"The Skinny" on Tonight's Dem Debate in Las Vegas

First Read (MSNBC):

The two-hour debate from here in Las Vegas begins at
9:00 pm ET (6:00 pm PT) on MSNBC, and it's moderated by NBC's Brian Williams, who will be joined by NBC's Tim Russert; NBC's Natalie Morales also will be
asking questions. The debate will feature a segment we haven't seen in a
while: candidate-to-candidate questions, which could end up being quite
interesting. Definitely participating are Clinton, Edwards, and Obama.

"Hillary's Long Odds Help Hillary"

Ari Melber (The Nation):

Hillary Clinton now faces long odds in Nevada and South Carolina -- and that may work to her advantage.

Clinton has a cyclical tendency to rise and fall and rise and fall, only to rise once again. While her unexpected New Hampshire comeback triggered tons of commentary about polls and tears, the results may have actually turned on her conflicted feelings about her own success. Having spent most of her life as an overachieving underdog, Clinton still does best running against the odds. And she does worst feigning the aura of inevitable incumbent, a role that was obviously uncomfortable both for her and the Democratic electorate.

After a year running as an inevitable frontrunner, placing a weak third in Iowa was the toughest rebuke in Clinton's political life. Yet she looked much more comfortable afterwards. She was thoughtful in her newly interactive campaign events, and forceful when debating her rivals. She sounded more passionate appropriating the messages of change and populism than she ever was about taking credit for her husband's administration.

She spoke about her achievements as a woman leader with a newfound candor and pride – not as a contest over who has it harder, though Gloria Steinem took that tacky route – but as a relevant demonstration of her mettle. Like Barack Obama, Clinton has broken barriers in her legal and political career. That kind of experience can reveal more grit than speeches, because it demonstrates a candidate's ability to rout adversity. It was not easy serving as the only woman the board of a Fortune 50 company in 1985, nor battling the Republican attack machine while taking on the largest policy role of any first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. Yet Clinton spent most of last year pretending she had the incumbent experience of a pseudo-president, instead of the record of a fighting underdog.

Forced back into a tough spot, Clinton sounded more genuine reminding voters of her record, not her husband's. Suddenly, the power lawyer who hid a failing bar exam for decades was not claiming invincibility or incumbency. Instead, she conveyed a fighting and even frantic sense that she need more time, that she had more to say, that momentum and polls and pundits should not cut this election short. She truly needed The People to back her in a fight against all the varied forces that distort, abridge and control our elections. Bill Clinton hit this point on the night of the New Hampshire victory, telling a reporter, "they know what they're doing here. They knew that they were telling America we should continue this [race]." Maureen Dowd may be right that at bottom, Clinton essentially cried for herself, not for America. But after a year of campaign contrivances, Clinton was undeniably an underdog, wrestling with that core, unyielding fact of a healthy democracy: power comes from the people.

If the storyline sounds melodramatic, it's partly because our politics are often broadcast as a supercharged blend of sports and entertainment. Clinton seemed especially beleaguered because the media establishment rushed to end her campaign after a single state spoke. (Having led New Hampshire polls for most of 2007, she might have won there no matter what.)

But the media often pumps up politicians just like celebrity entertainers, prepping to tear them down for the sake of entertainment. And when the elites come to destroy you, the people are your only hope.

"Edwards Campaign Calls Nevada Race a Dead Heat"

The Caucus (NY Times political blog):The Caucus (NY Times political blog):

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – The Edwards campaign characterized the Nevada race as a three-way dead heat in a conference call with reporters today, pointing to poll numbers and a robust field operation in the state.

Speaking from Nevada, David Bonior, the national campaign manager, said the Edwards campaign contacted 15,000 potential caucus goers last weekend, roughly one-third of the overall expected turnout.

“This campaign is a three way race,” Mr. Bonior said. “And this is a huge sign of strength for John Edwards as we march into Nevada and South Carolina.”

Mr. Edwards has made 17 trips to the state, roughly the same as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama combined, Mr. Bonior added.

The poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal, released Monday morning, showed Mr. Obama with 32 percent, Mrs. Clinton with 30 percent and Mr. Edwards with 27 percent.

The Edwards campaign has played down Mr. Edwards’s losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, saying that he is prepared to continue campaigning through Super Tuesday and beyond even without winning a single state.

Hoping to show that the campaign is still looking ahead to Super Tuesday states, the campaign is planning a “fly-around” on Thursday and Friday, stopping in California, Oklahoma, Missouri and Georgia, before returning to South Carolina to campaign before the primary on Jan. 26.

Howie P.S.: Ben Smith features four new ads from Edwards here.

Nevada Democratic Debate Tonight: 6-8 pm PST

NVDems:

The Nevada Democratic Party will partner with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and IMPACTO, 100 Black Men of America, and the College of Southern Nevada to hold the second Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas. The debate will be telecast live by MSNBC and held at the Cashman Center in Las Vegas on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm Pacific Standard Time.

Nevada, the second state in the nation to hold a presidential caucus and the first in the West to host an early window nominating contest, was chosen as an early state in part because 40 percent of its population is minority, primarily Hispanic and African-American. Issues affecting these communities such as economic development, education, health care and the war in Iraq will be highlighted during the debate.

With 11 days between the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8th and the Nevada caucus, the Silver State could be the a circuit breaker that halts the momentum of the candidate that wins both earlier contests; the tiebreaker if two candidates split the New Hampshire primary and Iowa Caucuses; or the validator for a candidate who wins all three.

“Nevada will play a critical role in the selection of our nominee as the first test in the West and the first test of the Hispanic vote,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We’re proud to announce this debate and applaud NBC and MSNBC for recognizing the important role of Nevada’s diverse electorate. We thank our co-sponsors – the U.S. Hispanic Chamber and IMPACTO, the 100 Black Men of America and the College of Southern Nevada – for helping to host this historic event in Nevada.”

“We are happy that the voters of Nevada will have another opportunity to hear from our candidates before the January 19th caucus,” said Democratic Party Chair Jill Derby. “I’d like to thank IMPACTO, a nonpartisan political action committee affiliated with the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, and the African American Democratic Leadership Council for the work they did to secure this important debate in Nevada.”

The Executive Committee of the African American Democratic Leadership Council, which includes many of Nevada’s Democratic African American elected leaders, has worked since January to secure a debate that would highlight issues important to Nevada’s minority population.

“We’re pleased to bring this important debate to a national television audience,” said Phil Alongi, Executive Producer of Special Events for NBC News. “This event comes at a critical time in the primary season, as the action moves from New Hampshire to Nevada.”

“Nevada was chosen as an early caucus state largely because of its growing Hispanic population,” said Tony F. Sanchez III, chair of IMPACTO, the nonpartisan political action committee affiliated with the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce. “We are proud to partner on this debate with these national and local organizations and we look forward to the focus on issues important to the Hispanic and African American Communities such as health care, education and immigration.”

“The Hispanic business community is going to play a critical role in the 2008 elections, and as a non-partisan trade association, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce wants to support all debates that promote our issues,” said David C. Lizárraga, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Board Chair. “Small business is the engine that keeps jobs in the U.S. and helps the U.S. compete in a global economy. We look forward to leading the charge for the Hispanic business community and being a host for this important debate.”

“It is critical that those who seek to lead our country focus on how to provide equal access to quality educational opportunities, address well documented health disparities between African Americans and other groups, promote economic empowerment among the truly disadvantaged, and create a positive environment that supports meaningful mentoring relationships for our youth,” said 100 Black Men of America Chairman, Albert E. Dotson, Jr. “With chapters, members and stakeholders throughout our nation, the 100 Black Men of America, Inc. is proud to co-sponsor a debate for candidates to focus on these most important concerns for our urban centers.”

“CSN is proud to partner in this important debate, which focuses on issues that are critical to our students’ success and Nevada’s future,” said Dr. Carlos Campo, Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs at the College of Southern Nevada.

Barack Obama

"The Clintons and History"

Matt Bai (The Caucus, NY Times political blog):

There’s an old joke people here in the capital like to tell about Charles E. Schumer, the New York senator, and over the years I’m sure it’s been used to describe other politicians, as well: The most dangerous place to stand in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a bank of television cameras.

Well, that may be, but it seems to me that the most dangerous place to be in the rest of the country is between the Clintons and an elected office.

Just this weekend, after all the recent attacks against Barack Obama involving his kindergarten essay and cocaine, the “fairy tale” of his antiwar stance, we found out that the Nevada teacher’s union with ties to the Clintons is suing to keep workers on the Vegas Strip from being able to caucus in their workplaces, since most of those workers belong to unions that have endorsed Mr. Obama.

Meanwhile, Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, made yet another elliptical reference to Mr. Obama having used cocaine. Mr. Johnson tried to walk it back yesterday by saying that he was only referring to Mr. Obama’s days as a community organizer when he said Mr. Obama “was doing something in the neighborhood — and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book… .” Sure, because community organizing is not the kind of thing you’d want to speak of in public, with children around. Better to let people find out on their own.

What’s most confounding about this latest turn into ugliness, though, is the Clintons’ remarkable capacity to cast themselves as the victims in every fight. And so here is Hillary Rodham Clinton accusing Barack Obama of somehow injecting race into the campaign, because she found herself in a world of trouble for her own comments about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson. Now, I really do think she was intending only to make a sensible point about the value of experience in the White House, but look, the Clintons embody the generation that invented identity politics and political correctness. If Mrs. Clinton couldn’t guess at how that comment was going to land in the black community, then she must have been suffering amnesia.

I wrote last week about how Mr. Obama was facing a perilous moment in his campaign. It seems to me that the same is true of the Clintons, and they may need to step back and briefly reflect. Both Clintons now find themselves in an unfamiliar reality, the kind of all-out war for the nomination that Bill Clinton twice managed to avoid. They will get all kinds of advice from people whose career opportunities are at stake and who will do or say anything to win. They are surrounded by overzealous politicians and interest groups willing do whatever it takes to shut down Barack Obama and deliver their states to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It must be a kind of nightmare for both Clintons to be running, at this moment, against a talented black man, to be caught in an existential choice between losing their mythical status in the black community or possibly losing to a candidate they feel certain does not deserve to win. But only they can afford to be concerned right now with their own historical legacy, about seeing all that they have accomplished on behalf of their party and its commitment to fairness and equality blown away in the space of a few months. No one else is going to protect all that for them. No one around them is going to take the long view, because that’s not the way supporters think.

No one expects Mrs. Clinton to stand down and let Mr. Obama make his case unchallenged. She could, however, send a clear message to the cogs in the machinery she’s built that there is a line she will not cross. She could tell her Nevada allies that the job of the Democratic Party she grew up in is to make it easier for people to caucus, not harder. She could tell Robert Johnson that he needs to apologize, the same way she forced Bill Shaheen, her New Hampshire co-chairman, to resign last month. She can make it plain to all those people trying to get jobs in the next Clinton Administration that there is way to win—a rough and combative way, even—that nonetheless won’t destroy all the good that the Clintons, at least for a lot of Democrats, have come to represent.

Howie P.S.: John Kerry piles on: "Kerry Blasts Clinton Camp's "Negative, Petty" Attacks."
Barack Obama

"Barack Obama: As the campaign continues..."

BarackObamadotcom, video (03:09):

Barack Obama speaks to the press at a media availability in Reno, NV on January 14, 2008.

Howie P.S.: AP covers this here, with the response from Hillary.
And the WaPo has "As Candidates Agree, Aides Keep Sparring." More commentary in the WaPo's political blog, The Trail: "Obama and 'the Race Card'."

Barack Obama

"MICHELLE OBAMA DEFENDS HUSBAND'S RECORD"

First Read (MCNBC):

FLORENCE, S.C. -- After this weekend's furious back and forth between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the consistency of Obama's anti-war record, the Illinois senator's wife is jumping to his defense.

"His opponents will say that he wasn't always against the war," she said today here. "I'm like, 'Where have you been?'"

Obama went on to say that her husband's rivals base the claim on the fact that he did not have to cast a vote during the 2003 authorization of the war because he was not yet a senator. "What they fail to tell you," she said, "is that where Barack was trying to get to the U.S. Senate." The tough Illinois primary race he faced, she added, made his opposition to the war all the more politically risky at the time.

Despite that risk, she said, "He looked at everything everybody else looked at, and he said this is going to cost us millions of dollars and thousands of lives," she said.

Speaking to an audience of more 300 mostly black voters at Francis Marion University here, Obama scoffed at the notion that the choice between her husband and Hillary Clinton (whom she did not mention by name) is a nuanced one.

"I get confused when people are like, 'We have so many choices. I'm so confused. I don't know, who should I vote for?'" she said, mimicking a waffling voter with a babyish tone. "I'm like 'Huh?'

"We have two choices: One, same old thing. Same thing that hasn't worked for my lifetime. Same people, same game, same thing. And then we have Barack. Those are our choices."

Barack Obama

"Real Time w Bill Maher- Matt Taibbi discusses campaign, Iraq" (video)

JeremyBlueDuck79:

On the 1/11/08 season premiere (video 06:28), Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi discusses the 2008 campaign and the ridiculous assertion that the surge is working.

Tony Snow forgets that Bush is no longer paying him to lie, and does it for free anyway.
Howie P.S.: The "ridiculous assertion" comes from Tony Snow, jumps into the conversation at the end.

"Connelly in Nevada: For Clinton and Obama, high stakes in Nevada"

Joel Connelly (Seattle P-I):

LAS VEGAS -- What happens in Vegas this week isn't going to stay in Las Vegas, as voters here will pick a leader in the contest between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

With Republicans decamped to Michigan and South Carolina -- the state that has played a crucial role in three recent GOP nomination battles -- Democrats get center stage for the Silver State's precinct caucuses Saturday.

"With Obama taking Iowa and Hillary winning in New Hampshire, people are looking at us as the tiebreaker," said Peggy Maze Johnson, a former Seattleite and executive director of the Clark County Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party's approach in the 2008 nomination battle was to give one Western state an early voice. Nevada was picked because it combines wide-open spaces and a concentrated, heavily unionized population center with a substantial number of Hispanics and African-Americans ... and because Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is Senate majority leader. Reid's son Rory is chairman of Clinton's campaign.

It's not your polite Iowa caucuses anymore. Elbows get thrown in this town.

Clinton and Obama have vied for the support of labor leaders, celebrities and local fixers. The political atmosphere suggests a famous Vegas incident in which comedian Don Rickles spied Frank Sinatra walking into his show. "Hi Frankie," Rickles joked. "Make yourself at home. Hit somebody!"

As he was losing New Hampshire, Obama picked up two key union endorsements here -- the 60,000 member Culinary Workers Local 226, which represents most nongaming workers on the Las Vegas Strip, and the Service Employees International Union, which has 17,000 members in the state.

"He comes from the bottom to the top, and that's us," Maria Gomez, a worker at the MGM Grand Hotel, said of Obama.

The caucuses are to be held at 1,754 locations -- but nine have drawn particular attention. The state party has identified nine "at-large precincts" at Las Vegas Boulevard hotels: Bellagio, Luxor, Mirage, Rio, Caesars Palace, Paris, Flamingo, Wynn Las Vegas and New York New York.

The idea is that hotel/casino employees can make a choice for president without leaving work. But the Nevada Education Association and several plaintiffs, one a prominent Clinton supporter, have sued in federal court to stop the casino caucuses. They claim at-large precinct delegates will pack the county convention and that the plan violates the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Pro-Clinton members of the Culinary Workers Union picketed an Obama event Friday. "They shouldn't be endorsing unless they bring the members in," picket Eve Bertstressis said.

"Western" issues were supposed to get a hearing in Nevada. At one debate, a couple of questions were asked about the government's long-delayed, vastly unpopular project to store spent but highly radioactive fuel rods from nuclear power plants at nearby Yucca Mountain.

"I'm opposed to Yucca Mountain, period," Obama told a packed rally last week at Del Sol High School and argued that industries and government agencies must be made to tell local residents about the potential hazards of such projects.

The answer did not impress longtime Democratic activist Janice Brown.

"Every presidential candidate is against Yucca Mountain when he or she comes to Nevada," Brown said. "Bill Clinton did veto the enabling legislation twice when he was in the White House. Bush came here in 2000, said he was against it and then signed the bill. And we voted to re-elect him in 2004."

Yucca Mountain already has gone down in the lexicon of American political bloopers, from the time then-Sen. Chic Hecht, R-Nev., said in the early '80s that he would not allow his state "to become a nuclear suppository."

The Clinton camp has methodically worked Nevada for months. The Elko County Democratic Dinner, in a remote area of the state, had as its speaker ex-Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, a multimillionaire Bill Clinton golfing buddy and campaign nabob. Secretary of State-in-waiting Richard Holbrooke staged a foreign policy briefing to which casino employees were invited.

Obama has blown in to big crowds. Using a message of bottom-up change, he has undeniably connected with the unionized casino workers.

"Over 20 years ago, I walked away from a job on Wall Street to work as a community organizer," he said Friday. "I spent 3 1/2 years doing what members of Culinary 226 are doing today: organizing to keep the American dream alive for all people."

At times, as a community organizer, he had "holes in my shoes and holes in my car -- you all know what I'm talking about."

And, in one city where people doing grunt work are paid family-sustaining wages, Obama pledged to "make the Las Vegas dream the American dream."

He also promised to do something that a union-sponsored Washington initiative has done up north, raise the minimum wage every year to keep pace with inflation.

Obama bagged a series of big endorsements last week. Sen. John Kerry shared the stage with him in South Carolina. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano introduced him here. And, in the middle, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Obama is the man to break America's red state-blue state polarization.

Still, Clinton is having her moments now that the once-wooden campaigner is interacting with voters.

Last week, a listener shouted, "I'm married to an illegal woman." Clinton replied: "No woman is illegal," triggering cheers in a crowded Mexican restaurant. She quickly added "And no man, either."

She won't win the votes of Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs, but an engaged Clinton -- she rang doorbells Saturday in a minority neighborhood -- is a lot more appealing than the insular Clinton of a month ago.

But the Clinton campaign has gone subtly negative, depicting Obama in terms of an old ranch saying. The eloquent Illinois senator is being portrayed as all hat and no cattle.

Clinton is, in her words, "drawing some contrasts and comparisons," saying of Obama: "He was a part-time state senator for a few years and then he came to the Senate and immediately started running for president."

The Clinton campaign also has pointed out that as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted against a bill that expanded gambling in the state.

Obama, Clinton and Sen. John Edwards will debate here Tuesday night. Edwards has spent more of his time in South Carolina but will stay over in Las Vegas for a Wednesday town meeting.

Reid has predicted that 100,000 Nevadans will caucus Saturday. He is doing public service TV spots, and television stations have set up Web sites to explain caucus procedures.

Unlike Iowa and Washington, however, voters here are not masters of complicated rules in electing county convention delegates.

"I've been going door to door," Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said. "Some people are engaged, but there's still a lot of disinterest. People are asking, 'What is a caucus?' and these are folks who've already been contacted five times."

Barack Obama

"Clinton, Obama search for heroes in 'super delegates'"

LA Times:

Now that no clear Democratic front-runner has emerged from the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, a campaign that had been all about momentum and money has become a furious race for the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

That gives newfound weight to the preferences of major Democratic Party leaders and elected officials, who can provide organizational help, fundraising aid and a network of supporters.

But the endorsements matter for another reason. Unlike past nominating contests, this one may be so close and protracted that the votes of "super delegates" could prove decisive.

Super delegates are House members, senators, party officials and other elected leaders who get to attend the Democratic presidential convention in August because of their positions and are free to vote their personal preferences. They are not bound by votes in their respective states.

So there are essentially two campaigns unfolding simultaneously: one for rank-and-file voters; the other for the 796 super delegates who account for nearly 40% of the total needed to win. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York now leads with 163 super delegates, and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has 64, according to an Associated Press tally.

Erstwhile presidential candidate and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson looms as a trophy endorsement. The candidate who reels in Richardson gets a super delegate and a high-profile Latino who has the loyalty of New Mexico state lawmakers and donors -- all rolled into one.

The report last week that he was dropping out of the Democratic presidential race had barely moved on the wire services when Richardson's phone rang.

It was the Clintons, looking for his endorsement. Phone calls from Obama and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina came soon afterward.

"There's a massive push for endorsements," Richardson, who hasn't committed himself, said in an interview. "It's gone pretty far."

Sen. Claire McCaskill was another prize. The Missouri Democrat had been holding out, opting to stay neutral during the campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Her hesitation was in part a courtesy to Clinton. In the spring, she said, she had her first real face-to-face conversation with Clinton when the two met for lunch. Clinton knew that McCaskill leaned toward Obama but asked for a favor: Would she at least hold off and make no endorsement?

McCaskill agreed to wait.

But in recent weeks, Obama's campaign had been in touch, asking if she'd take a call from the candidate and hear his pitch.

McCaskill said there was no need. She considered Obama a friend and was grateful that he had campaigned for her in 2006, helping her get to the Senate. Plus, her children like him and had been nagging her to endorse. So on Sunday morning she made her announcement.

"It was really just now or never," McCaskill, also a super delegate, said in an interview. "If I wanted to try and make a difference, obviously it was do it now or stay on the sidelines until the nominee was decided."

The maneuvering for super delegates reflects a campaign that has taken unpredictable turns, forcing candidates to improvise on the fly.

Until recently, few believed the race might stretch past Feb. 5, when 24 states including California hold primaries and caucuses. Clinton said as much in December in a reception with donors in Sacramento.

But even after the bonanza of delegates is doled out on what is being called Super Duper Tuesday, the race could be up for grabs. That's because the winners of these contests do not automatically scoop up all of the delegates. Rather, in California, New York and elsewhere, delegates are awarded in proportional fashion. Clinton or Obama could finish a strong second and conceivably pick up enough delegates to deprive the other of the magic number needed to lock up the nomination.

So the contest could still be in limbo after Feb. 5, giving super delegates enhanced influence.

"There is the potential for this to be fairly evenly divided all the way to the end," said Chris Lehane, a spokesman for Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000 and a Clinton supporter.

Whether it will be a two- or three-person contest on the Democratic side is unclear. Edwards is mounting an intense campaign in South Carolina, where he was born. After a third-place finish in New Hampshire, he needs a strong result in South Carolina to remain competitive through the Feb. 5 vote.

In this uncertain environment, endorsements and super delegates are coveted.

Historically, endorsements have sometimes fallen flat. Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, but Dean, after placing third in the Iowa caucuses, made a loud, boisterous speech that his candidacy never overcame.

Yet validation from high elected officials can give a candidate access to their supporters and fundraisers -- or simply some much-needed help as surrogates on the trail.

California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi on Friday announced he was endorsing Clinton. He said he would quickly send out an e-mail to 300,000 of his supporters discussing the endorsement. His wife, Patti, served as a senior official in the Peace Corps during the Clinton administration, and will help as well.

"We are a sisterhood in many ways, and I've had the privilege of knowing her very personally," Patti Garamendi said.

Endorsements also carry symbolic value. Following a New Hampshire primary in which Clinton soaked up the female vote, Obama is eager to show alliances with high-profile women.

McCaskill said of her endorsement: "It may give some women permission to take a second look at Barack Obama."

A kind of mini-primary played out for the endorsement of the popular Arizona governor, Janet Napolitano.

Both Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack asked Napolitano to back Clinton, according to Barry Dill, a political advisor to Napolitano.

Obama met with the governor last February, and the two have been "talking ever since," Napolitano, a super delegate, said in an interview. With her endorsement comes "a number of volunteers and people" who have worked with her in previous campaigns, Napolitano said. "Many of them will support Obama."

For some female elected officials, endorsing Obama over Clinton can seem an act of betrayal. They want to see Clinton break the glass ceiling. California state Sen. Gloria Romero said she wore an Obama button on the floor of the Assembly last week and got a withering look from another female lawmaker.

"She came up to me and said, 'You've got to be kidding.' " Romero recalled. "She was shocked that I'd gone with Obama."

Barack Obama

Hillary and Barack Go Back and Forth; Edwards Chimes In

Meet The Press, with video (50:31):

Live from South Carolina, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) joined us for the full hour to talk about her campaign for the presidency as our "Meet the Candidates" series continued.

jasonrosenbaum, with video (02:11):

Sen. Barack Obama responds to Hillary Clinton's comments on Meet the Press.

"Clinton, Obama clash over race issue"--AP:

"I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change that came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that," Edwards told more than 200 people gathered at a predominantly black Baptist church in Sumter, S.C.

Barack Obama

"What the Pundits Missed: The Real Value of Kerry's Endorsement of Obama"

DHinMI, front paged on Kos:

A few days ago, during the weekly news roundup on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, Rehm asked her guests what they thought of John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama. The panelists—Tony Blankly, David Corn and John Harwood—were a fairly sharp bunch (even though Blankly is a rightwing tool). Their assessment? Didn't mean much. Kerry was old news. Sure, he had a fundraising list to give Obama, but everyone knows who those donors are, and Obama would already have reached out to them.

Man, did they miss the point.

Sure, most of the big donors are known to the fundraising experts Obama has on staff, and to the regional fundraisers on Obama's finance committee. But what they don't necessarily have, and what the Kerry "list" may provide is the detailed contact information that makes a cold call far more effective, or helps people figure out how best to appeal to the prospective donors. The Kerry database—if he makes it fully available to Obama—is a treasure that even the Clinton machine would envy. Kerry raised more money in direct donations than Bill Clinton ever did, so the number of contacts is huge. But with that data will come invaluable background: policy interests of the donors, their business background, the name of their spouse and their personal assistants/gatekeepers, where they spend their summers, who they did fundraisers with in the past, cell phone numbers, direct personal emails addresses and all kinds of other information.

But lets get past that. Those are details that make a fundraiser or campaign operative salivate, but we'll forgive the journalists for not understanding the micro-mechanics. But what they really missed is related to a much bigger trend in American political campaigns in recent years, especially on the Democratic side: the rise of the internet and the growing importance of small donors.

In 2000, only 17% of the money donated to Democratic and Republican candidates was in amounts of less than $200. But through May 2004—essentially the primary season—over a third of the record amounts given to the presidential candidates came in small donations. This trend has accelerated, with small donors—who typically engage later in a campaign, and don't contribute as large a share of the total take early in a campaign cycle—already reaching 2004 total percentages as early as the second quarter of last year:

From April through June, donors who gave $200 or less accounted for 26 percent of the contributions the candidates collected from individuals. Compared to the first three months of this 2008 election cycle, small donors increased their giving to the candidates 84 percent and just about doubled their share of the money raised from individuals. In January through March, donors contributing $200 or less accounted for 14 percent of individual money. The Republican field of candidates has been slightly more reliant on smaller donors than the Democrats, although the GOP has raised fewer dollars from them.

One of the best things about small donors is that their contributions are almost pure net gain:

But nothing has succeeded for Kerry like the Internet. Kerry has raised $57 million through online donations, or nearly one-third of his total. Bush, by comparison, has raised a mere $9 million online. The beauty of these contributions, says Kerry Internet fund-raising director Josh Ross, who took a leave from his job as a vice-president at Silicon Valley company USWeb, is that the donations are "low-effort and high-margin." The cost of raising $1 via the Net is about 3 cents, vs. 15 cents for a telemarketing call or a piece of direct mail. And five-course dinners that attract high-rollers who can give up to $2,000 apiece can eat up 25 cents of every $1 raised.

Here's the key to the value of Kerry's databases: federal campaigns must provide the Federal Elections Commission the name, address, occupation and employer of donors who give more than $200. It's illegal to use information pulled directly from the FEC website for fundraising solicitations. However, there are entities that compile and enhance the FEC data and provide access to the data for a fee, and since it's not technically the FEC, it's legal to use this compiled and enhanced data for fundraising purposes. But donors under $200 don't show up in any of the standard databases, and nobody has a central list of the small donors to Kerry's campaign...except, of course, John Kerry. And on Thursday, Kerry emailed his list explaining his endorsement of Obama, and asking them to contribute to Obama's campaign.

Kerry's email also demonstrates the third reason why the Kerry endorsement is a huge boost to Obama. Kerry was really the first Democrat nominated for President during the political maturation of the internet )(PDF). Organizing online, direct communications from a candidate to your email inbox, online fundraising, social networking...none of these things were common prior to the 2004 campaign, and John Kerry became the nominee in time to assemble a massive email and online donor list, currently the best held by anyone in the Democratic party. Now he can communicate very inexpensively with millions of people, and that email information is supplemented with other personal information like addresses and donor history. Not only can he raise money, he can deliver messages directly to known voters at a minuscule cost.

Kerry's endorsement shouldn't be overestimated. There are few endorsements that swing lots of votes. In fact, the endorsements of executives—governors and mayors—are often more valuable than legislators, even U.S. Senators, because executives usually have larger staffs of operatives and better GOTV networks. People seldom vote for someone simply because someone else they like or support says to. But Kerry is the most recent Democratic nominee, and while many Democrats thought he ran a less than inspiring and aggressive campaign, he's generally well-liked and well-respected, and there's little negative that comes from his endorsement. But the real value isn't the intangible value of John Kerry saying he likes Barack Obama and you should too.

The value is that it will raise lots of money for Obama, with little cost, and provide him a means of inexpensively delivering his campaign message to voters known to be committed Democrats highly likely to vote in their state's primaries.

Barack Obama

Nelson and McCaskill Endorse Obama--Napolitano and Johnson, Too

"McCaskill endorses Obama, pledges to work for his election"--St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"Nelson For Obama"--Hotline.

Howie P.S.: The Nelson post references the Napolitano and Johnson endorsements earlier this week, calling Nelson the third "red state Dem" this week to endorse him.

Barack Obama

"Durbin warns Bill Clinton"

Mike Allen (Politico):

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the second-ranking party leader in the Senate, says President Bill Clinton’s comments about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are getting “too personal” and called on the former president to refrain from attacking Obama’s integrity.

“I’m really troubled by his questioning the sincerity of Barack Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq,” Durbin said. “I really think it is unfortunate to question Barack’s sincerity on the war. He has been there from the start, opposing this war.”

The unsolicited comments — in a phone call to Politico from Springfield, Ill. — were a sign that the Obama campaign is going to react aggressively to perceived attacks on the senator’s character.

“I really had hoped ... that it wouldn’t become too personal or too negative,” Durbin said. “I don’t think that’s good for either of the candidates or for our party. There may be clear some clear differences on some issues.”

Durbin suggested that the former president has been giving somewhat revisionist accounts on the way the Iraq war debate played out.

“It was not easy to be against that war back when we cast that vote in October of 2002,” Durbin said. “I was one of 23 who voted against the war. Barack was supportive — one of the few candidates speaking out strongly against it in Illinois.

“If President Clinton had opposed that war as strongly as Barack Obama at the time, it would have helped a lot of us who had voted against authorizing an invasion.”

Durbin, the majority whip, was reacting to comments the former president has made in several recent forums suggesting that Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war has not been as steadfast as he has suggested on the stump.

“I think that his story line is not accurate,” Clinton said Friday on a liberal talk show on Sirius satellite radio.

Clinton, seeking to tamp down discontent among black leaders about comments he made about Obama in New Hampshire, told Mark Thompson on the Talk Left channel:

“This is what happens any time anyone tries to question a statement or a position of Sen. Obama. The response is, ‘You’re attacking me personally,’ and that relieves him of the obligation to address the substance.”

Durbin has endorsed Obama but says he is friends with both Clintons and noted that his voting record was strongly supportive of Bill Clinton when he was in office. Durbin and the former president overlapped at Georgetown University: Durbin got his undergraduate degree in 1966, and Clinton graduated in 1968.

“I really worked hard for him when he was a candidate,” Durbin said. “And I’ve had a very strong and warm relationship with Sen. Clinton, as well. So none of this is personal. I respect them both very much.”

Asked his outlook on the Democratic primary campaign, Durbin said: “In this business, you step back as a candidate and you say, 'Would I rather be in my opponent’s shoes or in my shoes?' I’d rather be in the Obama camp today, I think. We really have momentum behind us.”

Barack Obama

"Tim Russert: Analysis New Hampshire Primany-Bill Clinton" (video)

Tim Russert Interviews, David Brooks, Susan Page and Chuck Todd video, (06:40).

Barack Obama

"Gone From the Granite State, But Tactics Not Forgotten"

The Trail, WaPo political blog:

The presidential campaign has moved on from New Hampshire, but it has left behind it deep fissures and feelings of resentment among local Democrats that some fear may linger all the way until November.

Some supporters of Barack Obama, stung by his narrow loss to Hillary Clinton, are lashing out at a large group of Democratic women leaders in the state who signed a letter criticizing Obama's commitment to abortion rights, a letter that went out by e-mail to many New Hampshire voters two days before the primary.

Other Obama backers are upset about efforts by top Clinton supporters to remove poll observers that the Obama campaign had stationed around the state on primary day, an intervention that the Obama supporters say hindered their get out the vote efforts.

Obama supporter Bill Siroty, a former Democratic chair for the town of Amherst, said the ill will is running so high that it could keep Democrats in the state who supported Obama from rallying behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, should she win the nomination. In 2000, bad feelings that lingered among some Bill Bradley supporters about tactics used by Al Gore in the primary - including misleading charges about Bradley's health care plan - were seen as one reason why Gore lost the state to George W. Bush in November, thereby giving Bush just enough Electoral College votes to take the presidency.

"People are very upset about it," said Siroty. "I've heard one or two threaten they're not going to vote for Clinton at all. Tensions are very high, and it could cause a rift."

Bette Lasky, the assistant House majority leader and a top Clinton supporter who was involved in both the e-mail and poll interventions, said she was sorry to hear about the bad feelings but hoped Obama supporters would get over it. "It's politics, and it happens," she said.

The e-mail questioning Obama's commitment to abortion rights was signed by a who's who of the state's Democratic establishment, which is dominated by women who supported Clinton in the primary. In addition to Lasky, the two dozen on the list included Terie Norelli, the speaker of the state House, Beverly Hollingworth, a member of the state's Executive Council and a former state senator, House Majority Leader Mary Jane Wallner, former state party chairwoman Kathy Sullivan, and Katie Wheeler, a former state senator from Durham who helped lead the charge for Gore against Bradley's health care plan in 2000. Echoing an attack in a mailing put out by the Clinton campaign that arrived in New Hampshire mailboxes the Saturday before balloting, the e-mail criticized Obama for voting "present," instead of yes or no, on several abortion-related bills while in the Illinois Senate.

"The difference between Hillary's repeatedly standing up strong on choice and Obama's unwillingness to vote 'yes' or 'no' is a clear contrast, and we believe the voters in New Hampshire deserve to know this difference," the letter stated. "We support Hillary Clinton because she never ducked when choice was at stake."

The Obama supporters say the accusation, which was laid out nearly a year ago and has cropped up from time to time since then, is unfair, noting that Democrats in the Illinois Senate often voted "present" on controversial legislation, not to duck issues, but as a tactical response to Republican efforts to force Democrats into unpopular votes that could be used against them in the future.

An Illinois Planned Parenthood official backed Obama up on this score over the summer, in response to an earlier round of questions about his record, and Obama has a 100 percent rating with both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. To try to defuse the e-mail and mailing, the Obama campaign on Sunday rushed out an automated phone call from a New England Planned Parenthood official vouching for Obama -- which the Clinton campaign in turn challenged by saying that the call had gone out to at least two people on the do-not-call list, against state rules.

Obama supporter Carol Moore, a former state representative from Concord, said the attacks on Obama's record seemed to resonate. Many of the three-dozen canvassers she was helping oversee reported receiving questions on their house visits on Monday about Obama's commitment to abortion rights. On Tuesday, Clinton won by three percentage points, after being down about 10 points in most polls the day before, thanks in large part to a late surge in support from women voters. (Her campaign sent out another tough mailing in the final days before the primary, accusing Obama of favoring a "trillion dollar" tax increase on middle-class workers, a reference to his openness to the possibility of raising the $97,500 cap on salaries taxed for Social Security.)

"It is a direct lie and distortion of the facts of his 'choice' record and I believe it did a lot of damage," said Moore. "The women are all very prominent Democrats, many of them in leadership, and it is sickening."

Siroty sent out an e-mail after the primary to other Democratic town chairs and former town chairs around the state expressing his upset over the e-mail and warning of consequences for those who signed it, "who should know better than to sign their names to such a blatantly political piece which contains misrepresentations if not out-right lies."

State party leaders, he wrote, "will argue we should kiss and make up - after all we have to elect Democrats. However, this absolves these people of the responsibility of adding their names to this letter. People need to think first before they add their names to such a letter. Actions have consequences. These people should have thought about the long-term consequences of signing such a letter. Some of these people will soon send us letters asking for contributions to their campaigns and PACs. Did they ever consider that they would be insulting some of the same people they would be sending these letters to?"

Lasky said she had signed the letter because it was her understanding that voting "present" - which is not allowed in the New Hampshire legislature -- was nothing but an attempt to dodge tough votes. She said it "didn't make much sense" to her that Obama's present votes on abortion bills were part of a strategy by pro-choice legislators. As for his 100 percent ratings from abortion rights groups, she said she didn't know what those were based on and how much value they held.

"To me it doesn't show conviction to be present," she said. "He says he's pro-choice, but he doesn't show a whole lot of conviction when you have a chance to vote and you vote present."

Lasky said the letter should not stand in the way of Democratic unity come fall. "The stakes in this election are too high to be risked because of a last-minute letter," she said. "I would certainly not want to attach my name to anything false, and would hate to think that I did that. But that was one letter and one instance. The candidates were here for a year."

Lasky was also involved in the attempt by Clinton officials to remove Obama volunteers who had been sent to many polling places on primary day to check off the names of voters as they arrived so that the campaign's get out the vote workers would know which of their supporters had and hadn't voted. Clinton volunteers and local lawyers acting on behalf of the campaign demanded in Nashua, Concord and at least one other town that poll moderators ban the Obama volunteers from the polls, saying that their presence violated a state law stating that only the state party chairmen can delegate people to monitor the polls.

The Obama campaign countered that that law applied only to monitors who are at the polls to challenge potentially invalid voters, a practice that is usually limited to general elections and which their volunteers were not engaged in. The attorney general and Nashua city clerk confirmed this when they were called about the dispute, saying that the Obama volunteers were allowed as members of the public to observe the polls, as long as they didn't get in the way.

But the Clinton intervention at Ward 9 in Nashua nonetheless persuaded the moderator to ban the Obama observers. And the disputes, which dragged on for hours and grew quite heated, generally scrambled the Obama efforts to keep track of who was and wasn't voting, said Obama supporter Andrew Edwards, a rookie state representative assigned to observe the polls in Nashua, where Clinton ran up a big margin in her favor. Edwards was confronted by Lasky and by another veteran Democrat, state representative and Nashua Democratic chairwoman Jane Clemons, who he said issued a veiled threat during the dispute that he would face a stiff primary challenge in Nashua if he ran for reelection.

"The effect of it was that it basically disrupted our get out the vote operation," said Edwards. "My effectiveness that day [in checking off names] was less than 50 percent as a result of the people who kept coming in" to protest the observers.

Clemons, whose son Nick Clemons managed Clinton's campaign in the state, said she objected to the Obama observers because she said she had been told by the Nashua City Clerk the day before that such observers would not be allowed and that letting the Obama use them conferred an "unfair advantage." In an interview Friday, the city clerk, Paul Bergeron, said this was not the case, that the discussion before the election had regarded volunteers challenging voters, not those checking names off lists.

Clemons denied that she had threatened Edwards with a primary challenge, saying that she simply asked him whether he was planning to run for re-election, which he may have wrongly interpreted as a threat.

Clemons did not sign the abortion rights letter because, she said, she was not asked to. She said she was not sure she would have if asked since she does not know the implication of a "present" vote in the Illinois Senate, as there is no such thing in the New Hampshire legislature.

She, too, hoped that the Obama supporters would get over their resentment. "You work so very hard for so very long that, yeah, there are raw feelings the day afterward," she said. "We try to give people time to get over it.

Howie P.S.: Don't ya just love "politics as usual"?

Barack Obama

"In Vegas, Politics Comes to The Strip"

WaPo:

LAS VEGAS -- Next Saturday, gamblers at the Bellagio, the opulent Las Vegas casino immortalized in the George Clooney blockbuster "Ocean's Eleven," will be treated to an unusual sight.

Just before noon, the hotel's dishwashers, cocktail waitresses, porters and bellhops will go on break and gather in a 30,000-square-foot ballroom to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama or maybe John Edwards to be the Democratic nominee for president.

A similar scene will play out in eight other casinos on or near Las Vegas's Strip as Democrats caucus in Nevada, the next stop in the party's fiercely competitive presidential race. There will be more than 1,700 caucus precincts across Nevada, but estimates are that the votes cast in the casinos could be more than 10 percent of the statewide total. Many of them will be cast by Latinos, the first time in the 2008 presidential race when that ethnic group will play a significant role.

Democratic officials, working with national party leaders, came up with the idea of caucusing in the casinos for the first time to increase participation in a town that doesn't know the meaning of a 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday workweek.

Under rules set by the Nevada Democratic Party, only casinos that have been organized by the most powerful labor group in Las Vegas, the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, were selected as caucus sites.

The unusual venue has set the scene for a different confrontation between Obama and Clinton, the two front-runners, than occurred in Iowa or New Hampshire.

In New Hampshire, Clinton fared best among working-class and middle-class voters, while Obama did better with higher-income voters and in college towns -- a demographic that Clinton at one point mocked as people who "don't need a president."

But in Las Vegas, Clinton, a senator from New York, is supported by many hotel and casino executives, while Obama has the backing of two key unions -- the Nevada chapter of the Service Employees International Union and the culinary workers, which announced its endorsement Wednesday after fierce lobbying from all three Democrats.

"Not only am I among friends, I am also among the best of the labor movement in this country," Obama, a senator from Illinois, said in a speech Friday night at the union's hall on the north end of town.

The same day, another union -- the Nevada State Education Association -- contended that Obama and the culinary workers are altogether too friendly, and asked a federal court to shut down the casino caucus sites because, the association said, they give preferential treatment to culinary union members.

State Democratic officials, who had been expecting the suit, said they had worked with each presidential campaign since last spring to craft the process, including the casino precincts, to drum up the largest turnout possible.

"The time for comment or complaint has passed," the state party said in a statement after the suit was filed by the teachers' union and several individuals. The union, which has not endorsed a candidate, has some leaders who individually support Clinton. It is using a law firm with at least one prominent lawyer who backs Clinton. (Another teachers' union, the American Federation of Teachers, has endorsed Clinton and is airing radio ads in Nevada on her behalf.)

Culinary union officials dismiss the complaints as sour grapes from Clinton allies. "It's strange it's coming after our endorsement," D. Taylor, the secretary-treasurer, said of the suit.

Minutes from the meeting last March when the state Democratic committee approved the caucus process show that several of the parties to the suit were there and approved of the process.

Clinton raised questions about the caucus process when she campaigned here Thursday. Repeating an argument she made after she lost the Iowa caucuses, she said caucuses provide only a "limited period of time" for participation, as opposed to day-long primaries. "People who work during that [caucus] time, they're disenfranchised," she told reporters.

State party officials counter that the sites in the casinos are specifically designed to meet the objections raised by Clinton and to allow more people to participate in the notoriously cumbersome caucus process.

The casino caucuses are open to any shift worker, including cab drivers and employees at nonunion casinos, who is on duty midday Saturday within a 2 1/2 mile radius of the nine sites. They must present identification showing that they work on or near Las Vegas Boulevard, the Strip's official name. However, the logistical reality of Las Vegas -- where mega-casinos can be half a mile long and the Strip is clogged with cabs hustling gamblers around town -- is that it will be very difficult for workers in nonunion casinos to take the time to walk or drive to the caucus sites.

Culinary officials have been prepping their union's members on caucus rules -- the doors close promptly at noon, and no late attendance, for example -- at meetings for months. Although their endorsement of Obama came late, they predict a near-united front for him, adhering to the labor movement's notion that division weakens a union's hand, whether in contract bargaining or politics.

"We believe that everyone has the ability to choose on their own, but normally we all try to stick together," said Jennifer Grote, 44, who works in food service at the Paris hotel-casino and will serve as a caucus captain on Election Day.

"You cannot divide union workers," added Leain Vashon, a bell captain at the Paris.

Any members who want to oppose their leadership and support another candidate will have to do so in front of their co-workers, wearing their casino-issued work clothes identifying themselves as members of the union.

At the Bellagio, executives estimate that between 4,000 and 5,000 employees will be working at caucus time. While they have been accommodating so far, executives say they cannot possibly let every worker take more than an hour-long break on Martin Luther King Day weekend, which will be extra busy.

"It's not perfect for us. We've got a business to maintain," said Gordon Absher, spokesman for MGM Mirage, which owns the Bellagio and three other casinos hosting caucuses.

Despite Obama's organizational advantage, Clinton has hardly given up in Nevada. After touring a Latino neighborhood that is home to many culinary workers Thursday, she returned here yesterday with former housing secretary Henry Cisneros in an effort to peel away Latino votes.

With Obama getting the support of the dishwashers and housekeepers, Clinton has the backing of such political players as former governor Bob Miller, former Las Vegas mayor Jan Jones, and Rory Reid, son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (who has stayed neutral in the race).

Her campaign convened a conference call with casino executives Friday to attack Obama for his opposition to expanding casino gambling in Illinois while he was in the legislature there. They said it was hypocritical of him to accept the endorsement of the hotel and casino workers while having previously criticized the industry on which their livelihoods depend.

Taylor, the culinary union leader, pointed to Clinton's prominent backers as evidence that "the entire Democratic power structure" supports her, saying that makes Obama the underdog.

The competitive nature of the fight is exactly what Nevada Democrats hoped for when they used Harry Reid's clout to give the state an early place in the primary process. The state party bills the contest as "the test in the West" -- the first battle in the western half of the nation.

"Nevada is right in the eye of the storm, and it's wonderful," Harry Reid said in an interview last week.

Barack Obama

"Clinton Accuses Obama Camp of Distorting Her Words"

NY Times:

RENO, Nev. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday accused Senator Barack Obama’s campaign of distorting her remarks to suggest that she had cast aspersions on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

She said she was “personally offended” by the way her statement had been portrayed, and accused Mr. Obama’s campaign of being divisive.

Mrs. Clinton made her comments to reporters here after she was asked if she had spoken to Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who is the highest-ranking African-American in Congress. Mr. Clyburn had expressed disappointment in the Clinton campaign.

Mrs. Clinton said she had spoken with him. She suggested that she had told him her comments were distorted.

“I was personally offended at the approach taken that was not only misleading but unnecessarily hurtful,” said Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York. “And I have made that clear to many people in the last several days.”

Asked to whom she was referring, Mrs. Clinton responded, “I think it clearly came from Senator Obama’s campaign, and I don’t think it was the kind of debate we should be having in this campaign.”

A spokesman for the Obama campaign, Bill Burton, did not back away from its original criticism of Mrs. Clinton.

“People were offended at her words, and she can explain them however she’d like,” Mr. Burton said. “However, I think that Congressman Clyburn and other leaders across the country would take great offense at the suggestion that their response was somehow engineered by this campaign.”

Prominent black supporters of Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, have been criticizing Mrs. Clinton over her remarks last week that some have interpreted as giving President Lyndon B. Johnson more credit than Dr. King for civil rights law.

Mrs. Clinton quickly clarified her comments with effusive praise for Dr. King, but the criticism has worried her advisers because of the potential impact it might have in the Democratic presidential primary on Jan. 26 in South Carolina, where up to half of the electorate could be black.

Mr. Clyburn said he was disappointed by what Mrs. Clinton had said and by former President Bill Clinton’s use of the phrase “fairy tale” in talking about Mr. Obama’s views on the war in Iraq.

Comments by Mr. Clyburn have raised concerns in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign that he might abandon a pledge of neutrality and endorse Mr. Obama later this month. Mrs. Clinton said Saturday that he had told her he would remain neutral.

This was what Mrs. Clinton said on Monday: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” At a later stop, she said that her remark had not captured what she had sought to portray.

Mrs. Clinton seemed prepared to address the question Saturday the second she stepped in front of reporters, and she went into the attack as soon as she was asked about Mr. Clyburn.

The back and forth in recent days has pushed race to the front of the Democratic nomination contest in the way it has not been.

Asked what role she thought race would play in her contest with Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton responded, “I hope none.”

“I don’t think either Senator Obama or myself want to see the injection of race or gender into this campaign,” she continued. “We are each running as individuals. I think it’s absolutely extraordinary that the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for president are an African-American and a woman.”

Mrs. Clinton spoke on the weekend when several of her advisers and donors said that the campaign had abandoned what was one of the fundamental assumptions of its strategy — that the nomination would be effectively decided on Feb. 5, when 22 states hold nominating contests. Her campaign has started to create an organizational hierarchy for its donors to accelerate fund-raising to pay for increasingly expensive advertising, travel and voter-outreach efforts, with a goal of raising more than $10 million by the end of January, according to several of the donors.

That target is important because several Clinton advisers and donors now believe that the Democratic presidential fight between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama may not end on the mega-primary day of Feb. 5, as Mrs. Clinton and others had initially expected.

Advisers and donors said Saturday that they wanted to have enough resources — building on the $20 million or so that they currently have on hand — to advertise heavily in the expensive media markets of California, New Jersey and New York, which vote on Feb. 5, and still have money to compete strongly in the primaries later that month.

The new Clinton donor hierarchy involves the appointment of national finance leaders — major donors who will take a key role coordinating fund-raising goals across the country and ensuring that financial pledges are delivered on time.

Among the new national finance leaders are four New Yorkers and long-time Clinton supporters: Maureen White, a former fund-raising leader at the Democratic National Committee; her husband, Steve Rattner, an investment banker; Hassan Nemazee, a veteran Democratic fundraiser; and Alan Patricof, a venture capitalist. Several more leaders are expected.

The new hierarchy was discussed at concurrent meetings Friday night that Mrs. Clinton held with several dozen donors in Los Angeles and that Mr. Clinton held with a similar group in Washington. Mr. Clinton was joined by the campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, and the campaign finance director, Jonathan Mantz.

According to three donors who were at the Washington meeting, Mr. Clinton and Mr. McAuliffe said that the campaign was now national in scope, with political and advertising efforts either under way or about to begin from coast to coast. Mr. Obama has similar efforts under way as well.

Donors were told that Mrs. Clinton would fight hard to win the Nevada caucuses next Saturday, despite some powerful union endorsements for Mr. Obama, and would also compete in the South Carolina primary, in spite of Mr. Obama’s strong support among black voters in that state.

Barack Obama

"Obama And Bill Duke It Out Over Obama's 2004 War Quote"

Greg Sargent (TPM Election Central):

Yesterday, as part of his racial damage control tour, Bill Clinton took a shot at Obama that he's frequently taken during the campaign, charging that the Illinois Senator's criticism of Hillary's support of the war is disingenuous in light of something Obama said back in 2004.

Bill pointed out that at the time, Obama said that he could not say how he would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate himself in the run-up to the invasion. Bill has repeatedly pointed to this quote to cast doubt on Obama's anti-war bona fides, and it's become part of the conversation of Campaign 2008.

Obama defended himself against this criticism a few days ago, recalling that at the time he didn't want to criticize the war votes of John Kerry and John Edwards in the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign. Obama accused the former president of cherry picking from his past quote:

He keeps on giving half the quote. I was always against the war...obviously I didn’t want to criticize them on the eve of their nomination. So I said, `Well, I don’t know what -- you know, I wasn’t in the Senate. I can’t say for certain what I would have done if I was there. I know that from where I stood the case was not made.’ He always leaves that out.

As it happens, Obama is right. Here is the actual Obama quote in question, from a New York Times article on July 26, 2004 (via Nexis):

In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''

So, clearly, Obama was pointing to the fact that he wasn't in the Senate at the time as a way of tactfully avoiding criticizing his party's presidential and vice-presidential nominees. It's perfectly clear that Obama was in fact against the war at the time. His position then -- as now -- was that the case for war had not been made and that the invasion wasn't justified.

Barack Obama

"Kerry Endorses Obama" (video)

BarackObama.com, video (04:28).

Barack Obama