The toughest task remaining for Barack Obama in this twilight phase of the neverending Democratic primary battle isn't avoiding embarrassment in Kentucky (he won't), finding a consensus solution to the Florida/Michigan dispute (he might) or racking up enough delegates to finally clinch the nomination (he will, eventually). It's earning the trust of Democratic voters like Cynthia Ruccia, 55, and Jamie Dixey, 57, of Columbus, Ohio. The organizers of a new group called "Clinton Supporters Count, Too" that plans to work actively against Obama in swing states in the fall, Ruccia and Dixey represent a sizable number of Clintonites, many of them women, whose initial preference for the former First Lady has hardened into an unyielding opposition to her rival. The reason? What they perceive as the "intense sexism" of party leaders, the media and/or the Obama campaign itself. "It’s been open season on women," the pair told the Politico this morning. "And we feel we need to stand up and make a statement about that, because it’s wrong.”

Obama is well aware of the challenge--especially because he made it more daunting earlier this week. During a tour Wednesday of a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., local television reporter Peggy Agar asked the senator "how [he was] going to help the American autoworkers." Obama's response? "Hold on one second, sweetie." Unfortunately, Obama didn't follow through, and Agar closed her segment that night with the tart phrase "this sweetie never got an answer." Soon, the Politico, the Atlantic, the New York Times and other outlets posted items on the exchange; reporters noted that Obama had also called a female factory worker “sweetie” in Allentown, Penn. Thus, a pattern. Obama supporters chided the media for not covering "the issues"; Clinton supporters sensed paternalist condescension--and even sexism.

Who's right? Addressing someone as "sweetie" isn't necessarily sexist, as any diner patron can attest; it can easily be a term of endearment, depending on whether or not it's welcome. (Agar, for the record, was "more offended that he didn't answer the question"--hardly a rare occurrence on the trail.) Regardless, thousands of voters like Ruccia and Dixley (justifiably) cringed; they already felt that system that enabled Obama's rise--if not the players themselves--was sexist, and his slip merely reinforced that impression. And that's all that matters. Should the media obsess over "sweetie" instead of climate-change policy? Of course not. But when it represents the chasm between Obama and a sizable segment of his own party--unlike, say, Obama's plan to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050--it's impossible to ignore. Going forward, Obama has to win over at least some of the world's Ruccias and Dixleys (or their less vocal brethren)--even if he didn't create the Hillary Nutcracker with his bare hands or use Photoshop to depict Clinton as a witch. So the reason he said "sweetie" is less relevant than the reaction it produced, and the sense of marginalization it reinforced.

For his part, Obama immediately acknowledged as much. Shortly after three o'clock yesterday afternoon, the Illinois senator left a message for Agar apologizing for failing to answer her question--and for the word he used in doing it. "Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie,'" he said. "That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front." Gentlemanly mea culpa or necessary political maneuver? We report, you decide. But if Obama's "sweetie" episode illustrates anything, it's that the senator and probable nominee still has a long way to go on the dangerously narrow road to Democratic unity--especially where the passions of gender are involved. Kicking this particular "bad habit" is only the first small step.

Yesterday, we chronicled Vice President Dick Cheney's first foray onto the 2008 campaign trail and its catastrophic conclusion: a loss in Mississippi's scarlet red First District for Republican Congressional wannabe Greg Davis... to a Democrat (shudder). Now Cheney's second-in-command, President George W. Bush, has injected himself into the race as well--and his debut is proving to be even more spectacularly disastrous than his not-so-better half's.

Dubya's first mistake? Choice of venue. Speaking earlier today before the Israeli parliament in honor of the country's 60th anniversary, Bush kicked off the festivities by acting more or less, you know, "presidential." He spoke of America's unwavering support for the Jewish State. He portrayed the future of the Middle East as a time of "tolerance and integration." He reiterated his belief that democracy would triumph over terrorism. Oh, and then he used the diplomatic forum to launch a veiled but stinging attack on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, breaking the unwritten rule of U.S. politics that partisan bickering stops at our water's edge. "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals," he said in the Knesset, "as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." The "some," White House aides privately confirmed to CNN, referred to Obama, who has said that as president he will engage in direct talks with the heads of hostile states--but has also made it abundantly clear that he will not sit down with "terrorists and radicals" like, say, Hamas. So much for seeming presidential.

And that was only the beginning. Turning up the heat, Bush went on to cast himself as Winston Churchill to Obama's Neville Chamberlain, implying that the Democratic senator favors "appeasing" terrorists much as some Western leaders sought to appease Adolf Hitler in the run-up to World War II. "We have heard this foolish delusion before," said Bush. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." Hyperbolic Nazi comparisons = never a political winner. Oy vey, indeed.

There is, of course, a valuable debate to be had over whether the U.S. president should agree to unconditional talks with, say, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. But by distorting Obama's stance beyond all recognition and using the charged context of the Knesset--along with a handful of inappropriate historical allusions*--to not-so-subtly raise further doubts about the Democratic candidate with Jewish Americans, Bush indicated that he's less interested in highlighting foreign-policy differences than in fear-mongering for political gain.

The point, it seems, was to boost John McCain. Unfortunately for Bush--and the GOP--the assault has proven to be pretty foolish politics. Like children with Christmas presents, the entire Democratic establishment immediately ripped into the president for his remarks. "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," said Obama in a statement. "It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel." Obama communications director Robert Gibbs called Bush's swipe an “astonishing” show of "cowboy diplomacy" and an “unprecedented political attack on foreign soil.” "Beneath the dignity of the office," said Nancy Pelosi; "Does the president have no shame?" asked Rahm Emanuel. DNC Chairman Howard Dean demanded that McCain "denounce these remarks in the strongest terms possible.” And Joe Biden summed up the situation in typically Bidenesque terms. "This is bulls**t," he said in a Senate hallway. "This is malarkey."

Whether or not Dubya's history lesson was, indeed, "malarkey," the Dems are smart to treat it like a big, shiny gift from Santa Claus. As the New Republic's Christopher Orr puts it, "Bush attacking Obama, and Obama counter-attacking Bush, while John McCain sits on the sidelines, is a disastrous dynamic for the GOP. The more Obama can frame this race as him vs. the most unpopular president in modern history, the easier a time he'll have in the fall." Before, Obama had to tie McCain to Bush to accomplish this task--and it was often a stretch, seeing as the Arizona senator has broken with the administration on issues like global warming and even Iraq strategy. But now that Bush has entered the ring himself, Obama can finally fight the opponent he's been itching to fight all along.

McCain, for his part, is left in an awkward position. After Bush's Knesset kvetching caught fire this morning in Washington, D.C., White House spokeswoman Dana Perino contradicted what aides had already told CNN and insisted that her boss wasn't referring to Obama. "There are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to," she informed reporters in Jerusalem. With that in mind, then, there are only two explanations for Bush's "who, me?" defense, and both align with the worst criticisms of his character: either he's too dumb to realize that the entire world would hear his comments as a swipe at Obama--highly unlikely--or he's being disingenuous. Hours later in Columbus, Ohio, McCain told the press that "he took the White House at its word"--a diplomatic response--and then pivoted to hit Obama himself. "This does bring up an issue that we will be discussing with the American people," he said, "and that is why does Barack Obama, Senator Obama, want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism?" Unlike Bush, McCain was honestly characterizing Obama's position and indicating an interest in substantive debate. But don't expect Biden, Pelosi, Dean, Emanuel--or Obama--to make that distinction for him in the fall. They'll simply say he embraced the radioactive president--implying that he must be either dumb or disingenuous himself.

In other words, "more of the same."

UPDATE, 5:17 p.m.:  Another negative effect on McCain: Bush's remarks stepped all over his major speech this morning, which "was billed by his campaign as one of his most important to date and a summary of sorts of the past two months of policy addresses and promises." Although the McCain camp probably doesn't mind Bush putting Obama on the defensive re: a touchy subject like Israel, that benefit doesn't outweigh the costs of 1) having the day's message, which was geared toward independents, completely drowned out and 2) being forced instead to play sidekick to the most unpopular president in modern history--a sure turn-off for the very independents that McCain was supposed to spend the day courting.

* UPDATE, 5:34 p.m.: Why is the Nazi comparison inappropriate in this context? Blogger Matt Eckel of Foreign Policy Watch sums it up nicely:

Any benefits of Munich as an instructive historical precedent are now far outweighed by the analogy's power as an intellectually lazy rhetorical cudgel that is too often used to bludgeon any diplomatic initiatives that are, well, diplomatic. Not every autocratic country is Nazi Germany. Not every foreign dictator we don't like is Hitler. Not every threatening situation is most appropriately handled by eschewing diplomacy in favor of a "firm stance." ... Iran is not Nazi Germany. Though the Iranian regime is anti-democratic, and espouses values that are indeed antithetical to those of the liberal West, the notion that Iranian armies and proxies are poised to make a genocidal sweep across the Middle East is absurd. Even the Iranian nuclear threat, though serious, shows every sign of being able to be contained with an intelligent deterrence policy (should things come to that). Iran does not have a particularly impressive industrial base. Its infrastructure is mediocre, its economy is sclerotic (propped up only by high oil prices), and its regime is unpopular. Even the outrageous statements about Israel made by President Ahmadinejad should be taken with a grain of salt, remembering that the Iranian President is not the head of state, and that he is acutally at odds with much of Iran's clerical leaders.
 

For campaign reporters, the arrival of the sleeve-talkers on the trail is an inevitable inconvenience--and this cycle has been the most inconvenient so far.

Breaking with tradition, Secret Service agents have accompanied both Democratic candidates from the start of the season, continuing to follow former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who's been under their care since leaving the White House in 2001, and joining Barack Obama's campaign for the first time in May 2007--earlier than any other presidential hopeful in history--after he reported receiving death threats. That's meant traffic jams, pat-downs, metal detectors, comprehensive sweeps and bomb dogs at every campaign stop, plus less in-person access to the candidates themselves. The one bright spot: John McCain. In contrast to Clinton and Obama, he has long declined protection, preferring instead to enjoy the "relative freedom of delving into unscreened crowds and riding Amtrak trains unencumbered by an entourage."It's the inconvenience it causes people," he explained last November, even claiming that he would scale back his Secret Service detail if elected president. "It's a waste of the taxpayers money. It's just everything I don't like." Which is why it came as such an unwelcome surprise for reporters to learn in late April that the Arizona senator, bowing to wife Cindy's concerns, had finally accepted protection. "Certainly, having Secret Service protection impacts people's lives," former deputy director Barbara Riggs told ABC News. No duh, responded the press corp. 

But according to my colleague Holly Bailey, who's traveling with McCain in Ohio today, it turns out that the new boys on the bus aren't all bad.  Speeding to the Columbus airport this morning--the cameramen needed to arrive before the senator to snap a shot of him boarding the plane--McCain's press bus was pulled over by a local motorcycle cop. 65 mph in a 55-mph zone, he said. But just as the officer was about to write a ticket, a Secret Service agent intervened--and, after flashing his badge and mumbling a few words, was able to get the driver off with a mere warning.

Who knew these guys were so powerful?

 

Launched in conjunction with today's speech in Ohio, McCain's new web ad, "2013," focuses on what he envisions achieving during his first term in the White House.

Here's Holly Bailey with a report from the McCain roadshow.

With the fight over the Democratic nomination still getting most of the attention, John McCain hasn't been making much news lately-and he seems fine with it. The all but official Republican presidential nominee has been touring the country raising money and giving speeches that don't tread much in the way of new stuff. Visiting the Northwest earlier this week on an environmental tour, McCain mostly rehashed positions we already know--namely that, contrary to President Bush, he strongly believes climate change is a big issue that needs to be dealt with. It's a revelation that isn't exactly breaking news to most of those who follow McCain regularly, but it did generate lots of coverage in the local news, which is what his campaign seems to be aiming for these days.

But the pendulum will no doubt swing back McCain's way thanks to a speech the senator is set to give this morning in the all important swing state of  Ohio. Speaking before a local business group in Columbus, the Arizona senator will talk about how he believes the world will be in 2013, the year he might be entering his second term in the White House. It's a speech full of big time promises: that he'll be bipartisan, that he'll give weekly news conferences, that he wants to go before Congress and take questions regularly (town hall, anyone?) and in a dig at the Bush administration, he'll admit his mistakes. "When we make errors, I will confess them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them," McCain will say, according to excerpts provided by his campaign. But the big headline here will no doubt be that he sees a world in 2013 in which Iraq is stable and most of the troops are home. Here's the key paragraph, as released by the campaign:

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role."

The key phrase here is this is how McCain "would hope to have achieved," so it's far from written in stone. But it's still a pretty notable statement for a guy who tends not to go into specifics of troop withdrawals from Iraq. The distinction in what McCain appears to be backing and what Democrats have advocated is that he'll bring the troops home by winning, as opposed to just simply bringing them home by the end of his first term.

Big picture: the speech is a preview, in part of how McCain will run against Barack Obama this fall. Already, McCain and his aides have sought to portray Obama as a guy gifted with the ability to give a soaring beautiful speech but who lacks substance. "There aren't very many specifics coming out of the Obama campaign," Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who is now advising McCain on economic issues, tells Newsweek. "John McCain has far more specifics out there about what he's really going to do."

McCain can talk all day about what he'll do, but what he'll actually get done is a different story. Today's speech doesn't explicitly say but acknowledges, as McCain often does, that if he wins in November he'll be working with a very Democratic, likely very hostile, Congress. "I am presumptuous enough to think I would be a good President, but not so much that I believe I can govern by command. Should I forget that, Congress will, of course, hasten to remind me," McCain says. "I will focus all the powers of the office; every skill and strength I possess; and seize every opportunity to work with members of Congress who put the national interest ahead of partisanship, and any country in the world that shares our hopes for a more peaceful and prosperous world." That's a lofty statement--but the bigger question is how McCain will make it happen.

 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

STEELING OBAMA
(Douglas E. Schoen, Los Angeles Times)
Conventional wisdom suggests that these last two months have been bad news for Barack Obama. He hasn't been able to close the door on Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, who swept West Virginia on Tuesday. He's been dogged by controversies over his words and associates. Meanwhile, Republican John McCain has been getting a jump-start on the fall campaign. Although those things may be true, so is this: The last six weeks have been a great benefit to Obama -- and may emerge as the most important period of his quest for the presidency. The poll evidence is unambiguous: He's suffered no short-term damage. A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows Obama leading McCain in a hypothetical matchup by six points; in February, he was trailing by two. The Rasmussen Reports' estimate of electoral college strength has him leading McCain, 260 to 240. And a recent CBS/New York Times poll reveals that over the last few weeks, Obama's favorability rating actually increased by five points. So these controversies of early 2008 have strengthened, not weakened, Obama's position for the general election in November. How's that?

MCCAIN AIDE TRAINS HIS SIGHTS ON OBAMA
(Monica Langley, Wall Street Journal)
When it comes to Sen. McCain's image, Mr. Salter, 53 years old, is the campaign's chief creator, shaper and enforcer. For two decades, he has been the presumed Republican nominee's speechwriter, adviser and confidant. He has helped the senator write two best-selling memoirs, on which they split the proceeds 50-50. The senator says they are "like brothers." Now that Sen. Barack Obama has emerged as the likely Democratic nominee, Mr. Salter is poised to play a large role in a general-election campaign filled with potential land mines, from race issues to Sen. McCain's age, which is 71. Early signs are that Mr. Salter will urge a feisty campaign -- in character for a man who once wrestled a persistent critic of the senator to the floor of a congressional hallway.

CLINTON'S 11TH HOUR PUSH
(Alexander Bolton, The Hill)
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) rallied her Capitol Hill supporters on Wednesday night, telling them to bring an uncommitted friend and seeking to capitalize on her 41-percentage points victory in the West Virginia primary. But as she was scheduled to gather with her supporters, rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) grabbed another one — former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) endorsed him at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. Despite this blow, which handed Obama the support of a candidate whose appeal was largely to blue-collar workers, Clinton used the meeting at the Sewell-Belmont House to drive home the point that she is more competitive with precisely that category of voter, and in districts where Democrats will face their toughest races this fall. Clinton’s senior campaign adviser, Harold Ickes, met her congressional whip team Wednesday morning to make clear that she intends to stay in the race until June 3, the date of the last primary, despite recent speculation that she might drop her bid after Oregon and Kentucky hold primaries on May 20.

THE POLITICS OF THE LAPEL, WHEN IT COMES TO OBAMA
(Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times)
It showed up on Monday, right there on his lapel, as he addressed veterans in West Virginia: a flag pin.There it was again on Tuesday, in Missouri, as he spoke to workers at a garment factory. And it was there Wednesday as he toured a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., near here in the Detroit suburbs. Seven months ago, Senator Barack Obama said he did not feel compelled to wear a flag pin, saying he would prove his patriotism in deed, not apparel. What gives? Was it the woman in Indiana who pulled him aside, gently suggesting that he wear one? Was it part of a larger embrace of all those things presidential candidates simply have to do on a campaign, along with eating cheese steaks in Philadelphia or chugging Miller in Milwaukee? Or was it in reaction to continued questions like the one this week from a local reporter in South Charleston, W.Va., who asked how Mr. Obama could attract “blue-collar, white voters in this state,” adding, “They think you are un-American.” None of the above, say Mr. Obama’s aides, who have insisted during these rare three days of pin wearing — the first consecutive days he has worn the pin in the campaign — that it is just fashion happenstance.

SIX WAYS THE GOP CAN SAVE ITSELF
(Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, Politico)
1. Get a clue: Republicans desperately need to cook up some new ideas and craft an attractive agenda to have any chance of success. 2. Cut the crap: Republicans are dominating Democrats in one area right now: humiliating sex scandals. 3. Beg for help: The Republican infrastructure is crumbling... For now, Republicans need their rich backers to crack open their wallets. 4. Burn the Bush: There is something honorable about loyalty. But taken too far, it can start to look downright loony to voters. President Bush is as unpopular as Richard Nixon was in the days before his resignation. Cut him loose — quick. 5. Change the pitch — and your face: Several well-known Republicans said the party needs fresh, reassuring packaging and a more diverse crowd to deliver it. 6. Fan the fear: Ignore the critics, Republican wise men say — there is still no better way to win than to stir up concerns about Democratic patriotism and their commitment to national security and killing terrorists. It often remains the best call in the GOP playbook, especially with McCain atop the ticket.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

At 6:45 this evening, John Edwards strode on stage at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids to the sounds of Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising." "The reason I am here tonight is because the Democratic voters of America have made their choice," he said. "And so have I." His choice? Judging by all the "Change You Can Believe In" signs shimmering in the crowd--and the lanky black guy standing with him onstage--it was (drumroll, please) Barack Obama. Henceforth, the heavens opened, the American people wept and Chris Matthews and Co. began to prattle endlessly about how Edwards will help Obama win over those stubborn "white, working-class voters" who've been bedeviling him in the primaries.

The frantic coverage is a given. But will the Edwards endorsement actually change anything? It's unlikely--and the reason is timing. If the former North Carolina senator had taken a real risk and sided with the Illinois senator back when someone not named "Barack Obama" had even the remotest chance of clinching the nomination--say, before Super Tuesday, or Ohio, or even Indiana--he might have helped his blue-collar base overcome its suspicions, vote for his chosen candidate and bring this interminable battle to an end. But after Hillary Clinton failed to meet her own expectations in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, every sentient life-form on Planet Earth pretty much agreed that the former First Lady wouldn't be representing the Democratic Party in November. From that point on, Edwards endorsing Obama was a foregone conclusion. Edwards is a Democrat. Obama's the Democratic nominee. It had to happen eventually.

All of which is just to say: there's not much that an Edwards endorsement does for Obama right now that it wouldn't do on, say, June 4. (Besides shifting the storyline from "Obama isn't winning the Bubba vote" to "maybe he will.") The "white, working-class" voters of West Virginia can't recast their ballots. And Clinton will still clobber Obama--think 25 points--in Kentucky on Tuesday, even if Edwards joins him on the stump. With the primaries essentially over, Edwards is basically stepping into his inevitable general election role--a credible liaison to blue-collar America who seeks to sway skeptics by saying "I'm one of you and here's why I support this guy"--a few weeks early. When I mused this morning about why seven percent of West Virginians supported Edwards in yesterday's primary, a reader from West Virginia named "mountaingal" wrote in to explain. "I can tell the difference between pandering (Hillary downing shots), charismatic fluff (Obama's rhetoric) and honest-to-goodness conviction. [Edwards] understands where we come from... His 'son of a mill worker' message... resonates with those with similar upbringings." For that reason, Edwards will undoubtedly help bring Democratic voters like "mountaingal" into the Obama fold by November. But again, he was always going to do that. Whether he starts today or in two weeks doesn't make much of a difference.

That said, it's worth wondering how many mountaingals and mountainguys Edwards can "deliver" for Obama on Election Day--and whether those gains would actually help Obama overcome John McCain. The signs from his brief 2008 bid are somewhat encouraging. In South Carolina--the only remotely "Appalachian" state where Edwards competed--he won white men, whites over 30 and whites overall, despite earning only 18 percent of the vote to Clinton's 27 and Obama's 55. The only problem? Edwards has already attempted a similar feat on the national stage--and it didn't work out so well. In 2004, John Kerry captured only 41 percent of the white vote--not enough to defeat George Bush--and lost in Edwards' home state of North Carolina by a dozen points. Back then, Edwards wasn't just another surrogate; he was Kerry's running mate. So his record is mixed at best.

Tonight, Edwards opened his remarks with reams of praise for Clinton--and an explicit call for unity. "When this nomination battle is over--and it will be over soon--brothers and sisters, we must come together as Democrats and in the fall stand up for what matters for the future of America," he said. "We are a stronger party because Hillary Clinton is a Democrat." A gracious and necessary message, but even here it's unlikely that Edwards' timing will prove particularly consequential. Clinton is determined to battle at least until Montana and South Dakota vote on June 3, and any effort to declare a victor before then will only encourage her supporters to dig their heels in deeper. Far from changing any minds--other than those of a few fence-sitting superdelegates, perhaps--tonight's endorsement will merely reinforce the existing contours of the contest. The Democrats will come together eventually, and Edwards will do his duty. But until then, he--like the rest of us--is just going to have to wait.

1. The Republican Party in Kent County, Mich. releases an unbearably loooong B-grade web ad questioning Obama's patriotism ahead of his visit this evening to Grand Rapids. "Everyday, with more than 300 million separate voices, in thousands of communities large and small, we raise our families, celebrate our freedom, remember our heritage and strive to live up to our values," says the bombastic narrator as the color slowly, dramatically fades from a rippling American flag. "But Barack Obama sees a different America. From his elite point of view [insert 'bitter' comments, hamas 'endorsement' here]... So next time Barack Obama says he offers change you can believe in, ask him to show you his flag." Somewhere, a bald eagle is weeping.

2. Obama shows up in Missouri yesterday wearing--gasp!--a flag pin on his lapel, which he apparently donned at some point between Washington D.C. and Cape Girardeau:

3. Conservatives set their creaky "flip-flop" machinery in motion. "What gives?" writes Byron York of the National Review, noting that Obama also wore the pin in West Virginia and Michigan this week. "This is the man who said in 2007, 'The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security. I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.' What has changed?"

Asked that very same question yesterday in Missouri, Obama said, "Sometimes I wear it, sometimes I don't"--sort of like John McCain. But something tells us that in this case "sometimes" means either "every day between now and the fourth of November" or "never again."

UPDATE, May 15: Top Obama strategist David Axelrod on Obama wearing the flag pin, to Forbes.com: "I think he'll be doing more of that." Mystery solved.

Here's Suzanne Smalley with a post-West Virginia dispatch from Hillaryland.

"It's not over! It's not over!" The chant echoed through the Charleston Civic Center last night as defiant Hillary Clinton supporters urged their candidate to keep on fighting. The almost all-white crowd included a disproportionately large number of elderly women. The sparsely decorated main hall of the civic center—the barren walls made it all too obvious that Clinton's campaign is desperately low on funds—didn't matter, because the crowd kept things festive. Teenage girls wore homemade T-shirts saying "Hillary's Tag Team." A young man standing behind the podium where Clinton delivered her victory speech steadily punched an invisible opponent with red boxing gloves. A group of union members launched into a booming "Madame President" singsong.

... 

More than a dozen Clinton supporters interviewed by NEWSWEEK said they believe Clinton can still win, and many faulted a biased media for prematurely writing her off.

Helen Lambert, 76, said she and her husband drove to Charleston for the celebration because "it's not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it's over." Lambert said she has been a resolute supporter of the Clintons for decades. But Hillary has a special place in Lambert's heart. "She's so brilliant and so experienced," Lambert said. "She's smarter than all of those men … I just don't have any room in my brain or my heart for anybody but Hillary." Phyllis Rutledge, 76, agreed, saying, "I know she's gonna be president."

Keith Gwinn, 54, said he blames "the media hype" for prematurely ending the race. "If it is over why haven't they declared him the winner?" he said in reference to the presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. Gwinn said he is eagerly anticipating the May 31 decision of the Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, which will decide whether and how much weight to allocate to Michigan and Florida voters. (The national party stripped both states of their delegations as punishment for holding their primaries early, a decision that may be reversed by the rules committee). Barbara Yeager, 71, went even further, saying she'd like to see Clinton take her bid all the way to Denver. Yeager said a contested convention would be a way for Clinton to defy the media and win the nomination; she believes a convention floor fight would be exciting—and wouldn't hurt the party. "The media decides [the nomination] well in advance, and that's a shame," Yeager said. "TV has given her opponent way too much free time in coverage that she did not have equal access to."

Many in the crowd were hostile toward Obama. Jeanne Kendall, a 64-year-old lifelong Democrat from Eleanor, W. Va., thinks he's arrogant and said she'll sit out in November if he's the nominee. "If Obama wanted to win in West Virginia he should have made more visits," she said. "I don't think he thinks we come up to his standards."

There was an ugly tone to some of the crowd's comments about Obama. Menina Parsons, a 45-year-old Democrat from Milton, said she will not vote if Obama becomes the nominee. She said she is concerned about his "black supremacist" preacher and worries that Obama has family ties to radical Muslims (which is not true). Parsons said that because of these alleged ties, "if Obama gets in I'm concerned that the terrorist is gonna have an easier way in. I don't think he's real. I don't think he's American." Margaret Conner, who said she is "100 percent" Democrat, said she'll vote for McCain over Obama because she is alarmed by Obama's association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and, more generally, she is suspicious of Obama's "background, his heritage." Conner said most of her Democratic friends also plan to vote Republican if Obama wins the nomination.

If Clinton's team was aware of the kind of sentiments that helped pump up their 41-point margin, they didn't let on. A jubilant Terry McAuliffe, the campaign's chairman, ran up the aisle of the campaign's charter plane en route to Washington late last night and shouted at the press, "West Virginia, baby! We are sweeping this thing!"

READ THE REST HERE. 
 

Poor Dick Cheney. He was only trying to help.

Judging by the blog buzz and Beltway chatter, yesterday's most significant and surprising election wasn't the one in West Virginia--apparently, everyone expected Hillary Clinton to win--but the cagematch in Mississippi's First Congressional District, where Democrat Travis Childers’ thumped Republican Greg Davis 54-46. The odds were in Davis's favor. George W. Bush won this heavily red Deep South district by 45 points in 2004. Republican Roger Wicker had captured the seat with 63 to 79 percent of the vote every two years since 1994. And Childers' bears an uncanny resemblance to the Dudley Do-Right villain Snidley Whiplash, known less for his legislative prowess than his proclivity for tying damsels to the railroad tracks. But the Democrat pulled it out, winning in a "district no center-left party has any business winning"--and showing that the GOP is in for a disagreeable November. "Can it get any worse?" asked the pundits. We're screwed, said the panicked memo from National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma--who, along with House Minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), is reportedly on the brink of getting canned. Apparently, it's three strikes--Cole also lost earlier special elections in heavily Republican Illinois and Louisiana districts--and you're out.

Clearly, the NRCC suspected this catastrophe was coming. How else to explain its decision to summon Vice President Cheney from the shadows of his cavernous, undisclosable lair and send him to the Memphis suburb of DeSoto Monday for a last-minute appearance on Davis's behalf? Desperate times, it seems, call for desperate measures. In case you're wondering, Cheney's job approval rating nationwide is about 15 percent, which, for the sake of comparison, is slightly higher than Eliot Spitzer's and slightly lower than Congress's--so it's no wonder that this week's Dixieland swing was his first of the season (McCain and the veep? Not BFFs.) Presumably the NRCC expected the shiny-pated scowler to excite the base in scarlet northwest Mississippi, where his positives are undoubtedly higher than in, say, the rest of the known universe. And judging by the scene at his DeSoto Civic Center rally, a few of the faithful were indeed swooning. "It's like a part of history to me," said Southaven resident Shirley Rodman. "It's an opportunity to see a leader of our country. You don't get those opportunities often."

Ultimately, though, history wasn't enough. A few weeks back, in a parallel effort to rile up Mississippi's far right, the NRCC launched a series of spooky, possibly race-baiting ads linking Childers to Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But as the New York Times reported this morning, "tying the white Democrat to the black presidential candidate may have helped Mr. Childers more than it hurt him, as campaign aides reported heavy black turnout, heavier than in a vote three weeks ago when he came within 400 votes of winning." Cheney may have spurred similar backlash, as the vast majority of voters who disapprove of Cheney--even in Mississippi--may have been less inclined, not more, to support a candidate who welcomed the current administration's approval (instead of distancing himself from it).  “There’s a lot of people that are mad at Bush,” a DeSoto Republican named Jim Jennings told the Times. That's why the Davises of the world are in danger in the first place--and probably why Dick Cheney, of all people, is the wrong fellow to come to their rescue.

Before the returns rolled in last night, Cheney vowed to continue campaigning through November. "Neither the President nor I will have our names on the ballot this year," said Cheney in his remarks (Dubya recorded a get-out-the-vote robocall for Davis). "But we're still focused on the work at hand... and so we'll put our shoulders to the wheel for John McCain, and for [our] excellent congressional candidates." They may want to reconsider. Of course, that doesn't mean Cheney and Bush should stay home for the rest of the year. In the coming months, the dynamic duo could still boost the GOP's fortunes by headlining fundraisers, where they remain a reliable draw; the veep's Mississippi visit, for example, reportedly raked in $120,000 for the party. Even then, though, their efforts are not likely to make much of a difference. After all, the NRCC dropped $1.8 million, a quarter of its total funds, on the Childers-Davis title bout--and still got KO'ed.

Oh well. We hear Washington, D.C. is lovely in the autumn.

Apparently, 26,181 West Virginians are either unaware of that fact--or don't really care.

When the Mountain State primary returns rolled in last night, no one was surprised to see Hillary Clinton carrying 67 percent of the vote, or Barack Obama finishing a distant second with 26. That's precisely what the polls predicted. But John Edwards with seven percent--more than a quarter of Obama's vote? This was a guy who hadn't been a living, breathing candidate for president for three-and-a-half months, and had only drawn four percent in Nevada when he still was. It's worth noting that Edwards' name has remained on most post-Jan. 30 ballots, and in the early stages of his electoral afterlife, he scrounged up some support: 10 percent in Oklahoma, five percent in Arizona and four percent in Tennessee on Super Tuesday. But since then, he's only managed to snag two percent (Ohio), one percent (Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Mississippi) or zero percent (everywhere else) of the vote. Which makes his seven-percent finish in West Virginia all the more surprising--and significant.

Most pundits are interpreting the Edwards resurrection as a bad omen for Obama. It "presage[s] problems for him in a general election match-up with [John] McCain, particularly in rural states such as West Virginia," writes the Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel. And insofar as Obama will inevitably face McCain in November--unless, of course, a sperm whale slides onshore and swallows him whole--that much is true; you can lump these Edwards voters with the 47 percent of West Virginia Democrats who told exit pollsters they'd vote for McCain over Obama, or simply refrain from voting.  But it's worth remembering that Edwards is not only white--he's a guy. Plenty of Mountain State Democrats--okay, most--dissed Obama by voting for Clinton. The 26,181 who went out of their way to cast useless ballots for a white, male non-candidate were voicing their opposition to Clinton, too. Making history? they thought. I'll pass. All of which goes to show that neither of the remaining Democrats--despite Clinton's claims to the contrary--would stand a particularly strong chance of winning West Virginia in the fall. If a full seven percent of Democratic primary voters (the most loyal of party loyalists, mind you) are so repulsed by both viable Dems that they'd vote for the nonexistent Edwards instead, just imagine how the other half of the electorate--i.e. the half that doesn't like any Democrats, and that carried Bush to a 13 point victory there in 2004--will break on Election Day. Almost heaven? Try a little lower.

If his strong showing basically proves that his beloved Democratic party will lose the Mountain State to McCain, why did I joke earlier that Edwards is smiling at home in Chapel Hill this morning? Call it the "I Told You So" factor. Before Clinton's recent populist transformation, Edwards occupied the post of pugilistic people's candidate. (He wore jeans; she wears pantsuits. Enough said.) And last fall, his campaign's main argument was--surprise, surprise--electability. "It's not just a question of who you like," he said in Iowa. "It's not just a question of whose vision you are impressed with. It's also a question of who is most likely to win the general election." Like Clinton, Edwards' logic relied on the implicit notion that some swing voters aren't ready to elect an African-American; unlike Clinton, it also relied on the implicit notion that some swing voters aren't ready to elect a woman. "Obama's drawback is obvious," Cliff Ferguson, an Edwards supporter from Hamburg, Iowa, told me last October. "If he gets the nomination... all kinds of people will crawl out from under their rocks and throw mud. Boy, it'll be ugly. And it's the same with Hillary, 'cause she's a woman. Attacks are all they have, the Republicans."

If Clinton loses the Democratic nomination, and Obama loses the general election, it may look, in the end, like the white dude was right all along.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

HILLARY: I'M HERE, GET USED TO IT
(Byron York, National Review)
Obama’s supporters, in the campaign, in the Democratic party, and in the press are desperate for her to leave the race precisely because her support is so substantial; her continued presence is a daily reminder of how profoundly divided the party is at this moment. Her landslide 67-26 victory over Obama in West Virginia — she won by 147,410 votes — won’t change that situation. The oft-repeated fact that no Democrat since 1916 has won the White House without winning West Virginia won’t change it, either. But together, those two facts show just how far Democrats have ventured into uncharted territory this year. If Obama is to win the White House, he’ll have to do it in a brand-new way, winning states that Democrats haven’t won lately with diminished support in states that have been important to Democratic victories in the past. Clinton’s campaign reminds Democrats of that, and it makes some of them nervous.

'ALMOST NOMINEE' STATUS KEEPS OBAMA IN LIMBO
(Jim Rutenberg, New York Times) 
Even as Mr. Obama prepared to suffer one of his worst defeats of the primary season on Tuesday, aides said his lead in delegates and in the popular vote had him feeling like a winner. And his visit here with garment workers in a district that President Bush swept in 2004 was an intended show of strength, with Mr. Obama affecting the manner of a general election nominee raiding opposition territory, the birthplace of Rush Limbaugh no less. But on the flight here from Washington on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged that, in political terms, he is neither fish nor fowl, unable to go after Mr. McCain quite the way he would if he had the nomination clinched — lest he alienate Mrs. Clinton’s supporters by seeming presumptuous — and unable to fully dismiss her continued challenge.

MORE: Obama Reaches Out to Workers in Cape Giradeau (St. Louis Post- Dispatch)
As working-class voters in West Virginia largely rejected him, Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama flew to this Republican stronghold in a key swing state to woo a similar audience Tuesday. His aim: to show the nation — and fellow Democrats — that he's going to keep pursuing such voters as part of his quest to capture the White House this fall. His pitch: that despite his education and political connections, he also hails from a blue-collar background and shares the middle-class' economic hopes and fears — unlike presumptive Republican nominee John McCain... The audience cheered when Obama pointed out that he was wearing a union-made suit manufactured in the United States. The suit's lapel sported an American flag pin, largely absent from Obama's wardrobe until Monday and Tuesday. Asked about the pin, he said: "Sometimes I wear it, sometimes I don't."

OBAMA MAY HAVE HIS WORK CUT OUT FOR HIM TO DRAW INDEPENDENTS
(Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal)
Barack Obama can't rest should he soon win Democrats' presidential-nomination marathon. His next big challenge: to introduce himself to the independents who may well decide the November election, and dispel the doubts and misinformation that have taken hold among many. A focus group of independent voters here Monday night suggested that the Illinois senator is largely identified by his association with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose much-publicized sermons have been called racially divisive and anti-American. Yet Sen. Obama is also identified by many -- incorrectly -- as a Muslim, and suspect for that as well.

MORE: Rumor Mill Keeps Obama on Defense (Washington Times)
This week in West Virginia, the rumor mill was working at full tilt, flagging the work the Obama campaign faces to set the record straight before November and highlighting the hurdles of urban-myth attacks on candidates. Mr. Obama — who is Christian and says the Pledge of Allegiance regularly — sometimes shrugs off questions about the rumors with jokes, but he increasingly has been forced to quash them outright.

MCCAIN CONSULTANT IS TIED TO WORK FOR UKRAINE PARTY
(Marc Jacoby and Glenn R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal)
A consultant to Sen. John McCain hired a public-relations firm last year to burnish the U.S. image of a Ukrainian political party backed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to documents filed with the Justice Department. The lobbying firm of Davis Manafort Inc. arranged for the public-relations firm's work through an affiliate last spring, at the same time Davis Manafort was being paid by the Republican presidential candidate's campaign. The firm is co-owned by lobbyist Rick Davis, manager of Sen. McCain's presidential campaign, and longtime Republican strategist Paul Manafort. The Arizona senator has endorsed a political movement in Ukraine that is at odds with the Putin-backed Party of Regions. The work for the Ukrainian party represents the latest issue to arise for the McCain campaign involving aides' ties to foreign interests. Last weekend, the campaign parted ways with two former lobbyists for the military government of Myanmar after their ties were reported in Newsweek.

And the winner is... no one. Hillary Clinton may have received the most votes in today's West Virginia primary, taking 67 percent of the vote and netting 10 delegates. Barack Obama may have moved one step closer to clinching the Democratic nomination. But as the polls close, the odds of Clinton topping her party's ticket are still impossibly long, and the worries about Obama's potential weakness among white, working-class swing voters in November are more justified than ever. Thanks for nothing, West Virginia. You may want to consider changing your slogan from "Open for Business" to "Everybody Loses."

With pre-primary polls showing Clinton set to clobber Obama by 37 points in the Mountain State, her staff didn't bother to wait for the returns to roll in before they began to brag. In a memo emailed to reporters around 1:00 p.m., Team Clinton ticked off the reasons "Why West Virginia Matters": as the "presumptive nominee," Obama "outspent us on advertising," "sent "more staff" to the state, opened "more than double the number of offices" and "benefited" from the backing of Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Congressman Nick Rahall, West Virginia's top elected officials. But despite all those advantages, they added, Obama couldn't "close a significant gap." Fair enough; Clinton did, after all, win by 41 points--one of the largest primary margins so far this season. At a different place and time--say, before she failed to meet her own expectations in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6--such boastful spin might have sounded pretty convincing. "In Washington, some people say the presidential primary in West Virginia doesn't much matter," she told voters in a last-minute radio ad. "But you know what? Tuesday, we can show ‘em."

Unfortunately for the former First Lady, who spent the past week hawking her new populist message in Appalachian hamlets from Webster to Clear Fork, the one thing worth bragging about in this twilight phase of the interminable Democratic nominating contest is the one thing she still doesn't have on her side: the math. Trailing Obama by 170 delegates, she's 316 short of the nomination. The problem? There are only 189 delegates available in the remaining primaries. Assuming Clinton splits them with her rival, she'd still have to win 94 percent of the uncommitted superdelegates to reach the magic 2,025 majority. That seems unlikely--to put it mildly. In the past week alone, Obama has added 30 superdelegates to his tally (or more than Clinton would've gained if she'd won every single Mountain State vote). Clinton's take? Three. Tonight, West Virginia didn't reveal any new voting patterns; everyone is well aware that blue-collar Dems prefer Clinton to Obama. So it won't convince the superdelegates to suddenly change their minds. “Obama is so far ahead at this point, it is hard to see anything we do, even big wins, being a game-changer,” a senior adviser told the New York Times this morning. Regardless of what Clinton says on the stump or on the radio, that's not just Beltway chatter. It's reality.

Still, it doesn't mean that Obama's evening was any more enjoyable. Last week, Bill Clinton told voters in Madison, W. Va. that he's "hoping... Hillary can get eighty percent of the vote," and yesterday in Logan, State Senate majority leader Harry Truman Chafin raised the stakes further. "We’ve got to give her a vote tomorrow of 80-20 or 90-10," he said. "Let’s get the national media’s attention." Tonight, the Obama camp wants to spin the gap between those predictions and Clinton's actual, 41-point margin as some sort of letdown. Phooey. For Obama, the only Mountain State numbers that matter--