With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fighting each other to a draw over the last few weeks in the riveting battle for blue-collar ordinariness--Clinton: Crown Royal, Mauser rifles, red pick up trucks, NASCAR; Obama: Budweiser, apple pie, P-I-G, hay bales--Stumper hereby proposes a new way for the good people of Indiana and North Carolina to decide which candidate they prefer:

Who delivers a funnier Top Ten list?

Last night, the former First Lady appeared on the David Letterman Show via satellite to rattle off her "Top Ten Reasons Hillary Clinton Loves America." Watch it and weep:

Incidentally, Clinton's appearance came a little more than three months after her rival gave Letterman his "Top Ten Barack Obama Campaign Promises." Get it while it's hot:

Who's funnier? We'll let the Tar Heels and Hoosiers decide. But it's at least as relevant as who can down a boilermaker with the most gusto.

By the way, our pick for funniest Top Ten list: Mitt Romney. Here he is last week at D.C.'s Radio Correspondents Dinner with the "Top Ten Reasons I Decided to Get Out of the Race":

Mitt Romney? Funny? We never thought we'd say those words in the same sentence. But with Obama and Clinton as the competition, "I took a bad fall... and broke my hair" might actually take the cake. 

Edwards: Not the best way to convey authenticity.

Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.

Last month, I stumbled upon an interesting article in--of all places--Time magazine. (Grrrr.) Written by John Cloud, "Synthetic Authenticity" riffed on the latest book by renowned business consultants Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, who run an Aurora, Ohio, consulting firm called Strategic Horizons. (According to Cloud, they enjoy "an almost cultlike following in the business world because of their ability to accurately predict consumer sentiments." Go figure.) In "Authenticity," as Cloud explains, Pine and Gilmore "argue that the virtualization of life (friends aren't friends unless you "confirm" them on Facebook; reporters are now all bloggers, and vice versa) has led to a deep consumer yearning for the authentic."

This sounded about right to me. It's no mystery that people purchase a product nowadays not only because it's low in cost or high in quality, but because it somehow reflects who they are. (iPhone, anyone?) And it's clear that such consumers are attracted to brands that achieve an aura, however contrived, of authenticity--Starbucks, Apple, Volkswagen. That said, my first thought upon reading Cloud's article wasn't about business. It was (predictably) about politics.

Politicians, of course, are fake. Everyone knows that. But more and more it seems that what they're required to fake is being real. John Edwards represents "Real Change." Mike Huckabee is an "authentic conservative." And John McCain rides his "Straight Talk Express." (George Allen, on the other hand, was too real.) Wondering how our increasing desire for authenticity has influenced the 2008 presidential race--which seems likely to end with a win for one of two candidates, McCain or Barack Obama, who have labored mightily to sell themselves as authentic--I gave Pine and Gilmore a call. Excerpts from our chat:

How have you seen the "authenticity" concept play out this cycle, and how has it been different than previous cycles?
Gilmore: This is the first cycle where authenticity is really in the fore, both in how people view the candidates and how pundits describe the race. You can have hardly any article out there today that doesn't talk about the level of perceived authenticity of this or another candidate. I daresay that in the end, whoever wins is going to be the one whom more voters perceive as authentic.

Pine: I've joked in the past that it seems like every single debate, as soon as they go to the talking heads--and David Gergen stands out most in my mind--the very first soundbite is evaluating them based on authenticity. "I think Mike Huckabee came off as the most real." "I think Hillary came off as most authentic." It's always the first soundbite.

But is that really different than previous cycles? And if so, what accounts for the increasing emphasis on authenticity?
Gilmore: Certainly it's the first time that it's been vocalized to the extent it has. The perception of phon-aticians...

Pine: Did you just say phon-aticians?

[Laughter]

Gilmore: There you go. The perception of politicians being phony has always been there. But now it's being vocalized in a way that parallels what's happening with economic offerings. Consumers want to buy what they perceive to be real. Similarly, in any political offering, voters want to buy what they perceive to be real. There's a correlation here.

What are the cultural reasons for this increasing emphasis on authenticity?
Gilmore: There are a bunch of factors contributing to that desire. First of all, there's the emergence of the experience economy--in an increasingly "unreal" world, people are vacationing at Atlantis and going to American Girl Place and having the Geek Squad repair their computer. That causes a desire for authenticity. Then there's the automation of services. That's the second driver. You call a company and hope to reach a "real person." Life is becoming more and more mediated. Third, the rise of Boomers and the rise of postmodernism also contribute--people believe there is something different or unique about our time. And finally it's the failures of our social institutions. It's there--along with not-for-profits, businesses and religious and educational institutions--that we identify the phoniness of politicians and government as contributing our desire for authenticity. People today don't just want cost or quality, they want real. It's only natural for that desire to extend to our politicians.

They're searching, in other words, for people who contrast what they're bombarded with every day.
Gilmore: Right. In a phony, contrived, mediated world, you have to stand out. And you stand out by rendering yourself authentic.

But isn't "authenticity," as you define it, just another contrivance? For businesses, it's not necessarily being authentic that matters, right? It's conveying authenticity. I'm interested in hearing how you evaluate the presidential candidates as brands.
Gilmore: Most of the candidates who came off as inauthentic were eliminated early on. I did an exercise awhile ago where I decided to go find the number one most-viewed video of each candidate on YouTube. My hypothesis was that the most-viewed video might not reach an overwhelming percentage of the population, but it will be indicative of a sentiment that's more pervasive. It will encapsulate what the populace really thinks of each candidate. So John Edwards' most-watched video. Can you guess?

The one where he's fluffing his hair.
Pine: Exactly. To the tune of "She's So Pretty."

Gilmore: Now, it may have had only 500,000 views, but it's iconic of what the general population thinks of him. Boom, gone--fake. In doing the exercise, I came up with this construct: earlier in the primary season, the Democrats seemed to be proclaiming their own authenticity--"Real Change," the "real" this or that. Whereas the Republicans seemed to be pointing fingers at each other and calling each other fake. The Romney folks posted videos like, "The Real Rudy?" And Giuliani responded with "The Real Mitt?" McCain sort of stayed away from that. As we write in our book, if you're authentic you don't have to say you're authentic. Pointing fingers at somebody else and saying they're fake is the same as saying you're real, and that backfires.

The same thing happened to Edwards, who made "Real Change" his slogan at one point. Thou doth protest too much.
Gilmore: Exactly.

Let's talk about another casualty of the primary process: Mitt Romney. He was unquestionably the savviest businessman of the bunch, and yet some would say that the way he was branded, in terms of conveying authenticity, was completely incompetent. Do you agree?
Pine: His basic problem was the perceived flip-flops. He said one thing to get elected governor of the very liberal state of Massachusetts, but he was saying very different things to get elected in the more conservative party.

Gilmore: When we're talking to businesses about authenticity, we tell them that they have to understand their heritage. Well, his heritage was one that was very difficult for a large portion of the Republican party to swallow--or to believe was credible.

How should Romney have handled his heritage? Was there any way he could've packaged himself to seem authentic? Or was it a fatal flaw?
Pine: There are ways. Ronald Reagan, for example, signed the first abortion bill in California. And when he was running for president, one of the things he did was talk about how much he regretted it. You could see the emotion in doing that.

Gilmore: But in 1976, Reagan had the passage of a dozen years since he'd done that. If in four or eight years Romney had run, with four or eight years of being decidedly pro-life under his belt, he would've seemed more authentic.

Pine: It gets back to one of the points we make about economic offerings: don't say you're authentic, but render yourself authentic. That rendering--particularly if you're trying to change perceptions of yourself--does take a number of years.

Gilmore: In terms of authenticity, I find so interesting Romney's faith speech versus Obama's. Obama's was grounded in a reaction to an actual event--the media uncovering this venom from his pastor. If Romney would've had to react to some footage that had gotten out of a senior Mormon muckety-muck going off the rails, then his speech would've been grounded in, "Hey, I disavow all of this."

But instead it looked like an unprompted political calculation?
Gilmore: Right. Here's the thing: anybody who self-proclaims authenticity in any sphere--politics, business, wherever--is dubious. His speech was self-induced. Obama laid back. He responded to an actual event. That was grounded in reality.

AFTER THE JUMP: OBAMA, CLINTON, AND "AUTHENTICITY" IN THE GENERAL ELECTION...

Not exactly. Here's NEWSWEEK's Suzanne Smalley with the inside story of Romney's decision to endorse the presumptive Republican nominee.

They often looked ready to trade blows in the debates. Just a few weeks ago, Mitt Romney called John McCain a liar for allegedly distorting Romney's position on the Iraq War. For his part, McCain seemed to revel in leading the other Republican candidates in ganging up on Romney, whom he didn't even try to pretend to like.

But all that is ancient history now. After watching Mike Huckabee continue to rack up delegates and signal he has no intention of exiting the race--as he did after the Virginia primary Tuesday night--Romney decided to formally endorse the Arizona senator Thursday. According to a source close to Romney, who asked not to be identified discussing internal campaign strategy, the former Massachusetts governor was spurred to action by Huckabee's "decision to linger against impossible odds, delaying the launch of a general-election campaign ... We were going to endorse at some point. The only question was when. Doing it now seemed to have added value, given that Huckabee continues to be a presence."

Despite Romney's decision to endorse McCain, the men have hardly become chummy in recent days. A second source close to Romney stressed that the "businessman" in him decided to make the endorsement for "practical" reasons. A third Romney adviser stressed that it "was always sort of inevitable" that Romney would formally endorse McCain. But the adviser said that the McCain campaign was in a hurry to move things along (so much so that Romney delayed a family trip to California to visit his grandchildren so that he could make the announcement). The adviser said that Romney's delegates, while not bound by law to McCain, will "put him over the top" if they support the senator as expected. The McCain campaign "want[ed] to get it done sooner", the adviser said of the endorsement, because they hope to get Huckabee out of the race. The Romney adviser added that he believes the RNC will begin increasing pressure on the former Arkansas governor to step aside very soon.

As is typical of Romney, the choice to endorse was a no-nonsense call arrived at without a lot of ceremony. Romney's campaign manager phoned Rick Davis, who is managing McCain's campaign, and told him of Romney's plans Thursday morning, Romney's spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom tells NEWSWEEK. Romney had intended to announce his endorsement Monday, before Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, but McCain's campaign wanted to move the announcement up since McCain was campaigning in Rhode Island on Thursday and could easily get to Boston for the press conference. Romney and McCain met inside Romney's Boston headquarters for 15 minutes, Fehrnstrom said, before adding that the men had not spoken since last week when Romney dropped out of the race.

Read the rest here.

contributed by Suzanne Smalley

So how did Mitt Romney decide to exit the race? Eric Fehrnstrom, the former Massachusetts governor’s traveling press secretary, said the first clue came at a meeting of about 10 senior staffers at headquarters in Boston yesterday. At that session, Fehrnstrom says, Romney indicated that he “didn’t want to do anything that would hurt the party or hurt the nation." That comment gave Fehrnstrom, a longtime Romney aide, an inkling that something was up. But Romney went on to attend a meeting of all staff at headquarters, at which he was “cheered and encouraged by his campaign workers and volunteers to go forward.” At about 3 PM yesterday, the New York Times reported that Romney’s son Tagg said his father intended to stay in the race, indicating that strategists for the campaign were discussing the possibility of winning over unbound delegates as a way of cobbling together a win. Romney headed home to Belmont late yesterday afternoon, to write up the speech he would give Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s winter meeting. As he wrote, the address “turned into a farewell speech,” Fehrnstrom said.

As always with Romney, family was key. He consulted with his five sons and wife, Ann, before making the decision. Ann and Tag were both present at yesterday’s senior staff session. Word spread among his top aides, as they swapped copies of the speech. Fehrnstrom himself was taking in a Celtics game when he learned his boss was getting out.

Following the CPAC speech, Romney immediately got on the phone with his national finance co-chairs and later Thursday afternoon will head up to Capitol Hill and meet with congressional supporters (who learned of his decision along with the CPAC audience).

Meanwhile, McCain was preparing for his own talk to the CPAC crowd. At about 2 PM, he entered the lobby of DC's Omni Shoreham to the cheers of some 200 screaming, sign-waving supporters-who presented a stark contrast to Romney’s faithful, who wandered dejectedly through the lobby. Alexandra Smith, an 18-year-old Catholic student, was typical of them. She said she began receiving texts about news reports about Romney's decision a few minutes before the CPAC speech but didn’t know whether to believe them. But when Romney began talking and referred in his speech to this not being 1976, when Reagan went all the way to the convention, she said she knew. "I'll sit home on election day," she said. "There's no conservative [left]."

Here's my formidable NEWSWEEK colleague Howard Fineman with the Romney postmortem. In case you're wondering, I agree with his take. If Romney had stayed true to himself from the start, I think he would've been a more compelling candidate. Nobody blinks when you reinvent a business; but people aren't products, and in politics, unlike commerce, authenticity counts. Would 'the real Mitt' have won? Who knows. But I do suspect that he would've been less disagreeable than McCain or Giuliani among "true conservatives." And in this scrappy, sloppy race, that might've been enough.

Here lieth the campaign of Mitt Romney, victim of the mistaken belief that the only way to succeed in national Republican politics was to turn yourself into something you are not. Or maybe the campaign revealed what his closest friends never imaged him to be. They thought he was a decent classy guy. But maybe he really is a soulless throat-cutter who would do and say anything to win.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was a good fellow who didn't know enough about national politics and listened to people who gave him bad, cynical advice.

Sen. John McCain was in a good position before; now it's hard to imagine that he won't wrap up the nomination in the next week or two. His lone remaining serious opponent, Mike Huckabee, has exceeded expectations, but expecting him to be able to unhorse McCain is perhaps expecting too much.

I have covered a lot of presidential campaigns, and I can't think of one that so lost its way-so expensively-as that of the former governor of Massachusetts. A board room and business favorite, a man with a Midas managerial touch, he was widely admired and even beloved. But he was a Republican of an old moderate school-that of his own father-and, like George W. Bush, Romney the Younger decided that he had to jettison all that he was to become something that he was not.

And so it was that this square peg spent perhaps $80 million-including at least $30 million of his own money-trying to pound himself into a round hole. It didn't work. The irony of his failed campaign: if he had just stuck to selling his managerial mettle, he might well have won the nomination, given the way the country's economic anxieties have become voters' number one concern.

Read the rest here.

By Holly Bailey 

Mitt Romney has spent more than $35 million of his own cash on his campaign for the White House, but maybe somebody should lend the guy a few bucks to buy a calendar. In advance of next week's so-called Beltway primaries, where Republicans in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., will cast their votes for the nomination, the Romney campaign is apparently putting out robo-calls to drum up financial support for the former governor's campaign. A campaign aide to John McCain, who declined to be named, received one of the calls this afternoon on her cell phone and played the voicemail for reporters riding the campaign bus back into D.C., where McCain will spend the night tonight.

The message, received at 3:46pm on Wednesday, is a recording of Romney's voice and lasted about 30 seconds. "Happy Hanukkah!" the governor says, almost two months after the official Jewish holiday. "This is Mitt Romney...I am running for president because I want to keep America strong. Like you, I believe we should confront threats to American culture, values and freedom. To do that, it's going to take someone with a proven record of confronting and turning around seemingly impossible situations I have turned around tough situations in business, at the Olympics and as governor. It's about time to turn around and bring change to Washington."

Romney quickly hits up his listener for a donation. "I need your help to ensure that I have the resources to win in Washington and in other states across the country," he says on the recording. "I need your contribution to help me win." Romney even gets explicit, instructing the person on the other end to "simply press one" or donate on his Web site. "Thank you for your consideration," he says.

Why Happy Hanukkah? It's a mystery, but the McCain aide speculates that the Romney campaign got her name and number off a list purchased from an outside group. Something that's not a mystery: the aide says she has no plans to write Romney a check, not even for a calendar.

Here's NEWSWEEK's Arian Campo-Flores on what yesterday means for the Democratic race: 

Beyond the fight for delegates, though, is a far less tangible battle: one over perception. In the buildup to Super Tuesday, Obama's candidacy seemed to be surging. He scored a series of high-profile endorsements, he raised about $32 million in January, his celebrity-studded campaign events took on the character of religious revivals and he was quickly gaining on Clinton in the polls. Tuesday night's results, Clinton's advisers argue, managed to slow, if not block, that momentum. "We had to listen to two weeks of 'Oh, you're not having rallies, you're not appearing with celebrities, you're having these boring discussions about issues'," said one adviser who didn't want to be on the record appearing to gloat.

The campaign was especially gleeful about Clinton's victory in Massachusetts, where Obama benefited from the highly coveted endorsement of Sen. Edward Kennedy, as well as that of Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick. Late deciders went mostly for Clinton, advisers pointed out-proof, they argued, that voters, unlike the media, are not blinded by Obama's star appeal. The Clinton team also celebrated her victories in Republican states like Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. "This proves Hillary Clinton can win anywhere in the country," said campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe. "The voters finally got tired of the pundits and prognosticators telling them how they were going to vote."

Obama's side had its own triumphs to savor. One that was especially sweet: Missouri. Just before Obama bounded on stage in Chicago, the Clinton campaign released a statement touting her victory in the bellwether state of Missouri. "Hillary's Big Night Continues," it read. Problem was, Obama ended up winning the state. In the rear of the Chicago ballroom, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who endorsed Obama, clapped and cheered at the turnaround. "People are getting to know Barack Obama," she told Newsweek. "The story that needs to come out of tonight is that this was supposed to be the end. This was going to wrap it up for Senator Clinton." Yet as Obama senior strategist David Axelrod put it, "We took on the big bad machine that was going to finish us off on February 5 and they didn't."

Looking ahead, the Obama camp remains optimistic. For one thing, the day's results put to rest some key arguments against his candidacy. He won Connecticut, Delaware and Colorado, where independents weren't allowed to vote, thus proving that he could win without them. And he captured a healthy 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in Arizona, showing he could make inroads in a constituency that has largely aligned itself with Clinton. Now, the Obama campaign argues, Clinton's strongest states-including New York, New Jersey and California-are behind her. "We always thought she had an advantage today," said campaign manager David Plouffe. "As we started planning this, February 5 was always a tough hill to climb. Now we move on to what we thought was always a more favorable part of the calendar."

Read the rest here. 

Contributed by Suzanne Smalley

The networks are calling the West Virginia state primary convention for Mike Huckabee, which is good news, of course, for the former Arkansas governor. But it may be even more significant--in a negative sense--for Mitt Romney. The West Virginia results represent a victory of passion over organization, and it's hard to read them as anything but a repudiation of the Massachusetts pol's* efforts to rally anti-McCain conservatives around his candidacy.

When Romney arrived this morning in Charleston to address the Republican convention, it was largely assumed that he had Mountain State in the bag. That confidence was partly the product of pure investment; his campaign went to work in the state in 2006, long before his rivals arrived, and Romney had visited repeatedly over the past several weeks. And part was establishment support; Mitt began the day with 280 committed state delegates (more than Huck or McCain) and all three West Virginia superdelegates in his column. Finally, the campaign expected its superior ground game to propel Romney to victory in state's new, chaotic "convention" process, which, like a caucus, would reward organization over name recognition or momentum. “We have had the only organizational presence in West Virginia to speak of,” John McCutcheon, a state consultant for Romney, told the New York Times this morning. “It’s all Romney all the time.”

So what happened? Romney led at first with 41 percent, but failed in the second round to secure the 50 percent necessary for a win. Supporters of McCain, who crashed and burned in the first round, may have joined forces with Team Huckabee in the second to put Huck over the top, 52-47. “Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain’s inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney’s campaign of conservative change,” said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden. No response yet from the McCain or Huckabee camps.

All due respect to Madden, c'est la vie caucus. What's clear from the results is that, despite his advantages, Romney was unable to absorb enough Southern conservatives into his coalition for a majority--even in a state where McCain had minimal support. That doesn't bode well for Romney's chances in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri--all hard-fought Dixieland contests where Mitt is hoping that right-wingers will catapult him to surprise first-place finishes as their anti-McCain candidate of choice. If the West Virginia pattern extends to stronger McCain states (like those listed above) Huck will likely continue to split the reliable right vote with Romney and pave a path to victory for the Arizona senator. Huckabee's early upset may even embolden his troops to turn out in great numbers across the South, further diluting Romney's share of the vote.

All in all, not the best way for Romney to start the day.

Heading into Super Tuesday, the Democratic contest is a) close, b) complicated and c) nowhere near the end. But the Republican race, which only weeks ago had seemed wide open, is, well, d) none of the above.

After Florida, John McCain has emerged as the clear frontrunner, expanding his national lead from an average of five percent to a current margin of 19 and securing the poll position in most of the 21 states set to vote. What's more, in 8 of those primaries, caucuses or state conventions, the winner gets all the delegates (no dividing up the spoils, like the Dems.) Meaning, as Adam Nagourney of the New York Times writes, that "it is going to be easy for a candidate to build up a big delegate lead on Tuesday night and, combined with winning some big states, credibly declare himself the party’s presumptive nominee." Coincidentally, that's precisely what McCain plans to do. 

Even a cursory look at the current polling shows the daunting challenge facing Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as they try to win enough delegates to keep their campaigns alive. If McCain takes the gold in the states where he currently leads, he'll wake up Wednesday with between 512 and 600 additional delegates; combined with his current total of 93, that puts him pretty close to the 1,191 need to clinch the nomination—with no sign of slowing down. Barring some sort of divine intervention, Romney, who has taken pains this week to depict himself as a true conservative alternative to "liberal" maverick McCain, will probably snag between 150 and 350 delegates; Huckabee, between 34 and 100.

As you can see, there's some wiggle room. If the fates conspire against McCain and in favor of Romney--and by "fates" we mean the toss-up states of California, Georgia, North Dakota and Montana--it's possible that Mitt will finish within 100 delegates of Mac, revive his flagging bid and continue the contest indefinitely. (Hooray.)  But that's the least likely scenario. Chances are, McCain, who leads narrowly in the biggest battlegrounds, will win the most states, the most delegates and the most front-page stories--making it near impossible for Romney to kickstart a comeback.

With only hours to go before polls open, here's a deeper look at the lay of the land, according to interviews, polls and published analysis.

And they're off!

TOSS UPS: 351 delegates
California (173), Tennessee (55), Georgia (72), North Dakota (26; no data), Montana (25; no data)

MCCAIN: 512
Lean: Missouri (58), Minnesota (41), Alabama (48), Delaware (18)
Likely: Oklahoma (41), New York (101), New Jersey (52), Illinois (70), Connecticut (30), Arizona (53)

ROMNEY: 184
Lean: Colorado (46), Alaska (29), West Virginia (30)
Likely: Utah (36), Massachusetts (43)

HUCKABEE: 34
Likely: Arkansas (34)

Blink and you'll miss 'em. With only 48 hours to go before 2008's SuperMegaDuper UltraMonsterTsunami national primary, the five leading presidential hopefuls are focusing on air time, not face time--both on the airwaves and in airplanes as they fly between (and advertise in) the more than 20 states set to vote on Tuesday. Because you can't be everywhere at once--and, sadly, neither can Stumper--I've compiled handy guides to each candidate's sprint to the finish: the Pitch, the Stops (since Feb. 1) and the Ads.

Taken in total, the commercials and itineraries reveal how the campaigns are tackling the challenge of getting their messages out to nearly half the country for a single day of voting.

On your marks. Get set. Go:

HILLARY CLINTON:

The Pitch: It's the economy, stupid--and only I can handle it. Oh, and Republicans are going to eat that Barack Obama character alive. "Frankly, you know, in his prior election in Illinois, Senator Obama didn't face anyone who ran attack ads against him," Clinton said this morning. "He ran against a very weak opponent, without resources or credibility. I've been taking the incoming fire from Republicans for about 16 years now, and I'm still here, because I have been vetted, I have been tested." She's also criticizing his health care plan.

The Stops: Everywhere and anywhere--especially Latino areas. Since Friday, Clinton has visited San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles in California; Tucson, Ariz.; Las Cruces, N.M.; St. Louis and Bridgeton in Missouri; and Minneapolis, Minn. Tomorrow, she'll hit New Haven, Conn.,Worcester, Mass. and New York City. She also stumped in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee while Obama was campaigning South Carolina. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton has handled African-American and rural areas, swinging through Pine Bluff and Texarkana in Arkansas; Kennesaw, Georgia; Huntsville, Alabama; Columbia and Springfield in Missouri; and four black churches in Los Angeles. Whew.
 
The Ads: 

Arkansas: Remember me? Your former First Lady?

Bobby: A Kennedy likes me, too.


Freefall: Be afraid. Be very afraid. (Read more here.)

Can Do: Obama's "political promises" won't fix the economy. My flags, sunsets, babies, and multicultural supporters will.

Lifetime: I can speak in normal human tones.
 

BARACK OBAMA:

The Pitch: Hillary's the boring old past; I'm the sparkly future. Plus she's too much like John McCain--and too polarizing--to beat him next November. "Barack Obama is the one candidate who offers a real choice and a real contrast against John McCain," spokesman Bill Burton said today. "He opposed the war before it started, never supported a bankruptcy bill that would make it harder for families to climb out of debt, and hasn't supported NAFTA or permanent trade with China that have sent millions of jobs overseas." So wait: you're saying that Ron Paul won't win the Republican nod?

The Stops: Coast to coast, with a focus on Latino hot spots, key caucus states and big media markets. Since Friday, Obama has ba-racked Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M.; Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis, Minn.; St. Louis, Mo. and Wilmington, Delaware. Tomorrow he stops in East Rutherford, N.J., Hartford, Conn. and Boston, Mass. before heading back to Chicago.

The Ads: 

Super Bowl: I am young and energetic, much like rock 'n' roll music. (Airing during the game in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Washington.)

(Click to watch.) 
 

Inspiring: I've actually accomplished some stuff. Yes really. (Read more here.)

(Click to watch.) 

Caroline: Jack is Back!
 

 
JOHN MCCAIN 

The Pitch: I'm going to win--and I promise to make this as painless as possible for all you haters on my right. "I assume that I will get the nomination of the party," McCain said Tuesday. "I assume unifying our party is a very critical item and I believe we can do that and get everybody together and working together." Memo to McCain: telling the Washington Post that "it's not social issues I care about" won't help.

The Stops: A little bit of everything, with stops in northern strongholds and weaker regions--like, say, the South--where McCain could stand to gain a few delegates. So far this month, Mac has stumped in Chesterfield, Mo.; Chicago, Ill.; Nashville, Tenn.; Atlanta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala. and Fairfield, Conn. Tomorrow he lands in Boston, Mass. and Hamilton, N.J.

The Ad:

True Conservative: Listen up, Rush: I am a "proud social conservative." Now let me talk about Iraq.
 

 
MITT ROMNEY

The Pitch: McCain is an older, male-r version of Hillary Clinton. Huckabee is a goner. I'm the last conservative standing. Also, Washington is Broken ®. "This is a battle in some respects for the heart and soul of the Republican Party," Romney said today. "Frankly, if we want a party that is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton on an issue like illegal immigration, that we're going to have John McCain as a nominee, that's the wrong way to go."

The Stops: States that allocate delegates via caucuses and conventions, where organization can trump name identification, momentum and inevitability--and ideological activists typically turn out. Also important: Republican-only primaries. Since Thursday, Romney has stopped in Southern California, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri and Illinois, while his wife and sons have fanned out over Georgia, Montana, Maine and North Dakota.

The Ads: 

Experience Matters: We can only afford one national ad before Super Tuesday to brake McCain's momentum. How about this three-month old anti-Hillary spot?
 

California: Help me, economic conservatives of Southern California. You're my only hope.

 
MIKE HUCKABEE

The Pitch: Sure, Sen. McCain, I'll keep the South and the evangelicals just out of Romney's reach on Super Tuesday. No need to thank me--yet. "I think it is time for Mitt Romney to step aside," Huckabee said this morning on CNN. "The fact is, he spent $100 million to have the same market share that I have for $7 million.  Now anybody with a Harvard MBA ought to know that the business model on that is, it is time to pull the plug on a business that is just not selling that well. And the real challenge is to -- if he wants to call it a two-man race, fine, but that makes it John McCain and me."

The Stops: Dixie. After leaving Southern California on Thursday, Huck has barnstormed in Alabama and Arkansas.

The Ads: None. We hear they're pretty pricey these days.

There’s a new order inside the Mitt Romney campaign. The GOP candidate who has until now boasted the best ground organization in key battleground states, the biggest ad buys, the most efficient research and communications apparatus, and every other advantage money can buy suddenly appears rudderless and disengaged. Romney, who spent nearly $3 million on advertising in Florida in the past month alone (and more than $5 million in the state over the last year), has been a workhorse since his campaign for the presidency began. He has been far ahead of his rivals in both money spent and time dedicated on the stump. Yet even as his rivals’ makeshift campaigns have thrown together slapdash events (Mike Huckabee’s haircut press conference, anyone?), they have pulled off big wins with little money and even less structure.

Things are changing. At Wednesday night’s debate an uncharacteristically flustered Romney was caught off guard and seemed distracted at times, at one point denying one of his own positions on immigration policy (a debate moderator read a prior comment Romney had made on the issue to set him straight). Worse, Romney has reportedly chosen not to advertise in the 21 states set to vote in Tuesday’s critical round of Republican primaries. Romney communications director Matt Rhoades declined to comment on the campaign’s strategy in an interview after tonight’s debate, but he did not specifically deny a report by the Associated Press that asserted Romney has decided against going on air in the crucial Super Tuesday states. “We’re not gonna show our playbook,” Rhoades said. “He’s not gonna drop out. He’s very serious.” However, Rhoades did acknowledge that less than a week away from Super Tuesday voting, Romney is not yet on the air in any of the states that will likely determine his party’s nominee. Much of the money Romney has pumped into advertising in the past has been his own; during his concession speech in Florida last night, Romney joked with supporters that they were family, but should not “expect to be part of the inheritance. I’m not sure there’s going to be much left after this.”

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP... 

SIMI VALLEY, California--Here's what I took away from tonight's face-off between the four remaining Republican candidates at the Ronald Reagan Library:

1. The Dynamic: Before South Carolina and Florida, the GOP contest was a four-man muddle. But tonight marked the start of a mano-a-mano head-to-head sprint to finish between McCain and Romney. It's a whole new race. Free to focus their fire on each other, the frontrunner (McCain) and the challenger (Romney) defined the dynamic that will determine the Republican nomination: character vs. conservatism.

Romney wants the contest to center on conservative cred, which is why he unloaded on McCain for sponsoring "a number of pieces of legislation where his views are out of the mainstream, at least in my view, of conservative Republican thought": McCain-Lieberman (cap-and-trade), McCain-Kennedy (immigration) and McCain-Feingold (campaign finance reform). Romney's goal? To convince anti-McCain conservatives to coalesce around his candidacy, providing a powerful brake to Mac's post-Florida momentum.

McCain, on the other hand, wants Super Tuesday voters to compare his character to Romney's. Which is why he took Romney to task for hedging on the surge while the Arizona senator "unequivocally put [his] career and [his] political fortunes on the line... to support" Bush's policy. The implication: that Mitt doesn't have the cojones to lead in a time of terror.

So who's dominating the tug-of-war? I'm going to say McCain. While Romney raised valid questions about his rival's conservative "apostasies"--questions, I should note, that the senator largely dodged (the one on his opposition to the Bush tax cuts was particularly blatant)--it's not like many voters expect the "maverick" McCain to tow toe the party line. Romney is telling people a story they already know. But when McCain questions Romney's character, he's not only drawing a contrast--he's reminding voters that Romney, a moderate back in Massachusetts, has tacked to the right on key conservative issues like abortion, gay rights, immigration and abortion. (Did I mention abortion?) According to McCain, Romney is casting stones from a glass house--and his lack of consistency (read: character) also undermines his conservative cred.

This was Romney's last best chance to reorient the race before Super Tuesday--but he spent most of the night defending or clarifying his positions (especially on Iraq, McCain's strong suit). Not helpful.

By Suzanne Smalley 

Mike Freese, a 59-year-old St. Petersburg resident and Romney supporter who is trying to start a movement he calls Red Necks for Romney, had already gotten two posters with the slogan signed by Romney at events over the past few days. Imagine his disappointment when Romney's advance staff stopped him from bringing a third handmade Red Necks for Romney sign into their election night event in St. Petersburg's grand Mirror Lake Lyceum, an event hall here. Freese said that while Romney has chuckled at his message each time he's autographed one of the signs, last night the staff told him only official Romney manufactured signs were allowed. How very Romney.
 
Truth be told, the Romney folks could have used a few more signs last night. The hall at Mirror Lake was too big for the crowd of just a couple hundred, leaving about a quarter of the seats in the balcony overlooking where Romney gave his bittersweet concession speech empty. The bar was deserted all night; bartenders said there was plenty of booze left over downstairs that never made it up to the party space. One of the few people drinking, in fact, was Romney senior adviser Ron Kaufman, who nursed a beer as the governor spoke nostalgically for a United States that he sounded like he was eulogizing.
 
Last night, Romney sounded off message for the first time all campaign. He stumbled over words as he delivered his speech. His tone was wistful and even sad at times. It seemed to be dawning on Romney that his chances of winning are increasingly unlikely. "I remember when I was growing up I always knew that America was the greatest nation on Earth," he said. "First nation to the moon, our cars and movies and technology were the envy of the entire world and freedom and opportunity was just like the air – it was everywhere I went. I believed there was nothing I couldn't do and I knew there was nothing that America couldn't do because we led the world….What kind of nation will we leave our children and our grandchildren?" The implicit message was clear: If John McCain is elected, instead of Romney, we won't be leaving them much. After he finished speaking, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" blasted through the ballroom. It was hard to believe that Romney still buys the lyrics. 

Read Suzanne's Romney story here.