The Filter: March 4, 2008... 'Super Tuesday: The Sequel' Edition

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

8 QUESTIONS THAT TODAY'S PRIMARIES COULD ANSWER
(Dan Balz, Washington Post)
An Obama victory in one of today's two big states is likely to result in the race ending, although perhaps not immediately. Former president Bill Clinton established that benchmark recently and though his wife's advisers have tried to back away from it, many Democrats have adopted it as the measure by which they judge today's results... New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's comments on Sunday -- that whoever holds the lead in delegates after Tuesday should be the nominee -- is a mild version of what Clinton will hear if she loses both. If she wins Ohio and Texas, then the race will continue to Pennsylvania and perhaps beyond. She will have some fresh momentum, but Obama will still have more delegates. "Obama can lose everything on Tuesday and still win the nomination," wrote Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. "Clinton could win all four states and still lose the nomination. But a politically consequential victory for Clinton requires wins in both Texas and Ohio."

NB: If Hillary Wins Texas or Ohio, Most Dems Want Her to Stay in the Race (Washington Post) 

HILLARY BANKS ON A GAME-CHANGING EVENT
(Ben Smith, Politico)
Barack Obama may have trademarked the word “hope,” but it’s Hillary Rodham Clinton whose campaign is now based as much on vague aspirations as on a plan. Without a clearly marked path to victory, Clinton’s campaign is barreling forward into the climactic March 4 primaries and beyond, hoping not just for convincing victories in Ohio and Texas tomorrow, but for some other, yet unknown, turn of events. Some Clinton aides and top supporters Monday cited hopes that Obama’s run of bad press – his first in months – would continue. Others pointed to the pure speculation that he would get called to testify for the defense in a messy Chicago corruption trial. There are those who think that Clinton could turn the race around in a yet-unscheduled Florida re-vote and those hoping Clinton could simply hang on long enough for something, anything, to happen.

SURVEYING OHIO'S DEMOCRATIC LANDSCAPE
(Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times)
A campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination that has pivoted on race and gender could be decided here today by another divide, the state's urban north versus the rural south -- pitting Ohio's popular governor against a cadre of big-city mayors... The state's social and political personality has its own Mason-Dixon line -- Interstate 70, which bisects Columbus, the capital and largest city. The north is anchored by old industrial centers like Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and, separated by farm areas along Lake Erie, Toledo. In the south, with the exception of Cincinnati, the state is rural and, to the southeast, Appalachian coal country. The split among Democrats also follows a racial fault line, with Strickland, who is white, on one side and Michael B. Coleman, the African American mayor of Columbus, on the other.

TO WOMEN, SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A CANDIDATE
(Eli Saslow, Washington Post)
Although women have been the dominant force in the Democratic race, making up nearly six in 10 voters in caucuses and primaries, things have not gone the way Wagner and other feminist supporters of Clinton expected. The same campaign they once celebrated as a sign of tremendous progress, with its promise of the first female president in the nation's history, has instead reinforced their impressions of gender inequity. Clinton goes into today's crucial primaries in Texas and Ohio with her candidacy on the line, and Wagner believes it is ignorance and bigotry that undermined it.

CLINTON CAMPAIGN'S DYING LIGHT
(Jonathan Chait, Los Angeles Times)
She could, in theory, win the nomination with superdelegates if she could narrow the gap, but that's not going to happen. Barack Obama will bring a triple-digit delegate lead to the convention, and party elites won't dare overturn that. Clinton and her supporters rage on anyway because, for so long, they had no inkling she might lose. For Obama to take what is rightfully hers must be unfair. The Clintonites rage against the media (though they didn't mind when reporters parroted her claims of inevitability a year ago), the unrepresentative caucus system (though they have expressed no objection to totally undemocratic superdelegates) or sexism (while ignoring the benefits of white racial bias and female gender solidarity). The real reason Clinton will lose is more prosaic: Obama is a far better politician.

ASK TOUGH QUESTIONS? YES, THEY CAN!
(Dana Milbank, Washington Post)
and reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog. Reporters from the Associated PressReuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama's trade policy. A trio of ChicagoThe New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote. Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. "That was the information that I had at the time. . . . Those charges are completely unrelated to me. . . . I have said that that was a mistake. . . . The fact pattern remains unchanged." When those failed, Obama tried another approach. "We're running late," the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.

WHAT THE WORLD IS HEARING
(Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek)
Despite their spirited squabbling, the two Democratic candidates are united in the view that one of the big benefits of electing either of them would be an improvement in America's reputation and relations with the world. promises to send special envoys to foreign capitals the day after she's elected. offers to reach out to America's foes as well as friends. Unfortunately none of this will matter if they continue to spout dangerous and ill-informed rhetoric about .

MCCAIN LOOKS TO CALIFORNIA
(David Jackson, USA Today)
John McCain and his aides are already thinking about which states to target in the fall and one tops the list: California. "I want to compete in California," the Arizona senator said Monday, saying his outlook on such issues as the environment will be a help in the traditionally blue state. McCain also enjoys the support of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. The task is daunting — no Republican nominee has taken California since the first President Bush in 1988.