WHEN REALITY BITES (David Brooks, New York Times) There’s a big difference between the Republican and Democratic campaigns: The Republicans have split on policy grounds; the Democrats haven’t. There’s been a Republican divide between center and right, yet no Democratic divide between center and left. But when you think about it, the Democratic policy unity is a mirage. If the Democrats actually win the White House, the tensions would resurface with a vengeance.
FOREVER YOUNG (Leon Wieseltier, New Republic) After Bush, who is not for a fresh start? But there is something unfresh about Obama’s movement for freshness. We have been this young before. “She starts old, old,” Lawrence wrote, in his discussion of the Leatherstocking Tales, “wrinkled and writhing in an old skin. And there is a gradual sloughing off of the old skin, towards a new youth. It is the myth of America.” So can we agree on a ground between cynicism and myth? Or must we have Camelot once more? After all, being young again is also a way of living in the past. There was something mildly farcical about the Kennedys’ endorsement of Obama–of this candidacy that is alleged to signify an alternative to the dynasties, and a break with ideological antiquity; but worst of all was its brazen delight in mythologization… I understand that no one, except perhaps Lincoln, ever ran for the presidency on a tragic sense of life; but if it is possible to be too old in spirit, it is possible also to be too young.
CAMPAIGNS COVER THE REGION IN LAST EFFORT TO CHARM VOTERS (John Wagner, Amy Gardner and Nikita Stewart, Washington Post) Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama offered himself as “something new” at a pair of spirited, arena-size rallies in Maryland yesterday, while his primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, portrayed herself as a “battle-scarred” fighter for the middle class at more intimate events held across the region on the eve of today’s primaries… Obama was angling to sweep the three jurisdictions. For Clinton, a stronger-than-expected showing could blunt Obama’s momentum in what has turned into a protracted competition for convention delegates: 171 are in play today, with contests in larger states such as Ohio and Texas looming. Republicans will be on the ballot in the three jurisdictions as well today, but the contest between Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has been more subdued, given McCain’s seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates after Super Tuesday. Still, today’s contests, particularly in Virginia, could provide a measure of conservative discontent with the presumptive GOP nominee. On the Republican side, 119 delegates are up for grabs.
FOR CLINTON, BID HINGES ON TEXAS AND OHIO (Patrick Healy, New York Times) Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers increasingly believe that, after a series of losses, she has been boxed into a must-win position in the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, and she has begun reassuring anxious donors and superdelegates that the nomination is not slipping away from her, aides said on Monday. Mrs. Clinton held a buck-up-the-troops conference call on Monday with donors, superdelegates and other supporters; several said afterward that she had sounded tired and a little down, but determined about Ohio and Texas. They also said that they had not been especially soothed, and that they believed she might be on a losing streak that could jeopardize her competitiveness in those states.
MORE: Clinton Looks to Trusted Advisor to Re-energize Flagging Campaign (Washington Post)
SEEKING UNITY, OBAMA FEELS PULL OF RACIAL DIVIDE (Ginger Thompson, New York Times) Glimpses inside the Obama campaign show, though, that while the senator had hoped his colorblind style of politics would lift the country above historic racial tensions, from Day 1 his bid for the presidency has been pulled into the thick of them. While his speeches focus on unifying voters, his campaign has learned the hard way that courting a divided electorate requires reaching out group by group. Instead of following a plotted course, Mr. Obama’s campaign has zigged and zagged, reacting to outside forces and internal differences between the predominantly white team of top advisers and the mostly black tier of aides.
CLINTON VS. OBAMA ON ELECTABILITY (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post) The central difference in the electability appeals by the two campaigns is temporal. The Obama campaign argues that the way to best understand who is the more electable is to look at current polling and past results to see who leads the likely Republican nominee and who is better able to lure crucial independents to the Democratic cause. The present is what matters, says Obama. For Clinton, it’s the future that’s the issue. Sure, they argue, Obama may be ahead right now, but Republicans have only begun to define him, a process that would strip away much of his independent support and leave him on the losing end of a race against McCain.
DEMOCRATS IN RACE FOR EDWARDS’ SUPPORT (Shailagh Murray and Dan Balz, Washington Post) Clinton made a clandestine visit to Edwards’s North Carolina home last Thursday to ask for the support of the former senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee. Obama had planned to make the same trip last night, but a conflict arose and the two had to reschedule the meeting, Obama campaign aides said… As a campaign surrogate, Edwards could give Clinton or Obama an important edge in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, the three biggest contests ahead.
CAUCUS SYSTEM MUDDIES ASSESSMENT OF DEMOCRATS (June Krunholz, Wall Street Journal) When Iowans caucused four years ago, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s share of the turnout should have earned him 21 of the state’s 45 delegates to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards should have received 17, and former Vermont Gov. John Dean should have taken seven. But when the Iowa delegates showed up at the convention in Boston six months later, 39 delegates were committed to Mr. Kerry, four to Mr. Edwards and two to Mr. Dean… The caucus system – which elects delegates only to local conventions, not the national convention – makes it nearly impossible to calculate who is ahead in the race for the Democratic nomination.
DESPITE GOP’S PULL FOR MCCAIN, HUCKABEE WON’T PULL OUT OF RACE (Perry Bacon, Jr. and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post) The Republican establishment has already begun to embrace McCain, who has built an enormous lead among delegates and whose staff has taken to calling him the “presumptive nominee.” McCain on Monday won the support of former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Gary Bauer, a onetime presidential candidate and former head of the Family Research Council. The previous day, President Bush offered to defend McCain against charges that he is no friend to conservatives. And yet Huckabee shows no interest in stepping aside after his surprising strength in the South and Midwest powered him to eight victories in the past week. Polling shows him trailing in Tuesday’s “Potomac Primary” voting in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. But he insists that he will not drop out until McCain has gathered the delegates needed to claim the Republican nomination – a process that could take weeks.
