Elise Amendola / AP

Here's my NEWSWEEK colleague (the indomitable) Suzanne Smalley with a dispatch from the Clinton roadshow in Oregon. Despite speculation to contrary, Suzanne reports, the candidate is actually "escalating her rhetoric" against Obama.

At a rally in Central Point, Ore., last night, Hillary Clinton didn't leave any doubt that she's still in it to win it. She challenged Barack Obama to a debate in Portland on Friday, where they'll both be campaigning, saying she'll meet "absolutely anytime, anywhere." She stressed her knowledge of controversial local issues, saying Obama is on the wrong side of them. And she taunted Obama for talking a good game without backing it up, not unlike, Clinton said, President George W. Bush.

"My opponent voted for legislation … which gave more tax subsidies to the oil companies, more tax subsidies to the nuclear industry, and which took away the right of states to determine whether [liquefied natural gas] terminals would be placed along their coast. So there's a lot we should be debating about," she told a raucous crowd of about 1,000 supporters. "Back in 2000 some people voted for President Bush because he went around telling people in settings like this that he was a compassionate conservative. Nobody knew what that meant, did they? But it sure did sound good."

... 

The New York senator's resilience and unflinchingly broad smile belied her grim circumstances, three days after she failed to perform well enough in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries to turn the race around. Despite her strong rhetoric, it is now clear that Clinton can't win the Democratic nomination unless the superdelegates overturn the popular vote and Barack Obama's pledged delegate lead. Even if Florida and Michigan votes are fully counted, Clinton still will finish the primary race behind Obama in pledged delegates. How then does the campaign justify continuing?

To hear Clinton's chief superdelegate hunter Harold Ickes tell it, Clinton is continuing the fight because she's convinced she can beat McCain. Clinton has refused to come out and say Obama can't beat McCain (when pressed to by several debate moderators, she has demurred). But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Ickes strongly suggested that Obama can't win come November. "We have to remember McCain is not a standard, off-the-shelf Republican," Ickes said, echoing the argument he says he's making to superdelegates, and pointing up Clinton's inarguable strength with Roman Catholics, Hispanics and elderly voters in key November battleground states such as Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. "He will have a lot of appeal for Hispanics. He'll trounce [Obama]."

The pool of uncommitted superdelegates—numbering 230 or so--being wooed by the Clinton camp are worried about Obama's general-election viability, Ickes said. He stressed that if Obama can't win Florida or Ohio—both states in which he has polled less favorably than Clinton—then states like New Mexico and Nevada will take on more importance. And Ickes suggested Obama can't win in those places either. "Big Hispanic populations," Ickes said. "If you look at the reach she has from a general-election perspective, she is a much stronger candidate. She has a much stronger base in swing or Purple States and she has a much stronger base to get to 270."

Clinton has also started mentioning race more frequently. In an article published yesterday in USA Today, Clinton said she would have a larger group of voters to draw a winning coalition from because "Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." What happened to playing nice? Even as surrogates have called for a less bitterly fought campaign, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein publicly warned Clinton yesterday that she is concerned about the "negative dividends" of the contest. Some advisers have been quoted speaking privately about plans to keep the campaign's tone positive going forward. But the candidate only seems to be escalating her rhetoric.

READ THE REST HERE. 

 

Remember the old saying, "'tis better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all"?

It doesn't apply to presidential politics.

In yesterday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the burden of proof was on Hillary Clinton. To counteract Barack Obama's indestructible lead in the pledged-delegate count, she needed to give superdelegates fresh evidence that Obama had a fatal flaw--namely by showing that the good voters of North Carolina suddenly favored her after initially favoring him.

The Clinton campaign clearly recognized this--and gave North Carolina their best shot. In the wake of Clinton's April 22 win in Pennsylvania, they dispatched top field operative Averell "Ace" Smith--the architect of her triumphs in the Texas and California primaries--to run the Tar Heel State show. Known in political circles as a guy who "always brings a gun to a knife fight," he immediately predicted that N.C. would be the "upset of the century" and launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign. Soon, Clinton herself was hyping the looming primary as "a game-changer," and polls showed that Obama's once-commanding lead had shrunk to single digits. With the state seemingly in her grasp, the former First Lady sent her secret weapon--husband and former president Bill--on his Barbecue Tour: a frenzy of old-fashioned front-porch rallies in the tiny, mostly-white hamlets of rural North Carolina, where his patented Southern charm could presumably scare up the votes needed to surprise Obama on Primary Day. "Let the commentariat lament, or laugh, about Bill being sent out into the sticks," wrote Byron York in the National Review. "For Hillary, the sticks are where the votes are."

Yesterday, I caught up with the president at Durham's North Carolina School of Math and Science for his final stop. Red in the face, with saggy eyes and a halo of mussed, overgrown white hair, he clearly "look[ed] exhausted," as one schoolteacher put it. And with good reason: in recent weeks, Bill had made 56 appearances in North Carolina, including 19 in the last three days alone. "Even when I was younger," he told a supporter on the rope line, "that would've been a lot." Still, he was in fine form. Approached by a pregnant woman, he touched her bulging belly and asked when the baby was due. Shaking hands with a young student of Indian origin, he was desperate to connect. "Me and India are big partners," he said. "My foundation, you know, we've helped 1.4 million people in 70 counties. I'm doing work in Delhi and Mumbai on a big global warming project." And he was sure to tell everyone within earshot that "Hillary would be a better president than I ever was," adding "I really believe that" for emphasis.

But as Bill made his way through the throng--it took him over an hour to pose for every picture, sign every book and shake every hand--cries of "o-BAM-a!" overwhelmed the calls of "Yes, She Can!" And that underlined the problem: there were as many protesting Obamaniacs in attendance as Clintonistas. In the end, Obama edged Clinton by seven points among North Carolina's rural voters, who made up a full 47 percent of the primary electorate, and won the state by nearly 15 points. Neither stat was surprising on its face; Obama was originally expected to beat Clinton there by at least 15. But because the Clintons--and especially Bill--had campaigned so hard, and fallen so short, the chatterati treated the results as a surprise. "The decision of Clinton to contest North Carolina and give Obama an expectations victory was costly," wrote Marc Ambinder. Ultimately, the Bill Factor worked against Hillary. In electoral terms, he was irrelevant. But in terms of expectations, his effort made N.C. look like more of a loss than it might otherwise have been.

In retrospect, Indiana may have been a better target. There, Clinton trounced Obama 66-34 among rural voters. But because they made up a mere 17 percent of electorate, she could only manage a 14,000-vote victory--which wasn't nearly enough offset Obama's Tar Heel landslide. Who knows what a little more lovin' from Bubba might have done...

UPDATE, May 8: According to Carrie Dann at MSNBC, Bill hit a whopping 41 of the state's 100 counties, but only 18 of them went for Hillary. Meanwhile, in Indiana, the former president visited 35 counties--and his wife won all but eight. So there you go.
 

Here's the wrap-up story I co-authored with Michael Hirsh and Suzanne Smalley:

Asked whether he thought the race was over, Axelrod avoided answering—but made it clear that he's not exactly perched on the edge of his seat. "The math is the math," he said. Gibbs chimed in: "The fact is, there are fewer delegates left to win in the primaries than superdelegates still up for grabs," he said. "From this point on, Sen. Clinton would have to win 70 percent of all the remaining delegates, both superdelegates and pledged delegates, to reach a majority. And as far as superdelegates go, just looked at what we've rolled out since Feb. 5. That's a tall order."

Indeed. Over at Clinton headquarters in Indianapolis, as the returns rolled into the Murat Centre, a crowd of supporters chanted "Madame President!" while Hillary's essential anthem played in the background: the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing." Hillary, by all appearances, has never stopped. But with her disappointing split decision, the woman who had been confidently comparing herself to a never-say-die fighter in recent weeks is sounding desperate once again. True, in her victory speech, Clinton brazenly declared that "it's full speed onto the White House." But she also pleaded for more funds against "a candidate who spends massively."

And now, even more than money, Hillary badly needs a new campaign narrative, a new way to persuade undecided superdelegates to back her. Utterly gone with the wind—blown somewhere off the coast of North Carolina—was the hopeful Clinton scenario heard in recent weeks. This was the idea put forward by the Hillary camp that Obama was fatally damaged by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy and other campaign mishaps: that he had become all but unelectable against John McCain.

Obama's decisive win Tuesday in North Carolina—all the sweeter for his supporters coming after Bill Clinton campaigned doggedly in small N.C. towns—destroyed that Clinton conceit. Despite exit polling that suggested Obama had been seriously damaged by the unpopular remarks of his former pastor—even after his sharp remarks last week distancing himself from Wright—the Illinois senator appears to have contained the crisis and resumed his march to the nomination.

In fact Obama probably emerges from Tuesday night even further ahead in the delegate count than he was when the voting began. Now the Obama camp is arguing that he can secure the nomination, perhaps as early as May 20, the day of the Oregon and Kentucky primaries. They hope that by that date Obama will finally have an insurmountable majority of pledged delegates from the primaries and caucuses, and that this will trigger a stampede of undecided superdelegates in his direction, giving him the 2,025 total delegates needed for nomination.

In response, the Clinton campaign has been once again, changing the parameters. In recent days they have newly emphasized the number of delegates they believe are needed for nomination: 2,209. This includes the currently barred Florida and Michigan vote totals (as her supporters chanted during her Indiana speech, "count the votes! Count the votes!"). But with the National Democratic Committee rules committee in charge of the decision whether to sanction those primaries, which were disqualified because they held their votes in violation of party rules, it's questionable whether that argument will persuade undecided superdelegates.

The Clintonites could take the battle to the convention floor by appealing to the DNC credentials committee, which gets named eight weeks or so before the convention. Clinton's team could ask the credentials committee to take up the issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates and make a recommendation to the convention floor. If she is close enough to Obama after all the contests end that Florida and Michigan votes could make a difference, she could choose to take her fight all the way to the convention floor.

Now the Clintonites are simply begging the superdelegates not to "short circuit" the process, as strategist Harold Ickes puts it. And they continue to make the argument that Obama is still so unknown and untested that, just as the controversial comments of Wright haunted him late in the primary season, new unsavory facts could come out if he runs against McCain in the fall. "We don't need an October surprise," Ickes said. "We know a great deal about Hillary. There is no October surprise with her and the last five or six weeks speak for themselves not only through momentum, but a number of other issues have arisen."

Yet even as Obama contemplates his long-awaited victory, he must question whether it will prove to be Pyrrhic. One disturbing result out of Tuesday's election was how divided the traditional Democratic base has become after three months of negative campaigning since Super Tuesday. In North Carolina, a stunning 92 percent of African-Americans went for Obama, while white non-college-educated workers went decisively for Clinton. Either candidate will need the full support of the other part of the base to win in November. The question is whether feelings have become so bitter that either candidate can rouse them.

Obama, in his victory speech, insisted that would not happen despite the "bruised feelings" on both sides. "This fall we intend to march forward as one Democratic Party," he said, because "we can't afford to give John McCain a chance to serve out George Bush's third term." It was, perhaps, the beginning of his general election campaign. And it was appropriate, perhaps, that at Hillary's rally a broken confetti machine failed to spew shredded paper and instead just sputtered smoke, which quickly disappeared.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

RALEIGH, N.C.--It's no secret that among certain segments of the electorate--especially the Republican attack dogs he could face in the fall--Barack Obama has a bit of perceptual patriotism problem. You know the drill: the flag pin, Bittergate, saluting the stars and stripes, Michelle's pride in America. That's why I thought this passage from tonight's speech was intriguing:

I love this country too much to see it divided and distracted at this moment in history. I believe in our ability to perfect this union because it's the only reason I'm standing here today. And I know the promise of America because I have lived it. It is the light of opportunity that led my father across an ocean. It is the founding ideals that the flag draped over my grandfather's coffin stands for - it is life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's the simple truth I learned all those years ago when I worked in the shadows of a shuttered steel mill on the South Side of Chicago--that in this country, justice can be won against the greatest of odds; hope can find its way back to the darkest of corners; and when we are told that we cannot bring about the change that we seek, we answer with one voice--yes we can.

In other words, my name may be Muslim, my father may have been African and I may have lived in Indonesia and Hawaii as a kid. But I'm still one of you--with relatives who made the same sacrifices for America as your ancestors.

If you're wondering whether this message was intentional, consider the campaign-arranged TV backdrop: a half-dozen middle-aged white women--Hillary Clinton's core constituency--holding little American flags:

RALEIGH, N.C.--Barack Obama's favorite subject? Mathematics.

As soon as it became obvious here at the Obama celebration in Raleigh that today's primaries had ended in a split decision--a crushing 15-point win for Obama in N.C., a narrower, perhaps four-point victory for Clinton in Indiana--Obama communications director Robert Gibbs and chief strategist David Axelrod gathered a small group of reporters on a terrace overlooking the parking lot and did what they did best: spin.  "We think we won a really big victory here tonight," said Axelrod. "It ensures that regardless of what happens in Indiana that we are going to extend our delegate lead... The important thing is that this was not a game changer, folks, in any way, shape or form."

It was a funny formulation--"a really big victory" that was, nonetheless, "not a game changer." But Axelrod's description was accurate. After month of news cycles dominated by a string of popular-vote losses (Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Texas primary) and a series of scandel-ettes (Rev. Wright, Bittergate)--a period that even Axelrod admitted "wasn't helpful"--Team Obama was happy to get a win on the board. As they see it, each contest that doesn't slash Obama's insurmountable lead in the pledged-delegate count or his near-insurmountable edge in the popular vote--or expands his leads, as tonight's results probably will--puts them, in Gibbs's words, one step "closer to the finish line." For Obama, he implied, the less the game changes, the better.

His reason? The math. Asked whether he thought the race was over, Axelrod avoided answering--but made it clear that he's not exactly perched on the edge of his seat. "The math is the math," he said.  Here, Gibbs chimed in. "The fact is, there are fewer delegates left to win in the primaries than superdelegates still up for grabs," he said. "From this point on, Sen. Clinton would have to win 70 percent of all the remaining delegates, both superdelegates and pledged delegates, to reach a majority. And as far as superdelegates go, just looked at what we've rolled out since Feb. 5. That's a tall order."

"Despite the tortured constructions from the other side," added Axelrod, with a grin.

The numbers game even extends to the arguments over Obama's electability. While the Clinton camp would argue that her strength among white, working-class voters makes her a surer bet to beat John McCain come November, Obama's aides disagree. Their counterargument: Obama can change the map. Citing North Carolina exit polls that showed a massive surge in new voter turnout (18 percent)--and a big Obama victory in the subgroup--Gibbs, a native Tar Heel, even speculated that his candidate could swing North Carolina into the Democratic column on Election Day. "Since 1992, there have been Democratic governors elected, Democratic congressmen," he said. "With a concerted effort that expands the electorate in the fall, we could make a run at it. Look at what we did tonight with indepedents, with new voters, with young people. That's what we need and want to win the general election." As Obama loses the Average Joe vote yet again--despite Axelrod's claims tonight that he "won among white voters under 60," the Illinois senator actually lost in every white subgroup over 30--Gibbs is hoping the wary superdelegates are paying attention. Regardless, added Axelrod, "the Democrats will be united in the fall."

Still, despite that show of comity, Obama's guru couldn't help but throw a final elbow. Noting that Republicans (who accounted for 11 percent of the vote in Indiana) chose Clinton over Obama 53 to 45, Axelrod credited none other than Rush Limbaugh. "Apparently, Rush has been urging Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary," he said. "It looks like tonight she was the beneficiary." His point was clear: it was mischievous Republicans, not earnest Democrats, who had powered Clinton to her Hoosier State win. Whether or not that equation holds up--and early evidence suggests it may, with an estimated seven percent of those who voted for Clinton in Indiana not planning to support her in the fall--Axelrod and Co. probably have more than enough math on their side without it.

As we reentered Reynold Coliseum after the briefing, a classic Jackson 5 track blared over the PA. "A-B-C," went the lyrics. "It's easy as 1-2-3." We'll see soon enough whether the superdelegates agree. 

RALEIGH, N.C.--Judging by the scene here in Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State, the Obama campaign didn't think it'd be that easy.

The networks called the Tar Heel State for the senator from Illinois at 7:33 p.m. local time--a mere three minutes after polls closed. No actual returns necessary--just exit polls showing that about 91 percent of the state's African American voters had backed Obama, who also benefited from a surge of first-time voters. (They represented 18 percent of the day's turnout and favored him by a vast 68-26 percent.) The only problem? There were no actual supporters in Reynolds when Tom Brokaw broke the news. While the press corps tapped at their laptops like zombies, a pair of Obama volunteers clapped and cheered (o-BAM-a, o-BAM-a) in the corner. Their cries barely carried from one end of the court to the other. "We were out canvassing all day long, knocking on doors," said Diana Powell, 44, a Raleigh minister decked out in a white Obama t-shirt and a red Obama cap. "Even the people who WEREN'T registered said they were for Barack." So you weren't worried about North Carolina? "No way," she said. Just then, the first wave of Obamaniacs, who'd been waiting outside for hours, started to trickle in. "Woo!" they shouted. "Woo!" Powell replied. Officially, doors wouldn't open for another 20 minutes. But it seemed the party was starting a little early.

A possible damper: Indiana. With 34 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton now leads Obama 54 to 37 percent--and the early, easy win in North Carolina means that most of the media huffing and puffing would focus on the Hoosier State instead. Exit polls from Indiana show Clinton winning that crucial constituency--white blue-collar voters--65 to 34. Earlier in the day, Obama visited the Four Seasons Family Restaurant in Greenwood, Indiana to chat with patrons about the economy and gas prices before sitting down to breakfast. But the first man he approached waved him away. "I can't stand him,'' the diner told a reporter later. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned.'' Asked whether she was as confident about Indiana as North Carolina, Powell stopped smiling. "That's the nailbiter," she said. Nearby, a network correspondent encircled her head with a halo of hairspray. It was time for her close-up.

By Suzanne Smalley 

Fifteen hours into her day, Hillary Clinton still wasn’t sitting down. The plane she charters tilted downward and staffers were urgently whispering, “We’re landing,”. But Clinton kept going. She had hit her stride in this 10 p.m. press conference Monday, which was unfolding en route to her fifth campaign stop of the day in Evansville, Indiana’s third largest city. With Indiana Senator Evan Bayh next to her, Clinton struck the populist chords she has hit especially hard lately, railing against special interests and defending her gas tax plan as a salve for suffering working people. “Folks really respect it if you get up and fight, even if you can’t on the first, second, or third time produce all the results that you would like to,” she said, when a reporter asked her if her plan to pass gas tax legislation was realistic. “What’s the alternative…Oil (at) $120 a barrel? For goodness sakes. That deserves some kind of response and I don’t hear anything coming out of…”

Clinton’s staff cut her off and attempted to pull her back to her seat mid-sentence as the plane bucked and banked its way down to the ground. The senator ignored them, saying, “McCain has a plan--take the gas tax off. Republicans would vote for that. That is not a responsible position. I think I’ve offered a responsible position and it’s worth standing up and fighting for it, which is what I’m doing.”

Clinton’s pugilistic late-night commentary aboard her plane is an apt metaphor for the state of her overall campaign today. Many voters--and most pundits-seem ready for the Democratic nomination marathon to end. But Clinton shows no signs of sitting down. In fact, there are new signals that Clinton will continue her battle regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s voting. Her campaign web site yesterday posted a new disclaimer on its delegate-tracking page. For months the conventional wisdom has held that 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the nomination. Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, told Newsweek the campaign believes 2,208 delegates are required to secure the nomination because “as we get closer to the end of the primary contests we wanted to make it clear that Florida and Michigan need to be included in the delegate calculus.”

As her fight to stay alive intensifies, Clinton has been ratcheting up her use of populist rhetoric. Yesterday, in New Albany, Indiana, a small city nestled against the Ohio River on the Kentucky border where about 15 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, Clinton closed her rally with a spirited attack on the special interests she says are profiting from the sweat of working-class Americans. Standing in a firehouse with a squad of firefighters behind her, a noticeably hoarse yet remarkably energized Clinton yelled, “It’s the highest cost for oil in the history of the world! More than $120 a barrel. We are literally over the barrel…There is no doubt in my mind that there is market manipulation going on.” She went on to assail rogue energy traders who “sit behind a computer” and buy and sell oil to “keep it off the market” and increase prices.

Clinton said if she becomes president she’ll target speculators, change anti-trust laws to go after OPEC, and make oil companies give some of “their record profits” to working people in the form of a gas tax holiday. The vilification of big oil, Wall Street and OPEC has become her mantra. Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer yesterday sent reporters an email alerting them to Clinton’s pledge at a firehouse in Merrillville, Indiana to “go right at OPEC” and make sure they can no longer “get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world” to set oil prices.

Robert Lieber, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown and the author of two books on the 1970s oil crisis, said Clinton’s comments distort reality. While OPEC and speculators may be partially responsible for the run up in gas prices, Lieber said, it will be difficult for Clinton to do anything about it with world demand peaking--thanks to the emergence of China and India as superpowers and scientific constraints on new oil production. “There is a kernel of truth in the things she’s said, but the way it has been framed is political and involves considerable exaggeration and hyperbole,” Lieber said. “It is populist rhetoric.”

Maybe, but it just might work. Eleventh-hour polls suggest Clinton will defeat Obama by a decent margin in Indiana, and may keep it close in North Carolina. The kinds of details Lieber delves into-and that Obama discusses on the stump-might make for sound policy, but they don’t move the political needle. Take Melvin Mitchell, a 72-year-old retired postal employee who stood waiting for two hours to hear Clinton speak in New Albany. Mitchell says he spends about $40 extra a week on gas now, which is keeping him from spending money on anything but true necessities. “I’m struggling,” Mitchell said. “I worked hard my whole life. Why should I have to struggle?” Janice Wiggs, 59, was standing next to him, with her 81-year-old mother in tow (the elderly woman also stood for about two hours waiting for Clinton). Wiggs said Clinton’s gas tax plan would save her $28 a month. “Obama’s saying $28 isn’t much,” she angrily remarked. “I think he needs to get in touch. $28 buys a lot of groceries.”

By Richard Wolffe 

EVANSVILLE, Ind.--Obama’s aides knew they were headed for defeat several days and even weeks out from the Pennsylvania primary. One clear sign: Obama’s plane was at the end of a runway in Philadelphia as the polls closed, and was in flight as the TV networks called the state for Clinton.

While some hoped for a surprise victory (and a rapid end to the election), Obama himself believes the race will extend through to June with the final primaries. The question for Team Obama was focused on the scale of the defeat, and what it meant for the duration of the campaign.

For several days, since the controversial ABC News debate in Philadelphia, Obama’s aides have increasingly suggested they would concentrate more heavily on the presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain. That didn’t stop them going sharply negative against Hillary Clinton towards the end of the Pennsylvania race. But the senior aides suggested that was a temporary tactic designed to narrow the size of the defeat and maintain a post-Pennsylvania focus on a simple question: what is Clinton’s realistic strategy for winning the nomination?

With a clear lead among pledged delegates and another 158 delegates off the table after Pennsylvania, Obama’s aides asked again what Clinton’s motives were. “I don’t think anybody is eager to call this to a halt prematurely or unfairly,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, who was wearing a T-shirt saying “Stop the Drama, Vote Obama.”

“But there’s a sense of urgency that we not savage each other to the benefit of Senator McCain…If Senator Clinton has a legitimate chance to win the nomination, then she has every reason to stay in. But if her only strategy is to try to tear down Senator Obama, then I think that will make a lot of Democrats uncomfortable.”

On the ground in Evansville, Indiana, Obama himself made a pitch for one of the next two critical contests, along with North Carolina on May 6. As Obama’s aides pointed out, both states combined represent the same number of delegates as Pennsylvania.

In Indiana, Obama made it clear he was ready to move on to the general election contest against McCain – devoting four times as much of his speech to his Republican opponent than he did to the race in Pennsylvania.

“After fourteen long months, it’s easy to forget this from time to time – to lose sight of the fierce urgency of this moment,” he said after a rough six-week campaign in Pennsylvania, that dwelled on a series of gaffes and flaps by both Democratic candidates. “It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics; the bickering that none of us are immune to, and that trivializes the profound issues – two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril.

“But that kind of politics is not why we’re here," he added. "It’s not why I’m here and it’s not why you’re here.”

Arriving at the address listed on the schedule--340 DeKalb Pike--I actually had to ask a security agent if I was in the right place. After eight months of shadowing Obama on the trail, I've been conditioned to expect hoopla, Americana and a swarm of Obamaniacs everywhere the Illinois senator goes. But this afternoon's site was eerily... well, normal. In one corner of the small brick patio abutting MCCC's nondescript, institutional Dining Hall, about 25 locals sat on a makeshift semicircle of metal benches, with a larger semicircle of cameramen surrounding them. The rest of the courtyard (tulips, picnic tables, garbage cans) looked like what it was--a place for students to eat lunch.

Why, you ask, is Obama wasting his time on such a small-scale event--a "Discussion with Working Families," according to the campaign--with only a few precious hours remaining before the potentially decisive Pennsylvania primary? Easy--he's covering his bases. If there's anything keeping Obama's campaign from breaking through in the Keystone State, it's the impression, prevalent among blue-collar types I meet on the road, that he's all hot air--a notion, incidentally, that Hillary Clinton is doing nothing to discourage. "I'm offering real solutions, not just speeches, for the problems we face," she wrote in this morning's Philadelphia Daily News. "Because it's not enough to just say you're going to solve our problems; you need to know how you're going to do it."

For Obama, today's MCCC event was meant to serve as a kind of corrective. Look, he said, as he answered questions from unemployed computer technicians and folks with four children in college (all of them selected by the campaign) about gas prices, education reform, the economy and the nurse shortage. Just because I can speak to crowds of 35,000 about airy concepts like hope and change doesn't mean I can't also speak to crowds of 25 about kitchen-table concerns. And if you doubt Team Obama's desire to emphasize that message on D-Day, just compare his schedule to Clinton's. She's holding quickfire rallies in three of Pennsylvania's smaller media markets--Scranton, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg--before the evening news begins; he only has one event scheduled before 6:00--this one--and it's in the make-or-break suburbs of the state's largest city (Philadelphia). If local producers want to cover Obama tonight, they'll be forced to show him perched on a park bench talking about about No Child Left Behind--slowly, seriously and without a soundbite to cling to. And that's exactly what his campaign wants.

For me, the best part of today's event was watching the national press corps squirm. While Obama chatted about things that, you know, actually matter to people--like how to solve the nurse shortage crisis with a woman recently paralyzed from the waist down--the media types in attendance did everything and anything but listen. A cable-news embed yawned. Two reporters discussed their injured dogs. Several well-known newsniks barked into their cell phones, while others chewed the cud with David Axelrod. No one took notes. In fact, the only time the press poo-bahs perked up was when Obama detoured to say hello to a gaggle of fans who were barred from participating; hoping to catch an unscripted slip, photographers and reporters ran across the courtyard and closed in on the candidate like a pack of wolves. Sadly, nothing happened, and by the end of the event, the decision was unanimous. "What are you writing?" one embed asked another. "'Cause I don't know what to say." "Today's so lame, there's just nothing," a network correspondent told his producer back in New York. Which is understandable enough; having heard Obama discuss his health care plan hundreds of times, the national press corps gravitates toward the trivial tit-for-tat rather than the same old specifics. After all, you can't spell the word "news" without "new."

That said, for the local media--KYW News Radio, Channel 6 Action News, the Inquirer, et cetera--everything campaign-related is bright, shiny and novel. Hence Obama's strategy. On my way out, for example, I ran into a schlumpy, middle-aged guy I recognized from the event. Wearing a tweed blazer and toting a notepad, he had stood atop a wall directly in front of the only speaker, ceaselessly scribbling, his tape recorder pressed to the black box in front of him. I asked which outlet he was with. "The Morning Call," he said. "It's an Allentown paper."

In other words, don't expect to hear a lot more about Obama's "Discussion with Working Families." Unless, of course, you live in Pennsylvania--and can actually vote.

Case in point. Today in Radnor, a supporter asked Hillary Clinton what she does in her "off hours"--and this was all she had:

Well, as soon as I have any opportunity I try to shut my eyes and take a nap. I try to go for a walk every so often, because I tell you, it's hard to get any regular exercise with this kind of schedule. Just take some deep breaths. The other day, for example, I was somewhere between events and I said, 'I just have to get out and take a walk.' It was just to get out. Especially in the spring time, you feel like, you get out, you keep going, there's some energy coming back in, you see the flowers. I also love to try to find some time to spend with my family. My daughter and husband are working really hard for me, campaigning across Pennsylvania, but we try to find some time to get together. Chelsea was with me last night... So we had a few minutes to spend with each other. But it is a real challenge to find the time to do very much beyond that. I think in the last 15 months I may have seen two movies. Which is really hard for me, because Bill and I love to go to the movies. I've gone out to eat maybe five times, besides what we do here on the campaign. You give up certain things.

So, to recap: she sleeps, breathes, walks and sees her family.

Good thing we killed "Chillin' with the Candidates" before it was too late.

RADNOR, Penn.--You had to see this one coming. After all the carping about Wednesday night's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton took the opportunity this morning on Philly television to... well, call Barack Obama a girly-man, pretty much. "The special interests are going to be a lot tougher than 90 minutes of questions from two journalists," she said. "And we need a president who is going to be up there fighting everyday for the American people and not complain about how much pressure there is, and how hard the questions are." Here's the video:

There you have it: Clinton's closing argument in Pennsylvania. With only four days left before a primary that she needs to win--and win big--the New York senator and her surrogates have clearly decided to flesh out the emerging caricature of Obama as an effete elitist with debate-related taunts. Speaking yesterday from the front porch of an American Legion Hall in St. Mary's, former President Bill Clinton kicked off the festivities. "After the [debate], her opponents... were saying, 'Oh this is so negative, why are they doing this,'" he said. "Well, they've been beatin' up on her for 15 months. I didn't hear her whining when he said she was untruthful in Iowa." And a few moments ago here Radnor High School on Philadelphia's tony Main Line, Hillary herself ratcheted up the rhetoric.  "My opponent [is] complaining about the hard questions," she said, as the crowd "awwwed" sarcastically. "Having been in the White House for eight years and seen what happens in terms of pressures and stresses on the resident, I'm with Harry Truman on this: if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. And speaking for myself, I'm very comfortable in the kitchen. If the heat goes up, that's okay with me."

I can understand the politics at work here: Clinton is hoping to boost her margins among tough-guy, blue-collar Reagan Democrats, trounce her rival on Tuesday and thereby sow doubts about his electability among superdelegates. But there are two problems with her logic. For starters, Obama never actually, you know, "complain[ed] about how much pressure there is, and how hard the questions are" (even if his supporters have harrumphed that the moderators were petty and one-sided). Far from whining, in fact, Obama has gone on the attack, accusing Clinton of playing "politics as usual" during the debate. "She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there, that's her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit," Obama said yesterday in Raleigh, N.C. "That's how our politics has been taught to be played. That's the lesson that she learned when the Republicans were doing that same thing to her back in the 1990s, so I understand it. And when you're running for the presidency, you've got to expect it." Then, chuckling, he brushed some metaphorical dirt off his shoulders--to thunderous applause:

Not exactly cowering in the corner, right?

The second problem: as Jake Tapper notes, the Clintons and the Clinton campaign have been complaining for months about the media's treatment of Hillary. There was the campaign video complaining about the "Politics of Pile-on" after a November debate in which Clinton, then the clear frontrunner, suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous attacks (from her fellow Democrats, no less). Then came Clinton's complaints in the Cleveland debate seven weeks ago about always getting the first question. And Bill has complained every chance he gets. "The political press has avowedly played a role in this election," he said in a February interview. "I've never seen this before."

As Tapper puts it, "If you haven't heard whining from your wife or from the Clinton campaign, Mr. President, then with all due respect, you haven't been paying attention."

Amen. The truth is, the occasional complaint about the media doesn't disqualify anyone from leading the free world. So Clinton should probably stop pretending that it does--especially when she's the only candidate who's actually indulged.

HAVERFORD, Penn.--Hillary feels Sonya's pain.

Standing on the stage of Founders Hall at Haverford College this afternoon with her mother Kerry, the four-year-old tyke was supposed to introduce former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, who would in turn introduce her famous mom. But when the big moment came, Sonya buried her face in Kerry's blouse. "No," the girl murmured. "Go ahead, Sonya," said Kerry. "No," she repeated.  "Are you going to say Chelsea Clinton?" Kerry asked. At that, Sonya finally looked up, leaned toward the mic-and licked it like an ice-cream cone. She giggled. "Okay, "Kerry stammered. "I'll say Chelsea Clinton."

Completely understandable, said Hillary when she took the stage a few moments later. "You know, Sonya exhibited the way that I sometimes feel standing in front of audiences holding microphones," she confessed. Next to me, an undergrad wondered aloud whether Clinton meant that she also feels shy on stage--or that she's tempted, from time to time, to tongue the audio equipment.

The joke, of course, is that for a ferociously competitive politician often depicted as America's Iron Lady--and who last night in Philadelphia delivered one of the edgiest, elbow-throwing-est debate performances of the cycle--the former strikes many Americans as only marginally more plausible than the latter.  But it was clear from the opening moments of today's appearance in th