The Vig

What a bar that would be, no? Hey-o!

Savage’s letter of the day came from a spirit not far from Mr. Spitzer’s heart.

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Spitzer was clearly smart enough to go do his thing down in D.C. rather than in his hometown where he would have been caught for sure.  Someone (I thought it was TPM, but it could have been someone else) wisely pointed out Wall Street firms had to have been tailing him for some time, yet he’s never been caught.  How long has he been at it?  Was this a one time thing?  And what of Mrs. Spitzer?  Like Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Craig before her, there’s no way she didn’t know what was happening.

Poor Vito, Sopranos fans will recall, was scratching his alternative itch across the river where neither Tony nor his wife would find him.  Smart.  Although in hindsight, perhaps a drive to Philly would have been a more prudent long-term move.  Perhaps.

I think Savage got it about right when he suggested if folks are really afraid of getting caught, perhaps they’re “really not big enough to ride those rides”.  Was Spitzer big enough?  Was Vito?  Dunno.

A few things to meditate on this morning. First, Frank Rich gives us a fantastic postmortem on the Hillary campaign.

For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.

Second, Atrios gives us a fantastic George Will quote.  In 50-ish words, Will inadvertently explained why Republicans will lose this November.  George needs to read this.  And this.

Lastly, I’m still digesting Congressman Jack Kingston’s appearance on Real Time Friday night.  If you haven’t seen it, I’m sure it’ll come back around on HBO this week.  Basically Kingston represents the Oorah! wing of the Republican party.  That’s the one which believes you can never wear too many patriotic symbols or own enough Toby Keith CDs.  Kingston repeated several passages from the Obama is a Muslim email, particularly focusing on the ones alleging Obama turns his back on the flag and refuses to recite the Pledge.  And he also whacked him for failing to wear a flag on his lapel.

What Kingston misses, of course, is Obama’s campaign is based in part on getting past these empty acts of false-patriotism and moving on with the business of the nation.  On the one hand, I’m tired of this particular debate, but on the other I think we need to have it one last time.  Republicans are going to find Obama to be a much stiffer match than John Kerry.

That’s it!  Enough politics for now.  Time to go find some joy on this beautiful Sunday.

Brian Baird, my congressman up here in the Couv, endorsed Barack Obama yesterday.  Better late than never, I guess.  Especially after the thumpin’ Hillary took here a week ago.

More importantly, Baird is a superdelegate.  So that’s one more vote Mrs. Clinton won’t be receiving.  At least for now.

Seems like just yesterday we were concerned that the Democratic superdelegates might thwart the will of the people. Things have sure changed in a hurry.

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

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

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

No word yet if Howard Dean still wants to cut a deal.

Hillary had raised $175 million for this race since her husband left office in 2001.  It’s nearly all gone.  She’s conceded the next three weeks to Obama, hoping for a comeback in Ohio and Texas.   Barring that, she hopes Pennsylvania will save her.  We’ve seen this story before.  The superdelegates are catching on to the fact that Hillary may well be in her final weeks as a presidential candidate.  And without the prospect of the presidency to lord over the Cantwells and Murrays of the world, her influence will surely decline as well.

That’s the question no one seems to be asking after his comments yesterday suggesting Obama was doing drugs while Mrs. Clinton was out making a difference for African-Americans. I guess she was making a difference while representing old white money and power as a partner at the Rose Law Firm. But that’s neither here nor there.

Johnson, the founder of BET and owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats said the following during an appearance with Mrs. Clinton in Columbia, SC yesterday.

As an African American, I’m frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book.

When called on it, Johnson clarified his remarks by saying he was discussing Obama’s time as a community organizer in Chicago. Why it is Mr. Johnson thought he couldn’t say “community organizer” out loud is beyond me.

Johnson, supposedly, is one of the more respected voices in the Southern black community.  But he strikes me as a voice of the past.  We’ll see, I guess.

Being able to publish from my handheld (Palm 700p) has been kind of fun. So we’ll see if maybe I can’t start publishing during lunch. No links, unfortunately.

-Did you get a chance to hear Hillary on NPR this morning? She didn’t say anything new or noteworthy. What I thought was interesting though was the interviewer’s persistence in asking Mrs. Clinton take a swipe at Obama. She asked her three times and three times Clinton changed the subject back to herself. Listening to her, I got the sense she wasn’t going to take the bait and while her campaign may feel it’s alright to go after Obama, the strategy for the candidate herself appears to be one of emphasising her record. Interesting.
-TPM reports this morning that Hillary may be running out of money. Makes sense. She’s maxed out her existing contributors and after Iowa, I’m guessing she doesn’t have too much coming in. We saw the same thing in 2004 with Dean. After losing Iowa, donations dried up and he went broke within a few weeks. This after lapping EVERYONE in fundraising. There’s a lesson there for 2012.
-A friend of mine says I sound a little Dittoheady when I bash Hillary. Do I? It’s something I’m going to pay attention to.
-There’s chatter on the O-Live board that Winter Hawk coach Rich Kromm has only been in Portland part-time this season. Fascinating. If true, this could certainly explain the team’s inconsistent play this season. I’m going to talk more about this tonight.
-I’m with Colin. LSU 24 Ohio State 20.
-My mp3 player has about run dry. Is there any good rock and roll out there? None of that electronic crap. I need some gee-tars. Given the news of the weekend, The Shins are disqualified.

From Sullivan:

There’s a sword at Obama’s throat. Hillary grabs the sword and brandishes it, gloating. Obama reaches out, takes the sword from her hand, and runs her through. What an aphoristic moment.

That will be all, Mrs. Clinton. Move along.

I didn’t see a minute of the Democratic debate the other night.  Well, OK, I guess that’s a lie.  The point is the conventional wisdom was that Hillary got rolled up and smoked.  Mostly by Edwards.  But the early beneficiary seems to be Obama.  Several folks have been linking to this video showing Obama’s scores improving as he speaks, while Mrs. Clinton’s head in the opposite direction.  Is this the sea change I’ve been hoping for?  Man, I hope so.

The fellas have done a masterful job of letting her get out front and set the pace.  Is she slowing?  Even her campaign acknowledges she’s stumbled.  And I don’t believe this dreck is going to help.  Is this what’s going to happen every time I see President Clinton backed into a corner?  Will she and her supporters go straight into victim mode?  For all her faults, and she has many, I’ve yet to see Nancy Pelosi play the gender card.  Yet it seems to be Hillary’s stock in trade.  Why?

We’re obviously not going to know the impact of this week for several weeks to come.  If She Who Is Inevitable (as Sullivan has dubbed her) fails to win the nomination, she can look back to October 30 as the beginning of the end.