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

WHO'LL STOP THE PAIN?
(John Heilemann, New York)
Two months have passed since Edwards dropped out—tempus fugit!—and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate. The implications of this story are several and not insignificant... It bears on the questions du jour among Democrats who see their once-uplifting primary campaign descending into self-destructive mayhem: How can we put this thing to bed? How can Clinton be stopped from putting the party through three more months of hell? Where are those vaunted “party elders” who can convince her that it’s sayonara time?

NEW BACKING FOR OBAMA AS PARTY SEEKS UNITY
(Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal)
Slowly but steadily, a string of Democratic Party figures is taking Barack Obama's side in the presidential nominating race and raising the pressure on Hillary Clinton to give up. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say. Helping to drive the endorsements is a fear that the Obama-Clinton contest has grown toxic and threatens the Democratic Party's chances against Republican John McCain in the fall.

MORE: Superdelegates: A Guide to the Undecided (Avi Zenilman, Politico) 

SHOULD CLINTON DROP OUT?
The New Republic says yes: When Obama or Clinton eventually claims this nomination--and it increasingly looks like that won't happen until June--he or she will have only a short time to formulate general-election narratives; the period for testing arguments and laying groundwork will be impossibly compressed. And that compression will prove especially problematic on issues, such as national security, on which Democrats must tack back to the center. When a candidate prepares policies and rhetoric for the fall, it's clearly better to do it in subtle, little nibbles rather than grotesquely large bites. But, with Clinton and Obama fighting for the allegiance of liberal-minded primary voters, they won't make these important adjustments for months. All of which is to say that it's about time for the Democratic Party to panic. If it wants to win this election, it needs this race to end as soon as possible. Every day spent on the primaries represents an opportunity cost and diminishes the chances for ultimate victory.

The Washington Post says no: No doubt the Democrats have gotten themselves into a fix with rules that may leave the final decision to unelected superdelegates -- but why is the answer to that less democracy? Why not give as many voters as possible a chance? We understand Democrats' concern that Mr. McCain benefits most as their candidates tear each other down. Recent polls show the favorable ratings of both Democratic candidates declining, Ms. Clinton's more than Mr. Obama's. Making the case that you're better qualified inevitably involves, to some extent, explaining that the other candidate is less so. But instead of continuing to blur the line between civil discourse and destructive denunciations, the candidates and their campaigns could talk more substance... The list of issues to hash out is endless, and doing so in polite political combat could produce a stronger Democratic candidate for the fall and a better-informed electorate.

BARE-KNUCKLE POLITICS
(Andrew Gumble, Los Angeles Times)
On every occasion in American history when the race for the White House has been close enough to be contested, the candidate with fewer votes has prevailed... Given this long history of dogged, dirty, win-at-any-cost electioneering, Clinton's determination to keep fighting in the face of seemingly insurmountable electoral arithmetic makes a lot more sense. When her surrogates argue that carrying big states such as California and Ohio is more important than being ahead in the overall popular vote, or when they argue that pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, they are following a well-worn playbook compiled by both parties down through the years -- which is to say and do anything that might push your candidate ahead. In the end, the key to winning is not the number of votes but the efficacy of a candidate's political campaign.

PROJECT TRINITY
(Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker)
It seems apt that an American pastor who was eager to discover his African past should have crossed paths with a community organizer of Kenyan (and Kansan) descent, who was eager to discover his American future. If Obama felt attacked by Wright’s stormy sermons and prickly politics, he may also have felt flattered to be part of a congregation rooted in the righteous history of a civil-rights struggle that he himself had missed, except as a beneficiary. Nor was the decision tojoin innocent of strategic calculation. In “Dreams from My Father,” Obama seems to worry that the church’s reputation could be a professional liability. “Some people say that the church is too upwardly mobile,” he told Wright during their first meeting... Audacious hopefulness is sometimes said to be the thing that separates Obama from more conventional politicians, but it is also what separates him from the radicals who have given it up. (The Back to Africa movement-echoed in Wright's Afro-centric approach to Christianity-was, in part, a politics of resignation, fuelled by a sense that America would never be truly hospitable to blacks.) Hope is proof that Obama believes in the system, after all... Wright's hope is a different thing... For Wright, earthly adversity and the struggle against it are existential. If he thinks that things haven’t changed much in the past hundred years, it’s because he thinks that things haven’t changed much in the past two thousand years. You don’t hope because the odds look good. You hope because they don’t.

MORE: Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race (New York Times)

OBAMA, MCCAIN FORGED FLEETING ALLIANCE
(Paul Kane, Washington Post)
A year into his tenure on Capitol Hill, Barack Obama (D-Ill.) approached John McCain on the Senate floor to propose the two work together on a lobbying and ethics reform bill. The four-term Arizona Republican, 25 years Obama's senior, quickly saw a willing apprentice to help shake up the way business was done on Capitol Hill... Instead, what began as a promising collaboration between two men bent on burnishing their reformist credentials collapsed after barely a week... McCain's backers view it as emblematic of Obama's ability to talk grand ideas and aspirations, but also of his ultimate failure to produce substantive results. Obama's supporters contend that the moment was vintage Obama, with the newcomer defusing the feud with a cool demeanor that allowed him to claim the high ground while rolling up his sleeves to eventually help pass a broader ethics overhaul bill in August 2007.

OBAMA HAD GREATER ROLE ON LIBERAL SURVEY
(Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico)
During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion– positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he’s projected during his presidential campaign. The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.  Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire.  They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize(d) his position.”  But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago non-profit group that issued it. And it found that Obama – the day after sitting for the interview – filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes adding to one answer.

MCCAIN FACES TEST IN WOOING ELITE DONORS
(Michael Luo and Griff Palmer, New York Times)
Building up his fund-raising apparatus is essential at this point for Mr. McCain, who struggled for much of last year to raise money. To prevail in the general election, he will need to raise substantial amounts of cash to cut into the vast fund-raising edge the Democratic presidential candidates have shown over the Republicans this election cycle. Even though he all but secured the Republican nomination by mid-February, Mr. McCain has so far managed to enlist only a fraction of the heavyweight bundlers of campaign contributions who helped drive President Bush’s two runs for the White House, an examination of Mr. McCain’s fund-raising network shows. Well over half of the top fund-raisers for Mr. Bush, who raised a record $274 million for him in the 2004 primary season, stayed on the sidelines through this year’s Republican nominating contests. Others wound up working for Rudolph W. Giuliani, who signed up the most top Bush fund-raisers, and Mitt Romney, who had about the same number as Mr. McCain.