The Filter: May 14, 2008

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

HILLARY: I'M HERE, GET USED TO IT
(Byron York, National Review)
Obama’s supporters, in the campaign, in the Democratic party, and in the press are desperate for her to leave the race precisely because her support is so substantial; her continued presence is a daily reminder of how profoundly divided the party is at this moment. Her landslide 67-26 victory over Obama in West Virginia — she won by 147,410 votes — won’t change that situation. The oft-repeated fact that no Democrat since 1916 has won the White House without winning West Virginia won’t change it, either. But together, those two facts show just how far Democrats have ventured into uncharted territory this year. If Obama is to win the White House, he’ll have to do it in a brand-new way, winning states that Democrats haven’t won lately with diminished support in states that have been important to Democratic victories in the past. Clinton’s campaign reminds Democrats of that, and it makes some of them nervous.

'ALMOST NOMINEE' STATUS KEEPS OBAMA IN LIMBO
(Jim Rutenberg, New York Times) 
Even as Mr. Obama prepared to suffer one of his worst defeats of the primary season on Tuesday, aides said his lead in delegates and in the popular vote had him feeling like a winner. And his visit here with garment workers in a district that President Bush swept in 2004 was an intended show of strength, with Mr. Obama affecting the manner of a general election nominee raiding opposition territory, the birthplace of Rush Limbaugh no less. But on the flight here from Washington on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged that, in political terms, he is neither fish nor fowl, unable to go after Mr. McCain quite the way he would if he had the nomination clinched — lest he alienate Mrs. Clinton’s supporters by seeming presumptuous — and unable to fully dismiss her continued challenge.

MORE: Obama Reaches Out to Workers in Cape Giradeau (St. Louis Post- Dispatch)
As working-class voters in West Virginia largely rejected him, Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama flew to this Republican stronghold in a key swing state to woo a similar audience Tuesday. His aim: to show the nation — and fellow Democrats — that he's going to keep pursuing such voters as part of his quest to capture the White House this fall. His pitch: that despite his education and political connections, he also hails from a blue-collar background and shares the middle-class' economic hopes and fears — unlike presumptive Republican nominee John McCain... The audience cheered when Obama pointed out that he was wearing a union-made suit manufactured in the United States. The suit's lapel sported an American flag pin, largely absent from Obama's wardrobe until Monday and Tuesday. Asked about the pin, he said: "Sometimes I wear it, sometimes I don't."

OBAMA MAY HAVE HIS WORK CUT OUT FOR HIM TO DRAW INDEPENDENTS
(Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal)
Barack Obama can't rest should he soon win Democrats' presidential-nomination marathon. His next big challenge: to introduce himself to the independents who may well decide the November election, and dispel the doubts and misinformation that have taken hold among many. A focus group of independent voters here Monday night suggested that the Illinois senator is largely identified by his association with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose much-publicized sermons have been called racially divisive and anti-American. Yet Sen. Obama is also identified by many -- incorrectly -- as a Muslim, and suspect for that as well.

MORE: Rumor Mill Keeps Obama on Defense (Washington Times)
This week in West Virginia, the rumor mill was working at full tilt, flagging the work the Obama campaign faces to set the record straight before November and highlighting the hurdles of urban-myth attacks on candidates. Mr. Obama — who is Christian and says the Pledge of Allegiance regularly — sometimes shrugs off questions about the rumors with jokes, but he increasingly has been forced to quash them outright.

MCCAIN CONSULTANT IS TIED TO WORK FOR UKRAINE PARTY
(Marc Jacoby and Glenn R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal)
A consultant to Sen. John McCain hired a public-relations firm last year to burnish the U.S. image of a Ukrainian political party backed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to documents filed with the Justice Department. The lobbying firm of Davis Manafort Inc. arranged for the public-relations firm's work through an affiliate last spring, at the same time Davis Manafort was being paid by the Republican presidential candidate's campaign. The firm is co-owned by lobbyist Rick Davis, manager of Sen. McCain's presidential campaign, and longtime Republican strategist Paul Manafort. The Arizona senator has endorsed a political movement in Ukraine that is at odds with the Putin-backed Party of Regions. The work for the Ukrainian party represents the latest issue to arise for the McCain campaign involving aides' ties to foreign interests. Last weekend, the campaign parted ways with two former lobbyists for the military government of Myanmar after their ties were reported in Newsweek.

OBAMA, MCCAIN AIM TO CURB '527s'
(Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear, Washington Post)
Sen. Barack Obama's top fundraisers have asked his campaign donors to refrain from contributing to liberal independent political organizations in hopes of controlling the tone and message of the general-election campaign.At a meeting in Indianapolis on May 2, members of the Democratic front-runner's finance committee made it clear Obama (Ill.) is worried that overtly negative advertising from outside organizations could undermine his themes of unity and hope. "If people want to support our campaign, they should do it through our campaign," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said. The meeting was only the most overt effort by Obama or Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, to freeze out "527" groups -- named after a provision in the tax code -- which are not allowed to openly support a candidate but have helped define recent elections through negative advertising. The McCain campaign has been less organized than Obama's in its efforts to counter the groups, but the senator from Arizona has made clear his antipathy toward them -- without much effect.

IT'S FINALS TIME FOR STUDENT SUPERDELEGATES
(Antonio Vargas, Washington Post)
All that online pressure, all the instant messages on AIM and Gchat, all those YouTube comments and Facebook messages and wall posts added up to something: Two more delegates for Sen. Barack Obama.  In a YouTube video posted shortly before midnight yesterday, Lauren Wolfe and Awais Khaleel, who as president and vice president of the College Democrats of America are among the youngest Democratic superdelegates, endorsed Obama. In the two-minute video, Wolfe said: "We've received over 5,000 e-mails . . . hundreds of YouTube comments. . . . We support Senator Barack Obama." More than two weeks ago, Wolfe and Khaleel did what no superdelegate had done before: They posted a YouTube video asking college students to tell them whom to endorse. 

MAYBE WE CAN'T
(Cinque Henderson, New Republic)
Ninety percent of black Democrats support Barack Obama. So that might leave an observer wondering: What the hell is up with that other 10 percent? Are they stupid? Do they hate their own race? Do they not understand the historical import of the moment. I can shed some insight on this demographic anomaly. In gatherings of black people, I'm invariably the only one for the Dragon Lady. I'll do my best to explain how those of us in the ever-shrinking minority of a minority came to our position. So much of the educated white people's love for Barack depends on educated white people's complete ignorance of and distance from the rest of us. Barack is the black person they want the rest of us to be--half-white and loving, or "racially transcendent," as the press loves to call him. And, since picking a candidate makes you allies with his other supporters, why would I want to be allies with educated whites whose glorification of Barack depends in large part on their implicit denigration of the rest of us?