NYT: Obama Takes Campaign to the Rails in Pennsylvania
WYNNEWOOD, Pa. – With a pull of the train’s whistle, Senator Barack Obama boarded his car today at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station and opened a four-city rail tour, arriving at his first stop here to hundreds of cheering supporters.

Inspired by the latest Clinton attack on Barack Obama's patriotism, I put together a slightly different recut of The War Room (the documentary about the 1992 Clinton campaign) than the one I posted earlier today:

It's sad watching this knowing that the Clintons have embraced the right wing politics that they were once fighting against. But it is satisfying to know that that this time, Barack Obama will win.

GOP tool

Yesterday David Brooks proved his toolishness once again, taking a whack at explaining how Barack Obama fell to earth. (Brooks was using a rhetorical magic trick favored by polemicists, explaining why something has happened without ever establishing that it actually has happened.)

Bleh. Don't waste your time with Brooks -- I can't think of an occasion where he's said something worth reading that you couldn't have gotten somewhere else. Such is the nature of partisan hacks. (Some might even say that about me, I suppose.)

Brooks has sung Obama's praises, earning him undeserved respect among some (but not most) Obama supporters. Brooks' presents himself as earnest and open-minded, but unlike conservatives such as Andrew Sullivan,  Brooks' intellectual curiosity is not genuine. (Though Sullivans' initial take on Brooks was a bit more sympathetic than I would have expected. Later, he linked to Glenn Greenwald's discussion of Brooks' phoniness.)

Seems like another case of then and now.

On June 16, 2004, Bill Clinton told an audience in New York that even though the Democratic approach to government is favored by most Americans, the Republican approach to cultural issues like "God, gays, and guns" helps keep the GOP competitive in places like Oklahoma. He also cited white racism (euphemistically described as "white Southerners who were opposed to civil rights") as an important part of the Republican coalition.

In 2007, Clinton said that economic anxiety leads to anti-trade and anti-immigrant politics. The problem, he said, was that there wasn't "enough good new jobs."

Here's the video:

To be fair, in these video clips, Bill Clinton chose his words better than Barack Obama did on that one occasion in San Francisco, but viewed in combination with Obama's other remarks on this topic, it is clear that both are talking about the same political dynamic.

A recut of "The War Room," the documentary about the 1992 Clinton campaign:

I was watching the DVD extras for The Hunting of the President (yes, I know, that's pretty sick), and I came across this beaut of a moment from 2004: Bill Clinton lauding MoveOn.org's role in bypassing the traditional media:

It should come as no surprise that Bill Clinton was a fan of MoveOn.org -- after all, the activist organization was formed to defend him during his impeachment.

But now that the MoveOn.org membership has endorsed Barack Obama, I guess we've been added to the Clintons' enemies list.

35,000 for Obama in Philadelphia. (Video after the jump.)

Huffington Post has audio tape of Clinton slamming Democratic activists and falsely accusing them of opposing the war with Afghanistan. Here's a transcript:

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

There's tons of things wrong with what Clinton said, but let's start with the facts.

MoveOn.org never opposed the Afghanistan War -- a fact the organization established years ago when when Karl Rove falsely claimed otherwise.

She wasn't just lying about MoveOn.org -- she was also in effect lying about Barack Obama. After 9/11, he strongly supported invading Afghanistan.

...but sometimes rolling dice is fun.

Hillary Drops Back; A new Newsweek poll shows Obama pulling away

Despite her campaign's relentless attacks on Barack Obama's qualifications and electability, Hillary Clinton has lost a lot of ground with Democratic voters nationwide going into Tuesday's critical primary in Pennsylvania, a new NEWSWEEK poll shows.

The survey of 1,209 registered voters found that Obama now leads Clinton by nearly 20 points, or 54 percent to 35 percent, among registered Democrats and those who lean Democratic nationwide.

Another day, more hypocrisy, this time from the co-chair of Michigan campaign, former Michigan governor Jim Blanchard who during a discussion on NAFTA tells a group in Toronto that he has "not seen anything that would constitute a threat to trade with Canada."

Bosnia and Back Again: The trailer

In a little over two days, the "trailer" for Bosnia and Back Again (above) has become my second most viewed video. It's gaining ground on the trailer for Hillary in Tuzla: The Tale of Bosnian Sniper Fire, the first YouTube clip to juxtapose the CBS footage with Clinton actually saying "sniper fire." (There was one earlier clip that contrasted the CBS footage with her press conference defending the remarks, but she didn't actually use the words "sniper fire.")

Some cool stats:

• The video has been played more than 268,000 times and is now ranked as the sixth most watched video on all of YouTube
• For the week, it's the #1 top rated video in the news and politics category and #5 for YouTube overall.
• For the month, it's the #7 top rated video in news and politics -- not bad for two days!
• With more than 6,500 Diggs, it is the #1 most dugg story in the last week (despite a concerted pro-Clinton effort to bury the digg).
• Viral Video Chart ranks it #12 on their list of viral videos (down from #5 yesterday).
• In the last month, Hillary Clinton's campaign channel has had about 1.2 million videos played. My channel? 1.7 million. My total investment -- a lot of time, plus $99 for video editing software.

Some cool reviews from around the blogosphere:

• AMERICAblog: "blockbuster"
• The Nation: "Hillary's hypocrisy on video"
• Andrew Sullivan: "No one left to lie to"
• Dan Savage: "Required viewing...simply can't be missed."
• Election Geek: "Proof that the best work being done this election season is being done by people online."
• Oliver Willis: "Masterpiece...You’ll Laugh You’ll Cry You’ll Throw Up A Little
• The Field: "Cinematic tour de force...it's not likely to be in cinemas after June 3."
• Think on These Things: "Wow"

If you happen to see other positive blog mentions or any other factoid I should add to the list, please drop me an e-mail or leave a comment.

Most of all, if you haven't already, please watch the clip and send it to your friends, family, and other bloggers -- especially if they are in Pennsylvania!

And finally, thanks to everybody who has been so supportive -- without an audience for this material, there really wouldn't be a point to it.

It is indeed rising.

Some highlights:

• Ben was disappointed with the questions asked during the debate. "I agree with a lot of the critics that Wright-pin-Ayers wasn't a balanced line of questions, and that it was odd not to hear anything about Mark Penn, Colombia, or Bill Clinton, and that the policy issues surfaced late."
• He notes that Clinton thought the questions were just fine.
  
• Now that Clinton has unloaded the kitchen sink, expectations for her are higher than they were before. If she doesn't win big, it will be seen as a victory for Obama.
• Ben avoids tying Ayers and 9/11: In this post, he refers to Ayers comments as having been made in 2001, a far more accurate way of saying it than the inflammatory "9/11" construction used by both Clinton and Stephanopolous. (Ayers' comments were made before 9/11 -- they weren't published until 9/11, but the paper was physically printed before the WTC attacks.)Hints that Clinton's "elitism" attack on San Francisco is a bit hypocritical, and may be backfiring there.
• To the extent that there has been any delegate movement of late, it's been towards Obama.
• Obama is winning endorsements from former Clinton allies (Robert Reich) as well as Bloomberg-style moderates (Boren and Nunn).
• McCain is struggling to defend not releasing his wife's tax returns.

It's true that Ben's blog has been the hub of some pretty tough attacks on Barack Obama -- but there is a difference between reporting Clinton's attacks and supporting them, and Ben's role is as a reporter, not attacker. He can't ignore something that Clinton operatives define as a central tenet of their campaign simply because it is offensive.

George Stephanopolous  is rightfully catching a lot of grief for having asked Barack Obama about William Ayer especially because Sean Hannity urged him to pose the question.

But it's worth remembering that even before Hannity put the topic in front of Stephanopolous, ABC News  reported that the Clinton campaign itself was pushing the "story" in the middle of February, if not before. So while Hannity might have talked about it on air with Stephanopolous on Tuesday, it wasn't anything new to Stephanopolous or ABC News.

Stephanopolous also knew that Hillary Clinton herself had a bit of a similar situation -- also reported by ABC back in February and amplified today.

Asked today if Sen. Clinton thought it was wrong for her husband to pardon Evans and Rosenberg [domestic terrorists convicted in the 1980s], a Clinton campaign spokesman refused to answer the question.

... [the spokesman] added that, "Bill Ayers is unrepentant of what he did…and that is a difference, of course, between Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg."

But when Evans was released after Bill Clinton pardoned her, she told the Austin American-Statesman, "I'm not repentant. That's for sure. I wouldn't go about it the same (violent) way." But "we still need solutions, and we still need justice just as badly as we ever did."

The entire Ayers discussion has been B.S., of course. But if we are going to have it, Stephanopolous should at least have been fair enough to point out that (a) the Clinton camp has been pushing this story for two months and (b) the Clintons have far greater exposure on this issue than Barack Obama.

Ultimately, the thing that really damns Stephanopolous' integrity isn't that he asked the question at the suggestion of Sean Hannity. The thing that really damns his integrity is that he knew that the Clinton campaign had been pushing the story, and he knew that they were far more vulnerable to attack than Barack Obama -- and yet he said nothing.

Some journalists will close ranks and defend Stephanopolous, but the smart ones will dig deeper and demand a full accounting from him -- because his blunder put their integrity on the line as well.

In case anyone was wondering, last night's debate proved once and for all that nothing good is coming out of Hillary Clinton's kamikaze campaign. John Aravosis puts it well:

It's no longer just Hillary using right-wing talking points in an effort to destroy the guy who will be running against McCain in the fall, now the mainstream media has bought into the "let's destroy Obama" game. ... If this keeps up, every Swift Boat style attack against Obama will be considered a serious issue by the media, all because Hillary made it so.

Now, it's been clear for more than two months that the only way Hillary Clinton could win was coup by superdelegate. Sooner or later, superdelegates are going to need to decide if they will participate in that coup, and as the Clinton Repugnancy continues to spiral out of control, it's becoming increasingly clear that sooner is better.

Fortunately, Howard Dean is stepping up, making the case on CNN that the time has come for undecided superdelegates to make up their minds.

I need them to say who they’re for starting now. We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time. We’ve got to know who our nominee is.

Howard Dean has been patient -- probably too patient. Now that he's acted, it's up to the superdelegates to decide whether they will participate in the coup or not.

Barack Obama now leads Hillary Clinton among elected superdelegates -- congressmen, governors, and senators who hold their elite status at the Democratic National Convention by virtue of holding a major public office. Clinton still leads Obama among the mostly anonymous DNC members, the group of four hundred or so superdelegates who hold their position by virtue of being party officials.

Here's a simple way of looking at it, using Politico's superdelegate tracker and the Obama campaign pledged delegate tracker:

1. There are 3,253 pledged delegates. Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 1,419 to 1,250 in this category. Clinton needs to win two-thirds of the remaining 566 delegates to secure a majority.
2. Of the 795 superdelegates, 301 are governors, senators, or congressmen. They support Obama, 105 to 97. (The rest are undecided.)
3. 417 are DNC members or distinguished party leaders. They support Clinton, 153-119. (The rest are undecided.)

Just more evidence for what we already knew: Sen. Clinton is the candidate of insiders. Barack Obama is the candidate of the voters.

(I excluded the add-on delegates because their selection is connected to the voting process.)

New on the YouTube -- Hillary Clinton Finally Admits It: Barack Obama Can Win

Feeling bitter about the debate? Well, the good news is that Barack will cheer you up. In Raleigh today, he struck exactly the right note about last night's debate.

It took us 45 minutes — 45 minutes before we heard about health care, 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard about jobs, 45 minutes before we heard about gas prices. Now, I don’t blame Washington for this because that’s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversies and getting us to play gotcha games and getting us to attack each other. And I’ve got to say Sen. Clinton looked in her element.

Here's the digg for the official campaign video (NOT this blog):

Obama's ability to draw sharp contrasts with a smile is one of his greatest political assets. I don't to say how he compares with Sen. Clinton on that score...just watch the shame on you mashup currently playing in the video pod at the top of the page.

As irresponsible as Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos  were last night, the fact still remains that the topics of debate belonged to Hillary Clinton. She can try hide behind Mark Penn, or Bill Clinton, or the media -- but she is the one turning this campaign into a paid political advertisement for John McCain.

As this diary on Daily Kos puts it: Hillary could've stopped it - but she didn't. "In fact, she goaded the moderators on to continue their birdshitting. She didn't stand up for her fellow Democrat; she chose to embrace those right-wing talking points to use against him."

I've got something like 165 videos on my YouTube channel, and it's not always easy for me to find what I'm looking for. So I decided to take my top videos and put them in a vodpod video gallery. You can find it here, and there will always be a link to it on the sidebar and at the top of the page.

Here's a sample from the collection -- a video I put together at the end of February about Barack Obama and Iraq.

In the past month, I've had about 1.4 million videos played from my YouTube channel. According to Tech President, during that entire span Hillary Clinton's campaign has had about one million videos played. And yes, my budget ($99 plus a lot of time) is a bit lower than hers.

A few brief thoughts on last night's debate:

• It's true that ABC carried Clinton's water last night, and they deserve blame for having done so. But remember, it was Clinton's water they were carrying. The questions posed to Obama were all Clinton arguments in some form or another.
• I thought Obama did just fine. Part of the reason may have been that I listened more than watched, and by the time that I was able listen/watch to the first part of the debate, I already knew what to expect.
• One very important thing to note is that there were no disastrous moments for Obama. In a debate like this, Obama having done nothing memorable is a good thing.
• Obama always does better in debates when sitting down. Fortunately, McCain will probably want to sit down in the general.
• So many people were disgusted by the debate that it could actually help generate new enthusiasm for Obama's campaign and style of politics. So far this campaign season, things that we thought were going to be disasters weren't. Wright. Bitter-gate. Now the same could happen with his debate. Ask yourself: what do you remember from the debate? I think most Democrats will say they remember being angry at Clinton and angry at ABC. In that sense, the debate could have gone far worse.

Here's another major question George Stephanopoulos "forgot" to ask his old boss about tonight.

From the New York Times, March 1992  (h/t: The Impious Digest):

Club Where Clinton Has Golfed Retains Ways of Old South

The Country Club of Little Rock, where Bill Clinton has played golf several times a year since he became Governor, sits on a graceful hill in an exclusive neighborhood called the Heights, its greens sloping down to the Arkansas River. Opened just after the turn of the century, it recalls an older South in many ways, including its membership: 500 white men and women.

Last week Mr. Clinton, his quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination seemingly wrapped up, found himself under fire for playing at the club, and he quickly admitted he had made a mistake and vowed never to play there again until it was integrated.

"A guy asked me to play nine holes of golf," he said on Friday. "It was the only place we had time to play. I should not have done it."

Hillary Clinton stood by the then-Governor's side without challenging his decision to play golf with racists, even after the media revealed that her husband had involved himself in this segregated organization for years.

In her own words, people don't choose their parents, but they do choose who they have relationships with. So by her own rules, isn't it a fair question to ask why she stood by her husband after his affiliation with a racist organization?

Now, to be clear, I'm not a fan of this sort of gotcha' politics. But Hillary Clinton is. And it seems to me that the media is perfectly entitled to raise these questions with her, since they freely challenge Barack Obama for having acquaintances who have said or done things that some people deem objectionable. (And they gave Michelle Obama hell for saying she was proud to be an American.)

It really would have been a great question for either Charlie Gibson or George Stephanopoulos to ask. But, not surprisingly, they whiffed.

Perhaps the reason is that Stephanopoulos worked for Clinton at the time. In fact, it was his job to explain Clinton's affiliation with the racist group to the media.

Irony, eh?

(By the way, contrary to some reports that Clinton paid $20,000 to join the club, it seems that Clinton was not a member. I'm not 100% sure about that, but it turns out that all Arkansas governors are allowed to play there as a matter of club policy. The NYT article also doesn't claim that he was a member.)

Update @ 9:45pm: Third time is the charm. The digg link to the video hosted on Andrew Sullivan's site just became popular. We're on the front page of Digg now -- excellent work everybody!

Bosnia and Back Again, my latest video, is off to a strong start -- it's gotten at least 86,323 views (up from somewhere between 36,697 and 66,064 view when I first wrote this post) and is currently the #2 top rated video in YouTube's news & politics category, and #5 #8 overall. It's also generating buzz on the web -- over at The Nation, Ari Melber calls it a "devastating" video. Reddit currently has Ari's post as its #1 feature. Andrew Sullivan posted it under the headline: "No One Left To Lie To." And of course  AMERICAblog, The Field, and the Daily Kos community helped it get off the ground.

Despite that strong positive reaction, shortly after the video was posted on Digg, some (presumably pro-Clinton) digg users buried the video, despite getting over 300 Diggs. So it seems pretty clear that someone doesn't want people to see this video.

What can you do about this? Well, someone has set up a new digg to Andrew Sullivan's post about the video. Please digg that story. E-mail the video to friends, post it on your blog, and in comments. Go to reddit, StumbleUpon, and other sharing sites -- and rate it up. Help get this video in front of as many people as possible! It's free -- and you can make an impact.

Out here in Las Vegas, the debate won't be broadcast until 8pm local time (a bit over two hours), and I didn't realize until just now that I could watch it live on the Internet.

So of course as soon as I tune in, Senator Clinton is attacking Barack Obama for having served on a board on which William Ayres also served. When Obama was eight, Ayres was a member of the radical group The Weather Underground, which planned bombings against the U.S. government.

Clinton's point was that by being on the same board, Obama might be accused of being anti-American. She left out an important piece of information though: the Clinton administration actually pardoned a member of The Weather Underground.

Officials Criticize Clinton's Pardon of an Ex-Terrorist (January 22, 2001)
An unusual combination of New York political and law enforcement leaders have condemned former President Bill Clinton's pardon of Susan L. Rosenberg, a one-time member of the Weather Underground terrorist group who was charged in the notorious 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County that left a guard and two police officers dead.

The Goldwater Girl is returning to her right-wing Republican roots.

More self-mocking hilarity from Camp Clinton. One of the outraged "Pennsylvanians" in her new attack ad on Barack Obama's "bitter" comments actually voted in New Jersey on Feb. 5:

Clyde Thomas, who sports a goatee in the ad and says, “the good people of Pennsylvania deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said,” is actually registered in New Jersey. He voted there for Clinton Feb. 5.

To be fair to Clinton, apparently Thomas recently moved to Bethlehem. But it's still pretty funny.

“It shouldn’t be a big deal. I explained it to the campaign,” Thomas said in an interview. “I see Pennsylvanians for what they are. I grew up with the values of Pennsylvanians.”

Still, you'd think they could have found someone who actually votes in Pennsylvania...

Sam Stein's delivers another bombshell. Hillary Clinton, talking about Southern whites in the wake of the 1994 elections:

"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."

The statement -- which author Benjamin Barber witnessed and wrote about in his book, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House" -- was prompted by another speaker raising the difficulties of reaching "Reagan Democrats."

Apparently, the Clinton camp wasn't too eager to discuss this with Stein.

The Clinton campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

I can't imagine why. Good work Sam!

Presenting the newest production from The Jed Report -- Bosnia and Back Again, the story of Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Senator Clinton plays herself in a performance AMERICAblog calls "the most spectacular display of sniper fire since Tuzla." The Field declares that her effort seems like "a paid political ad for John McCain." Watch the trailer now:

AP:

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Turnout at the "100 Mayors for Hillary" rally was a little under 20 percent.

Nineteen mayors of Pennsylvania cities showed up for Tuesday's rally in the Rotunda of the Pennsylvania Capitol. Other mayors' names were listed on placards supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York for the Democratic presidential nomination.

... One mayor who did show up was Easton's Sal Panto, who wildly overstated the size of the crowd when he introduced former President Clinton at a rally later Tuesday at Easton Area High School.

"Earlier today I was in our Capitol in Harrisburg, in the Rotunda, where I was joined by 100 other mayors across our state, in a coalition that this state has never seen, in support of Sen. Clinton," he said to cheers.

Today's WaPo is out with results from a new poll confirming what we had hoped -- Clinton's "bitter" gambit boomeranged. In a companion article, the Post explores Clinton's growing honesty perception problem -- most voters don't think she's honest or trustworthy.

In that article, the most revealing passage was this one -- and it had nothing to do with the poll itself:

One Clinton insider announced in a strategy meeting it was ridiculous to have imagined the first lady ever having been in danger, or for Clinton to have thought she was -- a slap at the senator from New York that other advisers described as disrespectful.

That right there is the entire problem of the Clinton campaign. Saying something obviously true is considered a slap. In healthy organizations, telling the truth is rewarded; in dysfunctional ones, it's treated as disrespect and you get shunned.

We can't afford another President who won't let his or her staff speak truth to power.

That's the kind of organizational failure that gets us stuck in Iraq.

To paraphrase Keith Olbermann, if bittergate is Obama's worst gaffe of the campaign, the polls are starting to suggest he might want to gaffe more often. Seems like the pundits might have this one about as right as...Wright.

It's a long article, and I admit I didn't read every district. The key stat: CQ projects the district-by-district split to be narrow, 53-50 (for Clinton). Another 55 delegates will be distributed by statewide popular vote, meaning that overall Clinton might net 15-20 delegates -- tops -- out of Pennsylvania. (h/t: Ben Smith)

As a reminder, when people say things like Barack Obama has won, or Hillary Clinton has lost, it's not idle rhetoric. Obama's numerical lead really is insurmountable:

Clinton's best case scenario is to end the campaign trailing by 100 to 150 delegates. At that point, she'd need about two-thirds of the uncommitted superdelegates to sign up for a coup. And there just isn't any evidence that will happen. Indeed, superdelegates are moving the opposite direction, either endorsing Barack Obama, or embracing the Pelosi standard: pledged delegates will determine the nominee.

Most ominously for Senator Clinton, her own supporters are moving towards the Pelosi standard (Barney Frank is the most recent example).

The first crisis for the McCain campaign is about to reach a boil:

McCain "Family Recipes" Lifted from the Food Network

This past Sunday, Lauren Handel, an eagle-eyed attorney from New York, was searching for a specific recipe from Giada DeLaurentis, a chef on the Food Network. Yet whenever she Googled the different ingredients in the recipe, the oddest thing happened: not only did the Food Network's site come up, as expected, but so did John McCain's campaign site.

(h/t: Ben Smith)

Perfect.

Script:

HILLARY CLINTON: I know that many of you, like me… were disappointed by recent remarks that he made. (jeers)

ANNOUNCER: There's a reason people are rejecting Hillary Clinton's attacks. Because the same old Washington politics won't lower the price of gas or help our struggling economy. Barack Obama will represent all Americans. He offers a new approach.

OBAMA: When we get past the politics of division and distraction and we start actually focusing on what we have in common, there's nothing we can't accomplish…I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.

Last night in Philadelphia Senator Clinton was forced to cut her speech short -- to five minutes, her shortest formal speech of the entire campaign.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, spoke before the same audience for thirty minutes.

I'm sure Mark Penn would have noted that the voters in the audience "didn't count" or some such nonsense.

So the polls are suggesting the immediate fallout from Bittergate is minor. Going forward, that means the actual words that Obama said will grow decreasingly relevant.

Now, just like in the spin room after a debate, the battle is over how his remarks will be characterized and remembered.

Clinton, channeling McCain, wants to the controversy to become a symbolic short-hand for Obama's race and non-traditional childhood.

Obama, while conceding that his remarks were awkward and inelegant, wants people to remember the fundamental truth of the economic bitterness of which he spoke.

There's an obvious absurdity to all this: in normal life, when someone says something ambiguous, you ask for a clarification. Barack Obama has provided such a clarification over and over: he was conveying a concept that isn't at all controversial, one that is shared by both Clintons.

Hillary Clinton refuses to accept that basic fact, however. The reason has nothing to do with what's right or wrong. The reason is that she believes that to become president, she must destroy Obama first.

The irony is that probably more than any other single factor, the thing that has cost Senator Clinton the nomination is her constant pattern of attack.

The YouTube description of this ad says it is on air, but I can almost guarantee that it is web only -- it doesn't have the "approved by" tag required for TV ads.

It's also text-heavy, which is great for the web, but bad for broadcast TV. But if this style of a new ad campaign -- I think the Obama campaign will be onto something very strong.

The video of Clinton defending lobbyists is really priceless.

(h/t: The Joshua Blog)

According to Pollster.com's index of Pennsylvania primary polls, tere have been four new polls conducted at least partially since "bittergate" came to dominate the campaign.

• Rasmussen: Clinton +9 (up 4 from previous)
• SurveyUSA: Clinton +14 (down 4 from previous)
• ARG: Clinton +20 (up 20 from previous)
• Quinnipiac: Clinton +6 (unch from previous)

The most important takeaway I think is that the ARG poll is very likely an outlier, suggesting that the initial damage of Obama's remarks is relatively minor. In fact, according to SurveyUSA, 43% of Pennsylvanians agreed with what Obama said, whereas 50% disagreed.

Al Giordano is taking a bullet for the team and hosting Hillary's sickening new ad at The Field. He asks:

The question is, how many Clinton supporters are there that aren’t signing up for the slash-and-burn-down-the-Democratic-Party strategy that is now naked and running around on TV? Those that remain silent will probably lose credibility later on because in times of moral crisis, silence is seen as complicity. That’s another reason Rendell has drawn limits on his own participation in these attacks.

John Aravosis calls it "vile, sickening, and filthy."

As The Field blog puts it: "New Ad for John McCain Hits Pennsylvania Airwaves." Too bad it's paid for and produced by Hillary Clinton. Watch Hillary's latest kamikaze ad, then ask yourself if you'll ever vote for this woman again.

I know my answer to that question. As far as I am concerned, Hillary Clinton is no longer a Democrat.

At this point, I'm rooting hard for Obama to fire back with a humorous -- but sharp -- ad challenging Hillary Clinton's credibility. She has lied repeatedly to voters in contest after contest -- and that's the real condescension. That's the real elitism.

The voters of Pennsylvania deserve the truth about Hillary Clinton, and I hope Barack Obama gives it them. And you know what? Even if they decide to support Hillary Clinton's kamikaze campaign, it's not enough. She still cannot win this nomination. Do the math. She loses.

Who knows what sniper fire illusions about 2012 are running through her mind, but this much is true: she is aiding and abetting John McCain -- and destroying her future in the Democratic Party.

...however in honor of more hypocrisy, I'll make an exception for this one:

"If [Republicans] could cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, middle-class Americans would see fewer benefits from their tax dollars, feel more resentful paying taxes, and become even more receptive to their appeals for tax cuts and their strategy of waging campaigns on divisive social and cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns."
-- Bill Clinton, in his 2004 memoirs, My Life, making the same argument as Sen. Barack Obama.

Source: Political Wire.

There really isn't much difference between Bill's quote and Obama's. The key difference is that Obama uses a more active construction "cling" while Bill uses a more passive construction "more receptive to." But the essential point is exactly, one hundred percent indistinguishable.

Must be just one more example of an issue where Bill and Hillary disagree. Oh wait -- but Bill is on the trail falsely pimping the meme. I guess they are just cynical opportunistic hypocrites.

Lost on the shuffle of the "bitter" kerfuffle is that the fact that John McCain is a true elitist.

First (via John Aravosis), McCain owns eight houses. Right there, QED.

Second, existenz at Daily Kos reminds us, earlier in the campaign McCain said he couldn't imagine someone picking lettuce for a living, even for $50 an hour. Keep in mind that $50 an hour is $100,000 dollars a year, just a trifle above the median income.

But even though dainty John McCain can't imagine getting his hands dirty, I bet a lot of Americans would be willing to make $100,000 per year, even if it meant picking lettuce. $100k might be peanuts for McCain -- but not to most Americans.

I'm not aware of any video of McCain's remarks, but there is audio, and Barely Political included it in this funny video:

And he calls Obama an elitist?

Ben Smith:

Clinton whacks Obama at a forum in Pittsburgh hosted by a Steelworkers-backed group, and is met by dead silence and, First Read reports, a few groans.

As Ben says, it's still a primary. I don't think Obama's "bitter" remarks will be damaging in general election, but I am certain that Clinton's hypocritical attack on them will ultimately alienate her further from the Democratic Party.

If you are a glutton for punishment want to watch the full attack (which was met with dead silence), MSNBC has the video.

Update: Over at The Field, Al Giordano has a good round-up of reaction to Clinton's remarks.

Update II (and bump): Here's Obama's remarks. The crowd actually liked what he had to say!

Nico Pitney finds some great quotes from Bill Clinton illustrating the breathtaking hypocrisy of Hillary's "bitter" gambit.

Here's Bill in 1991, talking about Republican politics:

When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them.

Demeaning? Or truthful?

Good essay at HuffPo by David Coleman, who was at the Obama fundraiser in San Francisco.

Those of us who have tried to have a career, tried to have an independent life, certainly somebody like myself...you know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.
-- Hillary Clinton, 1992, dismissing stay-at-home moms

Carthage (a commenter here and at The Field) strikes again. She gets all the credit for finding this video -- video that every single Pennsylvanian should see by next Tuesday.

Seriously. This is *the* video.

Talk about hypocrisy.

When Clinton made her comments, the conservative media trashed her harshly. Here's a relatively mild criticism from William Safire (the conservative former NYT columnist):

The cookies-and-tea stereotype is elitism in action. Even the columnist Ellen Goodman, a grass-roots feminist, was moved to comment: "Ouch."

Clinton's comments were indeed dismissive, but my point isn't that I agree with William Safire. Rather, my point is that $109 million later, Hillary Clinton has become William Safire.

I was raised by a single mom (though I did spend time with my dad). Obviously, my mom worked for a living, and she raised me to be a feminist (I'm a guy who proudly accepts the label). And for ten years, I worked for a strong woman who is now a U.S. Senator. So I know where Hillary was coming from.

But that's not the issue. The issue is Hillary Clinton's utter hypocrisy -- and her complete embrace of the right-wing's way of doing politics.

Is there anything she will not say or do?

Oh man, this was so much fun to watch. 10 of the greatest minutes ever on YouTube.

About ten minutes into CNN's special with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about their religious beliefs. It's called the "Compassion Forum" which seems a bit odd (compassion needn't be religious, right?).

Hillary Clinton went first, alternating between saying that Barack Obama should speak for himself on "bittergate" and then characterizing his remarks as a "legitimate political issue."

Whatever -- I'm looking forward to seeing Barack!

Update: Obama is on now, and watching him it reminds me that he is the best antidote to any political attack against him. If you notice, just about all the attacks against him are FUD -- attempts to raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I'm sure some people don't see it the same way I (or we) do, but it's hard for the FUD attacks to work when he gets a chance to directly respond.

Proving that even a blind squirrel can find an acorn, FOX News delivers these interviews with two random Pennsylvanians:

A hypocritical attack, falling short:

Plus a couple of quotes from Hillary Clinton that I did blog, both illustrating the utter cynicism of her 11th hour gambit:

After sixteen years and $109 million dollars, Hillary Clinton has forgotten what it means to be the little guy.

There's lots of chatter today about "What Clinton wishes she could say," the VandeHei & Harris piece  ticking off the reasons that Hillary Clinton remains in the race.

The striking thing about the article is that the authors themselves never directly say why she can't "rip off the duct tape." Implicitly, the explanation is fear of so-called "reverse racism."

In that sense, the subtext of the "wishes she could say" idea is that Clinton is, yet again, a victim. This has been the story of their political career: victim this, victim that. Now the Clintons are saying they are the victims of racial intolerance? Puhlease.

To the extent Clinton doesn't want to address this stuff head-on, the reason is that in comparison to Obama, her own case is flimsy. Remember what happened when she accused Obama of not being ready to be president? Tuzla. Northern Ireland. NAFTA.

There's more out there about here that people don't know -- it's not just Colombia and Kazakhstan. It's also Bill Clinton's paid relationship with a Chinese company now participating in the Tibetan crackdown. It's the relationship between her staffers, her husband, and the United Arab Emirates, specifically the Dubai Ports deal. It's the next Sniper Fire. It's her lies about NAFTA, Iraq, and more. We have no idea what else might erupt. And to the extent we know what we're going to get -- we know it won't be the truth.

By telling reporters off-the-record that "she can't say" why Obama is unelectable, the Clinton campaign encourages reporters to focus on Obama without considering her own weaknesses; they masterfully manipulate the media into carrying Hillary's water without them even knowing it.

SNL's opening skit was hilarious. The highlight is Hillary Clinton's testimony, about 2:30 into the skit (the 6:55 mark).

The Times-Tribune of Scranton, Pennsylvania, writing today:

Barack Obama, for leadership

For Pennsylvania Democrats, the best answer in the April 22 primary is Barack Obama.

In a nomination campaign that has defied convention, Mr. Obama has energized an entire generation of voters that, for the most part, otherwise had checked out of political participation. That, at least, portends a new approach to governance that can help to dissipate the political miasma that has engulfed Washington at least since the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

... But Mrs. Clinton also is a political lightning rod. There is little doubt that a second Clinton presidency would further the deep divisiveness that characterizes American politics — a divisiveness that dug itself deep during the Clinton presidency, and even deeper during the Bush-Cheney years.

The first task for the next president is to get past that. And it might not be possible if the presidential cycle goes Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.

Update: He also got the endorsement of the Allentown-Lehigh Morning Call.

If you're John McCain in the general election, do you run an ad using the scratchy audio recording of Obama speaking in San Francisco, or do you use video of Hillary Clinton's attack?

British PM Brown to hire Mark Penn. (via Andrew Sullivan)

If you followed politics back in 1992, you probably remember that Hillary Clinton was ferociously (and unfairly) attacked for making this remark in a 60 Minutes interview about her husband's marital fidelity:

You know I'm not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.