Spin Cycle

The Hill, the newspaper about Congress, asked the 97 Senators who aren't running for president whether they were interested in becoming president.

Some, like Arlen Specter, made it simple: "Absolutely not."

Sen. Schumer, however, was not so direct: “Me being asked is so unlikely I don’t even have to waste my breath on the question.”

It is pretty unlikely. But since when did a guy who's always been perfectly willing to waste his breath on Sunday press conferences in Slingerlands to discuss just about anything the press might pay attention to start using that as an excuse?

He might not be much help with those coal miners in West Virginia. But he wouldn't hurt with the Jewish voters, would he?

And, as another Democrat, Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, noted: “Of course. Everybody in here would do it if asked...."

In the ever-dizzying process of delegate assignment, the state Democrats in Saratoga today added 85 to the 156 total that was decided proportionally at the polls on Feb. 5.

The state will have 281 overall, and those acted on today include 4 unpledged at-large -- AG Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, C. Virginia Fields and Carmen Arroyo, all currently Clinton supporters who are "free to vote their conscience" at the Denver convention in August, which will of course depend on circumstances then. (Obama's camp today announced that 3 Obama supporters from Illinois had, likewise, been chosen today as "add on" superdelegates from that state).

There are also pledged pary leaders and elected officials -- 30 of them -- and pledged at-large delegates, totalling 51. In all, the delegation is decided with consideration to national rules that include affirmative action by race, gender, age, veteran status, etc.

In working this out, Suffolk's Barry McCoy has been tracking the numbers and pointing out that geographically, Long Island gets short-changed -- with heavy representation from New York City.In terms of Clinton-Obama, it's all supposed to come out as closely as possible to proportional to the state's primary vote.

Dan Janison

Maybe it's what you'd expect to hear from the fan base about the Rev. Wright uproar, but state Sen. Bill Perkins from Harlem (left in recent photo) insisted last night as colleagues gathered for the statewide Democratic meeting in Saratoga: "It looks like we're moving past that issue. He'll do what it takes to continue in the fight."

"It's getting toward the finish line," he said. "The mathematics suggest he's unbeatable," Perkins said -- unless "the new math" from the Clinton camp regarding delegates somehow comes to be believed. Indiana? "I think he'll win -- we'll have gotten past this latest episode" and the economy and foreign policy will take center stage, Perkins predicted.

Clinton supporters in the reception room at the Saratoga Hilton -- and of course there were many -- weren't buying it, of course. One well-placed Clinton operative, who declined to comment, merely smiled, without even acknowledging it had been a good week for their candidate.

Dan Janison

Will the 1960’s — or the American reaction to it — ever end?

There are those who say the final year of World War II was not 1945 but 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The Cold War was the next phase of the conflict in Europe, goes the thinking.

So by the same reasoning we’ve still got a few years left before the tumult of the late 1960’s will have run its full half-century course.

The GOP candidate for president was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The friction over race and rights plays itself out within the Democratic Party — with special scenes scripted in Chicago.

To make it more explicit, the former Weatherman, Bill Ayers, becomes a target for political association with Barack Obama — by a candidate whose presidential husband pardoned a couple of psycho-60’s nostalgists.

Flag pins or anti-war marches — take your pick. Big differences: Now you can buy the pins on e-bay, watch the demos on YouTube. Bigger difference: There’s no draft, at least not yet.

Call them parochial, but some of the region’s big-name Democratic pros are struck by the similarity between their party’s ongoing presidential drama and your classic super-charged New York primary.

“It’s very much like a New York Democratic primary,” says city consultant Henry Sheinkopf. “The thrills, the spills, the ups and the downs, the obsession with minutiae. The comparisons from reporters, in which even the slightest language change creates a news story. And, the obsession of reporters and candidates with ethnic groupings and racial activity.
“This one’s got everything!”

Fernando Ferrer, who ran for New York City mayor in 2001 and 2005, says, “I feel like I’ve seen this movie.” What he says saddens him is “the silly obsessing around the smallest and most insignificant of details.”

His campaign three years ago even saw a molehill get front-page treatment — that his Web site erred on where he attended school. So the former Bronx borough president says he was especially irritated when Sen. Barack Obama was challenged in a debate over ditching his flag pin — by a moderator who didn’t wear one either.

Mark Green, the 2001 mayoral nominee, finds a “superficial similarity, but ultimately a difference.” He sees “two credible progressive Democrats, one of whom happens to be white and one who happens to be minority.” But he predicts the second-place finisher will solidly back the winner against Republican Sen. John McCain.

Fran Reiter, a one-time Liberal Party leader and a Hillary Clinton backer, says in a New York primary, “we’re our own worst enemies...In the old days, with more machine-type politics, you avoided these situations because the party leaders basically made these decisions for you.”

Just like this year’s national contest, some New York races “seem like an endless campaign,” adds Queens consultant Evan Stavisky.

Jef Pollock, a Democratic consultant, says “there’s no doubt the tone is harshening” in the national contest. “Race was always going to be part of this debate. But we’re not even close to a New York-style bruise just yet — which is good.”

Dan Janison

Famous now for its stern law against renting to illegal immigrants, Hazleton, Pa. keeps making political news. Lou Barletta, GOP mayor, is running for Congress; Amber Lee Ettinger, the video world’s “Obama girl”, voted there in last week’s primary -- although the object of her crush drew a paltry 25 percent in all of Luzerne County -- and maverick Alan Keyes announced there that he’s leaving the Republican Party. Not to mention it's the hometown of also-ran Rudy Giuliani's wife Judith.

Dan Janison

The radio host currently known as Lionel, who is found these days on Air America, gives this hilarious -- and characteristically hyperactive -- analysis of the Democratic primary numbers:

Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs and 92 party volunteers are spending four days in Scranton making calls and knocking on doors for Hillary Clinton in a last-minute push leading up to Tuesday’s Pennsylvania presidential primary.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) a week earlier took a busload of 50 to stump for the former First Lady in Wilkes-Barre, and earlier, acted as a surrogate for Clinton the primary state. His activities were restricted last weekend because of Passover.

And even Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy joined the fray last weekend, taking 10 volunteers in two cars for a day trip to Easton, Pa. to wave Clinton placards outside an Obama rally where for presidential contender John Kerry was speaking. “It made for a great picture,” said Levy.

“They love her in Scranton,” said Jacobs, adding that nearly 1,500 showed up for Clinton at the city’s cultural center Monday morning. “They barely let her talk.” Jacobs, who has also been to New Hampshire and Texas for Clinton, said he’ll stay until the polls close then drive home, adding: “I have to be back at work in the morning.”

Rick Brand

Backlash against the "bitter" remarks could benefit Hillary Clinton bigtime, especially among fans of the Second Ameridment, if this report from Reuters is credited.

There's been a ball of confusion about numbers, but Quinnipiac is putting Clinton ahead by 7 points, which is just a bit shy of where her New York supporters think she should be to keep any underdog momentum toward a nomination possible. A Suffolk University poll looks better for her.

In the end game, however, the meaning of the Keystone state is in doubt.

UPDATE: And then, there's a whole different idea behind this piece discussing how changes in registration resulting from voter drives could affect the entire landscape -- in Obama's favor.

UPDATE: And of course, there is the negative atmosphere building in both camps, as Thrush vividly describes.

While attention turns to the Pennsylvania primary, Rick Brand profiles two Long Island women and their roles in pushing for the Democratic contenders for the White House.

By the way, the Onion has provided this useful rundown of the primary in the Keystone state.

Evidently regaining some of the attention that ended for him weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani, who never conveyed religious sensibility in his years as mayor, received Holy Communion, sparking objections from some at St. Patrick's.

Hillary Clinton, who in the Rudy tradition has taken to running to the right of her prior elected career, has won over one of Richard Mellon Scaife's newspapers (that's the financier at right), according to this account. Maybe she's trying to cobble together her own, modest right-wing conspiracy.

Undecided Democratic superdelegates want their party to win in November, but aren't quite sure what that'll mean -- a zero sum situation, according to this AP account.

Newsweek has Obama leading Clinton by 19 points nationally, 54-35.

The Gallup tracking poll has Hillary closing to within 3 (47-44) after the debate, from 11 back early in the week.

The last four Pennsylvania polls have Hillary up 3 and 4, down 3, and up 9.

Next Tuesday will tell much. There's still suspicion that polls -- and especially Pennsylvania polls -- overestimate Obama, because people hesitate to tell pollsters they're voting against the black guy, aka the "Bradley effect".....

All three U.S. Senators running for president have begun sticking faster than glue to an unwritten rule of the campaign trail: Gall is a virtue, and the biggest shame is being ashamed.

This cynical dictum might clash with the message of Pope Benedict XVI, who arrives today in New York. But nowhere was its force felt more than in the Democrats’ last debate before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary.

Here stood Barack Obama, who repeatedly touts his opposition to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, hailing the last President Bush on the 1991 Persian Gulf invasion.

When the candidates were asked how they would make use of former presidents in the White House, Obama just happened to sing the praises of the man Bill Clinton unseated. “I’m probably more likely to ask advice of the current president’s father than the president himself,” replied the change agent, “because I think that when you look back at George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy, it was a wise foreign policy.

“And how we executed the Gulf War, how we managed the transition out of the Cold War, I think, is an example of how we get bipartisan agreement.”

Oh? That might or might not sound surprising coming from a man his foes wish to paint as radical — even after he gave that hat tip to Ronald Reagan a few months back.

But you should avoid betting against Hillary Rodham Clinton in an audacity contest. She showed gumption-wrapped-in-apology during the do-or-die debate when called to account for her false story....

Dan Janison

Some viewers of last night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia were stunned that what sounded like a major new and potentially controversial foreign-policy proposal from Sen. Hillary Clinton slipped by without its being highlighted and expanded on by major news media. Sounds like grist for some followups as the week winds down.

Clinton was responding to a question from former Clinton administration flack George Stephanopolous of whether it should be U.S. policy to treat an Iranian attack on Israel "as if it were an attack on the United States."

"“Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.”

Later in her answer she cited Saudia Arabia and Kuwait (click continued bar below for partial transcript on this question) in particular.

Some of the cyberspace reaction:

The blog of the Foreign Policy Association sees the difference between the candidates as one of more tone than substance., but says: "Phrases like 'trigger massive retaliation' — usually meant to imply the use of nuclear weapons — should probably not be used in campaign debates at all. But to use them at the same time that one is promising — irrespective of military advice — to begin a withdrawal of military forces from Iraq within 60 days of taking office, sends a mixed signal to the region that we would do well to avoid."

A Daily Kos blogger warns that further explanation is needed as to just what her plans are.

The debate host ABC Web site quotes, among others, Doug Bandow, a former special assistant to President Reagan, calling her proposal a dangerous one.

Here is a pro-Hillary, or anti-Obama, piece.

Here is a colorful anti-Hillary (and anti-Bush) rant.

Sorry for the late linking, but this one is still relevant on the verge of tonight's debate. Here is the top of Tom Brune's story in Newsday on Sunday, subsequent versions of which have been picked up elsewhere and referenced earlier by colleague Riley:

"Last fall, Barack Obama quietly slipped into the Miami headquarters of a major law firm scarred by the scandals of Jack Abramoff, its once-powerful Washington lobbyist who now sits in jail.

"Arriving a little after 10 a.m. on Oct. 1, Obama spent the next three hours schmoozing, speaking in a video conference to branch offices and raising money at Greenberg Traurig, a billion-dollar firm with one of the biggest lobby shops here. Obama has now raised about $125,000 from Greenberg Traurig employees -- nearly half of it at the time of the event -- more than from any of the other top law and lobby firms.

"Symbolically, it was a starkly contradictory event: an appearance by the candidate who crusades most adamantly against lobbyists at the onetime firm of the poster child for out-of-control influence peddling. Public anger over the Abramoff lobbying scandal led Obama to institute the ban on lobbyist money in the first place, an aide said last year.

"Realistically, it shows the fine line Obama draws when he says he does not accept money from lobbyists and political action committees, while raising a stunning $200-plus million overall. Taking funds from lawyers but not lobbyists -- the distinction Obama draws -- is 'hair splitting,' according to League of Women Voters president Mary Wilson."

Doesn't it seem that every claim to moral edge by the major-party candidates in this campaign --or even to a coherent philosophy of any kind -- has the most tissue-thin of foundations? Here is Brune's full story.

Big deal or not?

Tom Winpenny, a history professor at Elizabethtown College, in south central Pennsylvania, notes that he once ran for office himself -- even if it was just for school board in Manheim Township in Lancaster County. But he does have a certain take on the important primary race now going full tilt in his home state.

"I'm very interested in Barack's last little rant from a cocktail party on the West Coast," he told us today on the phone from his office. "This is solid Marxist doctrine that Barack picked up at Harvard. He just doesn't believe the workers are insightful enough to know what's best for them."

"I live in a really nice old suburb. We are dotted with Obama signs and no HIllary signs. So people who are talking about class distinctions there may be getting it right. It may be why she tried to drink the boilermaker the other day in the bar...It looks like Barack might have the latte liberals and the limousine liberals and whatever we may want to call them. I think people care about these comments, and I don't think there was anything accidental there," Winpenny said.

On Monday night, in a special panel set up by his school's political science department, Winpenny will speak in support of Republican John McCain, who he says can work both sides of the aisle -- and "the fact that he believes in nothing does not bother me." He said it's a generally conservative campus. He said a faculty member will represent Obama, but they couldn't find one to represent Hillary Clinton, so a student will do the honors.

"I have said for a long time that the president's low approval rating does not guarantee a Democratic victory. And it seems to me the Democrats could shoot themselves in the foot again... I would have been happy to see Bloomberg jump in. He seems capable."

Just a small slice of opinion from the land of the -- what -- bittersweet?....

Oh where have those days gone when the New York candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani -- icons of the 1990's awash in campaign cash -- looked forward to the "Super Duper Tuesday" of February, riding the logic that fundraising power equals electability?

The general public has ceased to hear from Giuliani, of course. He's been left with millions of dollars in campaign debt and insiders doubt he can raise the funds -- especially while living la vida de luxe -- unless he kicks in a significant amount of his own personal stash.

And on the other side of the would-have-been eight-years-later "rematch," here's the latest pitch from the junior New York Senator:

"I've felt such a deep connection to the people I've met in Pennsylvania, and I'm proud of the campaign we're running here. But we are still being outspent 3-to-1, and I need your help to close that gap if we want to win. "

"In the next seven days, thousands of people will be making their final decision in the Democratic primary, and we must make sure they hear our message. We can't let our voices be drowned out by the Obama campaign's limitless spending."

Alas, for that "limitless spending". How much did the former first couple recently declare they raked in since leaving the White House?

Dan Janison

Pittsburgh, Pa -- Barack Obama isn't just attacking Hillary Clinton for trying to look all working-class -- talking guns like Annie Oakley, or drinking a shot and a beer. He's also trying to remind those blue-collar workers that he feels their pain.

At a manufacturing summit here this morning, Obama tried to show his own working-class credentials, elaborating on his work as a community organizer in the shadow of shuttered steel mills in mid-1980s Chicago.

In his remarks, he recalled seeing a closed plant for the first time.

"I saw a plant that was empty and rusty. And behind a chain-link fence, I saw weeds sprouting up through the concrete, and an old mangy cat running around," he said. "And I thought about all the good jobs it used to provide, and all the kids who used to work there in the summer to make some extra money for college."

He added that he helped turn the communities around, by giving "job-training to the jobless and hope to the hopeless."

None of the seven sponsoring union groups, which include Alliance for American Manufacturing and United Steelworkers, have made endorsements. And if applause is any measure, the several hundred union members who attended seemed split in their support.

Obama and Clinton are both crisscrossing Pennsylvania, courting blue collar voters, talking up fair trade and attacking each other.

Clinton, who is down by about 130 delegates, seemed to get an opening — at least among superdelegates—with Obama's "bitter" comments and is intensifying her argument about Obama's electability.

Pennsylvania's primary is April 22, and the next major contests are in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6. Clinton is expected to win Pennsylvania, Obama is up by double digits in North Carolina, and Indiana could be the tie-breaker.

Nia-Malika Henderson in Pittsburgh

Under fire for comments about "bitter" working class voters clinging to guns and religion, Sen. Barack Obama admitted this morning that his statements came out the wrong way.

"I didn't say it as well as I should have because the truth is these are traditions that are passed on from generation to generation those are important," he said to a crowd at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. "That's what sustains us."

Obama sought to head off a political flap that has been fodder for both of his opponents looking to gain an edge with a crucial voting bloc of working-class voters.

In his initial comments, made Sunday to a group of fundraisers in San Francisco, Obama cast religion, guns, and anti-immigrant sentiments, as expressions of frustrations for workers who have seen lucrative factory jobs shipped overseas.

He addressed the statements this morning -- for the third time -- after both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain criticized him for being condescending.

Last night, he released a statement about the comments, and in a rousing speech said his opponents were out of touch with average workers.

Both Clinton and McCain also launched new attacks on Obama over the comments, with Clinton telling voters in Indianapolis, “Now, like some of you may have been, I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small town America. Senator Obama's remarks are elitist and they are out of touch."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said: “Barack Obama’s elitism allows him to believe that the American traditions that have contributed to the identity and greatness of this country are actually just frustrations and bitterness. . . .Barack Obama’s dismissal of those values is revealing.”

Obama's explanations of the comments come as primary races in Pennsylvania and Indiana are tightening.

Over the last weeks, Obama has closed Clinton's double-digit edge in Pennsylvania, and is down by as few as 3 points in some polls. He was bolstered by endorsements by junior Sen. Bob Casey, a pro-life Democrat. Clinton has the support of Governor Ed Rendell.

Successfully courting working class voters, so-called Reagan Democrats, is critical to success in the general election. Both candidates have been in Indiana over the last days, where polls show Clinton up by single digits. She blasted Obama for looking down on voters and in Indianapolis, announced a five-part plan to invest in defense manufacturing jobs, with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh at her side.

Nia-Malika Henderson in Muncie, Ind.

The speech hasn't changed much as Sen. Barack Obama has made his way across two crucial primary states over these last days. He starts with a joke about his 15-month campaign -- in that time, babies have been born and already are walking by now, he always says.

The questions, too -- about the economy, the war, and jobs -- are similar, but this afternoon Obama was in his own backyard, not far from where he learned to organize communities on Chicago's South Side and push for change.

"This is the closest I've been to home . . .in five days," he said to about 2,500 folks in Gary, Ind., many who had waited for hours in the driving rain to see him. "I was thinking about making a break for it."

Yet, with tightening races in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary and the Indiana primary May 6, there is no time for breaks. He'll need a big turnout here in northwest Indiana, he told the crowd that packed into Roosevelt High School's gymnasium.

Some of the people knew him way back when and thought he looked tired, his speech a little off.

Still, having him there, moved them.

"Just looking at him brought tears to my eyes," Martha Freeney, 60, said. "It's history."

The excitement of having Obama in their midst was somewhat.....

Hillary as "Rocky?" Not so fast, said Barack Obama.

Clinton on Tuesday compared herself to the underdog boxer from the 1976 movie, as a way of saying she won't quit the presidential race too soon, no matter how long the odds. "When it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit,” Clinton told the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

Speaking to the same group today, Obama jabbed back, saying per MSNBC, “We all love Rocky. And last time I checked, I was the underdog in this state. . . ."

He continued, "But we've got to remember that Rocky was a movie. And so is the idea that someone can fight for working people and at the same time, embrace the broken system (in) Washington, where corporate lobbyists use their clout to shape laws to their liking.”

Craig Gordon

Wayne Barrett argues in this piece posted on the Huff that "the fact that it was Republicans who fomented the move-up of primaries in both these states to dates out-of-line with the DNC calendar is at the heart of the matter." He delves into the local histories of the push and how it steers the Clinton-Obama race, and dissects Obama supporters' arguments that the nomination should depend on a popular vote that excludes big states. He warns that for Democrats the boondoggle could become the 2008 equivalent of what the Ralph Nader candidacy was in 2000.

On the flip side, Salon features the "Tom Tomorrow" cartoon that lampoons the Clinton delegate-count arguments -- with such rationales as "it was Backwards Day when they voted".....here.

And Glenn Greenwald does his best to dissect McCain's purported Giuliani-like "centrism," here.

Dan Janison

Just to make you feel better:

It's not just Hillary on Bosnia. Both of the Democratic contenders mold reality.

The Clinton campaign puts together a memo on top exaggerations and embellishments by Obama. It's here.

"Turn toward Obama and smile."

That chestnut was contained in the prepared remarks of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama today.

However calculated the prompt, the smiles the two politicians exchanged did seem to be genuine, particularly when Richardson, a former rival for the Democratic nomination, revealed that Obama had helped him during one candidates' debate last year by giving him the topic of a question that he hadn't heard.

"Katrina," he said Obama whispered in his ear.

"He could have thrown me under the bus but instead he stood beside me," said Richardson, who appeared with a beard and a relaxed attitude that had been absent from his campaign.

Those comments weren't in Richardson's prepared text. Neither was the hug he gave Obama after he finished speaking.

Letta Tayler

Michael Hines, a 29-year-old African-American administrative assistant from Columbus, said early this afternoon he will vote as soon as he leaves work. He doesn’t hesitate to say for whom. “I’m voting for Obama. Specifically? I like what he has to say.”

A white man who preferred to be identified as Tom, who gives his age as 55, said "I usually lean Republican," but not this year. He said he doesn’t like John McCain’s stance on the Iraq war, that we could be there “for 100 years.” Nor does he like McCain on immigration – although it was hard to say how the likely GOP nominee differs from the mainstream Democrats in any essential way.

Given the choice of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, one man who wouldn't give a name said he disliked Obama less. “She’s a carpetbagger,” he said of Clinton, confiding with a laugh: “My father’s gone 10 years. He’ll roll over in his grave knowing I’m voting for a black or a woman.”

At a place called the Waffle House on Cassady Avenue in Columbus, two Obama volunteers, a man and a woman from Arizona, in town to canvass for the primary, sat at the lunch counter. “Just as long as McCain doesn’t get elected,” said the woman, who went on to say how she didn’t like that all the news organizations always lean one way or another.

And next to them was a guy named Don who, when asked his opinion of the race, told an odd story that ended with him getting beat up by college students at Ohio State when he was a kid. “And that’s my opinion,” he concluded. Which, of course, exposes the limitations of interviewing people at random.

Dan Janison

With today’s campaign phone banking a simple electronic affair, clusters of volunteers for the Democratic presidential hopefuls were clicking mouses and punching phone buttons Tuesday on behalf of their candidates.

Out of Nassau Democratic headquarters, and out of people’s homes, Clinton backers have been making their calls in recent days, working through a central 800 number, to contact voters in tomorrow’s out-of-state primaries. Also, the party’s county chairman, Jay Jacobs, he has been among the Clinton forces going door to door in recent days in mostly Latino neighborhoods where he termed the reaction “very positive.”

On behalf of Barack Obama last night, a team of Long Islanders was calling out to voters in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Wyoming, taking phone scripts and numbers off a campaign Web site for the Illinois senator. They were using the private Westbury offices of Spectronics, the firm of Suffolk Legis. Jon Cooper (D-Huntington).

Susannah Mrazek, 28, a legislative aide for the Huntington Town Council, said she signed up in November with the Obama effort, struck by his candidacy. “They welcomed me right on board and it’s been a wonderful wild ride ever since,” said Mrazek, daughter of former Long Island Rep. Robert Mrazek (photo above), now of Centerport, N.Y., who she said is also supporting Obama.

Putting aside for a moment those arguably insipid Clintonian attacks, let's presume that Barack Obama is a week away from locking up the Democratic nomination. Consider one political critic's less-than-conventional take on the Illinois senator: that the exhortations of his speeches fall far short of moving.

A challenge to Obama fans, strictly for discussion's sake: Read this column in the Financial Times -- and tell us why you think it is off base.

Just a sample: "Peter Sellers, a British comedian of the 1960s, caught the genre nicely in a parody speech: 'Let us assume a bold thrust and go forward together. Let us carry the fight against ignorance to the four corners of the earth, because it is a fight that concerns us all.' Mr Obama might easily give a speech like that – although he would probably strip out some of the detail."

Dan Janison

In an interview on SIRIUS radio's "Make It Plain" with host Mark Thompson, one of Malcolm X's daughters, Malaak Shabazz, declared her support for Barack Obama -- calling him and his wife Michelle the "present-day" version of her father and her mother Betty Shabazz.

The interview was held at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center located in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, where Malcolm X was fatally shot in 1965 after his falling out with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Mohammed.

Below is a partial transcript as released:

Dan Janison

One day after stirring up a mini-tempest for saying that the movement around her husband's presidential run made her proud of her country for the first time in her adult life, Michelle Obama did a short bit of explaining in Rhode Island today, as described by the Associated Press here.

Asked by WJAR-TV if she would like to clarify her comment, Obama replied that she has been struck by the number of people going to rallies and watching debates -- and said: "What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud in how Americans are engaging in the political process...For the first time in my lifetime, I’m seeing people rolling up their sleeves in a way that I haven’t seen and really trying to figure this out — and that’s the source of pride that I was talking about." She said she "absolutely" has been proud of her country and that she and her husband would not be where they are now if not for the possibilities of America, which is a variation on the statement that the campaign issued on Tuesday.

This is a course correction of a few degrees. She did not plunge into explaining the political frustration she said on Monday that she's felt in recent years. Obama fans have said they knew what she was talking about, but conservative voices have described her statements as "aggrieved" and worthy of further questioning.

See a CNN story on her comments here. Related video from her speech in Rhode Island is below.

Dan Janison

In Albany tonight, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), a supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, issued a passionate call for Democratic Party unity, saying "the people’s will is what’s going to prevail at the convention and not people who decide what the people’s will is."

Speaking at the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators' annual conference, Rangel said the party’s superdelegates shouldn’t decide whether Clinton or Barack Obama’s name will appear on the November ballot for president. Rangel also warned against party bickering, which could hand the White House to Republican John McCain.

"That’s going to be our job to make certain that this great opportunity is not taken away from us because of differences," the congressman told more than 1,000 people packed into the Albany convention center. "Not to allow them [Republicans] to snatch this away from us."

Rangel didn’t mention Clinton or Obama by name but made his opposition to superdelegates clear. "It’s the people [who are] going to govern who selects our next candidate and not superdelegates."

Speaking to reporters later, Rangel said it wasn’t clear which candidate would get a majority of the superdelegate votes so "it’s time that they get their act together now." He suggested a meeting of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton and Obama. "We should make certain that they [the candidates] don’t hurt each other and decide how they are going to resolve it," Rangel added.

Earlier, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Clinton superdelegate, downplayed the delegates’ role, saying the nomination likely would be decided in future primaries. "The likelihood is there will be a nominee," he told reporters after speaking to the conference.

James T. Madore

From the early numbers, it looks as if Obama won a majority in three of the state’s 29 Congressional Districts: the 6th CD in southeast Queens, represented by Rep. Greg Meeks, where Obama got 51 percent and 3 of 5 delegates; the 10th CD in northern Brooklyn, represented by Rep. Ed Towns (left), where Obama got 59 percent to Clinton's 40 percent and 3 delegates to her 2; and the 28th CD upstate, represented by Louise Slaughter, including parts of Monroe, Erie, Niagara and Orleans Counties, where he got 52 percent to her 48 percent, and, here too, an expected 3 of 5 delegates. All the Congress members supported Clinton.