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- The most interesting story I've read today is this one from the Wall Street Journal about the ground game in South Carolina. The Obama campaign has eschewed the traditional strategy of paying local pastors to turn out the vote and instead built a new network from scratch. Clinton, meanwhile is going the traditional route. Only in this campaign would a black candidate's campaign for black voters be run by two white Midwesterners while a white candidate's be dominated by traditional black leadership. The parallel to Huckabee's circumvention of traditional evangelical leaders is pretty interesting.
- This article should help put the lie to the Clinton campaign's attempt to convince the political world that she's not competing in South Carolina.
- ABC News, on the other hand, wrote a really egregious story that made it sound like Obama flipped out when Roger Zeleny asked if Bill Clinton was "getting into his head." It's a dumb question and Obama pretty much said that. He did not, however, "fir[e] back angrily" at Zeleny as the piece by ABC's Sunlen Miller claimed. Greg Sargent has more, including the video, here.
- On the plus side for ABC News blogs, Jake Tapper does what I wish more reporters would do and calls an untruth an untruth. In this case it's Clinton's new ad that claims Obama said Republicans had better ideas.
- Tapper also has a good piece pointing out that Obama's statements about outside groups are pretty damn embarrassing now that outside groups are campaigning for him in California. He has criticized them, but given how hard he was on Edwards for the exact same thing there's really nothing he can do to avoid hypocrisy. It's an attack he never should have made and it's come back to bite him in the ass.
- Speaking of attacks, Paul Waldman has a good piece on the main site about how Clinton's strategy mimics that of many Republicans. What's more, I think they enjoy it. Bill recently
said "I kinda like seeing Barack and Hillary fight" and Hillary famously said that confrontational campaigning is the "fun part." - And remember New Hampshire? Turns out the recount there has resulted in a massive swing of... 35 votes with 75 percent of the ballots recounted.
- While we're all worrying about scandals and smears, those wacky English people are talking about the voting records of our candidates. Imagine that.
- While the Democrats are well-funded, many Republicans are running into financial trouble as Mori Dinauer writes below. Huckabee and Giuliani are running out of cash and McCain might not be far behind. Moreover, while they may be able to survive through Florida, only Romney can afford a real national ad campaign (he can just write a check).More money, no mo' problems? Mitt money, no problems? There's a joke there, I know it.
- And who does Fred Thompson's final snooze benefit? Maybe Romney, maybe nobody, according to Florida's top politicos.
- The New York Times explains that a pretty ridiculous number of primary voters don't make up their minds until the last minute. Also see this classic piece from Chris Hayes.
- I was an early Huckabee pun-maker and an avowed pun-lover, but it has to stop. First there was "Huckaboom" which actually is funny because it sounds like his name, but now we're just combining the first half of his name with any word. The joke is Huckabusted. It's Huckabover. It's Huckaboring. It's Huckabeendone. Time to give it a Huckarest.
--Sam Boyd
