I missed this yesterday but the hilarious Dana Milbank has a sketch on Hillary's first day back in the office.
Best quote: The vanquished candidate swung open the door of her private office and found two of her legislative assistants in T-shirts, caps and sunglasses playing at a ping-pong table while the rest of the staff cheered them on. Clinton tossed her head back with her famous laughter, then sat on the couch to watch Mike Szymanski score match point against colleague Ann Gavaghan.
The girl had lost -- again! To the ping-pong loser, Clinton had some empathetic advice. "Ann," she said, "you have to be very gracious in defeat."
 Was Hillary Clinton defeated, as she has suggested, by sexism?
Christopher Hitchens does not think so: Her whole self-pitying campaign, I mean to say, has retarded and infantilized the political process and has used the increasingly empty term sexism to mask the defeat of one of the nastiest and most bigoted candidacies in modern history.
And I found it hard to disagree with him.
In fact, I think there were many people who very much wanted a female President but found themselves incapable of supporting the one they were offered.
 Some thought that tomorrow's DNC meeting might spell the end for Hillary Clinton. Others have offered up the final primaries on Tuesday as the moment for her to bow out.
But it seems her campaign has other plans.
Political Radar reports that: The press traveling with Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign received an email Thursday afternoon informing reporters they could sign up for travel through June 6 on the campaign website.
Her spokesman Jay Carson goes on to say: "There are a lot of places for us to go between June 4 and November"
Surely somewhere he can hear an echo of 'home'?
Alice Fishburn
The Jon Stewart show is back with an explanation of Clinton's 'assassination' comment. It was, argues John Oliver, not a mistake but a memory aid. Watch and learn.
You can hear more from the brilliant John Oliver at The Bugle
Here's one that Hillary did win. Comment Central readers want her on the ticket.
Many thousands of you voted for Hillary and she was way ahead of her nearest challenger - General Wesley Clark.
It's these sort of numbers, I guess that lead Mike Smithson over on Political Betting to start speculating - could the Convention force the dream ticket on to the candidates?
Such an outcome is, after all, theoretically possible.
The last open election for VP candidate was 1956 which saw JFK defeated by Estes Kefauver, despite the fact that the nominee (Adlai Stevenson) hated Kefauver. In 1972 Thomas Eagleton was backed by McGovern but still had to defeat other candidates. The resulting election pushed McGovern's speech out of prime time.
And it is the chaos of the McGovern experience that is one reason why Mike's speculation is unlikely to come about. I think by the time they get to their Convention the Dems will be pretty desperate to look unified.
The demotion of Mark Penn from his position as Hillary Clinton's chief strategist is a depressing development.
Penn has been asked to step down for two reasons. Officially, it is because he held meetings with officials of the Colombian government. The Colombians are clients of Penn's PR firm and are advancing a trade agreement Clinton opposes.
So that's depressing point number one. Penn had to go because the unions don't want free trade deals. And Hillary wasn't prepared to stand up to them.
Couldn't she have argued that Penn is entitled to other clients? Is free trade now so poisonous that even the slightest association with a controversial scheme is a resignation issue?
The second reason Penn has been pushed out is that his campaign hasn't been victorious yet, and doesn't look like it will be. He is being blamed for advising Hillary to pose as the candidate of experience rather than as a candidate of change, the candidate of perspiration not inspiration.
And that's depressing point number two.
Yes, the advice he gave didn't clinch the nomination. But at this stage it can't be changed. So the point of the demotion is simply blame shifting.
There are two reasons why this is wrong.
First, because the strategy picks the candidate. Second because the candidate picks the strategy.
What do I mean by the strategy picks the candidate? You can only go with themes and ideas that suit the person running for office. Perhaps inspiration will always beat experience, but that doesn't mean that Hillary could have made an inspiration message work.
Do you really think that in an inspiration contest between her and Obama, she would have been the victor? Quite. And is that Penn's fault? No.
And even if Hillary could have made a change strategy work, is it Penn's fault she didn't pick such a strategy? No. It's her fault.
Insofar as it's anyone's. Because I think an experience strategy was a perfectly reasonable choice. It almost worked, didn't it? And if it had Penn would have been called a genius.
Demoting him at this point is a cowardly act.
Flak from the 'sniper' incident continues to hit Hillary Clinton.
Today, the redoubtable Christopher Hitchens takes her to task with a jarring account of his own arrival in Bosnia under fire: I remember disembarking at the Sarajevo airport in the summer of 1992 after an agonizing flight on a U.N. relief plane that had had to "corkscrew" its downward approach in order to avoid Serbian flak and ground fire. As I hunched over to scuttle the distance to the terminal, a mortar shell fell as close to me as I ever want any mortar shell to fall. The vicious noise it made is with me still.
He goes on to explain why her determination to stick to her story has been so damaging: Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States
Alice Fishburn
And while we're on the subject of the great male-female political divide....
How concerned should we be about Clinton's cosmetics? Michael Kinsley lights a firecracker in this Slate article with his suggestion that a female candidate spends at least half an hour more primping each day than her male counterparts. He goes on to calculate: No one will care whether the president is well-coiffed when answering that 3 a.m. phone call. But in a close-fought election campaign, every minute counts. If you figure 20 minutes a day over a year and a half of 14-hour days and six-day weeks, it comes out to an extra two weeks of campaigning or sleep for a male candidate.
Well any male candidate but those of the John Edwards 'I spend $400 on a haircut' variety.
Men have always spent as much time obsessing about their looks as women. Who's to say that Obama doesn't spend half an hour examining his pores or John McCain worrying about his wrinkles?
Furthermore, Kinsley has forgetten the female capacity to multitask.
It's ridiculous to assume that Clinton spends those thirty minutes fretting about which eyeshadow best matches her pantsuit. She may well be simultaneously holding a political briefing and running over speech notes.
And why not? After all, Maggie Thatcher was notorious for leaving her male colleagues flailing in her wake. And that was in the eighties when hair and makeup could take days.
Finally, who knows when the candidates make their big decisions? George Bush likes to jog three miles each day. JFK relaxed with the odd girlfriend. Barack Obama takes the times to read to his daughters. And for all we know, McCain may have his brainwaves in the bath.
Having the headspace to think is vital for a politician. None of these relaxation techniques lessen their ability to be or become President. If Hillary wants to take forty minutes to do her appearance, well good for her.
Alice Fishburn
The brilliant BBC journalist David Grossman has drawn my attention to this hilarious video of Hillary Clinton praising Heather Mills to the skies.
It appears on Heather's website with the words "Hillary Clinton speaks out for Heather" underneath it.
In the light of the judge's description of Heather as, ahem, a less than impressive, less than candid, witness, I suspect Mrs Clinton wishes this video could disappear. But that's the beauty of You Tube
In my latest Twofer, I ask Gerard Baker if Clinton can still win it, what the role of superdelegates will be and whether Al Gore may yet play a part in settling the Democratic nomination.
Barack Obama loves his chilis. Hillary Clinton likes to settle down with a Porterhouse steak.
But, as any savvy campaign staffer knows, it's nourishing  the voters that's really important.
Stale crisps? 'Well I'm still not sure about my vote.' Curling sandwiches? You're more than likely to get a no.
Earlier this month, Gerard Baker used the politics of food to made the following point: Mrs Clinton is the candidate of what might be called Dunkin' Donut Democrats. They do not have money to waste on multiple-hyphenated coffee drinks - double-top, no-foam, non-fat lattes and the like. Not for them the bran muffins or the biscotti. They are the 75-cent coffee and doughnut crowd.
But how much does this crowd cost when you're chasing their votes? As the Caucus blog noted yesterday, 75 cents adds up pretty quickly. the Clinton campaign reported expenditures of $1,884.83 at Dunkin' Donuts in New Hampshire and Florida (which she won) and in Virginia (which she didn't)...
Her bakery bills totaled $5,950.53 (at Dunkin’ prices, about 12,000 doughnuts)
These figures make Hillary Clinton the Homer Simpson of the campaign trail. The Caucus goes on to note that John McCain has invested only $923.70 on Dunkin Donuts and $116.79 on Krispy Kremes.
As for Obama? Well, he laid out just $1877.28 on all bakeries. But there's no word yet on how many lattes he bought for those liberals...
Alice Fishburn
Real Clear Politics points to this new Hillary ad. Here she is. The would-be nominee turned rock chick. I can only imagine that this patronising pitch will have young voters reaching for the nearest Obama banner.
 My post on the exit polls and Hillary Clinton's surprise victory has received a great deal of attention from political pundits with its theory that the clue to her victory lay in the exit polls.
I argued that if the exit polls were inaccurate, as I believe they were, then the spiral of silence was at work. In other words people were embarrassed to tell pollsters that they were voting for Hillary.
But some readers and bloggers have another theory - fraud.
They argue that the Diebold vote counting machinery (The Diebold Accuvote-OS) can be tampered with. Why did Hillary do well against the odds? Because the Clinton campaign and the establishment hacked the machinery.
Here's how such an idea could take hold.
First, the Diebold equipment is vulnerable to fraud. And a vast conspiracy would not be required.
At the bottom of this post I've put up a You Tube video from Princeton University academics. It shows how a criminal could infect a large number of Diebold Accuvote-TS with access to only one of the machines for a very short period of time.
Second, vote counting fraud has formed a big part of American history. And that is within the living memory of many Americans. Don't believe me? Read Robert Caro's stunning second volume in his life of Lyndon Johnson. He shows how LBJ stole his seat in the Senate.
And third, there was a significant difference in the result from machine counts in New Hampshire and that from hand counts.
According to some estimates (note of caution - they are compiled by a supporter of Ron Paul) Hillary Clinton scored 5.46 per cent more in machine counted areas than in areas where there were hand counts only. Barack Obama scored 3.08 per cent less in machine-counted areas.
Having explained this, I have to say I don't hold with this conspiracy theory for one minute.
To start with, the Diebold AccuVote-TS, a machine that allows you to vote electronically, was not being used in New Hampshire. With the exception of a few votes by disabled people, votes were being cast by hand and only counted by machine.
The Diebold AccuVote-OS machine is an optical scanner that counts votes that were cast by hand. It shares some of the hardware and software of the AccuVote-TS and there are some pretty serious questions over its security too.
However, fraud involving counting machine is much, much riskier for the perpetrator than infecting the vote casting equipment with a virus. The latter erases all evidence. But with a counter, the paper vote remains. At any point ballots can be counted by hand and fraud proven.
The next reason to disbelieve the conspiracy theory is the numbers themselves.
The very figures used by the theorists are the strongest indication that no fraud took place. Hand counting tends to take place in rural areas, machine counting in urban areas. So you would expect the candidate with a stronger rural following to do quite a bit better in hand counts.
And that is exactly what happened. Obama's strength in rural New Hampshire had been much commented upon.
And finally there's this. Not very scientific I know, but still. I always tend towards the simpler explanation - that Hillary just won - over the complicated and eyebrow raising one - that a risky criminal conspiracy, even if small, was involved.
 More on why Hillary won when the polls said that she wouldn't.
My two leading theories were the Bradley Effect (people say they are going to support a black candidate then don't) and the Spiral of Silence (people are embarrassed to tell a pollster they really supported Hillary not Obama).
Both of these had arguments in their favour, but both had this problem - the exit polls. Surely if either of these effects was important they would have made the exit polls wrong. And yet the exit polls seemed, looking at them the morning after the night before, to be right.
Now I've spoken to one of the best polling gurus in the business, Andrew Cooper of Populus, and I think I understand.
The correctness of the exit polls is an illusion.
When I first saw the exit polls (at 1AM Wednesday morning UK time) they showed a 39-34 per cent advantage for Obama. When I woke up at 7AM they seemed to be totally in line with the result.
The reason? The exit polls are reweighted as the night goes on to incorporate the results as they are counted. And the original polls disappear from the website.
This is very important indeed in gaining an understanding of the Hillary victory.
It means that any explanation of her victory must explain that voters told exit pollsters after they had voted that they were not for Hillary even though they had just voted for her. This means that the polls were wrong because people weren't telling the truth to pollsters and not because of a last minute change of heart.
So you can dismiss, for instance, the crying as an explanation because even if it didn't turn up in last minute opinion polls it surely would have done in an exit poll.
We really are just left with the Bradley Effect and the Spiral of Silence.
So which is it? The Spiral of Silence. How can I be so sure? Because of this graph from Matt Yglesias's site.
As you can see Obama's vote came in on the money. Hillary's didn't, not by miles. People voted for her who didn't tell pollsters that they would. And they kept it to themselves even after they had done so.
The wikipedia entry is particularly good at explaining how something like Obama's incredible media coverage post-Iowa might make people unwilling to admit they were actually for Hillary.
Case solved.
Right, no point avoiding it. Here's what I said yesterday: Obama is 8 points clear and rising. He is going to win New Hampshire, probably with a landslide.
Doesn't look so clever now, does it?
So why did this happen? This is one of the worst polling errors I've seen. The margins of error were, after all the polls were collected together, tiny.
There are basically six theories overnight, although later there may be more.
First, the crying. The idea is that women warmed to Hillary's emotional response to falling behind. This is emerging as the standard explanation - the reverse of Neil Kinnock's Sheffield rally. The Democrats are heavily female and in this primary the vote broke 43 to 57 male to female.
Pros: The theory could explain a late shift among undecided voters, particularly undecided females. The crying made Hillary appear more likeable. Cons: The shift was pretty big, the crying not so big an incident. It seems too convenient a packaged explanation.
Second, the Reese Witherspoon effect. This is framed by Jonathan Alter of Newsweek as follows: As in any high-school election, the studious girls who show up to vote might harbour a few resentments about the boys. It's like the movie "Election," where Reese Witherspoon's character, Tracy Flick, is an ambitious and too-perfect high school senior who has the election stolen from her after she was expected to win against a cool if inexperienced jock. By the end of the movie, she ends up on top.
Pros: Great name for a theory and it is just about tenable that Obama's bounce might have been resented. Cons: Ridiculously convoluted link to an obscure movie and no reason to explain why the resentment didn't show up in the polls before polling day. Obama's momentum in opinion polls was quickening not slowing.
Third, the First Lady issue. Both Obama and John Edwards minimised her contribution as First Lady in an ABC debate. This might have been resented by women.
Pros: Helps explain huge differential support for Hillary among women. Cons: Wasn't really a new issue that might have produced a last minute shift against Obama.
Fourth, minor candidate squeeze. There was a fall off in the John Edwards and Bill Richardson vote which helped Hillary.
Pros: There was definitely a fall in their vote. Edwards poll average was 18.3 for instance and he polled 17 per cent. Cons: The fall-off wasn't big enough to explain the whole impact and there is no reason, either, to assume that the Edwards' vote would break for Hillary.
Fifth, the Bradley Effect. Black candidates often do better in polls than in elections as voters like to be seen to be supporting them even if they don't actually do so. This is known as the Bradley Effect after Tom Bradley, the African American LA Mayor, who lost out in the California Governor's race despite leading in the polls.
Pros: Would certainly explain Obama's underperformance and the contrast with Iowa where voting wasn't secret. Cons: The exit polls, which looked wrong initially, in the end were accurate. Wouldn't the Bradley Effect have shown up in these polls?
Sixth, the Spiral of Silence. Over the last decade and a half in British elections the Tories often did better than unadjusted polls said that they would. Why? The theory is that people were embarrassed to admit that they would support them partly because their neighbours disliked the Tories so strongly. Hillary produces a similar reaction and might therefore be subject to a spiral of silence. Pollsters have now begun to adjust their polls to take account of this.
Pros: Would explain the huge gap between her poll rating and the result. This might either have been there all along or might have appeared in the last couple of days simply because people were embarrassed to admit they weren't jumping on the Obama bandwagon. People didn't shift back from Obama according to this theory, they never shifted to him. They just told pollsters that they had. Cons: Wouldn't silence have been maintained in talking to exit pollsters? In Britain it was.
These theories are not mutually exclusive, of course. They might all be true.
But my own view? It's the Bradley Effect and the Spiral of Silence that were the biggest factors.
[UPDATE TUESDAY 11.30: Fresh poll news and whether Hillary is doomed]
What about the weekend polls in New Hampshire? They seem to be bouncing about a bit, don't they.
Real Clear Politics records the numbers since Iowa. They show Obama +10, +13, +3, +9, +12, +1, -2, +12. The average is +7.2.
The basic explanation is the margin of error. Most of these polls have a sample of around 500 or so with a margin of error of plus/minus 5. That's pretty big and allows wildly different results from the same samples.
But there is one other reason to treat this bunch with caution. They are weekend polls, all of them.
One of the best US poll analysers is Mark Blumenthal on his site Pollster.com. He warns us all to beware weekend polls: or more specifically, surveys based on interviews completed entirely on Friday night and Saturday. Most campaign pollsters are reluctant to put too much faith in interviews conducted at those times, when younger and more mobile voters are less likely to be home.
In my 20+ years of looking at surveys conducted for campaigns, I can remember only one we did based solely on Friday and Saturday interviewing.
In that case even after we weighted by every demographic variable available to make it comparable to others conducted just days before, we produced a weighted sample that appeared much more engaged in politics and better informed about issues and candidates (and thus, more likely to be "certain" about their initial vote preferences).
He also says the vote in New Hampshire is very fluid, with many still undecided. I think this is much more likely to help Obama than hinder him, though.
The FT's front page this morning carries one of the most worrying stories I've read in quite a while - Hillary Clinton doubts the benefits of free trade for America.
Of course, that's not exactly how she puts it. She says instead: I want to have a more comprehensive and thoughtful trade policy for the 21st century.
However, her meaning was quite clear. She is contemplating abandoning the Doha round and taking a "time out" on new trade agreements.
She dresses this up intellectually with an appeal to the authority of economist Paul Samuelson: I agree with Paul Samuelson, the very famous economist, who has recently spoken and written about how comparative advantage, as it is classically understood, may not be descriptive of the 21st century economy in which we find ourselves.
Now, Samuelson is a passionate advocate of free trade. When asked by the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam to "name me one proposition in all of the social sciences which is both true and non-trivial," Samuelson took several years to think about it, before responding "comparative advantage".
So has the Nobel prize winner really changed his mind? Of course not.
As Professor Willem Buiter explains, Samuelson's recent work simply deals with the effects of other countries beginning to develop in areas where previously they were weak. This erodes comparative advantage and may hit workers in the country originally enjoying an edge.
More directly he says of Mrs Clinton's use of Samuelson's work: This statement is complete codswallop.
And, as I say, pretty worrying codswallop, too.
Clinton's staff today cried foul over her treatment in the most recent debate. Accusations of bullying by the six male candidates flew as the campaign team released this video on "The Politics of Pile On." Alice Fishburn
He's best known for bringing down Nixon. Now, in this new FORA video, Carl Bernstein applies his ruthless reporting skills to Hillary Clinton.
If you can't see the video, click here.
Alice Fishburn
Might Hillary Clinton be facing her very own Swift Boat moment?
Wired seems to think so. A new video produced by Peter Paul, a former campaign contributor, is sweeping the web and stirring up bad memories in the Clinton camp. Titled The Shocking Video Hillary Does NOT Want You To See!, the video has been viewed on YouTube almost 177,000 times. On Google Video, where it first appeared, it's scored nearly 863,000 hits since it went online mid-July. On Thursday, it was the most viewed clip on the site, boasting 73,000 views, as well as the most e-mailed.
Thus far the Clintons have not responded but cyberspace is talking.
Alice Fishburn
Whoever would have thought health care could be so amusing?
Watch this clip from The Daily Show and feel sorry for the adviser who suggested that Hillary Clinton play up her humourous side.
Alice Fishburn
 The Right certainly are. Check out this bizarre little nugget from Jay Cost:
Many people on the right see Hillary (and, of course, Bill) as devils. A Google search of "Hillary Clinton devil" yielded 1.25 million hits. Wow.
Wow indeed. And why are they scared? Here's his answer: It was obvious to the right from all the way back in 1992 that the Clintons were not worthy of the office. And yet, despite the right's best efforts, the Clintons beat the elder Bush. In 1996 (or at least in 1995), the right was convinced they finally had the Clintons' number. They had raised taxes, tried to socialize medicine, and so on. 1994, the right thought, was a harbinger of the Clintons' electoral doom. Nope. Clinton won handily. Finally, in 1998 the right was convinced that they had them. The Lewinsky affair would surely end their reign, they thought. Again, no way. Lewinsky brought down Gingrich, not Clinton!
Every time, the right has been left scratching its head and wondering, "How in the hell did they beat us again?!" They've never had a good answer to the question.
So despite Bill's murky past, Hillary - as this New Yorker piece suggests - is running on a single issue ticket: her husband's legacy. Hillary’s advisers argue that the obvious lesson of [the failed campaigns of Howard Dean and John Kerry] is that invoking Democratic resentment about [Bill] Clinton’s ideological and personal failings does not work. But his prominence this time makes the strategy irresistible. “The whole race is going to end up there,” a spokesman for one of Hillary’s rivals told me. “It has to, because that’s what she’s running on. She’s running on Bill Clinton. If she were running on her Senate record or some new ideas for the future, rather than the nineties, it would be different. But her biggest strength is Bill Clinton, so the only way to attack her is to take that head on.”
Murad Ahmed
A fascinating piece in the LA Times speculates on the reasons why Karl Rove has been attacking Hillary Clinton.
In a nutshell, it suggests that Rove has identified her as the weaker nominee and is building her up, egging Dems on to defend her as the man their enemy Rove fears.
Let's say this is true - the simpler explanation is that Rove was saying what he thinks - will it work?
A common mistake made by political strategists is to believe that tactics that worked when they were doing well will work equally well when things are going badly.
So, for instance, during the 2005 election Tony Blair repeated his previously successful tour of TV sofas, getting round the journos and going straight to the people.
But it started to go badly wrong. People on talk shows started shouting at the Labour leader. Some journalists, stuck on the old idea that Blair was surrounded by brilliant advisers, interpreted even this shouting as a deliberate stroke of genius - the tour was organised to get all the insults over with.
I am pretty sure this interpretation was wrong. The tour was a mistake - simply a failure to appreciate how far Mr Blair's stock had fallen since the last time he did it.
Now, Mr Rove.
If Mr Rove is boosting Hillary in this roundabout way, he's doing it because he tried something similar to dupe the Dems into choosing John Kerry in 2004. The weaker candidate then lost. In other words, the Dems rallied against Rove and the electorate didn't.
I think that in so far as Mr Rove succeeds this time in influencing the Dems choice it won't work as in 2004.
The Dems may rally against Rove as they did in 2004. But so, this time, may the voters. Voters may react like Dem activists, concluding that there must be something good about a woman that Karl Rove dislikes so much. The master strategist may just end up helping Hillary become President.
Andrew Sullivan has posted a Hillary campaign video (see it below) and is soliciting opinions on it.
So here are mine - unexceptional, uninteresting, professional, not an election winner, not an election loser, soft, doesn't raise any issues which might make anyone change their vote one way or another, won't be remembered within moments of being screened. It was a front runner's, play safe video.
But then here is Andrew's: It made me gag. Sorry, she just does it to me.
Viewed from this side of the Atlantic, Hillary seems to have it all - a terribly unpopular Republican President, a strong Democratic opponent who isn't strong enough, the advantage of being the first woman with a serious shot at the White House, the Clinton name, the Clinton machine, the Clinton money, the sense to know where to pitch herself in order to win.
But you come back and back to comments like Andrew's.
The brain says Hillary, but the gut...
How much should one read into the stories that Barack Obama is raising more money than Hillary Clinton?
There is certainly a strong relationship between money and election results in the US. If you like this sort of thing, you might want to read a study of the North Carolina House and Senate elections of 1998 and 2000. The main conclusion was: Among the findings we found a statistically significant and positive relationship existed between campaign expenditures and the total number of votes received by a candidate. Our model specification enabled us to estimate the net price of a vote to be $33 for Republican candidates, and $37 for Democrat candidates.
But Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics explains why we shouldn't get carried away. He argues: Is it [money] a necessary condition for electoral success? Yes. Is it a sufficient condition? No. It is a necessary, but insufficient condition. If you don't have enough money, you won't win. But it doesn't mean that if you do have enough money, you will win.
By turning the race for dollars into a proxy for the race for votes, pundits implicitly turn fundraising into a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. They see that Obama has raised more than Clinton, and assume that Obama somehow has an advantage. In reality, the question that they should ask from the money is: are these candidates on track to raise enough to compete? And the answer is yes, they are! Obama is on track to raise enough, and so also is Clinton.
For all the Obama hype it remains striking that Clinton retains a double digit lead.
What should Hillary Clinton do about the war? Should she tack against the war to secure the party nomination, or stick to her guns to show she is a leader and consistent.
In as superb piece of analysis on Real Clear Politics, Kathleen Parker shows just how much trouble these questions are giving the Senator: Early on during the anti-war surge, she stood bravely by her vote. Then under pressure from the Democratic base, she said she wouldn't have voted the way she did had she known then what she knows now. By the first Democratic debate last month, she said she regretted trusting Bush when he said he would let U.N. weapons inspectors do their work. By Sunday's second debate, Clinton's Iraq War vote was really for "coercive diplomacy."
So can I offer her some advice based on our experience in Britain?
At the last General Election, it became clear that Iraq was Tony Blair's most significant political liability. The Conservatives were desperate to exploit it. Just one problem - they too had voted for the war on Iraq.
So Tory leader Michael Howard tried this line - I wouldn't have voted for the resolution to go to war if I had known the full truth. Yes, I support the war, he said. But, now I know the full story I wouldn't have given my backing to Tony Blair's explanation.
Funnily enough this was not a mere political ploy. He actually believed it. But it didn't work. It looked opportunistic as well as being a piece of lawyerly (Howard was a lawyer) evasiveness. In the election, he ended up being forced to argue that he would have attacked Saddam if he had known that the Iraqis did not have WMD. A position held by hardly any voter.
The lesson from this episode is that any attempt to escape responsibility for a pro-war vote will fail. Even using arguments, which you believe and can justify. The Senator needs to understand that she is stuck with supporting the war and arguments about detailed bits of resolutions are pointless.
The British experience endorses Kathleen Parker's view entirely: Clinton would have done better to stick to her original principle: She did what she thought was right at the time and wishes the war had been better managed. That's an assessment other war supporters can share and that war protesters can respect. Americans tend to be forgiving of errors in judgment made in good faith. They are less forgiving of fudging history in the service of politics.
Last night was the first night premiere for the 2008 Presidential election, as the eight Democratic candidates starred in a televised debate. So here are the reviews of last night’s performances.
 Hillary Clinton
The general consensus seems to be Hillary was the winner. Our very own Gerard Baker, usually a trenchant critic, thought: Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and now New York senator, reminded everyone why she has long been the favourite to win the Democratic nomination. In a controlled, highly disciplined performance which emphasised her experience and knowledge of all the big issues, she looked presidential
The Guardian and The Politico also hand her a points victory. But Slate’s John Dickerson didn’t join her on a lap of honour: She didn't do anything to fix her big problem which is improving her image as too divisive to get elected. The latest Gallup survey found that 52% of respondents have an unfavorable view of her. She never got a chance to connect with voters the way Edwards did and she didn't confect such a moment
 Barack Obama
The Obama bandwagon seemed to stall during tepid performance last night. John Dickerson summed up the consensus: Barack Obama did just fine, but he wasn't the magical character who turns out massive adoring crowds at his rallies
Gerard Baker agreed: Hesitant and slightly tongue-tied at first, he fumbled through his early answers and took too long to get to the point. More importantly, he didn’t really flesh out his long vaunted claim that he stands for a new kind of politics
But The National Review’s Kate O’Beirne awarded the debate to Obama, but still managed to take a pop at him: Overall, I thought a comfortable and self-confident Obama held his own on a stage with far more seasoned politicians. But his demeanor was more impressive than his content
 John Edwards
He might have had the best hair, but the big loser seems to be the former South Carolina Senator. Gerard Baker thought “the spoiler” candidate had the worst night: John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, and John Kerry’s running mate in the 2004 election, probably had the most disappointing night. Perhaps unsettled by an early question about his infamous $400 haircut recently, oddly he largely failed to get across his populist economic message
And Mickey Kaus was left distinctly unimpressed: Edwards kind of faded into the background. Crickets didn't chirp - they completed their entire life-cycle during the pause after Edwards was asked to name his "moral leader"
Best Supporting Actor?
Joe Biden’s one word wonder was enough to take home the best-of-the-rest award. John Dickerson explains: Senator Biden had a great moment when Brian Williams asked with a long wind-up if Biden had the discipline not to be a "gaffe machine" and exhibit "uncontrolled verbosity." His response: yes
Of the other whatjamacallem candidates, Chris Cillizza writing on the Washington Post's The Fix blog said: Former Sen. Mike Gravel was downright mean, repeatedly attacking his fellow candidates; he even referred to Biden as "arrogant" at one point. He made Kucinich seem like a teddy bear by comparison
And Kate O’Bierne sums it up nicely: The only obvious mistake of the evening was failing to figure out how to deny podiums for Kucinich and Gravel
And finally, on Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd – well, no-one really had anything interesting to say about them, which tells you all you need to know.
Murad Ahmed
Bill Clinton has been telling Hillary's fundraisers that her votes in the Senate should not be interpreted as support for the war.
The Hill was listening in to the conference call and provides this report: In response to a question from one of the supporters on the phone about explaining Hillary Clinton’s Iraq vote to undecided voters, the former president jumped in front of former Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, saying, “Let me answer this.”
He said he had re-read the Iraq resolution last week, and that his wife had voted only for “coercive inspections.” Clinton justified his wife’s refusal to apologize for her vote by explaining that she was acting out of concern that future presidents might need similar language authorizing “coercive inspections to avoid conflict.”
“It’s just not fair to say that people who voted for the resolution wanted war,” Clinton said.
Wanting war and supporting it are, of course, two different things. But whatever his wife may or may not have voted for, Bill Clinton certainly supported the war. In this article in the Guardian from March 2003 he eloquently explained why.
The position he took in the conference call is, by contrast, shifty and unconvincing.
 With Easter coming you won't want to be without some Hillary Clinton themed gifts. Panic over. Comment Central had been scouring the interweb (ie playing on eBay when I should be working). Here are some deliver-to-your-door delights:
1. A Hillary and Bill official White House Easter Egg. The seller points out that this would be a great addition to your White House Easter Egg collection. The seller further says "it is a superb design & features a handicapped child (in wheelchair) on the one side."
2. Clintonopoly. A board game for those quiet moments at home with the children. This game was produced as a satire on the Clinton White House but I believe that the seller's warning that "some items may be missing" is not intended as a political joke.
3. The Austrian edition of Hillary's memoirs. Those who have read them all swear that Gelebte Geschichte is the most enjoyable version of the Senator's page turner.
4. A miniature Harmony Ball Pot Belly Hillary Clinton. This is one of a collection of miniature figurines with secret compartments for storing tiny treasures. Each piece has a delightful combination of warmth and whimsy. Senator Clinton's is unique because it only has whimsy.
5. An Anyone But Hillary Vinyl Motorcycle Helmet sticker. The seller reassuringly advises that if you haven't got a motorcycle "you can stick it anywhere".
 I have never accepted the traditional argument that Hillary Clinton was bound to win her party's nomination, but could not win the Presidency. My view has always been that she would struggle to be nominated but stood a good chance of winning.
Now my view is gaining adherents, with interesting consequences for the whole race.
Here's Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard: Obama is closer to Clinton. He's less behind Clinton than McCain is behind Giuliani.
Hillary Clinton, prohibitive frontrunner, she swamps every else -- she's only 10 points ahead of Barack Obama, and she's only at 34 percent herself, which means that, you know, two-thirds of the electorate, the Democratic primary electorate, is available for Obama or conceivably for Edwards or others.
So I think she is turning out to be a weaker frontrunner than people thought.
If Hillary was bound to win but easy to fight it gave the Republicans freedom to please themselves, choosing a candidate that the base liked. They could reject Rudy and McCain in favour of a more conventional conservative.
Now, however, there is an overall Democrat victory (under Clinton or Obama) to worry about. This will provide a strong boost to the more moderate GOP candidates.
How good is Obama? This good:
 The big issue in the race for the Democratic nomination is this - how important is consistency and commitment?
Social psychologists think it is critical. Studies show that once people commit themselves to a point of view or a course of action they will follow it wherever it leads, almost regardless of the consequences. And we have great respect for consistency - that's why "flip-flopping" is such a deadly accusation.
If this view is right, it is good news for Hillary Clinton. On her blog, Arianna Huffington writes entertainingly of the love that dare not speak its name - the love that those committed to Hillary have for Obama. But the demands for consistency leave them sticking to Hillary.
But if the social psychologists are wrong, then Hillary needs to be afraid, very afraid. Over on Slate, William Saletan has managed to overcome his own support for the Iraq War. Now he lacerates Senator Clinton over Iraq. He says that her determination to remain consistent, has just led her to a convoluted and arrogant formula.
I don't know about Hillary versus Obama (although the polls are quite striking, arent they?). But I'd be reluctant to bet too heavily against consistency and commitment
So are bloggers really the big new political voice? Mystery Pollster argues that this Presidential election is a big one for bloggers.
His theory is that Democrats like Hillary Clinton but activist bloggers, for one reason or another, don't. So what matters more? The campaign will tell.
And here is Comment Central's list of the ten bloggers who can make or break Hillary Clinton.
10. Matt Drudge: It's hard to imagine a Clinton campaign without at least one scandal or pseudo-scandal. And Drudge seems the likeliest route. How she responds will decide a great deal.
9. Duncan Black: His Atrios blog has a huge left-wing readership. But that's not all. His speciality is scrutinising the mainstream media for bias against liberals. Given the huge pressure that will be put on a Hillary campaign, she could use this independent war room operation, I'm sure. He could be the anti-Drudge.
8. Arianna Huffington: In the top ten because she's hard to ignore. Doesn't accept that Hillary is a shoo-in as the nominee. Writes for the moneyed establishment so her view could impact the race for cash.
6=. Jay Cost: One of Hillary's biggest problem is that Democrats fear that if nominated she will lose, or worse, that she simply can't win the presidency. So an important determinant of the outcome of the primaries will be astute judgement about the truth of that claim. The Real Clear Politics site will set out the polling evidence. It will be unmissable. And Jay Cost, recruited after his superb Horserace Blog in 2004, will provide analysis. His speciality is using polling to produce probabilities of different results.
6=. Mark Blumenthal: The Mystery Pollster is one of the most respected sources of polling analysis on the web. And his readiness to question the conventional wisdom will make him important to Hillary. He may help her puncture the idea that she can't win.
5. Joshua Micah Marshall: His Talking Points Memo blog is justly popular. His cool style isn't designed to rouse rabble, but his quiet influence will help the undecided Democrats work out whether to go with Hillary or Obama.
4. Andrew Sullivan: The classic swing-vote blog. He voted for Bill and also for George W. first time out. Andrew is a moderate conservative who has lately turned against the Republicans because he finds the party too extreme. If Hillary can't keep him, that suggests she can't hold together the coalition that produced the mid-term victory. This is critical, hence Andrew's high place.
2=. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga: On a given weekday his Daily Kos site has 500,000 hits from people eager to read about Democratic politics. Has a reasonable record of endorsing candidates who win primaries although some, like Ned Lamont, fall at the general election. The problem for Hillary is that Markos prefers insurgent candidates to the establishment. He's already given her both barrels in the Washington Post.
2=. Jerome Armstrong: Markos's comrade in arms, the founder of Direct Democracy and a netroot campaigner. Obama more to his taste than Hillary really, mainly because he likes |
