By Eleanor Clift

The day of reckoning for Hillary Clinton is almost here. The voters in Ohio will either deal a final blow to her campaign or provide a much needed victory that at best will give her a reprieve in the long march to the nomination. A visitor from another country recently paid a call on the Clinton campaign headquarters in Ballston, Va., a place just over the bridge from Washington but light years away. He imagined he would be present at a moment of great triumph. Instead he found a campaign on the verge of imploding. Phone bank tables were unmanned. Bins full of mail sent over from the Senate sat unattended. A lot of young women, fanatical Hillary fans all, rushed about, seemingly unclear about what they were supposed to be doing. Other aides sat in front of computer screens, gloomily reading coverage of the campaign. Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer, the campaign’s communications team, weren’t speaking with anybody else, just doing their own thing, whatever that might have been. In short, it was not a happy family.

No amount of spin can overcome Hillary’s disappointing performance Tuesday night in Cleveland. MSNBC called it a draw, but hardly anybody else did. Hillary didn’t land a single blow. Her insistence on sticking with health-care reform as an issue for the first 16 minutes of the debate only reminded people how unbending she can be when convinced of the rectitude of her position. The debate was perhaps her last chance to turn the tide after 11 straight losses. As aides sat looking at polls coming in with the gaps widening, a new reality took hold. They’ve given up winning in Texas and they fear they may not win in Ohio.

Clinton once led Obama in all the national polls; now she’s behind him by a growing margin—as much as 13 or 18 percent in some soundings. In Texas, which votes on March 4, Obama is now ahead in most polls. For the first time he has also surged ahead of her in an Ohio poll—one taken before the debate. Hillary leads in three other polls, but by a margin of 4 percent at best. This is a state where she has the backing of the governor and once led by a double-digit margin. Campaign aides are dejected and demoralized, and they’re turning up for work late. It’s as if they’ve given up. Talk of a dream ticket—the idea that a deal would be struck to combine his youth and her experience—was once an exciting prospect. Now the likelihood of that happening seems to fade by the day.

There was pandemonium this week when an image of Barack Obama in African garb appeared on the Drudge Report, sourced to the Clinton campaign. A day of witch hunts apparently yielded nothing, and Obama took Hillary’s word that as far as she knew her campaign was not behind it. Donning unusual cultural costumes is a diplomatic gesture, not a career-ender (like when Michael Dukakis wore a helmet and rode around in a tank to prove his national-security bona fides). The furor died down pretty quickly—for now—but it was one more element in a budding storyline, nurtured by conservatives, that is calculated to paint Obama as somehow "other," not a red-blooded American, not one of us.

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Top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu will rely on a court-appointed lawyer to defend him against charges that he cheated investors out of millions of dollars and made illegal donations to politicians, including presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz appointed Hugh M. Mundy on Thursday to represent Hsu as the 56-year-old clothing-industry entrepreneur made his first appearance in the Manhattan court.

Hsu pleaded not guilty to charges that he violated federal campaign finance laws.

After the brief court appearance, Mundy told The Associated Press that his client had no choice but to rely on a court-appointed lawyer.

"He’s essentially a man with no income or assets. He has no money he can tap," said Mundy. "His money and assets are alleged to be involved in the charges. He has no access to the money presently."

Mundy said it was his first day on the case and he did not know how much money was in his client’s bank accounts.

The government has said Hsu believed large campaign contributions would attract money to his financial scheme by raising his public profile. Toward that goal, prosecutors said, Hsu pressured many fraud victims to contribute thousands of dollars to candidates.

According to the indictment, Hsu persuaded his victims to invest at least $60 million from 2000 through August 2007 in companies that supposedly extended short-term financing to businesses. It said he used the money instead to further his fraudulent goals. The government said he lost at least $20 million of the investor money.

Once a prized supporter of Clinton, Hsu raised more than $1.2 million for her and other Democratic candidates in recent years. Her campaign has since returned more than $800,000 to donors whose contributions were linked to him.

He became a liability to the campaign when it was revealed he had been wanted in California since 1992, when he fled after pleading no contest to grand theft charges related to a fraudulent clothing import business.

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Under section 17 (b) iv, the socalled "Clinton Indestructibility Amendment to the Political Pundits (Smart Arses, Know-Alls, and Assorted Puffed-Up Ponces) Act 1991, it is a statutory offence to begin this obituary without the pre-emptive disclaimer: "Barring a miracle…"

The amendment briefly fell into disuse in January when, after her disastrous showing in the Iowa caucuses, Hillary was hubristically written off. Nemesis struck three days later with The Miracle of the Coffee Shop Lachrymals, and after New Hampshire no one has dared ignore 17 (b) iv again. So then…

Barring a miracle, it ends for Hillary early next Wednesday (our time) with the release of the exit polls from Texas. It could even end a few hours before that, should Barack Obama win Ohio. But that’s an even money contest, whereas he is a red-hot 1-3 favourite in Texas. This is the state Bill himself said she must win to stay in the race, and God have mercy on him if she doesn’t because Hillary will be needing a scapegoat, and there’s only one winning candidate for that post. She might have to sew them back on first, but among the multiple personalities she’s unveiled of late there must be room for a seamstress.

During the past 10 days, Hillary has been changing from role to role with bewildering speed. She concluded one TV debate, in what was mistaken for a valedictory, by saying she was deeply honoured to share the stage with Obama. While the audience rose to cheer her, the poll numbers rose to cheer him. So the next day she did a total volte face, and scolded him harshly for dirty campaigning ("she who smelt it, dealt it" coming to mind here).

You had to admire the chutzpah, but it didn’t help, and nor did her next performance as victim of wicked media bias. Then the campaign took a stroll down Karl Rove Avenue, raising the Muslim sleeper issue by releasing that snap of Obama in Somali tribesman gear, and that bombed too. Currently she is veering between new but wildly unfocused attacks and repeating the trite bletherings (Ready On Day One, and so on) that haven’t exactly enthused the electorate so far.

You’d need a heart of diamond-coated tungsten not to laugh, because even now that the obese soprano is audibly gargling her scales backstage, Hillary still doesn’t comprehend how it’s gone so wrong. The US media is less baffled, ascribing it primarily to electoral history’s worst campaign since Noah ran for the Ararat House of Representatives on the "I’ll keep the sun shining!" ticket, and you can hear the sharpening of scalpels from 3,000 miles away as the pathologists of the East Coast commentariat prepare to dissect her mistakes in the autopsy.

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Obama campaign manager David Plouffe predicted flatly Friday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) will “fail” to make meaningful progress toward the presidential nomination in the big Ohio and Texas primaries on Tuesday.

“They have a huge task in front of them, which is to try to erase this pledged delegate lead,” Plouffe said on a conference call with reporters. “They are going to fail by that measure. … This isn’t whether they can skate by and win the popular vote narrowly.”

Plouffe’s tough talk also showed the Obama campaign is going to hit back hard at Clinton for her new ad designed to tap into voters’ fears about national security.

“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” the male narrator says. “But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call.”

The ad has echoes of a famous “red telephone” spot that Roy Spence, now a Clinton adviser, made in 1984 for former Vice President Walter Mondale when he was seeking the Democratic nomination against Gary Hart.

Plouffe said dismissively: “Senator Clinton has already had her red phone moment, and it was the [2002] decision whether to allow George Bush to invade Iraq. She answered affirmatively. She did not read the National Intelligence Estimate, so she didn’t do her homework either.”

Plouffe repeated the “red phone” comment several times, saying voters will choose based on judgment. “Do they trust the judgment of these candidates on not just red-phone issues, but generally, … both domestically and internationally?” he asked.

At the start of the call, Plouffe read back predictions by Clinton campaign officials that they would be nearly tied – or even ahead – in the delegate count after March 4, an eventuality that now seems unlikely even if Clinton has a strong day.

“Those are their own benchmarks,” Plouffe said. “The Clinton campaign has to begin winning big states by big margins to have any hope of erasing this delegate deficit. … The most likely outcome Tuesday is not a huge delegate swing either way.”

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In an interview with ABC News’ Cynthia McFadden to air on this evening’s "Nightline," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., says it’s tougher for her to run as a woman than it is for her male opponent.

Asked why she thinks so many women may be feeling sorry for her, Clinton said, "I think a lot of women project their own feelings and their lives onto me, and they see how hard this is.  It’s hard.  It’s hard being a woman out there.  It is obviously challenging with some of the things that are said that are not even personal to me so much as they are about women.

"And I think women just sort of shake their head," Clinton continued. "My friends do.  They say, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is so hard.’ Well, it’s supposed to be hard.  I’m running for the hardest job in the world.  No one has ever done this.  No woman has ever won a presidential primary before I won New Hampshire.  This is hard. And I don’t expect any sympathy, I don’t expect any kind of, you know, allowances or special privileges, because I knew what I was getting myself into.

"Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field," she said, "but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there."

Of course, it might be observed that it likely hasn’t exactly been a complete walk in the park for an African-American to run for president, either.

But apparently Clinton thinks — based on this comment — that the "playing field" is easier for a black man than a white woman.

I also wonder if former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. — and all the other men vanquished by Clinton (and Obama) so handily — think that they had an easy go of it.

What do you think?

Source: ABC Political Punch

Hillary Clinton came out of the Potomac Primaries in roughly the same position as Mike Huckabee: needing a miracle. Unless she wins the Texas and Ohio primaries next week nothing short of divine intervention will deliver the nomination to her. After losing eleven straight primaries (even Democrats abroad don’t like her) she is down to a final roll of the dice on March 4. Polls show her with a small lead in Ohio and essentially tied in Texas, but slipping fast in both must win states.

This week she turned up the heat on Barack Obama in a final attempt to save her faltering campaign. She aimed to show he was an unknown, untested candidate who failed to observe a cardinal rule of international travel — never put on a funny looking outfit over a polo shirt. (A photo of Barack Obama in Somalian garb was released, supposedly by a Clinton staffer.) She gave a foreign policy address contending he was foolhardy to be “penciling in” dictators on the White House calendar. She promised, “I will not broadcast intentions to take unilateral actions in a country like Pakistan.” (Iraq is a different matter, presumably.)

All this was part of her last push to demonstrate that Obama would be an easy target for John McCain. (She, along with Bill Keller of the New York Times, will be getting a dozen roses from him for their efforts in bolstering his conservative support.)

However, Democratic voters seemed skeptical of the proposition that she would fare better against McCain in the general election. After all, every national poll and many polls in key swing states showed Clinton doing worse than Obama against McCain. Moreover, only the dimmest of primary voters could have missed the fact that Republicans have been pining for a match up against the Clintons — both of them. What better way to fire up the base and to make McCain the fresher of the two nominees?

The Tuesday Ohio debate did nothing to change the trajectory of the race. With Tim Russert helping to pin her to the mat, there no sign that Hillary can convince voters there was any reason to abandon Obama — who had the temerity to call foul on her proclivity to claim all the credit but none of the blame for the Clinton presidency. If the best she could do was to wag her finger at Obama for not holding more oversight hearings (we know how important those are), final defeat looms next week.

Even a group of Clinton’s closest friends — the MSM — has been openly urging her to quit the race and move beyond the dream of recapturing the White House. Perhaps crashing the Democratic Party bus even before the nominee is officially selected is not such a good idea, they suggest. After all, there is more to life than the presidency, as Clinton herself said in the Austin debate last week, right?

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Bill Clinton is sitting on a giant tool box in the back of a Chevy pickup truck, waiting to address a small gathering of Democrats, when the fellow introducing him attempts a joke comparing Barack Obama to a rooster.

The punch line comes and goes and the would-be comedian, a Texas state representative, looks up to find no one is laughing. Once more in his long career, Mr. Clinton is called to the political rescue.

"I think what he was trying to say is this," Mr. Clinton explains after taking the microphone. "Just because the rooster crows when the sun comes up in the morning, it doesn’t mean the rooster made the sun come up."

His point is clear — that despite some of the hype surrounding Mr. Obama, the Illinois senator is not actually responsible for all that’s good in the world — and the crowd erupts in cheers.

But as criticisms go, the rooster joke is a pretty gentle one, and it’s the closest Mr. Clinton comes this day to saying anything remotely controversial.

Bill Clinton’s sudden restraint on the campaign trail may be coming too late for his wife.

Once considered to be Hillary Clinton’s ace in the hole, the 42nd president is now being widely blamed for helping send the former first lady’s own White House campaign into a tailspin ahead of March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio.

Aides to the New York senator have told reporters that Mr. Clinton’s racially-tinged criticisms of Mr. Obama last month in South Carolina triggered the steady decline in support that has resulted now in 11 straight nominating contest losses for Mrs. Clinton.

Her senior strategists also reportedly recoiled when Mr. Clinton delivered an ultimatum to voters in Ohio last week, telling them flatly that Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was dead unless she won the Buckeye State and Texas next Tuesday.

"At times, he has badly overplayed his role in her campaign and let his emotions get away from him," says Merle Black, a politics professor at Emory University in Atlanta. "He has been a negative force. He always puts her in the shadows — and that is not where you want the candidate to be."

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If it’s not the first rule of Republican politics, it should be: never, ever, ever underestimate anybody whose last name is Clinton. Not Bill, not Hillary. Not Chelsea, not even George. They’re very good at what they do, and when they’re about to be written off for dead, that’s when they’re at their very best.

We’ve counted out the Clintons before: during the New Hampshire primary in 1992, after the death of health care reform and the Republican takeover of Congress, and at the height of the impeachment brawl a few years after that. On each of those occasions, we had convinced ourselves that this was going to be the end of this unique family’s political journey. Each time, we were wrong.

When Hillary Clinton decided to run for president, I promised myself I would not be fooled again. As an equally loyal fan of the Republican Party and of the Green Bay Packers football team, I had come to regard the Clintons the same way I’ve always thought about the Dallas Cowboys. I don’t like them. I root against them. I want them to lose and occasionally find myself wanting bad things to happen to them. But they are very good at what they do. And if someone can knock them out in the playoffs — whether it’s the New York Giants or a senator from Illinois — I’m just as happy not to have to go up against them when the stakes are at their highest.

So throughout the Democratic primaries, I’ve been rooting for Barack Obama. The nobler side of me admires him, even across party lines, for the tremendous interest and enthusiasm he has engendered among younger Americans. But the larger, less decent part of me believes that Hillary Clinton would be a more formidable general election opponent for the Republican nominee. She’s certainly on the ropes right now: her campaign has been flailing through the last few rounds of primaries in a way that Clintons are usually able to avoid. But we’ve been losing to Clintons for a long time now: I’d still just as soon avoid her in a general election campaign.

There’s something other than superstition at work here: there’s also a question of ideological positioning. Many of my fellow Republicans don’t believe it, but Mrs. Clinton has actually fashioned a relatively centrist career as a senator. By contrast, Mr. Obama’s voting record has been designated by the respected and nonpartisan National Journal as the most liberal of any of the Senate’s 100 members. This is not merely an epithet: it represents a series of policy choices and legislative votes that leave Senator Obama to the left of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. Even the most inspirational and inclusive language in the world will face a stern test in the face of accusations on that front.

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The Democrats reacted in anger when Senate Republicans blocked their latest economic stimulus bill. Harry Reid said that bankers and lenders were high-fiving each other in hallways after the GOP torpedoed the bill, but perhaps a better explanation of Reid’s disappointment comes from Bob Casey (D-PA). The beneficiaries of the bill turns out to be somewhat different than advertised:

Here’s the transcript:

Mr. CASEY: “We want to do a couple of things with this legislation, which we know is the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. Our Majority Leader, Senator Reid, and our leadership and the members of the Democratic Caucus set it out fairly specifically. A couple of basic things this legislation would have done: first of all, it would have continued what we started in the end of last year, foreclosure prevention counseling dollars, to give money to organizations around the country that are certifiably expert at this, organizations like La Raza. I know the presiding officer knows that group. We know also the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now, known by the acronym ‘ACORN.’ They’re headquartered in Philadelphia. These are organizations which understand what a lender has to deal with but more importantly deal with borrowers when they’re borrowing money, when they’re dealing with the difficulty and complexity of borrowing money. These organizations would have helped even more so than they’re helping now with $200 million more of counseling money. That’s not going to happen right now because of what the other side did; they blocked that money by blocking this legislation.”

ACORN? Would this be the same ACORN that conducted voter fraud in Washington, resulting in felony charges against its officers there in 2007? Isn’t this the same organization that generated complaints and questions about their practices in several other jurisdictions during the 2006 election? How does shoving money into the pockets of ACORN provide an economic stimulus?

This doesn’t look like a stimulus package. It looks more like an investment in further voter fraud.

Source: Captain’s Quarters

Has anyone else out there begun to find that it is easier to make sense of the struggle between Hillary and Barack if one thinks in terms of film tragedies? Several have been unspooling in my mind these days: "All About Eve," "Sunset Boulevard," "A Star Is Born," even "Bonnie and Clyde," if one assumes the Clintons are going to either pull off this heist or go down in a blaze of bullets.

Hillary’s star is being eclipsed. Why?

A year ago, Hillary Clinton assumed the effort would bring her the prize. Instead, it has brought her to the precipice. What happened? What was supposed to be triumph has turned to tragedy. Who rewrote the plot?

The first revision came at the hand of Howard Dean. The Vermont governor’s quixotic 2004 presidential run did one big thing: It let the netroots out. It empowered the Democratic Left. Web-based "progressives" proved they could raise lots of political money and bring pressure, especially when allied with labor unions.

They didn’t defeat centrist Joe Lieberman in 2006, but they drove him out of the party. They pushed the party’s Iraq policy under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi into total, rejectionist opposition. In this world, the Petraeus surge is a failure, period. Thus, Obama calmly gives the surge little or no credit. Also in this world, trade and Nafta are anathema, as seen in the House refusal to pass the trade agreement with Colombia, the U.S.’s strongest ally in South America.

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