OBAMA TAKES DELEGATE MAJORITY (Dan Balz, Washington Post) Sen. Barack Obama crossed another threshold last night in his march toward the Democratic presidential nomination, splitting a pair of primaries with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and claiming a majority of the pledged delegates at stake in the long nomination battle… The senator from Illinois stopped short of claiming the nomination, a milestone he may not be able to reach until the end of the primaries on June 3. But he staged a victory rally in Iowa, the site of his first big win of the year, to highlight his near-lock on the nomination and to continue to shift his focus to a general-election campaign against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. … Obama’s claim to the most pledged delegates last night was also a not-so-subtle message to the remaining uncommitted superdelegates that if they now endorse Clinton, they will be going against the will of Democratic voters nationwide.
CLINTON SEES MANY REASONS TO STAY IN (Patrick Healy, New York Times) In private conversations and in interviews, Mrs. Clinton has begun asserting that she believes sexism, rather than racism, has cast a shadow over the primary fight, a point some of her supporters have made for months. Advisers say that continuing her candidacy is partly a means to show her supporters — especially young women — that she is not a quitter and will not be pushed around… Mrs. Clinton is also focused on some tangible goals by staying in the race: she believes that racking up more victories, delegates and votes will give her and her supporters more leverage this month at a Democratic National Committee rules meeting… Mrs. Clinton’s advisers also say that her popularity could lead Mr. Obama to fold some of her policy positions — like universal health insurance — into his platform, though they discounted the notion that her staying in the race was part of a larger bargaining strategy. While Mrs. Clinton believes that winning the nomination is a long shot at this point, she is also staying in the race because, in her experience, electoral politics can be a chaotic and unpredictable enterprise, scandals can emerge from nowhere, and Mr. Obama’s candidacy could still suffer a self-inflicted or unexpected wound. Picking up more primary votes and superdelegates could only strengthen her position if the party wants or needs to find an alternative to Mr. Obama. As for concerns that her continued campaign might exacerbate party divisions, Mrs. Clinton is convinced that if and when she quits, her camp would quickly coalesce around Mr. Obama, advisers say — so much so that any Democratic ill will would fade within days.
LADY, YOU’RE IN MY WAY (John Dickerson, Slate) As Clinton presses her case, she’s also making it more painful for Obama if he tries to push her out. She told the Washington Post that the way she’s been treated in the race has been “deeply offensive to millions of women.” Her husband echoed this misogyny charge on Tuesday. The Clintons have now recharged the gender question, which has been a rallying cry for her supporters this campaign. Obama needs support from Clinton’s female supporters in the fall and now must tread even more carefully or risk alienating them. If Obama can’t push Clinton directly, he can continue to get superdelegates to do his work for him. Several have said they will vote with the candidate who has won the majority of pledged delegates. He can encourage them to make good on that promise tomorrow. Obama could also argue to superdelegates that he would be in a stronger position to continue his foreign-policy battle with McCain if he had the full weight of the party behind him. If he can get enough superdelegates to move in a bunch, perhaps it would hasten Clinton’s departure. The results in Kentucky and Oregon didn’t signal the end, but they did signal more than the beginning of the end. It’s the intermission in the middle of the beginning of the end.
IT’S NOT PERSONAL (Jonathan Chait, Los Angeles Times) The main grievance against Obama is that political pundits are saying the race is over and Clinton should quit. (I plead guilty.) Clinton’s supporters are defining this as a form of sexism. Ellen Malcolm, founder of the liberal feminist group Emily’s List, recently noted with bitter sarcasm, “The first woman ever to win a presidential primary is supposed to stop competing, to curtsy and exit stage right.” And Clinton’s race for the White House is in large part a campaign against sexism, so of course she must resist these calls. (“She’s shown us over and over that winners never quit and that quitters never win,” Malcolm writes.) Thus, the circular rationale for Clinton’s candidacy is: Because people are calling for her to leave the race, she must stay in. It’s highly unusual for a mainstream presidential campaign to persist for so long with no purpose except self-perpetuation. But many people don’t think of Clinton in normal political terms. She is viewed not as a politician, or even a person, but as a symbol of the strong woman… Clinton supporters have repeatedly accused Obama of sexism. When asked the other day to cite examples of sexist behavior, Geraldine Ferraro mentioned Obama mocking Clinton for posing as a hunting buff, and, bizarrely, pretending to brush dirt off his shoulder in a speech. Of course, these things aren’t sexist at all. The Clinton die-hards see the mere fact that Obama would run against Clinton as an act of sexism.
MCCAIN ASSAILS OBAMA OVER READINESS TO TALK WITH HOSTILE FOREIGN LEADERS (Glenn Kessler and Julie Eilperin, Washington Post) Sen. John McCain stepped up his assault on Sen. Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials at a rally in Miami yesterday, criticizing Obama’s willingness to talk to Cuban President Raul Castro and other hostile foreign leaders without preconditions. But McCain’s argument was undercut when a 2006 video emerged of former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a prominent McCain supporter, saying that “talking to an enemy is not in my view appeasement.”… Fred I. Greenstein, a scholar of the presidency at Princeton University, said that history tended to back Obama’s stance. Ticking off a series of presidential meetings with fierce adversaries since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, particularly with Soviet leaders, Greenstein asked, “When do presidents not meet with adversaries?”
OBAMA’S ANSWER ON ROGUE NATIONS EVOLVES (Rick Klein, ABC News) Barack Obama’s original answer seemed crystal clear: last July, asked whether he would meet with the “leaders” of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea “without precondition,” during his first year as president, he quickly answered yes. “I would,” Obama, D-Ill., said at the CNN/YouTube debate. “And the reason is this: that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them – which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration – is ridiculous.” Obama has not renounced his commitment to meet directly with the leaders of rogue nations, including Iran. But in recent weeks, his top aides and advisers have sought to add caveats to his promise, as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has made Obama’s debate answer a central campaign issue. The Obama campaign is now offering a more nuanced approach that would not necessarily include a presidential meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and that stresses diplomatic work that would take place before any such meetings take place. Asked about Obama’s original statement Tuesday morning on CNN, former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., a top Obama adviser and supporter, said top-level meetings would not be immediate – and would not happen without preliminary extensive diplomatic work.
OBAMA SETS SIGHTS ON MCCAIN IN FUNDRAISING WAR (Jeanne Cummings, Politico) If, as expected, Obama’s campaign can soon shift its focus entirely from the primary to the general election and his fundraising remains at its current pace — about $30 million to $40 million a month — he could easily match McCain’s total taxpayer-provided kitty before the Democratic convention in August. The potential, yawning financial gap between the two candidates turns an historic Republican advantage on its head. President Bush and the Republican Party outspent former Vice President Al Gore and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in the closely fought elections in 2000 and 2004.This time, the Democrats, energized by the unpopularity of Bush and a hunger to recapture the White House, are poised to harness that advantage. That means they will have a significant advantage in building massive turnout operations, expanding the battleground state map, and broadcasting a mix of positive and negative advertising.
