"Sen. Hillary Clinton speaks at LCCC" (video)

chroniclet, video (03:03):

Sen. Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally for Barack Obama at Lorain County Community College (OH) Sep. 14.

Barack Obama

"Hillary Rodham Clinton At The Democratic National Convention" (video)

TPM, video (23:13).

Howie P.S.: Joel Connelly (Seattle P-I) observes "Hillary erases bad blood." No offense Joel, but isn't that a mixed metaphor? Chris Cillizza (WaPo's "The Fix") wonders "Was It Enough?"

"Obama's Family Night Out"

WaPo (page one):

After an emotional speech by an ailing Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the face of the Democratic Party shifted on Monday night to a new generation of leaders, as Michelle Obama opened the Democratic National Convention with a tribute to her husband and a call to the country to listen "to our hopes instead of our fears," and "to stop doubting and to start dreaming."

Seeking to ground Sen. Barack Obama in the experience of America's working class while recapturing the lofty ideals that propelled him toward his party's presidential nomination, Michelle Obama's family-themed speech was the climax of a dramatic opening day for a political party confident of its chances of capturing the White House but still struggling to lay aside its own divisions. A weak economy and a war in Iraq now in its sixth year have offered Democrats and their young candidate an ideal political environment in which to push for widespread change. But Obama has yet to close the deal with the electorate, or even some of the Democrats who backed his primary opponent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

But once the curtain raised on a raucous Pepsi Center, the party appeared poised to come together. The delegates cheered every mention of Clinton and gave the same treatment to Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), and the party's 2004 nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.). Kennedy, who has a brain tumor but appeared spry in a surprise appearance, offered a poignant moment of reflection on the last time a youthful Democrat won the White House. To thunderous applause, he promised to be present in the Senate in January to greet a new Democratic president.

"The work begins anew. The hope rises again, and the dream lives on," he said, echoing his speech from the 1980 Democratic convention, in which he was denied the party's nomination.

Michelle Obama also did her part to try to heal the lingering wounds of the long struggle for the nomination when she recognized Clinton, "who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters -- and our sons -- can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher."

But the stream of new faces -- including Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, and freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), one of the candidate's fiercest supporters -- and a rousing anthem from John Legend, who helped craft the viral music videos that have powered the Obama movement, signaled that the torch is changing hands. Caroline Kennedy tried to bridge that generational shift when she told the crowd, "I have never had someone inspire me the way people tell me my father inspired them, but I do now: Barack Obama."

When Michelle Obama took to the podium, she was greeted with sustained applause and a sea of blue "Michelle" placards.

"Barack doesn't care where you're from, or what your background is, or what party -- if any -- you belong to. That's not how he sees the world," she said. "He knows that thread that connects us -- our belief in America's promise, our commitment to our children's future -- is strong enough to hold us together as one nation."

After she finished, daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, met her onstage, where they were soon joined by her husband via a video link from Kansas City, Mo., where he watched the speech at the home of Jim and Alicia Girardeau. "You were unbelievable," he said, "and you look pretty cute," to which Sasha replied, "Thanks."

Michelle Obama's task was to reintroduce her husband to the nation as the candidate most capable of responding to the struggles of ordinary Americans, weary of war and beset by debt, division and fears of decline.

"Even though he had this funny name, even though he'd grown up all the way across the continent, in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine," she recalled of the man who courted her as a young lawyer. "He was raised by grandparents who were working-class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did. And like my family, they scrimped and saved so that he could have opportunities they never had themselves. And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them."

Standing "where the current of history meets this new tide of hope," the woman who would be the first African American first lady looked ahead to an evening when her daughters would tell their children about the 2008 election, and "how this time, in this great country -- where a girl from the South Side of Chicago can go to college and law school, and the son of a single mother from Hawaii can go all the way to the White House -- we committed ourselves to building the world as it should be."

Indeed, the anti-Republican red meat was left for an unlikely source, soft-spoken former GOP congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, who hailed Obama as "a transcendent candidate" as he criticized his own party.

"The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values," Leach said. "The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the Earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming. And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts."

Campaigning in Iowa, Obama tried to ease his party's divisions, conceding that "there are going to be some of Senator Clinton's supporters who we're going to have to work hard to persuade to come on board -- that's not surprising." But, he added: "If you take a look this week, I am absolutely convinced that both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton understand the stakes."

But the nerves were not easily calmed ahead of Hillary Clinton's speech on Tuesday and Bill Clinton's appearance on Wednesday. Hillary Clinton addressed the New York delegation at a breakfast in the morning. But while supporters waved signs declaring "Hillary Made History," the senator's focus was on the future.

"We were not all on the same side as Democrats, but we are now," she said. "We are united and we are together and we are determined."

Clinton is expected to release her delegates to Obama on Tuesday. That symbolic gesture reduces the prospects for major disruptions when the roll is called to nominate the senator from Illinois -- a historic moment when Obama will become the first black politician to head a major party's national ticket.

Divisions clearly remain, however, and the campaign of Republican Sen. John McCain did its best to foment unrest. It released a new advertisement featuring Wisconsin delegate Debra Bartoshevich declaring herself "a proud Hillary Clinton Democrat" who for the first time is supporting a Republican, McCain.

"A lot of Democrats will vote McCain," she says in the spot. "It's okay, really."

Clinton repudiated the ad in her appearance before the New York delegation, saying: "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message." But Howard Wolfson, who was her communications director, went public with the grievances her husband is still nursing. Writing in the New Republic, Wolfson said the former president "feels like the Obama campaign ran against and systematically dismissed his administration's accomplishments. And he feels like he was painted as a racist during the primary process."

Wolfson made it clear that he thinks it is Obama who needs to make amends.

"Senator Obama would go a long way towards healing these wounds if he were to specifically praise the accomplishments of the Clinton presidency in a line or two during his speech on Thursday," he concluded. "That should be painless."

Howie P.S.: Extended remarks and punditry from the WaPo's Dan Balz: "A Portrait of the Candidate, but Dots Left to Connect."

Barack Obama

"Hillary Clinton Campaigns For Barack Obama in Las Vegas"

Jed Report, with videos in two parts:

Here's Hillary Clinton on Friday, on the trail for Barack Obama at Green Valley High School in Las Vegas. (The video is from the Las Vegas Sun.)

Hillary gave a very good speech and delivered an unqualified endorsement of Barack Obama, a fact which you could figure out just by knowing that the MSM didn't bother to give her any coverage all. Can you imagine what they would have done if she'd even offered a hint of doubt about who she supported?

Here's part 1 (part 2 is below):

YouTube link

Here's part 2:

YouTube link

My sense is that these appearances help her just as much as they help Barack, and I hope she does more of them.

Howie P.S.: After watching these two videos, my money's on Hillary. I'm just not sure she'll be the candidate for Vice-President. More tea leaves for you to read: "Clinton, Michelle Obama Get 'Headline' Spots at Convention" (WaPo).

Barack Obama

"Roles of Clintons at Convention Start to Clear"

NY Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton asked the question herself, on the last night of the primaries in June: “What does Hillary want?”

That is still a bit of a mystery, particularly as she and Senator Barack Obama negotiate the delicate question of her role at the Democratic convention in Denver and in the campaign beyond. But at least the convention role of one important person, former President Bill Clinton, has been settled with the decision Thursday that he would be speaking at the convention.

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said Thursday that they were working to resolve matters. Mr. Obama said: “As is true in all conventions, we’re still working out the mechanics of the four days. Our staffs are in communication, my staff with Senator Clinton’s staff. But I don’t anticipate any problems.”

In a public peace offering Thursday, the Obama campaign allowed a draft of the party platform to note that Mrs. Clinton was “the first woman in American history to win presidential primaries in our nation.” It added that the party was “proud that we have put 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling,” which, of course, was her own formulation of her popular vote total.

This is already a somewhat fraught period for both Mrs. Clinton and her husband since the convention will officially mark the changing of the guard in the Democratic Party, the moment when yet another Democratic nominee will try to do what only one, Mr. Clinton, has managed to do in a generation: be elected.

Both Clintons are sensitive to the process of shaping their legacies. At stake are not just their convention roles but also how history will treat them, and how she is positioned for the future.

But the surfacing of a video in which Mrs. Clinton suggests that her supporters need a “catharsis” after the roller-coaster primary season and that they may place her name in nomination would seem to add complexity to the negotiations.

The video was taken at a July 31 cocktail reception near Palo Alto, Calif., for supporters of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. In response to questions, as various cameras are visible, Mrs. Clinton says that the best way to unify the party is “to have a strategy so that my delegates feel like they’ve had a role and that their legitimacy has been validated.”

She adds: “It’s as old as Greek drama. There’s a catharsis. Everybody comes, and they want to yell and scream and have their opportunity, and I think that’s all to the good.”

While the video of Mrs. Clinton plays on cable television and the Internet, a new video of her husband, in an interview with ABC News, is also playing on a seemingly endless loop. The striking moment comes when he is not quite able to say that Mr. Obama is qualified to be president.

But Mr. Clinton was offered an invitation to speak on Aug. 27, three senior Democratic officials said, before the address by the party’s vice-presidential nominee. The Obama campaign extended the offer on Thursday to Mr. Clinton, who accepted it.

Mr. Obama has already given Mrs. Clinton a speaking role at the convention, on Aug. 26. So what else does she want? As Al Gore learned in 2000, having one Clinton, let alone two, hover over you as you campaign for the presidency can be trying.

The Gore campaign had hoped to choreograph Mr. Clinton out of the picture at its convention, in Los Angeles, giving him the prime-time speaking slot Monday and then staging a symbolic “passing of the torch” to Mr. Gore the next day in Michigan.

But Mr. Clinton started to steal the limelight on the prior Thursday, in a lengthy public confessional in which he said that voters should not hold Mr. Gore accountable for Mr. Clinton’s personal failings. The president then arrived in Los Angeles on Friday and was the toast of the town for three days leading up to his convention speech. He dominated the torch moment in Michigan and much of the news afterward.

Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who has worked at the top levels of several campaigns in such negotiations, said that, generally, defeated candidates want to nail down things like how they will be used in the fall campaign and whether the nominee will pay for a separate plane and staff. They usually want to know how big a “show” they will get, Mr. Devine said.

Once the video spread across the blogosphere, many commented that Mrs. Clinton was still angling to become Mr. Obama’s running mate.

But some who know her say this is not the case. One Democratic loyalist with connections to the Clintons said that if Mrs. Clinton wanted to send Mr. Obama a message, she would not have relied on a chat on a random front porch in a video that took several days to become public.

Either way, she does have leverage. Polling shows that Mrs. Clinton remains as popular among Democrats these days as Mr. Obama, despite his having campaigned for two months as the party nominee.

Her goal now, she says in the video, is this: “We do not want any Democrat in the hall or in the stadium or at home walking away saying, ‘I’m just not satisfied, I’m not happy.’ That’s what I’m trying to avoid.”

But Mrs. Clinton seems to give a green light to her supporters to make whatever mischief they might:

“I’ve made it very clear that I’m supporting Senator Obama,” she says, “and we’re working cooperatively on a lot of different matters. But delegates can decide to do this on their own; they don’t need permission.”

Howie P.S.: Hillary said she likes "long movies" and she was telling the truth.
Barack Obama

"The View from Unity" (with videos)

The Caucus, (NY Times blog) with videos:

4:10 p.m. | All Together Now: All in all, it was a positive day for both Senators. They seemed to go out of their way to acknowledge the widely understood reality — that it had been a hard-fought primary, to say the least. But now, they are clearly on the same side. We noticed that both Senators mentioned former President Bill Clinton, and wonder if that was negotiated in advance.

Mrs. Clinton reminded her listeners that he had been elected, twice, an unusual feat for a Democrat in the last few decades, although she did not mention him by name, calling him only someone “I know.”

The crowd got it, and applauded. And Mr. Obama mentioned him too, in a welcoming way, saying the party and the country needed both her and and Mr. Clinton.

We may not see true unity with the Clintons until Mr. Clinton joins Mr. Obama on stage himself. But Mrs. Clinton strongly signaled to her supporters that she is with the program, and that’s important not only for the party but for her future in it.

Anyway, the Senators had good timing. The skies have opened again and now it’s pouring rain. All the electrical power channeled into Unity for this event has been knocked out, and access to the Internet has more or less vanished.

(See the related article by our colleague Jeff Zeleny. He also blogged today about the Clintons’ donation to the Obama campaign.)

3:15 p.m. | Hillary’s Women: So we just met up with a couple of die-hard Clinton supporters who said this unity event had not persuaded them to back Mr. Obama.

Carmella Lewis, 57, a retired ad saleswoman and a Clinton delegate from Denver, was carrying a big “Hillary” sign. She came all the way from Colorado for the event, even though she didn’t believe in it, because she wanted to convey her support to Mrs. Clinton.

“As a politician, she’s got to try to bring the party together,” Ms. Lewis said. “But I have a gut feeling that something’s going to happen so that she becomes the nominee.” She said she would not vote for Mr. Obama and that when he spoke, she stuffed her ears with tissue.

She said that Mrs. Clinton spotted her sign in the crowd and pointed to her and waved. And later, she had Mrs. Clinton autograph her sign and told her, “You’re going to be the next president” and Mrs. Clinton smiled.

Her friend, Freda Smith, 79, a former state representative from Salem, N.H., said Mr. Obama was “not qualified” to be president. “We don’t know anything about him,” she said. “He talks about change, but he never says exactly what he means.”

But many more in the crowd said they were entirely happy with Mr. Obama and pleased with Mrs. Clinton’s support.

Dan Wasserman, 59, a darkroom technician from Massachusetts, said he found her speech convincing and even thought it was better than Mr. Obama’s. But he said he’s ready to vote for Mr. Obama.

His wife, B.J. Roche, 53, a lecturer in journalism at the University of Massachusetts, said she was always an Obama fan because she opposed the war in Iraq and would never have favored someone who voted for it, like Mrs. Clinton.

“I thought she was fabulous today, and it must have been hard,” she said. “But I don’t get her supporters. I don’t get their anger. Obama did win.”

Read more »

"Let the Resurrection Begin" (with video)

Tom Hayden (The Nation):

Hillary Clinton's moving and brilliant speech today cemented a place for herself and the feminist movement in the unfolding drama of the 2008 presidential election.

The speech, which situated her more firmly than ever in women's history, provided a powerful endorsement for Barack Obama, while at the same time reinforcing her position as virtually his equal in the Democratic primary race.

Clinton essentially empowered her audience by implying that they, more than anyone, could make the historic difference by electing an African-American president on the rising tide of the women's vote. She assured them that the two candidacies had shattered all gender and racial barriers to democracy's highest office.

Hers was not the surrender pose traditionally expected of "losers," but a redefinition of what winning ultimately means. It suggested that she will be treated as a full partner in the process, and it was a victory speech for the power of social movements.

She bravely rejected the bitter destructiveness that gnaws within all campaigns that lose closely, and held the high ground.

Characterizing her decision as a "suspension," however, still left open the prospect of hard bargaining with Obama over a range of issues, but apparently in a greater atmosphere of unity.

One wonders if she would be the nominee if she had pursued the tone of today's speech more and the advice of her [male] advisors less. It took a year, and a string of campaign disasters, before she threw out Mark Penn, though still leaving in place a cast of male operatives like Lanny Davis, who only blighted her image as an experienced, pragmatic representative of the Sixties student, antiwar and women's movements.

Her 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War, which opened the door for Obama's candidacy, was advised as the way to prove that a woman could be commander-in-chief. So were her later comments about obliterating Iran. Her male advisers incessantly pressured the media to play up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, race-baiting and red-baiting positions she never would have adopted in the late Sixties.

This wasn't a problem unique to Clinton alone, of course. If Bill Clinton had not promoted NAFTA and the WTO, there would have been no space for Ralph Nader to run in 2000. Had John Kerry followed his 1970 anti-war, anti-establishment instincts in 2004, he probably would have been President today. The Democratic Party consultant class has been counseling retreat from the Sixties ever since...the Sixties. It has been a risk for Obama's centrist campaign as well, although his 2002 anti-war stance and the unified enthusiasm of the black community position him firmly within a progressive history.

This basic identity confusion at the center of the Clinton strategy was the crucial reason, next to Obama's superlative campaign, for her narrow defeat. The irony is that her resurrection can now begin.

Howie P.S.: BarackObama.com says "Thank you, Hillary" (with video) and asks you to chime in.

Barack Obama

It's Hillary's Day

"Clinton supporters wowed with warm reception at Obama rally" (MinnPost.com):

The crowd kept pouring into the Xcel Energy Center. All ages. All races. All backgrounds. Young Somalis chanting "O-bama!" And older, white women, bedecked in sparkling red, white and blue and holding up a sign, "Women for Obama!''

But most noticeable was the arrival of such people as Buck Humphrey, who once had headed Hillary Rodham Clinton's Minnesota campaign. And Jackie Stevenson, a DFL activist, a feminist and a Clinton-supporting superdelegate, who at the last minute had changed her mind about attending the event. And St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, who was a Clinton supporter until sometime Monday. And Rick Stafford, another Clinton superdelegate.

"Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day" (NY Times):

With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ending her campaign for the Democratic nomination, the presumptive nominees are moving to claim her followers, especially her signature bloc, the millions of women who cast primary votes for her.

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is positioning itself as the rightful heir to these Democratic voters. Senator John McCain’s strategists are plotting to convert them, particularly older women who are skeptical of Mr. Obama’s thin résumé. Even the Democratic National Committee chairman is avidly trying to make up for accusations that he allowed sexism in the race to pass unchallenged.

"'Macho' Barack Obama to bring on the women" (Telegraph UK):

"You're going to see more women out front," said a source close to the Obama campaign. "We have a female-friendly message anyway but there'll maybe be a bit less machismo, a subtle change in the optics." He added that internal polls showed that John McCain, the Republican nominee, was "weak" among women.

Linda Douglass, a long-time television journalist, has been recruited as a senior adviser who will travel almost constantly on Mr Obama's plane, make frequent on-screen appearances and act as main spokesperson on the campaign trail.

"Invite: Saturday's event with Hillary" (Maggie Willams--hillaryclinton.com):

As you know, Hillary will be holding an event tomorrow in Washington D.C. to thank all of her supporters, to express her support for Senator Obama, and to talk about the issues that have been at the core of her public service, the issues she will continue fighting for.

Hillary wanted to make sure her online supporters were a part of this special event, just as you have been a part of her campaign from the very beginning. So, we will be streaming it live over the website at HillaryClinton.com.

We invite you to visit our website tomorrow, Saturday June 7, at 12 p.m. EDT (9 a.m. PDT) to watch Hillary speak live.

"Obama’s Weekend Off" (Mark Halperin-The Page):

Washington Times: The presumptive Democratic nominee plans to “hop on a bike for some exercise around Chicago, take his wife, Michelle, out to dinner and help his daughters host a slumber party.”

He also told reporters earlier this week: “At some point this weekend I will have the opportunity to reflect on the journey we’ve traveled and I think that will help me chart a course for where we’re going to go over the next five months.”

CBS: "Barack Obama On The Road Ahead" (video

CBS News video, (24:47):

Katie Couric Interviews The Presumptive Democratic Nominee.

Barack Obama

"Clinton Preparing to Drop Out of Presidential Race"

ABC News:

Barack Obama Captures Nomination After Intense Democratic Fight--Sen. Hillary Clinton will hold an event with supporters by Friday, likely ending her historic bid for the White House and ceding the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, ABC News has learned.

Clinton's decision to leave the race ends a long, often bitter battle for the right to challenge Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general election.

Obama, D-Ill., who claimed victory after clinching the necessary delegates on Tuesday, will be the nation's first African American running with the nomination of one of the country's two major political parties.

Clinton's Bid for History Falls Short

Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and two-term senator from New York, entered the race over a year ago with the words, "I'm in it to win it."

Clinton quickly emerged as the formidable frontrunner, raising millions of dollars and leading in both state and national polls.

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in December 2006, she was supported by 39 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, well ahead of her nearest competitors -- Barack Obama with 17 percent support; former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., with 12 percent; and former Vice President Al Gore, 10 percent.

Obama had announced his intention to form a presidential exploratory committee a few days before Clinton's announcement on her Web site, hillaryclinton.com.

Just weeks later, standing outside Illinois' historic Old State Capitol building where Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech condemning slavery and calling for the United States to unite, Obama, then a 45-year-old with just two years of federal legislative experience under his belt, officially announced his longshot bid.

"I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity," Obama said to the crowd of 16,000 braving a freezing February afternoon. "I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change."

Clinton dominated a crowded field of Democratic candidates including Obama, Edwards, as well as Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and fomer Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska, for much of the summer and early fall of 2007.

In an interview with ABC News' "Nightline" in September 2007, Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted, "I believe she's going to be the nominee. I think every day is a good one, and I think that as every day goes on people see that she has the strength and experience to become president."

There was reason for optimism: Clinton had survived nearly the entire year as the Democratic frontrunner and none of her opponents seemed to be gaining major traction. But that trend was about to change.

The Turning Point

At a Halloween debate on Oct. 31, 2007, chinks in Clinton's armor appeared.

Sharply challenged by Obama and Edwards on Iraq, free trade and illegal immigration, Clinton said a New York State proposal supported by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants "makes a lot of sense."

Critics and the other candidates pounced and Clinton later admitted she "wasn't at (her) best" during the debate.

Ten days later, Obama outshined Clinton at Iowa's Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines and both candidates seemed to increase the rhetoric of the race.

"If we are really serious about winning this election, Democrats, then we can't live in fear of losing," Obama said, accusing Clinton of running a "poll-driven campaign," in a speech the Obama camp would later use in several effective television ads against Clinton.

"Change is just a word if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen. We must nominate a nominee who has been tested and elect a president who is ready to lead on Day One. I know what it's going to take to win," Clinton shot back.

National polls still put Clinton on top, but Obama was showing strength in Iowa, where the first contest in the race would be held.

A month later, Obama picked up the endorsement of Oprah Winfrey and the formidable pair hit the campaign trail in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

"Experience in the hallways of government isn't as important to me as experience on the pathway to life. I challenge you to see through those people who try to tell you that experience in politics as usual is more valuable than wisdom outside the walls of Washington, D.C.," Oprah told crowds of enthusiastic supporters, though she did not mention Clinton by name.

The tide appeared to be turning back to Clinton when she picked up the endorsement of The Des Moines Register.

"I've got my groove back," Clinton declared in December 2007, when asked by ABC News' Kate Snow about the state of her campaign during a chaotic -- and memorable -- stop for the Clintons at a Hyvee grocery in Iowa.

The Clinton campaign embarked on the "Every Vote Counts" tour of Iowa, dubbed the "Likeability Tour" by the press corps who had accompanied her for nearly a year already.

In an interview with ABC News' Cynthia McFadden for "Nightline" that same month, the candidate expressed cautious optimism that her campaign had turned the corner.

"I think the campaign is doing very well," Clinton told ABC News. "There's a rhythm to campaigns. I know that. I've been in a lot of them over the course of my life. It's really picking up steam, and that's what I feel."

Sen. Clinton traveled Iowa by bus and helicopter, joined by daughter, Chelsea, and her mother, Dorothy Rodham, at various points, making an explicit appeal to women -- her core group of consistent support throughout the campaign.

"We're going to break the highest glass ceiling, for not just me, but for all girls and women," Clinton told "Nightline." "You know that wonderful old line about women do everything? It's like Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels. Well, we just have to go out and do it. There's no point in worrying about it."

Obama Takes Iowa, Clinton Takes New Hampshire

On Jan. 3, 2008, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses. Clinton had been bested not only by Obama but also -- although narrowly -- by Edwards as well.

"They said this day would never come," Obama said in his victory speech, calling the win a "defining moment in history."

With only five days between Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton didn't have much time to slow Obama's momentum.

At the ABC News/WMUR/Facebook debate on Jan. 5, 2008, Clinton and Edwards came out strong against Obama.

"Making change is not about what you believe or about making a speech, it's about working hard," Clinton said, then raising her voice to continue: "I want to make change, but I've already made change. I'm not running on a promise of change. But on 35 years of change. ... We don't need to raise false hopes of people in our country about what can be delivered."

The back-and-forth got so heated that fourth-place candidate Bill Richardson quipped, "I've been in hostile negotiations that are a lot more civil than this."

Two days later -- a day before the nation's first primary in New Hampshire -- Clinton found herself in the Cafe Espresso in Portsmouth with 16 undecided voters, mostly women, warmly and calmly taking questions.

"My question is very personal, how do you do it?" asked Marianne Pernold Young, a freelance photographer from the state. She mentioned Clinton's hair and appearance always looking perfect. "How do you, how do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?"

Clinton began responding, jokingly but then began getting emotional: "It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards."

Her voice breaking and tears in her eyes, she said: "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it."

Female voters seemed to respond to that emotion. They came out in droves for her in New Hampshire, surprising even Clinton's own staff.

On Jan. 8, 2008, Clinton won New Hampshire saying she had "found her voice" in the victory. Staffers who had been ready to resign that night suddenly found themselves toasting to victory.

The Democratic battle then turned to South Carolina, where Obama held an advantage but Clinton came in having stolen back the campaign's momentum.

The Role of Race

Following her comeback in New Hampshire, Clinton won the uncontested vote in Michigan (Obama was not on the ballot as the Democratic National Committee had stripped the state of its delegates for skipping ahead of other states on the election calendar) and the Nevada caucuses, though in that state Obama emerged with one more delegate at the time.

The next critical contest would be in South Carolina, prominently raising the subject of race in a contest pitting Obama, potentially the first African American nominee, Clinton, the first woman, and Edwards, a son of the south who was born in South Carolina itself, against one another.

Former President Bill Clinton proved more a liability than asset to his wife's campaign when in New Hampshire he declared, "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen," in regard to Obama's portrayal of his record on Iraq.

The former president was making the case that Obama -- just like Sen. Hillary Clinton -- had voted to fund the war since he's been in office and that the two had essentially the same record on the controversial war.

Obama said the former president has taken his campaigning on his wife's behalf too far.

"I understand him wanting to promote his wife's candidacy," Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in January. "She's got a record that she can run on. But I think it's important that we try to maintain some -- you know, level of honesty and candor during the course of the campaign. If we don't, then we feed the cynicism that has led so many Americans to be turned off to politics."

Obama blew out Clinton 55 percent to 27 percent in South Carolina. Edwards came in a distant third at 18 percent, prompting him to leave the race before the critical Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5.

In the wake of Obama's win, Bill Clinton made matters worse for his wife, seemingly dismissing the Obama campaign's chances for victories by comparing him to a previous unsuccessful minority candidate. Clinton told ABC News' David Wright in Columbia, S.C.: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Super Tuesday Split Decision

John Edwards' departure from the race left a two-person contest for the Democratic nomination leading up to Super Tuesday, when 22 states held contests with nearly 1,700 of the more than 4,000 delegates at stake. After all the build-up, though, when all the votes were counted there still was no clear winner.

Clinton and Obama traded Super Tuesday victories as energized Democratic voters turned out in record high numbers.

Obama won the most states, picking up victories in Illinois, Idaho, Colorado, Minnesota, Connecticut, Utah, North Dakota, Kansas, Delaware, Missouri, Georgia, Alabama and Alaska.

But Clinton won the delegate-rich states of California, New York, Massachusetts (despite Obama receiving the endorsement of Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy), and New Jersey, in addition to wins in Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee, New Mexico, Arkansas, and American Somoa.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain, secured his status as the unstoppable GOP frontrunner, although his last opponent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee would not leave the race for another month.

Clinton Woes Mount, Obama Goes on 11-0 Run

In the wake of Super Tuesday, Clinton faced her toughest stretch of the campaign since the period before the initial loss in Iowa.

Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton's campaign manager who had been with her since she was first lady of Arkansas, resigned from the campaign.

In a note sent to the campaign staff, Solis Doyle said: "This has already been the longest presidential campaign in the history of our nation, and one that has required enormous sacrifices from all of us and our families."

She wrote that she has been "proud to manage this campaign, and prouder still to call Hillary my friend for more than sixteen years. I know that she will make a great president."

Maggie Williams, Clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady and an African American, took over as Clinton's campaign manager.

The Clinton campaign also announced that the candidate had loaned $5 million of her own fortune to her campaign, raising considerable questions about her ability to compete financially against an opponent who continued to raise record amounts through the spring.

Obama won 11 straight primaries or caucuses in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington State, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Maine, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island.

The streak included some of Obama's most impressive victories including a 64-35 percent win in Virginia, 75-24 percent in his native Hawaii, and a 58-41 percent margin in Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin exit polls, Democrats identified Obama, not Clinton, as most likely to win in November and it was one of the few times Clinton struggled to hold on to the support of some of her core groups -- white women, less-educated and lower-income voters.

As the losses kept coming, calls for Clinton to withdraw from the race began to grow louder, but the former first lady vowed to fight on in Texas and Ohio, which both held contests on March 4.

"If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be. It's all on you," former President Bill Clinton declared in the lead-up to the vote in those states.

And, once again, with her campaign on the line, Clinton pulled out a significant victory, winning both the Texas and Ohio primaries and vowing to fight on to the next biggest contest in Pennsylvania.

Obama Faces Controversy

Obama picked up expected wins in Wyoming and Mississippi, sending the race into its longest lull since voting began -- six weeks between the contest on March 11 in Mississippi and the next vote in Pennsylvania on April 22.

In that time, Obama faced undoubtedly the toughest test of his campaign.

Controversy erupted around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ for more than 20 years, when ABC News' "Good Morning America" aired sermons in which Wright repeatedly denounced the United States based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Wright also told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001, that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism and claimed the U.S. government might have created the AIDS virus to harm blacks.

Obama initially defended Wright in a widely lauded speech on race.

"He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding and baptized my children," Obama said in that speech. "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who, on more than one occasion, has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

But several weeks later, when Wright reappeared and affirmed many of the controversial statements he had previously made, Obama cut ties with the Reverend and denounced him.

"The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago," the Illinois senator said at a press conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they end up giving comfort to those that prey on hate."

For her part, Clinton largely resisted commenting on the controversy, although she did call Wright's remarks "offensive and outrageous."

But, privately, many Clinton aides admitted they were hearing from superdelegates concerned about Wright's controversial remarks.

Bosnia Exaggerations & 'Bitter' Remarks

During that same time, Clinton also faced controversy surrounding an exaggerated description she gave of a 1996 trip to Bosnia.

Clinton said she and her crew landed in an "evasive maneuver under sniper fire," describing her trip to Tuzla as if it were a scene from "Saving Private Ryan."

"There was supposed to be some sort of greeting ceremony, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles," she said.

Questions surrounding whether Clinton had embellished the story were particularly embarrassing for her because a central theme to her campaign had been her "experience," arguing that she is ready to answer the 3 a.m. crisis call at the White House.

Video footage contradicted Clinton's account, revealing no visible threat in Tuzla and a brief greeting ceremony on the tarmac there.

Clinton later said she "misspoke" when describing the account.

And on the heels of the Wright controversy, Obama came under fire for remarks perceived as insulting to small town voters, like many in rural Pennsylvania.

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama told a crowd at a San Francisco fundraiser.

The comments, first posted on The Huffington Post, opened a line of attack against Obama that he was too elitist or out of touch to connect with the white, working class voters who had been flocking to Clinton in recent contests and would be key in battleground Pennsylvania.

Both incidents -- and reaction to the Wright controversy -- played a prominent role when the candidates met for the final time on a debate stage in Philadelphia.

Clinton Wins Pennsylvania, Splits Indiana & North Carolina

After a six-week stretch between contests, Clinton decisively won the Keystone State by nearly a 10-point margin.

"Some people counted me out and said to drop out, but the American people don't quit, and they deserve a president who doesn't quit, either," Clinton told supporters at a victory rally in Philadelphia.

The day after her win, Clinton told Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" that the win should send a message to unpledged superdelegates.

"The road to the White House does go through Pennsylvania," she said, adding that the Pennsylvania win proved that she can win the large and swing states considered crucial to a November victory.

The candidates split wins in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, but in claiming victory Clinton seemed to acknowledge defeat.

Flanked by her husband and daughter, Clinton thanked Indiana voters for their support, but she was not the relentlessly upbeat Clinton of victories past. And in contrast to other primary night parties, Bill Clinton stood unsmiling behind her for much of the speech.

Clinton pledged to "never stop fighting for you," but faced with a decisive Obama victory in North Carolina and uncertain results in Indiana, she also seemed to concede the possibility that she might not become the eventual nominee.

"People are watching this race and they're wondering ... I win, he wins, I win, he wins ... it's so close. That says a lot about how passionate our supporters are ... but I can assure you that no matter what happens I will work for the nominee of the Democratic party," she said.

Clinton continued to wage a strong campaign in the close weeks, though attacks on her opponent all but disappeared from her speeches and events.

Instead, Clinton focused on pushing the Democratic National Committee to recognize the disputed votes in Florida and Michigan and racked up impressive, double digit wins in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico.

But even big wins could not sustain Clinton.

After her 41-point win in West Virginia, Obama pushed the bad news off the front pages by picking up the endorsement of former rival John Edwards.

Clinton did succeed in getting some delegates recognized from Michigan and Florida but not all that she wanted.

The Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee voted to seat the full Michigan and Florida delegations, but with each delegate getting only half a vote. In the arrangement, Clinton picked up 94.5 total delegates to Obama's 65.5, for a net gain of 19 delegates overall.

Clinton supporters angry, some disrupting the committee proceedings, chanting, "Denver! Denver! Denver!" as a sign they want Clinton to take her fight all the way to the Democratic Convention.

"Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her right to take this to the Credentials Committee," Harold Ickes, a key Clinton strategist told the Democratic National Committee.

In a parting shot, Clinton pulled one last upset in South Dakota while Obama took Montana in the final primary contests of Democratic nomination.

Delegate Count Bogs Down Clinton

In the end, Clinton faced one insurmountable reality: math.

Obama emerged from one of the longest Democratic contests in recent history ahead in pledged delegates, though still officially short of the number necessary to clinch the nomination.

The only option left available to Clinton was to push her fight to the Democratic convention in late August.

Such a protracted fight would have undoubtedly left the Democratic nominee damaged, forced to face a Republican nominee free to campaign through the summer against a disorganized and divided Democratic party.

Instead Clinton will end her bid, allowing Democrats to join ranks around Obama and head into the next stage of the election against McCain.

Obama will officially accept the Democratic nomination on Aug. 28, 2008, in Denver, coincidentally on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech -- another memorable moment in a campaign already making history.

Barack Obama

Pundit Potpourri

Joel Connelly (Seattle P-I, page one):

"Obama did the unexpected when outcome was ‘inevitable’"--Superdelegate endorsements, and a win in the Montana primary, ended what Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., Obama's state chairman, described as a "razor-thin, up-and-down, roller-coaster race" with Sen. Hillary Clinton. America has its first African-American presidential nominee.

Dana Milbank (WaPo, page three):

"In Defeat, Clinton Graciously Pretends to Win"--On Tuesday evening, the crowd began to assemble at Baruch College in Manhattan for Clinton's non-concession speech. The scene was made to look festive: The Clinton campaign ordered 70 boxes of Domino's pizza for the press corps, and set up a cash bar for its fundraisers, or "honored guests." The honored guests were not in a partying mood, however. One older woman pointed at a reporter accusingly and said: "He is the one who destroyed our heroine!"

A crew from "The Daily Show" joined the party, and, hoping to keep Clinton in the race, struck up a cheer of "Four more months!"

Jimmy Carter (Guardian UK):

"Jimmy Carter tells Barack Obama not to pick Hillary Clinton as running mate"--“I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made. That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates.”

Debby Pattin, Thurston County Barack Obama organizer (The Olympian-WA):

“I was really disappointed in her speech when she said she wanted her people to email her adviser on her campaign,” Pattin said. “We all went ‘what????’ He’s got enough delegates. He’s over the top. Why does she need to have people email her and pledge money to her campaign?’’

Well, there might be some splitting of hairs and votes left to do.

Meantime, Pattin said she hopes Obama picks Virginia Sen. Jim Webb as running mate, noting that Webb was a Marine who served in Vietnam and later served as Navy secretary in Republican Ronald Reagan’s cabinet. She flat out doesn’t want Clinton as vice president.

Barack Obama

"Where do we go from here"?

Politico:

--Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, on MSNBC, re Obama and the Clintons: “It’s the biggest diplomatic mission that he’s been on so far. If, as he says, he wants to be a diplomat to the world and use his skills of diplomacy, long before he ever gets to some other leaders around the world, he’s going to have to figure out how to handle both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. I think he’ll be gracious – I think Obama is gracious by nature. He’ll listen to her. He’ll ask her: What does she want, and what does she see her future as? I think he’ll play his cards very close to the vest and let HER take the lead, actually, in discussing her own future.”

Political Wire:

Obama's First Test is Handling Clinton--Until Sen. Barack Obama "deals with the Clinton question," it could be hard for him "to move on to what he would like to achieve next," the New York Times observes.

But Clinton's "actions on Tuesday could not have raised her stock with Mr. Obama. Whether she intended to or not, her remarks pulled the spotlight away from him, reminding him that in many ways, she is a character that is hard to push off the stage."

Roger Simon: "For someone giving indications she would like to be Obama's running mate, Clinton was surprisingly ungracious. In fact, if you had just awakened from a (blissful) 17-month sleep, you would have thought she had won."

"But her fighting words only increased the need for Obama to show that he can be strong, tough and in charge. Clinton's unwillingness to recognize Obama as the victor only increased the need for Obama to act like a president and not like a doormat. And denying her a vice presidential slot may be a way of doing that."

Barack Obama

"McAuliffe: If Obama Gets Magic Number, Hillary Will Concede" (Updated w/video)

UPDATE: Here's the video from MSNBC (04:51).

Greg Sargent (TPM Election Central):

Did Hillary campaign chair Terry McAuliffe just reveal that Hillary will concede defeat when Obama clinches the magic number of 2,118 delegates?

He certainly appeared to do just that this morning on The Today Show. Here's the exchange...

QUESTION: If Barack Obama reaches that number today or tomorrow do you believe that Sen. Clinton is prepared to concede?

McAULIFFE: Yeah, I think that if Sen. Obama gets the numbers, I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him, and call him the nominee.

The tell there, I think, is that the questioner asked specifically what she would do if Obama hit the number today or tomorrow. And McAuliffe clearly said, Yes, she'll concede.

We'll see what happens.

Howie P.S.: You can say that again.

Barack Obama

"Clinton expected to decide future of her candidacy"

Newsday:

Her angry defenders were chanting "Denver!" on Saturday, but Hillary Rodham Clinton is headed to Chappaqua late tonight for a somber and potentially momentous homecoming.

Clinton will huddle with advisers and husband Bill Clinton at her mansion tomorrow, according to people familiar with her plans. She will monitor results from the final 2008 primaries in South Dakota and Montana and decide whether, how and when she will end her campaign as Barack Obama nears the nomination threshold.

"The only real counsel to Hillary is Bill; it's not a wide circle, so we're not sure what they'll do," said one of Clinton's top supporters in New York.

The return home after 17 months of campaigning is likely to be an emotional one for Clinton. The former first lady's spirits had been buoyed by cheering, affectionate crowds and friends said they are unsure how she will react with the primaries behind her.

"But she'll have to make a decision either way on Tuesday," said a senior adviser.

Clinton is scheduled to leave New York late tomorrow or early Wednesday for Washington, where she will speak before a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.

Clinton has repeatedly said she will campaign enthusiastically for Obama if he's the nominee, but thorny issues remain, including how to deal with Clinton's $20-million-plus debt and her apparent desire to be offered the vice presidential slot.

Obama, who stands within about 50 delegates of the 2,118-delegate benchmark for the nomination after his loss in Puerto Rico, could declare victory as early as tomorrow night. To do so he will need about two dozen of the 200-odd uncommitted superdelegates to endorse him.

Despite a public display of defiance following the Democratic National Committee's controversial decision to award uncommitted delegates from Michigan to Obama, Clinton's advisers downplayed the notion that the former first lady would appeal, dragging the process out for weeks.

"I don't think we're going to fight this at the convention," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton stalwart, told CBS' "Face the Nation" yesterday. "It would be a fight that would have no purpose."

Many in the Clinton camp see her Michigan defeat as a harbinger of the end, expressing shock that longtime loyalists Don Fowler and Elaine Kamarck OKd the pro-Obama deal before a DNC committee.

"Hillary couldn't even keep the Clinton backers on the committee - so how the hell is she going to hold this thing together?" asked one of Clinton's top campaign bundlers.

Still, she hopes to convince uncommitted superdelegates her claim on the lead in popular votes makes her the most electable Democrat.

"When the voting concludes on Tuesday, more Americans will have voted for Senator Clinton than Senator Obama," said spokesman Howard Wolfson.

"The last time the Democrats didn't give the nomination to the candidate who won the most votes was in 1972," he added, in a none-too-subtle reference to the disastrous candidacy of George McGovern.

And many of her supporters are vowing to fight on despite the odds. Some have circulated a 17-page critique of the party's primary rules prepared by Clinton supporter Stephen Herbits.

It's titled: "The 2008 DNC Presidential Nomination Process: A Crisis Of Legitimacy."

"Clinton camp converging on New York Tuesday, and shedding staff"

Ben Smith:

Members of Hillary Clinton's advance staff received calls and emails this evening from headquarters summoning them to New York City Tuesday night, and telling them their roles on the campaign are ending, two Clinton staffers tell my colleague Amie Parnes.

The advance staffers -- most of them now in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana -- are being given the options of going to New York for a final day Tuesday, or going home, the aides said. The move is a sign that the campaign is beginning to shed -- at least -- some of its staff. The advance staff is responsible for arranging the candidate's events around the country.

With the future of her campaign in doubt, Clinton hasn't announced her plans for the final election night of the primary cycle or beyond, but the aides said she would stage her election night event in New York City. Her entourage is currently expected to wake up Tuesday in New York and to arrive in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night.

Clinton's senior aides didn't respond to requests for comment on her Tuesday night plans.

"Hillary Clinton to be offered dignified exit"

Telegraph (UK):

Hillary Clinton will be offered a dignified exit from the presidential race and the prospect of a place in Barack Obama's cabinet under plans for a "negotiated surrender" of her White House ambitions being drawn up by Senator Obama's aides.
The former First Lady would get the chance to pilot Mr Obama’s reforms of the American healthcare system if she agrees to clear the path to his nomination as Democratic presidential candidate.

Senior figures in the Obama camp have told Democrat colleagues that the offer to Mrs Clinton of a cabinet post as health secretary or to steer new legislation through the Senate will be a central element of their peace overtures to the New York senator.

Mr Obama said on Thursday that he believed he would have secured the support of enough delegates to make him the standard bearer of his party in November’s presidential election by the end of this week.

His cause received what could be a decisive boost when the Democratic Rules Committee agreed a compromise to seat only half of the delegates elected in Michigan and Florida.

Both states were won by Mrs Clinton but were stripped of their voting rights after moving election dates in breach of party rules.

After today’s primary election in Puerto Rico and Tuesday’s final contests in Montana and South Dakota, the remaining super-delegates will come under huge pressure from fellow party grandees to declare their hands.

The Obama camp, however, remains nervous about Mrs Clinton’s intentions and ambitions, and is preparing a face-saving package that will allow her to continue to play a role in health care reform, which has been her signature issue for more than a decade. Despite pressure from some Clinton allies, Mr Obama and his advisers do not wish to ask her to be his vice-presidential running mate. “They will talk to her,” one Democrat strategist close to senior figures in the Obama camp told The Sunday Telegraph. “They will give her the respect she deserves. She will get something to do with health care, a cabinet post or the chance to lead the legislation through the Senate.”

Another Democrat who has discussed strategy with friends in the Obama inner circle said that Mr Obama was openly considering asking Mrs Clinton to join his cabinet, alongside two other former presidential rivals: John Edwards, who is seen as a likely attorney general; and Joe Biden, who is a leading contender to become Secretary of State.

Mr Obama hinted at the plan last week. “One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln,” he said. “Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was 'how can we get this country through this time of crisis?’ And I think that has to be the approach that one takes.”

Informal talks have already begun between Obama and Clinton fundraisers to discuss a merger, enabling Mr Obama to pay off Mrs Clinton’s campaign debts of $11 million (£5.6 million).

Tentative contacts have already taken place between Obama and Clinton aides over the endgame, but there have been no formal talks. Mrs Clinton’s aides, while acknowledging that she will have to abandon her White House dream, do not feel they are in a position to negotiate on her behalf. “She has not surrendered in her own mind yet and until she does it’s very difficult to have these conversations,” the second strategist said.

Dee Dee Myers, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said: “It seems clear to me from watching her, and talking to people, that she doesn’t really know what she wants.” But after 17 months of campaigning, and $150 million (£76 million) spent, the question that haunts the Clinton camp is: how did someone who a year ago had unrivalled name recognition, a legendary campaign organisation and more money than her opponent contrive to throw it all away?

The answers come down to wrong message, wrong tactics, complacency, character – and, ultimately, the opponent. Even Clinton aides agree that she wrongly sold herself as a candidate of experience, when voters yearned for Barack Obama’s message of change. Her campaign machine then failed to win January’s crucial opening Iowa caucuses, handing lethal momentum to Mr Obama.

Her staff mistakenly believed they could knock her rival out by “Super Tuesday” on February 5, when 22 states voted. When that did not happen, she had neither the resources nor the organisation to compete in the succession of caucuses that followed, allowing Mr Obama to build the delegate lead he maintains to this day.

Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster not affiliated to either camp, told The Sunday Telegraph: “We have known for two years that Democrats and voters in general are much more interested in change. Yet for reasons that are inexplicable, the Clinton campaign chose to be on the short end of that message stick.”

Backed into a corner, Mrs Clinton responded with increasingly outlandish claims about her qualifications, including a ludicrous statement that she had braved sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia.

That, plus her subsequent insistence that she had merely “mis-spoken” rather than admitting she had got her facts wrong, raised new issues about her character.

In any case, Mr Mellman believes the decisive factor in her defeat was the one she couldn’t control. “The most important thing was that she was up against Barack Obama. He is enormously talented.”

Barack Obama

The End Is Near

"Fla., Mich. Delegates Each Get Half a Vote" (WaPo)

But it was the Michigan plan, approved by a 19 to 8 vote, that drew sharper opposition because of the way that state's delegates will be awarded. Under the plan, Clinton will be given 34.5 delegate votes in Denver to Obama's 29.5 delegate votes, a percentage distribution recommended by leaders of the Michigan Democratic Party but opposed by the Clinton campaign officials, who said it violates the results of Michigan's Jan. 15 primary.

"New Magic Number, 2118, Means Obama Needs Just 25 More Supers" (Al Giordano)

Today’s Rules and Bylaws Committee decisions mean that Obama has, in the bag, 2052 delegates, just 66 short of the 2118 needed at the convention.

Tomorrow in Puerto Rico he will pick up about 24 delegates. And on Tuesday in South Dakota and Montana he will pick up about 17, for a total of +41 more pledged delegates, bringing him to at least 2093 delegates, which means he needs only 25 superdelegates to clinch the nomination.

And for anyone that thinks this is going to the convention in any meaningful way, look at the pathetically small size of the pro-Clinton demonstrations outside the hotel in DC today. Tens of thousands had been promised. A few hundred showed up. Clinton’s convocatory power for those kinds of shenanigans is already done.

All these weeks of threats and tantrums have proved lame. And more evidence of that is coming in the next 72 hours.

"Obama used party rules to foil Clinton" (AP)

Unlike Hillary Rodham Clinton, rival Barack Obama planned for the long haul.

Clinton hinged her whole campaign on an early knockout blow on Super Tuesday, while Obama's staff researched congressional districts in states with primaries that were months away. What they found were opportunities to win delegates, even in states they would eventually lose.

Obama's campaign mastered some of the most arcane rules in politics, and then used them to foil a front-runner who seemed to have every advantage—money, fame and a husband who had essentially run the Democratic Party for eight years as president.

"DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee Reaches Agreement on Seating Florida and Michigan Delegations" (DNC)

"Today, after careful consideration and debate, the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee reached an agreement on the two challenges before the Committee on seating delegations from Florida and Michigan. The Committee voted to seat the full Florida delegation with a half-vote each. The RBC accepted the Michigan Leadership Plan as presented today by the Michigan Democratic Party with the exception that each delegate receives a half vote. In addition, the Committee agreed that delegates from both states should be slated under Rules 5, 6, 7, and 12, outlining the candidate's right of approval. With this decision, the revised total of delegate votes needed to secure the nomination is 2,118.

"No Road Map for Democrats as Race Ends" (NY Times)

Mrs. Clinton has kept her counsel about what she might do to draw her campaign to a close. But when the rules committee of the Democratic Party divided up delegates from Michigan and Florida on Saturday night, Harold Ickes, a committee member and Clinton adviser, said she was reserving the right to contest the decision into the summer.

Still, despite the fireworks, Mrs. Clinton’s associates said she seemed to have come to terms over the last week with the near certainty that she would not win the nomination, even as she continued to assert, with what one associate described as subdued resignation, that the Democrats are making a mistake in sending Mr. Obama up against Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Her associates said the most likely outcome was that she would end her bid with a speech, probably back home in New York, in which she would endorse Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton herself suggested on Friday that the contest would end sometime next week.

But that is not a certainty; Mr. Obama’s announcement on Saturday that he would leave his church was just another reminder of how events continue to unfold in the race.

"Obama Resigns From Trinity United Church" (Huffington Post)

The Chicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet has Obama's remarks at a press conference in South Dakota on his decision to resign from Trinity United Church Of Christ In Chicago:

"I have to say--this is one I did not see coming," said Obama. He said it has been months since he has been at the church, on Chicago's South Side. "I did not anticipate my fairly conventional Christian faith being subjected to such...scrutiny.

Obama sent a letter to the church with his resignation on Sunday; Obama called the press conference after the letter leaked to veteran Chicago journalist Monroe Anderson, a contributor to Ebony and Jet. Otherwise, Obama said, he would have not made his resignation known at this time.

"My faith is not contingent on the particular church I belong to and I do not believe that I am going through a religious test," he said.

Barack Obama

Political Junkies and Geeks: "Watch The DNC Meeting Live"

Streaming video on The Huffington Post via democraticvideo's channel on Justin.tv.

Barack Obama

“We’ll Be Living in a Different World, Politically, a Week from Now” (video)

jedreport, video from NBC News (01:13):

Russert's report confirms reports by Ambinder and Al Giordano.

Barack Obama

"DNC: Fla., Mich. Can't Be Fully Restored"--Obama campaign: "Don't demonstrate"

AP:

A Democratic Party rules committee has the authority to seat some delegates from Michigan and Florida but not fully restore the two states as Hillary Rodham Clinton wants, according to party lawyers.

Democratic National Committee rules require that the two states lose at least half of their convention delegates for holding elections too early, the party's legal experts wrote in a 38-page memo.

The memo was sent late Tuesday to the 30 members of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, which plans to meet Saturday at a Washington hotel. The committee is considering ways to include the two important general election battlegrounds at the nominating convention in August, and the staff analysis says seating half the delegates is "as far as it legally can" go.

Saturday's meeting is expected to draw a large crowd, with Clinton supporters among those encouraging a protest outside demanding that all the states' delegates be seated. Proponents of full reseating have mailed committee members Florida oranges and pairs of shoes to get their attention.

DNC officials are concerned about a potentially large turnout at the "Count Every Vote" rally outside the event and have asked the hotel staff to increase security to keep everyone safe. The DNC says the roughly 500 seats available to the public inside were taken within three or four minutes of becoming available online Tuesday.

The DNC analysis does not make recommendations for how the Rules and Bylaws Committee should vote, but gives context from the party's charter and bylaws for the committee to consider.

It underscores a prickly problem: If the Rules and Bylaws Committee decides to restore any of the states' delegates, there is not a simple way to divide them between Clinton and Barack Obama.

That's especially true in Michigan, where Obama had his name pulled from the ballot. He didn't have the option of removing his name in Florida, but all the candidates signed a pledge not to campaign in either state.

Clinton won the majority of the vote in Florida and Michigan and has been arguing that the delegates should be fully restored according to the results of the January primaries. But even if they were, it would not be enough for her to overtake Obama's delegate lead.

As it becomes clear that Obama likely will win the nomination, he has been working to win over voters in the two states with visits in recent days. He plans to return to Michigan on Monday.

The DNC staff analysis argues that the Rules and Bylaws Committee was fully within its rights to strip all 368 delegates from the two states when they scheduled primaries in January. Party rules said their nominating contests could be no earlier than Feb. 5. Michigan voted on Jan. 15, Florida on Jan. 29.

The analysis also said there is an option to restore 100 percent of the delegates _ by a recommendation of the Credentials Committee that meets later this summer. However, that would mean a final decision would not be made until the first day of the convention in Denver since Credentials Committee decisions have to be approved by the full convention as it convenes — risking a floor fight.

Alice Huffman, a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee from California who is supporting Clinton, said she has been barraged with e-mails in the past few weeks. She said the senders include Floridians who are upset that they are being disenfranchised, and she has started printing out the messages so she'll have a record to explain her decision.

"This is a really, really significant issue to women. Obviously it's a significant item to people of color too. So I'm just preparing myself as best I can," said Huffman, president of the California NAACP.

The shoe shipments are being organized by WalkAMileInOurShoes.org and1 the orange idea was promoted by a group called Florida Demands Representation, which plans to bus Floridians to Saturday's rally outside the meeting. Blaine Whitford, a volunteer helping organize the effort, said they are unaligned with any candidate.

Susie Buell, one of Clinton's top fundraisers, has formed a political action committee encouraging women to support full seating of the delegates. The WomenCountPAC has taken out ads in USA Today and The New York Times promoting attendance at the rally.

Also: "Obama urges supporters not to demonstrate at crucial DNC meeting" (The Hill):

Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) campaign is urging its supporters not to demonstrate at Saturday’s highly anticipated Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting on how to handle the delegates of Florida and Michigan.

In an internal campaign e-mail obtained by The Hill, the Obama campaign states, “We look forward to the meeting proceeding smoothly — and we’re asking our supporters not to show up to demonstrate, passionately as they feel about this campaign.”

This weekend’s meeting of the DNC’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) at a Marriot Wardman Park hotel in Washington, D.C. is expected to be a media circus, and will likely attract many supporters of Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

But the Obama campaign wants to avoid heated intraparty confrontations that would attract national headlines and be replayed on the cable news networks. Saturday’s potential public relations nightmare comes as the Obama campaign is taking steps to unify the party as the Democratic primary process appears to be winding down.

The DNC stated on its Web site that demand for the meeting was extremely high: “Just a quick note if you tried to register for the RBC meeting this morning. First, yes, it did go online. For about a minute. There was a lot if demand and we’re sorry if you didn’t get a spot...they were gone pretty quickly.”

The difference between nabbing a spot and falling short “was a matter of seconds,” the DNC stated.

The Obama campaign “talking points” e-mail cautions supporters not to speculate about what will happen on Saturday though it emphasizes that the Illinois senator will campaign vigorously in both states for the general election.

In a Q&A section of the e-mail, a question reads, “Sen. Obama has such a large lead that the outcome of this nomination is all-but academic. Why not just seat the delegates as they voted so that Sen. Clinton has one less reason to continue her campaign?”

The answer states, “That’s not Sen. Obama’s decision to make. The rules for this nomination contest were designed and are enforced by the Democratic National Committee. That’s why our campaign is working to forge a fair agreement that will ensure Democrats from Florida and Michigan will be able to participate in our convention.”

The Clinton campaign has repeatedly stressed that all the votes should be counted, including those cast in Florida and Michigan. Both states were punished by the DNC because they violated the committee’s rules by moving up their primaries.

The DNC bylaws meeting is seen as Clinton’s last-ditch effort to make up significant ground on Obama in the delegate count. Clinton won both states easily, but Obama pulled his name off the ballot in Michigan and, like the former first lady, did not actively campaign in Florida.

The talking points memo provides some answers to potential questions about Saturday. One reads, “I don’t think that any of us are in a position to speculate about possible outcomes at the meeting — but what I do know is that the Obama campaign is as eager as anyone to see this situation resolved fairly, which reflects the desire of these delegations to be seated and the fact that we and all the candidates competed under rules in which there were no delegates to be awarded and no campaigning took place.”

It adds, “Obviously, the May 31 meeting will be an important part of reaching an agreement that’s in the best interests of Florida and Michigan voters and in the best interests of the Democratic Party.”

Barack Obama