Olbermann had a "Special Comment" tonight on Clinton's assassination gaffe:



For what it's worth I think Olbermann's outrage is pretty well-founded. I'm obviously no fan of the Clintons, but it's bad enough to continue her quixotic campaign secretly hoping that something horrible happens to Obama so she gets to be the nominee after all—far worse to actually say it and remove all doubt. This was a Freudian slip, not an incitement to violence, and it certainly wasn't anything she ever intended to say—but it unnecessarily invokes the grim specter of assassination that many Obama supporters have felt haunted by since Iowa. As she is the person who currently stands to most directly gain from such a disaster, her bringing it up seems, at best, unseemly. At best.

This may blow over, or she may have to soon end her campaign over this. We'll have to wait and see what the media does with it over the weekend. Her non-apology apology certainly didn't help.

In other primary news, The Field reports a surge of California superdelegates shifting to Obama—note this happened before the gaffe—as well as the tantalizing possibility that I may soon be forced to take back all the nasty things I've said about John Edwards.

And kos has the polling that suggests John McCain's viability as a candidate against Obama may have been significantly overrated.

George McGovern has switched to Obama and is urging Clinton to leave the race. Wesley Clark reportedly called Clinton last night to do the same. I've seen reports in comment threads (no link yet) that Obama's announced a conference call with multiple governors and Congresspersons. Here comes the flood.

It looks like Obama wasn't quite able to catch her in Indiana, but in politics there's "close" and then there's "close enough." Clinton's been counted out before, prematurely, but maybe this time there really is no coming back for her.

UPDATE: Clinton has added a public event back to her schedule today, presumably to combat the perception that she's beat—but Wolfson also admits this morning that she loaned another $6.4 million to her campaign last month, a much more telling indicator. Meanwhile, Stephanopoulos reports on Good Morning America that the long-awaited superdelegate flood will come today...

A few politics links:

* Bill Clinton's got a crazy new argument.

"Right now, among all the primary states, believe it or not, Hillary's only 16 votes behind in pledged delegates," said Bill, "and she's gonna wind up with the lead in the popular vote in the primary states. She's gonna wind up with the lead in the delegates."

And if only you count states with four letters that voted in March she's winning by a ton...

* Leahy says the primary's over.

"There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that's a decision that only she can make frankly I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate."

Reality check, check. Vague moral threat, check. Quiet promise of a bribe, check. Too bad Clinton won't listen.

* Bob Casey jumps off the fence and endorses Barack. Richardson, Leahy, Casey, Pelosi: are the supers finally moving?

* Ezra has your definition of the day.

“National Greatness” is what results when unacknowledged feelings of sexual inadequacy manifest themselves as a theory of foreign policy.

Richardson (finally) endorses. I'm not sure whether he's going solo or if this is a sign that the supers have finally realized how destructive the unnecessary continuation of this primary is—but either way it's welcome news on top of the State department scandal and the release of Clinton's White House schedule, both of which begin to shift the narrative away from the painful Wright stuff.

If Wright had happened when Obama was "the presumptive nominee"—which is to say that everything were exactly as it is now except Clinton had admitted she'd been beat—it would have been half as damaging. Wright took hold so deeply in part because half of a divided Democratic party welcomed the news as a means to overturn the will of the voters and get Clinton installed as the nominee—if those people had instead been willing to speak with one voice to denounce the story and its terms, the cancer could have been removed with a lot less bloodletting. As it is, the Democrats are imploding, and the prospect of a united party in the fall is drifting further and further out of reach; the superdelegates can't dare let this thing go on till June, and yet they give every indication that they will.

Partial text of the endorsement:

I have made a decision to endorse Barack Obama for President....

My affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall.

Gore, Edwards, Pelosi, the ball is in your court.

The competing moral claims for the Democratic nomination realigned a bit this weekend as we got our first evidence of Obama's coattails: the surprise victory of Bill Foster in a special election for Dennis Hastert's congressional seat. Obama cut an ad for Foster and gave him access to his Illinois organization, and so Foster's victory is a victory for Obama too, providing good evidence for the superdelegates that Obama can do exactly what he says he can do in terms of making the Democrats a 50-state party again.

It's also a nice little irony that the girl in the much-ballyhooed "3 a.m." ad turns out to be 17 now and an Obama precinct captain.

The Wyoming caucus was this weekend, too, and as expected Obama won it by over twenty points—but the major contest continues to be Pennsylvania. If Obama can win there, Clinton drops out. If Obama loses there, even if it's really really close, Clinton probably stays in until the convention, and things start to get really interesting awful.

As I've said, I have every confidence that Obama will be the nominee either way: Clinton can't catch up in pledged delegates, and the superdelegates won't overturn the will of the voters no matter what sort of spin war the Clintons wage in the press.

But it would be so much easier if he just wins Pennsylvania. I'm calling on my vast Pennsylvania fanbase* to make that happen.

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* I call it a "fanbase" now so you can't tell it's just one person. But seriously, Neil, knock on some doors.

Tom Brokaw is reporting that a bloc of 50 superdelegates is ready to announce for Obama, probably being saved to blunt Clinton's victory dance tomorrow. (Video.) If that's really the case, my Prediction 3a yesterday may have been too pessimistic; as a drop-out-now chorus, that's pretty deafening.

2:50pm UPDATE: I wrote the draft of this post this morning—now I see that the Clinton camp is officially denying Simon's report. I wanted to put the denial up top so everyone sees it.

Also at Ambinder, I also see, unrelatedly, that Clinton failed to submit a full delegate slate in Pennsylvania—which I find utterly shocking.

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Not long ago one of my commenters used the phrase "setting fire to the future of the Democratic party" to describe the scorched earth strategy of the Clinton campaign. It was an apt description then, but if there's anything to this report from the Politco, it's worse than my worst imagination of what was possible.

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

Our only hope is that a knockout blow somewhere in the Texas/Ohio/Pennsylvania circuit ends this insanity and lets the Clintons slink off with some small amount of their dignity intact. But a Longtime Associate writes in echoing my own fears about Wisconsin and how things could go wrong tonight:

once again, obama has been unable to contain expectations. this is a very competitive primary, looking at demographics and polls, and clinton's last-minute attacks may again give her the win, as they did in new hampshire. the cult of obama / style over substance attacks are taking root, to some extent. the last gallup tracking poll shows a lot of movement to clinton. the painfulness of a possible wisconsin loss will be doubled due to the failure to manage expectations.

Fingers crossed tonight, Obamaniacs.

"You need a process that both sides can buy into. You cannot let these internecine battles create a war." That was Chuck Schumer on Meet the Press a few minutes ago, speaking without specificity about how the superdelegate and FL/MI situation should shake out.

Let's parse this out.

"You need a process that both sides can buy into." Assuming both sides want to win, and that both sides consider themselves to be within striking range of victory, what kind of process could both sides "buy into" when clearly any process would result in one or the other losing?

I think Clinton's camp is going to argue going into the convention that the only possible mutual buy-in result is a joint ticket, and then assert she should obviously be the head of that ticket and/or quietly refuse to be VP. I think this is how she thinks she can still be the nominee.

UPDATE: I decided to post this as a diary on Daily Kos, with a poll: "Is a joint ticket the only solution to this mess?" After about twenty minutes, "no" was far and away the winner, with "There should not be a joint ticket under any circumstances" edging out "No, there are other possible solutions" by about ten points.

I was prepared to accept The Stump's argument that Rep. John Lewis's switch from Clinton to Obama isn't actually that noteworthy, until I saw Josh Marshall's equally persuasive argument that it is, in fact, incredibly notewothy. Now I don't know what to think. I guess we'll see how things get spun tomorrow.

With Obama now up by 136 in the pledged delegate count after a 50-delegate win last night, his camp is putting out word that they are close to locking down the nomination and that it will be "next to impossible" for Clinton to win a majority of delegates.

He also said that the only way she can prevent them from winning the nomination is by winning remaining contests in "blowout form." He said Hillary needs to win Ohio and Texas "by well over 20 points" to remain in contention, adding that "we see no evidence that that's going to happen."

This is, of course, the necessary counterspin to the current emphasis on OH, TX, and PA—I think it's likely that he can win at least one of these states, but they need to start laying the groundwork for an argument that he should be the nominee even if he falls just short in all three.

Some links about the primary, everyone's favorite discussion topic. (TV will be back soon; this is all almost over.)

* I know more than a few people in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and I hope these people get out and vote for Obama their conscience for Obama today. The last ARG poll—as I've said, not the friendliest poll outfit for Obama—has numbers that look pretty fantastic, not that they mean anything until the real polls close tonight. ARG has Barack in the lead by twenty points in both states, including in key demographics like "men" and "women." There's room to be cautiously optimistic here.

* The front page of the New York Times today paints the picture of a Clinton campaign in crisis:

“She has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she’s out,” said one superdelegate who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment. “The campaign is starting to come to terms with that.” Campaign advisers, also speaking privately in order to speak plainly, confirmed this view.

Several Clinton superdelegates, whose votes could help decide the nomination, said Monday that they were wavering in the face of Mr. Obama’s momentum after victories in Washington State, Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine last weekend.

Some said that they, like the hundreds of uncommitted superdelegates still at stake, might ultimately “go with the flow,” in the words of one, and support the candidate who appears to show the most strength in the primaries to come.

This of course is what I've been saying all along—the superdelegates are politicians, they aren't going to cut their own throats and the throat of the Democratic party writ large. If Obama is ahead in pledged delegates, he'll be the nominee.

Hopefully he can get a win in OH, TX, or PA, though—a win in any of those three would seal it.

* Josh Patashnik succinctly explains at the Plank why the Florida delegates must not be seated.

* CNN's Political Ticker has a post up that backs up my latest theory about what Al Gore is waiting for. Thanks Neil.

The sources say Gore talks with both Clinton and Obama, and is on good terms with both. But with Sen. John Kerry and Bill Clinton both aligned to a candidate, Gore has a role to serve as the neutral elder statesman in the party.

If an agreement needs to be struck between Clinton and Obama down the road, Gore is in position to be the likely facilitator of that discussion.

Matt Yglesias steps up to the plate and predicts Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.

I think the college educated men who dominate punditland have spent a lot of time missing the fact that there actually are enthusiastic Clinton fans out there -- they're just mostly working class women and thus mostly not in the room when this CW gets hashed out. On top of that, I think Clinton's succeeded in managing the expectations savvily. If she wins anywhere at all between now and March 4, that counts as a win for her, then Ohio is mildly favorable ground for her and Texas is extremely favorable ground. That, I think, will seal it for her as the anti-Obama backlash brewing in the press hits full stride.

There's a lot to be said for this, especially the prospects for an anti-Obama backlash—I started worrying about this the other day when I saw the "naive cultist" meme. It still worries me. But as I just wrote in his comments, I still have to give the edge to Obama:

The meat of the prediction is how Matt thinks she wins it. Does she get a natural lead in pledged delegates, without seating MI and FL? That doesn't seem likely to me. And if not she can only take it if superdelegates break overwhelmingly for her, which I don't think they would do against the person who *has* a natural lead in pledged delegates; or if MI and FL are seated, which I don't think they will be unless they are no longer relevant; or if MI and FL get a redo that breaks overwhelmingly in her favor, which could happen, but isn't a lock.

To believe that the superdelegates will give Clinton the nomination even if she doesn't have a delegate lead is to believe that the Democratic Party will cut its own throat for no reason. I just don't see that happening.

I made a second comment in the thread here, in response to scornful laughter at my trust in the Democrats' sense of self-preservation.

The margins of victory (or, God forbid, loss) in the contests today and Tuesday, and the way the press responds, should give us a good sense of how the race will look on March 4, which has become the next key date on the calendar and the next date from which to launch a Clinton comeback: Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio, Texas. If Barack can hold his own or win there, and then in Pennsylvania on April 22, I think he goes into the convention with a lead in pledged delegates—in which case I really don't see the superdelegates breaking so overwhelmingly against him to tilt the nomination back to Clinton. There's just no reason for Big Boss Democrats to willfully destroy their own party in that way.

Regardless of who has the nomination, though, I think we can be certain at this point that Obama will be on the ticket. It's just about Clinton's only hope to pull the party back together; she just has to get him to take it.

UPDATED: More support for my predictions in a pair of Daily Kos diaries. First, the new Survey USA polls (traditionally not very favorable to Obama) show him with twenty-point leads in Virginia and Maryland (scheduled to vote Tuesday), including strong leads across basically all demographics—this is important not simply for those delegates but also as evidence that he's finally making big cuts into Clinton's base of support.

In Virginia, Clinton leads in seniors, Obama in voters under age 65. The two candidates are tied for white voters; Obama leads 7:1 among black voters. He also leads among both men and women.

...

In Maryland, the two candidates split white voters, with Obama leading 4:1 among blacks. Clinton leads among seniors by 15 points, Obama leads by 39 points among voters 35-49. SUSA cautions: "If younger voters do not vote in the numbers here forecast, Obama’s margin is overstated."

Meanwhile, Nick A tries to do the superdelegate math and says that Clinton will need a 5:2 superdelegate split in order to come back from second-place. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but I don't think there are that many suicidal Big Boss Democrats in the pool.