THE NOTE: Race in the Race

Jan. 14, 2008 -- Five (plus one) questions to ponder in this vitally important, jam-packed week that will shape the 2008 race more than any other six-day span to date:

1. How far can Camp Clinton bend the politics of race without seeing the race snap back?

2. Will the new Mitt Romney remind Michigan voters of old George Romney? (Or will old John McCain get credit for being, well, old John McCain?)

3. Who will be less Christian in his attacks -- Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson? (And who benefits most if they push each other toward the gates of campaign hell with Metamucil prescriptions and "potty humor"?)

4. Who is happier that John Edwards is taking Barack Obama's side in taking on Hillary Clinton -- Obama or Clinton? (And does Edwards siphon more votes from Obama or Clinton -- or does it depend on the state of the week?)

5. Who benefits from the fact that Democratic race is again plowing through old history on the Iraq war? (Hint: It helps to know who's bringing it up.)

Bonus: What does it mean that two new national polls have Clinton and McCain as frontrunners? (And how do those trend lines look now that African-American voters now seem convinced that Obama can win?)

With the first two contests already distant memories (with their very different outcomes), the Democratic race from here out is all about who can repeat the magic. And it's not at all clear that either Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is precisely sure why the last tricks worked.

That's one reason that the race got so ugly over the weekend: Supporters of both candidates now realize that their candidate can win this thing -- and, even more easily, could lose it.

The New York Times' Adam Nagourney sees the fierce weekend battle exposing sentiments that have been there all along, in a must-read snapshot of the campaign: "race and to a lesser extent gender have burst into the forefront of the Democratic presidential contest, thrusting Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton into the middle of a sharp-edged social and political debate that transcends their candidacies."

"Democrats now increasingly view both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton as credible and electable candidates, given their victories," Nagourney writes. "In addition, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are now moving into a series of contests, particularly in South Carolina but also in California, where black voters could play a pivotal role."

Cast against that backdrop is the raging battle of "who said what and what they meant by it" regarding Clinton's MLK-LBJ remarks last week, ABC's Kate Snow and Sunlen Miller report. Said Clinton, in a "Meet the Press" interview she was clearly prepped (and well-armed) for: "Clearly we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this."

Countered Obama: "She, I think, offended some folks who felt that [she] somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that. But the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous."

This is hardball -- a high hard one: Clinton -- yes, Clinton, not Obama -- is reopening the debate over Iraq. With the double-barreled attack that only a former president and a former first lady can offer, it's about leadership, consistency, campaign narrative (yes, even some fairy tales) -- and Bill Clinton as media critic.

"Look, if you are running for president based primarily on a speech you gave in 2002 and speeches you have given since, most notably at the Democratic convention, then I think it is fair to say we need to know more beyond the words," Clinton said on "Meet."

"He does not have a record of producing change."

And this is a spitball tossed at a batter without a helmet: Another Clinton surrogate, another oh-so-delicate mention of Obama's past. Introducing Clinton in South Carolina on Sunday, BET founder Bob Johnson had this to say: "Hillary and Bill Clinton . . . have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book."

We know what you were thinking -- but no, no, no, says Johnson, he just referring to Obama's time as a "community organizer." (Depends on the community, and what's being organized, we suppose.)

Obama strategist David Axelrod isn't buying that explanation (and really -- who is?): "I don't see why this is so much different from what Billy Shaheen did in New Hampshire," he tells Anne Kornblut and Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post. (That's right, kids: D-R-U-G-S.)

The Las Vegas Sun's J. Patrick Coolican sees a risk of a backlash against Clinton in Nevada, particularly with a lawsuit backed by some of her supporters potentially keeping many black and Latino voters from caucusing on Saturday.

"For black voters especially, the issue of disenfranchisement is not to be trifled with, considering America's Jim Crow past and the history of willful suppression of the black vote," Coolican writes.

"In recent weeks, Clinton allies have made a series of awkward and sometimes crass remarks that play to stereotypes about black men."