New York Senator Hillary Clinton and IL Sen. Barack Obama split the differenence last night in the North Carolina & Indiana primaries, with Sen. Obama drawing a huge 56%-42% victory in the Tarheel State and Clinton squeaking to victory in the Hoosier State, 51%-49%.

Clinton was defiant in her speech to supporters last night, pledging to fight on to West Virginia and Kentucky, and pressing for the inclusion of Florida and Michigan in the delegate counts.  But as numerous pundits have noted, Clinton fundraising has slacked in recent weeks as many donors grow skeptical of her chances.  Word comes today that the Senator has made another loan to her campaign of $6.4 million dollars - on top of a previous $5 million loan earlier in the year.  The Clintons are on the ropes.

This is not the case for Sen. Barack Obama - the self-described ”skinny African-American with a funny name”.  With the tough Pennsylvania defeat now behind him, a better than expected win in North Carolina, and a surprisingly good Indiana showing, the media has covered Obama as though he had clinched the nomination - this despite the fact that the spread in delegate counts between the two candidates is almost the same as it was pre-Pennsylvania.  Nonetheless, the Big Mo’, as they say, is clearly with the Obama campaign and the decisive superdelegates are getting the messages.

This past Saturday, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean used the Democratic Radio Address to smear the good name of presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain.  It was just the latest effort in the DNC’s desperate attempt to characterize a McCain Presidency as “Bush’s Third Term”.  And over the last month, they’ve been shameless.  They attacked Sen. McCain for his now infamous “100 years” comment, an attack that the nonpartisan factcheck.org called, “a rank falsehood”.  On Friday of last week, the DNC launched another whopper at McCain, claiming that the Arizonan had labelled the current economic situation as a “pyschological” problem - a wild distortion of McCain’s statement. 

Regular observation of this melodrama would lead one to correctly surmise that the folks at the Democratic National Committee are either exceedingly dumb or very desperate.  This sentiment was seemingly endorsed by none other than Senator Barack Obama today when Obama himself dispelled the “McCain = Bush’s Third Term” bleating.  In Pennsylvania, he was quoted as saying, “And all three of us would be better than George Bush.”

While a refreshing - if momentary - dismissal of Chairman Dean’s attacks, it seems the ‘out of context statements used as smears’ strategy is far from dead.  Using the Democratic National Committee standard, one could just as easily besmirch whatever is left of Chairman Dean’s integrity.  One could write in big, flashy type: Howard Dean Hates Christians, Saying: “… I think they are incredibly unfair, biased and hate mongering.”  Now, the quote itself is a Howard Dean quote from Mary Ann Akers ‘The Sleuth’ blog at the Washington Post, March 20, 2008.  To normal people, it matters that the sentence before it properly characterized the comment - referencing the fact that Dean generally doesn’t do interviews on “far right networks”.  But taking the thing out of context, it can take on whatever smear you want.  It is a patently ridiculous standard, and one that shames the Democratic Party every time they open their mouth.

MSNBC’s First Read has a very interesting quote from Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman about Sen. Barack Obama.

NAPOLITANO: Hey Sen. Lieberman, you know Barack Obama, is he a Marxist as Bill Kristol says might be the case in today’s New York Times? Is he an elitist like your colleague Hillary Clinton says he is?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you know, I must say that’s a good question. I know him now for a little more than three years since he came into the Senate and he’s obviously very smart and he’s a good guy. I will tell ya that during this campaign, I’ve learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. And I wouldn’t…I’d hesitate to say he’s a Marxist, but he’s got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America.

Not much you can add to that.

The recent days have been pretty boring in terms of Presidential politics.  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem to be waging a pillow fight of a primary campaign, Republican John McCain is on a greyhound tour of Democratic strongholds, and a light breeze is chilling the sunny April days.

 Except for that whole Barack Obama insulting millions of Americans thing.

Indeed, the weekend was dominated - on television, radio, and in the newspapers - with coverage of Sen. Barack Obama’s statement that small town Americans cling to religion and guns because they are “bitter” that there are no jobs.  

Click directly below this text to hear the Chairman’s statement on the issue.
(more…)

Here’s a story you’ll be hearing about over the next several days.  According to the Politico (and about a dozen other publications at this point), Barack Obama had this to say about midwesterners who live in small towns.

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

No sense in trying to add anything more at this point, since there is going to be plenty of time to kick this quote around.

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain will be in Connecticut today on a fundraising tour through Fairfield County.  “America’s ATM” will be churning out much needed funds for the McCain campaign, as they gird for a challenging autumn campaign against either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton. 

The Arizona Senator has spent the last few weeks drawing contrasts between himself and the mudwrestling contest that is the Democratic nominating process.  Of course, no more clear a contrast than yesterday’s nationally-televised testimony of General David Petreaus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker to the Senate Armed Services Committee.  While Sen. McCain asked several probing questions about the realities of Iraq - much like a President would do of his Generals in the Oval Office - Sen. Hillary Clinton opted to deliver the “Iraq section” of her campaign stump speech, apparently assuming that Petreaus doesn’t watch CNN in Iraq.  The General seemed unimpressed.

The fall campaign promises to be little more than a well-financed street fight, and both Democrats have had a tremendous amount of success raising money in the Nutmeg State this year.  Barack Obama has raised $3,269,444 accourding to the FEC while Sen. Clinton has pumped $2,248,249 out of the state during the course of the campaign.  Whatever the result of the Democratic nominating process, the Democratic nominee will likely have more financial resources at their disposal than McCain.

McCain’s trip through the State today is geared to keep the money gap as narrow as possible.  McCain himself has already rung up $1.4 million from CT, and as such will almost certainly be looking to the donor ranks of his former competitors.  Now-supporters Gov. Mitt Romney and Mayor Rudy Giuliani each generated about $1.4 million for their campaigns here.  Capturing as many of those donors will be a priority for the McCainiacs.  Look for Romney and Giuliani themselves to make fundraising swings through the state on McCain’s behalf in the not-so-distant future.

The money raised today and over the coming weeks will fuel the Arizonan’s bid for President across the nation - including in Connecticut.  Though the Democratic competitors spent millions of dollars on infrastructure and media buys in the weeks before the Connecticut Presidential Preference Primary (February 5th), Senator McCain polls almost even with Senator Clinton, according to the recent Quinnipiac poll.  In a match-up against Sen. Obama, who won the State’s primary and has been endorsed by a host of high Democratic officials - such as Rep. John Larson, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Rep. Chris Murphy, and others - McCain trails52%-35%.  Democrats have said that this shows how poorly McCain will do against Sen. Obama.  Somehow, they must not recall that Mitt Romney was up by 17 points in New Hampshire barely a month before Election Day in the Granite State. 

Make no mistake about it - McCain will make Connecticut competitive this fall.

Filmmaker Spike Lee quoted in New York Magazine, via Ben Smith: 

Does this mean you’re down on the Clintons?
The Clintons, man, they would lie on a stack of Bibles. Snipers? That’s not misspeaking; that’s some pure bullsh**. I voted for Clinton twice, but that’s over with. These old black politicians say, “Ooh, Massuh Clinton was good to us, massuh hired a lot of us, massuh was good!” Hoo! Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins—they have to understand this is a new day. People ain’t feelin’ that stuff. It’s like a tide, and the people who get in the way are just gonna get swept out into the ocean.