Obama's victory speech...

Late Update: John Aravosis has an interesting look at just how surprising tonight's results really are in light of the numbers over the past few months.

The numbers, with 99% reporting:

Obama: 55%

Hillary 27%

Edwards 18%

Massive win for Obama, obviously. Hillary is speaking now. More soon

Obama is giving his victory speech right now. He hits a conciliatory note about his Dem opponents:

We have fine candidates in the field – fierce competitors, worthy of respect and our admiration. And as contentious as this campaign may get, we have to remember that this is a contest for the Democratic nomination, and that all of us share an abiding desire to end the disastrous policies of the current administration.

But then he twists the knife:

But there are real differences between the candidates. We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House. We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington – a status quo that extends beyond any particular party. And right now, that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got.

The status quo, presumably, being the Hillary candidacy. Full text of Obama's speech after the jump.

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CNN and MSNBC call second place for Hillary.

It's another big blow to John Edwards, who was born in this state and whose campaign was talking up a late surge -- and a possible second-place finish -- that didn't materialize.

Indeed, the Edwards camp sought to draw attention to a Hillary robocall targeting him at the last minute, pointing to it as proof that the "prohibitive frontrunner sees John Edwards as a threat to her becoming the nominee."

CNN and MSNBC both call it for Obama. More in a bit.

Late Update: Apparently the margin was large enough for the nets to call it on the basis of the exits alone...

MSNBC Says Obama got 81% of the black vote. And, according to MSNBC, he got 25% of the white vote, which is higher than polls were indicating.

More in a bit.

Late Late Update: NBC, based on the exits, says Hillary finishes second and Edwards last, another disappointment for Edwards, whose campaign had been talking up a late surge.

Late Late Update: The networks call it: Hillary wins second, and Edwards finishes in third.

The Associated Press has some interesting exit poll data that sheds a bit of light on which candidate is seen by voters as the aggressor in the South Carolina race and which is seen as the victim.

The AP finds that Obama voters are decidedly more aggrieved than Hillary ones are. Not only that, but large percentages of Hillary voters say she attacked him unfairly:

After the contentious Democratic debate Monday night, three in four Obama voters said Clinton had attacked Obama unfairly and slightly fewer than half accused their own candidate of attacking Clinton unfairly. Two-thirds of Clinton voters said Obama attacked her unfairly and nearly as many said she attacked him unfairly.

Meanwhile, the AP gives us this rather inconclusive data about Bill's impact on the race:

Nearly six in 10 of those voting said former President Clinton's campaigning in the state was an important factor for them, including a quarter who called it very important.

Right, Bill's campaigning was important in shaping voter attitudes, but how exactly? Did it help Hillary or hurt her? Hopefully we'll get a bit more data on this later.

Results expected shortly after 7 P.M., which is to say in an hour or so...

The campaigns report high turnout and no major problems at the polls.

We'll be blogging the results and more right here.

John Edwards defends Bill's right to campaign for Hillary in an interview published today:

"I believe that spouses have the right to speak their minds. In his case, he happens to be an ex-president. But my wife Elizabeth speaks her mind. And I think they're entitled to do that. It's a democracy. That's the way it works. People can agree or disagree with what they say, but they're not required to go home and sit around and be quiet. That's just the way I view it."

Edwards, of course, also has a spouse who has been an exceptionally forceful advocate for him on the campaign trail. Indeed, you could argue that Elizabeth has been an even more forceful advocate than Bill has, in the sense that she's greatly amplified her voice without the gigantic megaphone of an ex-president. (Via The Page.)

The Hillary camp moves to frame their expected loss in South Carolina, sending out a new campaign memo from adviser Howard Wolfson that returns to the post-Iowa argument that this race is all about delegate totals:

Regardless of today’s outcome, the race quickly shifts to Florida, where hundreds of thousands of Democrats will turn out to vote on Tuesday...

This remains a delegate fight, with 1,681 delegates at stake on February 5th, and 2,025 needed to secure the nomination -- and we are ahead in that fight.

We'll be blogging today's South Carolina results right here at Election Central. Full memo after the jump.

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In an interview with NBC that was broadcast this morning, Obama said some new and interesting stuff to minimize the political fallout that he and Hillary have been navigating in the wake of their bitter racial dust-ups. For instance, he downplayed his loss of white support in South Carolina:

"Well, I’m not sure that, you know you take one poll, there are other polls that show us getting 19%, 20%, holding pretty steady. But of you also look at this campaign. We’ve won in Iowa. Which is 94% white. We’ve practically tied in New Hampshire. With the same ratios. We’ve won in some of the most diverse states and some least diverse states...

"You’ll recall that early in this campaign everybody was asking am I black enough, right? You know, there's a constant narrative that goes back and forth. What our message has been is consistent. I’m not running as a black or a white candidate."

Obama also denied he'd personally accused the Clintons of racism:

"I didn't have an exchange with Senator Clinton over race. I did not say at any point that I thought they were talking about race. Take a look. There’s not a single quote in which that's been a suggestion I’ve made...I don't view them as having gone after me on the basis of race."

The closest Obama himself came to suggesting this is the following comment about Hillary's Martin Luther King remark: "I think it offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act." This doesn't constitute Obama himself making the charge.

However, Obama's interviewer on NBC did say that the Illinois Senator acknowledged that surrogates on both sides had pushed the race story along. Indeed, Obama aide Steve Hildebrand was quoted yesterday as follows:

"The Clintons have always put people in a box — they look at everything through racial lines, gender lines, geographic lines; they tend to segment people...If the Clintons paint him as the black candidate, no one's going to stop them from doing that. They are playing the same old-style games."

Meanwhile, the voting is today in South Carolina, and we'll be blogging the results right here at Election Central.

Separately on the racial dust-up front, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert hit the Clintons hard today -- and even used a single anonymous racist blog posting to bash Bill and Hillary as gleeful about racism.

The Huffington Post reports that Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), the top elected Democrat in the Sunshine State, will endorse Hillary Clinton for president.

Nelson's endorsement probably has something to do with Hillary's newly-announced support for seating the state's delegates, which were taken away by the Democratic National Committee because of the state's rogue primary. Nelson has become champion of the early Florida primary, even unsuccessfully suing the DNC in federal court to have the delegates restored.

Late Update: Nelson put out a press release earlier today, lauding Hillary for her position on seating the Florida delegates. The statement is available after the jump.

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The final SurveyUSA poll in the South Carolina Democratic primary shows Barack Obama on his way to a win, but it's one marked by racial polarization. Obama has 43%, Hillary Clinton 30%, and John Edwards 24%. Only 18% of black respondents said they'd vote for Hillary, and only 21% of whites preferred Obama.

Pollster.com analysts Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin are giving their final takes on the SC polling. Franklin's word of caution to Obama fans is particularly noteworthy: "Obama has appealed to white voters in previous primaries and caucuses. The pre-election polls have found him getting as low as 10% of the white vote in South Carolina. The potential for racial polarization in this Southern state could damage his ability to transcend race as a basis of voting."

Barack Obama's campaign has worked hard to purge itself of any taint from Chicago political patron Tony Rezko giving away $85,000 in contributions that they've identified as being connected to the currently-indicted Illinois Democratic fundraiser.

However, ABC News reports that their review shows yet another $100,000 in contributions that the Obama camp didn't spot. Some of it would seem to be really obvious, too, like checks from Rezko's wife and others from employees of his businesses.

The timing is pretty bad for Obama campaign, in that it highlights the fact that the ties between himself and Rezko are much stronger than anything allegedly revealed this morning, when a photo surfaced of Rezko smiling with Hillary and Bill at some point in the 90s.

Hillary Clinton has now issued a statement about the DNC's action in stripping Michigan and Florida of their delegates due to their rogue primaries. Hillary has called for the delegates from both states to be fully seated.

On a campaign conference call with reporters, one Clinton adviser said that the candidate is really just listening to the voters of those states, and wants them to be heard. "I think that what the senator said is that she's hearing from a lot of people that they'd like to have their voices heard." He then added that he would like to hear from the other candidates where they stand on the issue.

A cynic would note that Hillary was the only major candidate whose name was on the ballot in Michigan, running against "uncommitted," and that she is also favored to win Florida after none of the candidates campaigned in the state.

So what would the actual effect of the Michigan/Florida delegates be? If the nomination is a settled question regardless, then it really doesn't matter, and either Hillary or Obama would ultimately have them seated. But if we were looking at a brokered convention, you'd see the Hillary camp fighting for a floor vote to seat those delegates, and use the issue as a public relations weapon — much like how the brokered conventions of old would have floor fights over the seating of disputed delegations.

The Obama campaign just sent me some audio of an event -- from yesterday, the Obama camp says -- at which Bill Clinton said this:

“The President is not called the Chief Executive Officer of America for nothing. You don’t run the bureaucracy but you are responsible for seeing that your ideas turn into positive changes in other people’s lives.”

Bill's notion that "you don't run the bureaucracy" as President sounds awfully similar to something that Obama said the other day:

"But I'm not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that's not my job. My job is to set a vision of 'here's where the bureaucracy needs to go.'"

This Obama quote attracted sharp criticism from Hillary, who said that what we really need is a "hands on" president.

This is of course is why the Obama camp is now brandishing this similar remark from Bill himself.

I'm unable as yet to vouch for the context of the Obama quote, but will bring you the fuller context as soon as I'm able. Audio of Bill's quote in a bit.

Late Update: Okay, a transcript containing the full context is after the jump.

It's true that Bill was agreeing with Obama's case that the president doesn't "run the bureaucracy." In addition to this, however, what Bill said here was also partly critical of Obama. Bill was basically saying, "Yes, Obama, you're right, the president doesn't `run the bureaucracy,' but he is the Chief Executive Officer, and he's tasked with not only coming up with a vision, but translating it into reality."

But does Obama really disagree with this? Obama has said that he doesn't view the job as one of CEO. Back in December he said:

"But the president is not the CEO of America, the president is not the COO of America," he said. "The president is someone who sets goals, has a vision for where the country needs to go, is able to gather the absolute best talent around him or her, to evaluate when we're making progress on those goals, to recognize when we're making mistakes and make adjustments, set a new course."

So, while Clinton is saying that they differ on the narrow question of whether the job of president should be characterized as "CEO," and while Obama has certainly certainly stressed the idea that a President's primary task is to set a vision for the country, there's no real evidence that Obama really disagrees in any meaningful way with Bill's idea that the job of president is to set and implement a vision.

Late Late Update: It's also worth noting that whatever distinction Bill did try to draw here, he did agree with Obama's point that a president doesn't "run the bureaucracy."

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The Associated Press reports that Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) will endorse John McCain, just in time for the Florida primary on Tuesday.

The endorsement is definitely a good get for McCain, and might especially help him build up his numbers among the Cuban community.

The Hillary campaign is moving today to engage Obama more directly over the now-notorious comments about the GOP and Reagan. TPM's Eric Kleefeld reports that on a conference call arranged by the Hillary camp, Hillary pollster Mark Penn said:

"President Clinton put this country on a fundamentally different path. He changed the fiscal nature of this country, he changed the international relations of this country…He left the country on a totally different trajectory where people felt they were prepared for the 21st century."

The argument, obviously, is meant to engage not just Obama's "party of ideas" comment, but also his claim that Reagan (and JFK) changed the country in ways that Bill didn't. This, and the radio ad released yesterday in which Bill openly praised his own performance as President, suggest that the Hillary campaign is hoping to turn Obama's comments into a direct argument about the 1990s.

I'm not sure which way the increased emphasis on Bill's presidency cuts -- whether it makes voters nostalgic for the successes of the Clinton presidency, or whether it makes voters more receptive to Obama's "turn the page" argument -- but it seems like this is the tack that the Clinton camp has chosen.

Hillary hits all the morning shows, gets hit with a surprise on NBC: An old photo of her and Bill next to disgraced Obama associate Tony Rezko. NBC's Matt Lauer says that the network "received" the photo and that its date is uncertain; the same pic also popped up on Drudge this morning.

Asked about it, Hillary responds: "I don't know the man. I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door. I don’t have a 17 year relationship with him. There's a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don't know and haven't seen since, and having a relationship that the newspapers in Chicago have been exploring." Her campaign's official response is here.

To see the Rezko photo, roll the tape...

Liberal champion Russ Feingold is having a tough time choosing between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but he's more than willing to elaborate on his anti-endorsement of John Edwards. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Feingold discussed why he simply doesn't buy the sincerity of Edwards' current positions.

"You have to consider what the audience is, and obviously these are very popular positions to take when you are in a primary where you are trying to get the progressive vote," Feingold said. "But wait a minute — there were opportunities to vote against the bankruptcy bill, there was an opportunity to vote against the China deal. Those are the moments where you sort of find out where somebody is. So I think, people are being taken in a little bit that now he is taking these positions."

Meanwhile (via Ben Smith), here's Edwards' new ad in South Carolina, in which he's depicted as the candidate who is actually serious on the issues, as compared to the sniping between Hillary and Obama:

Obama speaks out again about the Clintons' criticism of him, adding a new layer to his response:

At a morning press conference, though, Obama indicated that the race wasn’t as nasty as some may think, "I don't feel like the candidates are being blooded up," but then added on, "This is good practice for me, so ya know when I take on those Republicans I'll be accustomed to it."

I wonder whether this suggests that Obama is cognizant of the argument from some critics that he'd better realize that the attacks from the Clintons are nothing compared to what he'll face from the GOP should he win the nomination. Clinton supporters, such as James Carville, have taken to saying that Obama's "whining" about the Clintons suggests he's unfit for a general election.

So Obama is signaling that he doesn't think the current acrimony is any big deal and that he knows full what's next.

The new SurveyUSA poll in Florida gives John McCain a very narrow lead over Mitt Romney, who is himself catching up very quickly. Here are the results, compared to the numbers from four days ago:

McCain 30% (+5)
Romney 28% (+9)
Giuliani 18% (-2)
Huckabee 14% (+0)
Paul 6% (-1)

It really does seem like Fred Thompson's exit from the race was a boon for Romney. Fred had 7% support in the previous poll, and it looks like Mitt got the lion's share of it.

Here's some good news for John McCain: The once-moribund candidate was really able to pick up in fundraising this month, taking in more than $7 million — and the month isn't even over yet.

But McCain isn't in the clear yet. In addition to his $3 million in outstanding debts, he'll still have to raise even more money to compete on Super Tuesday and simultaneously campaign in those various states, and all in a very short period of time. And it's not yet known how much of that $7 million he's already had to spend in the primary contests so far.

By comparison, Mitt Romney has had better fundraising overall, and can write himself a big check if he needs more cash.

A new poll of Massachusetts by SurveyUSA shows that the endorsements of Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick haven't helped Barack Obama very much in this Super Tuesday state. Hillary Clinton has a huge lead with 59% support, followed by Barack Obama at 22% and John Edwards with 11%.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney enjoys a healthy lead in his home state: Romney 50%, McCain 29%, Huckabee 7%, Giuliani 6%, and Paul 3%.

The new Zogby poll in South Carolina shows Barack Obama continuing to hold a healthy lead over the rest of the field — and that John Edwards just might be sneaking up on Hillary Clinton for second place. Barack Obama leads with 38% support, followed by Clinton at 25%, and Edwards with 21%.

Some commentary from John Zogby: "The real movement here is by John Edwards, who is the only one who continues to gain ground in our three-day tracking poll ... Can he catch Clinton by Saturday’s vote, perhaps bumping her from a second-place finish? Perhaps that is why she has returned to the state to campaign."

There was a very weird moment during tonight's GOP debate. It started when Tim Russert, inanely, asked Mitt Romney: "How would you run against Hillary and Bill Clinton in November?"

And Romney answered: "I frankly can't wait, because the idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do, is something I just can't imagine. I can't imagine, the American people can't imagine."

Though multiple polls have shown that sizable majorities don't have a problem with this, you'd expect such an answer from a GOP candidate, obviously.

But then, after the debate was over, Chris Matthews just obsessed over Romney's answer. He kept repeating the line about Bill being in the White House with "nothing to do," again and again, with a truly odd grin on his face, as if it had profound significance. Deeply weird.

Mike Huckabee, at the debate a few moments ago:

"The fact is, this country has always been a country where people were able to respect people who had faith, and frankly we ought to be able to respect people who don't have any."

Tolerance alert! Atheists might still be inclined to worry about Huck's desire to bring the Constitution in line with God's will, but perhaps it's a start.

The GOP debate in Florida is underway, and one thing immediately jumped out: Some of the candidates agree that before the war, Saddam -- contrary to President Bush's argument that he had WMDs -- was only trying to acquire them.

Here's what John McCain said:

It was worth getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He had used weapons of mass destruction, and it's clear that he was hell bent on acquiring them.

And here's what Mike Huckabee said:

We owe him our thanks, that he had the courage to recognize there was a potential of weapons of mass destruction, and rather than wait until we had another attack, he went and made sure that it wasn't going to happen from Saddam Hussein.

If memory serves, Bush was definitive on the point -- he said Saddam did have WMDs. Right?

Late Update: Here's video:

Hillary wins the big one, the endorsement of The New York Times:

The sense of possibility, of a generational shift, rouses Mr. Obama’s audiences and not just through rhetorical flourishes. He shows voters that he understands how much they hunger for a break with the Bush years, for leadership and vision and true bipartisanship. We hunger for that, too. But we need more specifics to go with his amorphous promise of a new governing majority, a clearer sense of how he would govern.

The potential upside of a great Obama presidency is enticing, but this country faces huge problems, and will no doubt be facing more that we can’t foresee. The next president needs to start immediately on challenges that will require concrete solutions, resolve, and the ability to make government work. Mrs. Clinton is more qualified, right now, to be president.

But how does the paper deal with Hillary's support for the invasion, which The Times opposed?

We opposed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and we disagree with Mrs. Clinton’s vote for the resolution on the use of force. That’s not the issue now; it is how the war will be ended. Mrs. Clinton seems not only more aware than Mr. Obama of the consequences of withdrawal, but is already thinking through the diplomatic and military steps that will be required to contain Iraq’s chaos after American troops leave.

The paper's conclusion:

We know that she is capable of both uniting and leading. We saw her going town by town through New York in 2000, including places where Clinton-bashing was a popular sport. She won over skeptical voters and then delivered on her promises and handily won re-election in 2006.

Mrs. Clinton must now do the same job with a broad range of America’s voters. She will have to let Americans see her power to listen and lead, but she won’t be able to do it town by town.

When we endorsed Mrs. Clinton in 2006, we were certain she would continue to be a great senator, but since her higher ambitions were evident, we wondered if she could present herself as a leader to the nation.

Her ideas, her comeback in New Hampshire and strong showing in Nevada, her new openness to explaining herself and not just her programs, and her abiding, powerful intellect show she is fully capable of doing just that. She is the best choice for the Democratic Party as it tries to regain the White House.

Full endorsement here.

The new McClatchy-MSNBC poll in South Carolina finds:

Obama 38%

Hillary 30%

Edwards 19%

According to the pollsters, the race is growing more polarized along racial lines: Only 25% of blacks support Hillary, and only 10% of whites support Obama.

The Hillary campaign just announced that Bill Clinton has gone up on the air for his wife in a new positive South Carolina radio spot -- and it's hard to miss this line:

I want to thank you for twice giving me the chance to serve as president. The 1990s were a time of prosperity. We created more than 22 million new jobs, moved eight million people out of poverty, and turned our economy around.

The line seems designed to be push-back against Obama's claim that the GOP was the "party of ideas" for the last decade and a half. The Hillary camp had an ad up directly attacking Obama for the claim, but that ad came down today.

Now Bill is up on the air personally making the case for his presidential era, only this time in a positive spot. Full script after the jump.

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Rudy Giuliani has two new ads up in Florida, the state where he's making an all-out effort to actually win something.

The first one plays up his links to Reagan, his commitment to lowering taxes, and his proposal for a national catastrophe insurance program:

The second one we actually posted on yesterday. It was originally a Web ad pushing Rudy's call for a national catastrophe fund, but was clearly destined to make it to TV with its catchy music and Southern-accented announcer.

Dennis Kucinich has announced that he is dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president, and will focus on his own re-election bid to the House.

Two factors likely pushed him out of the race: a) The public calendar forced him to choose between continuing his candidacy versus running for re-election, and b) The cable news networks stopped inviting him to debates, due to his very poor showings in the caucuses and primaries so far, thus depriving him of a high-profile venue for promoting his platform.

A truce in the ad wars? For now, anyway. Earlier today CNN reported that the Hillary campaign has yanked their radio ad in South Carolina hitting Obama for saying the GOP is the "party of ideas." The Hillary campaign is claiming that it was scheduled to come down.

Now the Obama campaign has responded in kind with their S.C. ad hitting Hillary for being willing to "say anything" to win. Obama spokesperson Bill Burton tells us: "Once we confirmed that Clinton was taking down her attack ad, we instructed radio stations in South Carolina to take down our response ad."

One of the central struggles between the Obama and Hillary campaigns right now is this: Which of the two can successfully persuade voters that he or she is the fair-fighter being victimized by the other's out-of-control aggression? Which of the two can persuade voters that his or her opponent is using a steady stream of vicious, old-style attack politics to prevent history from being made?

Right now -- if media coverage, pundit opinion, and insider chatter among Dems is any guide -- it's hard not to conclude that Obama is winning this particular spin war handily.

At risk of overgeneralizing, much media coverage and commentary right now appears to be hewing closer to the Obama campaign's chosen narrative, which is roughly that the Clinton machine is using every gutter tactic at its disposal to halt the triumph of new politics and the making of history.

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The vultures are circling around Rudy Giuliani's campaign, waiting for him to drop out after the Florida primary rather than suffer worse humiliation on Super Tuesday — but he says he's staying in even if he loses this Tuesday in the Sunshine State.

"I have no plans to end my campaign," Rudy told reporters today, according to the New York Times. "Of course, I anticipate winning in Florida because I don't go into a campaign anticipating losing. And I have no reason not to anticipate winning. We're very, very competitive."

For those of you keeping score, the latest polls have Rudy in third place in Florida, behind Mitt Romney and John McCain.

The Hillary campaign responds to the Obama camp's memo saying that Hillary is "pulling out all the stops" to win South Carolina by pointing out that a few days ago, Obama hit Hillary for neglecting the state and not taking it seriously.

Here's Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer's retort:

So does the Obama campaign think we are giving up on South Carolina or going all out for it? I guess it depends on the day.

The Hillary campaign sent out the following talking points to surrogates this morning, instructing them on how to talk to the media about Obama's new radio ad attacking her as willing to "say anything" to win. A source forwarded them to us:

Talking Points

SEN. OBAMA’S PERSONAL ATTACK AD

* After months of telling Americans he would run a positive campaign, Senator Obama has launched the most negative, personal attack of this cycle.

* In a new ad airing in South Carolina, Senator Obama outrageously asserts that Senator Clinton will “say anything to get elected.”

* This from a candidate and a campaign who have promised voters a politics of hope and unity, and repeatedly denounced the “slash and burn politics of the past.”

--In August, Senator Obama told the Associated Press that “I’ve been respectful of all the candidates. I would challenge anyone to find a statement I’ve made that has been personal.”

--Earlier this year, Senator Obama’s Chief Strategist David Axelrod told Real Clear Politics, “Do we have a strategy to tear people down? We don't.”

--And just two weeks ago, Senator Obama told Newsweek that he would not “knee cap” his opponents.

* While Senator Obama lashes out at Senator Clinton with personal attacks, Hillary travels to South Carolina today to outline her plan to jumpstart the economy and rebuild the middle class.

* Hillary remains focused on what matters most—providing real solutions to America’s challenges and making a difference in people’s lives.

So if you hear some of this stuff, you'll have an idea of where it might have come from.

Here's another sign of how far downhill one-time frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has fallen: His deputy campaign manager, longtime GOP operative Rick Ahearn, now working as a volunteer.

This piece of information tells us Rudy has not only sunk in the polls — he's probably running out of money, too, if he can't afford to pay his campaign professionals for full-time work.

The Obama campaign rolled out a new argument in a campaign memo today: That Hillary is "pulling out all the stops" to win in South Carolina -- and will "say and do anything" to do it.

The Obama camp has clearly settled on the message that Hillary will "say anything" to win -- the same phrase appeared yesterday in a new Obama radio ad. This memo takes this a step further by fusing that message with an apparent effort to inflate expectations for Hillary by saying that she's "pulling out all the stops" to secure victory in South Carolina.

It should be noted that the other day Obama criticized Hillary for not spending time in the state and hence not taking it seriously.

The memo suggests that the Obama camp might think that they need to deal with the fact that many commentators are presuming a solid South Carolina win for him.

"There’s an old South Carolina saying that goes like this -- some people would rather climb a tree to tell a fib than stand on the ground and tell the truth," the memo says. "The truth is Hillary Clinton’s campaign is pulling out all the stops to win in South Carolina. And it includes saying and doing just about anything to win." Full memo after the jump.

Late Update: The Hillary campaign responds.

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The New York Times reports that Hillary had her Dean Scream moment in New Jersey last night. Sort of, anyway.

Feel the Mittmentum! The new Mason-Dixon poll in Florida shows Mitt Romney grabbing the lead over John McCain:

Romney 30%
McCain 26%
Giuliani 18%
Huckabee 13%
Paul 3%

It's starting to look like McCain tops out somewhere in the mid-high 20s in this key primary — which means that Fred Thompson's withdrawal was the best thing that could have happened to Romney.

Barack Obama has a new radio ad in South Carolina, responding to Hillary Clinton's attack ad against his "party of ideas" comment. The ad's announcer cuts straight to the point: "It's what's wrong with politics today. Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected."

The ad then goes over Hillary's own praise of Ronald Reagan, and her backing of a particular Republican policy that isn't too popular with the Democratic base — "George Bush's war in Iraq."

The script is available after the jump.

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Mitt Romney's new ad in Florida pitches him as the best candidate to handle the economy and to uphold conservative values, quoting conservative magazines like the Weekly Standard and National Review:

An interesting inclusion is a quote from a June 2007 piece in the Boston Globe — a paper that endorsed John McCain this past December.

In a further sign that Fred Thompson's withdrawal could prove to be a net plus for Mitt Romney in the Florida primary, Romney has now picked up the support of Anita Mitchell, one of Thompson's top fundraisers in the state.

Mitchell told The Hill that Romney's experience as a businessman and CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics attracted her to Mitt's candidacy, adding that "a lot of the people I brought to the table for Fred will go with Romney."