Report: Hillary's Biggest VP Impediment Is Bill
Jill Iscol, a donor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, told the Los Angeles Times that Barack Obama personally told her that Hillary Clinton was under consideration for vice president, but Bill Clinton's presence makes things "complicated." He said once you're a president, even if you're a former president, you're always a president," Iscol said.

Report: Hagel, Reed To Join Obama For Iraq Trip
Multiple news outlets have now reported that Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska conservative who has turned vocally against the Iraq War, will be accompanying Barack Obama on his upcoming trip to Iraq. Also along for the trip will be Sen. Jack Reed, a Dem point man on foreign policy, but Hagel's presence is far more interesting -- might he become a mirror image of Joe Liebemran, crossing party lines to support the Dem for president?

Both Nominees Taking The Day Off
Both presidential candidates are taking the day off today. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain have any public events scheduled.

Sebelius Not Denying VP Talk
In an interview with CQ, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius said that was not ever vetted for the vice presidency by John Kerry's team in 2004 -- but did not make the same statement about the Obama campaign this year. "Any discussion about this process is being done by the campaign itself," Sebelius said.

German Pol: Obama Shouldn't Speak At Brandenburg Gate
The leader of Bavaria's conservative party says Barack Obama shouldn't speak at the Brandenburg Gate, and accused the leftist foreign minister of pandering to the candidate. "Obama didn't do anything for German unification," Erwin Huber told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. "That's not a criticism, but as a result there is no reason to grant him such a privilege."

Poll: Obama Leads In Missouri
A new Research 2000 poll in Missouri gives Barack Obama a 48%-43% lead in this swing state, with a ±3.5% margin of error. Most recent polls have given McCain the lead here, but the pollster's analysis in this case indicates that economic insecurity is increasingly driving voters into the Democratic column.

Possible Spoiler Candidate Files In Louisiana District
Some bad news for House Dems: Louisiana state Sen. Michael Jackson, who lost the special election Democratic primary to Rep. Don Cazayoux in a conservative district this spring, has filed to run in November as an independent. Jackson could potentially pick up African-American voters who might otherwise go for Cazayoux, thus splitting the vote in favor of the Republican in a district that Democrats just picked up.

Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton:

"Senator Obama had a terrific conversation with President Clinton and is honored to have his support in this campaign. He has always believed that Bill Clinton is one of this nation's great leaders and most brilliant minds, and looks forward to seeing him on the campaign trail and receiving his counsel in the months to come."

Cue up pundits telling us what a liability Bill will be to Obama...

Late Update: Apparently Obama skipped Maureen Dowd's column yesterday saying that Bill is trying to undermine Obama.

Late Late Update: Here's the statement from Bill's office:

President Clinton had a very good conversation with Senator Obama today. He renewed his offer to do whatever he can to ensure Senator Obama is our next President.

President Clinton continues to be impressed by Senator Obama and the campaign he has run, and looks forward to campaigning for and with him in the months to come. The President believes that Senator Obama has been a great inspiration for millions of people around the country, and he knows that he will bring the change America needs as our next President.

Obama To Show Missouri A Patriotism Speech
Barack Obama will be at the Harry Truman Memorial Building in Independence, Missouri, where he will deliver a speech this morning on "what patriotism means to him and what it requires of all Americans who loves this country and want to see it do better," according to the campaign's morning e-mail to reporters. The event is clearly a key move to answer the McCain's recent push to tie every issue to the idea of patriotism, and the notion that McCain is a more loyal American. The doors open for the event at 10 a.m. ET.

John McCain In Pennsylvania Today
John McCain will be spending his time today in Pennsylvania, a major swing state that has not voted Republican for president since it went to George H.W. Bush in 1988, but where McCain is hoping to win working-class voters. McCain will be greeting supporters in Allentown, and then touring a sheet metal factory in Pipersville.

McCauliffe: Obama And Bill Clinton Will Talk Soon
Terry McAuliffe told CNN yesterday that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will finally talk to each other some time soon, and that Bill will be ready to campaign for Obama soon. "I believe that in the next 24 to 48 hours they will talk and off we will go," McAuliffe said.

McCain Camp: Obama Should Condemn Clark's Comments
John McCain's campaign is demanding that the Obama camp condemn remarks yesterday by Gen. Wesley Clark on CBS' Face The Nation, in which Clark said that McCain's having been shot down in Vietnam was not a qualification to be president. "If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service to his country, he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates," said retired Adm. Leighton Smith in a McCain campaign press release.

Poll: Dead Heat In Virginia
A new SurveyUSA poll of Virginia shows Barack Obama with a statistically insignificant lead of 49%-47%, with a ±4% margin of error. A little over a month ago, Obama had a 49%-42% lead. The vice presidential match-ups also show that Gov. Tim Kaine would not affect the margins, and that Sen. Jim Webb would potentially bring a net three points to the Dem ticket.

Poll: McCain Up By Ten In Georgia
A new Rasmussen poll of Georgia gives John McCain a 53%-43% lead, outside the ±4% margin of error. This is contrary to a recent InsiderAdvantage poll that gave John McCain only a one-point lead, and had native son Bob Barr's presence on the ballot significantly affecting the race. In this Rasmussen poll, Barr only gets one percent.

When you write an item about leading Hillary supporter Ed Rendell, you are required to describe him as "blunt." And here is Rendell again, being, well, blunt about Bill Clinton's alleged hard feelings towards Obama...

Bill has to "get over it," and "shake it off," Rendell says. Did someone say he's blunt?

Ben Smith noted yesterday that Obama's campaign has harmed Bill in some ways, because Obama has run an implicit campaign against his presidency. That said, who the heck knows if Bill is really "miffed" with Obama, as everyone keeps saying; the original report that got this going is based only on the word of an anonymous Democrat who supposedly spoke to Bill.

I don't know if Bill is "miffed" or not. He very well may be, and if he is in fact "miffed," Rendell is right; he should get over it. Either way, it has now become true that Bill is "miffed," and there will be no changing that, ever.

Bill Clinton's office, responding to lots of chatter in political circles about why he hasn't yet endorsed Barack Obama, releases a terse statement:

"President Clinton is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next President of the United States."

It's not exactly an appearance with Obama at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire -- but it's an endorsement nonetheless.

If Obama advisers were upset with the Clintons' conduct during the primary -- especially that of Bill Clinton -- it's not getting in the way of a larger reality: They know they'll need party unity for the general election, and are hoping to have as much help as possible from them.

Barack Obama's top strategist David Axelrod told Fox News that he expects to see Hillary Clinton hitting the trail for Obama. "We hope so," said Axelrod. "We expect so, based on what she said publicly. But this has been an unbelievably grueling process and she deserves some time to chill out."

As for Bill: "Bill Clinton was very successful, and is a very smart guy, so I think beyond the campaigning elements of it, you know he's somebody who I think Obama would want to have a relationship with. He's got a storehouse of knowledge that very few people have."

Bill Clinton has taken another step in the Hillary campaign's arguments about the Democratic popular vote, bluntly telling a crowd in Puerto Rico that super-delegates and the party as a whole will have to judge just how much caucuses should matter.

"And the party will have to decide whether they believe the caucuses -- where you get about one delegate for 2000 votes -- are more important than the primaries where you get one for 12,000," Bill told the crowd.

This is on top of a line from Hillary's new letter to super-delegates, in which she predicted that by the time this race is over, she will have won more pledged delegates from primaries -- a subtle message that Obama's victories in caucus states are illusory as far as how much support they truly represent for him.

Although Bill Clinton's remarks throughout the campaign have been the object of some controversy, that isn't slowing him down. Bill is doing his best to get out on the trail as much as possible -- and according to the Wall St. Journal is as responsible as anyone else for the campaign's harsh tone:

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."

On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.

Bill Clinton is now coming under fire from House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), for his recent accusation that the Obama campaign had long planned to play the race card against him.

Clyburn characterized the former president's behavior throughout this campaign as "bizarre," and said that there is now a nearly-unanimous view among African-Americans that the Clintons are "committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win."

"When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar," Clyburn said. "I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation."

Clyburn has not publicly endorsed in the Democratic race.

In a further indication of just how perturbed Bill Clinton has been with this campaign, Bill made the following accusation against the Obama camp on a local Philadelphia radio show yesterday: "I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along."

It's not entirely clear what "memos" Bill might be referring to. The closest such memo in existence is one the Obama campaign put out a while ago, accusing the Clinton people of playing the race card on various occasions.

After the interview had officially ended, but while his microphone was still on, Bill upped the ante: "I don't think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?"

Late Update: Bill is now denying that he made this accusation, despite the widespread publication online of the audio from yesterday.

During a campaign event in Pennsylvania, Bill Clinton said that Hillary has done better with older voters because they are too smart to be fooled by Barack Obama and his aspersions on Bill's record.

"I think there is a big reason there's an age difference in a lot of these polls," said Bill. "Because once you've reached a certain age, you won't sit there and listen to somebody tell you there's really no difference between what happened in the Bush years and the Clinton years; that there's not much difference in how small-town Pennsylvania fared when I was president, and in this decade."

During a campaign stop today in Indiana, Bill Clinton defended his wife's reputation on the Bosnia flap, claiming it was all a product of a misstatement at 11 p.m.

"This is a big deal to her," Bill said. "Some of you may have seen that she took a terrible beating in the press for a few days because, she was exhausted at 11 o'clock at night and she started talking about Bosnia and she misstated the circumstances under which she landed in Bosnia. Did you all see all that?"

"And, oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari, you know? Just making up all this stuff," he added, then going on to describe just how dangerous a place Bosnia was.

Sleep deprivation doesn't completely explain Hillary's series of comments. But either way, the Clinton camp might still not be too happy having the story pushed back into the headlines.

Speaking last night to volunteers in the Texas district conventions, Bill Clinton used perhaps the most blunt dismissal of caucus losses that we've yet seen — and seemingly setting up a scenario in which the Clinton campaign could lose even the aggregate popular vote, but justify battling on by way of only looking at the popular votes from primary states.

"Right now, among all the primary states, believe it or not, Hillary's only 16 votes behind in pledged delegates," said Bill, "and she's gonna wind up with the lead in the popular vote in the primary states. She's gonna wind up with the lead in the delegates."

During an appearance with Philadelphia-based conservative talk-radio host Michael Smerconnish, Barack Obama mounted a defense of Jeremiah Wright's accomplishments, despite some areas of disagreement. And on top of that, he managed to get in a reminder of some of Bill Clinton's personal problems in the 1990s.

"Understand this," Obama said, "something else that has not been reported on enough is despite these very offensive views, this guy has built one of the finest churches in Chicago. This is not a crackpot church.

"Witness the fact that Bill Clinton invited him to the White House when he was having his personal crises. This is a pillar of the community and if you go there on Easter on this Easter Sunday and you sat down there in the pew you would think this is just like any other church."

Both campaigns are working to register voters as Democrats for Pennsylvania's closed primary by tomorrow's deadline, so an appearance on Smerconnish's show would make sense in the Obama campaign's efforts to recruit independents and crossover Republicans.

During his appearance this morning on Fox News Sunday, Bill Richardson attempted to dial back the negativity in the Democratic race, rejecting the accusation by retired Air Force Gen. Tony McPeak that Bill Clinton was engaging in McCarthyism against Barack Obama.

"I don't believe President Clinton was implying that," the former Clinton cabinet member Richardson said of the allegation that Bill Clinton was questioning Obama's patriotism.

On the other hand, Richardson strongly responded to James Carville's comparison of Richardson endorsing Obama to Judas Iscariot selling out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. "I'm not going to get in the gutter like that," Richardson said. "And you know, that's typical of many of the people around Senator Clinton. They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency."

At an Obama event in Oregon today, retired Gen. Tony McPeak compared Bill Clinton to Joe McCarthy, over Bill's remarks yesterday that a Hillary vs. McCain race would be a contest between "two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country ... instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

Many Obama supporters have interpreted Bill's comments as a subtle slam on their candidate's patriotism. "I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it," McPeak said, as he stood on the stage with Obama.

The Hillary camp slammed McPeak and demanded a retraction from the Obama team. "I think most Democrats were shocked to learn that a two-term Democratic president was compared to Joseph McCarthy," said spokesman Howard Wolfson.

The Obama camp isn't backing down, though, and they've sent out a memo containing numerous examples of Bill Clinton or his aides attacking the Republicans as McCarthyists throughout the 1990s.

Barack Obama is picking up the endorsement of author Toni Morrison, who won the Nobel Prize in literature for her writings on African-American life.

The endorsement is special due to some famous words that Morrison wrote about Bill Clinton in 1998: "White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime."

Barack Obama responds to Bill Clinton's reference to the fact that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988...

Stephanopoulos said: "The implication is pretty clear: You’re the Jesse Jackson of 2008.”

To which Obama replied: “Jesse Jackson ran historic races in 1984 and 1988...that was 20 years ago, George."

And then it got interesting. Stephanopoulos asked explicitly: "You think President Clinton was engaging in racial politics there?"

Obama answered: "I think that, that's his frame of reference was the Jesse Jackson races. That's when he was active and involved and watching what was gonna take place in South Carolina. I think that a lot of South Carolinians looked at it through a different lens."

Ben Smith says that Obama appeared to be trying to defuse the idea that Bill was drawing a racially-charged comparison. It seems to me that when Obama said that voters looked at this through a "different lens," he basically meant that voters weren't putting Obama in the same "black candidate" box that Bill was slotting Obama into. Not sure if Obama is completely letting Bill off the hook here, though he was being awfully subtle about it.

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.

Read more »

Bill Clinton held a press conference this morning -- yet another sign that he isn't heeding the view of many commentators that he risks damaging Hillary's candidacy -- and during the question and answer session, he came up with a novel response to Obama's claim yesterday that he sometimes thinks he's running against both Clintons.

Bill's reply: It's Obama who has been running against me.

Here's the exchange:

QUESTIONER: “Is Obama running against you, or Hillary Clinton or both of you?”

PRESIDENT CLINTON: “Oh, I don’t know, I thought he was running against me for a while there in Nevada when he said that Republicans had most of the new ideas and you had to challenge the conventional wisdom of the ’90s. I thought we challenged the conventional wisdom of the 90s.”

Late Update: I cut the last sentence of this post because it was, well, factually wrong. Apologies.

Barack Obama met today with editors of South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State. In the meeting, he hit Bill again for lying about his candidacy -- and broadened his attack to include the national media.

The State has the story:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama said Monday one of the biggest frustrations of his presidential bid is dealing with national media that he says doesn’t correct inaccuracies about his candidacy and his record...

Obama, speaking Monday morning to State newspaper editors, cited as an example the reporting of his remarks about President Ronald Reagan as an inaccuracy that hasn’t been corrected...

Obama continued criticism of what he says is a strategy by the Clinton campaign to use former President Bill Clinton to attack him.

“There is a concrete strategy by the Clintons,” Obama said, saying the former president has attacked his war record unfairly and with inaccurate information.

Now, without a full transcript or video -- which I'm trying to get -- I don't want to delve too deeply into this. Suffice it to say for now that the Obama camp very clearly has made a decision to shift gears and respond to Bill Clinton much more aggressively than they had in the past.

Perhaps the Nevada loss drove home that the previous responses to Bill were ineffective and that Bill's broadsides are working better than expected. More in a bit.

Late Update: The State account specifies that Obama told the paper he wasn't praising Reagan's policies. "Obama said was making a point that Reagan reached across party lines in order to snare a large majority of American voters that made it easier for him to push his agenda," the paper reports.

Here it is: Video of Obama hitting back hard against Bill Clinton on Good Morning America today.

In the interview, Obama sharply questioned Bill's recent attacks on him, repeatedly saying that they were false. Indeed, Obama went further and directly said that when Bill criticized Obama's Reagan comments, he was "making it up."

The remarks are far and away the most aggressive push-back against Bill we've seen from Obama since the former President emerged as Hillary's chief surrogate. Indeed, Obama explicitly drew attention to the extent to which Bill is playing his new self-designated role, saying:

"We've got a formidable opponent -- actually, two formidable opponents, at this point, between Senator Clinton and President Clinton."

Asked if he felt that he was taking on "two candidates," Obama replied:

"There's no doubt that having President Clinton on trail spending most of his time attacking me, it can be a distraction." He added, however, that his wife's advocacy on his behalf "balances" things.

More on this soon.

Ben Smith reported today that Bill Clinton alleged in an appearance in Nevada that he personally witnessed voter suppression by the culinary workers. Smith posted a transcript he obtained of the event.

I've now obtained audio of Bill's comments. Give it a listen:

Here's the key quote (it starts a little less than halfway through the audio):

Today when my daughter and I were wandering through the hotel, and all these culinary workers were mobbing us telling us they didn’t care what the union told them to do, they were gonna caucus for Hillary.

There was a representative of the organization following along behind us going up to everybody who said that, saying 'if you’re not gonna vote for our guy were gonna give you a schedule tomorrow so you can’t be there.' So, is this the new politics? I haven’t seen anything like that in America in 35 years. So I will say it again – they think they're better than you.

Since the audio I have is limited, I can't vouch for the full context. But the charges are eye-opening. Smith has more of the story's details -- and the culinary workers' denial of the charge -- right here.

Audio of Bill after the jump.