DENVER--The official theme of last night's festivities, according to the Democratic National Committee, was "Securing America's Future." But "Changing the Subject" is a more accurate description of what went down here in Denver.

Unless you've been living in a steel-encased hyperbaric capsule embedded in the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, you're probably aware that for the first three days of the convention the media has focused most of its time, talent and money on the "conflict" between Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Nevermind that that actual conflict is rather minimal--a molehill being sold as a mountain, as I wrote on Monday.

Since the opening gavel, we've been treated to stories on the "heated" negotiations over Wednesday's roll-call vote, the speech-related "tensions" between Bill and Obama, the "struggle" of Hillary dead-enders to accept her loss and, of course, the hidden meaning of HRC's "very limited hand gestures." Cable news-chatterers like Keith Olbermann and Wolf Blitzer were happy to spend hours "analyzing" whether the Dems were "being too soft on McCain" and "obscuring Obama's message"--at the same time, incidentally, that a parade of Democratic governors, senators and congressmen were whacking McCain and delivering Chicago's economic talking points up on stage. As NEWSWEEK's Jeremy McCarter wrote in these pages, "the resulting coverage had about as much connection to what happened onstage last night as NBC's Olympics coverage would have had if Bob Costas had spent two full weeks asking other sportscasters how they feel about the shot put." By Wednesday morning, no one would've been surprised to read in the New York Times that Hillary had secretly "delivered [a] non-endorsement [of Obama] by blinking it in morse code."

Thank goodness, then, for last night's marquee speakers: Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and--most surprisingly--John Kerry. In the days leading up to Denver, much of the punditocracy predicted that Bill--physically incapable, according to them, of conveying anything but utter disdain for Obama--would spend his speech indulging in yet another homage to Hillary's historic near-nomination and reminding everyone of what an awesome president he was. They forgot, it seems, that they were talking about the preeminent political tactician of the last 20 years. The only moment of blatant self-regard in Bill's speech--saying "I love this" when the crowd greeted him with three minutes of sustained applause and frantic flag-waving--was unscripted, and in its puppyish earnestness, endearing. Relying on meaty paragraphs rather than easy applause lines, the rest of his remarks were about Obama--or, more accurately, they were about framing the election as a choice between the Democrat who will "lead us away from division and fear of the last eight years, back to unity and hope" and the Republican who "still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years." Bill went far further than Hillary in describing why Obama himself--and not just any old Dem--would make a better president than John McCain, praising the Illinois senator's "intelligence and curiosity" where Hillary praised his party affiliation. And because there was still a "hint of jealously and rue" in Bill's voice, as NEWSWEEK's Howard Fineman wrote last night, his compliments sounded completely convincing. He hadn't been force-fed or coaxed or cajoled. He wasn't just doing his duty. You got the sense, rather, than Clinton really (if begrudgingly) respects Obama, another Democrat said to be "too young and too inexperienced," for outwitting him--even if he hasn't completely "gotten over" the first loss of his career. Ultimately, the "surprising" warmth of Bill's speech was irresistible storyline for a press corps seduced into expecting too little from him; and oddly enough, their resulting raves have, at long last, shifted the spotlight away from the Clintons. "Now eyes turn, and finally, to Obama," wrote Peggy Noonan in the morning's Wall Street Journal. "This was one of the great tee-ups."

The primary purpose of Biden's speech was to focus those eyes where Chicago wants them to focus: on the economy. Peppered with references to his middle-class roots in Scranton, Penn. and Wilmington, Del. and his elderly mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden--who taught him to respond to bullies by "bloody[ing] their nose so you can walk down the street the next day," and exclaimed "That's true!" when her son mentioned the episode on stage--the first section of Biden's acceptance address was the strongest. In it, the Delaware senator continued to cast himself as a blue-collar average Joe, precision-calibrated to "feel the pain" of the struggling American family; channeling their concerns into a fanciful collage of kitchen-table conversations. "Should mom move in with us now that dad is gone?" he asked. "Fifty, sixty, seventy dollars just to fill up the gas tank?" The goal, of course, is to convince wary "white ethnic" voters that Biden is one of them (sources say that Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden is an Irish-Catholic name), and then to let Biden convince them that the guy at the top of the ticket isn't a total space alien. As former Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet notes, "he presented resilience as the great story of his own life, the great virtue of working Americans, and the great goal of an Obama-Biden administration." It's too early to say whether the strategy is succeeding. But last night, the power of his personal narrative, and the media's curiosity about what sort of sidekick he'll be. was more than enough to move the ball beyond the Clintons--for good.

Speaking before Bill and Biden, Kerry wasn't broadcast on the cable news channels. But his may have been the most impressive performance of the three. When the Massachusetts senator and failed 2004 nominee started speaking, few people in the hall were paying attention. In fact, Kerry emerged in my conversations this week with Democratic officials as a sort of party pariah; everyone in Denver seemed determined not to repeat the mistake he made at 2004's Boston convention, when he demanded that no one utter an ill word about Bush. Turns out no one was more determined than Kerry himself. Happy to perform the time-honored senatorial two-step of praising a colleague--"I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years"--before ripping him to shreds, Kerry delivered the single most effective critique of McCain I've heard to date, highlighting in remarkably clear and concise language the gap between McCain circa 2002 and the McCain who's running for president. "Let’s compare Sen. McCain to candidate McCain," he said. "Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Sen. McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Sen. McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it." That last line--a reference to the famous flip-flopping charges leveled against Kerry in 2004--got big laughs in the Pepsi Center's press box. Although Biden also attacked McCain, Kerry was a story. The former admirer--he wanted McCain to be his running mate--turns the tables and delivers "by far the best speech [we]'ve ever seen from him." The result: a swarm of hacks (like me) repeating the only fully crystallized critique of McCain to come out of a convention cluttered by a "mish-mash of objections" to Obama's Republican rival. And that's one thing Obama wants Wolf and Keith to chatter about.
 

DENVER--The punditizing began--predictably--before Hillary Clinton even stepped down from the stage. As the woman wearing the tangerine pantsuit and the firm Colgate smile waved to a sea of shaking signs--white Hillary signs, blue Unity signs, long polelike signs that said her name on one side and Barack Obama's on the other--the chattering classes rushed to the airwaves and the Internet to deliver their verdicts. There were--also predictably--two main reactions: the sigh of relief and the nitpick. "She gracefully marked her place as one of America's premiere politicians with a firm, commanding, gracious argument on behalf of Barack Obama," wrote Time CW-monger Mark Halperin (the former). "Hillary Clinton obviously doesn't like Barack Obama," countered the New Republic's Jonathan Chait (the latter). "She's clearly hesitant about the prospect of him as president." And never the twain shall meet.

So where does Stumper stand? Somewhere in between.  

All the gushing coverage--the lines about it being "the best speech she could've possibly given"--strikes me as the product of unreasonably low expectations (and the power of the moment). A full week of watching the MSM hyperventilate over the "Clinton-Obama conflict" seemed to have convinced some observers that Clinton would take the stage attired in the revolutionary garb of some maniacal Third World dictator and seize the nomination by bloody force--even though, as I wrote Monday, "the chance that she'll deliver an off-message speech (like Pat Buchanan in 1988) or give Obama the cold shoulder (like Kennedy did to Carter in 1980) is exceedingly slim." But thanks to the manufactured suspense, a speech that did the obvious--honoring her fans, making her support for Obama clear and putting distance between herself and John McCain--played in the hall, on television and, I suspect, in living rooms nationwide as something more like Cicero. I'm not saying Clinton's speech wasn't good. It was. From the start--"I'm here tonight as a proud mother, as a proud Democrat, as a proud senator from New York, a proud American and a proud supporter of Barack Obama"--her passion for party unity and commitment to convincing her supporters to vote for Obama was clear. And the section about Harriet Tubman--"even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going"--was graceful and moving. But it's worth noting, as the nitpickers do, that while Clinton personally praised Joe Biden ("A strong leader and a good man ... He is pragmatic, tough, and wise") and even McCain ("John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage"), she didn't say anything positive about Obama as a person. And she certainly didn't make any "clear, flat assertion that Obama is qualified and prepared to be commander in chief from day one"--her central criticism of the Illinois senator, and now McCain's.

That said, I think Clinton was right not to pretend that she and the nominee have suddenly become BFFs. Simply put, her best bet for achieving party unity was persuasion, not propaganda. Consider her audience: reluctant, mourning supporters who need to be convinced--not commanded--to consider her former opponent. As the polls constantly remind us, many of them still don't like Obama--and they probably suspect that Clinton shares their skepticism. As Hillary supporter Jerry Straughan told The Washington Post this morning, "Who knows what she really thinks?" So instead of gushing, Clinton played the lawyer, presenting a passionate but pragmatic case perfectly calibrated to connect with this particular jury: you are Democrats, you care deeply about Democratic issues, and there's only one Democrat left in the race. "Were you in this campaign just for me?" she asked. "Or were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?" The implication, of course, was that her supporters didn't need to be "in it" for Obama, either--as long as they accept the fact that helping those "invisible" people will be "impossible if we don't fight to put a Democrat"--any Democrat--"in the White House." Anything more effusive would've required the audience to suspend disbelief. At its heart, the speech was convincing because it was credible.

Going forward, a few Hillary holdouts--the ones who were, in fact, "in it for her"--will continue to hold out. But last night, Clinton delivered the savviest argument in her arsenal. That it played like poetry was just icing on the cake.
 

On Friday, June 13, Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe met with a group of young Hillary Clinton donors at a brewery in Washington, D.C. With the interminable Democratic primary season having just ended, Plouffe had flown all the way from Chicago to convince the Clintonistas, many of whom were still smarting from their candidate's loss, that Obama could win in November--despite their doubts. His pitch? That Obama could pave a path to the presidency through "Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states"--a path, in fact, that wouldn't require winning the perennial battleground state where a mere 537 votes decided the 2000 election: Florida.

Turns out he's not quite so dismissive when it comes to cutting checks.

In politics, talk is cheap--but advertising, field offices and voter registrations drives are not. Despite Plouffe's head fake, recent reports on Obama's Florida spending--which easily overwhelms John McCain's--suggest that the Sunshine State remains, at least at this point, the Democratic nominee's top pickoff target for 2008, much as it was for John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. Going forward, however, the question is whether Obama's massive investment will help him win the 27 electoral votes that both of his predecessors lost--or whether his money would be better spent elsewhere.

Here's the math. Since the start of the general-election season, Obama has dropped $6.51 million--a full 18 percent of his overall ad spending, and by the largest chunk of change allotted to any one state--to broadcast 10,000 commercials on Florida television. McCain's total disbursement? $0, zero ads. Meanwhile, Chicago has sent more than 200 full-time staffers and signed up at least 150,000 online volunteers to man the state's 35 field offices--the most of any battleground. McCain's local staff is a quarter of the size, and much of it is shared with the state party. Obama's goal, says deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, is to register the 630,000 eligible Hispanics, 593,000 African-Americans and 236,000 18- to 24-year-olds not yet on the rolls. With 236,000 new Democrats racked up since January--compared to 126,000 new Republicans--they're well on their way. "We need to expand the electorate," Hildebrand recently told the St. Peterburg Times, "because we know the election is going to be so close."

If Obama can win Florida on Nov. 4--which George W. Bush carried by five points in 2004--he's almost guaranteed to win the White House. But that's a big "if." The state has been trending red in recent years, and McCain--an older, moderate-seeming Vietnam vet--is uniquely suited to appeal to the state's three million seniors and 1.75 military veterans. Also worth noting: Dems may have outregistered Republicans by more than 60,000 votes in 2004, but the state's well-oiled GOP machine turned out 75 percent of its new supporters that year to John Kerry & Co.'s 66 percent; McCain, who has quietly opened a not-insignificant 25 field offices in Florida--more than twice as many as the next closest state--will benefit from the same GOTV operation.

Which is why the whizzes at FiveThirtyEight.com, who use a complex statistical model of recent polling, past results and demographic data to predict Election Day outcomes, currently give the Republican nominee a 73 percent chance of winning. It may also be why Obama still lags behind his Republican rival in RealClear Politics' average of the four most recent surveys--despite his aggressive post-primary spending and McCain's relative invisibility. True, Obama has managed to narrow the gap to a slender 1.2 percent. But that's nearly identical to the polling in mid-June--which suggests that Obama's improved performance (he trailed McCain by 15 points in Florida as recently as April) has less to do with his advertising onslaught than with the Democratic Party waiting until after Hillary Clinton had exited stage left to coalesce around its nominee. Given the size and scope of his investment, I suspect that the Illinois senator is seeking something more satisfying than a close second. As Republican strategist John Sowinski of Orlando told the Wall Street Journal this morning, "they are coming in early when it's cheaper to be on TV, and they are determining if it will be worth it to push things in Florida later on." If Obama can't move the needle more by the time McCain ramps up his Sunshine State spending--which will likely start around Labor Day--I suspect that Chicago will direct at least some of its dinero elsewhere (as Plouffe initially suggested he'd do).

Apparently, Ohio is lovely in the autumn...
 

MIAMI, Fla.--Politics, as they say, is local--and in Miami, that means Cuban. "Cuba is everything here," a local lawyer told me last night. "Then you leave and you never hear about it again."
 
Unless, of course, it's an election year. With Florida up for grabs in November--and the Cuban Independence Day celebrations in full effect--Miami's Cuban-American community had the honor (or the burden) of hosting two of the three remaining presidential candidates this week.  First it was presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who went from moderate to macho in Tuesday's tough-talking remarks (then swigged some Cuban coffee at Cafe Versailles). And not to be left out, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama followed suit this afternoon with a "major address on Latin America" before the exiles of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Obama's was the tougher crowd. Although CANF president Francisco Hernandez said in his opening remarks that his group, once the foremost voice representing the Cuban exile cause in Washington, was not "partisan but patriotic, not red or blue or black or white," its members have long gravitated toward Republicans--much like the Cuban community as a whole, which voted for Bush three-to-one in 2000 and 2004 and so far this cycle is said to prefer McCain (or even Hillary Clinton) to the senator from Illinois. With McCain having spent much of Tuesday's speech questioning his rival's foreign-policy cojones--"I want to give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime"--Obama was facing an even steeper climb.

His approach? Head on. As the crowd noshed on pork chops, sweet potato mash and asparagus, Obama delivered a sugar-coated speech that nonetheless contained some relatively bitter pills--at least for the hardest of hard-liners who form the backbone of Miami's exile community. First was Obama's promise to "immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island"--a plan that many anti-Castro types see as an unacceptable softening of stance. More important, however, was his position toward current Cuban leader Raul Castro: meeting "without preconditions." At first, the candidate was defensive. "John McCain’'s been going around the country talking about how much I want to meet with Raul Castro," he said. "As if I’'m looking for a social gathering. As if I want to have tea time. That'’s never what I’'ve said, and John McCain knows it." But ultimately Obama reiterated his support for "direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions"--even as he elaborated on his stance by calling (as he has in recent weeks) for "careful preparation" and "a clear agenda" as well. "Unlike John McCain, I would never, ever, rule out a course of action that could advance the cause of liberty," he said. With no explicit mention of meeting with Castro himself--Obama euphemistically said he would "lead that diplomacy" instead--it was a message calibrated for the crowd. But the old guard undoubtedly sensed "heresy" and found it hard to swallow.

That said, Obama's relative boldness was as much about politics as principle. In reality, Cuban hardliners will vote Republican no matter what--meaning the candidate was targeting their more moderate children instead. Among younger (albeit less engaged) Cuban-Americans, relaxing travel restrictions to the island is a popular plan now officially backed by CANF, which had until recently disagreed; it's seen as a way not only to reunite families but also to help weaken internal support for the regime. With that in mind, Team Obama hopes to peel off five, 10, 15 percent of Florida's 500,000 Cuban-American voters--an important gain in a state decided by 537 ballots in 2000. To do so, the senator can actually afford to offend more Cuban-Americans than previous Democratic candidates. The reason? Demographics. In 1988, Cuban-Americans made up 90 percent of the Hispanic vote in Florida, according to the Miami-based polling firm Bendixen & Associates; twenty years later, that number has dwindled to 45 percent, thanks to an influx of immigrants from elsewhere in the Americas. That explains why Obama was willing to cross some traditional lines--and why he spent at least half of his speech discussing Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and his broader Latin America policy. In Florida, there are other Latino votes to be won now.

Still, when in Miami, do as the Miamians do. After starting his speech with the usual litany of "thank you's" and waiting for the applause to die down, Obama paused for a moment to apologize for monopolizing the mic. "That's my job today," he said. "But this is just a hello. It's not goodbye. In the next few months, I'm going to be spending a lot of time listening to the people here." With that, he turned to the teleprompter and launched into his prepared remarks.

BOCA RATON, Fla.--The first drops of rain started falling the moment Barack Obama arrived, and by the time he started speaking, there was a downpour. But even inside the B'nai Torah temple it was easy to sense there was a storm brewing over Boca.

Obama, for one, knew the forecast. In choosing to visit a conservative synagogue in one of the country's most densely Jewish congressional districts, the Illinois senator sought Thursday evening to combat misconceptions about his background and beliefs within what's proven to be one of his most skeptical constituencies. Signs of the coming tempest were apparent as early as January, when Vicki Hercsky, 47, a local teacher, told me after a Rudy Giuliani event a nearby shul that Obama, a Christian, was "Muslim." "He has it in his blood," she said when I corrected her. "You can't take away what's given to you. It's given to you for a reason, and that's who you are. That's who he is." At Boca's Century Village retirement community Wednesday, local residents greeted voters who'd come to see Hillary Clinton with banners that said "Obama: Bad for Israel, Bad for America"; they were back yesterday at B'nai Torah, having transformed the "O" of Obama into a frowny face. Outside, the Republican Jewish Coalition distributed a flier--currently doubling as ad in the Palm Beach Post, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and the Boca Raton News--that accused Obama of supporting Arabs over Israelis. And each of the evening's warm-up speakers--a rabbi, a state senator, a state representative and a U.S. congressman--pleaded repeatedly with the audience not to believe the viral email rumors ("Muslim, pro-Palestine, un-American") that have flooded Florida's Jewish community and have largely come to define the Democratic near-nominee in the ten months since he last campaigned in the state. "This is salacious and false and wrong innuendo," said state Rep. Dan Gelber. "Senator Obama does not have an Israel problem; he is perfect on Israel. The Republicans have an election problem--and they will only win if you do not believe your own eyes and your own ears."

Providing Florida's Jewish voters with that raw material was, of course, was the point of Thursday's visit. Amid a spate of stories in recent months about a Hamas spokesman who had spoken kindly of the candidate, a former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., who had made pro-Palestinian remarks and Obama's own willingness to talk directly with hostile adversaries like Iran, the campaign has ramped up its outreach to this small but influential voting bloc by dispatching key Jewish supporters to upcoming primary states and making the candidate himself available to the Jewish press. But the B'Nai Torah visit was unique in that it brought Obama face-to-face with skeptics in a townhall setting. Aware, perhaps, of the paradox of social psychology that says that "repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness"--unlike, say, his opening acts--Obama dismissed the viral smear campaign with a quick flash of humor. "By the way, if you get an email from a Nigerian says who you can get a lot of money if you send him $1,000, don’t do it," he joked. "We don’t believe that stuff when it comes over email. Why would you believe an email about me?"

Instead, Obama chose to counter misconceptions largely by reiterating his policy positions: a 100 percent pro-Israel voting record, according to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; no negotiations with Hezbollah or Hamas, "a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction"; and demands that Iran "stop developing nuclear weapons, stop funding terrorists and stop threatening Israel." "The bottom line is this," he said. "Nobody can find any statement that I have ever made that is anything less than unequivocally pro-Israel, that says Israel's security is paramount." Throughout, the Illinois senator laced his talking points with personal reminiscences meant to stress his kinship with the Jewish people, from the sixth-grade camp counselor whose descriptions of Israel appealed to him as an uprooted, biracial child--"an outsider in search of a home"--to his 2006 trip to the Jewish state, where he was struck by "the kindness and resolve of the people I met." Ultimately, he asked that the audience move past the "rumor-mongering." "This is part, I think, of the tradition of the Jewish people is to judge me by what I say and what I have done," he said. "Don't judge me because I have a funny name. Don't judge me because I am an African American... If my policies are wrong, then vote against me because my policies are wrong. If I am not honest, if I am not truthful, don't vote for me for that reason. But don't vote against me because of who I am--and I know you won't." 

Yet the storm clouds lingered even after Obama spoke. Shortly after the start of an extended question-and-answer session, a man named Michael Ackerman ("from Brooklyn to Boca") stood up and said that his daughter, a 26-year-old New York law student, felt Obama had been "pilloried in the press" and had a question she wanted to ask. "Go ahead," said Obama. Reading from a computer printout, Ackerman began by seeming to criticize the media for obsessing over "certain relationships with controversial people with questionable pasts." But it soon became clear that was merely a pretense for listing those "relationships" himself. As Ackerman rattled off his names--a Michigan imam whom Obama met earlier this month; a Palestinian scholar he knew from Columbia University--the audience began to boo, and the senator tried to interrupt.

"All right," said Obama. "I know you're doing it for your daughter. I've got daughters so I'm sensitive to it. But I want to make sure I get some other questions in."

"I'm almost there," Ackerman insisted--then continued with the names, prompting more jeers. Undeterred, he didn't skip to his "question" until an elderly man approached and reached for the microphone. "Ok, ok," he said. "My daughter wants to know, aside form elected officials, who can you point to as close personal friends of you and your wife who are solemnly pro-Israel and anti-terrorist and can say that..."

At this, the audience erupted, drowning him out. Although Ackerman tried to speak up, Obama had heard enough. "Let me respond," he said, cutting off his questioner and quieting the crowd. Admitting that he was "hesitant" to "start listing out" Jews who could "vouch for me"--"You remember the old stereotype about someone who says, 'I'm not prejudiced; some of best friends are Jewish'"--Obama nonetheless mentioned a handful of staffers (his national finance chair, his Illinois co-chair) who fit the bill, and noted that "one of the raps on me when I first ran for Congress in [Chicago's] African American community was that 'he was too close to the Jewish community.'" But he was clearly uncomfortable with Ackerman's insinuation. "To pluck out one person who I know and who I had a conversation with and who has different views than nine of my other friends and then to suggest that shows I'm somehow not sufficiently pro-Israel is, I think, a very problematic statement," he said. Unfortunately, the discomfort didn't stop there. A few moments later, a woman who claimed she kept in touch with Iranian acquaintances from her childhood in India, "informed" the audience that her "friends" "say they are so excited because they can’t wait to have another president as good as Jimmy Carter... who will allow them to do what they want without limits." Needless to say, Obama, who reiterated his anti-nuke, anti-terrorism stance toward the Iranian regime, wasn't particularly flattered. 

Obama's so-called Jewish problem is easy to oversstate. Most of the B'nai Torah crowd was appreciative, and many were adoring; Obama received several standing ovations. What's more, a Gallup poll last month showed him clobbering John McCain among Jewish voters 61 percent to 32 percent. But it's also worth noting that Gallup had Clinton outperforming the Illinois senator by five points, and that John Kerry captured 76 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004. That wasn't enough to win Florida, a state where Jews account for five percent of the electorate. Obama's goal, of course, is to improve on Kerry's finish. Judging by Thursday's initial effort, though, there are still some rainy days ahead.
 

BOCA RATON, Fla.--When we first mentioned the possibility on March 5, it seemed impossible. For months, many Democrats simply laughed it off. She'd never accept, some said. He'd never offer, others replied. But near the end of his town hall at B’nai Torah synagogue this afternoon here in Boca Raton, Barack Obama dropped his strongest hint yet that he'd consider asking Hillary Clinton to--gasp!--join his ticket.

It came in response to a question from a man named Mike, a "50 year" resident of Pompano Beach. "I want to know if you'd consider everybody who is a possible help to you as a running mate," he said. "Even if his or her spouse is an occasional pain in the butt." Obama laughed. No names necessary; he seemed to get the drift. "Ah," he said. "I'm... well, look." Pause. Smile. Applause. "Look, look, look," he said, quieting the crowd. "We've got more work to do. Two more weeks to go. So I don't want to jump the gun." Then, suddenly, he warmed to the idea:

I can tell you this. My goal is to have the best possible government. And that means me winning. So, I'm very practical in my thinking. I'm a practical guy. One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. Awhile back, there was a wonderful book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called 'Team of Rivals,' in which she talked about how Lincoln basically pulled all the people he'd been running against into his Cabinet. Because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was, 'How can we get the country through this time of crisis?' I think that has to be the approach one takes to the vice president and the Cabinet.

If the "Lincoln in 'Team of Rivals'" reference sounds familiar, that's because it is. In a much-discussed London Times op-ed from May 4, prominent libertarian-conservative writer Andrew Sullivan made exactly the same comparison in support of a Democratic dream ticket. "There's... a way for Obama to explain this choice in a way that does not violate — and in fact strengthens — his core message," he wrote. "His model in this should be Abraham Lincoln. What Lincoln did, as Doris Kearns Goodwin explained in her brilliant book, "Team Of Rivals," was to bring his most bitter opponents into his cabinet in order to maintain national and party unity at a time of crisis. Obama — who is a green legislator from Illinois, just as Lincoln was — could signal to his own supporters in picking Clinton that he isn't capitulating to old politics, he is demonstrating his capacity to reach out and engage and co-opt his rivals and opponents." Incidentally, Sullivan is widely recognized as the mainstream blogosphere's most vocal Obama cheerleader--and Clinton's most vociferous critic. Obama is aware of his work. That the Illinois senator would describe his vice-presidential selection process by spouting the same argument as Sullivan--and citing the same book--strikes me as sign that Clinton is (at the very least) under consideration.

Even if no names were named.   

P.S. It's also worth noting that Obama didn't stop at Democrats--he's open to asking Republican rivals to join his team, too. "You know, my attitude is that whoever is the best person for the job is the person I want," he said. "If I really thought that John McCain was the absolute best person for the Department of the Homeland Security, I would put him in there." At this, an audience member shouted "No!"--but Obama didn't budge. "No, I would, if I thought that he was the best," he said. "Now, I'm not saying I do. I'm just saying that's got to be the approach that you take because part of the change that I'm looking for is to make sure that we're reminded of what we have in common as Americans."

Still, something tells us Tom Tancredo won't be serving as immigration czar anytime soon. 

UPDATE, May 23:  Yesterday in Boca, Obama hinted that he was open to the idea of Clinton as No. 2. Now some residents of Hillaryland are demanding it. Via Politico, CNN is reporting that there are "formal talks" underway to devise an exit strategy--and that Clinton sources say there would be a "civil war" if she wasn't offered the gig. Obama's David Axelrod, Bill Burton and Robert Gibbs all deny the report, but Clinton fundraising chief had this to say to TPM's Greg Sargent:

"There's a desire on the part of the party to come together under any circumstances, and Hillary and her supporters will do everything in their power to help Obama win, should he become the nominee, whether or not she's on the ticket," Nemazee said to me this morning. "But there's a risk that if she isn't invited on the ticket, Hillary's political and financial supporters may not feel compelled to be as integrated and involved in the Obama campaign in order to provide the maximum support that he'll need to prevail in November."

Developing, as they say...
 

MIAMI BEACH, Fla.--Too bad Hillary Clinton left the Sunshine State last night--because the "good news" just came in this morning.

According to a new poll from the fine folks at Quinnipiac University, Clinton currently leads John McCain in a head-to-head match-up here by a solid seven points, 48-41, and repeats her strong showing in Ohio (48-41) and Pennsylvania (50-37). Meanwhile, Barack Obama trails McCain in Florida (41-45) and Ohio (40-44), and leads by a narrower margin (six points to Clinton's 13) in the Keystone State. For the suffocating Clinton campaign, stats like these are like oxygen. According to her aides, the Quinnipiac poll proves that Clinton's crucial argument to the all-important superdelegates--that she will win swing states like Florida and Ohio on Election Day, and Obama won't--is, in fact, true.

There's only one problem: it doesn't. As any pollster will tell you, opinion surveys can't predict the future--they can only provide a snapshot of the present. That's an especially important caveat at this particular point in time. With the interminable Democratic primary clash stuck in a strange twilight phase, Clinton's supporters are still coming to terms with the fact that Obama is all-but-certain to top the ticket--and many feel disappointed, angry and/or vindictive. Obama's supporters, on the other hand, are celebrating his impending nomination; they largely feel magnanimity toward Clinton, who now poses little threat. That's why in Quinnipiac's McCain-Obama matchups, 26 to 36 percent of Clinton supporters in each state say that they'd vote for McCain in November if their candidate isn't the nominee, and only 10 to 18 percent of Obama supporters respond in kind. 

These Clinton-to-McCain defectors fully account for Obama's deficits in Florida and Ohio. Of the 41 percent of Democrats who back the former first lady here in the Sunshine State, for example, a whopping 36 percent claim they would choose McCain over Obama. Which means that in Quinnipiac's McCain-Obama trial heat, nearly 15 percent of otherwise reliable Democrats--or 7.5 percent of the overall pool, assuming that Dems account for half of the total electorate--are crossing over to vote Republican. Give all of them back to Obama, and he leads McCain approximately 45-41. Give him less--a likelier outcome--and he's still ahead or tied. And the same is true in Ohio, where an identical anti-Obama, Democratic swing vote of 7.5 percent could easily erase McCain's four-point lead. Factor in a reasonable portion of Clinton supporters who currently say they won't cast a ballot for either Obama or McCain--say, two or three percent of the overall electorate--and Obama's comfortably ahead. The question then becomes, will every single one these Clintonites oppose Obama as a strongly on Nov. 4 as they do now, with Clinton herself firmly in his corner and hundreds of millions spent delegitimizing McCain? If your answer is yes, then only Clinton is "electable." But if not, Obama is automatically more electable than he appears.

Call it the Electability Mirage. For Clinton, this is something of a catch-22. Right now, Obama trails McCain in key states because a sizable number of her supporters tell pollsters they will crossover in the fall. In other words, her key claim to the Democratic crown--Obama isn't electable--is only compelling because Democrats say they'll vote Republican if she isn't nominated. Ultimately, many of these folks will come around. But even if not, the only voters who can declare a winner at this point--that is, the superdelegates--are unlikely to favor an argument that rewards their fellow party members for threatening to defect.  sounds even a little bit like blackmail.*

*Apologies for the overheated language there. Upon review, I've realized I overstated this a bit; blackmail is the wrong word, since no one--neither Clinton nor her supporters--is actively making this argument. I've revised to reflect what I actually meant.
 

Meanwhile, Obama focused squarely on the future during the first of his three days in Florida. His rally at the St. Pete Times arena in Tampa was meant to show that despite the delegate debacle, Sunshine Staters are still excited about his bid--and judging by the coverage, it worked. "The rock star metaphor was unavoidable," wrote the Miami Herald. "Hawkers with T-shirts and buttons fanned out over blocks, as did the line of people waiting to get in. Pictures of Obama flickered on the jumbo-tron screen, and a double-deckered banner of the campaign slogan 'Change We Can Believe In' was wrapped around the arena." Not that any of those accouterments are unusual at Obama rallies; it's just that this was Florida's first. In his speech, Obama credited Clinton as a worthy opponent, but largely ignored his (ostensible) Democratic rival (and her popular-vote plea), choosing to attack John McCain's foreign policy and lobbyist ties instead. “John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now, because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign," he said. "And when he was called on it, his top lobbyists actually had the nerve to say, ‘The American people won’t care about this.’" Later, Obama wooed Puerto Ricans in the Orlando suburb of Kissimmee. We'll know how well his outreach to Florida's key Latino constituency is going in... oh, about five months.

Today, the Tropicana Trail is a little quieter--but no less fascinating. After voting in Washington, D.C. this morning on a series of emergency war-funding bills, Obama returns to Florida for a 4:00 p.m. event at the B’nai Torah synagogue in Boca Raton. Like with yesterday's Kissimmee appearance, Obama will make an initial pass at appealing to a key Sunshine State community that's been reluctant to back him in the primaries--that is, Jewish voters, who make up five percent of the electorate here and who, as the New York Times reports this morning, have been especially susceptible to the false "Obama is a pro-Palestinian, un-American Muslim" rumors that have swamped the state in the absence of any actual Democratic campaign. We'll return this evening with a dispatch from Boca on Obama's first attempt to battle back.

 

Bill Clinton called giving Florida half its delegates -- similar to how the Republican National Committee penalized the state for holding an earlier-than-allowed contest -- an "appropriate penalty." "The Republican Party said 'OK, we'd like to win Florida in the fall so we are gonna invoke our rule, they got out of turn, we will seat their delegates as half a delegate and seat their superdelegates,' " Clinton said at a campaign event in Missoula, Mon. "That is an appropriate penalty."

There he goes again. Just as I was about to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, rather) to explain the math behind Hillary Clinton's new popular vote crusade--and show why it has the potential to become more divisive than a mere attack on Obama--my esteemed colleague Jonathan Alter beat me to the punch. I've reposted his analysis below. Two notes before you dive in--one that helps Obama and one that helps Hillary. First of all, Jon writes that "everyone in Michigan knew on January 15 that a vote for 'uncommitted' was a vote for Obama," meaning that those 238,168 votes are rightfully his. That's not quite right. At that point, John Edwards was still in the race, and still very much viable, but his name wasn't on the ballot either. Many of those votes--although not as many as Obama--probably belong to JRE, which lowers the Illinois senator's vote total by some unknowable number. (Goes to show how absurd this whole exercise is.) Secondly, Jon says that "with a big win in Puerto Rico, Clinton could possibly erase [Obama's 166,000-vote] margin (plus several thousand more that Obama is expected to net in Montana and South Dakota)." Or not. The expected turnout in P.R. is about 600,000, the same as South Dakota; the Montana primary will probably draw about 750,000. That means Clinton has to win by about 30 points on the island--or 180,000 votes--to catch up to Obama, then somehow hold him to a net gain of 14,000 in a pair of primaries he's expected to win by double-digits (at least 135,000 votes, combined) just to break even. That seems unlikely to me. And *even if she does* it's not like the superdelegates will suddenly side with Clinton if she does manage to overtake Obama in this uncountable "popular vote." Which means that her new crusade gives her little chance to clinch the nomination, even if she gets everything she wants--but could (since the DNC will probably compromise and halve each delegation in the end) make a lot of her supporters think the crown was stolen from her anyway.

Give credit where it's due: Hillary Clinton has shown grit and determination in finishing out the race. She has proved herself a strong campaigner. And in the week since West Virginia, she has stopped the cheap shots that had marred her campaign this year.

But Clinton has continued with one claim that could have a pernicious effect on the Democrats' chances in November. While she knows that the nomination is determined by delegates, Hillary insists on saying at every opportunity that she is winning the popular vote. And she has now taken to touting the new HBO movie "Recount," which chronicles the Florida fiasco of eight years ago. Everyone can agree that the primary calendar needs reform. But popular-vote pandering is poison for Democrats. For a party scarred by the experience of 2000, when Al Gore received 500,000 more popular votes than George W. Bush but lost the presidency, this argument is sure to make it harder to unite and put bitter feelings aside.

Oh, and it's not true.

Let me go through the numbers without making your head spin.

After Kentucky and Oregon, Obama has an official popular vote lead of 441,545.

This does not include Iowa (where Obama first broke from the pack), Nevada (where Hillary won the popular vote narrowly), Maine (where Obama won easily) or Washington state (another strong Obama state). Why? Because these caucus states don't officially report their popular votes. But if we're going to truly count all the votes, official and nonofficial, as Hillary advocates, you can't very well not include caucus states.

Adding in the unofficial tally from caucus states, as estimated by ++realclearpolitics.com++ based on official caucus turnout and the number of local delegates selected at the precinct level, that gives Obama a lead of 551,767.

Now we come to Florida and Michigan, whose popular votes Hillary says should be counted. The argument for counting them is no better than for counting the caucus states (and maybe worse, considering that these states violated party rules by moving their primaries up on the calendar, and no one campaigned there). But for the sake of argument let's count 'em. That gives Hillary a lead of 71,314.

HILLARY WINS POPULAR VOTE!

Not so fast. If the Democratic National Committee completes its expected settlement on May 31, Florida and Michigan will each get half of their votes counted. Translated to popular votes, that would subtract about 325,000 votes from Hillary, putting Obama back into the lead.

Beyond not being official numbers, there's another problem with counting Michigan in these totals. Obama wasn't on the ballot there. You can say this was his own choice, but that doesn't change the fact that had he been on the Michigan ballot he would have received a lot of popular votes. How many?

Try 238,168. That's the number of Michiganders who voted for "uncommitted." Were they possibly genuinely abstaining? Maybe a few hundred of them at most. The rest were clearly Obama supporters who launched a grass-roots campaign. Everyone in Michigan knew on January 15 that a vote for "uncommitted" was a vote for Obama.

That means that by a generous definition of popular votes (and remember, Clinton wants to enfranchise as many people as possible in her count), Obama leads by about 166,000 votes.

With a big win in Puerto Rico, Clinton could possibly erase that margin (plus several thousand more that Obama is expected to net in Montana and South Dakota). She could then proclaim that with the help of Puerto Rican voters who cannot vote in a general election, she is the popular vote winner.

The shorthand many Clinton supporters are already taking into the summer is that she won the popular vote but had the nomination "taken away" (as Joy Behar said on "The View") by a man.

What a helpful message for uniting the Democratic Party. 

READ THE REST HERE.

*Apologies: For South Dakota and Montana, I misread the voting-age population estimates as turnout predictions. Dumb. Still, it doesn't change my basic point--that Clinton needs a massive win in P.R. just to tie Obama, and even then, such a performance is will probably a) not spur the superdels to break her way and b) create further divisions among Democrats.