Okay, I was wrong--partially--when I speculated that the meeting of the Democratic Party's rules committee would be anti-climactic. There was a climax--even if it was possibly a faux climax. It was not produced by the committee. The panel did the predictable thing: it seated Florida's disputed delegation, giving each delegate half a vote, and it did essentially the same thing with Michigan, assigning the uncommitted votes to Barack Obama. So at the end of the (long day), Hillary Clinton netted more delegates, but Obama maintained his seemingly insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. That was what was expected of the Democratic insiders on the committee. What was unexpected: Harold Ickes' reaction at the end.

After the committee voted 19-8 in favor of the Michigan plan, Ickes, a top Clinton aide and a member of the committee, issued what will from now on be known as the Ickes Proclamation. He declared that the committee was hijacking delegates from Clinton. "I am stunned that we have the gall and chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters," he said. He presented a threat: "I submit to you that hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party unity." And he dropped a bomb: Clinton reserved the right to appeal the decision before the credentials committee at the convention.

It was as if Ickes was saying, "Watch out, we're going to the mattresses." Too bad he's not heavier; otherwise, James Gandolfini could play him in the HBO movie.

But his threat was odd. It could only put off the superdelegates that Clinton still hopes--against hope--to convince. It also undermined one possible Clinton game plan: be a good soldier, do everything possible to help Obama win, and then, should he lose to John McCain, proclaim, "I told you so" and automatically become the Democratic front-runner for 2012. And with all his talk of "hijacking" and top-down elitism, Ickes was questioning the legitimacy of the process that is on the verge of handing Obama the top prize. Ickes was pushing a rhetorical point--Obama's win ain't legit--that Clinton herself has made.

Then there's the substance of Ickes' outrage. He pilloried his fellow rules committee members for supposedly overriding the will of Democratic voters in Michigan. They really hadn't. It was impossible to know the will of Michigan Ds because Obama was not on the ballot for the state's disputed primary contest. But handing delegates only to Clinton would have been patently unfair. That aside, Ickes' argument was situational, not principled. His campaign's overall strategy (and its only chance) is to persuade superdelegates to choose Clinton even if Obama has won more delegates in the primaries and caucuses. So who's the true fan of voter-first, small-d democracy?

Ultimately, Ickes' threat may not matter. If Clinton suspends her campaign shortly after the primaries end on Tuesday and (after a period of mourning) gets on board the Obama express, Ickes tough words will be forgotten. Clinton even could raise the issue at the convention as the losing candidate in a fashion that would not be too disruptive--that is, if she has endorsed Obama and does not tie the Michigan fight to any outcome in the nomination process. But if she and Ickes and the rest of the Clinton posse continue to question the legitimacy of Obama's victory, there will be problems. For the moment, they can play it both ways. But they soon have to decide if their threats are empty or real.

When was the last time that cable news shows provided extensive coverage of a party rules committee meeting? If memory serves correctly, never. There's been a big media buildup to Saturday's Democratic Party rules committee get-together, where party insiders will hash out what to do about those disputed Michigan and Florida delegations. But the all-day long affair is likely to be a bust as media spectacles go.

First and foremost, as many others have noted (and noted), the outcome will not affect who's ahead in pledged delegates. If any delegates are approved--and the likely scenario is that at least half of the chosen delegates in each state will be okayed by the party--Hillary Clinton will cut Barack Obama's lead in delegates chosen by voters. But she won't overcome it. So Obama's camp can afford to be generous and compromise. Clinton, though, is insisting there be no compromise. She is playing the role of Moses, proclaiming, "let my people go"--that is, declaring that all the disputed delegates from these two states ought to be freed from DNC purgatory and afforded full rights at the Democratic convention. (Days ago, I explained why this is a phony argument.)

The party insiders who end up on rules committees are the type of political operatives who can work through the arcane details of party rules to strike decent deals. So it's likely that some arrangement will be hammered out. It won't be all the Clintonites are demanding. But will she then continue her campaign as a crusade for Florida and Michigan? That's doubtful. She seems to be winding down--perhaps coming to terms with a hard-to-face reality.

The DNC rules meeting is part of the step-by-step drawdown of her campaign. Think of a deep-sea diver who rises from the depths in phases so as to not get the bends. First, she had her good showings in West Virginia and Kentucky. Then she was a faux defender of democracy at the rules meeting. Next she will be Queen of Puerto Rico. Finally--finally?--she will cross the finish line with the South Dakota and Montana primaries on Tuesday. But then the race will be done. She may need a few days to confirm that her argument to the superdelegates--choose me because I have the better chance of beating John McCain--is not carrying the day. And she will have to end--or suspend--her campaign.

I've noted before that Hillary Clinton and her crew are probably now playing for 2012. (See here.) She's setting up a gigantic I-told-you-so, in case Obama loses to McCain in November. And imagine how much stronger her case will be if Obama goes down by losing Florida and/or Michigan. So her game plan, I'm guessing, is to do everything possible to rack up as many popular votes (and as many blue-collar voters) and to do all she can for the disputed delegates of Michigan and Florida--before she exits the race. That will put her in a rather strong (and, to some, an irritating) position should Obama flame out.

Which means that the DNC rules committee meeting is political theater, a show that likely won't mean much--and won't do much for Clinton in the current race. But it could become quite relevant if she ends up running for president in 2012.

Here's a piece I posted at Mother Jones....

Excuse me if I'm resentful of the attention Scott McClellan, George W. Bush's onetime presidential press secretary, is receiving for finally telling the obvious truth that the Bush White House deceived the public about the Iraq war. Though McClellan's account has punch coming from an insider, he's late to the party. Some of us made the case when it counted--back in 2002 and 2003, before the war was launched, and in the following years--and we also maintained that the deceptive measures of the Bush administration extended beyond its PR campaign for war in Iraq. Yet back then McClellan was doing what he could to thwart such efforts. Now he says the media failed to confront the Bush administration forcefully enough. Which is true. But when reporters did try, McClellan put up a stonewall. So his complaint is like that of a thief who, after pulling off a caper, gripes that the incompetent police did not nab him. This is absurd. After all, before each press briefing, did McClellan go to the men's room and use a bar of soap to write on the mirror, "Stop me before I spin again"?

Let's turn to one example of McClellan's complicity--one that I know well, for it was an instance when McClellan spoke falsely to me.

McClellan's daily press briefing on September 29, 2003, was a rough one for him. The news had broken that the CIA had requested that the Justice Department investigate the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity. This meant that presidential aides could end up facing criminal charges. The reporters in the White House press room were in a justified frenzy. The CIA leak episode was now a full-force scandal. (Two months earlier, I had been the first reporter to note that the Plame leak was possibly a White House crime, but in the intervening period most of the media had ignored or neglected the story.)

Much of the press briefing that day was devoted to the CIA leak investigation. Answering questions about the Plame leak, McClellan declared, "that is not the way this White House operates." (Actually, it was.) He insisted that Bush knew that Rove was not involved in the leak. (Actually, Rove told at least two reporters about Valerie Wilson's CIA connection, which was classified information.) And McClellan said that Rove told him that he had played no role in the leak mess. (Actually, as just noted, Rove had.)

I was at the briefing, but by the time McClellan called on me, all of the leak-related queries had been asked. Even though I was keen on covering that story, I turned to another matter: the missing WMDs in Iraq and the prewar intelligence. A few days earlier, the House intelligence committee had sent then-CIA director George Tenet a letter saying that there had been "too many uncertainties" in the prewar intelligence on WMDs in Iraq. I asked,

Is the White House aware of the House Intelligence letter to the CIA on prewar intelligence, and what's the reaction to it? And does the President think that he was given bad or incomplete information that ultimately led to his decision to war?

McClellan replied that the CIA stood behind its prewar assessments. He went on to say:

We knew that Saddam Hussein had large, unaccounted for stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons....Then came September 11th, the attacks of September 11th. September 11th taught us that we must confront the new, dangerous threats of the 21st century, that we can no longer wait for threats to gather and come to our shores before it's too late. The nexus between outlaw regimes with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations is the most dangerous threat of our times. And we must confront those threats before it's too late.

I followed up. A few days earlier, news reports had disclosed that Secretary of State Colin Powell, during a February 2001 press conference in Egypt, had essentially said that Saddam posed no WMD threat: "[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." And I decided to ask a question referencing this report. The following exchange ensued:

Q: You just said a moment ago that: we knew there were large unaccountable -- unaccounted stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. In 2001, in March or February, Colin Powell said there weren't, as we learned of two days ago --

McClellan: Secretary Powell went before the United Nations and said, there were.

Q: No, no, listen to this. No, no, he said, at that point, there weren't. The [Defense Intelligence Agency] produced a classified --

McClellan: That's not what he said.

Q: -- assessment in October 2002 which said: we don't have any hard or reliable information about stockpiles. And the U.N. inspectors, themselves, said they had no hard information about stockpiles. So where are you getting your information from?

McClellan: Again, I think you're mischaracterizing Secretary Powell's comments. Secretary Powell went before -- and he said, that I never said that he was not a threat. He went before....Secretary Powell went before the United Nations and presented that very case to the world and made it very clear what was unaccounted for. Secretary Powell went through an exhaustive process to back up everything that he said, talking directly with members of the intelligence community....

Q: You said, before 9/11 we knew there were accounted stockpiles. [Powell] said, there weren't.

McClellan: Before 9/11 -- I'm glad you pointed that out, because September -- and, no, that is not what he said. September 11th taught us --

Q: He said that in --

McClellan: It was well documented by the United Nations Security Council that there were undocumented stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

Q: That's not true....You are mischaracterizing U.N. reports.

McClellan: We're going to move on. I think I've answered this question.

McClellan, of course, had not answered the question. He had kept on insisting that Powell had not said what he indeed had said at that Egyptian press conference in 2001. Here was a journalist attempting to press McClellan on a major contradiction in the Bush administration's stance on Iraq's WMDs--in 2001, Iraq had nothing significant; in 2003, it possessed a major arsenal--and McClellan countered with a false statement and denied undeniable facts.

I was a bit flummoxed by his response. How do you deal with someone who tells you that two plus two is not four and sticks to that position? McClellan was engaged in basic stonewalling: repeating an inaccurate assertion to fend off an inconvenient question. He did this throughout his stint as press secretary, saying whatever he could to protect the president and keep the truth under wraps. He's right these days to remind us that the media screwed up bigtime by not sufficiently scrutinizing White House claims about the purported treat from Iraq and the Iraq war. But as a fellow who made the job of reporters tougher by mangling and obscuring the truth he's in no position to accuse anyone of failing the nation.

McCain surrounded by lobbyists! McClellan telling the truth about Bush White House lies! Obama and Clinton tussling over what to do about the Florida and Michigan delegations! This is all important stuff. But what about policy? There's always plenty of media coverage for political developments. Policy matters....well, you know. It's the poor cousin in the house. Which is why I was delighted to receive a press release from the Democratic National Committee today that zeroed in on John McCain's stance on nuclear proliferation--which is one of the more important policy topics a president must handle.

The oppo research team at the DNC discovered that McCain has been inconsistent in articulating his policy in this area. And in the missive they zapped out to reporters they shared the evidence. In a Foreign Affairs article published last December, McCain wrote,

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear reason: the mistaken assumption behind the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear technology can spread without nuclear weapons eventually following....The next U.S. president must convene a summit of the world's leading powers -- none of which have an interest in seeing a world full of nuclear-armed states -- with three agenda items. First, the notion that non-nuclear-weapons states have a right to nuclear technology must be revisited.

Yet in a speech he delivered a few days ago, McCain said,

But in order to take advantage of civilian nuclear energy, we must do a better job of ensuring it remains civilian. Some nations use the pretense of civilian nuclear programs as cover for nuclear weapons programs. We need to build an international consensus that exposes this deception, and holds nations accountable for it....I would support international guarantees of nuclear fuel supply to countries that renounce enrichment and reprocessing, as well as the establishment of multinational nuclear enrichment centers in which they can participate. Nations that seek nuclear fuel for legitimate civilian purposes will be able to acquire what they need under international supervision.

So a short time ago, McCain declared that spreading civilian nuclear technology undermines efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and he advocated a policy prescription: stop non-nuclear countries from developing nuclear energy. Yet now he says that it's fine for other nations to pursue nuclear energy, as long as there is appropriate international supervision. So which is it? Is the proliferation of nuclear technology a problem or not?

This is not a case of gotcha politics. At this point in his long career as a national security-minded legislator, McCain should have clear thoughts on this critical subject. Yet he's contradicting himself on a key issue. In addition to all the other stories in the news these days, this sure deserves front-page treatment.

Where's the apology?

Politico reports that in his new book, former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan says that Bush was not "open and forthright on Iraq," adopted a "permanent campaign approach" when it came to governing, and used "propaganda" to sell the war. He also writes that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove "had at best misled" him about their role in the leak that disclosed the CIA identity of Valerie Plame Wilson and that he (McClellan) had presented information to the White House press corps that was "badly misguided." McClellan notes that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."

Now McClellan says the media was not tough enough on Bush: "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise....In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

Excuse me for getting a bit huffy. But when it counted there were a few of us in the media who were indeed arguing that the Bush White House was setting new records in presidential deception--especially when it came to Iraq. McClellan, though, was part of the White House's defense team, pushing back against media coverage that questioned Bush's rationale for the war and Bush's serial abuse of facts. Apparently McClellan has seen the light. Well, where's his plea for forgiveness? If he were truly contrite about his involvement in a deceptive, propaganda-wielding administration, McClellan could demonstrate his sincerity by pledging that all profits from his belated truth-telling will go to charities supporting the families of American soldiers killed or injured in Iraq. For history's sake, it is good that McClellan is confirming what most Americans (according to polls) have long known: the Bush administration trampled the truth to win public backing for the Iraq war. But as an enabler (witting or not) of that process, McClellan owes the public more than a for-sale account. He should not profit from this book, making bucks for correcting war-supporting falsehoods that he defended. He ought to be doing penance. True heart-felt confessions come free.

I've not been obsessed with the case of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic Alabama governor convicted and sent to jail for corruption who claims Karl Rove and other Republicans set him up. But when I saw how Rove, while appearing on This Week ducked an easy question about this matter, it made me wonder if something rotten and Rove-ish had occurred. Here's what I posted about that exchange at Mother Jones.

On Sunday, Karl Rove gave students of spin a prime example of a non-denial denial. He was a guest on ABC News' This Week and after discussing the presidential campaign, he was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about the Don Siegelman controversy. Siegelman is the former Democratic Alabama governor who was convicted and imprisoned for corruption and who charges that the Justice Department prosecution against him was part of a secret campaign mounted by Rove and other Republicans. Last week, the House judiciary committee subpoenaed Rove in connection with the Siegelman case and the firings of U.S. attorneys.

One has to wonder if Siegelman has been trying to save himself by pinning his case to the U.S. attorneys scandal, but the way Rove answered (that is, did not answer) a question from Stephanopoulos about the Siegelman affair was quite suspicious. Look at the entire exchange:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: As we know and our viewers probably know you were subpoenaed this week by the House Judiciary Committee to give testimony on any involvement you may have had with the prosecution of the former Alabama governor, Don Siegelman. He's claiming there was selective prosecution. He's out on bail now even though he was convicted. He said your fingerprints are all over it. Here's what the House report said.

It said, "In May 2007 a Republican attorney from Northern Alabama named Jill Simpson wrote an affidavit stating that in November 2002 she heard a prominent Alabama Republican operative named Bill Canary say that Karl Rove had contacted the Justice Department about bringing a prosecution of Don Siegelman. The question for Mr. Rove is whether he directly or indirectly discussed the possibility of prosecuting Don Siegelman with either the Justice Department or Alabama Republicans."

Did you?

KARL ROVE: Let me say three things, first of all, I think it's interesting -- everybody who was supposedly on that telephone call that Miss Simpson talks about says the call never took place. I'd say...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Although she produced a cell phone record according to the committee.

ROVE: Well, I would say three things. First of all, I have - I learned about Don Siegelman's prosecution by reading about it in the newspaper. Second of all, this is really about a constitutional question of the separation of powers. Congress, the House Judiciary Committee wants to be able to call presidential aides on its whim up to testify, violating the separation of powers, executive privilege has been asserted by the White House. In a similar instance in the Senate. It will probably be asserted very quickly in the House. Third, the White House and -- has agreed, I'm not -- I'm not asserting any personal privilege. The White House has offered, and my lawyers offered several different ways in which if the House wants to find out information about this they can find out information about this. And they've refused to avail themselves of those opportunities. We didn't say, close off any option to do anything else that you want to do in the future. We said if you want to hear about this let's sit down and talk about this and then you're entitled to do what you want to do in the future. This is now tied up in court. It's going to be tied up in court and settled in court. And frankly the House last week doing this is, you know, is duplicating what the Senate has done that has already found its way into the report.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But to be clear you did not contact the Justice Department about this case?

ROVE: I read about -- I'm going to simply say what I've said before, which is I found out about Don Siegelman's investigation and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's not a denial.

ROVE: I've -- you know, I read --I heard about it, read about it, learned about it for the first time by reading about it in the newspaper.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Rove, thanks very much.

It's pretty damn obvious: Rove would not say, "I did not contact the Justice Department about the Siegelman case." Confronted with this simple question, he first said that others supposedly on that particular phone call have denied the call took place. Pressed by Stephanopoulos, he then twice said that he learned about the Siegelman investigation and indictment from newspaper reports.

Why would Rove not state that he had not contacted the Justice Department and egged it on to prosecute Siegelman? Two explanations come to mind. (A) He did do something like that. Or, (B) he doesn't remember whether he made such a call but he knows it's the type of call he might have made. So rather than plainly deny he contacted the Justice Department, Rove parries the question with a shifty formulation. Stephanopoulos did call him on this, noting Rove was not actually denying the accusation. But Stephanopoulos was too polite to say, "Excuse me, Mr. Rove, this is BS. Did you or did you not communicate with the Justice Department at all about the Siegelman matter at any time?" No doubt, though, the House judiciary committee's investigators paid close attention to how Rove handled the question, and his non-answer ought to motivate them to dig further.

Regular readers know that I broke the story about John McCain's problematic political alliance with the Reverend Rod Parsley, the Ohio megachurch pastor who has declared that it is the historic mission of the United States to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed." On Thursday, McCain--who had campaigned with Parsley in February and called him "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide"--rejected Parsley's endorsement. The repudiation was part of a twofer: at the same time, McCain dumped fundamentalist pastor John Hagee, who had called the Catholic Church "the great whore" and who had once said that Hitler's mass-murdering of Jews was part of "God's work."

In the media coverage of McCain's pastor problems, Parsley was second fiddle. Apparently calling for the eradication of Islam is not as politically troublesome as insulting the Catholic Church and describing the Holocaust as a necessary step for the Second Coming (because it drove the Jews back to the Middle East). But footage of Parsley's anti-Islam rants--which Mother Jones and Brave New Films posted on-line as a video--was played on MSNBC and on ABC (which mistakenly described its own report as an "exclusive"). And the McCain camp decided to lump the two fundamentalist extremists together and throw them under the same bus at the same time.

The media coverage has continued to focus more on Hagee, who preaches at a Texas church, than Parsley. But McCain's excommunication of Parsley may be more politically significant. Allow me to explain the melodramatic headline above: Parsley, who leads a church in Columbus, Ohio, is a political powerhouse in the Buckeye State. He registers social conservatives as voters and then drives them to the polls, where most of them presumably vote Republican. He's been credited with helping George W. Bush win Ohio in 2004, when Bush beat John Kerry by the narrow margin of 120,000 votes.

Ohio is once again a swing state--perhaps the most important swing state. It's hard to envision either McCain or the Democratic nominee (presumably Barack Obama) winning in November without pocketing Ohio. And it's hard to envision McCain winning the state without the assistance of social conservative voters (often miscalled "values voters"). The Ohio Republican Party has been decimated in recent years by various scandals, and the state is now governed by a popular Democrat (Ted Strickland). It has become much tougher ground for GOPers. Which means that McCain truly needs those social conservatives to turn out for him.

Parsley could have helped greatly in this regard. But now McCain has lost a shepherd who could lead tens of thousands of voters to the polls for the Arizona senator. Will these voters find the way on their own? Will they be angered that McCain betrayed a man they consider to be a conveyor belt for the word of God? (McCain as Judas?) With Parsley out of play for McCain in Ohio, McCain will have a tougher time winning this critical state.

And another point: in renouncing Parsley and Hagee, McCain said that his initial acceptance of their endorsements "did not mean I endorsed their views." That may be true to a point. Yet what did it mean when McCain called Parsley "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide"? That sure sounds like an endorsement. Why did McCain say that? It's doubtful that he was aware of Parsley's anti-Islam extremism or his other over-the-top views. McCain was simply pandering--mouthing words he did not really mean because that would help him get elected. If McCain is going to hail someone as a "great leader" and "moral compass," you'd expect him to know a thing or two about the fellow. Tossing off such praise in a who-really-cares manner sure ain't straight talk.

UPDATE: On Friday night, Parsley issued a statement saying he would not withdraw his endorsement of McCain. Then on Saturday he did just that.

Hillary Clinton is really pandering, as her campaign whimpers to a conclusion. In an interview on Wednesday with AP, she said she would support Michigan and Florida regarding their disputed delegations no matter what:

I will consult with Floridians and the voters in Michigan because it's really their voices that are being ignored and their votes that are being discounted, and I'll support whatever the elected officials and the voters in those two states want to do.

But wait a minute; those states violated Democratic Party rules--rules that at one time Clinton supported. Now she's saying that Dems in those naughty states ought to decide what happens to their delegations. That's just wrong. And it's also wrong for her to vow--as she did--a convention fight over these delegations, if the party does not work something out before then.

It's almost as if Clinton is grasping for a cause to justify her ongoing campaigning. And, as AP notes, seating the Michigan and Florida delegations in a manner most favorable to Clinton would still leave her trailing Obama in voter-determined (or pledged) delegates. But seating the delegations in such a fashion would bolster her bogus argument that she has done better in the popular vote. That claim only holds up if one adds to Clinton's tally the 328,309 votes she received in Michigan and award Obama zero votes from that state. Obama's name was not on the ballot for the disputed primary, but "uncommitted"--which was something of a stand-in for Obama--drew 238,168 votes. In any event, it is not reasonable for Clinton and her crowd to base their popular vote claim on the results in Michigan's unsanctioned contest.

Campaigning in Florida, Clinton, relying on her fuzzy math, hinted that Obama's victory might not be legitimate. She declared that Floridians in 2000 "learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren't counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner. The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: If any votes aren't counted, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished."

Note her reference to the "candidate with fewer votes."

Clinton refuses to let go of her argument. She's no longer attacking Obama, but she appears to be residing somewhere between resignation and fighting on. She won't blast him, but she insinuates he's not won fair and square. Worse, in this AP interview, she hinted that she might continue her effort to win over superdelegates (and maybe even pledged delegates for Obama) after the primaries end on June 3. That would be going nuclear. It would tear the party apart. You think Obama and his supporters would roll over?

As Clinton comes to terms with what seems to be defeat, she is trying to have it both ways. She's doing nothing overt to undermine the likely nominee of her party, but she ain't bowing out and she keeps on insisting her party's making a big mistake. None of this is too much of a drag on Obama at the moment. But come June 3--or thereabouts--Clinton is going to have to quit or fire off one helluva shot. Judgment Day is nearing.

I'm traveling today and may not be able to post. But don't worry nothing that happens in Kentucky or Oregon today will change anything. In fact, what I wrote below will only be more relevant, as Hillary Clinton moves (or is pushed) toward the moment when she will have to realize her dream is over (at least for now). With only two small states--Montana and South Dakota--and Puerto Rico left, what can she hope for? Not much, except a bolt out of the blue that renders Barack Obama undeniably unelectable. Her campaign is now a faith-based endeavor. She and her supporters (see below) ought to get on with the uncomfortable exercise of dealing with reality.

Okay, we have a new meme: women supporting Hillary Clinton are so pissed off they will not vote for Barack Obama in the fall against John McCain. The Washington Post gives this narrative front-page oomph with a story that focuses on several angry Democratic women voters--that is, three--including one who vows to vote for McCain instead of Obama. Anecdotal evidence aside, the story refers to a recent Post/ABC News poll that found that a quarter of Clinton supporters said they will vote for McCain over Obama (and a similar number of Obama supporters said they would do the same if Clinton won the nomination).

My hunch is that the passions--and acrimony--will cool down in the months ahead. But it's clear that there's been a messy patch of bad feelings generated on both sides of the black-versus-woman Democratic contest. (The Post recently reported on the blatant racism encountered by Obama campaign workers on the ground.) But these Democratic women who are disappointed that HRC will not become the breaker of the ultimate glass ceiling are going t have to get over it. The obvious point is, do they want to vote for a guy who will appoint Supreme Court justices likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, who recently voted against a bill that would remove restrictions on a woman's right to bring an equal pay lawsuit, and who will keep the Iraq war going and going and going?

And there's more. McCain has been disrespectful and misogynistic regarding Hillary Clinton, their champion. In an infamous incident during this campaign, he laughed along when a voter asked him, "How do we beat the bitch?" In fact, he replied, "That's an excellent question." See for yourself:

Ten years ago, he cracked a joke making fun of Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and Janet Reno that the Post dubbed "too vicious to print." Other major news outfits also refused to print or broadcast the joke, thus doing a disservice to the public by failing to show this nasty side of McCain. In that pre-YouTube era in Salon, I published the gag:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

Because her father is Janet Reno.

Kinda crude, right?

I know it's tough to be rejected. Most of us have been at some time. And, no doubt, some voices in the media have lashed out at Clinton for the wrong reasons, treating her unfairly because she's a dame. So gals for Clinton have cause to be mad and discouraged--and Obama will have to gently court this bloc. Yet ultimately these spurned voters will have to dump the anger and come to terms with the reality that politics, like life, often presents you with let-downs and imperfect choices. Sure, that may be easy for a guy to say. But if these women settle for an old fellow who laughs when Clinton is called a bitch, they're going to end up stuck in a bad relationship.

Please, President Bush, please attack me some more.

That must be what Barack Obama is thinking after Bush's speech in Jerusalem, during which the president blasted those who want to talk to America's enemies as appeasers. Forget that the policy substance of Bush's speech was illogical--or idiotic: Bush's own administration talks to North Korea's tyrants; his defense secretary, Bob Gates, has discussed engagement with Iran; his lead military and diplomatic people in Iraq have spoken with Iranians; the government he supports in Baghdad is in close contact with Iran; and significant members of Israel's national security community support talking to Hamas. But just on the politics, the speech was a boneheaded move that ought to make John McCain howl.

Bush is about as unpopular as a president can be. If Barack Obama could run against him, he would probably win by 80 points (or maybe a few points less than that). Consider what happened when the Republicans sent Dick Cheney to Mississippi to campaign for a Republican candidate in a special House election this week. Not only did the GOPer lose in this Republican stronghold, turnout was down in GOP precincts. Bush and Cheney are a pair of lame albatrosses for any Republican candidate in 2008, including McCain. Which is why Obama and the Democrats want to depict McCain as running for Bush's third term.

Casting McCain as the Spawn of Bush is not a slam-dunk. Though McCain has become a Bush clone on Iraq and the economy, he is quite different in character and biography than W. and boasts far more personal appeal. McCain also has that supposed maverick-thing to cite (Look--omigod--a Republican talking seriously about global warming!) So a day like yesterday was a boon for Obama. While McCain was giving a speech about what his presidency would look like--that is, if he had a magic wand (victory in Iraq, prosperity at home, lower health care costs for all!)--Bush was stealing the thunder by implicitly bashing Obama as an appeaser before a foreign audience. Such a stunt is toxic and perfect fodder for cable news.

Bush probably thought, "Well, I showed him." But any Bush versus Obama narrative assists Obama tremendously. Most Americans clearly would relish voting against Bush, were they able to. If Bush makes it seem that a vote for Obama is a vote against Bush, McCain is screwed.

You'd think the White House would be aware of this. But recognizing reality has never been this bunch's strong suit. After all, the White House thought it was a good idea to dispatch Cheney to help that faltering Republican in Mississippi. One question is, will McCain ask Bush to knock if off and lay low? Another is, if McCain does, will Bush listen? Whether most Americans like it or not--and they don't--Bush is still the president. And he's probably not eager to leave the White House on all fours or through the back door. Obama ought to try to exploit that, anything to provoke Bush. Obama should be saying to Bush, "Bring 'em on."

It's getting harder and harder to take John McCain seriously. In April, he said,

To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility. It is a failure of leadership.

On Thursday, he said in a speech that if he were elected,

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy.

That sure sounds like a promise to withdraw troops. Now, of course, McCain is asserting that his troop withdrawal will be the result of victory in Iraq. But how the hell can he make such a vow? In his speech--which lists all the wonderful things that will be achieved by 2013 if he becomes president--he doesn't say what he will do to attain this victory. Right now, it looks as if he's going to stick to the current policy. At least Richard Nixon, campaigning in 1968, indicated he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. And don't write in: I know Nixon never used the phrase "secret plan." A reporter devised the term, and Nixon never disabused the public of the notion. He, of course, had no such plan. And it's unclear whether McCain has a clue about what to do differently in Iraq in order to net different results than those already produced.

Meanwhile, at least one House Republican, looking to prevent a GOP electoral calamity in the fall, has said that the Republicans can't cling to Bush's Iraq war policy without being decimated in the coming congressional elections. After defeating a Republican primary opponent who had challenged his antiwar stance, Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina said it was time for his party to dump Bush on the war: "If this party does not look at options and figure out how to pursue those options, we're in real trouble."

McCain and his party are in a political quagmire. Forward-march rhetoric and hollow promises may not be enough to save them. As I've repeatedly said, the war will be back--as a political issue. And all indicators--including the GOP's three recent losses in congressional special elections held in Republican strongholds--now suggest that won't be to the Republicans' advantage.

What is she thinking?

That seems to be the question of the moment That is--even after her whopping (though irrelevant) win in West Virginia--why is Hillary Clinton fighting on after the bell has rung? And one new meme has developed: it's all about 2012.

Tom Edsall writes,

Under one scenario - Obama gets the nomination but loses to John McCain - Clinton could begin her 2012 campaign on November 5, 2008, as a vindicated politician, using the narrative that she was the better candidate.

And Charles Hurt of The New York Post notes:

With no hope of winning her party's nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton is running out the clock by laying the foundation for her political future, circa 2012. As she seems to float in and out of reality on the campaign trail, it is so easy to dismiss her as delusional. She is not.

I'm proud to be a founding member of this meme. Before Hurt and Edsall posted, I put up my own version of the this-is-all-about-2012 theory:

Why is Hillary Clinton still in the race?

....[C]ommentators have come up with several obvious explanations:

* She wants to remain in the hunt just in case something happens. (A video appears of Wright calling for armed revolution? Fox News produces Obama's Secret Muslim Membership card?)

* She is staying in for one last round of fundraising. (Her campaign is $20 million in debt and owes her $11 million.)

* She wants to end her historic campaign with a string of victories: West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. (Puerto Rico? She is a senator from New York.)

* And the most obvious of them all: she's not yet ready to face the music.

No doubt, a combo of these rationales is fueling Clinton's impossible ride. But let me add one more to the mix: Clinton is setting up the biggest I-told-you-so in recent American political history.

Assume Obama is the nominee and imagine that he loses to McCain in the fall. Where would that leave Clinton? She would be able to wag her finger at her party, and she wouldn't even have to say those haughty words. She and her die-hard confederates would be able to note simply and smugly, We did try to warn you. In the following four years, they would remind reporters, party leaders, Democratic voters, and everyone else, over and over, that they had said that Obama was unelectable, that they had said he could not win blue-collar (that is, white) voters. This Clinton chorus would not cease singing this song for a nanosecond. Can't you just see Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe lecturing cable news hosts on this point? Hiding their schadenfreude--just barely--they would note that they had won the fundamental argument of 2008: who understands American voters the best? And in this scenario, Hillary Clinton would be well-positioned for 2012. In fact, she would have such bragging rights as to be able to question any other Democrat's entry into the presidential contest. She might even expect the party this time to hand her the nomination on a platter--accompanied with one big apology.

....By staying in the race, Clinton has been--and will be--able to pocket more of those blue-collar voters. And with a decisive win in Puerto Rico on June 1, she could cut into Obama's edge in the popular vote. Even if she has no shot at coaxing superdelegates with her blue-collar argument, she will be bolstering her you-should've-listened-to-me argument, in case the voters in the general election send Obama packing.

So are the clever, cunning and never-say-die Clintons already calculating an alternative path to the White House, a course that will take another four and a half years? And is it an insult or a compliment to suggest they are? Such a plan--or is it a scheme?--would entail that Hillary Clinton not bloody Obama much more, for that would risk alienating certain Democratic voters (most notably, blacks) even more than they have been. And for this strategy to work, she will have to be seen--after an Obama defeat--as having done all she could for him in the general election.

The good news for Obama-lovers and Hillary-haters: her presidential ambitions (for 2012, not 2008) offer an incentive for her to be a gracious loser and an enthusiastic Obama supporter once she withdraws from the nomination race. The bad news? if her calculations are right, she may be out of the presidential race for only a few months and then back in for another four years.

Tell me what you think in the comments below. And read my full piece here.

Not every primary matters. Especially West Virginia.

Before Election Day had even arrived, Barack Obama gave an upbeat speech there in which he conceded that Hillary Clinton had more support in the state, and she appeared at a campaign rally and spoke of her win to come, but in not-so-jubilant terms. Yes, the loser was upbeat, the winner reserved. That's because the outcome was practically irrelevant. Up to now in the 2008 campaign, it seemed that just about each new primary was significant. First, there was the upset in Iowa. Then the comeback in New Hampshire. Next, Nevada and South Carolina and the states of Super Tuesday showed the race was competitive. After that, Obama tore through a winning streak that HRC did not slow until Ohio and Texas. This led to the battle of Pennsylvania. She won that contest, but her victory there ended up not meaning a lot when she failed to stomp Obama in Indiana and he creamed her in North Carolina.

A lot of states have played crucial roles in this nominating contest--far more so than in the Republican race--but the remaining primaries are unimportant. The results in these contests cannot change the fact that Obama has pocketed more voter-determined delegates than Clinton, and that fact apparently is pushing several superdelegates each day to declare their loyalty to Obama.

It's not unusual for a primary not to matter. In previous elections, candidates often skipped territory not deemed favorable to them. And late states often have had little impact. This year shows that it's hard to know in advance which states and which period will be crucial. Who'd thought that those medium-sized, in-the-middle-of-the-calendar states would be so important? But that was where and when Obama gathered momentum and vacuumed up a bunch of delegates.

So nothing against West Virginians, but, like voters in late states of previous contests, they don't have much of a say in who will be the Democratic nominee. And neither will Kentuckians, who next week are likely to tilt toward Clinton, while Oregonians near-coronate Obama. The Democratic primary, as red-hot as any recent primary contest, is petering out. Seemingly with a whimper, rather than a bang. Which is a good thing. Clinton at the moment seems to be coasting, not calculating how best to destroy Obama. After the intensity of the past few months, she may need an exit strategy that entails a gradual withdrawal and lets her retreat with a few more battlefield victories. As long as she doesn't use these weeks to scorch Obama, her continued presence in the race won't have any long-term impact.

It's true, as I've noted elsewhere, that her wins in the remaining primary only have consequence if she intends to mount a full-throttle campaign to persuade superdelegates to vote for her against the will of the primary and caucus voters. But her dream of triumphing via the insiders appears to be fading quickly. So West Virginia, Kentucky, and the few other primaries left--it's all for show. The only victories she can earn at this point are hollow ones.

In a speech scheduled for Monday afternoon, John McCain will essentially say, "President Bush screwed up on global warming." From the prepared text:

As president...I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges....The United States will lead and will lead with...an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation.

That sure sounds as if McCain thinks Bush was a shirker. Now did he say that during the GOP primaries? I don't recall him doing so. Wonder why he didn't blast Bush on global warming when he was courting Republican voters?

Now that McCain is fishing for independent and moderate voters in the general election, he's touting his global warming position, which is rather enlightened for a Republican. But as my colleague Jonathan Stein points out, McCain's environmental record is hardly all green. His lifetime voting record from the League of Conservation Voters: 24 percent.

A few weeks ago, I published a story that reported on how McCain sabotaged his own global warming bill in the Senate by attaching to it billions of dollars in tax subsidies for the nuclear energy industry. Even though many people--including his own environmental policy aide--warned him that doing so would do in his bill, the Senate's first attempt to redress global warming, McCain stubbornly insisted on the nuclear subsidies. Well, the warnings were right. The subsidies sank the bill. McCain's attempt to craft a legislative remedy for global warming fizzled. He then passed the buck to other senators. No doubt, he does feel strongly about the need to address climate change. Yet in that episode he was his own worst enemy. Read the full story here.

At least one conservative Republican has come out and said that John McCain ought to denounce the Reverend Rod Parsley for his extreme anti-Islam rhetoric, and that's James Pinkerton, with whom I regularly appear on Bloggingheads.tv. Pinkerton, who was a domestic policy adviser for the first President Bush and who advised Mike Huckabee during his recent GOP presidential primary contest, says that McCain should reject the endorsement he's accepted from Parsley, a pastor at an Ohio megachurch who has said that it is the historic mission of the United States to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed."

For more on Parsley's anti-Islam ranting and to see the reverend in his full anti-Islam glory, click here for the video of Parsley's attack on Islam that was produced by Mother Jones and Brave New Films.

Up to now, McCain has steadfastly refused to renounce Parsley, an influential political force in the swing state of Ohio. Doing so could seriously hurt McCain's chances in the Buckeye State. So Pinkerton shouldn't expect McCain to heed his advice. Here's Pinkerton and I discussing the matter:

This was first posted at MotherJones.com

Regular readers will know that I've been on top of John McCain for not renouncing the Reverend Rod Parsley, a fundamentalist preacher who has endorsed McCain and who has called on the United States to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed." I was the first reporter to note that Parsley was an anti-Islam extremist. I did so after finding harsh and derogatory statements about Islam in his 2005 book, Silent No More. But after Parsley's bigoted attacks on all Islam--not just Islamic extremists--were exposed, McCain refused to criticize Parsley or reject Parsley's endorsement. His campaign would not even take a phone call from me. It obviously wanted the matter to disappear, for Parsley is an important piece of the campaign's effort to win the key swing state of Ohio, where Parsley leads a megachurch and is an influential player who can drive tens of thousands of social conservatives to the polls. Before the Ohio primary, McCain and Parsley had campaigned together in Cincinnati. And the McCain campaign, no doubt, looked forward to doing the same during the general election. Thus, it was all mum on Parsley.

But there's more than Parsley's book excerpts for the campaign to dodge. I recently obtained from Parsley's church a DVD of a sermon he gave--titled, "Islam: The Deception of Allah"--in which he reiterated and amplified the anti-Islam rhetoric in his book. Joining up with Brave New Films, Mother Jones has produced a video showing Parsley in all his anti-Islam glory and McCain heaping praise on him at a campaign rally in February. Here it is:

This is not a game of gotcha politics. Consider this: what message does it send to the Muslim world if McCain requests and accepts the support of a fellow who wants to eradicate Islam and also praises him as a "moral compass," "great leader," and "spiritual guide"? It shouldn't be tough for McCain to repudiate Parsley and his statements. Yet apparently it is, for he is placing politics ahead of straight talk.

For more on Parsley's videotaped sermon, click here.

Here's a posting I put up at the Mother Jones blog:

The morning after, the Clinton crew was unbowed. As Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night was being creamed by Barack Obama in North Carolina and eking out a narrow victory in Indiana, pundits throughout Cable News Land were pronouncing her dead, dead, dead. Tim Russert said the race was over. But when a reporter on the campaign's morning conference call, asked Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, if there had been "any discussions about not going forward," he said, "No discussions." And he seemed to mean it.

On the call, Wolfson, deputy communications director Phil Singer, and chief strategist Geoff Garin were forward-looking. They claimed to be "happy" about the 1.8-percent win in Indiana--but without sounding at all jubilant about the squeaker. As for North Carolina--where she lost by 14 points--they claimed "progress" there and pointed to the fact that she beat Obama among white voters by 24 points (as if the increasing racial polarization within the Democratic primary electorate is something to celebrate). They acknowledged that Clinton had in recent weeks loaned her campaign nearly $6.5 million--and claimed it was a sign of her commitment to moving ahead and, of course, fighting for real people. They repeated the campaign's call to seat the disputed delegations of Florida and Michigan, and they indicated they were ready to rumble in the upcoming primaries. Voters in those states, Garin said, should be given the ability "to express their voice." He added, "All we are doing is suggesting the process ought to play out."

In other words, damn the pundits, full speed ahead. It appeared that Clinton--faced with three alternatives: fighting on as if nothing has changed, dropping out, or planning a graceful exit strategy--has for the time being settled on option one.

But the voyage got a lot rockier after Indiana and North Carolina. As the cable news analysts pointed out, it is now practically a mathematical certainty that Obama will end the primaries next month with a lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote, even if the results in Florida and Michigan are included. So Clinton has run out of metrics. The days of fuzzy math are over. There will be no measure by which she will be able to argue she is the voters' choice. All the campaign is left with is an opinion: Clinton can do better than Obama against John McCain in the fall. Clinton and her lieutenants do have stats to cite, notably her performance among working-class voters (meaning, white working-class voters). She has demonstrated, Wolfson maintained on the call, "a proven ability" to win over these voters, while Obama has not. This is, he added, "the crux of the argument" that the Clinton campaign will be making to the superdelegates. And in the next primary states--West Virginia (May 13), Kentucky (May 20), Oregon (May 20)--Clinton will try to show once more that she fares better among lunch-pail Democrats.

So now Clinton, who passionately insists that democracy demands that the Florida and Michigan contest be counted and that voters in the last few states be granted the opportunity to state their preferences, is left with nothing but the most elitist of strategies: she must convince party insiders--the 300 or so not-yet-committed superdelegates--to vote against the popular will of the voters who participated in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. On the conference call, I asked Garin whether his campaign is essentially stuck with a "nullification strategy." He disputed his campaign's game plan was anything like a "nullification strategy." All delegates--pledged delegates and superdelegates--have "equal moral weight in the process," he said, and the rules of the party "anticipate there will be delegates" who will make "good faith decisions."

That is so. But for Clinton to win, these superdelegates will have to say that they know better than the voters. It is certainly permissible under Democratic Party rules. But might such an action blow apart the party? There is no way for the Clinton campaign to orchestrate this strategy politely or calmly and wrap it up quickly after the primaries conclude on June 3. After all, no superdelegate commitment is solid until he or she actually votes at the convention. Even if Clinton is able to sway enough superdelegates and win the necessary number of commitments, Obama will not fold his tent and accept this as a deal done. He would fight for those superdelegates and, if need be, fight the process. There would be a bloody battle from early June until the first ballot at the convention in late August. Nullification cannot be accomplished neatly. Clinton and her crew must realize that.

I asked Garin if he foresaw any problem if the candidate with the most pledged delegates and the most popular votes was not chosen at the convention. "When we get to June 3, we'll have a very close result," he said. "This might raise the question of how close is close." He didn't answer the question.

Right now, the Clintonites are saying they're not bailing. But in for a penny, in for a pound. The only way she can triumph is by first persuading superdelegates to vote against the wishes of primary voters and caucus-goers and by then mounting an ugly fight that will last for months until the convention--a fight that would likely create consequences that would resonate far beyond the convention.

It may be full speed ahead for Clinton and her gang, but that's only because her finger is on the button and she is considering pushing it.

"We now know who the Democratic nominee will be." That's what Tim Russert said shortly after midnight on Wednesday, even while telection-watchers all over the world were waiting for the final results in Indiana. He was writing off Hillary Clinton. Done. Finished. Kaput. Whether she knew it or not.

A close win or a loss in Indiana, coupled with a resounding defeat in North Carolina, indicates that Clinton, Queen of Pennsylvania, is now the candidate losing altitude. The recent polls all showed her ahead by a decent margin in Indiana and closing in North Carolina. If those polls were on target, then somehow Barack Obama managed a late surge in both states.

But are Russert and the other pundits penning Clinton's obit prematurely? Does she have no choice but to say good-bye? She and her campaign aides immediately went into huddle mode--she canceled her appearances on the morning shows--in order to decide what to do now, as their cable news surrogates continued to talk up her chances in the coming primaries.

Given that it is likely that Clinton and her crew have not yet reached any decisions, a reporter or pundit can only at this point hazard a guess. And I would not count her out so quickly. Not that she has a chance. As the cable news analysts pointed out repeatedly on Tuesday night, Obama was racking up more delegates and more popular votes--further undermining any argument Clinton might be able to make to the superdelegates. But as I've noted before, the lesson the Clintons learned during the impeachment episode was this: no matter how bad it gets, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and ignore those calling for you to quit. The Clintons have defied the pundits before. They may give it another stab.

Will Indiana and North Carolina decide anything? In all likelihood, no. If Barack Obama were to cream Hillary Clinton in both states, there would be more pressure on Clinton to quit. But (a) that electoral prospect does not seem likely, given the direction of the recent polls in each state and (b) Clinton would still not leave the race. She would keep on going, hoping for another Reverend Wright-like development that would cripple Obama.

And if Clinton manages to win each primary--and a victory for her in North Carolina is way against the odds--there's no way Obama, who will maintain a lead in pledged delegates--will bow out. If there's a split--the likeliest of the possibilities--nothing really changes. Obama will argue that the math (and the pledged delegate count) remains on his side; Clinton will argue that Obama did not close the deal with Indianans, so she must press on.

That is, Obama will continue to have the better argument. After all, if Clinton were to apply her campaign's spin on Obama to her own campaign, she would have to concede that she has not closed the deal with a greater number of voters in Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Clinton is also heading toward a profound contradiction. In recent weeks, she has tried to depict Obama as an elitist and position herself as a pro-democracy populist. On the gas tax holiday, she's down with the people, who are hurt by high gasoline prices, while Obama is in league with "elite opinion" and--egads!--economists, who all are, no doubt, driving around in limos and laughing at the plight of working people. (Pass the Grey Poupon!) She and her lieutenants also constantly call for seating the Michigan and Florida delegations so that the votes of the people in those states count. And they insist that it's good for democracy for Clinton to remain in the race, for the voters in the upcoming states with primaries (and Puerto Rico) deserve a chance to participate. She's Hillary of the people and for the people.

But her ultimate strategy is one of utter elitism. She hopes to be able to persuade the non-elected superdelegates to support her and provide her the edge that trumps Obama's lead in delegates determined by the voters. So who's the real populist here? The candidate who wants the nomination to be decided by the voters, or the candidate who prays party insiders will determine the race against the will of the actual voters? Clinton the Populist is all for empowering the voters of Michigan and Florida and those in the upcoming states--all to keep alive her prospects of winning over the party elite. Once the primaries are done, the people won't matter for her.

How will she make that pivot? No doubt, with confidence and vigor, and without acknowledging the pivot. Her campaign is not about adherence to consistent principles. It's about winning. And when the primaries are done--and one day, they will be done--she will have to decide how far she is willing to go to undo the votes of the people.

During a conference call with reporters on Sunday, Clinton officials kept whacking Barack Obama for opposing Clinton's proposed gas tax holiday, insisting this was evidence that Obama just doesn't get it and is out of touch with common Americans. Clinton herself on Sunday compared Obama's opposition to the gas tax suspension to the opposition emanating from "elite opinion"--in what seemed to be an attempt to ignite an intra-party class war: I'm with the people; he's with the elites. And on the conference call, Phil Singer, the deputy communications director for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said that Obama

is not connecting with working class voters, real people and we think that's a problem in this election but its also going to be a problem for him going forward if he is the nominee.

Wait-a-minute. Was Singer suggesting that those voters who have voted for Obama--Democrats, independents, and Republicans--are not "real people?" Was he putting down the 15 million or so voters who have cast their ballot for Obama?

Clinton has been credibly accused of once having said "screw 'em," in reference to working-class white voters. But now that her campaign in recent primaries has fared well among this bloc of voters, she is going all-out to woo 'em and to elevate them to the most important group of voters in the entire universe. At the same time, Hillary and her lieutenants are arguing that Obama is too elite (or effete?) to bond with these voters.

There's no doubt that blue-collar voters are important to the electoral prospects of Democrats. Ronald Reagan reigned because he was able to swipe these folks from the Democratic coalition. And Richard Nixon had his successful "Southern strategy," which depended on playing to the racial fears of white working-class voters. But this does not mean that the other parts of the coalition are not "real." Singer and the Clintonites are pushing GOP talking points (about "San Francisco Democrats" and the rest) when they suggest that only the blue-collar Dems are "real" people.

There are millions of Democrats--including many middle-class voters--who have supported Obama. And just as the Dems may not be able to win in November without blue-collar voters on their side, the same can be said about African-American voters. What if pissed-off black voters stay home in Cleveland and Philadelphia? Could a Democratic nominee win Ohio and Pennsylvania? Of course not. They're no less "real" than the Deerhunter voters of Pennsylvania.

Millions of Americans--millions of Democrats--see Obama as a leader and an inspiration. Clinton and her crew ought to be careful in dismissing them as not the real thing. If she somehow manages to win the nomination--which can only happen if she destroys Obama and then persuades superdelegates to overturn the primary and caucus results--she will need these not-so-real voters in the general election.

Elsewhere I recently wondered whether Barack Obama is slipping. And I observed that though recent poll numbers suggest bad news for him, it's hard to suss out the connection between the campaign narrative in the national news media (Reverend Wright! "Bitter" voters!) and how voters in Indiana and North Carolina decide for whom to vote.

No doubt realizing that a viewer of cable news shows might believe that Obama has lost altitude, the Obama campaign on Friday morning sent an email to political reporters (who tend to watch cable news shows) displaying various pages in Indiana that morning. Each newspaper presented stories that come across as favorable to Obama. Here they are:

Now there are few Indianans who read each of the four newspapers. But the overall impression one would get from these reports is that Obama ain't doing too bad. It's certainly a different take on the campaign than that presented within the national political media. And far more Indianans look at these front pages than watch Hardball.

But what about those tough polling numbers for Obama in Indiana? I suppose the best that can be said is that, one way or another, they won't matter after the votes are counted on Tuesday.

AN OSCAR FOR MOTHER JONES. Well not an Oscar, but an Ellie--which is the equivalent of an Oscar in the magazine business. On Thursday night, Mother Jones, my home base, won a National Magazine Award for general excellence. That's like picking up the Best Picture prize. My congratulations to editors-in-chief Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, publisher Jay Harris, and all the staffers who put in long hours to produce the magazine. Please remember to check out our daily website.

Quick--name an official task that was Hillary Clinton's responsibility last time she was in the White House? The answer is obvious: health care. It was a top priority for the Bill Clinton administration in the first years of his presidency. And he handed the mission to his two-for-the-price-of-one First Lady.

What happened next? We all know: an unmitigated disaster that set the cause of health care reform back for years. Hillary Clinton and her top advisers--in proceedings marked by secrecy and we-know-best arrogance--cooked up a plan that no one could understand. They bent over backward to accommodate the corporate community and miscalculated: Big Business ended up opposing the plan. And the common folks who the plan was supposed to help couldn't comprehend it--which meant they (and their elected representatives) could not fight effectively for it.

Flash forward to 2008. Clinton is fighting for her political life in a fierce battle with Barack Obama. She's pandering on gas prices, she's suggesting that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, she's pouncing on a remark he made to suggest he's an elitist, she's making a big deal out of his past relationship with a onetime 70s radical, she's accusing him of not being committed to withdrawing from Iraq, she's pushing reporters to dwell upon Obama's friendship with a developer indicted on corruption charges, she's pondering how to game the delegate system. And her latest ad in North Carolina, which holds an important primary on Tuesday, she repeats her claim that she is the candidate who can make change happen.

In the ad, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, a Clinton supporter, says:

These are tough times in America and I think that Hillary is the one we can count on to get the job done. She's going to turn the economy around, she's going bring new jobs, she's going to get some tax cuts for the middle class for a change. She's going to make health care available to everybody in this country, and she's going to do everything she can to help every child reach their full potential. She is so resilient, so determined. She knows how to deliver.

To which anyone with a skeptical view (and a memory) might say, "Hillarycare." Sure, she's racked up a few accomplishments as a senator. But she failed miserably on the biggest task she has ever assumed. She didn't get that job done; she botched it. True, it was a tough assignment, and the odds were against her. But if she's making promises now, her first attempt to "make health care available to everybody in this country" is relevant. (More relevant than the issue of her laugh.) Well, maybe she can get the job done on the second time around. Older and wiser, and all that. But her early-90s failure was one reason why health care disappeared as a political issue for so long. That's a reality that present-day campaign rhetoric can be measured against.