Did anyone ask about vetting her tax returns?

I think they'll be "challenged" to find enough "opportunity" to make up the spread no matter what kinds of "contrasts" they "draw". regardless, anytime penn drops some of his pearls of wisdom on us it's EXCELLENT NEWS!!! FOR HILLARY!!!

Well, that looks like about as good a message as I could think up for her campaign. I am not sure that I would have a lot of hope in its working, but I suppose that we will see.

I suspect and am confident that there are lots of other skeletons to come out and best now than later in the general election. Some suggestions to Obama:

1. Maybe a bit of advance disclosure on challenges to your credibility will help prepare you and your followers for your defense, futile as it might be.

2. Maybe revisit your past disclosures, much as you've started doing with Rezko, to get your story straight. Your changing shory is beginning to look like a bunch of lies piling up. How long can you and your supporters keep it all straight? What happens if Fitzgerald begins comparing what you publicly claim with what is being said in the trial?

3. What's your plan if you are called as a witness in Rezko's trial? Will Rezko, Blagojevich, or others cut a deal and sell you out?

4. Can you give another foreign policy speech to bolster your experience? Maybe hold a committee hearing? How about a quick visit to Canada to clarify your NAFTA position?

Okay, don't mean to pile on but you do have some serious problems that we've now got weeks to flush out before the Pennsylvania primary. (Maybe taking a deal now with Clinton to be her VP would be a good idea.)

By "contrast," Penn means, "make shit up, hope the media continues to transcribe our press releases as news stories, and hope it sticks."

Penn can rest easy knowing he's got allies here at HRC Election Central.

Fine, Mark Penn. Have it your way: the Obama camp will now be responding with "contrasts" of their own.

Losing is too good for Mark Penn: he needs to be seen bawling like a preschooler on national television.

Putz.

Vetting = trashing? It's time for this to be over.

The Democratic Party be damned. If we destroy Obama but still lose the nomination, oh well. It's all about us!

Obama for the most part has avoided getting into this knife fight and almost got the nomination without entering it. Now he has no choice but to engage. Now hand over those tax returns!

And we're now calling Penn "Chief pollster"?

When is Obama going to pull a McCain and hold a press conference where he "answers every question" on Rezko? Each time his campaign hits Clinton on something, they come back with Rezko. It makes it very difficult for him to get on offense. If he's got nothing to hide, a big presser should put the issue to bed, leaving him plenty of time to gain the advantage before Pa. It's odd that it's the campaign of one of the most secretive politicians in America that's scoring points on openness.

So, Mr. Penn, what "unexpected" states has your trashy strategy won so far? Ohio? Oh, wait, that wasn't unexpected. Texas? Not unexpected either, and not a delegate win.

We're waiting... (and can't believe that the Clinton campaign still allows this guy to speak in public.)

WHY WON'T THE CLINTONS RELEASE THEIR TAX RETURNS?....

A dramatic graph of Bill Hillary Clinton's recent meteoric rise in wealth and a large collection of links to articles about Bill Clinton's recent corporate whoring.

http://thememlingindex.com/hillary_clinton_net_worth-wealth.html

I apologize to the TPM staff for repeatedly posting this on your comment boards today.....but after last night, and Hillary's new disgraceful and fratricidal(to quote Kevin Drum) talking points trumping John McCain's experience over Obamas.....well...I'm fucking pissed.

Can somebody explain to me the logic behind the argument that, because Clinton beat Obama in Ohio, TX, and CA, that means she will carry those states in November against McCain? It seems to me that it compares apples and oranges. Obama is not McCain, and beating Obama in a Dem. primary would not seem to have any relation to how Clinton would do against McCain in the fall.

I just don't follow the logic, but this is a constant refrain from the Hillary folks that has been picked up by the media without any analysis, and it is obviously designed to influence the uncommitted supers.

Can somebody explain the logic to me?

Mitch

I think it's hilarious that Matthew Weaver would want to insinuate about Obama's potential problems in political ethics considering that the candidate he (presumably) supports:

1. will not release her tax returns
2. will not release her White House papers
3. will not release the names of Clinton Library donors
4. is involved in a whole litany of shady dealings--cattle futures? whitewater? the Chinese?--that make Obama's purchase of a single family home look like child's play.

I, for one, appreciate Weaver's facetiousness.

Sounds like Hillary and her team are getting way too emboldened by their 10 delegate victory. When will she learn that character does count? I guess when you have none you have to make due through other means.

On what basis do you expect skeletons in Obama's closet? A little self projection, maybe? I actually agree with you to an extent in that I think he ought to do a 3 hour open presser the day after MS to answer any and all possible Rezko questions they can come up with. I personally hope he trashes her with negativity 24 hours a day on every last channel. Suits her right. May as well finish poisoning the well and handing the general to Old Man River. (sarcasm)

I suppose this is as good a place as any to make this post, so I'll just make it here:

While I appreciate the "undemocratic" nature of the superdelegate system, this is the system that the party put in place in the early 80s precisely as a means of tempering the "far left" of the Democratic party (ie the people) and giving party insiders/leaders a larger say in who their candidate will be. The whole point of the superdelegate system is to make the process less democratic and more of a "representative democracy." Right or wrong, this is the system that the party thought was best and it hasn't changed it yet.

Yes, I am a Hillary supporter, but it doesn't really matter, because either candidate will need the superdelegates to win the nomination under the rules that were set up by the party. I just think it would be somewhat unfair to either candidate to basically say "yeah, we know we set up this system for superdelegates which has nothing to do with the popular vote/pledged delegates (and was intended to be so), but now that it looks like one candidate is going to win a majority of pledged delegates, but not enough to win the nomination without superdelegates, we think the superdelegate system is 'undemocratic.'"

Winning the support of the superdelegates is something separate and apart from winning the pledged delegates. Both candidates were aware of that going in and are certainly aware of that now. And both candidates should focus on winning pledged delegates in the primaries/caucuses and also separately focus on winning superdelegates (however they win them) in order to attain enough total delegates to be nominated, and not whine that the system is "undemocratic." I agree that it is somewhat undemocratic, but these are the rules of the game as set up by the party.

They don't want to release their taxes because their "investment" in the campaign will have come from dollars associated with Bill's shady dealings with Ron Burkle, the InfoUSA guy, and the guy connected to the Kazakhstan deal. All of this stuff has been touched upon by the press but not deeply covered. Just give it some time....

So, Hillary is simply being *clever* to withhold any information - no matter how relevant - that she thinks "will be twisted somehow and used in a negative way" against her in the primary race. It's not that she has anything to *hide*, or that she's displaying the same Nixonion paranoia and entitlement that helped her to squander the massive lead she enjoyed not all that long ago; she just "knows the routine." Thanks for the clarification.

For someone who loves to make Kool-Aid references, you've got your own mouth pretty well filled to capacity. Does Kool-Aid come in "Pantsuit" flavor?

If you're so confident in Hillary, why can't you hold her to any consistent standard?

An hour ago I posted a comment which got lost in the TPM Election Central limbo (doesn't happen often, happily).

The NC State Board of Elections runs a very kludgy site that does not even quickly display the number of Dem. delegates at stake, but shows they vote May 6:

http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/

Slate's delegate counter says NC has 116 delegates at stake while PA has 158.

http://www.slate.com/features/delegatecounter/

If Obama takes a 70% win out of NC while losing by 45-55 to Clinton in PA, he wins 46 more delegates than her in NC and loses only by 16 delegates in PA, net gain +30 for Obama.

Suppose they split those two states by exact same percentages (55-45 win for her in PA, for him in NC). Net gain +5 for Clinton.

I mentioned this because Mark Penn pointedly ignored North Carolina according to Greg's original post at 1:26 PM

I love the smell of napalm in the morning. The Obamabots on this page are already in full panic mode after a moderate challenge to their inflated sense of destiny. Politics has never be a non-contact endeavor. HRC and her supporters aren't obligated to roll over and go away just to soothe the egos of Obamabots.
And about Tony Rezco. I still don't understand why he would be interested in buying the parcel of land next to Obama's home and I don't understand the details of how the purchase was made without coordination between Obama, the seller and Rezco. Doesn't this at least strike Obama supporters as something that should be adequately explained?

Boy, there's some heated debate here, mixed in with the "Your candidate's campaign team sucks!"
But, I'm just not feeling it, it's as if your hearts aren't really in it today. Maybe fatigue is setting in? Need a little pick me up?

Who wants to start a pool?
I'm thinking the number of SCOTUS retirements during the first 2 years of the next President's term.
Maybe side bets on the order.

I got 3:
Stevens, Kennedy, Ginsburg, in that order.
Caveat: if it's McCain, it will be 4.
Stevens, Kennedy, Scalia, Ginsburg

Just a little reminder of one of the less sexy things at stake, to get the juices flowing.
Say, what are the (D) candidates negative ratings antionally going into this thing, again?

All I got to say is, it's on now!

I'm wondering what all of the middle class professionals in this country (like elementary school teachers) will think if BHO is linked to a kickback scheme to provide Rezko with access to their pension funds? Only Gordon Gecko would be so low as to engage in behavior such as this. But this IS potentially where the links in the chain may be leading according to the source linked to below. Personally, I am encouraged that the primary season continues to unfold. An intelligent democratic party will wait to assure that it puts the best candidate forward.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/03/04/obama-s-eyes-on-rezko.aspx

This site has already done exemplary reporting on the Rezko case: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/obama_rezko_purchase.php

If any politician goes down in Rezko case, it's our inept Governor - Rod Blagojevich: http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/public.official.a.2.664516.html

As an Obama supporter, I also wish he'd do that presser. Still, especially after reading Paul Kiel's piece, I don't think there's a there there.

Has anyone stopped to consider that maybe Obama is NOT a sleaze??? I agree that we've become so inured to corrupt pols that we refuse to believe that honest ones exist. Yes, no one's clean as a whistle, but maybe the reason no skeletons have been found is because they don't exist.