In trying to speculate as to whether or not Hillary Clinton's team intentionally leaked news yesterday about her having to loan herself $5 million and accept the offer of campaign staff to go without pay for a month, presumably to save money for media buys, I revisited my notes from Team Clinton’s press call yesterday. I’m willing to defer to Dana’s reactions, as she was on the conference call too, but the fact that the Clinton advisers were stressing how Barack Obama, not Hillary, is now the “establishment candidate” because he is collecting endorsements from politicians provides a big clue. Aside from its facial absurdity, this talking point now strikes me as a hint that Clinton was going to begin refashioning herself as the underdog, insurgent candidate who isn’t blessed with all the advantages like, say, $32M in January fundraising receipts. Also ironic about the suggestion that Obama, not Clinton, is the establishment candidate are two other points stressed at several junctures during the call by either Mark Penn, Guy Cecil or Howard Wolfson: (1) their emphasis on the significance of the battle for superdelegates, which of course is a battle for elite Democratic support, not mass Democratic support, and which accounts for Clinton’s present overall lead in the race; and (2) their insistence on seating the Michigan and Florida delegates from those non-sanctioned contests. What makes this so ironic, if not downright hypocritical? Well, for one, obviously a “non-establishment candidate” wouldn’t be touting her advantages among, um, the establishment of the party; the “establishment” of the party and the party’s superdelegates are not synonymous universes, but the latter is a damn good proxy for the former. Second, only an “establishment candidate” would have both the temerity and the power to try to seat delegates won in non-sanctioned primaries by, in effect, declaring them legitimate delegates ex post facto. This move is especially indicative of the Clintons not merely being establishment, but finding or at least believing themselves to be situated at or near the top of that very establishment. --Tom Schaller