David Weigel over at Reason thinks this site will need a name change sooner rather than later, after looking at the latest Rasmussen poll.

He notes, “from 34 percent to 22 percent in one month, as Edwards and Obama have risen up… I poked around for a 1999 poll to see if Gov. George W. Bush was this weak when that race started. Nope. He had a floor of about 40 percent and consistently trounced his nearest competitor, Liddy Dole. I’d like to hear Hillary backers spin this (they won’t bother, it’s one poll), but for the former first lady and presumptive nominee since Nov. 8, 2004 to score under 30 percent in ANY poll is absolutely pathetic.”

I’ll permit myself a moment of gut instinct: How does the less liked candidate (Hillary)overcome a more likeable candidate (Obama)? When is it too early to go negative? How much does going negative hurt Hillary?

UPDATE: The Iowa Caucuses are about a year away, and Zogby recently polled Iowa Democrats: Edwards 27, Obama 17, Vilsack 16, Clinton 16.

On the Republican side, Giuliani 19, McCain 17, Gingrich 13, Rice 9, Romney 5. For what it’s worth.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, back from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries (including Turkey, I believe), talked a bit on NPR about the timing of any announcement of her presidential campaign.

INSKEEP: And one other quick question, Senator. As you know, Sen. Barack Obama made news yesterday by taking a step toward a presidential run. As you consider what to do and when to do it, is there a reason for you to hold back from announcing?

CLINTON: You know, I am not influenced by anybody else’s timeline. I am trying to just pursue my own analysis and assessment.

INSKEEP: What is it that you don’t know?

CLINTON: There is a lot involved in doing this effectively, if you are going to take the plunge. When I’m ready to make an announcement, I would love to talk to you about it.

INSKEEP: Is there a date you think by which you must decide, given the dynamics of this – the fundraising and people necessary?

CLINTON: There is a timeline that I have had in mind, and I’m going to stick with that. I look forward to talking with you about it in the future.

INSKEEP: This spring, perhaps?

CLINTON: (laughter) Well, you’re very good Steve. But I’m just going to go far with my planning, but what’s really important to me now, is not what’s going to happen in a year or two years from now, but what we’re going to do to protect American troops, what we’re going to try to do to stabilize Iraq, what we’re going to try to do to win in Afghanistan and protect America’s interest throughout the region.

Audio can be found here.

The kind of odd, funny, or revealing things you find with Lexis-Nexis… 

From a profile of Barack Obama by Linda Matchan, “A Law Review Breakthrough,” The Boston Globe, February 15, 1990:

“I thought, ‘This guy sounds like he’s president of the country already,’” said John Owens, a former co-worker from Chicago, during a telephone interview. “I’ve never met anyone who could leave that impression after only five minutes.”

After graduation next year, Obama says he probably will spend two years at a corporate law firm, then look for community work. Down the road, he plans to run for public office… 

Yet some of Obama’s peers question the motives of this second-year law student. They find it puzzling that despite Obama’s openly progressive views on social issues, he has also won support from staunch conservatives. Ironically, he has come under the most criticism from fellow black students for being too conciliatory toward conservatives and not choosing more blacks to other top positions on the law review. 

“He’s willing to talk to them (the conservatives) and he has a grasp of where they are coming from, which is something a lot of blacks don’t have and don’t care to have,” said Christine Lee, a second-year law student who is black. “His election was significant at the time, but now it’s meaningless because he’s becoming just like all the others (in the Establishment).” … 

Few students at the law review were prepared for the deluge of interview requests for Obama from newspapers, radio and television stations. Strange letters of congratulations began arriving. 

Shortly after the elections, a package turned up at the law review office with no return address. Obama said he hesitated to open it because of the spree of recent mail bombings targeted at civil rights activists nationwide. When the package was finally opened, inside were two packages of dim sum, with no explanation.

 

Some students made light of the media invasion, posting a memo titled “The Barack Obama Story, a Made for TV Movie, Starring Blair Underwood as Barack Obama.”

David Margolick, “At The Bar: Witnesses For the Positive, Promising Young Black Men Adorn A Harvard Calendar,” The New York Times, January 11, 1991:

Troy Chapman read all about them: Some were convicted of beating up a jogger in Central Park. Another was accused, falsely as it turns out, of murdering a pregnant woman in Boston. It was high time, Mr. Chapman concluded, to present a different portrait of young black men like himself. For that he turned to his colleagues at Harvard Law School.

 

Mr. Chapman, a third-year law student at Harvard, is responsible for a calendar now hanging in dormitory rooms and dean’s offices throughout Cambridge as well as in Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. Each month, a photograph and personal profile focuses on a different member of the law school’s black male population.

A few generations back, one would have had a hard time putting together even a pair of black men at Harvard Law School, let alone a calendar. Instead, Mr. Chapman faced the pleasant chore of choosing from among the 90 or so black men now enrolled there — a task in which he was assisted by some of the school’s 110 black women. So intense was the competition for a place as monthly pinup that even Barack Obama, the first black president of The Harvard Law Review, did not make the cut.

Over in the New York Sun, I’ve got a column about Republican strategists, and how they’re closely watching Obama. The editors of the Sun, rightfully cautious about quotes from unnamed sources, trimmed out a few comments from a GOP campaign guru about how he sees the new dynamics in the Democratic primary. Still, I find them thought provoking, so here’s what got left out:

“When Obama can get that many people left, right and center to stand up and salute, it’s the canary in the coal mine for the Hillary campaign.” This guru concludes Sen. Clinton “now has the uphill battle for the nomination, and while it’s not impossible for her to win the White House, it suggest the country is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into another Clinton presidency. It’s because they know she means at least four more years of the same – the psychodrama, the partisanship, division, the Republicans being angry and bitter for the next four years.”

This smart fellow concluded that after many years of intense partisan passions – since Bush’s election? Impeachment? The 1992 campaign? – the American people seem to be yearning for someone who is not “highly charged” – the anti-Howard Dean, perhaps.

Having said that, Obama faces a Herculean challenge before him. It’s a fine line between heroic and holier-than-thou, and a nice guy image is easy to lose; all it takes is one intemperate moment, one ad to be deemed “mudslinging”, one moment in a debate where a comment comes across as too harsh.

Dick Morris may be overstating it a bit by calling it “Obama’s First Blunder”, but the Illinois senator’s recent vote opposing a reform that would ban Congressional spouses from collecting a salary from a lawmaker’s political action committee does seem like easy attack-ad fodder:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who opposes wives cashing in on their husbands’ positions, voted righteously in favor of the reform and will probably use the Illinois senator’s vote against him in the presidential primaries.

 

When a legislator hires his or her spouse on the campaign or PAC payroll, he is effectively converting contributions to his campaign committee into personal income that flows into the family’s checking account, blurring the line between contribution and bribe.

 

In the past, senators and House members routinely hired their spouses and other family members on their public payrolls. In the early 1940s, for example, Harry S. Truman hired his wife, Bess, to work on his Senate staff. She got $2,500 a year in salary at a time when senators themselves only earned $8,500. But nepotism on the public payroll is now banned.

So inventive congressmen and senators have filled the void by hiring family on their campaign or PAC payrolls. Hiring family members and paying them with campaign donations is, if anything, more pernicious than doing so with public funds. Where tax money is involved, the sin is against the taxpayer for wasting his funds. But where campaign contributions are involved, the congressman is profiting personally from the largesse of special interest donors. In plain English, that’s a payoff.

(Morris does slip the knife in there quite subtly in that first paragraph, doesn’t he?)

Still, for a guy like Obama whose signature accomplishment in his first two years in Congress was an attempt at earmark reform, it’s an odd, and avoidable mistake to wish to preserve spousal employment in collecting donations.

Obama has spoken, and he seems so… normal. He even works in a reference to “media hype” about himself.

This section stood out to me:

I certainly didn’t expect to find myself in this position a year ago. But as I’ve spoken to many of you in my travels across the states these past months; as I’ve read your emails and read your letters; I’ve been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics.

So I’ve spent some time thinking about how I could best advance the cause of change and progress that we so desperately need.

The decisions that have been made in Washington these past six years, and the problems that have been ignored, have put our country in a precarious place. Our economy is changing rapidly, and that means profound changes for working people. Many of you have shared with me your stories about skyrocketing health care bills, the pensions you’ve lost and your struggles to pay for college for your kids. Our continued dependence on oil has put our security and our very planet at risk. And we’re still mired in a tragic and costly war that should have never been waged.

Notice some words missing there that you might expect? “Bush”, “Cheney”, “Republicans”?

In fact, notice which word is missing from his entire opening statement?

Democrat.

Obama isn’t running against Republicans; he’s running against partisanship itself.

UPDATE: And this didn’t take long. A GOP source is e-mailing around two Obama statements:

THEN:

“I Have Neither The Expertise Nor The Inclination To Micro-Manage War From Washington.” — Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL):

NOW:

“We Need To Look At What Options We Have Available To Constrain The President.” — Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL):

It’s not quite confirmation that Barack Obama will announce his candidacy on Oprah tomorrow, but the Chicago Tribune’s political blog – which you figure would be plugged-in with Obama’s people – writes:

Some important political figures should be hearing from Sen. Barack Obama today. A source said the likely presidential candidate has arranged phone calls with political leaders for today.

Speculation has been building that an announcement on Obama’s presidential intentions in imminent.

Speaking to reporters outside St. Mark Cathedral in Harvey on Monday, Obama said an announcement was coming “very soon.”

Oprah Winfrey’s web site also is curiously silent on the subject of her show this Wednesday. Obama has previously indicated he may make an announcement on a presidential campaign on her highly rated television talk show.

The reaction from a wise GOP consultant (not Obi Wan; I have to get this other guy to decide on his nickname) was, “Announcing on Oprah could be potentially very smart… I’m glad she’s also from Illinois, because that means she can’t be his running mate… Christopher Dodd goes on Imus and announces his candidacy, Obama goes on Oprah. I know which show I’d rather have my candidate make his announcement.”

UPDATE: Hotline Blog reports Obama is filing papers today, and will announce on his web site.

Yesterday, I suggested the statement from Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson in reaction to John Edwards’ speech on Iraq was a bit bland to earn the headline HILL JABS AT JOHN.

To refresh, Edwards said:

“If you’re in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction and you know that we should not escalate this war in Iraq, it is no longer OK to study your options and keep your private council, silence is betrayal.”

And one section could be construed as that most unforgivable of sins, questioning another’s patriotism:

“Patriotism is about refusing to support something you know is wrong and having the courage to speak out with strength and passion and backbone for something you know is right.”

But Monday, Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Hillary defender, went after Edwards with a bit more “oomph.”

“To do what John Edwards did, which is to take a shot a Hillary Clinton, when he himself was in the U.S. Senate, he himself voted for the war, and Hillary is at least trying to solve this mess, is really not a great way to start a presidential campaign… You know John Edwards set a tone in the last campaign that impressed everyone… Now here he is starting out on a negative foot. I’m a little disappointed.”

I suspect we’ll see a lot of this as the campaign wears on, the challengers whacking away at the frontrunner Clinton in increasingly strident terms, and her trying to stay above the fray (or out of the country in a completely different fray, in Iraq) while her surrogates return fire. One could easily see Rep. Charlie Rangel being deployed as the near-untouchable hatchet man of the Democratic primary.

In left-of-center (or further) blogland, there is some controversy over this Reuters story which indicates Al Gore has decided to not run for the presidency in 2008.

Whether Reuters is misinterpreting a Gore statement or not, we can look at the larger picture: Gore hasn’t hired staff, he hasn’t formed an exploratory committee, there hasn’t been the usual whispering in Democratic circles. Right now, there’s no indication that Gore is running for elected office.

An Oscar, however, might be a different story.

Joe Biden takes a whack at the easiest punching bag in the South Carolina Democratic primary, the display of the Confederate flag on state grounds.

The AP recalls Biden’s “we were a slave state” comments from last year, and his comment that Delaware was “a slave state that fought beside the North. That’s only because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South — there were a couple of other states in the way.”

Then again, maybe I’m being unfair when I call the Confederate flag the easiest punching bag in that state’s primary; there was, not long ago, one Democratic candidate who seemed okay with it:

“I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” the former Vermont governor [Howard Dean] said in an interview published Saturday in the Des Moines Register. “We can’t beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats.”

It was at least the second time Dean publicly used the Confederate flag to describe Southern voters who often vote for Republicans.

Dean previously used the flag reference during a February meeting of the Democratic National Committee.

At that event, Dean received a rousing ovation from the crowd when he said, “White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us, and not [Republicans], because their kids don’t have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too.”

Actually, Biden’s comments seemed to indicate he didn’t just want the flag off state grounds; he wanted it banned:

“If I were a state legislator, I’d vote for it to move off the grounds — out of the state,” the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state.

So what’s the next step in shooting fish in the barrel of the Democratic primary in this state – burning the Confederate flag as part of a rally?

In honor of the new look, new site title, etc. a Dean Barnett-style FAQ:

The Hillary Spot? Doesn’t that presume that she will win the Democratic nomination?

If, come spring 2008, the Democrats nominate Barack Obama or John Edwards as their nominee, then you will see this site become The Obama Spot or The Edwards Spot, or, God willing, The Kucinich Spot.

If Hillary does fall short of her presidential aspirations, then I think I will deserve some credit (or blame) for jinxing her, by a) praising her in my book and b) naming the site after her.

Why the change?

In a few short weeks, my time abroad will come to an end, I will return to Washington, and this portion of NRO will return to its roots – in-depth, all-hours, obsessive-compulsive coverage of the Democratic presidential contenders.

It also means I will no longer have to explain what “TKS” stands for, which I have done roughly 23,456 times since early 2005.

Yeah, what did TKS stand for, anyway?

Technically nothing, although it evoked this site’s origin as The Kerry Spot.

Wasn’t that kind of like Kentucky Fried Chicken changing to KFC?

Are there any other questions?

So you won’t cover Republicans?

When I hear news, you’ll hear it, no matter which candidate is involved, although my “beat” will be the Democrats.

I’m a Democratic strategist, campaign worker, or reader. Why should I return your phone calls, talk to you or even bother to read you, you right-wing Re-thug-lican?

I aim for my coverage to be tough but fair, I hate getting things wrong, and I try to correct my mistakes quickly. I also aspire to give credit where it is due, and I attempt, but do not always succeed, to approach the arguments of the Democrats with an open mind. The Kerry folks thought I was actually pretty fair to their man.

But you’re still a Republican, right?

Actually, I’m registered independent. I’m generally a right-of-center guy, as regular readers can tell.

So who are you rooting for?

At this point, no one. I can find something positive to say about just about all of the Republican contenders, and it is conceivable that I could vote for the Democratic nominee in 2008.

Heresy!

I said ‘conceivable,’ not likely. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there, in November 2008.

The debate about the “surge” on Capitol Hill seems surreal to many of us. I’m hearing on CNN International and the BBC that the President faces “stiff opposition” in Congress, but that stiff opposition amounts to a non-binding resolution opposing the move. Yawn. Wake me when the opponents of the war are a) actually willing to cut off funding, to take actual action to prevent the surge from occurring and b) actually discuss another course of action. If they want a withdrawal, wake me when they actually discuss the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal to the people of Iraq and the surrounding region.

Apparently I’m not the only one noticing a sizable gap between surge opponents’ rhetoric and their actions. John Edwards made it the centerpiece of his speech Sunday:

Forty years ago, almost to the month, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at this pulpit, in this house of God, and with the full force of his conscience, his principles and his love of peace, denounced the war in Vietnam, calling it a tragedy that threatened to drag our nation down to dust.

 

As he put it then, there comes a time when silence is a betrayal — not only of one’s personal convictions, or even of one’s country alone, but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man…

 

If you’re in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel. Silence is betrayal. Speak out, and stop this escalation now. You have the power to prohibit the president from spending any money to escalate the war – use it.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s spokesman responded, but the words were awfully mild to earn the headline, “HILL JABS AT JOHN” in the New York Post.

“In 2004, John Edwards used to constantly brag about running a positive campaign. Today, he has unfortunately chosen to open his campaign with political attacks on Democrats who are fighting the Bush administration’s Iraq policy,” said Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson.

In fact, never mind “jabs”; doesn’t this statement sound rather… whiny? Edwards’s speech was a political “attack”? Isn’t it… well, criticism? A call to action? Articulating a position, and arguing why it is better than the alternatives?

What kind of Nerf rules are going to be in effect for the Democratic presidential primary, if Edwards’ remarks constitute some sort of out-of-bounds infraction?

Guess that Obama presidential announcement isn’t coming on Martin Luther King day after all. Nonetheless, the news is full of accounts suggesting an official announcement is not far off.

(Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King and his beliefs were considered controversial; today the man is honored as a secular saint. I wonder what controversial ideas of today will be considered settled issues, fifty years from now. Probably bilingual education. The politicians of 2057 will probably agree that it is unwise to teach children two languages simultaneously, as it will hinder children’s efforts to learn America’s dominant language, and it is better to immerse them in the common tongue spoken everywhere: Spanish.) 

Hotline looks at Obama’s team, while the Chicago Sun Times has lunch with Obama’s financial guy, Louis Susman, who was John Kerry’s national finance director. 

An interesting excerpt:

How much money did Susman raise for Kerry? A bundle: $247 million.

 

A vacuum cleaner was how someone once described him for a 2005 Tribune article, saying Susman was able to ‘’Hoover’’ money from ‘’deep pockets.’’ Another described him as that ‘’rare successful businessman who has the heart of a political operative.”

 

There is a big part of his heart that belongs to former Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa), a dear friend, who is already in the running for president in 2008. But Susman has told Vilsack (and every other presidential hopeful who’s asked . . . he won’t specify whom) that he is giving his whole political heart to Obama. He calls the Illinois senator ‘’extraordinary,’’ and marvels at his trip to New Hampshire late last year. ‘’It’s unheard of what happened in New Hampshire, unheard of that people were scalping tickets to see Obama.’’

And the Chicago Tribune argues that Illinois should move up its primary to help Obama. “Root, root, root for the home candidate…”

UPDATE: Could Obama be announcing on Oprah on Wednesday?

An interesting, and believable rumor: That Barack Obama will announce his candidacy on Martin Luther King Day.

Boy, I think that timing would work. Would work really well, in fact.

Hillary Clinton announcing on Susan B. Anthony Day just wouldn’t have the same power and resonance.

The New York Times’ sources are telling a different story, however: 

Obama, Democrat of Illinois, is not likely to say whether he intends to seek the party’s presidential nomination until after President Bush’s State of the Union address on Jan. 23. As he walked out of the Capitol on a recent afternoon, Mr. Obama only smiled when asked about his timing. Then, he rushed to change the subject.

Initially, Mr. Obama said he intended to announce his decision after returning from a holiday vacation in Hawaii, where he was visiting his grandmother and other relatives. Now, several people close to the senator say, he needs a little more time to make up his mind.

In related news, Dennis Kucinich is singing for votes in New York. This is one of those moments where you just have to love the all-out wackiness of American politics.

Interestingly, Kucinich earned the following praise from Magic Johnson: “He made some great comments… I like his energy.”