arrives in Iraq in March. (Photo by Patrick Lair/U.S. Army via Getty Images)

Sure, John McCain is hammering Barack Obama for his lack of visits to Iraq because he thinks it's a good political issue. But without getting in the middle of that fight, let's look at the question another way: Which senator has taken more foreign trips in general, and not just to Iraq?

Hands down, McCain is the winner, according to the Senate's records of official overseas trips. He has certainly visited Iraq more than Obama, but the broader context is that McCain has been a more frequent flier to lots of countries.

Is that good or bad? It depends who you ask. One of the oldest debates about congressional travel, of course, is whether it serves a true educational purpose or whether the trips are just "junkets."

And it's not just about being worldly. No one is going to argue that Obama - the guy with the father from Kenya, who spent a good part of his childhood in Indonesia - has a sheltered view of the world because he hasn't taken enough congressional trips.

But if you assume there's something to the argument that lawmakers can make better decisions about foreign policy if they've been able to learn other countries' situations firsthand - as Obama did when he accompanied Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana to Russia and Ukraine in August 2005 to learn about their efforts to destroy nuclear and conventional weapons - it's worth knowing what countries the two senators have visited as part of their official duties.

So just for the record, Obama visited in Iraq once, in January 2006. During the time that Obama has been in the Senate, McCain has been to Iraq six times - in February 2005, March 2006, December 2006, April 2007, July 2007, and March 2008. The last trip took place after he had effectively won the Republican nomination.

And while Obama has made the rounds to other countries as well, including a highly publicized tour of Africa in August 2006, McCain has made repeat visits to Pakistan and traveled broadly throughout the Middle East. He's visited countries as diverse as Tunisia, Croatia, Turkey, and Georgia during the years he and Obama have overlapped in the Senate.

And McCain has visited Afghanistan - the other warfront - once, in 2005. Obama has never been there.

Full details after the jump.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has tried to stay neutral in the presidential race between two members of his caucus, sent one of the most powerful signals this morning that the Democratic race is about to be over.

In an interview with the KGO talk radio station in San Francisco, Reid said he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "agree there's not going to be a fight at the convention." He said they, along with Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, plan to call uncommitted superdelegates and "urge our folks next week to make a decision very quickly" between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And he ventured this prediction about the outcome: "Probably just simple math indicates that on next Tuesday, after we get the results from Puerto Rico on Sunday and South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, Obama will probably have the necessary number at that time anyway."

Until now, Reid has taken great pains not to be seen as favoring Obama's arguments or Clinton's arguments. Today, that balancing act ended. Reid basically dismissed Clinton's claim that she leads in the popular vote - a centerpiece of her letter and memo to superdelegates yesterday about why she's more electable than Obama.

"The nominee is not determined on popular vote. It's determined on delegates," Reid said.

As for the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations, Reid said both states "should be counted in some way." But he also said "common sense indicates" that neither one had a true election, since none of the candidates were allowed to campaign there - allowing Clinton to win an advantage because of her famous name.

"Of course an election was held," Reid said. "But - I've been neutral in this, but being very realistic and candid - Clinton, her husband was president of the United States. He had a name that was well known. She had a name that was well known. Obama? Certainly she would do better when there was no campaign."

Between Reid's comments and Pelosi's remarks to the San Francisco Chronicle this morning that "I will step in" to make sure the fight doesn't go to the convention, Clinton is now facing some awfully large writing on the wall.

As soon as John McCain locked down the Republican presidential nomination, the favorite guessing game on Capitol Hill became this: What will the Democratic leadership do to make his life miserable?

It's impossible to tell how much they've been planning the Senate's agenda around McCain, or whether he's really a factor at all. But lately, the Senate has been taking up a lot of measures that just happen to highlight the differences between McCain and many of his Republican colleagues.

Take the farm bill, which McCain opposed on the grounds that it was filled with "pork-barrel spending." He didn't actually show up to vote against it, though, which may be just as well. When the Senate approved the final bill earlier this month, 35 of his Republican colleagues voted for it. And the same number voted to override Bush's veto just before the recess.

Then there was the supplemental spending bill for the Iraq war, which became the vehicle for a popular veterans' benefits bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia.

Once again, McCain registered his complaints from a distance, saying the Webb bill wouldn't do enough to keep people in the armed services or let them transfer their benefits to their family members. That wasn't a problem, though, for the 25 Senate Republicans who voted for the bill.

And next week, the Senate is set to take up a bill to fight climate change - one of the biggest areas of disagreement between McCain and a sizeable chunk of the Republican Party. The bill by Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican John W. Warner of Virginia would set up a "cap and trade" system, which McCain favors in theory, though he wants more incentives to promote nuclear power.

It's not clear yet whether McCain will return to the Senate for any part of the debate, but it's hard to see how it would help him to do that, since a large number of Republicans might just vote against the bill. They think it would be too expensive for businesses, and even those who are prepared to accept those costs want other tradeoffs. Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, for example, says the bill would impose "a massive new consumption tax" and should be balanced out with a new set of tax cuts.

These are the kinds of issues that get on the agenda in a Democratic Senate, and not just because they make McCain's life awkward. After all, climate change, veterans' benefits and farm assistance are all important issues to Democrats anyway.

But they sure do annoy McCain. "My friends, Republicans have got to stop joining with big-spending Democrats," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nev. yesterday, speaking of the Senate Republicans who voted to override Bush's veto of the farm bill. And you know things aren't going well when you're reduced to wagging your finger at your party.

If Barack Obama wins the White House in November, he'll want Congress to get his health care plan moving by March or April.

That's what he said this morning at a fundraiser in Denver, according to a pool report distributed by his campaign. When a questioner asked what he'd do during his first 100 days, Obama said one of his top priorities would be his health care overhaul. "We need a bill . . . by March or April to get going before the political season sets in," Obama said, according to the pool report.

Talk about the Audacity of Hope.

Granted, Obama didn't say he wanted the bill finished by March or April. But to anyone who has watched Congress try to work on any legislation of this magnitude, even the thought that the congressional committees would be able to start the serious work that early - with all the industry groups that will demand a say in the hearings - puts a lot of faith in a very creaky system.

Here are the highlights of what Obama is asking for:

• A new national health plan, open to all Americans, based on the benefits in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
• A new National Health Insurance Exchange to help people buy individual coverage.
• Mandatory coverage of all children.
• A required contribution from employers who don't offer health coverage or help their workers buy their own.
• An expansion of Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

It may be that Obama deliberately wants to get the health care effort started early to allow as much lead time as possible. But it's still a lot to ask from all the committees that have a piece of the health care system.

If only there was someone Obama could ask who has been through this before . . . someone who knows how hard it is push so many ambitious health care changes through all the committees that would have to sign off on them.

Too bad she's running against him.

There's a reason more senators with long track records don't run for president. Those long track records can get in the way of a good speech.

Today, John McCain gave a speech at the University of Denver about how to limit the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world.

"We should stop and think for a moment not only of the perils of a world awash with nuclear weapons, but also of the more hopeful alternative - a world in which there are far fewer such weapons than there are today, and in which proliferation, instability, and nuclear terrorism are far less likely," McCain said. "This is the world it is our responsibility to build."

Maybe so, but for most of his Senate career, McCain seems to have had other priorities.

Take his 1999 vote against the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. At the time, he called the treaty "dangerously premature," saying other countries' compliance couldn't be verified and the United States would not have been able to test its aging nuclear stockpiles to make sure they still work.

That's one vote McCain cops to in his speech. He says he now wants to take another look at the treaty "to see what can be done to overcome the shortcomings that prevented it from entering into force." And he leave himself an out in his 1999 floor speech, saying, "I will consider supporting a treaty when alternative means of ensuring safety and reliability are proven, and when a credible verification regime is proposed."

But McCain has also opposed other measures to limit testing and deployment of nuclear weapons. In 1992, he voted against a nine-month moratorium on nuclear testing. In 1987, he voted not to continue the SALT II treaty's limits on the deployment of nuclear missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.

And in another 1987 vote, McCain voted to table a proposal to ban tests of nuclear weapons with a yield of more than one kiloton. (And the measure was sponsored by a fellow Republican, Mark Hatfield of Oregon. The senator who tabled it? Harry Reid.)

There's also a bit of a historical clash with McCain's promise today that he would cancel all work on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, or "bunker buster" - a new type of bomb that, according to Candidate McCain, "does not make strategic or political sense."

It must have made sense to Senator McCain, though, since he missed three chances to cancel the funding. McCain voted against Democratic proposals to cut off the funds in 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Here's one way not to become Barack Obama's running mate. From Hillary Rodham Clinton's remarks to the editorial board of the Argus Leader newspaper in South Dakota this afternoon, on calls for her to drop out of the race:

HRC: "I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don't understand it and between my opponent and his camp and some in the media, there has been this urgency to end this and you know historically that makes no sense, so I find it a bit of a mystery."

Q: "You don't buy the party unity argument?"

HRC: "I don't, because again, I've been around long enough. You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere around the middle of June. We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. Um, you know, I just I don't understand it. There's lots of speculation about why it is."

The reaction from the Obama campaign was swift. "Senator Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. And a few minutes ago, Clinton apologized, saying she was just trying to point out that other Democratic nomination contests have gone on as long as this one:

"I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever."

If nothing else, one thing that presidential candidates look for in a running mate is the ability to remain gaffe-free. Between this episode and the "hard-working Americans, white Americans" remark, Obama may have reason to wonder how much Clinton would really help him.

Here's one leftover from yesterday's votes on the supplemental spending bill for Iraq: Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton both voted against a Democratic policy amendment that called for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq by June 2009.

Yes, you read that right. They voted no.

Don't get too excited, though. It's not that either one decided they don't want to withdraw troops anymore. They voted against the amendment, according to their Senate offices, because the language was non-binding.

And they had plenty of company. After failing so many times to force President Bush to withdraw troops, Senate Democratic leaders made it just a suggestion this time -- a "sense of Congress" resolution that the mission of U.S. troops should change to counterterrorism, helping Iraqi forces, and protecting the forces from attacks. In doing so, however, they lost the votes of 20 Senate Democrats, mostly the more liberal members of the caucus. With most Republicans opposing it too, the amendment failed badly, winning only 34 votes.

Lots of other Democratic proposals to limit the Iraq war went down with it -- including a requirement that Congress approve any long-term security agreement with Iraq, a cause Clinton has promoted throughout her campaign. But for her and Obama, "Asking Bush Nicely to End the War" probably wasn't the campaign slogan they were looking for.

If you were John McCain, would you fly all the way in from California to vote against an Iraq spending bill most of your colleagues voted for - and against a veterans' educational benefits bill just about everyone voted for?

The real John McCain didn't either. Instead, he submitted a statement to the Congressional Record late today that lays out all of his objections to the spending bill and the veterans' package that is now included in it.

The statement is vintage McCain. The spending package is "a bloated bill, loaded down with extraneous provisions unrelated to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan." (He lists them all, as he has done throughout his Senate career with spending bills he opposes.)

And the veterans' benefit package sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia - and co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Warner of Virginia - is flawed because it wouldn't do enough to keep people in the armed services or allow them to transfer education benefits to their children and spouses, McCain said.

He also threw in a complaint about the fairness of the process, scolding Democrats for not allowing Republican amendments. It was the same complaint Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina raised last week when he forced a vote on an alternative veterans' bill he and McCain wrote.

"Adding a $52 billion mandatory spending program to this war funding bill without any opportunity for amendments to improve the measure is not the way to move legislation," McCain said. A properly structured veterans' bill could have "near unanimous support," he said, and "I am confident that we will reach that point in the days ahead."

Of course, McCain might have more bargaining leverage if Webb's bill hadn't won 75 votes today, including 25 Republicans. This afternoon, Webb shared with reporters his theory of why it won so much support: "I know that there was a lot of communication between a lot of the veterans' groups and the Republicans about how important this was to them."

It wasn't exactly a Shermanesque statement, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California says she has no interest in being the Democratic vice presidential candidate this year.

At her weekly press conference this morning, Pelosi insisted that both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton still have a chance to win the Democratic presidential nomination, so both have the right to start thinking about running mates. So one of the reporters threw it out there: Would she take the slot, if one of them asked her?

"Are you kidding?" Pelosi laughed. "Being Speaker of the House is the best job in the world. Why would I want to be number two?"

And with that, the Republicans' favorite "San Francisco liberal" was out of the vice-presidential race. Somewhere, the heart of an attack ad maker is breaking.

All of the presidential candidates have received their share of political attacks launched from the Senate floor. Today, however, Barack Obama used a Senate floor speech to attack John McCain, his fellow senator and the man he's likely to face off with in the presidential election in November.

Both Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton returned to the Senate this morning for votes on the supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq. In doing so, they got bragging rights by voting for an expansion of educational benefits for veterans that was approved by a surprisingly wide margin -- 75 to 22.

But McCain has opposed the proposal by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, calling it too costly. So in a speech this morning, Obama brought his campaign criticisms of McCain to the Senate floor (it starts about halfway into the video clip):

(Click on photo for video)

"I respect Senator John McCain's service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this GI bill. I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the president more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing, but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them."

That broadside brought a quick, and angry, response from McCain on the campaign trail. (He kept his campaign schedule in California, a move that spared him the need to fly all the way back to Washington to vote against the popular Webb bill.)

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of," McCain's statement began. And it never let up from there:

"Both Senator Webb and I are united in our deep appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives so that the rest of us may be secure in our freedom. And I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

"Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."

Oh yes -- and Clinton gave a floor speech too. But she didn't single out any of the critics of the Webb bill by name. McCain left her alone.

Today's Senate votes on the supplemental spending bill for Iraq are a classic case of the kinds of headaches the presidential race is causing the Democratic leadership.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will need 60 votes to win the chamber's approval for funding for the Iraq war, policy restrictions, and an expanded package of educational benefits for veterans authored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. That means the votes of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both of whom had planned to campaign in Florida today, will be critical.

Clinton cancelled her Florida schedule last night, giving plenty of notice that she'll be in Washington today for the votes. But Obama kept it coy until the last minute. He had a town hall meeting scheduled in Florida for noon today, an event that would have been difficult to cancel or reschedule.

But the timing made it difficult to schedule votes for any time that would have allowed him to show up. So Democratic leaders went ahead and scheduled a series of four votes for 11:30 this morning.

A few minutes ago, Obama announced he'll be here -- just for the morning votes. His town hall meeting in Florida has been pushed back until late afternoon.

Here's another curious item from Barack Obama's town hall in Billings, Mont. last night. During a question-and-answer exchange on his health care overhaul plan, Obama promised to have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN to make the process as open as possible.

"I'm going to do it on C-SPAN," Obama said. "We're going to do it publicly, so that you can watch to see, what is your congressman doing? What is your senator doing? Are your representatives looking after your interests when it comes to health care?"

It's not the first time Obama has promised this. He has brought up the C-SPAN idea several times on the campaign trail, as part of his commitment to open government. He even got Hillary Rodham Clinton to make a similar commitment during a debate in January -- exactly the kind of openness she didn't show during her 1993 health care overhaul effort.

The thing is, it wouldn't be Obama's decision. As a private, non-profit organization funded by cable and satellite fees, C-SPAN would get to decide whether to cover Obama's health care negotiations.

As a practical matter, it might want to do so anyway.

"Obviously, any time a president has a forum on an issue that affects millions of Americans, there's going to be heightened interest," said C-SPAN spokesman John Cardarelli. But "our editorial decision are made independent of Congress and the president. That's what makes C-SPAN special."

Not to be outdone by John McCain, Barack Obama promised last night not to use presidential signing statements as "an end-run around Congress."

So both of the likely presidential nominees are now trying to distance themselves from one of President Bush's most controversial uses of executive power: using signing statements to declare that, in effect, he'll treat certain provisions of new laws as optional if he thinks they encroach on his presidential powers.

Last week, McCain promised not to "subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like."

So here's what Obama said last night, when asked about the practice at a town hall in Billings, Montana:

"Congress's job is to pass legislation. The president can veto it or he can sign it. But what George Bush has been trying to do, as part of his effort to accumulate more power in the presidency, is he's been saying, "Well, I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying, 'I don't agree with this part or I don't agree with that part. I'm going to choose to interpret it this way or that way.'"

"That's not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he's going along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress, all right?"

Note that Obama doesn't say he'd do away with signing statements altogether - the statements are a routine procedure when presidents sign legislation into law. He's just saying he'd stop using them for a specific purpose.

That's no surprise, since it's an easy opportunity to criticize Bush. But now that both Obama and McCain have gone on the record in public forums, the public can watch the next president's signing statements closely to make sure the candidates meant what they said.

It looks like the Senate Democratic leadership has found an easy way to pick up a Hillary Rodham Clinton proposal without inviting all the problems that come with a presidential candidate's legislation.

The answer, it turns out, was to muddy the waters.

When the Senate takes up the latest supplemental spending bill for the Iraq war this week, it will consider an amendment full of policy restrictions on the war, including a provision that would require the Bush administration to get congressional approval for any long-term security agreement with Iraq.

It's an idea Clinton has introduced as legislation and championed repeatedly on the campaign trail. She also promoted the bill while questioning Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month.

If Clinton wanted to come back from the campaign trail and try to push her legislation through the Senate, the supplemental spending bill would have been the perfect place to attach it as an amendment. But that scenario would have presented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada with all sorts of headaches. It could have looked like Reid was giving Clinton a forum at Barack Obama's expense, and it could have become a magnet for Republican amendments.

The reality, though, is that lots of other Democratic senators favored the idea too - including Obama. So the version in the supplemental spending bill is a generic one. It's the same basic idea as Clinton's bill, but it's not the same language word-for-word. It's already included in the policy amendment, so there would be no need for Clinton to return to the Senate to push for it.

And the actual language was worked out between the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and several other players, including Senate Appropriations Committee Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, and Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Jim Webb of Virginia, according to Appropriations Committee spokesman Jesse Jacobs.

As Jacobs put it, the provision is "a child with many parents." That fact may not make the measure an easy sell in the Senate, but it's likely to take a lot of the presidential campaign sting out of it.

Who says Barack Obama doesn't want the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters?

Just a few minutes ago, his campaign announced that Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia has endorsed Obama. The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee - and the longest-serving member of the Senate - called Obama "a shining young statesman, who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq, and to lead our nation at this challenging time in history."

Byrd's endorsement is in keeping with most of the rest of West Virginia's congressional delegation (the Democrats, anyway).

The state's other senator, John D. Rockefeller IV, endorsed Obama in February, and one of the state's two Democratic House members, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, threw his support to Obama in March.

It's almost as if West Virginia was an Obama-leaning state. But it was Hillary Rodham Clinton, of course, who won the primary last week. Her margin there: 2-1.

The one West Virginian who hasn't weighed in yet: Rep. Alan B. Mollohan. Talk about peer pressure.

A bit of late-breaking news tonight: That Federal Election Commission deadlock Barack Obama helped create seems to have solved itself.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer whose nomination to the FEC was strenuously opposed by Obama and other Democrats, withdrew his name tonight after tying up the entire process of filling the commission's vacant seats for months.

Obama and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold had placed holds on von Spakovsky's nomination because of his civil rights views - he had overruled objections to a Georgia law requiring voters to produce photo identifications at the polls. But Republicans insisted on moving all of the FEC nominations together or not at all.

Given that choice, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada chose the second option and stuck with it. Obama needed a functioning FEC - but neither he nor Reid were willing to pay the price of having von Spakovsky on the commission.

In a statement tonight, Obama said von Spakovsky "disqualified himself from this position by undermining the long tradition of professional, nonpartisan administration of voting rights laws at the Department of Justice."

"I hope that today's announcement removes the last obstacle to reconstituting this important agency," Obama said. Since the entire deadlock revolved around von Spakovsky, it probably will.

To close out the week, here's a quick roundup of some of the best readings about the overlap between the congressional campaigns and Congress.

Now that the House couldn't pass supplemental funding for the war in Iraq, the pressure will be on Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain to decide whether they want to return to the Senate and help their colleagues do it when the bill comes to the floor next week. Here's the rundown of the complicated war funding politics by CQ's John Rogin and Liriel Higa.

One of the most valuable nuggets in Matt Bai's look at John McCain's national security views in Sunday's New York Times magazine is its reminder that he hasn't been a knee-jerk supporter of every U.S. military action. As a House member in 1983, he was just one of 27 Republicans to object when President Reagan wanted to extend the deployment of the Marines in Lebanon. And as a senator in 1993, after U.S. soldiers were ambushed in Somalia, McCain wanted to bring them all home.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Monica Langley finds out what bugs Mark Salter, John McCain's longtime adviser and speechwriter, about Barack Obama: "Mr. Salter says he finds a "messianic" quality and "youthful conceit" to Sen. Obama, citing the senator's oratory and his appearances before big audiences with his arms outstretched."

And a few other interesting tidbits from around the Web:

Michael Crowley of The New Republic likes one of the newer ideas that has surfaced out of nowhere: former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as chief of staff in an Obama White House.

David Frum at National Review thinks congressional Republicans who are worried about their re-elections should "treat the presidential election as already lost" and focus all their fire on Obama.

Matt Cooper of Condé Nast Portfolio thinks this will be "the last Clinton election" and throws cold water on all the rumors that she'll become majority leader if she returns to the Senate.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw says McCain was right to oppose the farm bill, and links to an earlier post explaining why.

And Daniel Finkelstein of The Times of London has a fascinating post (via Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic) about what McCain should expect if he actually brings the House of Commons' "Question Time" to Congress. It takes a lot of time, Finkelstein says, and McCain would have to decide what his real goal is: "Do you try to win the exchange or do you try to win over the public?"

There was another signal from the Democratic party establishment today that it's time to wrap up the nomination. Robert S. Strauss, an uncommitted superdelegate and former Democratic National Committee chairman from the 1970s, declared in a Washington Post op-ed this morning that "the process has been played, and it has been played out."

"Democrats should rally around our nominee as soon as possible so the general election campaign can begin and the contrast between John McCain and the Democratic Party can be drawn for the American people. Having put our party back together after the 1972 convention, I know that every week of delay tempts a hardening of irreconcilable differences. If we are to win for America, the Democratic Party has to unite now."

To put this article in some context, I tried to interview Strauss a few weeks ago for a piece on what the uncommitted superdelegates were waiting for. His assistant told me that Strauss wasn't giving interviews about the presidential race because if he talked to one reporter, he'd have to talk to them all, and because of his age (he's approaching 90), he didn't want to spend his time doing that.

Looks like today's op-ed was his way of talking to them all - and to Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign - at the same time.

Your move, Al Gore.

No, the three presidential candidates weren't around today when the Senate passed the farm bill. But Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were there in spirit, cheering on the 81 senators who voted for it.

And John McCain was there in spirit, siding with . . . well . . . the 15 senators who voted against it.

The three all put out statements explaining their positions, but there are subtle differences in the way the three senators handled the public relations end of it. In each case, though, the political overtones were clear.

McCain, the 21-year veteran of the Senate, inserted a lengthy statement into the Congressional Record explaining why he voted against such a popular bill - and promptly released it to the public through his Senate press office. McCain is a longtime critic of farm subsidies, and he said the bill continues them at a time when food prices are rising.

He also charged that the legislation was full of "pork barrel spending," and threw in a list of spending projects he objected to - a classic McCain manuever from years of fights against spending bills.

"I recognize that in the days ahead, attempts will be made to use my opposition to this bill for another's political gain, but I have always worked to do my best for America and that is why I must oppose this conference report," McCain said in his statement. "And, the American people deserve to know the truth about this farm bill: It's a bloated piece of legislation that will do more harm than good for most farmers and consumers."

It's not like McCain has nothing to gain from his stand, of course - it will provide more evidence of the fiscal conservativism that has become such a central part of his campaign narrative. Still, he was right about Obama and Clinton. They both pounced on him for his opposition.

Obama, the first-term senator who is just sort of passing through the Senate, issued his statement through his campaign. "By opposing the bill, President Bush and John McCain are saying no to America's farmers and ranchers, no to energy independence, no to the environment, and no to millions of hungry people," Obama said. (Bush has threatened to veto the measure.)

Meanwhile, Clinton - the seven-year Senate veteran who has kept an active Capitol Hill operation even while on the campaign trail - issued statements through both her Senate office and her campaign.

Clinton the presidential candidate blasted McCain for his opposition - and just to make sure no one missed her point, she put out two statements, not just one (the second one is here). Clinton the senator never mentioned McCain.

That statement just talked about how wonderful the farm bill is.

There are some fascinating passages in John McCain's speech in Columbus, Ohio this morning about what he hopes to accomplish by the end of his first term as president. Some of the most remarkable ones, however, are about how far he'll go in using the powers of the presidency - and what lines he won't cross.

Basically, it's one more way McCain is putting distance between himself and President Bush.

Take the issue of signing statements. One of the greatest sources of tension between Bush and Congress has been the way he has used his official written statements, when signing legislation into law, to suggest he would treat some provisions as advice rather than requirements because they intruded on the powers of the presidency.

According to Christopher S. Kelley, a visiting assistant professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, Bush has used these statements 159 times and has challenged 1,167 provisions of new laws. And one of the most famous examples was the signing statement Bush issued after signing McCain's ban on torture into law in 2005.

So maybe it's not surprising that McCain would take special exception to the way Bush has used signing statements. Here's what he said:

"I will exercise my veto if I believe legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation's best interests, but I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like."

The Senate was briefly tied in knots today when Republicans forced a vote on a veterans' benefits bill co-sponsored by John McCain. But was it presidential politics, or just the Republican senators' way of complaining about their treatment by the Democratic majority?

In a way that's unique to the Senate, it probably was a bit of both.

Democratic leaders were incensed when Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina , one of McCain's closest allies, tried to attach his GI benefits proposal - which is co-sponsored by McCain - to a collective bargaining bill that's a high priority for the Democrats. The surprise move came two days after McCain and Graham had offered in writing to negotiate with Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who has been working on his own version of the measure since January 2007, and a day after Graham and Webb had talked about setting up the negotiations.

To catch up on the politics of the competing bills, and why Democrats insist the Webb version is more generous, here's the writeup from CQ's Kathleen Hunter, Bart Jansen and Josh Rogin.

The bottom line for the presidential race, however, is that Barack Obama has been attacking McCain for not supporting the Webb version, calling the Republican nominee-in-waiting "one of the few Senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it's too generous."

So when Graham filed his version as an amendment to the collective bargaining bill, Webb called it "an irresponsible act" that was "done in bad faith." And Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois - an Obama ally - griped that "this is about the presidential campaign. This is about Senator McCain's dilemma."

Today, we’re checking in on the activities of two of the most powerful campaign surrogates: House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, who has been trying to paint Barack Obama as an Israel hater, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has posted a Web video challenging John McCain’s reputation as a bipartisan negotiator.

So far, neither one seems to have a bright future as an attack dog ahead of him.

Of the two, Boehner’s failure has been especially spectacular, given the subject matter. In an e-mail circulated on Monday by The Freedom Project, his political action committee, Boehner claimed that in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Obama said ”Israel is a “constant sore” that “does infect” American foreign policy.”

“Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a ‘constant sore’ as Barack Obama claims,” said Boehner, one of McCain’s most vocal surrogates in the House. ”It’s another sign that Obama is part of the broken Washington Americans are rejecting.”

Israel? A “constant sore”? It’s a firestorm! Call the TV pundits!

It’s the kind of thing that easily could have ended up all over the blogosphere, cable news, or both. Except nobody believed it. Boehner had tried to start a brush fire, and the only one who seems to have gotten burned is Boehner.

This time, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton actually said hello to each other.

The two were in the Senate chamber this morning for a series of votes they can use to their advantage in their campaigns – especially their support for a Democratic measure that would require the Bush administration to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which won the votes of 97 senators, and another bill that would give collective bargaining rights to state and local public safety officials.

The last time the two showed up for votes, they carefully avoided any contact. Not today. As the series of four votes dragged on, lasting nearly an hour, Obama casually walked up to Clinton and the two exchanged one of those half-hug, half arm-clasp greetings.

The half-hug was mediated – naturally – by an uncommitted superdelegate, Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, who laughed heartily with the two presidential candidates.

Don't worry, though. The campaigns have a life of their own. While Clinton and Obama made nice on the floor, Clinton's campaign e-mailed a memo about tonight's West Virginia primary – which she is expected to win easily – called “Why West Virginia Matters.”

A more intriguing development was the series of intense, one-on-one conversations Obama and Clinton had with both of the Michigan senators – Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow – who are anxiously awaiting word on whether the Michigan delegation will be seated at the Democratic national convention in August.

By insisting on including federal aid for nuclear power, John McCain may have made his latest climate-change plan more palatable to Republicans. But he may also have made it less likely that anything that looks like his plan will emerge from the Senate.

In a speech in Portland this afternoon, McCain outlined his plans for a “cap and trade” policy he would pursue as president, in which the government would set limits on total carbon emissions and companies would work out between themselves how much they could generate. This is one of the biggest issues on which McCain parts ways with most Republicans. But he included one concession that might make the plan go down easier with at least some conservatives: incentives to expand the use of nuclear power.

“We must consider every alternative source of power, and that includes nuclear power,” McCain said in his speech. “Here we have a known, proven energy source that requires exactly zero emissions ... It doesn’t take a leap in logic to conclude that if we want to arrest global warming, then nuclear energy is a powerful ally in that cause.”

Nuclear power is considered the only carbon-free energy source that could provide the kind of power big cities need, but its critics contend that its expense, the potential dangers involved, and the waste storage problems make it an unattractive option. Many experts say the only way to make it work is to have government share in the risk, as CQ’s Rebecca Adams wrote last year.

And unless the current balance of power in the Senate changes drastically next year – with just the right combination of pro-nuclear Democrats and moderate Republicans to make a working a majority – a President McCain would lose enough votes in both parties that he’d have a hard time getting his version of a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate.

There’s a subtle, but potentially important, difference between the congressional superdelegates Barack Obama has won since Tuesday’s primaries and the superdelegates Hillary Rodham Clinton has won.

This morning, Rep. Donald M. Payne of New Jersey switched his support from Clinton to Obama, and Rep. Peter A. DeFazio endorsed Obama as well, just in time for the Oregon primary May 20. This afternoon, Rep. Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii endorsed him too.

Yesterday, Obama picked up Rep. Brad Miller of North Carolina and Rick Larsen of Washington state.

Clinton, meanwhile, picked up the support Rep. Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania this morning. Reps. Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana insist they haven’t officially endorsed her – even though her campaign cited both of them as new endorsements. But both are promising to vote for the winner of their districts if the nomination fight goes all the way to the convention, who just happens to be Clinton.

So here’s the difference: Most of Obama’s new congressional supporters have been around a while, and have pretty safe seats. Even Hirono, the one freshman out of the bunch, won her heavily Democratic district in 2006 with 61 percent of the vote.

Clinton, however, is picking up the first-term Democrats who won their seats away from Republican incumbents. In other words, they’re the ones who made it possible for the Democrats to win the House in 2006.

One of Clinton’s major arguments against Obama, of course, is that she’s winning the swing states and key demographic groups that a Democrat would need to win the White House. But there’s another way to look at the issue: the Democrats only have control of the House because they were able to win 30 seats away from the Republicans. If those first-term Democrats decide she’s the stronger candidate to help them keep their seats – or even if they just feel obligated to vote for her because their constituents did – that’s a trend that should catch the attention of the Obama campaign.

It’s not clear that these Democrats are lining up with Clinton with a lot of enthusiasm. Even Carney, who released a formal statement Friday morning, simply said that “Pennsylvania’s 10th District overwhelmingly chose Senator Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary and I will respect their decision.”

But if Obama wants to assure his Democratic colleagues that he can not only win in November, but help them win too, he may need to devote more attention to the ones that are on the shakiest ground.

It started as a quiet, relatively low-key meeting this morning with undecided superdelegates at a townhouse near Capitol Hill. But when Barack Obama emerged, the House was voting – so he took the entire gang with him and headed to the Capitol to shake hands with lawmakers on the House floor.

It looked an awful lot like a victory lap.

If so, it wasn’t because Obama made a lot of progress with the uncommitted superdelegates. Those who attended the meeting said he mostly just listened to their concerns about parochial issues, and didn’t push them to commit to him right now. That’s how Obama described the meeting as well.

“If they have questions for me, then I’m certainly happy to respond to them,” Obama said he told the group. ”And I just wanted to assure them that whatever happens, we will be coming together.”

Most of the uncommitted superdelegates appeared to be House members from districts that had voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Some of them, including Reps. Zack Space of Ohio and Tim Mahoney of Florida, have met with both him and Clinton over the past two days.

“Both Hillary and Barack have been very understanding of our concerns,” said Space. “Do they want us to endorse? Sure. That’s obvious. But they weren’t twisting arms or using any inappropriate tactics.”

One of the most difficult tasks now, for Democratic leaders and congressional superdelegates, is to avoid looking like they’re trying to push Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the race.

The last thing they want to do, if they want to avoid a messy ending, is make someone of her stature feel that the establishment is ganging up on her. That’s why you hear so many of them choosing their words ever so carefully – even those on Barack Obama’s side.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the senior senator from Obama’s state and a loyal ally, doesn’t try to hide his opinion of what Clinton should do. “I hope that Senator Clinton will take an honest look at her chances and make her decision accordingly,” he told me Wednesday morning.

But Durbin also sounded sympathetic to her plight – and the disappointment she’s likely to feel if she has to come back to the Senate after coming so close to the nomination. He tried to offer his best assurances that senators would make that return as easy as possible.

“If she does decide to end her candidacy and return to the Senate, she’ll come back to a very welcoming caucus,” Durbin said. “We’ll be glad to have her back.”

Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who is officially neutral, has been bending over backwards to make sure no one thinks he’s secretly taking sides. He says the superdelegates should be able to choose whoever they want, but he also wants them to choose quickly, as soon as the primaries are over.

And he declined several opportunities Wednesday to comment on whether the delegate math gives Clinton any chance to win the nomination.

“Whoever comes back, whether it’s her or him, I’m going to be able to look that person in the face and say I stayed neutral,” Reid said.

And Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a Clinton superdelegate who said Tuesday’s results made it much tougher for her to win the nomination, insisted that it’s still her decision whether to continue in the race.

“I think everyone is going to let the senator make her decision, and then take their cues from there,” Ryan said. “Everyone should give her some time to make up her mind.”

The rank-and-file congressional superdelegates may be getting nervous, but both of the top Democratic leaders are cutting Hillary Rodham Clinton more slack, saying they’re fine with letting the race for their party’s presidential nomination continue through the end of the primaries.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters this afternoon that the race should continue until the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota June 3, but that the superdelegates should commit to either Clinton or Barack Obama within a few days after they’re over.

“Shortly after June 3, within a few days, Clinton’s going to have to make her case to those who are uncommitted at the time, and Obama will have to make his case,” Reid said. “I think the superdelegates should make their decision shortly thereafter.”

And at a press conference on gas prices this afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California declared the race for the Democratic nomination “alive and well” and said it should continue as long as there are two candidates in the race.

“A win is a win. Let's just call it what it is,” Pelosi said. “I believe that the races must continue. The people should all have the opportunity to speak as long as two candidates wish to compete in those primaries and caucuses and that in a few weeks we will be on our way to nominating the next president of the United States.”

It may be that both Reid and Pelosi had to say that, since the two top Democratic leaders need to appear as neutral and above-the-fray as possible. But it’s good news for Clinton that neither of them dodged the questions – or answered them in such a lukewarm way, as other superdelegates have today, that they seemed to be trying to send her a message.

They didn’t exactly rally to her defense either, though. When asked whether Clinton has a realistic chance of overtaking Obama’s delegate lead and winning the nomination, Reid said, “That’s not for me to judge.”

When congressional superdelegates talk about last night’s primaries, you get the sense that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is at a tipping point.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign advisers are trying to describe her squeaker win in Indiana last night as a dramatic, come-from-behind victory. Her pollster, Geoff Garin, even tried to turn Barack Obama’s lopsided win in North Carolina into a victory, noting that Clinton had won the majority of white voters there after losing them in the Virginia primary.

But so far, the uncommitted superdelegates don’t seem convinced – and even a few of her own aren’t buying it.

“I don’t know if the fat lady has sung yet, but she’s clearing her throat,” Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a Clinton superdelegate, told me this morning.

Another longtime Clinton supporter, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, looked glum. “I think it makes it tougher for Hillary,” he said. “The odds are more with Barack Obama right now than with Hillary Clinton.”

That’s a shame, he said, insisting that Obama once again failed to win crucial blocs of swing voters the Democrats would need against John McCain. “I think it’s a very strong case” for Clinton’s candidacy, he said. “Whether it’s persuasive to superdelegates is another question.”

This afternoon may bring further clarity to the situation, as team Clinton sits down for a meeting with uncommitted Hill superdelegates to press their case for continuing the race. As of this morning, they sounded like one skeptical audience.

“I think she’s earned the right” to continue the race, but “the mountain is incredibly steep right now,” said Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, an uncommitted superdelegate.

Another undecided superdelegate, Bart Stupak of Michigan – whose vote would matter only if the Democrats decide to seat the disputed Michigan delegation – didn’t see last night’s results as decisive. But he said Obama “did even better than a lot of us expected” in Indiana, and was lukewarm about whether Clinton has a strong case for staying in the race.

"That’s up to Senator Clinton,” he said. Noting reports that Clinton loaned her campaign another $6 million last month, he asked, “If you stay in the race, how do you stay competitive if the money’s not there?”

When John McCain criticized Barack Obama this morning for voting against the confirmation of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., he glossed over an important subplot that took place at the time. Obama came to the defense of Democrats who had voted for Roberts, and even scolded liberal bloggers who had criticized those Democrats for fighting the nomination.

But he proved a basic point about Obama’s record: If the Republicans want to paint him as the second coming of George McGovern, they’ll have plenty of material to work with. That’s because a senator’s voting record is what matters at the end of the day, no matter how many conciliatory things they said.

In September 2005, just after the Senate voted on Roberts’ nomination, Obama posted a blog on the liberal Daily Kos site urging readers to stop demonizing Democrats who had voted for Roberts, including Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. (Whether it’s a coincidence or not, both are supporting Obama now.)

Reading the post today, it’s easy to be left with the impression that Obama voted for Roberts, not against him. He spends most of his time explaining that the Democrats never had a chance of blocking him, talking about the “non-ideological lens” through which most of the country saw Roberts, and arguing that Democrats should never be in the position of punishing dissenters. (Democrats split evenly on the nomination: 22 voted for Roberts, 22 opposed him.)

Here’s one way to tell who is the least elitist, out-of-touch presidential candidate: Which one has to show up to work every day to get paid?

We’re kidding, of course. None of them do. It was a trick question.

Thanks to a little-noticed change in the law three years ago, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and John McCain of Arizona can all spend as much time as they want on the campaign trail without worrying about losing their Senate salaries of $165,200 a year. You can find their salaries in their tax returns here for McCain, here for Obama and here for Clinton.

Until 2005, an obscure law required Congress to dock the pay of senators and House members for every day they missed work, unless they or a family member were sick that day.

It’s not like anyone was enforcing the law, though. Just ask Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who only made 10 percent of the votes during his presidential run in 2004.

Senate appropriators decided they couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. So in the fiscal 2006 legislative branch appropriations bill, they rewrote the law so it wouldn’t apply to the Senate. (It’s still on the books for House members.)

At the time, the National Taxpayers Union protested the move, saying Congress should “put real teeth” into the law rather than repealing it for the Senate. That wasn’t the appropriators’ preferred solution, though. “If you’re going to ignore a law, let’s get it off the books,” Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who chaired the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, said at the time.

Now, with three senators running for the White House full time, the taxpayers’ group says Congress should reinstate the law – or the candidates should voluntarily give their salaries back. “At least they could reimburse the taxpayers for the ridiculously long campaign season,” said Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the group.

That’s not likely, though, unless the pressure comes from the taxpayers themselves – especially the ones who live in the swing states.

After his immigration overhaul bill collapsed in the Senate last year, John McCain transformed himself into a "border security first" presidential candidate with remarkable speed.

His message, over and over again in the Republican primaries, was that he'd heard the voters. They wanted the borders locked down first, and that would be his first priority as president. He basically stopped talking about the other parts of the Senate bill, like the guest worker program and that "path to citizenship" for millions of illegal immigrants.

That wasn't too surprising while he was competing for Republican votes, but his colleagues who worked with him on the bill – including GOP Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida – always read his remarks as a sign that he'd do the other things later, not that he'd abandoned them entirely.

Judging from McCain's remarks at a press conference in Phoenix this morning, the pivot has started.

"I believe the majority of the Hispanics share our view that the border must be secured, and the border must be secured first. But they also want us to have an attitude, which I think most Americans do, that these are God's children, and they must be taken care of, and the issue must be addressed in a humane and compassionate fashion. And we will – I will continue to carry that message, with the priority that we must secure or borders first . . .

"When I'm president of the United States beginning in January of 2009, we will have a federal approach to what is a federal problem. And first of all, national security is our first priority. We must secure the borders and the border state governors will then certified that the borders are secured. Then we have a temporary worker program with tamper-proof biometric documents and re-address the issue of the people who have come here illegally.

And, by the way, McCain didn't sound embarrassed by his old immigration bill at all today. "If the federal government had acted and passed the legislation for overall comprehensive immigration reform, we would not have the problems we have today," he said.

That's the kind of thing you can say when you no longer have a primary opponent.

Given the week’s events, the biggest mystery in the presidential race may be this: Why hasn’t there been a big shift in superdelegate support away from Barack Obama, or toward Hillary Rodham Clinton?

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been on cable news pretty much 24/7 all week long. Obama slapped him down, but his poll numbers have still been sinking. And one of the reasons superdelegates exist – though most don’t like to talk about it on the record – is to save the party from disaster in case the front-runner has a scandal so damaging that it makes them unelectable.

And yet, Obama has still been picking up superdelegates this week. Clinton has too, including North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, a significant catch.

But even at the height of the Wright ruckus, Obama won the endorsements of Reps. Baron P. Hill of Indiana, Ben Chandler of Kentucky, Bruce Braley of Iowa, and Lois Capps of California.

He also got two former Democratic National Committee chairmen to weigh in over the last two days. Yesterday, it was Joe Andrew, who was the DNC chairman during the last two years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Today, it was Paul G. Kirk, Jr., who chaired the DNC in the 1980s. In all, he collected 11 new superdelegates this week.

Kirk was an easy catch. He already was identifying himself as an Obama supporter when reporters asked, including in my interview earlier this week, and just hadn’t made an official statement until this morning. But Andrew’s switch from Clinton to Obama got a lot of people’s attention. So did the Hill and Chandler endorsements, since both live in conservative-leaning swing districts.

Irony alert: The complaint Barack Obama’s campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission yesterday, about an independent political group that supports Hillary Rodham Clinton, is going to be snarled up in the FEC by paralysis that Obama helped create.

The commission can’t actually do anything right now because it doesn’t have enough commissioners to get a quorum, thanks to a classic Washington partisan gridlock that has stalled the Senate confirmations of three new nominees. (There were four, but one of them withdrew because the stalemate was taking so long to resolve.)

It’s all because of a chain reaction that started with President Bush’s nomination of Republican Hans von Spakovsky, was a Justice Department official came under fire from former attorneys in the civil rights division because he overruled objections to Georgia law requiring voters to produce photo identifications at the polls.

Most Democrats oppose van Spakovsky's nomination, as do a broad spectrum of civil rights and voting rights groups. But Obama and Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin were the two senators who raised the earliest, and loudest, objections. And so far, this seems to be one partisan Washington gridlock that Obama can’t, or won’t, solve.