From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
PARKERSBURG, W.V. -- Bill Clinton kicked off a day of campaigning here by making a personal appeal to voters, saying Hillary's success depends on "real" people like those who came to see him. And as the rhetoric heats up between the Democratic campaigns, Bill Clinton offered this message: "Saddle up."

"If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office," he said. "If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office. If a football player doesn't want to get tackled or want the risk of an a occasional clip he shouldn't put the pads on."

Clinton then alluded to the resignations and calls for resignations that have been traded back and forth between the campaigns.

"I don't think any of these people oughta be asked to resign," he said. "All these guys that say bad things about any other campaign, they say, 'Should they resign?' My answer is no; they're repeating party line. They oughta stay right where they are. Let's just saddle up and have an argument. What's the matter with that? That's what America's about, right?"

And while some are "moaning and groaning," he said there are larger issues to gripe about. "None of these politicians are gonna have anything like the tough time half the people in this audience have already had for the last seven years," he said to applause. "This is about you. Don't you let anybody take this election away from you."

This is Clinton's first appearance in West Virginia ahead of the state's May 13 primary. The former president thanked the crowd of about 500 for the state supporting him in his presidential campaigns, and said it's time for the state to return to the Democratic column in November.

"In spite of the best efforts of a lot of the elites in the media and other places it looks like we are gonna have an opportunity for everybody to vote in this primary, and I think your vote should be counted, don't you?" he asked. "I know Hillary's gaining on them when they say, 'Oh, let's shut this down now; we don't want to be divided.

Let's just disenfranchise several of the million people who could vote. Wouldn't you like to vote and have your votes counted? Wouldn't you like to have a voice in this election? Don't you think that your vote should count as much as the people who voted in Iowa first? Yeah, well so does Hillary."

He also said that West Virginia is a "special place," and said it has the kind of profile that bodes well for his wife.

"If it weren't for people like you, she wouldn't be in this race," he said.

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Samantha Power was at the Columbia University School of Law where she was plugging her book. Here's part of Huffington Post's write up:

"Power labeled herself 'amazed' that Clinton had tried to get so much 'political mileage' from comments Power made, in which she suggested that the next commander-in-chief would consider conditions on the ground when implementing his or her Iraq withdrawal plan.

" 'What I was saying is that you have to take into account what the generals on the ground are telling you,' Power told the room of several hundred undergraduate and graduate students. 'Take for example that 3 am phone call [from Clinton's campaign commercial]... She is not going to answer the phone and play a voicemail she recorded in 2007. That is crazy. She is going to judge the situation in 2009. Of course she is going to take into account what the generals have to say about the Iraq situation and what they are saying on the ground.'"

Here are some other interesting nuggets toward the end of the piece:
"Power called Obama's willingness to meet, without preconditions, world leaders with whom America did not always see eye-to-eye, one of the turning points of the Democratic primary: 'I can tell you about the conference call the day [after Obama made the proclamation],' she recalled. 'People were like, 'Did you need to say that?' And he was like 'yeah, definitely.''"

"She emphasized that, unlike President Bush, Obama would put greater focus on the general welfare of the Iraqi people (looking at population displacements, health conditions, economic insecurities), when considering U.S. policy in that country. She also drew a picture of an Obama administration that was filled with different viewpoints and congenial debate.

"And, to the delight of many in the crowd, she even hinted that she could be part of that hypothetical cabinet. 'Because of the kind of campaign that Senator Obama has run,' Power said, 'it seemed appropriate for someone of my Irish temper to step aside, at least for a while. We will see what happens there.'"

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Here's the Clinton team's explanation of the candidate's decision to weigh in on the Wright controversy...
 
To: Interested Parties
From: The Clinton Campaign
Date: March 26, 2008
RE: The Obama Record: Just Words

Yesterday, a Pennsylvania editorial board asked Sen. Clinton how she would have "responded if [her] pastor had said some of the things that Rev. Wright said?"  In response, she said Rev. Wright would not have been her pastor, an honest view shared by many Americans.

The Obama campaign's response?  Attack Sen. Clinton and accuse her of trying to divert attention from the Bosnia trip story and her record of foreign policy experience.  

Sen. Clinton's response was sincere.  The Obama attack was disingenuous.

We are happy to discuss Sen. Clinton's foreign policy experience and her record overall.  Unfortunately, the Obama campaign doesn't want to discuss its candidate's record and prefers personal attacks instead.  

VIDEO: Hillary Clinton says Barack Obama's former spiritual leader Rev. Jeremiah Wright would not have been her pastor. 
 
Sen. Obama knows that if he focused on his experience, he'd get questions about the shortcomings in his record and the efforts he has made to embellish it. 

He'd have to deal with the fallout from this week's Washington Post report on his gross exaggeration of his role on immigration reform and housing policy.
 
Sen. Obama would have to explain why the New York Times reported that he claims credit for passing nuclear leak legislation that never got out of committee.
 
He'd have to confront reports from FactCheck.org and other independent organizations that say his claims of providing a universal health care plan are based on selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers.
 
He'd have to discuss the LA Times story that reported on how his fellow organizers say he took too much credit for his community organizing efforts.
 
He'd have to explain why he regularly claims he was a law professor when in fact he held no such title.

Sen. Obama seems to think disingenuous attacks on Sen. Clinton will address the concerns voters have about his record and readiness to be the Commander-in-Chief and the steward of our economy.  They won't.
 
In the end, Sen. Obama's words cannot erase Hillary's 35-year record of action because when all is said and done, words aren't action.  They are just words.

From Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro
 *** Wright here, right now: There's nothing that bothers some inside the Clinton campaign more than the constant reading in between the lines of the senator's motivations when she chooses to answer a specific question. But this has been a constant issue for Clinton ever since she decided to follow in her husband's footsteps. For the first time, Clinton decided to weigh in on the Wright controversy, saying he would not have been her pastor. But for more than a week, Clinton had declined to address it and was even complimentary of Obama's speech on race last week. She certainly had ample opportunity to be critical on this issue, so why now? In the shadow of the Bosnia sniper "misstatement," (her newest iteration is that she was "sleep deprived") this certainly seems like an attempt to change the subject and take the spotlight off her. After all, whenever there has been a heavy focus on one of these candidates, the other has benefited. This week, so far, the spotlight has been on Clinton. If you missed all three evening newscasts, it's clear Clinton had one of the worst earned media days in a few months. By the way, why did the campaign decide to sit down with Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper ed board? We know that Bill Clinton and Scaife broke bread and apparently called a truce, but wow.
 
*** Nothing's changed; no one's voted and yet...: What's with all this, it's time for Clinton to drop out talk? Clinton, for the first time herself, acknowledged the chatter in a very newsy press avail yesterday. The campaign is in full pushback mode on this very issue as they seem to worry that the whispers of party elders and undecided SuperDelegates is actually getting loud. The campaign released a "myth-fact" white paper addressing what they claim is the false idea that they have no mathematical chance. And Bill Clinton made the focus of his Kentucky stumping pushing back on this idea HRC is done. As we noted yesterday, she does have a mathematical chance, but her chances rest largely on the shoulders of these undecided SuperDelegates, some of whom are talking to the press about their own handwringing. But for those calling for Clinton to get out, ask yourself, why? She does have a chance. Sure it's somewhat of a longshot, but it's not so improbable that the Obama campaign is ignoring her in the same way McCain ignored Huckabee. And remember their own personal experience. Bill Clinton, for instance, knows firsthand had one of the major Democratic candidates in '92 (say Tsongas or Kerrey) decided to stay in for the long haul, that candidate just might have stolen the nomination away from Clinton when he was limping to the nomination in April and May struggling to dispatch semi-gadfly Jerry Brown. As the Maryland (or is it Virginia lottery) ad campaign used to say, "you can't win if you don't play."

VIDEO: NBC Political Director Chuck Todd talks about Hillary Clinton's decision to weigh in on the Wright controversy and continued calls for her to get out of the race for the sake of the Democratic Party.
 
*** 'Hell to Pay': There seems to be a want by the Democratic Party to establish a critical mass and get this over with. See Maria Cantwell, Phil Bredesen and Harry Reid. Cantwell yesterday implied the winner of the pledged delegates would have the strongest claim to the nomination when the primaries are finished. Meanwhile, check out Bredesen's "hell to pay" comment and Reid tersely saying the nomination WILL be wrapped up before convention.
 
*** While you were gone: Obama's back on the trail (in 5/6 North Carolina), but how will he choose to get back in the game? It looks like by picking a fight with McCain. Per the campaign, Obama in his speech today on the economy "will focus on Senator McCain's speech on the housing crisis that offered no new ideas and no relief for Americans facing foreclosure," Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton writes. "Senator Obama will make clear that Americans can't afford four more years of Bush economics that lets Wall Street thrive as Main Street struggles." Obviously, this is a renewed attempt by the campaign to jump-start the inevitability memo of a McCain-Obama general. Let's see if the McCain campaign bites on this one.
 
*** The tax man cometh: After two days of the Clinton campaign criticizing Obama in conference calls for not releasing tax returns prior to 2006 (even though his campaign had been criticizing Clinton on transparency, for not releasing even her 2007 tax returns -- something Obama had done), the Obama campaign released all of Obama's back to 2000. And made them available on the Web. Camp Clinton has said the Clintons would release theirs very soon, perhaps in a week or so. Among the things the press grabbed on to with Obama's tax returns: the jump in charitable contributions (including money he gave to Rev. Wright's church) and the sharp rise in income for Michelle Obama as Barack rose through the ranks. Beyond that, though, no major landmines appear to be in these returns. Though we do wonder why the campaign didn't release tax returns going back to his first year in elective office ('96). It's a small opening the Obama folks have given to the Clinton campaign to harp on. 
 
*** The real Dream Ticket? Reports NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann, Mike Gravel said in a statement, "Today, I am announcing my plan to join the Libertarian Party, because the Democratic Party no longer represents my vision for our great country." Is the real '08 Dream Ticket some version of Paul-Gravel?
 
*** Coming later today: A special NBC/WSJ poll on race and the fallout in the pres. race following the Rev. Wright controversy and Obama's historic speech on race relations.
 
*** On The Trail: Clinton participates in an event in DC with her daughter Chelsea; McCain holds two more fundraisers in California and speaks to the LA World Affairs Council; Obama's back from vacation with a town hall in Greensboro, NC; and Bill Clinton makes three stops in West Virginia, a May 13 primary state where Clinton is favored.
 
Countdown to Pennsylvania: 27 days
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 41 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 223 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 300 days
 
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Phil Bredesen, the two-term governor of Tennessee who is uncommitted to either Clinton or Obama, "joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in warning that superdelegates should not overturn the outcome from primaries and caucuses," Politico reports. "If Obama were denied the nomination by Democratic insiders after winning the party's popular vote, Bredesen said, 'There would be hell to pay in the party for a long time to come.'" 
 
And check out this exchange with Sen. Maj. Leader Harry Reid in the Las Vegas Journal-Review: "Reid said he remains convinced the nominee will be decided well before the August national convention. He wore a serene and mysterious smile….
 
Question: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?
Reid: Easy.
Q: How is that?
Reid: It will be done.
Q: It just will?
Reid: Yep.
Q: Magically?
Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.
 
On Michigan and Florida, Reid said, "Michigan and Florida wouldn't play by the rules. They're not my rules. They're not the caucus' rules. They're DNC rules. They broke the rules. Michigan and Florida delegates are going to be seated. They're going to be a part of the convention. It's a question of whether anything can be worked out to change this prior to the 2,025. They're the ones causing all the problems. No one else did. And so they will be seated. They're big states. They represent 29 million people. We want to make sure their delegates are part of the convention that takes place in Denver."
 
PENNSYLVANIA: 4/22 (158 delegates)
Some PA notes, per NBC/NJ's Matthew Berger:
The economy is the focus of Clinton's first 30-second ads in Pennsylvania. It is believed her ad buy is significantly less than Obama's and focuses primarily in the Philadelphia media market. She spent about $600,000, Obama spent close to $1.6 million. 
 
Emily's List will be launching a direct mail and telephone campaign on Clinton's behalf, starting next week. "They'll specifically be targeting 'non-college educated women, college women and older women who have suffered the most in this economic down-turn and thus have the most at stake in this election.' They will target Philadelphia and its suburbs for now, but don't rule out expanding throughout the state. 
 
The Philadelphia Inquirer notes the irony of Clinton speaking to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review: "The Tribune-Review is owned by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a financier of conservative causes, including, at one point, research into Bill Clinton's alleged sexual affairs when he was governor of Arkansas. He was a prominent part of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' that Hillary Clinton blamed for the couple's political woes in a 1998 TV interview shortly after the Monica Lewinsky affair came to light. She said yesterday her encounter with Scaife 'was actually very pleasant.' 'There was a lot of discussion of foreign and domestic issues,' Clinton said. 'I said at the beginning that . . . it was somewhat counterintuitive for me to be there.'"
 
Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia suggests a forum on urban issues before the primary. Clinton quickly accepted. 
 
Clinton waiting until right before Election Day to release her tax records may be a move from the Ed Rendell playbook, John Baer says. The impact of the returns would be minimized if reporters don't have weeks to review them. "Does anyone think seven or eight years of Clinton finances, especially Bill's, won't make for interesting reading? I mean why else delay so long?"  
 
Rep. Tim Holden says he hasn't endorsed Clinton, even though he marched with her at a St. Patrick's Day parade. He said he hadn't heard from the Obama camp, but that was quickly rectified. 
 
NORTH CAROLINA: 5/6 (115 delegates)
Some NC notes, per NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann's:
Yesterday's new poll numbers bouncing around the state from Public Policy Polling (PPP) show Barack Obama up by over 20 points over Hillary Clinton. There's much debate over the legitimacy of that result, in part because of recent changes in the company's sampling methodology. But the interpretations of both campaigns reveal quite a bit about the expectations-setting game in the Tar Heel State. The Winston-Salem Journal's James Romoser asked both campaigns' state bigs about the poll, which shows a lead jump from a single point for Obama last week to over 20 yesterday. He writes: "Averell 'Ace' Smith, Clinton's North Carolina director, said he believes the truth is somewhere in between those two numbers. Craig Schirmer, Obama's North Carolina director, said he thinks the poll showing a one-point lead is closer to the truth." Smith also noted that his candidate faces long odds here, noting that a win for her "would probably be one of the greatest upsets, probably in the last 10 years." 
 
Team Barack Obama descends on the state for the second time in a week, with an afternoon event in Greensboro. The visit caused a minor stir last week when rumors circulated that the campaign had canceled an earlier Greensboro event for security reasons. The chatter was eventually knocked down, but that doesn't stop the city paper here from leading off its coverage of today's visit with a description of local law enforcement's effort to supplement the USSS. 
 
One of Carolina's pols, striving to become the second ever openly gay nominee for the US Senate, runs his campaign on a new model that journalists say is inspired by the grassroots politics perfected by Barack Obama. 
 
One of the biggest questions in the mind of the local press corps here swirls around a potential debate in the state sometime between now and primary day. Every day sees a new rumor about the state's colleges and universities' plotting to be the site of a potential CBS debate. In a conference call yesterday, reporters all but invited an Obama surrogate to bash Clinton over not having formally accepted the invite yet.

Bill Clinton, campaigning in Kentucky, compared the Dem primary to an episode of the '80s prime-time soap opera, Dallas. "This is the darnedest election I ever saw, isn't it? It seems like a long-running episode of Dallas or something, it's like a saga, you know?"
 
OK, so clearly Bill is J.R., right? Is Hillary SueEllen? Is Obama, Bobby or is he Cliff Barnes? Sorry, we couldn't help ourselves.
 
On a more serious note, NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli reports Bill Clinton pushed back against those trying to nudge his wife out of the race. "Now there's a new tactic," he said. "It's to say, 'Oh what a bad sport you are for wanting to let the people of Kentucky and West Virginia and Oregon and North Carolina and Pennsylvania vote. You could get ahead in the popular vote, but you're gonna be outspent. And why don't you just pack it in and while we're at it, we're gonna disenfranchise the people in Florida and Michigan, even if it costs us the general election.'"
 
NYT's MoDowd believes HRC has now set her sights on the VP slot. "One Hillary pal said she wouldn't want to go back to a Senate full of lawmakers who'd abandoned her for Obama. And even if she could get to be majority leader, would it be much fun working with Nancy Pelosi, whose distaste for the Clintons has led her to subtly maneuver for Obama?
 
"Maybe The Terminator is thinking: if she could just get her pump in the door. Dick Cheney, after all, was able to run the White House and the world from the vice president's residence, calling every shot while serving under a less experienced and younger president. And Observatory Circle is just up the street from where Hillary now lives." 
 
The Clinton campaign is pushing back HARD on this idea that she doesn't have a chance. In a release last night, the campaign released three myths, two of which, had to do with her chances for the nomination:
 
MYTH: The delegate "math" works decisively against Hillary.
 
FACT: The delegate math reflects an extremely close race that either candidate can win.
 
"The Math" is actually very simple: with hundreds of delegates still uncommitted, NEITHER candidate has reached the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. And EITHER candidate can reach the required number in the coming weeks and months. That is indisputable. No amount of editorials, articles, blog posts, charts, graphs, calculations, formulas, or projections will change the basic fact that either candidate can win. Pundits who confidently proclaim that Hillary has no hope of winning because of "the math," have counted Hillary out of this race three times before. Each time they based their sober assessments on 'facts' and 'realities' -- and each time they were wrong.
 
In a campaign with dozens of unexpected twists and turns, bold prognostications should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Look no further than Sen. Obama's "full assault" on Hillary's character to judge whether he thinks this election is over. The fact is this: Hillary and Sen. Obama are locked in a very close, hard-fought campaign and Hillary is demonstrating precisely the strength of character required of a president. Her resilience in the face of adversity, her faith in the voters, her capacity to rise to every challenge, are part of the reason she is the best general election candidate for Democrats. And it is why she is increasingly strong against John McCain in the polls at the same time that Sen. Obama is dropping against Sen. McCain.
 
---
 
MYTH: For Hillary to win, super delegates must "overturn the will of the people."
 
FACT: The race is virtually tied, the "will of the people" is split, and both candidates need super delegates to win.
 
The Obama campaign and Sen. Obama's surrogates have engaged in a sustained public relations effort to convince people that the election is over and that if super delegates perform their established role of choosing a candidate who they believe will make the best nominee and president, they are somehow "overturning the will of the people." They have the audacity to make this argument while quietly and systematically courting those very same super delegates. They are courting them because they know that Sen. Obama needs super delegates to win. The Obama spin is being parroted daily by pundits, but it is patently false. The race is virtually tied; the "will of the people" is split. By virtually every measure, Hillary and Sen. Obama are neck and neck -- separated by less than 130 of the more than 3,100 delegates committed thus far and less than 1% of the 27 million+ votes cast, including Florida and Michigan. Less than 1%.
 
An incremental advantage for one candidate or the other is hardly a reason for super delegates to change the rules mid-game. Despite the Obama campaign's aggressive spin and pressure, the RULES require super delegates to exercise their best independent judgment, and that is what they will do. Even Sen. Obama's top strategist agrees they should. If not, then why don't prominent Obama endorsers like Senators Kerry (MA) and Kennedy (MA), and Governors Patrick (MA), Napolitano (AZ) and Richardson (NM) follow the will of their constituents and switch their support to Hillary? After all, she won their states. And if this is truly about the "will of the people," then Sen. Obama's short-sighted tactic to run out the clock on a revote in Florida and Michigan accomplishes exactly two things: it disenfranchises Florida and Michigan's voters; and it hurts Democrats in a general election. Apparently, for the Obama campaign, the "will of the people" is just words.
 
The Washington Post does one final fact check on the Bosnia incident and notes the campaign is not answering any more questions about the incident.
 
Clinton makes her first foray into North Carolina tomorrow. Meanwhile, Bill is, arguably, keeping a busier schedule this week than Hillary; He's got three stops in West Virginia today and five, count 'em, FIVE stops in PA tomorrow.

The New York Times covers McCain's speech on the mortgage/housing issue and notes he drew a "sharp distinction" from his Dem foes. He "warned Tuesday against vigorous government action to solve the deepening mortgage crisis and the market turmoil it has caused, saying that 'it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.'" More: "McCain has often addressed the mortgage crisis in general terms on the campaign trail, but in Tuesday's remarks he offered a more comprehensive look at the challenge facing the nation -- and the roots of the problem. He blamed a profusion of complicated and recently devised financial instruments 'that weren't particularly well understood by even the most sophisticated banks, lenders and hedge funds.'
 
"Mr. McCain appeared to be trying to confront questions about his dexterity in dealing with the economy, a subject that he has admitted is not his strongest suit. But his remarks drew a quick, pointed rebuke from Mrs. Clinton, who criticized Mr. McCain's hands-off, market-oriented approach, saying it would lead to 'a downward spiral that would cause tremendous economic pain and loss' for Americans." 
 
McCain's "remarks came on a busy campaign swing through the Los Angeles area, where he picked up the endorsement of former First Lady Nancy Reagan. McCain also attended a fundraiser hosted by former Univision Chairman A. Jerrold Perenchio and his wife, Margaret.
 
"Reagan greeted McCain in the late afternoon during a brief meeting in front of her Bel-Air home. In a prepared statement, she called McCain 'a good friend for over 30 years.' She said she and her husband got to know McCain after his 5 1/2 -year imprisonment in North Vietnam, and 'were impressed by the courage he had shown.' 'I believe John's record and experience have prepared him well to be our next president,' her statement added.
 
"Reagan was not expected to speak to reporters, but she spoke up when McCain was asked about the timing of the endorsement. 'Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed. Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party,' she said, looking up at McCain and patting his arm several times."
 
The Boston Globe notes, "McCain's longtime effort to crack down on tobacco is being put to a new test. Within weeks, the Senate is expected to vote on legislation to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. McCain agreed months ago to cosponsor the current bill with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, but McCain's policy adviser said the senator won't commit to voting for it until he sees the final legislation.
 
"McCain has also dropped his support for increasing cigarette taxes. Last year, McCain voted against legislation that would have used a 61-cents-per-pack tax to expand a children's health program. He told a television reporter earlier this year that he would have a 'no new taxes' policy as president."
 
But is McCain backing down? "McCain's decade of work on tobacco, one of the most significant efforts of his congressional career, has earned him enmity from the industry and from some fellow Republicans over the years. At the same time, public-health advocates have celebrated his support of tobacco regulation. But now, some antismoking activists are disappointed that the presumptive Republican nominee for president has backed off from the tobacco tax, which they consider key to improving public health." 
 
Meghan McCain is truly one of the more interesting characters of this campaign. 
 
McCain speaks today to Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Here's an excerpt of what he'll say, per the campaign: "When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day.
 
In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well. I detest war. It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us."

The Washington Post follows the NYT on doing a story about Obama's liberalism. "As Obama heads into the final presidential primaries, Sen. John McCain and other Republicans have already started to brand him a standard-order left-winger, 'a down-the-line liberal,' as McCain strategist Charles R. Black Jr. put it, in a long line of Democratic White House hopefuls.
 
"Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has also started slapping the L-word on Obama, warning that his appeal among moderate voters will diminish as they become more aware of liberal positions he took in the past, such as calling for single-payer health care and an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba. 'The evidence is that the more [voters] have been learning about him, the more his coalition has been shrinking,' Clinton strategist Mark Penn said.
 
"The double-barreled attack has presented Democratic voters with some persistent questions about Obama: Just how liberal is he? And even if he truly is a new kind of candidate, can he avoid being pigeonholed with an old label under sustained assault?"
 
Tomorrow, Obama is giving what the campaign is billing as a major economic speech at Cooper Union in NYC.
 
The NYT covers the release of Obama's tax returns going back to 2000 and decides to lead with the couple's increased charitable donations: "Some of the largest donations went to the Trinity United Church of Christ, whose pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., has been in the news for inflammatory messages in his sermons, causing Mr. Obama to distance himself from Mr. Wright, his former spiritual mentor. All told, the couple gave $27,500 to the church in 2005 and 2006.
 
"Although the campaign has not released the couple's 2007 return, it has said the Obamas gave $240,000 to charity in 2007. This compares with charitable donations as low as $1,050 a few years ago.
 
"As for the other tax returns, 'A spokesman for that campaign, Howard Wolfson, said that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would release her returns dating from 2000 in the next week and that the Clintons had released 20 years of returns, until 2000, when Bill Clinton left the White House. Although there is no legal requirement that candidates release their tax returns, it has been common practice since the '70s. A release typically occurs after a candidate becomes a party nominee, not in the primaries. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has not released his returns."

Here's a set of issues that will no doubt come up in the fall.
 
"The Bush administration issued a grim report on Tuesday on the financial outlook for Medicare and Social Security, but said the condition of the programs had not significantly deteriorated since last spring. The new report, like the one issued last April, said Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund would be exhausted in 2019, while Social Security's reserves would be depleted in 2041." 
 
The L.A. Times notes the pres. campaigns greeted the new report with almost "deafening" silence. "As a result, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, had little to say when the latest numbers were released projecting Medicare going into the red by 2019 and Social Security following in 2041. The Democratic contenders, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, also sidestepped the issue." 
 
USA Today compares the health care plans of the three candidates and LARGELY lumps Clinton and Obama together and compares them to McCain's philosophy on the issue. 
 
McClatchy notes how both Clinton and Obama are ducking the gun issue and considering the primary states that are upcoming, every one of them has their share of Democratic voting gun advocates: PA, NC, KY, WV, IN, MT, SD and OR. 
 
The unintended consequence of the long primary campaign? Huge turnout and voter registration numbers for the Dems.
 
Here's some fodder… check out Howard Dean's assailing of the GOP, as quoted in the University of Wisconsin student paper. He said there is "no future" for youth in the Republican Party. "When you look at the candidates on our side who stood up and debated, people under 30 … looked at that lineup of our candidates and said, 'That looks like us in 20 years,'" Dean said. He added when those young people looked at the Republican candidates, they saw "1950s television."
 
And then, "They can't become more diverse," Dean said. "Who in their right mind, if they were African American or Hispanic or Asian American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?"

But he was the LIFE of the party! As NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann writes, One-time Democratic candidate Mike Gravel is leaving the Democratic Party, accusing it of "work[ing] in tandem with the corporate interests that control what we read and hear in the media." Greener pastures await, he says, with his joining today of the Libertarian Party, where he hopes to continue his presidential bid.

From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum
Campaigning in Indianapolis for her mother, Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort when asked a question she had never had before. When a male student asked her if her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton quickly responded.
 
"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question, in the, maybe 70 college campuses that I've been to," Clinton bitterly said at Butler University.  "And I don't think that's any of your business." 

VIDEO: Chelsea Clinton had a speedy retort when asked about the Monica Lewinsky scandal during a visit to Butler University in Indianapolis.

The students gathered to see Clinton quickly erupted into applause. Clinton took one more question, on global warming, and then wrapped up the event.

*** UPDATE *** AP reports, "The college student who got a stinging brushback from Chelsea Clinton when he asked about the Monica Lewinsky scandal said Wednesday he's a Clinton supporter who was trying to get her to show 'what makes Hillary so strong.'

"Evan Strange, a Butler University student who works on the school's newspaper, The Butler Collegian, said he had asked Chelsea Clinton her opinion "on the criticism of her mother that how she handled the Lewinsky scandal might be a sign of weakness and she might not be a strong enough candidate to be president."

"I'm a supporter of Hillary. I love Hillary," Strange said Wednesday on CBS' "The Early Show." "He said he asked the question because his friends 'always bring up that scandal. It's not something I asked to cause trouble but to show those people what makes Hillary so strong.' He said that by brushing him off, Chelsea Clinton missed an opportunity to show her mother's strength.

" 'I was very surprised' at the rebuke, Strange said. 'I can see where she'd get a little defensive because of the question and hearing Lewinsky over and over again, but I would like to hear her say something about Hillary rather than dismissing the question.'"

From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
GREENSBURG, Pa. -- Hillary Clinton compared her Republican rival McCain to Depression-era President Herbert Hoover in response to his criticism of her proposal to help homeowners facing foreclosures.

She also told reporters Tuesday that had the Rev. Jeremiah Wright been her pastor, she would have left the church and reiterated her explanation for misspeaking about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.

VIDEO: Hillary Clinton takes questions from reporters during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania.

Clinton has proposed the government help people who are struggling to keep their homes by freezing foreclosures, guaranteeing new loans and possibly acting as a temporary purchaser of mortgages. McCain today warned against this kind of action saying, "I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

Clinton bashed him for those remarks, which were read to her by a reporter.

"It sounds remarkably like Herbert Hoover," she said, "and I don't think that's good economic policy. You know, we have a framework of regulation. It needs to be updated and modernized. The government has a number of tools at its disposal that are well-suited for just this situation, and I think that inaction has contributed to the problems we face today, and I believe further inaction would exacerbate those problems."

She said that to say the government should not help banks or people would mean a "downward spiral" for the country's economy.

Clinton repeated comments made earlier in an interview with a Pennsylvania newspaper regarding the Rev. Wright, Obama's controversial former pastor.

"Given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "I gave a speech at Rutgers, about a year ago, that was triggered by the Don Imus comments, and I said it was time for standing up for what is right, for saying enough is enough, for urging that we turn a culture of degradation into a culture of empowerment, for saying that, while we, of course, must protect our right to freedom of expression, it should not be used as a license or an excuse to demean and humiliate our fellow citizens."

She then went further, saying, "We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend."

Clinton said she was pleased Obama had released his tax returns and called for more disclosure.

"I think that's a good first step," she said. "Now he should release his records from being in the state senate and any other information that the public and the press need to know from his experience, because I think that, you know, we should continue to make available the information that we have. She added that she plans to release her own returns shortly.

As her aides allowed yesterday, the senator said she had indeed misspoken when it came to dodging sniper fire on arrival for a trip to Bosnia during her husband's presidency, but argued that was not the central issue.

"I did make a mistake in talking about it the last time and recently," she said, "but look, this is really about what policy experience we have and who's ready to be Commander-In-Chief, and I'm happy to put my experience up against Sen. Obama's any day."

She deflected a question about whether allowing the superdelegates to decide the nominee would mean disenfranchising voters, something she and her campaign have said Obama is doing by not backing re-votes in Florida and Michigan.

Economy speech
The press conference followed a speech that focused on Clinton's proposals to encourage families to save for retirement and to strengthen Social Security, an address possibly best categorized as Iowa redux.

With about a month to go before the primary, the senator is making her case to Pennsylvanians by laying out much of the platform she first proposed during the long run up to the Iowa caucuses, albeit relating it to voters in the Keystone State. The addresses today and yesterday in Philadelphia on the mortgage crisis are part of Clinton's efforts to show she is best prepared to manage the American economy.

In Greensburg, she hit McCain for his support of President Bush's goal of privatizing Social Security.

"When I am president, privatizing Social Security will be completely out of the question," Clinton said to applause. "That's another big difference between Sen. McCain and me. Sen. McCain said something stunning the other day. He pledged to continue President Bush's attempts to privatize Social Security. He said, and I quote, "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it, along the lines that Pres. Bush proposed." Now Sen. McCain has already promised to continue Bush's failed Iraq policy and to make permanent his tax breaks for the wealthy few, now he's taking up President Bush's assault on Social Security. So in a nutshell, that's John McCain's plan for America: four more years of the same."

She went on to say she could not understand how McCain could find the money to keep troops in Iraq for 100 more years and give tax cuts to the wealthy, while urging people to gamble on the stock market with their Social Security savings. "You don't need to look any further than Bear Stearns and Wall St. lately to know that our workers and seniors simply can't afford the Bush-McCain privatization scheme," she said.

Clinton also had a message for the media, ending her speech with a pointed remark about allowing the remaining states to have a part in the nomination process. "I know there are some in Washington and there are some in the media who want this race to be over," she said to shouts of protest from the crowd. "There are some who seem to think we don't need to hear the voices of people in Pennsylvania or Indiana or North Carolina or Montana or any of the other states that haven't had their chance to vote. Well, I disagree. I think everyone deserves to be heard."

The senator noted that 10 contests remained and there were millions of people left to vote and said to wild applause "with Pennsylvania's help, I believe I will be the Democratic nominee."

For the second day in a row, Clinton talked about Iraq at the top of her speech. "Today we read yet another report that Pres. Bush is planning to keep as many of our young men and women in Iraq after the surge as before, so by the middle of this summer we'll be right back at square one with 140,000 troops on the ground in Iraq," she said. "That Pres. Bush seems to want to keep as many troops in Iraq after the surge as before and says that doing otherwise would endanger our progress is a clear admission that the surge has failed to accomplish its goals."

Clinton appeared with Gov. Ed Rendell and Westmoreland County Commissioner Thomas Ceraso and had several locals come on stage to talk about their economic struggles during the event.

From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- In what were his most extensive remarks on the current housing crisis to date, McCain spoke to nearly 20 cameras and a small crowd of local business owners here this morning and expressed his confidence in the foundations of the U.S. economy.

After what amounted to a brief primer on the creation of the subprime housing bubble, McCain tried to demonstrate his economic knowledge by explaining in some detail the "series of complex, inter-connected financial bets that were not transparent or fully understood," which contributed to the broader economic crisis now facing the country.

VIDEO: John McCain says that the government is not in the business of saving and rewarding banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly.

"I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers," McCain said, beginning his proposed solutions. "Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy."

McCain did not specifically address the Fed's recent alleged "bail out" of Bear Stearns, but he seemed to imply support for such moves geared toward protecting the "entire financial system."

He called for increasing the required down payment for certain home mortgages when the conditions allow for it, and for assembling "the nation's accounting professionals" and "the top mortgage lenders in this country" to create a corporate-driven homeowner assistance plan.

Although McCain said he was "prepared to examine any new proposals," when asked by reporters after his event if that included the assistance plan that Hillary Clinton proposed yesterday he amended his comments.

"I'm open to ideas," McCain said. "That idea I believe is a very expensive one. I don't believe it works, and I'd like to know how it's paid for."

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Obama's campaign responded to Clinton's comments on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it's disappointing to see Hillary Clinton's campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia,"  Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton writes. "The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor's offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech. The American people deserve better than tired political games that do nothing to solve the larger challenges facing this country."

Clinton told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board, "He would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." She continued, "You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

She repeated similar comments at an on-camera press conference later in the day.

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
The Vancouver Columbian  [hat tip to our friends at Hotline] paraphrases Sen. Maria Cantwell as saying, "…[T]he candidate with the most pledged delegates at the end of the primary season in late June will have the strongest claim to the party's presidential nomination."

The paper adds, "Cantwell said she wouldn't object to a primary contest that went into the summer if it focused on the issues facing the nation, but added, 'We wouldn't want to tear apart the party.'

" 'I think it's important that we let it play out in June,' she said. At that point, she said, 'I'd be urging my party to make a decision.'"

From NBC's Chris Donovan
In light of today's news of Nancy Reagan's endorsement of McCain -- the two will appear together this afternoon, the campaign said -- McCain has credited Nancy Reagan, in part, for his change in position on federal funding for stem cell research. He explained her impact on Meet the Press in 2005, and reiterated his support at the MSNBC presidential debate (with Nancy Reagan present) in May 2007.

Here's what was said:

FROM MEET THE PRESS (June 19, 2005):
TIM RUSSERT: Let me turn to another ethical, moral, political issue, stem cell research. In 2000, John McCain and 19 other senators wrote a letter which said "Since 1996 Congress has banned federal funding for `research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed.' ...we support [this law]."

You've changed your mind.

McCAIN: Yes, I have.

RUSSERT: Why?

McCAIN: For a large number of reasons, ranging from getting briefed by very smart people on this issue and including discussing this with Nancy Reagan who, as you know, is a very strong advocate for stem cell research. I want to make it clear that those of us who support this do not believe that it has anything to do with human cloning and all of us are against human cloning. I look forward to the debate. It's a very complex scientific issue. But for us to throw away opportunities to cure diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and many others I think would be a mistake. I look forward to the debate. It's interesting that more than two-thirds of the American people support stem cell research.

RUSSERT: There is a discussion now in legislation which would say that embryos created in fertilization clinics that are not used by the couple to have another baby could be used for stem cell research. Others say, no, no, they should be given to other couples, so-called snowflake babies. Where do you come down on that?

McCAIN: I think that--first of all, I don't claim to be an expert. But, second of all, I think that should be up to the couples that--whose embryos they are. I think that's a decision that they should probably make.

FROM MSNBC DEBATE (May 3, 2007):
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Senator, embryonic stem cell, federal funding.

MCCAIN; I want to thank Mrs. Reagan for the many kindnesses extended to me many -- and my fellow prisoners of war many years ago when we came home to this wonderful state.  I believe that we need to fund this. This is a tough issue for those of us in the pro-life community. I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen. We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering. It's a tough issue. I support federal funding.

From NBC's Jim Popkin
The tax returns for Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, offer insights into the power couple's rising fortunes as Obama became a U.S. Senator and then a potential presidential candidate.

Obama today released his tax returns from 2000 to 2006. They show a steep increase in income. In 2000, for example, the Obamas' combined income was $240,505. That includes Sen. Obama's salary as a young state senator in Illinois, his fees ($16,500) as a "foundation director/educational speaker" and Michelle Obama's salary as a hospital administrator.

In 2006, by contrast, the Obamas' combined income was $983,826. Obama had become a U.S. Senator by then, making about $165,000 a year, and his wife's income at the University of Chicago hospitals had climbed sharply to about $265,000 a year. Sen. Obama's book-writing career also had become profitable, earning him $551,240 in author fees in tax year 2006 alone. Mrs. Obama also made $51,200 that year, as director of TreeHouse Foods, "a food manufacturer servicing primarily the retail grocery and foodservice chains," according to the company's website.

The Obamas' best financial year came in 2005, when their total combined income was $1.6 million. That included $1.2 million in author fees for Sen. Obama's best-selling books. Michelle Obama's salary that year was $316,962 plus another $45,000 for her role as director of TreeHouse Foods.

The Obamas became more charitable as their incomes grew. In 2000, the couple gave $2,350 to charity, or about 1 percent of their gross income. In 2006, they donated $60,307 to charities, or about 6 percent of their gross income. In 2005, the Obamas list a $5,000 donation to their church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the controversial Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., was Sen. Obama's pastor. If Sen. Obama tithed more regularly to the church, there's no record of it in these tax returns.

The tax returns also don't appear to shed any new light on the Obamas' controversial purchase of their Chicago home in 2005. They bought their home that year for $1.65 million, at the same time that the wife of indicted Chicago businessman and campaign contributor Tony Rezko bought the adjoining lot for $625,000. Critics have said that Obama could not have bought the house unless the Rezkos bought the joining lot, and Obama has apologized for the "bone-headed mistake" of getting involved with a campaign contributor who at the time was under scrutiny for alleged political corruption.

The Obamas don't appear to have substantial stock holdings. Their 2005 return, for example, lists modest dividends for UBS, JP Morgan Chase and Northern Trust Bank. It also lists a $2,072 gain for the sale of Biopharma stock and a $15,208 loss for the sale of SkyTerra Communications stock.

While the Obama tax documents released today cover the basics for the seven-year period, there are many supporting documents that have not been released. Sen. Hillary Clinton has yet to release her tax records at all, but a spokesman says they will be made public in the next few weeks.

From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
FRANKFORT, Kent. -- Kicking off his first visit to the Bluegrass state, Bill Clinton said the primary contest should focus on issues, not "ya-ya-ing," referring in passing to an Obama supporter's claim that he engaged in McCarthyism last week.

Clinton was talking to the crowd at the Frankfort Convention Center about energy independence, when he stopped mid-thought.
 
"This is really what this election oughta be about, these kind of things, not a lot of this ya-ya-ing I hear about all the time," he said.

That line drew some applause, prompting the former president to reflect a moment. He then decided then to share one of his "Clinton's law of politics." "The level of sanctimony in the rhetoric is inversely related to the public benefit of the policy," he said, chuckling before adding: "I need to quit this. Somebody will probably figure out how to ... accuse me of being Joe McCarthy again on that."

VIDEO: Bill Clinton jokes about a comparison of him to Joe McCarthy, made by an Obama supporter over the weekend.

It was a passing reference, really. He then continued on to describe how cars could run on lithium batteries to get 100 miles per gallon. But it was the first public acknowledgement of the flap over his remarks in North Carolina last week that some viewed as an unspoken swipe at Obama's patriotism.

The speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, Jody Richards, introduced Clinton. The former president thanked the more than 2,000 on hand, which included students from the area and state employees, for supporting him in the 1992 and 1996 contests.

"We're not done yet; you bet we're not," he said, in response to a comment from the crowd that the race was not over.

*** UPDATE *** NBC's Ben Weltman adds this interesting Bill Clinton nugget on Iraq: "Because of they think we are going to stay 100 years, they'll never make these hard decisions. Ninety nine years from now our great great grandkids will be talking about 'Oh I wish they had figured out how to split that oil money.' Do you make hard decisions before you have to? No.

"Think about your nextdoor neighbors. Your nextdoor neighbors house burned down. And your nextdoor neighbor had no place to go. Virtually 100 percent of the people here would take you in. You know you would. And if you had no guest bedroom it would make a flip to you, they could sleep on the couch. You would let them do it. Thirty days. You'd let them stay. Most of you would let them stay 60 days. Because that is who we are. But let me ask you something. If your neighbor is still on your couch after five years,[laughter from crowd] what do you know? What do you know? It is not about the fire anymore. It's about not having to get off the couch, that's where we are in Iraq. It is not about the fire anymore. And we have to get off the couch."

From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina reporters got a taste of conference call campaigning this afternoon, with Team Obama getting Carolina backer Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-1) on the horn to slam Hillary Clinton over her reported exaggerations of the perils of a trip to Bosnia in 1996. Butterfield, the only member of North Carolina's Democratic congressional delegation to have endorsed a candidate, said he is "appalled" on behalf of his constituents over the claim. Calling the misstatement "a strike against" the New York senator, he added that she owes the citizens of his state -- and America -- an apology for it.

Butterfield also expressed doubt that Clinton's tenure as First Lady has uniquely readied her for a position at the helm of America's foreign policy. "And now that she has missrepresented and exaggerated her trip to Bosnia," he argued, "[that] really leads me to the conclusion that she not only lacks the qualifications but that she doesn't see the importance of being accurate in making statements regarding her qualifications."

The call assures that Clinton's "minor blip," as she has called the incident, will be on the news media's radar in the Tar Heel State. New polling shows Obama bouncing back from deflated  numbers last week to regain a substantial lead after his recent visit to the state. (Note: this from a new PPP poll) 

In a conference call to national reporters yesterday, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson accused the Obama campaign of capitalizing on the Bosnia story "because they have nothing positive to say about their candidate."

To hear Butterfield's baritone tell it, the key sticking point is trustworthiness. "That's not what we look for in elected officials in North Carolina," said the two-term Democratic congressman of Clinton's "sniper fire" embellishments. "I dare say that's not what we look for anywhere in America."

From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
The Obama campaign released six years of tax returns today, trying to underscore their argument that they operate with transparency and pressure the  Clinton campaign to do the same. 
 
Communications Director Robert Gibbs asked why Sen. Clinton couldn't get someone to go down to Kinkos and photocopy her returns, so that the public could see how she could afford to loan her campaign $5 million and the $20 million payout from Yucaipa, a holding company that invests in tax shelter in the Cayman Islands.
 
The Obamas reported a gross income of more than $980,000 in 2006, a dip in income from 2005 when the couple reported close to $1.7 million in gross income.  You can see the tax returns here.
 
Asked why the campaign had decided to release the tax returns now, Gibbs sidestepped the question and pointed to the release of tax returns for 2007 earlier this year. He also asked for the address of the glass house the Clinton campaign resided in, when told that Clinton spokesman Phil Singer had questioned why Obama hadn't released his schedules from his years in the Illinois senate.
 
Obama has been questioned about his schedules by reporters before and has said that as a state senator, there was little in the way of record keeping by himself or his miniscule staff. Gibbs today said that his public correspondence is available and that the Clinton campaign had it. 
 
Clinton's schedules from her years as First Lady were just released after much arm-twisting by the press and conservative non-profit groups. Her tax returns have yet to be released.

From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Amid a festive crowd celebrating Dyngus Day in the Hoosier State, Bill Clinton yesterday morning upped the ante on seating delegates from Florida and Michigan, criticizing his party's "strategy of denying and disempowering and disenfranchising the voters" there. His argument to seat Florida's delegates in particular came as he continued to claim that his wife would be the most electable general election candidate.
 
Clinton curiously said Democrats "let New Hampshire go out of turn," adding that they have a Democratic Secretary of State. "The Florida voters are totally innocent. They asked to vote on time," he said.
 
The Democratic National Committee's preliminary calendar called for New Hampshire to vote on Jan. 22. But that Democratic secretary of state, Bill Gardner, moved the first-in-the-nation primary to Jan. 8 when Michigan settled on Jan. 15. The DNC chose not to sanction New Hampshire, since the calendar rules were originally set in part to protect the Granite State's tradition of being the first-in-the-nation primary.
 
Clinton was joined by his daughter, Chelsea, and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend campaigning in what locals dubbed the "Dyngus Day Capital of the World." Though Dyngus Days elsewhere have reportedly included drenching women with water, the event locally featured just brats, beers and Polish music. The event here is closely associated with politics, as well, which is what drew Townsend's father, Robert F. Kennedy, to South Bend 40 years ago.
 
"My heart leaps up when I come to South Bend for Dyngus Day," Townsend said. "No other ethnic group voted in larger numbers for Kennedys than the Poles. I don't know what that says about the Irish, but thank you very much.
 
Townsend and a local priest also led the crowd in singing "Stolach," which the priest said some confuse with the national anthem of Poland, but Townsend admitted it was a drinking song. "But we'll sing it anyway!" she said, before bursting into song. When Clinton took the stage, he thanked her for singing, so he didn't have to.
 
Candidates for congress and governor spoke before Clinton, as did former Rep. Tim Roemer, an Obama supporter. He said the choice between the Democrats was "tough." But he cited the debate over NAFTA, which Clinton saw through as president but he voted against, as a tipping point. "[I] told [Clinton], respectfully, 'I'm with my people. I'm with people in Indiana," Roemer said. "That vote against NAFTA was one of the best votes that I cast throughout the 1990s. That was the right vote for our people."

Bill: McCain, 'oldest president'
ROCHESTER, Ind. -- In the past week, Bill Clinton has seemed to go out of his way to praise John McCain as he tries to buttress his wife's claims to electability. Yesterday, he invoked McCain's name again, but drew attention to something the Arizona senator will have to contend with.
 
"Final thing I want to say, and maybe most important of all, is -- I really do believe she oughta win," Clinton told nearly a thousand at Rochester Community High School (home of the Zebras). "We're going to have a historic election regardless. We're gonna elect either our oldest president ever, or our first African American president, or our first woman president."
 
Clinton regularly talks about the possibility of a woman or African American being president, but rarely has highlighted the potential for history on the Republican side.
 
He continued to say that all the candidates are "very compelling, each in their own way," and said for the first time, he felt he wouldn't have to "be against anyone" in an election. Then, he again talked about his wife's work with McCain, particularly on climate change.
 
"They like and respect each other. But she thinks he's wrong to say we should stay in Iraq for a hundred years, and she thinks he's wrong to support the Bush economic policies," he said. "And I believe that she has enough credibility on both to defeat him in November."
 
As he did earlier today, the former president again included the controversy over delegates in Michigan and Florida in raising concern about an Obama candidacy for the Democrats.
 
"It'd be a terrible thing for us to have gone to all this trouble this year, turn around and lose this election," he said. "She can win, partly because she hasn't made anybody in Florida and Michigan mad by saying it's okay to disenfranchise."
 
He then pointed to polls in Ohio and Arkansas, where Hillary leads McCain and Obama trails in head-to-head matchups. "This is not rocket science. We need to win this thing. She can win this thing. And we have got to win."

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Clinton decided to weigh in on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

She continued later, "You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

On her sniper gaffe, "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke." 

On earmarks: "I am proud of my earmarks. Part of the reason that I won New York by 67 percent are my earmarks."

From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
In a constant effort to improve its candidate's big speech abilities, the McCain campaign is using both a large flat screen monitor and two side pannel teleprompters for the candidate to read his prepared remarks on the housing crisis outside of LA, which he is delivering now. Teleprompters are nothing new for any of these candidates, but the McCain campaign had expressed concern that the side panel prompters made McCain look like he was watching a tennis match, but by using the large monitor fixed in the back of the room, McCain rarely shifted his gaze from straight ahead.

The hope is that by surrounding him with teleprompters McCain will be able to look more natural speaking to nearly 20 cameras in what will be his most extensive remarks on the housing crisis to date.

From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Usually the political response to a new message from Osama bin Laden is one of universal condemnation, but at a VFW hall in Chula Vista here yesterday, John McCain announced his agreement with an aspect of a recent bin Laden message.

"General Petraeus is correct when he says that the central battleground in the struggle against Al Qaeda is Iraq, and Osama bin Laden just confirmed that again with his comments last week," McCain said before quoting a line from a recent audio recording of bin Laden calling for support of the Mujahadeen in Iraq. 

VIDEO: McCain tells an audience that he agrees with Osama bin Laden's statement that Iraq is a primary battleground in the U.S. struggle against Al Qaeda.

McCain told reporters after his town hall, "General Petraeus and I and Osama bin Laden are in agreement. It is hard to understand why Senator Clinton and Senator Obama do not understand that [Iraq is the central battleground]. I don't know if it is naiveté or what the problem is but it's obvious that they're dead wrong, and they're wrong when they say that we should leave Iraq immediately… and it's time that they acknowledge that the surge is succeeding and the benefits of success in Iraq will spread throughout the entire Middle East."

Although the sentiments of his comments are not new, by asking why Clinton and Obama disagree with Osama bin Laden, Gen. Petraeus and himself, McCain selected some strange bedfellows. Like his statement that American troops could be in Iraq for more than 100 years, this sound bite seems ripe for Democratic criticism or at least advertised exaggeration.

While calling on Clinton and Obama to get with the program on acknowledging the importance of the current battle in Iraq, McCain also called on Clinton to apologize for statements she made in September that believing the surge was succeeding would require a "willing suspension of disbelief."

"I don't think I would change the strategy [in Iraq] now unless General Petraeus recommended it," McCain said. "But I would also argue that when Sen. Clinton said that you'd have to suspend -- a willing suspension of disbelief in order to believe that the surge was succeeding, I'm wondering when she's going to apologize for that statement. I'm wondering when they're going to stop advocating a date for withdrawal when we are succeeding in Iraq."

From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
FRANKFORT, Kent. -- Former Kentucky Governor Julian Carroll announced he's backing Clinton in the Democratic primary for president. Carroll announced his choice in the state capital before an event featuring Bill Clinton, who makes his first visit to the Bluegrass State today.
 
Carroll said he has known the Clintons since 1974, when he ascended to the governorship of Kentucky. "Look at me, I'm still goin! Look at that!" said Carroll, 76, kicking his heels at the podium.
 
"We need for our delegates to be cast in the lot of Hillary Clinton at the convention," he added. "That's what this is all about. ... I came today to put my personal endorsement, not only on my friend Bill Clinton ... but on Hillary Clinton, to be the next Democratic President of the United States."
 
Carroll was elected to a full term as governor in 1975; he now serves as a state senator representing a district that includes Frankfort.
 
The visit to Kentucky is the first by either Clinton, and comes two months before the state's primary. Hillary Clinton is expected to visit the state later this week.