Over the next few weeks we're going to be doing some upgrades to the software platform that runs TPMCafe as well as rolling out some new features that users have been asking for.

Tonight, we're looking for a few TPMCafe regulars to help us do some final beta-testing of the new version of the software. If you'd like to lend us a hand please send an email to tpmbugs@gmail.com. We'll send instructions.

And keep an eye out for further posts about new features we're designing for the site.

A few days ago, a Republican friend of mine up on Capitol Hill emailed me and asked if I had any idea what the hell Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) was thinking challenging incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) after Lautenberg had basically lined up the entire New Jersey Democratic political establishment behind him. But TPM Election Central's Eric Kleefeld took a look and says Andrews' bid may not be quite as quixotic as it looks.

Remember, the key to understanding this race is that the Republican nominees are such a collective trainwreck (a libertarian ideologue, a genuine fascist and a failed trust fund baby) that it doesn't seem like there's much of a way the Democratic nominee can lose.

Late Update: Hmmm, seems just today a non-certifiable Republican is hinting he's getting into the race.

Earlier today we told you that we were trying to find out details about how much of Sens. Clinton's and Obama's March money hauls were for the primary and for the general. Earlier today, Sen. Obama's campaign told us that "almost all" their $40 million was for the primary. And now we've just heard from Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson who says that "almost all" of their $20 million was for the primary too.

Okay, that wasn't so hard. Now can we have McCain's tax returns?

Mark Penn on his Colombia trade deal lobbying: It was an "error in judgment."

Winding its way through this year's primary process is a continuing concern that Republicans are somehow gaming the Democratic primary process. It was raised early on against Obama -- that his substantial support from independents and crossover Republicans was evidence of trying to saddle Democrats with the weaker nominee. More recently we hear again and again from Obama supporters that Hillary Clinton's victories on March 4th and perhaps going forward are padded with the votes of Republicans who Rush Limbaugh has gotten to vote for her in an effort to derail Barack Obama's candidacy. Today a long time TPM Reader even asked whether I didn't think it was possible that Barack Obama's huge fundraising numbers weren't made possible by Republicans trying to make him look stronger than he really is.

Since these questions come up a lot let me say for the record that I think all of these claims are nonsense. Some more than others of course. I'm about as sure as I can be of anything that Republicans aren't engaged in a massive clandestine effort to pump Barack Obama full of record-breaking amounts of campaign cash. But I'm also pretty sure all of Limbaugh's yapping hasn't made any substantial difference in the Democratic vote totals. Certainly, there's a possibility of this once one side's primary process is over. But while a few true political obsessives may engage in this sort of too clever double-bank shot voting, I've never seen any evidence that large numbers of people will turn out at the polls to vote for people they don't actually support.

It's hard to prove a negative. And this is just my opinion, though somewhat educated, I think. But I just don't think these sorts of things ever turn out to be true. They're unproven and largely undisprovable speculations that partisans on all sides use to paper over outcomes that don't conform to their assumptions and desires.

If you don't agree, I'd like to see the evidence.

Late Update: TPM Reader DS knows it sounds nutty but thinks there may be something to it ...

While I certainly don’t believe that Republicans are donating loads of money to Obama to make him look stronger, I am positive that the Republicans are trying to garner more support for Hillary to keep this race close and bloody Obama up. As for evidence, I probably have as much as you have to argue the contrary. . . . .none. All you need to do is listen to Rush’s show any day as he gloats about “operation chaos” as he calls it. He even has made merchandise regarding it. Not only are callers calling in and telling to the entire country that they are voting for Clinton in large numbers, they are also being selected as county and state delegates, possibly even delegates that get to go to the convention. It has gone even further though. He is in the process of coordinating a text messaging system or something that allows Limbaugh and the selected delegates to coordinate their efforts in some fashion. Listen, I know how this sounds, but all you need to do is go through his transcripts and listen to his show. Can Limbaugh’s minions make a difference, maybe or maybe not? In a close race like this a handful of delegates can be all that matters, especially if it goes to super delegates. Check it out for yourself.

Later Update: TPM Reader KA disagrees too: "Well I have to admit that as a Kansan, I often voted in primaries as a Republican to offset votes for someone I didn't want. And I know lots of people who do. Whether large numbers do, I don't know. If you are in a state where your party NEVER wins (or rarely), voting becomes more of a free for all."

I must say that it's rather ironic that our April 1st bloopers reel episode of TPMtv, partly in honor of the one year anniversary of TPMtv, is ending up to be one of our most popular episodes ever. Maybe we shouldn't spend so much time worrying about flubbed words or ambulance sirens. Anyway, in case you missed it ...

After the Clinton and Obama campaigns announced their March fundraising totals yesterday, a number of readers asked for that further important level of detail -- how much of the haul was for the primary and how much for the general election. Money raised for the general is irrelevant for evaluating how much each campaign has for contesting the remaining primaries.

We're asking. But so far neither campaign has responded to our queries.

We'll keep you posted.

Late Update: The Obama campaign has now told us that "almost all" their $40 million is for the primary. Still somewhat vague. They say they'll have full details when they do the filing in a couple weeks.

Late Update: In case you needed evidence that the protracted race is really taking a toll on some people, we note this email from TPM Reader JK ...

Josh

You wrote:
"Money raised for the general is irrelevant for evaluating how much each campaign has for contesting the remaining primaries."

Why you felt the need to say that is once again evidence of bias.

It IS relevant for how much a candidate will have for the general. There is no guarantee or expectation that the same contributors will pony up as much in the general. That is where Clinton's good judgement shows in saving some for the general.

Perhaps Obama can just put it on his Visa card if he's the nominee.

In today's episode we examine the contending theories for how racialized voting may be affecting the Democratic primary race ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

Just out from the Wall Street Journal ...

Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.

Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn't there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm.

The firm has a contract with the South American nation to help promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department.

There are so many reasons why candidates should be paying Mark Penn to stay as far away from their campaigns as possible. But this is yet another. Having your key campaign advisor also be an international man of mystery-cum-PR-lobbyist-cheeseball is fairly problematic. But for Hillary's sake, when her political future is on the line in a state like Pennsylvania, wracked by the loss of industrial jobs for decades, you think he could have waited a few more weeks before prancing off to help get a new free trade pact passed?

Hillary by 3. Details here.

Thanks to TPM Reader JW for the tip.

There's a new CBS/NYT poll out; but I haven't yet seen a write-up of the campaign details. So a few nuggets, which will be followed later with a write-up at TPM Election Central.

The internals look significantly better for Obama than Clinton. For instance, Democrats overwhelmingly think Obama's the stronger general election candidate -- 56% to 32%. On favorable vs. unfavorable ratings, Obama has the biggest net positive of all three candidates -- 19%. Clinton has a net negative 1%.

On "shares the values of Americans", it's Obama (70%-21%), McCain (66%-27%) , Clinton (60%-34%). But the numbers are fairly close.

One thing that jumps out at me if the question of who particular candidates would favor -- rich, middle class, etc. Obama does 'better' than Clinton. But 53% of voters think McCain would favor the rich -- and only 23% say he'd treat all economic classes the same.

Still there's good news for Hillary and Dems across the board in the horse-race number. Both Dems beat McCain by five points (Obama 47%-42% and Clinton 48% to 43%).

Late Update: The Times now has up their own write-up of the results, which paints a more mixed picture for Obama. Here's the Times pdf of the poll internals. Here's the one from CBS. I'd be curious to hear what others think after looking at the crosstabs. There's a notch down in Obama's favorables among Democratic primary voters. And a chunk of Democratic primary voters who had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton appear to have moved into the undecided column. Overall, though, in most of the key measures that people are now watching, the internals pretty much all look good for Obama and he appears to have been damaged very little by March. But, again, take a look at the internals and let me know your thoughts.

A number of TPM Readers have written in to suggest that in my posts today about racialized voting I seem to be treating it as an assumption that whites voting for Clinton are doing so because they're not willing to vote for Obama because he's black. So to dispel any confusion that's definitely not what I'm saying. There are any number of reasons voters are voting for Hillary Clinton. And I don't just mean that as a throwaway line. The one that stands out to me more than any other is her self-identification as a fighter, which puts her in line with recent Democratic candidacies much more than Obama's. That stance appeals to a lot of people not only because that's how they think of politics but because that's how they experience their lives.

So I think it is acceptable and important to note the broad differences in how different demographic groups vote, especially because the percentage of the white vote that Obama gets has varied greatly from state to state. We can ask that question without assuming that one group of people is voting for candidate A only because of candidate B's race.

But here's the thing. If I'm not mistaken that's actually pretty much exactly the argument the Clinton camp is now making both to reporters and super delegates. Namely, that if Barack Obama fails to make serious inroads with working class white Democrats in Pennsylvania that will mean that these voters actually refuse to vote for him either because he is black or because of the Wright issue, which is in many respects a proxy for the issue of race.

So in many respects it seems to me that Clinton is the one who in her current argument is reducing her candidacy to being largely about race.

As we all know, there have been repeated claims over the course of this election season that the Clinton campaign has 'injected' race into the campaign in order to build up their voting advantage among white voters.

Let's start by setting aside whether that's true or not and focus on what it means and whether it actually would matter. I frequently get emails from readers who say, in so many words, hey, what does it even mean to 'inject' the issue of race or Obama's race into the campaign. Everyone knows that Obama is black. It's not a secret, etc.

There's a superficial logic to this point. But for those who make this argument seriously (and I think many just use it as a cudgel) you can only do so if you are indifferent not only to common sense and a great deal of data in social psychology. Even if we're not steeped in the data, I think we've all seen discussions of psych experiments where respondents' answers and opinions can be changed if certain statements are told to them or pictures are shown to them before the experiment starts. Simple suggestion that keys into different thought patterns.

It's easy to make a straw man of it. No, people aren't controlled like robots if one candidate starts saying race, race, race. Black, black, black. But focusing a political contest on race can make a difference. At least there is a very, very long history of it.

We've been digging through a lot of numbers over the last two days, mainly focusing on how voting patterns are affected by race. But through all this we need to remember the obvious, which is that the dynamics of a primary election are not the same as those of a general. So, for instance, if we assume for the sake of discussion that working class white Democrats in Pennsylvania are going to vote disproportionately for Clinton, what does that mean for the general if Obama's the nominee? Will the premium, as ugly a word as it may be in this context, of being a white candidate overcome party affiliation? Or more concretely, will a white voter who wouldn't vote for Obama over Clinton nevertheless vote Obama over McCain?

I think there's an instinctive desire not to be naive and say, 'no'. If they won't vote for a black candidate in the primary they won't vote for a black candidate in the general either.

But the truth is that we don't know. What's more, these calculations aren't figuring in gender either. There is no question that women are turning out in big numbers to vote for Hillary Clinton. If Obama's the nominee, how will the lack of that opposing draw on the other side affect him in a race against McCain?

Barack Obama has now pulled even with Hillary Clinton in endorsements of elected officials who are also super delegates, according to the count of Bloomberg news at least. As Bloomberg puts it, "Barack Obama has pulled even with Hillary Clinton in endorsements from top elected officials, with a surge in support from congressional freshmen and governors from Republican-dominated states."

(ed.note: The key on the super delegate count is, once again, whether you count Florida and Michigan. Remember, those states didn't just lose their pledged delegates. Their super delegates are disqualified too.)

Late Update: This post originally, and incorrectly, stated that Obama was now ahead in super delegates. That was my error (to some degree helped along by Bloomberg's lead). He's ahead among super delegates who are elected public officials rather than Democratic party officials. But really super delegates are super delegates; and she's ahead with about 30.

Last night we noted David Sirota's "race chasm" argument for explaining where Barack Obama has and has not done well this year. In particular, David's post contains a chart which appears to show Obama doing well in states with black populations of less than 5% and more than 15%. Between 5% and 15% is the 'chasm'.

Meanwhile, Brendan Nyhan has posted a lengthy critique of his own which also includes copious graphs. Nyhan takes a number of steps to organize the data in more sophisticated ways. He orders the states by their black populations rather than by their national ranking of black populations. And he removes caucuses from the mix to control for whatever distorting effect there may be from this different method of holding the contest. Finally, he looks at the percentage of the white vote for Obama across the different states. And what he finds is not Sirota's 'chasm' but a fairly straightforward "negative linear relationship between Obama's white support and black population." In other words, the more black voters in the state, the worse Obama does among white voters.

Looking over the evidence, however, I'm not sure this apparent disagreement is anything other than the same point expressed a different way. What I take to be implicit in Sirota's argument is that racially polarized voting increases with the size of the black population in a given state. That leaves Obama winning a lot of states with few blacks. But once the black population gets into the high single digits, racialized voting kicks in and Obama then can't get enough of the white population to win. Only when blacks approach 20% of the population does the black population get large enough to make up for and often overcome the increased white resistance to voting for Obama. (After all, I don't think Sirota is saying that Mississippi and Louisiana are models of racial harmony.) Of course, these are Democratic primaries, not general elections. And that is the key. Because that means that in most cases the percentage of the black electorate is roughly double what it is in the general election.

Take that all together and Sirota's numbers look just like Nyhan's, only pushed through the strainer of a Democratic primary.

Earlier we discussed the question of why Barack Obama appears to do better in some red states than in some purple states -- at least in their Democratic primaries. More specifically, we looked at the question of whether the pattern doesn't show Obama doing well in states with small and large black populations but not in those states in the middle -- with black populations roughly in line with the national average, which is just over 12%. It turns out that David Sirota makes a strong argument for this pattern over at TPMCafe today. And he even backs it up with a chart that suggests a pretty strong correlation.

Obama does well in states with under 5% black population and over 15%. Between those two percentages, though, his record in Democratic primaries is poor.

I have some questions about David's methodology. He looks at 33 of the 42 states that have voted so far, setting aside the three states where one candidate arguably had a home state advantage, 2 states where John Edwards played a substantial role, one state (Michigan) where only Clinton was on the ballot, and four states where a substantial Hispanic population complicated the racial landscape.

I want to take a closer look at whether excluding those states covers over any complexities or contradictions in the argument. But on its face the pattern is striking. And his argument is definitely worth your time to read.

Don't miss TPM alum Spencer Ackerman's cover piece in the new issue of the American Prospect: The Obama Doctrine.

We've noted this issue before. But a number of readers have brought it up in response to the post below about red state Democrats endorsing Obama. In so many words, perhaps the pattern is that Obama does well in states with large black populations (at least in terms of primaries) and states with very small black populations. The problem is in states with substantial but not particularly large African-American populations in which you have a deep-seated and pre-existing racial politics that ends up playing in Clinton's favor. This, if the theory is right, would explain why Obama does well in the Mountain West and the South but has a harder time in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

I think this is part of an explanation. But I don't think it adequately deals with all the admittedly small set of data we have. How, for instance, does it account for Obama's victories in Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut among other states? The first three of those in particular suggest that the pattern is not that simple.

In the highly unlikely event that Obama wins Pennsylvania, perhaps we'll decide the whole pattern was a mirage, based only on the outcome of Ohio. But the pattern does seem to apply particularly to states that not only have a racial make-up similar to the population of the country as a whole but are also in the rustbelt. If that pattern holds perhaps it's more the almost combustible and simmering mix of race and class divisions.

Meanwhile, TPM Reader JB has a completely different take on the question ...

I have a simple answer for the question as to why Obama's getting endorsements from red and purple states: it has to do with Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, together with Obama's strategy of campaigning everywhere, as opposed to the Clinton/McAuliffe strategy of focusing resources on a few key states.

(Yes, I know that Dean is officially neutral, but his style fits better with Obama's than with Clinton's).

Simply put, Democrats in places like Montana or Wyoming are going to be better off this fall, for their own races, with Obama's people running the party than with Clinton's people, despite any concerns over Rev. Wright. They'll get more resources thrown their way, and an emphasis on grassroots fundraising instead of reliance on a bunch of billionaire friends of the Clintons will also send more resources their way. And that remains the case even if Obama winds up falling short.

The Clintonites will scream about squandered resources, because for them, the resources run out when all their friends have kicked in their $4600. But if you run in more places, you can actually raise revenue from people who wouldn't have considered contributing before.

The Clinton campaign just unveiled another 3 AM ad, this one about Hillary's ability to be the "commander-in-chief of the economy", as the accompanying press release puts it.

Personally, I will not rest easy until we have a generalissimo of health care, monetary and fiscal policy with plenary powers to marshal the armed forces and set aside congressional enactments to preserve America's vital interests.

In today's episode we look at news that the Clinton camp is discussing Jeremiah Wright in conversations with super delegates and how the press and spinners on both sides are reacting ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

Yesterday Harold Ickes told TPM's Greg Sargent that Jeremiah Wright and his relationship with Barack Obama were coming up as a key topic in his discussions with superdelegates, trying to woo them over to Hillary Clinton. It was left unclear in the interview just who was bringing Wright up. But whoever is bringing it up, it's hardly a surprise that it would be a topic of discussion. If there's one vulnerability of Obama's it seems very likely Republicans would hit on in a general election, that's it.

In fact, since I think the Wright thing is a real liability for Obama (for many reasons, not least of which is the way it simply reinforces the race issue), I would expect that the pols to the Ickes argument would be folks from red and purple states. And yet my impression is that that's not what's happening. If anything, just the opposite.

Since January Obama has been able to score endorsements that really don't square with the idea that he's a loser in the general or someone who'd hurt Dems down ticket. The names I think of are Tim Johnson, Ben Nelson, Claire McCaskill, Bob Casey, Lee Hamilton, etc. (To be sure, Pennsylvania has been consistently Democratic over the last few cycles, if only by small margins. But I put Casey in since a lot of his base is in the redder parts of the state.)

Today you've got Wyoming Gov. Freudenthal (D) endorsing Obama. Now, Wyoming's not going to be in the Democratic column, to put it mildly. So in itself Freudenthal's endorsement isn't an above-the-fold news story. But if it's not that significant nationally, I'm sure Freudenthal gave it a good deal of thought for how it would affect him and the Democratic party in his state.

So why is it the Democrats from the reddest states and many from purple states seem to go for Obama over Hillary Clinton? If nothing else it seems to me that these people are voting with their feet on Ickes argument and they're not convinced.

From the Detroit News ...

The co-founder and former CEO of the liberal-progressive Democracy Radio and husband of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow was caught in February by a Troy police sting aimed at catching prostitutes, according to a police report.

Thomas L. Athans was stopped Feb. 26 by undercover officers investigating a possible prostitution ring in a room at the Residence Inn near Big Beaver and Interstate 75. Athans paid a 20-year-old prostitute $150 for sex in a Troy hotel but was not arrested, according to police reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Detroit News. The police report said officers observed Athans enter a room under surveillance and leave 15 minutes later. Detectives followed and stopped Athans' silver 2002 Cadillac DeVille on Interstate 75 near Square Lake Road.

In this post The Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder notes that top lobbyist Doug Davenport is joining the McCain campaign as one of its ten regional campaign managers. He also, as Ambinder notes, one of the founders and current chief lobbyist for the DCI Group. Now, as long time TPM readers know, DCI is the Republican outfit when it comes to 'astroturf' (i.e., phoney) grassroots campaigns and sundry campaign bamboozlment.

Separate from his affiliation with the key GOP slimesters, there's also the issue of Davenport's being another top tier lobbyist helping run McCain's campaign. And with reference to that, I found this line from Marc's post particularly revealing: "Davenport's new position is certain to precipitate complaints from rivals that McCain is packing his campaign with the lobbyists whose conduct he has denounced. McCain's advisers have said that McCain's credentials as a reformer are solid and can overcome any optics problem that comes along with hiring lobbyists."

To be clear, I think he is accurately conveying the McCain line here. But look what it's actually saying: that McCain's reputation as someone who won't truck with lobbyist is so strong that it can overcome the fact that he's staffing his campaign with top dollar lobbyists, i.e., my reputation trumps the evidence.

There are two new polls out on Pennsylvania. Quinnipiac's is in line with the other polls that have come out this week, showing Obama gaining on Clinton but still significantly behind. They have him 9 points back. Meanwhile Public Policy Polling, which has had a solid record this year, shows Obama taking a narrow 2 point lead. For the moment, the PPP poll has to be seen as an outlier, though it is important to note that the PPP poll is the most recent survey.

But look at these internals from the Q poll, which will certainly get highlighted by the Clinton campaign, clipped from the Q poll release memo

Florida: Clinton 44 percent - McCain 42 percent; McCain beats Obama 46 – 37 percent;

Ohio: Clinton beats McCain 48 – 39 percent; Obama gets 43 percent to McCain’s 42 percent;

Pennsylvania: Clinton tops McCain 48 – 40 percent; Obama leads McCain 43 – 39 percent.

And to add to the equation, the Q poll memo suggests a significant racial dynamic in the voting when McCain is placed against the two Democratic contenders.

We've resisted the urge to foist fake news on you in honor of April Fool's Day. But today we've decided to bring you some of my own true moments of foolishness. You may think putting together TPMtv is just a walk in the park. But try keeping a straight face with Florida Rep. Bob Allen's claim that rather than soliciting the guy in the next bathroom stall for sex he was actually trying to offer his assistance in case his stall mate had been struck by lightning. Not an easy thing. So today, in honor of the one year anniversary of TPMtv we're bringing you some of our favorite moments from the cutting room floor ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

From the publisher's description of Ralph Reed's soon-to-be-released 'political thriller' Dark Horse ...

After the Democratic presidential nomination is stolen by Senate Majority Leader Salmon Stanley in a bitter credentials fight at the nominating convention, Bob Long, the moderate Governor of California, shocks the political establishment by launching an independent bid for the Presidency. The FBI and the Justice Department launch a full-blown criminal probe of the credentials dispute, and prosecutors empanel a grand jury that indicts the campaign chairman of Senate Majority Leader Stanley for perjury and obstruction of justice. The Republican candidate, the incumbent vice-president, appears to be coasting to victory in the topsy-turvy three-way presidential race. But the morning after he accepts the presidential nomination in a stirring speech, he is murdered in a violent terrorist attack. David Petty, his lackluster replacement, the first African-American presidential nominee in history, is hobbled by a grassroots rebellion led by a politically savvy and occasionally demagogic television evangelist.

The campaign ends in a cliff-hanger finish, with the outcome in several states too close to call. As a result, the election is thrown into the House of Representatives. The shrewd and devious Speaker of the House, torn between his own voracious ambition and his constitutional duty, presides over this constitutional crisis. All this takes place against the backdrop of the war on terrorism and a looming conflict with a newly nuclear Iran. The lame-duck President, seeking to avenge the murder of the late Vice President, plans a military strike against Iran, but stops short when the government grinds to a halt while the House chooses his successor. Described by a veteran of seven presidential campaigns with a quarter century of experience as a political strategist, Dark Horse sizzles with authenticity and reads truer than non-fiction. Offering a looking-glass into presidential politics on the eve of the 2008 election, Dark Horse contains characters, plot twists, and rare insight that will no doubt be relevant to the real-life presidential campaign now underway.

Guess it beats scamming Indian tribes ...

A number of questions came up over the weekend about just what the credentials committee is and how its membership is choosing. Usually it's a meaningless rubber stamp, like almost all modern party conventions. But this year, that's the committee that will have the final say on which state delegations get seated. So if we're still arguing about the non-sanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries in August, the credentials committees is the group that gets to make the final determination. Greg Sargent explains just how it works.

There's been a fierce and now apparently fading argument over the last week over whether Hillary Clinton should drop out of the nomination race or, more pointedly, whether she's under some sort of obligation to do so. Not just in this race but in general I've always taken a dim view of people trying to muscle candidates to drop out of campaigns, usually on the basis of long odds or when it comes from insider pundit types pushing the idea that there's something undignified about keeping a campaign going after it looks like you probably won't win -- something I've never understood and don't agree with.

So when people have asked me whether I think Hillary should drop out I've said I don't think she's under any obligation to do so but that I do think, with her odds now this long, she should not be running a campaign that seems to go out of its way not simply to compete but to damage the likely nominee as a general election candidate and attempt to discredit the nomination process itself.

But when I was writing out my take on her interview over the weekend with Post, I realized that I hadn't made clear enough in what I'd written, or even really in my own head, how much the two things are really combined.

As I said in that post, I don't think Hillary's claim that she's going to stay in the race through the convention in Denver is really about Denver, or staying through August or even till June. It's about keeping her troops motivated and confident so that she can keep in the game through April and May.

And here I think we see the pattern. Hillary doesn't want to run for president in 2nd or 3rd gear. It's beneath her dignity. And I don't mean that sarcastically. It really is. She's a powerful United States senator, former First Lady, etc. She wants to win. And if she's still in it she wants to run full bore with the money you need to run a serious campaign, the crowds, poll numbers, etc. She's not some Huckabee figure who's going to hang around with little chance of winning

It really is all or nothing. You've got to convince your supporters, donors and to at least some degree the media that you're really in it, and in it with a shot. Otherwise you face the classic problem of a cascade failure. Poor fundraising generates bad press stories, which depress turnout at rallies, which create more bad press stories and eventually no press stories, etc. It's no different from the precarious position any campaign faces when the odds aren't looking good.

And so we have this vicious cycle in which the longer Hillary's odds become the further she has to up the ante to keep her candidacy credible -- in other words, the more forcefully she has to question the legitimacy of the nomination process and the more aggressively she has to push the idea that Obama can't win the general election or is not qualified to be president. (For example, the argument that the Clinton campaign now appears to be making to funders and the press is that Obama literally cannot win the general. And thus she's not only entitled but actually obligated to do whatever it takes to ensure that he's not the nominee.) Without making real progress on one of those fronts, the premise of the candidacy just becomes too difficult to sustain. And when that fails just throw up lots of nonsense about the popular vote in primary states or blue states or significant states, or whatever.

I think there are a lot of people who would actually like to see the race play out as long as neither candidate is going out of their way to make their opponent unviable in the general. But thinking over what I've said above, I'm just not sure how realistic that is.

PA Gov. Ed Rendell on Fox News coverage of the Democratic primary campaign ...

I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present -- FOX has done the fairest job, and remained the most objective of all the cable networks. You hate both of our candidates. No, I’m only kidding. But you actually have done a very balanced job of reporting the news, and some of the other stations are just caught up with Senator Obama, who is a great guy, but Senator Obama can do no wrong, and Senator Clinton can do no right.

Late Update: Here's the video:

Hat tip to the Politico.

Calls for Hillary's exit and her fighting response was the big topic on the Sunday shows, with Obama supporters reeling back some of their more aggressive calls from earlier in the week. We bring you the highlights in today's Sunday Show Roundup ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

Racial healer Lou Dobbs explains how he's sick of "cotton pickin'" black leaders telling him how he can and can't talk about race (he catches himself at the last minute -- sorta) ...

Special thanks to TPM Reader AR for the catch.

Late Update: Whenever we do posts like this, we'll have a certain amount of readers who write in and say, 'hey, what he said wasn't racist'. So just so we're clear: we're not saying it was. Many of the videos we publish, like the Rep. Sestak one on Friday, or this earlier one about the Obama surrogate from Texas who couldn't come up with a single Obama accomplishment when asked, are just funny moments on TV that we share for a mix of news and entertainment value. As someone who's done some TV I certainly know that all sorts of things can come out of your mouth when you're ad-libbing. But in this case, when Lou Dobbs is railing against African-Americans like Condi Rice and Barack Obama for having the temerity to say that race is still an issue in America and the first adjective that pops into his head to describe them is "cotton-pickin'", we think it deserves a little tweak.

WSJ: HUD Secretary Jackson to resign Monday.

From TPM Reader MF ...

In the end, I don't believe the superdelegates are going to decide this. I think finances are. We'll see what happens next month, but it's my guess her fundraising figures are going to be WAY down. She's already in trouble financially, and at some point, her backers have got to see that this is just throwing good money after bad. Lately, I've been asking my Hillary supporting friends to play around with the Slate delegate counter. They fool around with it for a few minutes, and they invariably come away saying, "She really can't win this, can she?" That's a sad conclusion for those who have put so much time and energy into Hillary's campaign (Bill and Hillary included), but the fact is, the time for fighting hard was long ago. She's trying to somehow get a do-over for the mistakes she made at the beginning of the campaign. It's too late.

This is the scene in the movie where the doctor is standing over the patient, desperately trying to revive someone who's already flat-lined on the monitor. Eventually, someone tells the doctor, "The patient's gone,
doctor. It's over."

The problem now is to figure out a way to get her to leave the race honorably and gracefully. She could do a lot of damage to the party on her way out the door. Possibly worse damage than her Huckabeean campaign is already doing. But telling her to leave the race is only pissing all of them off. There's a better way. I hope someone figures it out soon.

From the WSJ (sub.req.) ...

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say.

Thanks to TPM Reader TF for the heads up.

Leila Fadel reporting for McClatchy ...

Acting in response to a direct appeal by parliamentarians from the Shiite parties that govern Iraq and the intercession of the Iranian government, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr on Sunday ordered his Mahdi Army militia to halt its resistance to a government offensive, leading Iraqi members of parliament said.

Sadr's Mahdi Army militia took heed of the order in Baghdad, and the Iraqi government announced it would lift the 24-hour curfew starting early Monday in most parts of the capital. But fighting continued in the oil hub of Basra, where the government offensive against Shiite militias went into its sixth day with only limited gains.

...

The backdrop to Sadr's dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday to Qom, Iran's holy city and headquarters of the dominant Iranian clergy, by Iraqi lawmakers.

There they held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

From TPM Reader DS ...

Many Clinton supporters find the current attempts to muscle her out of the race despicable. Maybe now is the time for Obama to take one for the team and accept her offer of the VP slot. It is the position he is better qualified for, would end a situation that is supposedly hurting the party, and would put him in a better position to run next time. Clinton has no “next time,” so it makes more sense for Obama to be the one to step aside.

If the convention is held too late in the election cycle for the presidential nominee to campaign effectively, perhaps the date of the convention needs to be changed. The solution cannot be for viable candidates to set aside their ambitions long before a nominee has been clearly chosen.

Going back over the emails that have come in on last night's post, I see I was less clear than I should have been when distinguishing between why she's staying in the race and what her rationale is for staying in the race. When I say, it's all about Florida and Michigan now, I mean that's her new rationale.

Having said that, what is this new gambit for her about? Is she really serious about taking her case to the convention's credentials committee -- which seems almost certain to have a majority of Obama supporters -- and trying to get them to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates on her terms?

I don't think whether Hillary means it or doesn't mean it is even really the point. In a sense, I suspect both are true. Like her earlier gambits along these lines, the point is to play for time. Hillary is like Dickens' Wilkins Micawber, always hoping, certain that "something will turn up." Who know what it will be. But she needs to stay in to be around for it to happen. And to stay in she needs both money and press attention. So she needs to dispel any doubts about her longevity in the race and shore up confidence in her ability to win.

So, from my view, saying she's in it till August isn't about August. It's not even about June. It's about stamping out doubts about her viability and determination to stay in so she can still be in the game in April and May.

Donna Brazile was on This Week this morning and explained how the credentials committee works. If she's right, and I'm sure Brazile knows this stuff like the back of her hand, it's even worse for Clinton than I thought. According to Brazile, in addition to the twenty-five members of the Committee appointed by Howard Dean, the rest of the committee will be made up of 3 members apiece from each state. In other words, it works sort of like the senate, where all states are counted equally, regardless of their size. Since Obama has won far more states than Clinton, that should mean he has a decisive majority on the credentials committee.

One thing Brazile didn't mention explicitly is just how the individual state delegations choose which delegates to put on the committee. The logic of Brazile's statement suggests it's done by majority vote within those delegations. But again, she didn't say that explicitly. So I'm curious to hear more.

Late Update: Here's a post Greg Sargent wrote up back in February which suggests that Brazile's actually wrong on this -- that the members are allocated to states through a formula that mixes population and past Democratic ballot performance, which is what I'd expect. A number of readers have said the same thing. Brazile is such a creature of the inner-mechanisms of the Democratic party that I have a hard time believing she'd be off on this. But perhaps she is. We'll update you when we have this nailed down.

Later Update: Here's an excerpt from a piece Tad Devine and Anthony Corrado wrote at pollingreport.com. It suggests an even more complicated set of rules and factors but one that seems to end up in a similar place to what Brazile suggests ...

The committee with jurisdiction over the seating of delegates -- the Credentials Committee -- is one of the three standing committees to the national convention (the other two being the Rules Committee and Platform Committee). It will be composed largely of members elected on the basis of the results of state primaries and caucuses. In this inside fight, should it come to that, Senator Obama enjoys an important advantage. In total, 161 of the 186 members of each standing committee are selected from states, and 20 states and the District of Columbia have only one representative on each of the committees.

By winning so many states and thereby controlling so many state delegations, the Obama campaign can weight their selections towards the Credentials and Rules Committees, the places where a procedural or credentials battle will be fought in the maneuvering prior to the convention. By picking Rules and Credentials seats in state after state where his campaign will be entitled to 2 out of 3 standing committee seats, Obama can gain an important and possibly decisive advantage in the pre-convention skirmishing.

The other player in this unfolding drama is Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. Under the rules, the chairman can make 25 at-large appointments on each standing committee. In the past, the party chairman’s at-large appointments have been worked out with the putative nominee’s camp, so that they effectively became the choice of the nominee, not the chairman. In 2008, the chairman announced his selections early in the year and the nominees were approved at the January 11th DNC Executive Committee meeting. Thus, even under a scenario where Obama’s campaign moves forcefully to put as many of their appointments as possible on the Rules and Credentials Committees, Chairman Dean’s appointees may still hold the balance of power. So the chairman may be able to exert enormous influence over whether or not delegates from Florida and Michigan are represented on the convention floor.

Richard Mellon Scaife now says he has a "very favorable" impression of Sen. Clinton.