John McCain is double-talking.

Campaigning in Texas, McCain was asked about his remark that it would be fine with him if U.S. troops stayed in Iraq for another 100 years. He said:

Of course, that comment of mine was distorted. Life isn't fair. I was talking about American presence after the war.

As the first journalist to report McCain's comment, allow me to note that his comment was not distorted--at least not by me. I wrote:

The United States military could stay in Iraq for "maybe a hundred years" and that "would be fine with me," John McCain told two hundred or so people at a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening. Toward the end of this session, which was being held shortly before the Iowa caucuses were to start, McCain was confronted by Dave Tiffany, who calls himself a "full-time antiwar activist." In a heated exchange, Tiffany told McCain that he had looked at McCain's campaign website and had found no indication of how long McCain was willing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Arguing that George W. Bush's escalation of troops has led to a decline in U.S. casualties, McCain noted that the United States still maintains troops in South Korea and Japan. He said he had no objection to U.S. soldiers staying in Iraq for decades, "as long as Americans are not being injured, harmed or killed."

McCain did not specifically state this 100 years would be after the war. But he did compare what he had in mind to the decades-long presence of U.S. soldiers in South Korea, Japan and elsewhere. And afterward, when I questioned him about this comment--and politely afforded him the chance to pull back from it--he excitedly declared that U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for "a thousand years" or "a million years," explaining, "it's not American presence; it's American casualties." (I duly reported that.)

McCain's position has its logic. He does not equate victory in Iraq with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But logic is not the same as wisdom. While the United States has indeed kept soldiers in countries where it has fought wars (Japan, Germany, Bosnia), one can argue that Iraq is a different case--and that proclaiming that U.S. troops will stay there for one hundred to one million years sends the wrong signal to those in the world who fear or suspect the United States is pursuing imperial ambitions in the Middle East. That McCain does not understand how provocative his comment was--even when taken in context--is quite worrisome. No, make that frightening.

On my latest diavlog for Bloggingheads.tv--with Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard (my usual partner Jim Pinkerton is still lost in Huckabeeland)--I recount my encounter with McCain regarding the 100 years remark. Here it is:

Hillary Clinton is helping Barack Obama.

Let's say for the sake of argument--and only for the sake of argument--that Barack Obama is on his way to becoming the Democratic nominee. Weeks ago, when the GOP race basically ended and McCain became the presumed GOP nominee, pundits were suggesting that the Democrats would be at a disadvantage because their hard-fought nominee contest was going to continue for weeks, if not months. McCain and the Republicans, they said, would have extra months to prepare for the general election, while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be left behind, punching and poking at each other.

Yet so far that prediction--like many this political season--has not come true. McCain has not reached cruising altitude. Instead, he has been drawn into intra-conservative squabbling. Prominent rightwingers continue to decry him. And this week, McCain got into a fight with a rightwing radio host in Cincinnati. Talk about a unpresidential sideshow. This battle previewed a problem McCain may well have throughout the general election: rightwingers with extreme views of the Democratic candidate--whether it is Clinton or Obama--will be mounting extreme assaults on the Democrat, and McCain may find himself repeatedly in the position of having to distance himself from such attacks. This will peeve his reluctant supporters on the right.

Meanwhile, Obama is contending with Clinton, a first-class and topflight rival. As Tuesday night's debate demonstrated, Obama is getting better as a debater and as a candidate. Competition often is good. In this case, it has pushed Obama to improve his performance in the debates. This was once a weak link in his chain. In earlier debates, he often was tentative and not all that persuasive. In the past two debates, though, he was firm, confident, smooth.

Being challenged by Clinton--in and out of the debates--has forced Obama to hone his already-attractive message. On Tuesday night, he had a good response to her (and others') claim that all his talk of hope and unity is naive:

I am absolutely clear that hope is not enough. And it is not going to be easy to pass health care. If it was, it would have already gotten done. It's not going to be easy to have a sensible energy policy in this country. ExxonMobil made $11 billion last quarter. They are not going to give up those profits easily.

But what I also believe is that the only way we are going to actually get this stuff done is, number one, we're going to have to mobilize and inspire the American people so that they're paying attention to what their government is doing. And that's what I've been doing in this campaign, and that's what I will do as president.

And there's nothing romantic or silly about that. If the American people are activated, that's how change is going to happen.

With this reply, Obama connected his hope-mongering to practical politics. It was an effective formulation of his general campaign pitch--one he will need if he wins the Democratic contest. All the trench warfare with Clinton has strengthened Obama. He will fare better against McCain--should it come to that--because of it.

BYE-BYE BLOOMBERG. I've repeatedly said that I doubted Michael Bloomberg would run for president (particularly because the billionaire apparently had nothing substantial to say about the Iraq war) and even chided my fellow CQ blogger Richard Whalen for pining for the New York City mayor. Recently, a Bloomberg associate told me that Bloomberg was utterly obsessed with running for president--that he talked about it incessantly, that he was poring over polling data and other information related to a possible presidential bid, that he really, really, really wanted to run. But the businessman has yielded to reality, and today, Bloomberg pulled the plug on his nonexistent presidential campaign. Richard, sorry, you'll have to find another dreamboat.

Here's a simple way of summing up Tuesday night's debate in Cleveland between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Minutes after Thursday night's debate in Austin ended, the Clinton campaign zapped out a triumphant email to reporters:

We saw in the final moments in that debate is why Hillary Clinton is the next President of the United States. Her strength, her life experience, her compassion. She's tested and ready. It was the moment she retook the reins of this race and showed women and men why she is the best choice.

That was spin. The Austin debate was no win for Clinton and, as subsequent polls showed, she did not retake the reins, shout giddyup, and ride the presidential race off into a victorious sunset. In fact, Obama, following that debate, continued to gain strength in the polls in the all-important states of Ohio and Texas. Still, Clinton's campaign aides at that moment believed it was not entirely unreasonable--or delusional--to try to claim victory.

No such email followed the conclusion of the Cleveland debate. About an hour after it finished--it took an hour?!--the Clinton campaign disseminated a statement from Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a Clinton supporter:

Hillary Clinton showed Ohioans again tonight why she is uniquely qualified to be president and begin turning our economy around on her first day in office. Hillary is the fighter, the doer and the champion Ohio's working families need. No one is better prepared to deliver quality, affordable health care for every American and lead our country as commander in chief.

Note that there was no claim of victory. Another Clinton email cited positive insta-reviews in the media about Clinton. NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, for instance, had said that Clinton "came across very credibly, very strongly as a fighter." That was true. The problem was that Obama came across rather well, too. None of the quotes her campaign found useful described Clinton's overall performance as a game-changer. And that's the point. She did perform in a fine manner. But Obama, coming across as smooth, confident, smart, passionate, and poised, did at least as well, if not better. It was the Clinton camp that wanted more and more debates. But Obama keeps improving, while she long ago hit the ceiling (and it's a high ceiling) in terms of debate performance.

So the Clinton campaign was--finally--unable to spin a victory claim. That would be playing with reality too much. And when a presidential candidate's spinners cannot claim a debate win, that candidate is in trouble.

For my insta-review of the debate, posted at MotherJones.com, click here.

A posting of mine from the Mother Jones blog:

Another Democratic debate tonight? Enough already. Hillary Clinton has been pushing Barack Obama for more and more debates. But these debates have lost their utility. Do we really need to see the pair bicker once more over health care coverage mandates? That's the only major current policy difference that two have zeroed in on in their face-offs. They argue their points around and around in a circle like quarrelers in a bad marriage. And they're kinda both right.

If you want to achieve universal coverage at the most efficient price point, then you need as big a pool as possible. That's basic economics. So Hillary Clinton correctly notes that mandates are needed--especially to get into this pool those folks who may not need costly health care. Their premiums will help cover the cost of care for others. That's how insurance works: the more, the merrier.

But Obama has a point when he says that it would not be fair to force people to buy insurance they cannot afford and that may not meet their needs. I recently met someone from Massachusetts--where there now is a health insurance mandate--who complained that she and her husband could not afford the insurance they are mandated to purchase. And, she added, they make just enough money to be beyond qualifying for a subsidy. This couple is considering moving out of the state. Maybe they're over-reacting to the situation. But no one should be compelled to purchase substandard but costly coverage. Consequently, it seems fair to say, "Let's see the policy, before we accept the mandate." No doubt about it, Obama got somewhat trapped in all this. He put out a plan with limited mandates (only for parents regarding coverage for their kids) and was then raised (as in poker) by Clinton. At that point, Obama could not admit he had proposed an insufficient plan. He was forced into a corner--defending the absence of a comprehensive mandate in his plan--and this debate was born.

But there's this: if either of these Democrats are elected, he or she will pull together roughly the same band of policy experts and craft a plan with congressional leaders that will likely not match exactly what they are proposing now. They may have to deal with health care reform in increments (depending on the composition and mood of Congress). And mandates may or may not be part of that process at the start. Would Hillary Clinton trade away mandates to get the rest of her plan through Congress? You betcha. (If you truly care about the details of this difference, check out NPR's recent dissection here.)

So can we move on? Probably not. The candidates seem committed to pounding away on this point. In recent days, they have also tussled over Nafta. Clinton has been endeavoring to back away from the trade accord that is unpopular in Democratic circles (particularly among blue-collar Dems). And while Obama has been reminding people of her past support, the Clinton camp has been trying to dredge up old Obama quotes showing he once had at least a mixed view on Nafta. But on this front, Clinton, who is in second place, is in the weaker position. It's not to her advantage to do battle over Nafta. She seems to believe that the mandate issue offers her potent ammo. Blasting Obama on this topic hasn't yet paid off. But her campaign advisers must feel that there's no telling what will happen the 168th time she tries.

What's wrong with the following headline from the front page of Monday's Washington Post?

Clinton Tests Out Populist Approach

Answer: A true populist doesn't have to test out a populist approach. But this is what so often happens in the Democratic Party. A candidate finds himself or herself in the rough and they reach for the populist nine iron. Let me see if I can get out trouble with this club. Al Gore got all populist in the closing days of the 2000 presidential contest, noting he would fight for us against them--the drug companies, health insurance companies, and the like. (You know, all the folks who bought superboxes at the Democratic convention that year in the Staples Center.) Michael Dukakis veered similarly toward the end of his campaign against George H.W. Bush in 1988. Neither ended up in the White House.

It's not that populism is bad politics; it's that phony (or halfhearted or last-minute) populism is no guarantee of success. For Hillary Clinton to don the mantle of heavy-breathing populism a this stage is not all that convincing. She and her husband never were full-fledged members of that Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. In 1992, Bill, a leader of the conservative-leaning, pro-business Democratic Leadership Council, did run with a quasi-populist agenda of "Putting People First"--which he jettisoned after entering the White House in favor of a Fed-friendly close-the-deficit governing policy. With Hillary by his side, he pushed for Nafta--which was passionately opposed by populists within the party. (These days, Hillary Clinton tries disingenuously to distance herself from the treaty, maintaining it was negotiated by President George H.W. Bush--and not acknowledging that her husband led a major drive to get it passed in Congress over objections from labor unions and Democrats.) And when Hillary Clinton put together her health care reform package, she tried at first to co-opt or appease the health care industry, while other Dems advocated a more confrontational strategy. Her record as a populist is a slight bit thin.

The Post reports:

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

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

So a voter can fairly ask, where was all this anger before? Why now? Is there any way not to see this as a cynical ploy motivated by recent primary results and present polls?

The paper goes on:

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

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

She wants to bash those special interests. Yet her campaign strategy has been crafted by Mark Penn, whose day job is to assist corporationsso they can game the system in Washington and elsewhere. Much more so than Barack Obama, Clinton has made use of lobbyists as fundraisers and staffers. Her aversion to corporate special interests was not that strong when she was organizing her campaign and looking forward to a front-runner's trot to victory in the Democratic contest.

Hillary Clinton clearly wants to regain the support of blue-collar Dems. In recent weeks, exit polls have showed that Obama has made dramatic inroads into this bloc, which did seem to be on Clinton's side earlier in the race. And, no doubt, she is still hoping to get a thumb's up from John Edwards, who has not endorsed either Clinton or Obama. (As I previously noted, Edwards will have a tough time awarding his seal of approval to Clinton over Obama after referring to her as a "corporate Democrat" and a force for the status quo.)

If Clinton wants to prove she's a populist, she could ask Penn and the corporate lobbyists who work for her to vacate the premises. But it's difficult to take her late conversion to populism seriously when the guy behind it is making millions of dollars working for the special interests she decries.

The talk on Friday morning was not about John and Vicki (that's McCain and Iseman, the lobbyist) but Barack and Hillary, and the closing moment of Thursday night's debate, when they shook hands and Clinton said she was "absolutely honored" to be by Obama's side in the debate. The Clinton campaign, as I've noted elsewhere immediately tried to spin this moment into proof she is more presidential than he is. But it looked to me that she might be tiring of fighting him--and fighting the tide.

Is pessimism setting in within the Clinton camp? Obama is closing in on Clinton in polls in both Texas and Ohio, and campaign trend lines seem to be holding in his favor. A few hours before the debate, I spoke to one of the more prominent Hillary boosters in Washington. This person said, "I'm pretty pessimistic. We're all trying to keep our heads up. Even if she did everything right from this point on and started to close the gap, it might not be enough. She's not going to become a young guy who's an inspirational speaker because it's a better strategy."

This Clintonite laughed sadly at his own quip and went on: "She has played to all of her strengths. But everything has gelled for Obama. He's a sanctimonious guy. But we can't make that case."

I wonder if this person's sentiment is widely shared--or spreading--through Clintonland. And if some Clinton people are now thinking in such terms, what will be their attitude should she fail to beat back Obama in Ohio and Texas? The Clintons are famous for their grit, for not yielding to defeat. Bill Clinton came back from a loss in Arkansas to retake the governor's office and, years later, refused to be driven out of the White House by one damn embarrassing scandal. She survived the Monica madness and won a Senate seat in an adopted state. In 1992, Bill famously told voters he would fight "until the last dog dies." Will that dog be barking--or whimpering--after Ohio and Texas?

Responding to The New York Times' article disclosing an all-too-cozy relationship between John McCain and Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist for telecom firms that had business before a Senate committee McCain chaired, the McCain campaign on Wednesday night zapped out an email to journalists in which Bob Bennett, a lawyer representing McCain, called the article a "smear job." Bennett had gone on Fox News to defend his client, and the email contained what campaign aides believed were the most powerful Bennett quotes. There was one problem: none of Bennett's statements refuted a single fact in the Times story. Not one. It was all rhetoric and bombast. To prove it, here are the Bennett remarks disseminated by the McCainiacs:

Bennett: "Senator McCain did not want a repeat of what occurred years ago in South Carolina, namely a real smear campaign and asked me to assist them and I have been assisting him. And this -- I'm just -- I think what the New York Times did here was shameless, just shameless. As you pointed out in the lead, it's almost entirely unsourced. You know, I'm in a pretty unique position to talk about John McCain. First, I should tell your listeners you know I'm a registered Democrat, so I'm not on his side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five. Which, by the way, this New York Times article goes back to and discusses -- goes back years and years. And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him, and I think for the New York Times to dig this up just shows that Senator McCain's public statement about this is correct. It's a smear job."

Bennett: "All of the matters that they allude to, I mean, they are not even very specific, we answered fully to the New York Times. We showed them that there was just nothing there. And, unfortunately, they have just obviously disregarded all of the hard evidence that we presented. Now, I'm not suggesting that the New York Times has an agenda here. I will let others conclude that. But they certainly have allowed themselves to be a vehicle for a repeat of what happened in South Carolina. And I suspect it's only because John McCain is winning so much, that we are even reading this story ... What I know is that the members of the staff who were there and dealt with this lobbyist and ran Senator McCain's office say no. They say there is nothing to it, and they provided that information to the New York Times, and it just apparently didn't have much of an impact on them ..."

Bennett: "Anybody who knows anything about Washington knows that if there is one senator who will not honor the requests of his friends when it comes to various pieces of legislation, it is John McCain. Some of the people that I know very well who are lobbyists -- Republican lobbyists -- will tell me and they'll tell anybody who asks, McCain calls it the way he sees it on the merits. You can be his friend for 25 years, and if he doesn't agree with it, he'll say no. ... After representing him the last few months, answering all the questions of the New York Times looking into the allegations they wanted us to respond to, I cannot find, nor can they, a single instance where John McCain did something contrary to his beliefs."

See? Nothing. He did not deny--as the newspaper reports--that McCain's top strategist at the time, John Weaver, met with Iseman after McCain aides in late 1999 had become worried about her relationship with McCain (whether it involved extramarital sex or not) and warned her to stay away from McCain, who was then running for president as a maverick reformer and the scourge of Washington lobbyists. I'm tempted to say one can draw a conclusion from Bennett's bluster-to-facts ratio.

The morning after the story hit, McCain denied that he had done any favors for Iseman as a senator and described Iseman as a friend. He said he was unaware of any meeting between Weaver and Iseman. "I intend to move on," he declared. Well, he can move on. But the issue is whether the story moves on--and more information emerges.

Pay attention, young presidential candidates-to-be, this seems to be the lesson of the 2008 election so far: voters like winners.

Barack Obama's slam-dunk victory on Tuesday over Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin is the latest proof of this theory, for he's making Clinton look like Rudy Giuliani. Both the former NYC mayor and the current junior senator from New York state thought they could sit back and absorb a string of losses, just waiting for when the stars would align perfectly for them. Giuliani saw Florida as his electoral heaven. After Super Tuesday, Clinton gazed at the working-class neighborhoods of Ohio and the great plains of Texas and saw her Gettysburg. (She, of course, would be the North.) But the best-laid plans of mice and men and campaign strategists often go awry. By the time the Republican circus hit the Sunshine State, Giuliani looked like a loser; he had placed out of the money in all the previous contests--and Florida Republican voters validated that impression. And after losing eight straight contests to Obama after Super Tuesday, Clinton also had a big L on her forehead (and it doesn't stand for liberal).

One of the most interesting exit poll numbers from Wisconsin was this: of the Democratic voters who made up their minds in the four weeks prior to the election, Obama beat Clinton 62 to 37 percent. Of those who a month ago knew whom they would support, 50 percent chose Clinton over 49 percent for Obama. What changed in the past four weeks? Clinton and Obama were the same people they were in mid-January. Their resumes were the same. They each were making the same case for his or her candidacy. What had changed was that Obama had won a bunch of elections--and Wisconsin voters had gotten a chance to see him up and close and personal, given that there was plenty of time before this primary for Obama to campaign in the state.

This is--duh!--bad news for Clinton. You can't win by losing. And as the two move toward Ohio and Texas--which could end this race--Clinton has only lost more steam. (Obama also beat her in Hawaii on Tuesday.)

The morning after Wisconsin, a radio show host asked me, "What the heck can she do now?" I dunno. In Wisconsin, Hillary did it all. She went negative on Obama big-time, accusing him of plagiarism, charging him with cowardice for not adding an extra debate to the schedule, and blasting his plans for health care, Social Security, and the mortgage crisis. She went populist--which is right out of the Democratic playbook for candidates in trouble. She held events where she showed off her masterful command of policy details. And she made the same I've-got-more-experience-than-he-does case. That's everything she can do. And the voters said, No thank you.

With Ohio and Texas looming--the primaries are March 4--there's little room for improvement or change in her strategy. The cliche is that success breeds success. Success is the missing ingredient in her campaign. And there's not much she can do about that now.

To see my full report on Wisconsin for Mother Jones, click here.

Some political endorsements are not that impressive. In fact, they can be frightening.

On Tuesday, John McCain's campaign announced that former FBI chief Louis Freeh was backing McCain. In a statement, McCain said,

Louis Freeh's service stands as a testament to his belief that as Americans we are called to serve a cause greater than ourselves. For more than thirty years, Louie has served the people of this great country admirably, and I am grateful to count him as a supporter.

Does McCain want to go back to the Freeh days at the FBI? During Freeh's tenure at the FBI (1993 to 2001), the bureau was a basket case when it came to doing anything about terrorism. As the 9/11 Commission report noted,

Those working counter-terrorism matters [at the FBI] did so despite limited intelligence collection and strategic analysis capabilities, a limited capacity to share information both internally and externally, insufficient training, an overly complex legal regime and inadequate resources

Freeh did little to improve the situation. After the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Freeh's FBI did not step up to the challenge and significantly improve its capabilities to counter jihadist terrorism. During his tenure, two-thirds of the FBI intelligence analysts were not qualified to perform their duties. And, of course, the FBI computer system in the Freeh years was a legendary mess. Set up in 1995, it was based on 1990s technology. At one point, the system was essentially scrapped. Hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted. Worse, FBI agents were not able to share information with other agents or even retrieve public information off the Internet. Freeh himself was famous--or infamous--for shunning email and computers, sending a message throughout the bureau: modern-day communications technology is not for us G-men. (Yet Republicans on the Hill fancied Freeh because he was willing to investigate the Clinton White House during the 1990s.)

So McCain can have him. But American citizens should hope that McCain did not promise Freeh any jobs in a McCain administration--unless, of course, Freeh has finally learned how to use email.

In all the excitement of mini-mini-Super Tuesday--that is, the Potomac Primaries--George W. Bush's slam of Barack Obama seemed to slip by without much notice. And it wasn't just a slam, it was a lie.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday this past weekend, Bush was asked by moderator Chris Wallace about Obama. Here's the exchange:

WALLACE: Do you think there's a rush to judgment about Barack Obama? Do you think voters know enough about him and --

BUSH: I certainly don't know what he believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad, which -- I -- I think I commented that in a press conference when I was asked about that.

WALLACE: I hope not. But -- but -- (chuckles) -- so you don't think that we know enough about him or what he stands --

BUSH: Doesn't seem like it to me, but there's -- with campaigns, there's plenty of time for candidates to get defined. He (is yet ?) his party's nominee.

MR. WALLACE: So why do you think he's gotten this far, if people don't know what he stands for?

PRESIDENT BUSH: You -- you're the pundit. I'm just a simple president.

Embrace the Iranian president? Wallace could have forced the president to back up this statement by asking Bush, "where did you get that?" But he did not.

Of course, Obama has never said he would "embrace" Ahmadinejad. In on of the Democratic debates, he promised to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea during his first year in the White House, should he be elected president. At the time, I questioned whether Obama had gone too far in making such a vow. But leave it to Bush to turn an offer to talk with Iran into a big bear-hug for the thuggish Iranian leader. Bush was casting a false accusation. But at this point, no one seems to care much about what he says. I didn't see the Obama campaign take much offense. And imagine what the Obama people would have done, if Hillary or Bill Clinton had said it!

Bush's attack on Obama can be seen as a preview of the Republican assault that will come if Obama is the Democratic nominee. The real facts won't matter. They will be trumped by mischaracterization and misrepresentation. Nobody cares much now when Bush goes after Obama by mangling the truth. But if Obama does triumph in the Democratic contest, the Republican attack machine and the newest Swift Boaters will swing into high-gear. Such blasts will have to be countered quickly and effectively.

I'll be on a break until after President's Day. Enjoy contemplating the great leaders of our past.

Are Democratic voters in Ohio and Texas different from those in Virginia?

That's the working assumption--or prayer--of Hillary Clinton, especially now that she was embarrassed by Barack Obama in Virginia (wham: 29 points!), Maryland (bang: 27 points!), and the District of Columbia (pow: 51 points!). But is there any reason to believe that assumption is valid?

As I point out elsewhere, Obama won just about everybody's vote among the Democratic electorate in Virginia and Maryland: women, men, low-income people, the well-to-do, the young, the old, Latinos. Clinton only held on to white women. Ohio and Texas are made up of the same folks (with Latinos comprising more of the Lone Star State's population than in Virginia). Will they not react in a similar fashion to Obama and Clinton?

By the time Ohio and Texas roll around (March 4), Clinton will have no name-recognition advantage in either state. Obama will have plenty of time after next Tuesday's Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries--both of which he is expected to win--to work those two states. And so far in this campaign, whenever Obama has had the chance to spend time in a state, he has done rather well. The major disappointment for the Obama camp this year has been California. But one can argue that that in the short period between South Carolina and Super Tuesday, Obama did not have enough time to campaign in the Golden State and connect with its many voters. That won't be true for Ohio and Texas.

Then there's the money. Obama has opened up a fundraising lead. In Ohio and Texas, he will have more money than she will for ads and organization. And his staff appears to be working quite well these days, while Clinton has had to weather a staff shakeup amid a losing streak.

So does Clinton have a leg-up in these (possible) make-or-break states? Maybe not. Is there more affection for Clinton (or the Clintons) in Texas and Ohio than elsewhere? The playing field in each state seems pretty level to me. Each candidate will have a full opportunity to make his or her case.

Now imagine if Obama wins either. What happens to Clinton's rationale? It's blown apart on the prairie wind or it sinks in the Cuyahoga. Given that the Democratic Party awards delegates proportionally, if Obama does prevail in Ohio or Texas, the delegate count could still be close. At this point, it's essentially mathematically impossible for either candidate to win enough delegates through the primaries to reach the magic number. (Superdelegates will be needed by either to get over the top.) But should Obama end up winning more states than Clinton, bagging a big state or two, winning in swing states (such as he did in Missouri, Colorado and Virginia), and opening up a lead in pledged delegates, she will not have much of an argument left. (Except for maybe this one: the superdelegates really, really like me.)

Clinton could well be right: the race may turn on Ohio and Texas. But that could be her last stand. She should not forget a famous cry: Remember the Alamo!

Busy, busy voting today....Does Hillary Clinton have a chance at winning Virginia? That's one question, as the Potomac Primary occurs. And if you want to ponder the Maryland primary, where Barack Obama is expected to win, consider this: Clinton has the governor and his machine (such as it is) behind her. It might still not be enough for her. As for the District of Columbia primary, the big news before the voting started was that Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's nonvoting House member, endorsed Obama. But she did so the night before Election Day, thus minimizing the impact of her endorsement. How to read this? She wanted to be with the predicted winner but did not want to aggravate the Clinton crew. In the meantime, the other political news is the so-called John Edwards primary. For MotherJones.com, I've examined whether Edwards really has a choice. The bottom line: no. Here's that article:

THE JOHN EDWARDS ENDORSEMENT: A LAST CHANCE TO PROVE HE'S NO PHONY
by David Corn
MotherJones.com

A few weeks ago, I was talking to an influential Hillary Clinton fundraiser. When the subject of John Edwards (still in the race at that time) came up, she started sputtering about his hypocrisy. His expensive hair cut, his big house--the guy's a phony, she exclaimed derisively, and his populist, anti-Washington, help-the-poor rhetoric was all just for show. He won't last.

She was right on that final point. As for his authenticity, that was a question that chased Edwards. During his six years in the U.S. Senate (1999 to 2005), Edwards was no working-class hero. He did not develop a reputation as a firebrand willing to take on the powerbrokers of the nation's capital. At that time, Senator Paul Wellstone was the populist champion in the Senate (until his tragic death in October 2002). Wellstone waged one fight after another against corporate interests, lobbying influence, and the sway of big-money. I don't recall Edwards standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him during all these uphill battles.

Yet on the campaign trail, Edwards became Joe Hill in a suit.

Wellstone once told me that you always have allow for redemption within politics. And perhaps Edwards' conversion was genuine. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt? His message was powerful and well-delivered--even if not embraced by a plurality of Democratic voters. But if Edwards wants to prove he was truly speaking his heart and mind, he has no choice when it comes to endorsing one of the remaining Democratic contenders. He cannot support Hillary Clinton.

During the campaign, as he called for ending poverty, Edwards pointed to Clinton as part of the problem. Let's roll the tape on a speech he gave in New Hampshire last summer:

The system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things....

Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected. They make easy promises to voters instead of challenging them to take responsibility for our country. And then they compromise even those promises to keep the lobbyists happy and the contributions coming...

It's a game that never ends, but every American knows -- it's time to end the game. And it's time for the Democratic Party -- the party of the people -- to end it. The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other. The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.

There is no way to read that passage as not a direct assault on Clinton. Edwards was calling her out as a "corporate Democrat" willing to benefit from the crooked politics of Washington. The reference to the renting of the Lincoln Bedroom was a sharp punctuation mark. (During the Bill Clinton presidency, big donors to his campaign were rewarded with overnights in the White House.)

This was not a solo blast. Campaigning in Iowa in November, Edwards made it explicit:

The presidential candidate who has raised the most money from Washington lobbyists is not a Republican. It's a Democrat. The candidate who has raised the most money from the health industry--insurance companies and drug companies--is not a Republican. It is a Democrat…. And the candidate who has raised the most money from the defense industry, is not a Republican. It is a Democrat. And all those descriptions fit the same candidate. They're all Senator Clinton.

At the debate before the New Hampshire primary, Edwards slammed Clinton for being aligned with "the forces of status quo" dead-set on blocking change in Washington.

Those were some charges. Did Edwards mean what he was saying about Clinton? Did he mean it when he proclaimed that poverty eradication was the cause of his life?

In the past few days, Edwards has met with Clinton, and he's due to see Barack Obama, presumably to figure out if he should endorse either. If Clinton ends up the Democratic nominee, it will not be hypocritical for Edwards to campaign for her. He can reasonably argue she will be a better president than John McCain. But if the choice is Obama or Clinton, he is stuck. Were Edwards to pick her over him, he would be endorsing a "corporate Democratic" fronting for the status quo over the fellow whom he approvingly cited as an advocate for change. If Edwards pulled such a move, all those powerful words he left behind on the campaign trail would have no meaning....

You can read the rest here.

The fish rots from the head.

That's a not-so-polite way of saying that the person to blame whenever a campaign is not zipping along is the candidate, not his or her staff. Today, Patty Solis Doyle is the scapegoat for a Hillary Clinton campaign mired in a losing streak. On Sunday, she was dumped as HRC's campaign manager and replaced by Maggie Williams, who in 1990s served as chief of staff to First Lady Clinton.

Whether or not it was Solis' doing, the Clinton campaign is in the middle of a dangerous stretch. After splitting Super Tuesday with Barack Obama, the campaign is conceding a series of contests to Barack Obama (including two of the three February 12 primaries: Maryland and Washington, DC). The Clinton camp is allowing Obama to rack up the wins, while it prepares to put him down on March 4 in Ohio and Texas, two delegate-rich states. This reminds me of that familiar action movie device: let the enemy hordes take one position after another right before you spring a lethal trap on them. You know the scene. As the bad guys draw nearer, the hero-protagonist keeps saying, "Wait for it, wait for it." Those of lesser stout are in near-panic and want to pull the trigger too soon. "No, no," the all-wise, against-the-odds hero says. "Just wait for it." Then--Ka-boom!--the evil ones are dispatched.

Hillary as King Leonidas leading 300 Spartans at Thermopylae against the evil Obama-ites? Well, that may be stretching it. But this strategy must have some of her people chewing up their fingernails. My colleague Jonathan Stein dubs this plan "Rudy 2.0." As the Clinton clan waits, Obama is getting Big Mo on his side; he will truly have bragging and front-runner rights should he bag Virginia on Tuesday and sweep the Potomac Primaries. Between this clump and the Ohio/Texas shootout, there are only two other matches: Hawaii and Wisconsin on February 19. Both of those are good territory for Obama. (He grew up in Hawaii.)

Back to Solis. If she was the one who cooked up the wait-until-Ohio-and-Texas plan, HRC went along with it. Same with any strategic decisions that contributed to the Iowa loss, which got the ball rolling for the Barackians. Now it could well be that Solis has not managed the campaign well. There are 500 or so staffers to coordinate. She has to supervise a bevy of strategists, communicators, and planners. That's a tough job--especially when you're dealing with big egos.

Ever since Iowa, there's been grumbling from Clinton aides about the management team. But much of this complaining was directed at Mark Penn, the chief strategist. On Election Day afternoon in New Hampshire, a senior Clinton adviser told me that she was looking forward to what she assumed would be a loss, for it would cause a much-need shakeup in the campaign staff and force Penn out. When I spotted this aide celebrating Clinton's victory that night, I mentioned that the win probably had saved Penn's job. "I hope not," she snapped. "That would be the wrong lesson learned." More recently, another longtime Clinton aide said that she, too, would be delighted to see Penn depart. "He can't win Democratic primaries," she said. "And that's a drawback when you're in a Democratic primary."

A candidate not pleased with a campaign manager cannot freeze out the manager or lessen her or his authority without putting the campaign's entire management at risk. But a candidate can nudge a strategist aside. A Clinton insider tells me that Penn's influence has been waning and that these days he's more desk-bound--that is, confined to his office--than he has been during the previous months. Could it be that the real shakeup is not the Williams-for-Solis substitution but a decline in Penn's influence?

Still, I come back to my first point. A candidate's fault always lies not in his advisers but in himself. After John Kerry's 2004 defeat, there was much harrumphing about Bob Shrum, who has a string of high-profile losses on his resume. But if Kerry took bad advice from Shrum, he's the one to blame. Hillary Clinton chose Solis, made the decision to compete in Iowa (which some of her aides wanted to skip), and embraced Penn, a corporate consultant whose company aids and abets union-busting businesses, as her strategy guru. She got what she paid for. (Penn made over $4 million last year working for the Clinton campaign.) And now she's left with the need to stop Obama in two big states. Sure she could lose each--Remember the Alamo!--and still remain in the delegate hunt. But the race would be tougher for her; she would be left with only one more fallback position: Pennsylvania on April 22. And even King Leonidas--with the best strategic and management advice--would have a tough time defeating Luke Skywalker.

I'm Ronald Reagan, and John McCain's not.

That was Mitt Romney's not-so-implicit message, as he announced the suspension of his presidential campaign on Thursday before the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference. In a fiery speech, Romney hammered the point that he's a rock-hard conservative when it comes to all three legs of the great stool of the GOP: social issues, economic issues, and national security issues. At least now he is. He decried "government welfare" as a "threat to our culture." He essentially called Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama surrender-monkeys in the fight against radical jiihadism. He denounced regulations that choke businesses and called for lower taxes. The crowd lapped it up.

Romney knew that in a few hours McCain would appear before the same audience and try to appease those conservative activists who consider McCain an ideological turncoat. (How dare he care about global warming!) Though Romney was departing the race, he seized the moment to present himself as the real thing. Perhaps McCain will eventually be able to reach a detente with some of the conservatives who despise him (even if Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and James Dobson don't sign any peace treaty). Regardless of that, Romney was attempting to position himself as the true leader of the movement.

Which caused me to wonder: maybe Romney doesn't want McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, to win in November.

Look at Reagan In 1976, he challenged President Gerald Ford in the Republican contest and argued that Ford was not sufficiently conservative (mainly on foreign policy matters). It was a close race. By the time of the Republican convention, it was not clear who would be the nominee. Ford edged out Reagan--due to some last-minute strategic missteps committed by the Reagan campaign--and went on to lose the election to Jimmy Carter. Reagan emerged as the conservative champion in the party. Four years later, he roared back, won the nomination, and gained the presidency.

Whether or not McCain loses in November, Romney will remain the heartthrob of many conservative activists. But should McCain fail, Romney could become the de facto opposition leader--that is, if he's not chosen to be McCain's running-mate. And Romney would be able to use those millions of dollars he didn't spend on this campaign to bolster the conservative movement's infrastructure and further endear himself to the rightwing establishment. (Mike Huckabee might develop a Christian right following that sticks with him after the campaign, but his stool will be lopsided.) Romney would be well-positioned for the next campaign.

Republican losers often come back and succeed. Not only did Reagan do it, so did the first George Bush (who lost to Reagan in the 1980 Republican race) and Richard Nixon.

If McCain does end up as president, it will make life messy for conservatives. They will support him on some fronts and (if Democrats are lucky) detest him on others. There likely won't be ideological clarity. And Romney, like others, will have to navigate those shoals. But given McCain's age, that period might last no longer than one term. If Clinton or Obama triumph, Romney will be able to lead the rightwing charge against the culture-destroyer and surrender-chicken in the White House. Won't that be a lot of fun for him?

So Romney may not have to wait so long to have another shot. In 2012, he'll be 65 years old. Reagan was 69 when he reached the White House.

Is Hillary the new Mitt?

Yesterday's news that she had to loan her campaign $5 million (while her top staffers work have agreed to work without pay) sure was surprising. While Barack Obama gathered $32 million in the month of January--and $7 million following Super Tuesday's split decision--Clinton, the onetime powerhouse candidate, has hit hard times, though on Thursday the campaign said it had pulled in $4 million in Internet contributions since Tuesday. Money matters much in politics. And the candidates who have more usually do better (not always; though; ask Howard Dean). But self-financing pols often risk being accused of mounting a vanity production. Certainly, Clinton is no bored millionaire trying to buy herself a new job. But if Obama continues to soar not only in rhetoric but in contributions, while she remains in the red (financially), that could come to be seen as an indicator that she has flat-lined.

Yes, the only number that really counts from this point on is the delegate count. But that figure is not unrelated to cash-on-hand. On Wednesday, her chief strategist, Mark Penn, said, "We will have funds to compete. But we're likely to be outspent again." Hillary as underdog? How will that play?

Meanwhile, today, Dean, the Democratic Party chief, said he will do what he can to prevent a brokered convention:

The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race in the next eight weeks, I think, is not a good scenario....I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April. But if we don't, then we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement....Because I don't think we can afford to have a brokered convention -- that would not be good news for either party.

It's unclear what Dean and others could do to force a deal. But in such a scenario, an underfunded candidate will not be negotiating from a position of strength. Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's top moneyman, better start squeezing harder. His problem is that most of the Clinton donors have maxed out and cannot give more. So at this late stage--when Clinton is not in such a commanding position--he has to recruit new Clinton contributors. It won't be easy.

On the right, the news of the day is the mudwrestle between John McCain and the big-mouths of the right. Here's a piece I posted on the subject at Mother Jones.com:

Yesterday, John McCain asked his foes on the right to "just calm down a little." He was talking about Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and other conservative big-mouths who in recent days have pumped up the volume of their anti-McCain crusade. Just the day before, James Dobson, a leading social conservative who heads Focus n the Family, declared, "I am convinced Senator McCain is not a conservative, and in fact has gone out of is way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are." (Last year, Dobson also accused Fred Thompson of not being a real Christian.)

As the Republican Establishment swings behind McCain--each day his campaign sends out several emails noting this or that endorsement from a GOP figure--the conservative ideologues are holding firm. This is setting up a dramatic split between the GOP elite and the conservative movement's leading influentials. The ideologues hate McCain for several reasons. He has pushed bipartisan, Democratic-backed legislation on campaign finance reform, global warming, and, worse, immigration reform. He never got on his knees before the conservatives--particularly the religious right. In 2000, he blasted Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for exerting too much influence over his party. And--egads!--he has been a favorite of Washington journalists, that band of well-known, America-hating liberals. The fact that McCain has been a prominent champion of the Iraq war--the number one issue for most of his detractors--means nothing to these ingrates.

Today, McCain is appearing at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, a gathering of hundreds, if not thousands, of rightwing activists. Imagine John Kerry speaking to a convention of Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. [Note: I'd be at CPAC for this, if I weren't out of town.] But if McCain believes he can make nice with the rightwing talkers, he's kidding himself. This group--especially Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter--have no incentive to be pragmatic. They each earn much money by being provocative. Their first loyalty is to their audience, which expects hard-edged ideological warfare from them. They go soft--or reasonable--and they risk their reputations....

Read the rest here.

I've been in Chicago covering Supersaturated Tuesday from the Obama election night celebration. Here's the report I filed for MotherJones.com:

By the time that Super Tuesday finally arrived, the mystery was long gone. The day that had loomed for so long had lost its melodramatic make-or-break status for the Democrats. Hours before the vote-counting began, the top strategists for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were pitching the same line: the results would not be decisive and whoever ended up the winner would walk away with merely a small edge in delegates. And as the vote tallies started to come in, both campaigns declared non-defeat. That is, they each claimed to have done well. "Encouraging results," Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist said. "We're having a very strong night," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. Both were right.

The two campaigns had plenty of data to spin as the results materialized. Clinton triumphed in California (by an overwhelming margin), Massachusetts (where a big turnout in women negated that Kennedy magic), Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Obama won in Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Delaware, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, Idaho, and Missouri. Last-minute deciders, Penn said, went for Clinton. "Momentum is turning," he insisted. Plouffe noted that Obama was competitive in regions across the nation, that he won the caucus states (showing the campaign's organizational talent), and that he captured states that did not permit independents to vote (Delaware and Connecticut). Clinton was the Queen of California. Obama was the Master of Missouri.

But all that really mattered was the final delegate count (which was not easy to calculate in the hours after the polls shut down but was likely to be close)--and the fact that neither candidate was knocked out of the race. Despite the wipeout in California, Obama's senior aides appeared pleased, as they spoke with reporters at his election night celebration in Chicago. Pre-election polls had shown him trailing in most Super Tuesday states, and their goal had been to survive the day. They did. "The nominating battle will continue well past today's voting," Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, told reporters. Only weeks ago, Clinton strategists were hoping this mega-primary day would end the race in their favor. Now they were talking about the coming slog, as if it had always been inevitable.

Super Tuesday did not live up to its do-or-die reputation because the Democratic field had been downsized to two strong contenders who push rather different memes. Clinton presents herself as the tried-and-tested hard-worker who can get stuff done. Obama offers himself as a transformative figure who can--due to his power to inspire--bring about change. It's math versus music. And after seven years of George W. Bush--during which the music was awful and the math was bad--Democrats crave both proven competence and uplifting inspiration. For many voters, it's a tough either/or. Super Tuesday demonstrated there is no consensus position within the party among its voters.....

You can read the rest here.

It's quiet out there....Too quiet?

Usually there's not much news on Election Day--until the returns come in. Campaigns tend to do all they can in the final days before an election not to screw up. So there was not much news yesterday, either. I was on a conference call with Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson of the Clinton campaign, and they had little report. They said they expected to win a majority of the delegates and that the race would continue on. "Many of us are making reservations for Texas and Ohio," Wolfson remarked. John Edwards' voters--the few there are--were in "flux," Penn added. Stop the presses! Oh, they did have one piece of news: Jack Nicholson had endorsed Hillary Clinton. Earlier in the day, Robert De Niro had campaigned for Barack Obama. Score that a tie?

All across CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC on Monday night, there was much coverage of Super Tuesday, but not much for my fellow pundits to discuss--other than the polls in each state. Just as the candidates were respectful and well-tempered in last Thursday's debate, the campaigns fired off no last-minute shots at the other. It appears that both will live past Supersaturated Tuesday to campaign another day. And the delegate count will determine how each plays from here.

Other than the final numbers, what else might be telling? Well, Missouri and Colorado could be bellwether states. If Obama wins or almost wins either of those--which are somewhat neutral territory in the Obama-Clinton battle--that will be quite encouraging for his camp. As I and several thousand other commentators have noted, after Tuesday, Obama can focus on individual or small clumps of states. When voters have seen more of him--as in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina--he has fared well. Not that he spent a great deal of time in either Missouri or Colorado, but if he's competitive in those states, it will be an indicator the Obama magic is still alive, Then again, winning California would signify the same. Sorry, on Election Day, the obvious analysis is king. Once the dust settles, there will be plenty of new twists and turns to ponder and, of course, more campaign news.

A few weeks ago, I declared that Barack Obama has a big problem: Super Tuesday. I noted that with a playing field so large, it would be rather tough for him to connect with voters, and that since he was asking voters to join him in a transformative crusade, it was essential for him to forge a tight bond with voters. That's a difficult goal to manage while hop-scotching through 20 or so states in a week.

I stand by that analysis, but now it seems that Obama may do well enough to survive the Super Tuesday challenge. He doesn't have to win the day, he merely has to stay close to Hillary Clinton. The way the delegates are awarded, a strong second-placer can do quite well. And after Tuesday, the schedule shifts to a more drawn-out series of contests. (Jonathan Stein explains here.) Thus, Obama will get his chance to work his magic in more direct fashion--should he survive. And in the race so far, when Obama gets up-close-and-personal with voters, he is rather competitive.

Given that Obama was quite the gentleman at the debate last Thursday night, my hunch is that his campaign's goal is to take whatever punch comes on Tuesday and then get on with a contest-by-contest campaign. Sure, half of the delegates will be selected on Tuesday, and if polls are any guide (no giggling, please), Hillary Clinton is better positioned to vacuum up a majority. But the key question of the day will be whether Clinton opens a lead in the delegate race that he has a chance of overcoming one primary after another in the following weeks. Obama needs the slog.

That's all for me today, I'm traveling today.

Why is it that Hillary Clinton never talks about the Rose Law Firm, the Arkansan corporate powerhouse she worked at for years?

During Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate, Barack Obama made a point of his progressive career path:

I started off as a community organizer, working on the streets of Chicago, providing job training and after-school programs and economic development for neighborhoods that have been devastated by steel plants that had closed. I worked as a civil rights attorney, turning down lucrative corporate jobs to provide justice for those who had been denied on the job on at the ballot box. I worked as a state legislator for years, providing health care to people who did not have it, reforming a death penalty system that was broken, providing tax relief to those who needed it. And in the United States Senate, I worked on everything from nuclear proliferation to issues of alternative energy.

Note the reference to "corporate jobs."

Clinton, when she next had the chance to speak, noted:

I really spent a great deal of my early adulthood, you know, bringing people together to help solve the problems of those who were without a voice and were certainly powerless. I was honored to be appointed by President Carter to the Legal Services Corporation, which I chaired, and we grew that corporation from 100 million to 300 million. It is the primary vehicle by which people are given access to our courts when they have civil problems that need to be taken care of.

It is true that Clinton, after graduating from Yale Law in 1973, worked at the Children's Defense Fund and the Carnegie Council on Children. (And in 1974, she worked for the House judiciary committee then considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon.) But by 1977--after having married Bill Clinton and having moved to Arkansas--she signed up with Rose Law Firm. She continued to do public-interest advocacy work, and as First Lady of Arkansas, she was an advocate for education and children's issues. But she was also a corporate lawyer. And in the mid-1980s, she became a member of the board of the anti-union Wal-Mart. At board meetings, she remained silent, as the company mounted a campaign against unions seeking to organize Wal-Mart workers. (Though ABC News had just broken a story related to Clinton's Wal-Mart connection, no one asked her about it at the debate.)

Clinton doesn't have the progressive street cred that Obama has. She tries to match him, but to do so she has to slice out part of that vaunted resume she is always brandishing. He never answered the call of the corporate sirens. She did, while also working the other side--the progressive policy side--of the street. She's happy to discuss that do-gooding, but not her entire past.

For a good take on the debate, see my colleague Jonathan Stein's report here.