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

Fill in the blanks on this bit of conventional wisdom from the 2000 campaign:

The presidential primary season may prove to be a decisive factor in Campaign 2000, not only for who won, but for the way the winners emerged from the process in the eyes of the voters. _________ was clearly helped, and _________ was just as clearly hurt. ___________ has improved his personal image, while making gains among two key groups whose support had eluded him last year, independents and men. In contrast, many people have come to dislike _______ personally, especially former supporters of _________.

Democrats, take heart.

OBAMA DONS A BLUE COLLAR
(Paul West, Baltimore Sun)
On Saturday night, Barack Obama went bowling for the first time in 30 years. Part of his new effort to get closer to working-class voters, the presidential candidate grabbed a bite at Altoona's Original Texas Hotdogs, then strapped on a pair of size 13 1/2 shoes at Pleasant Valley lanes, to cheers from patrons. He never loosened his tie and the bowling wasn't pretty--basketball's his game--but from a public-relations standpoint, it was a ten-strike. Connecting with ordinary people and their everyday concerns is part of Obama's strategy for confronting perhaps the biggest remaining hurdle in his fight with Hillary Clinton: white, blue-collar Democrats... To promote his regular-guy themes, Obama is midway through a six-day bus tour that is taking him from one end of the commonwealth to the other, his longest campaign swing in a single state this year. Rolling across the steep hills and narrow valleys of the western Pennsylvania countryside, his bus does not advertise its presence. There is not so much as an Obama bumper sticker, much less a campaign banner, on the outside of the rented luxury liner... The unmarked bus and somewhat stealthy nature of his campaign swing--many stops aren't announced in advance--also reflect the highly nuanced Obama effort in this state. He is trying to lay the groundwork for a Pennsylvania comeback, while keeping expectations in check, something his campaign has been less effective in doing than Clinton's.

MORE: Democrats Hit the Campaign Trail in Pennsylvania (Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times)
The Democratic campaign took on the feel of the early voting states on Monday, back when the candidates’ buses would crisscross paths in a single state. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were both in eastern Pennsylvania courting voters.

AS RIVALS BATTLE, MCCAIN BUILDS NOVEMBER MACHINE
(Michael D. Shear and Dan Balz, Washington Post)
Some Republican strategists have said that McCain has not made the best use of the extra time that the prolonged Democratic nomination battle has given him. They have criticized the pace and direction of his decisions and have questioned why the senator from Arizona has not held more fundraisers to close the huge financial gap between him and his rivals. Despite scheduling numerous events designed to grab attention, including a trip to meet with leaders in Iraq, Israel and Europe, McCain has struggled to be heard during the battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The few times he has broken through have largely been because of questionable decisions or mistakes, such as when he confused Sunni and Shiite extremists and when he was criticized for accepting the endorsement of a controversial television evangelist.

CLINTON SLIPPING ON TRUST
(Amy Chozick, Wall Street Journal)
The debate over her record has left Sen. Clinton confronting her lowest approval rating since April 2006, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week. According to the survey, 29% of the approximately 1,000 respondents said they had a very negative opinion of Sen. Clinton compared with 15% for Sen. Barack Obama and 12% for Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee.  A Pew Research survey released last week shows 29% of Democratic voters describe Sen. Clinton as "phony," compared with 14% for Sen. Obama... Clinton campaign image maker Mandy Grunwald and Ann Lewis, head of women's outreach, are working to re-establish voters' trust in Sen. Clinton, campaign aides say. In a new online video entitled "Help us show our strength," Clinton supporters share testimonials, and Sen. Clinton delivers a message, thanking voters for their confidence.

PROJECTION: CLINTON WINS POPULAR VOTE, OBAMA WINS DELEGATE COUNT
(Michael Barone, U.S. News and World Report)
These two projections, if they come to pass, seem likely to cause maximum pain among the superdelegates. Clinton will be able to claim a lead in popular vote. But only because of Puerto Rico—and because Puerto Rico this month replaced its caucus with a primary. Obama will be able to claim a lead in pledged delegates. But only because he gamed the caucuses better. His lead in caucus-selected delegates is currently 125, as best I can calculate it; that would mean Clinton would have a 35-delegate lead among delegates chosen in primaries. Both sides will be able to make plausible claims to be the people's choice... Of course my projections could just be plain wrong. Clinton could win Pennsylvania by an unimpressive margin on April 22 and get clocked in Indiana as well as North Carolina on May 6. Then you might see a cascade of superdelegates toward Obama, and the race might effectively be over. But if all those three things don't happen, then I am sure the contest will go on through June 3. And in that case I think my projections are within the realm of possibility.

TRICKY VOTES LOOM FOR 3 CANDIDATES
(Jonathan Weisman and Paul Kane, Washington Post)
With Congress returning today after a two-week break, leaders from both parties are preparing legislative agendas -- on issues including the economy, Iraq and immigration -- designed to present the three remaining White House candidates with dangerous political choices. The obstacle course begins immediately, with a Democratic-sponsored Senate vote today on legislation to ease the mortgage crisis. Next week, Iraq will dominate, when Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker testify before two committees on which Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) serve. By the week of April 21, sweeping housing legislation could reach the House floor. By the end of the month, an Iraq war funding bill could be moving, with a second economic stimulus package attached. Republicans will counterpunch by pushing for a vote on tough immigration legislation, and by pressuring Democrats to cave in to their demands for legislation on surveillance of terrorism suspects that offers retroactive legal immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping efforts. It is clear that Capitol Hill will be a battleground for one of the longest presidential campaigns in the nation's history.

CAMPAIGN.USA
(Jose Antonio Vargas, Washington Post) 
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a chronicler of presidential races for more than 40 years, says the Internet "has the capacity to immerse people in the everyday minutiae of a campaign like no other medium before it." The problem with TV news, especially on cable, is that it distributes a message that many in the audience don't want to get, Jamieson says.. After Obama's speech on race, cable news anchors repeatedly replayed sound bites from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons, which were uploaded on YouTube and linked on countless blogs. Videos of Obama's 37-minute speech, however, surpassed those clips in views. So far, Obama's speech has been viewed more than 4 million times, making it the most viewed video uploaded by a presidential candidate yet on the site. "In the past there was only a passive relationship between the producer and the audience. But the audience has also become the producer. That's very empowering -- and a huge change," says Jamieson. "There's a dark side to this, of course. Voters can only read and watch and interact with everything they agree with, creating a hyper-partisan and largely uninformed electorate. But there's also a bright side where an informed and engaged electorate can participate in discussions that are relevant to the political process. Which way we'll eventually go, we'll have to see."