The Filter: April 11, 2008

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

SPARE VOTES?
(Walter Shapiro, Salon)
With its population dwindling to under 50,000 in recent years, Altoona should by all demographic factors be Hillary country in the primary. In this old railroad city in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, family incomes, housing prices, educational levels and racial diversity are all well below the state average. (In past general elections, this area has been reliably Republican. But the final pre-primary figures for Blair County, in which Altoona is the largest city, show that Democratic enrollment has increased by more than 2,000 voters since November 2007, while GOP support has dropped by more than 600 registrants.) There is a danger in political reporting in placing too much stock in street-corner and restaurant-booth interviews. (The risks of worshipping at the shrine of polls are perhaps even greater.) But still, there are hints that Obama, who is narrowing the gap against Clinton in recent statewide polls, may be tapping into something even here in Altoona, where the 19th century offered more promise than the current one.

PAPA JOHN
(Jason Zengerle, New Republic)
[There are] two somewhat conflicting realities about McCainland. The first is the tremendous loyalty McCain instills in those who work for him--and even in those who have left his employ... But then there's the second reality of McCainland--which is that, despite its inhabitants' loyalty to McCain, they don't have much loyalty to one another. "The McCain internal world is very dysfunctional," says one McCain adviser. "But the overwhelming function is the huge love everyone has for McCain. That's the functional part that holds it all together." Indeed, it's precisely the passion McCain's advisers feel for him that causes them to fight with one another. Less a politician captaining a team of rivals than a patriarch presiding over a brood of squabbling children vying for Daddy's affection, McCain has built a political family that has served him well enough to carry him to the threshold of the White House. But now, as that family tries to carry McCain over that threshold, the animosities within McCainland continue to persist. And, as much as ever, they have the potential to violently erupt.

THE STORY OF BARACK OBAMA'S MOTHER
(Amanda Ripley, Time)
Ironically, the person who mattered most in Obama's life is the one we know the least about—maybe because being partly African in America is still seen as being simply black and color is still a preoccupation above almost all else. There is not enough room in the conversation for the rest of a man's story. But Obama is his mother's son. In his wide-open rhetoric about what can be instead of what was, you see a hint of his mother's credulity. When Obama gets donations from people who have never believed in politics before, they're responding to his ability—passed down from his mother—to make a powerful argument (that happens to be very liberal) without using a trace of ideology. On a good day, when he figures out how to move a crowd of thousands of people very different from himself, it has something to do with having had a parent who gazed at different cultures the way other people study gems. It turns out that Obama's nascent career peddling hope is a family business. He inherited it. And while it is true that he has not been profoundly tested, he was raised by someone who was.

DEMOCRATS SIGNAL PLAN OF ATTACK ON MCCAIN
(Sam Youngman, The Hill)
Democrats on Thursday highlighted what they see as Sen. John McCain’s weaknesses based on the results of swing state polling conducted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC). DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Democratic pollsters said the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is vulnerable to charges he is not the independent voice he claims to be, criticized the Arizona senator for changing his position on key issues and claimed he is ignorant of the economy. Dean and the pollsters said McCain has been “wishy-washy” on both immigration and the Bush tax cuts. Their polls showed people do not think McCain is an independent voice when they are told of his relationships with lobbyists affiliated with his campaign. Dean argued McCain would have been a threat to compete for independent swing voters had he won the GOP nomination in 2000. Since then, he has changed on too many positions and tacked too far to the right to win their votes now.

MCCAIN REVERSES HIMSELF ON MORTGAGE POSITION
(Michael Cooper, New York Times)
Senator John McCain, who drew criticism last month after he warned against broad government intervention to solve the deepening mortgage crisis, pivoted Thursday and called for the federal government to aid some homeowners in danger of losing their homes, by helping them to refinance and get federally guaranteed 30-year mortgages... His speech in Brooklyn — which is to be followed by what aides are billing as a major economic address next week — was a shift in tone, and part of a new effort to communicate that as president he would act to help Americans in financial distress.

PA. RACE MAY BE A TALE OF TWO CITIES
(Tom Infield, Philadelphia Inquirer)
Steelers or Eagles? Pro-football loyalties are not the only differences that divide Pennsylvania's two big cities. In Democratic politics, the contrasts between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are so sharp that they might decide the outcome of the state's presidential primary April 22. The Pittsburgh area, according to polls and politicos-in-the-know, is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton territory. The Philadelphia area is the Keystone State's biggest stronghold for Sen. Barack Obama. The differences that 300 miles can make stem mainly from one thing: demographics.