Don't Mind Us, We're Just LOVING EVERY MINUTE

Lefty blogger Kevin Drum is frustrated that the blue-on-blue attacks are providing ammunition for John McCain.

Obama foreign policy advisor Susan Rice, referring to Hillary's "red telephone" ad, said today of Obama and Clinton that "they're both both not ready to have that 3 am phone call." Jerome Armstrong is unhappy about this, saying that this three second clip is all John McCain needs to go after either candidate in the general election. Obama has gotten similar criticism (including from me) for providing Republicans with ammunition by circulating "Harry and Louise" style flyers attacking Hillary's healthcare plan.

In a similar vein, Hillary said today that presidential candidates need to pass a "commander-in-chief threshold." And who's done that? "I believe that I've done that," she said. "Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy." Bingo! Instant TV material for McCain this fall.

Now, there's no question that this stuff sucks. Hillary sucks more on this score since her team has been doing more of it than Obama's team, but they should both knock it off.

Drum can add one more incident to his list, as another Obama foreign policy adviser goes "off the record":

[Samantha] Power told The Scotsman Mrs Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from Mr Obama.

“We f***** up in Ohio,” she admitted. “In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only place they can win.

“She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,” Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Obama, borrowing a tactic from Clinton, has already denounced Power and distanced himself from her remarks. Damage done; send out the next little trooper. I was ready for Clinton to be finished on Tuesday (and I still think that she can't win based on the numbers), but if she's going to stick around, at least it's going to be fun. Please, sir, can I have some more?

More numbers trouble for Clinton: There will be no knockout blow from Puerto Rico, which was going to be the last place to vote. It was also widely reported that Puerto Rico was winner-take-all. Most commentators attempting to predict to whom the remaining pledged delegates would go were putting all of Puerto Rico's 55 delegates in the Clinton column. Whoops:

[Puerto Rico will] change the voting process from 8 caucuses to a primary with voting places in all 1,800+ barrios in Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities. This is done in light of the hundreds of thousands of Democrats expected to turn out on June 1, a late date in which we would have originally expected a pro-forma vote with low turnout.

The change will make Montana and South Dakota the last states to vote on the Democratic side. It also turns out that Puerto Rico is not winner-take-all, which means things just got much harder for Clinton. For those who are counting, Obama is still ahead of Clinton by one hundred delegates.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 05:22 AM

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