A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

FINDING POLITICAL STRENGTH IN THE POWER OF WORDS
(Alec MacGillis, Washington Post)
Not since the days of the whistle-stop tour and the radio addresses that Franklin D. Roosevelt used to hone his message while governor of New York has a presidential candidate been propelled so much by the force of words, according to historians and experts on rhetoric. Obama's emergence as the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination has become nearly as much a story of his speeches as of the candidate himself. He arrived on the national scene with his address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his campaign's key turning points have nearly all involved speeches, and his supporters are eager for his election-night remarks nearly as much as for the vote totals. But his success as a speaker has also invited a new line of attack by his opponents.

MORE: Obama and the Power of Words (Stephen Hayes, Wall Street Journal)
In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously." Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama?

FINGER-POINTING, FRUSTRATING IN CLINTON CAMP
(Mike Allen and John F. Harris, Politico)
Looking backward, interviews with a cross-section of campaign aides and sympathetic outsiders suggest a team consumed with frustration and finger-pointing about the apparent failure of several recent tactical moves against Barack Obama. Looking forward, it is clear Clinton’s team has only a faint and highly improvisational strategy about what to do over the next seven days. Simply put, there is no secret weapon. 

PIECES OF TEXAS TURN PRIMARY INTO A PUZZLE
(Randy Kennedy, New York Times)
“It’s like running a national campaign,” said one veteran Texas Democrat, Garry Mauro, state director for Mrs. Clinton. “There are no similarities between Amarillo and Brownsville and Beaumont and Texarkana and El Paso and Austin and Houston and Dallas. These are very separate demographic groups with very diverse interests.” ... With recent polls showing that Mr. Obama has cut deeply into Mrs. Clinton’s lead in Texas, or even erased it, the state has become a political battleground to a degree not witnessed in a generation. And the rapidly mounting fight has reminded national political strategists yet again of Texas’ strange largeness — or large strangeness — a state that Congress decided in 1845, the year it joined the Union, might well be later divided into four more states should it consent.

OBAMA'S SUPPORT GROWS BROADER, NEW POLL FINDS
(Robin Toner and Dalia Sussman, New York Times)
After 40 Democratic primaries and caucuses, capped by a winning streak in 11 contests over the last two weeks, Mr. Obama has made substantial gains across most major demographic groups in the Democratic Party, including men and women, liberals and moderates, higher and lower income voters, and those with and without college degrees. But there are signs of vulnerability for Mr. Obama, of Illinois, in this national poll: While he has a strong edge among Democratic voters on his ability to unite and inspire the country, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is still viewed by more Democrats as prepared for the job of president. And while he has made progress among women, he still faces a striking gender gap: Mr. Obama is backed by two-thirds of the Democratic men and 45 percent of the women, who are equally divided in their support between the two candidates. White women remain a Clinton stronghold.

CLINTON CAMPAIGN STARTS 5-POINT ATTACK ON OBAMA
(Patrick Healy and Julie Bosman, New York Times)
After struggling for months to dent Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy, the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now unleashing what one Clinton aide called a “kitchen sink” fusillade against Mr. Obama, pursuing five lines of attack since Saturday in hopes of stopping his political momentum. The effort underscores not only Mrs. Clinton’s recognition that the next round of primaries — in Ohio and Texas on March 4 — are must-win contests for her. It also reflects her advisers’ belief that they can persuade many undecided voters to embrace her at the last minute by finally drawing sharply worded, attention-grabbing contrasts with Mr. Obama. 

MORE: Clinton Strategy Quandary: Aggressor or Underdog? (Amy Chozick, Wall Street Journal)
Lately Sen. Hillary Clinton has appeared on the campaign trail as alternately a compassionate underdog who lavishes praise on her rival and an aggressive opponent on the attack. For what could be the most important debate in her political career tonight in Cleveland, her campaign may need to choose which approach will best convince voters to look past Sen. Barack Obama's momentum at the polls.

OBAMA STIFFS, STIFLES NATIONAL PRESS
(Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico)
For all the positive press Barack Obama receives, as he moves closer to clinching the Democratic nomination he is establishing himself as the candidate who keeps the most distance from the national media.  Reporters covering Obama can no longer move freely among the thousands of zealous supporters at his events — unless the reporter receives a staff escort through the security gates... And the traveling press corps has been shut out of monitoring Obama's satellite interviews with local media outlets, which is a normal practice on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign.  On top of that, the traveling media has been tussling with Obama aides to keep conversations with the candidate on his campaign plane on the record. In any other campaign year, the media strategy might not raise eyebrows since it is standard practice for a frontrunner. But this is a year when the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, has set a new standard for press accessibility, creating a potentially stark general election contrast between a reticent Democrat and the most accessible GOP nominee in decades.

THE REAL MCCAIN
(David Brooks, New York Times)
Over the course of his career, McCain has tried to do the impossible. He has challenged the winds of the money gale. He has sometimes failed and fallen short. And there have always been critics who cherry-pick his compromises, ignore his larger efforts and accuse him of being a hypocrite. This is, of course, the gospel of the mediocre man: to ridicule somebody who tries something difficult on the grounds that the effort was not a total success. But any decent person who looks at the McCain record sees that while he has certainly faltered at times, he has also battled concentrated power more doggedly than any other legislator. If this is the record of a candidate with lobbyists on his campaign bus, then every candidate should have lobbyists on the bus. And here’s the larger point: We’re going to have two extraordinary nominees for president this year. This could be one of the great general election campaigns in American history. The only thing that could ruin it is if the candidates become demagogues and hurl accusations at each other that are an insult to reality and common sense.