by John McCormick

With the political day just getting underway, Sen. Barack Obama has already picked up two additional superdelegate endorsements. They come from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly.

The Obama campaign also has scheduled a conference call later this morning with former Colorado Gov. and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Roy Romer, suggesting Romer also may endorse Obama today.

by Rick Pearson

LOUISVILLE -- "It's been awhile since I've been to Louisville," Sen. Barack Obama said Monday night in his opening remarks to several thousand people at a rally at the Kentucky International Convention center.

Indeed, it was only days after Obama announced his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Ill., in February 2007, that the Illinois Democrat traveled to Louisville for two of his first official campaign fundraising events that also drew thousands of people.

"It has been 15 months since I first announced that I was running for the presidency of the United States of America and that's a long time in politics," Obama told the crowd. "There are now babies who were born and are walking and talking."

Projecting himself as the presumed nominee, Obama told the audience that was "proud of the campaign that we've run." At the same time, he acknowledged "there's been times where we lost a sense of what this campaign was about" before he said the message was turned back into a positive one.

by Don Frederick

As 11-year-old Dalton Hatfield set about selling his earthly possessions, his parents thought he was doing his part to help pay for a family vacation.

Instead, he was doing his part to help his favored presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. And on Friday, the young fellow made news when he presented a stunned Bill Clinton with a check for $440.

The former president, according an Associated Press story on the occasion, "seemed to nearly come to tears" as he accepted the donation at a fire station in Williamson, W.Va. (one of the many off-the-beaten-path locales where he has been rallying support for his wife).

The Hillary Clinton campaign, understandably, was so taken with the boy's gesture that today it posted the AP story on its website. Every little bit helps, after all, when it comes to erasing the $20-million debt that the campaign acknowledged on Sunday.

Killjoys that we are, we checked federal regulations just to make sure everything was on the up-and-up with Hatfield's contribution. And we are relieved to report ...

that it passes muster.

by John Riley

Chuck Schumer, at a Crain's Breakfast in New York City, sounds a note of optimism about the viability of an Obama/Clinton ticket:

"At first I thought it wasn't but I do think it could be."

About voters: "They're worried, and they want somebody to come in and say I can help a little bit you with healthcare, and paying for college, and all these things, and a Democratic candidate is more likely to do it. Hillary and Barack have both run very strong and great races, and I think they'd be a strong ticket together."

It's possible that's what he really thinks. But a lot of things -- the difficulty of selling the first black and the first woman in the same year; the lack of national security credentials; the idea that Hillary would spend eight years with less power than she had as First Lady or Senator; the fundamental disagreement on health care; the risks of Bill floating on the outskirts of a ticket and an administration -- counsel against the idea.

So what else could Schumer be up to?

Maybe the idea that a little flattery, and the ability to turn down the v-p slot, is part of what it'll take to ease Clinton out of the race....

John Riley writes the Spin Cycle blog for Newsday

by Christi Parsons

This isn't the ad that won a recent MoveOn.org Political Action contest, as determined by a panel that included Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, John Legend and Naomi Wolf.

The winner, which the progressive group will air in presidential battleground states, features a veteran and lifelong Republican talking about why he's voting for Barack Obama.

But the panel did see fit to name this piece -- suggesting that Obama fever is passed on by, well, human contact -- the funniest entry.

Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a rally Charleston Civic Center May 12, 2008 in Charleston, West Virginia. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

by Christi Parsons

BECKLEY, W. Va.-- Coal--or "King Coal," as they like to call it here--is the historic and modern lifeblood of the economy in West Virginia, the latest stage in the race for the Democratic nomination for president.

Thus the statistics that populate any discussion about energy policy in this venue start with this one: Half the country's electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.

Elsewhere, Democrats are more focused on the effect of coal on climate change. Any suggestion of increasing coal's role in the national energy mix is a sure invitation for an intraparty argument.

But the full-on debate over how to reconcile those contending interests isn't taking place on this otherwise likely stage, thanks to the political play going into the state's Tuesday primary. While Hillary Clinton is heavily favored to win West Virginia, party leaders are trying to decide how much that matters -- and whether they should even wait for the results in this and other remaining primary states in light of Barack Obama's lead in pledged delegates, superdelegates and the popular vote.

Another reason is that the Democrats aren't really that far apart on the issue. Read more in today's Chicago Tribune.

by John Riley

New polls out today suggest Obama is in for a rough couple of weeks in West Virginia and Kentucky, which he'll have to weather by shaping perceptions in the media that the race is over.

In West Virginia, which votes tomorrow, he trails Clinton 60-24 in a Suffolk University poll. That's 36 points. Poll director David Paleologos: "Barack Obama may have to write off West Virginia come November." A plurality of Democrats there still think Hillary will be the next president.

Obama is visiting the state today and will be introduced at a Charleston rally by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, but ... good luck. The state is stacked against him demographically, and will put an exclamation point on Clinton's argument that he can't get white blue-collar votes.

Then, ">another new poll shows that he trails Clinton 58-31 in Kentucky, which votes next Tuesday. Little wonder why he's been campaigning since Friday in Oregon, which he hopes to win on the same day he loses Kentucky. If Oregon pushes him into a majority of pledged (elected) delegates, he will hope for a superdelegate surge that will give him the nomination and relegate Kentucky to the back pages.

Still, a couple of blowout losses on the eve of winning the nomination will be a sobering reminder of how much work Obama has to do.

John Riley writes the Spin Cycle blog for Newsday

by John McCormick

Advancing his efforts to prepare for a general election while still formally being a primary campaign candidate, Sen. Barack Obama is expected to head to the battleground state of Missouri this week.

Plans are still being worked out, but the Illinois Democrat is expected to head to his neighboring state on Tuesday for an economic town hall in Cape Girardeau with Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Cape Girardeau is the hometown of Rush Limbaugh, the conservative commentator who has been encouraging Republicans to cross over in some Democratic primaries as part of something he has called "Operation Chaos."

by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Although Democrats are tangled in a fractious primary contest, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama probably would win the White House against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain if the election were held now, according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll.

Arizona Sen. McCain remains competitive, but the poll identified one important vulnerability: Voters ranked him lowest among the three candidates on who could best handle the nation's economy -- by far the most pressing concern for the public irrespective of party, gender or income. Of the three main candidates, New York Sen. Clinton inspired the most confidence on the economy.

In a hypothetical matchup, the poll gave Illinois Sen. Obama 46% to McCain's 40%, with 9% undecided.

Clinton led McCain 47% to 38%, with 11% undecided. The nationwide poll, conducted May 1 through Thursday and released Friday, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The results represent a shift from a Times/Bloomberg poll in February, when McCain led Clinton by 6 percentage points and Obama by 2, within the poll's margin of error.

"Although there is such infighting now between the two Democratic candidates, we are finding that both Democrats are beating McCain, and this could be attributed to the weakening of the economy," said Times Polling Director Susan Pinkus, who supervised the survey.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

by Frank James

Richard Prince, who writes the always readable "Journal-isms" column for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education website, must've been reading my mind.

He has a column today on something I noticed too, the mainstream media's relatively tame treatment of Sen. Hillary Clinton's comment to USA Today that she has stronger appeal than Sen. Barack Obama to "hard-working Americans, white Americans."

As Prince writes:

To many, it was a shocking statement -- equating "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans" and a naked attempt to cast herself as "the white candidate" in the race.

Even USA Today, to whom Clinton uttered the comment as a response to a general question about her campaign, broke the story under a bland Web site headline, "Clinton makes case for wide appeal."

It did seem like a better headline would have been "Clinton makes case for white appeal."

I agree; it was surprising that more wasn't made of this comment by the MSM. As soon as I read it, I was struck by how she seemed to be linking whites with hard work. Although she probably didn't mean to imply that non-whites aren't hard-working, that's the implication and it's not going to make any more friends for her among non-whites.

by Christi Parsons

Rahm Emanuel of Illinois considers Barack Obama the Democrats' "presumptive nominee," even though he thinks Hillary Clinton still has a chance to win the nomination.

"He is the frontrunner, which makes him the presumptive nominee given how late we are in the schedule," Emanuel said in an interview.

A bold step for the former advisor to Bill Clinton, who has studiously avoided picking sides between the former first lady and his friend from the Illinois delegation?

Not at all, Emanuel said. He said he's not counting Clinton out in the protracted primary fight, an assertion he made at the New Yorker magazine conference this morning.

The fact that the House Democratic caucus chair dropped the magic "presumptive" word caused a bigger stir, of course.

"Stating the obvious to the news media," he told the Tribune afterward, "is news these days."

by Frank James

Tom Edsall of the Huffington Post writes about the Obama campaign's efforts to cut a deal with the Clinton camp that would allow the former to help pay off the latter's campaign debt as a way of buying peace in the party i.e. getting her to end her campaign.

But there are problems. As Edsall reports:

The first is obvious: the deep and growing animosity of Obama supporters towards Clinton, whom they see as raising issues of race and 'elitism' that will hurt the Illinois Senator in November.

For many Obama backers, Penn, the former chief strategist for Clinton
and head of one of the biggest PR-lobbying conglomerates in the nation's
capital, is the quintessential Washington insider, capitalizing on political
connections to become a multi-millionaire.

If you run a presidential campaign that skewers Washington lobbyists, as Obama has, it would send a contradictory message to turn around and indirectly drop a cool $10 million or more into the lap of one of Washington's wealthiest lobbyists.

Then there's one more problem for Obama, as Edsall reports: a lot of his supporters viscerally hate the Clinton campaign and might revolt if he helps her pay down her debt.

Sen. Barack Obama walks through the Dirksen Senate office building with his security detail at the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

by Bill Gibson

Barack Obama promised a group of uncommitted superdelegates today that he would seat Florida's delegation at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

``He assured us that Florida delegates will be at the convention and they'll have their party hats on,'' reported South Florida Congressman Tim Mahoney, one of the uncommitted superdelegates.

This appears to be the first time Obama, the front-runner for the nomination, has made such a clear, definite promise. Hillary Clinton, his rival for the nomination, has made the pledge several times.

Clinton renewed her pitch to count the Florida and also the Michigan delegates, which would give her a boost because she won primaries in both states. In a letter to Obama today, she wrote: ``It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee.''

by Matthew Hay Brown

With their nominee now seemingly apparent, some Democrats want to see the party's president primary race brought to an end. Not Nancy Pelosi.

"Me? I like combat," the House speaker told reporters at the Capitol today. "You know, I think the best training for campaigning is campaigning. So I think that as they have campaigned, the support in our country has grown for our Democratic message. ... So this is all very healthy."

The Capitol press corps has tried for months to draw Pelosi on her preference for the presidential nomination. With Barack Obama now appearing to have sewn it up, she was asked today if she was ready to share.

"No, no," she said. "I do continue to be excited about the campaigns. I think both of our candidates are presenting themselves magnificently to the American people. Either one of them will be a great President of the United States."

Told that Obama's appearance on the House floor today looked like a victory lap, Pelosi asked, "Did it?" She said she didn't know why the Illinois senator stopped by.

"We have floor privileges in the Senate, and of course, I could go over there," she said. "He and Senator Clinton are always welcome, as well as all of the other Senators, on the House floor, Democrats or Republicans."

Sen. Barack Obama in a Capitol elevator. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo.)

by Frank James

Sen. Barack Obama visited the House today to make his case to those House members who are also uncommitted Democratic Party superdelegates and, understandably, his presence created much excitement.

As Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) reports:

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke's copy of Thursday's New York Daily News tells it all.

Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill., a longtime Obama pal and political ally, taunted Clarke and her friends by calling out to reporters that they were staying away from Obama because "they're scared they're going to get elected."

(Susan Walsh/AP Photo.)

by John McCormick and Mike Dorning
updated

John Edwards campaign manager and former House Democratic Whip David Bonior endorsed Barack Obama this morning, raising the possibility that the Edwards camp may be about to climb onto the Obama bandwagon.

While Bonior is not likely to have made an endorsement without consulting Edwards, he declined to offer any speculation on a possible endorsement from the former presidential candidate.

"I've talked to him last weekend. I want to keep that conversation private," Bonior said. "He'll make his decision when he's ready."

John Edwards appears on NBC's Today Show tomorrow, when he is sure to be pressed on an endorsement.

Bonior's support brings the Obama campaign not only a high-profile figure from the campaign of his former rival but also a well-liked and well-connected former member of the congressional leadership. Bonior, who as whip was the second-ranking member of the House Democratic leadership, has strong ties with labor unions and liberal interest groups.

"I was waiting for Senator Obama to show me the fight I wanted to see because it's going to be a difficult fight against Sen. (John) McCain (R-Ariz.)," Bonior said in a conference call with reporters.

He noted Obama successfully confronted tough political political challenges in recent weeks, which have featured controversies over incendiary comments from Obama's former pastor and Obama's remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser about "bitter" feelings among small-town Americans.

After losing big primaries in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, Obama rebounded with a decisive victory in North Carolina on Tuesday and held rival Hillary Clinton to a close race in Indiana the same night.

"He's shown great skill, great poise and great fighting spirit. And I was looking for that fighting spirit," Bonior said.

Sen. Barack Obama on his campaign plane at Chicago's Midway Airport en-route to Washington DC, May 7, 2008 (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

by Frank James

Now that the Democratic presidential nomination race between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton has pretty much been resolved in the senator from Illinois's favor, at least according to the conventional wisdom in Washington, maybe we're not totally jumping the gun by turning our attention to the general-election campaign.

And what a campaign it promises to be, the first in which a black American, if everything follows the expected trajectory, will become the presidential nominee of one of the U.S. two major political parties.

That fact alone is enough to make many observers nervous about how the next few months could play out. The 2008 general-election campaign may become one of the nastiest in American history, the mother of all race-baiting efforts.

True, the next six months could pleasantly surprise us. There could be relatively few outright racial and racist appeals meant to torpedo Obama's candidacy.

But the history of U.S. political campaigns when one of the candidates is African-American isn't encouraging on this score.

by Frank James

Earlier today I posted on a Gallup Poll which indicated that Sen. Barack Obama was running almost as well among Jewish voters as Sen. Hillary "Obliterate Iran" Clinton in a head-to-head against Sen. John McCain.

Then I received this press release from the Republican Jewish Coalition:

RJC Statement on Recent Gallup Poll Data