THE NOTE: Family Feud

Jan. 23, 2008 -- Five questions worth pondering as we brace ourselves for Fred Thompson's 2012 campaign:

1. What better things could Mitt Romney be doing with his fortune, if he wasn't currently in the business of buying gold medals? (A new vacation home, or three? A bigger lawn? Maybe a joke book with a copyright date later than 1977?)

2. Did Fred Thompson actually succeed in getting out of the race with less noise than he made back when he was in it? (He made it official with 45 words, delivered by e-mail -- and only one of those words was "Jeri.")

3. Can Camp Clinton make Tony Rezko into a household name in time for the South Carolina primary? (Probably not -- but there's always Feb. 5.)

4. If John Edwards stays in the race all way to the convention, will anyone want to hear him speak? (Here's guessing he's one grown-up who will be particularly popular if this thing really comes down to delegates.)

5. Who would you take in a dance off -- Barack Obama or Bill Clinton? (And would grading on a curve really make a difference, Mr. President?)

Obama, D-Ill., has set a time and a place for the dancing competition: "We'll certainly invite him to the inauguration party -- we can see there," he told ABC's Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday.

They may or may not be dancing in the run-up to Saturday's South Carolina primary, but Obama facing down the former president in South Carolina makes for intriguing Kabuki this week.

Whether or not you consider Clinton the first black president, Obama really is the first serious candidate who is actually, physically black. Their showdown comes in the first state where a significant number of black voters will vote in a Democratic primary.

And the race will be about race without race ever being explicitly mentioned (unless someone royally and totally screws up.)

There is no longer any hesitancy inside Camp Clinton about deploying Bill Clinton as surrogate-in-chief, as he fills in for his wife in South Carolina. Even when he's bad, he's good. When he's off-message, he's on-message. When he speaks, cameras whirl and people listen.

He is mystical whirlwind of a political force -- you can't control him, but neither would you want to.

"He often sounds as if he's campaigning for a third term," Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post.

"Here in Aiken, he tried mightily to talk about Hillary, but he kept lapsing into the first person: 'My position on that is simple. . . . When I was in law school. . . . When I was president. . . . When I was governor of Arkansas. . . . When I started this schools program. . . . I made the governor of South Carolina secretary of education. . . . I got a Mercury mini-SUV."

"This campaign is not really about the candidates," he told his supporters in Aiken. "It's about you." But Milbank calls that "false modesty. Everybody knows the election is really about him."

Obama is pushing back with a "truth squad" -- lest you think such things could wait until a general election. Members will be following Bill Clinton around, correcting the record. "I know he loves his wife, but we hope he loves his country, too," Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the S.C. Democratic Party and an Obama supporter, tells The State's Wayne Washington.

Obama doesn't have an ex-president, but he does have an ex-nominee who appears ready to defend him. "The truth matters, but how you fight the lies matters even more," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., writes in an e-mail message to Obama supporters.

"We must be determined never again to lose any election to a lie."

Per the Washington Times' Christina Bellantoni, "The message does not mention Mrs. Clinton, but notes the anonymous e-mails that are circulating that question Mr. Obama's Christian faith and said, 'We're fighting back.' "

Kerry aides insist that this is about right-wing smears -- not anything that's coming from the Clintons. But what a coincidence . . .

Bill's non-stop presence in the state lets the Clintons have South Carolina both ways. "Not making a real effort here allows her to discount an Obama win as uncontested, and hence less meaningful," Time's Jay Newton-Small reports.

"But by leaving the state to her husband, who won two presidential contests here, she makes it impossible for Obama to relax or focus his energies elsewhere. This week in South Carolina Obama is essentially running against the former President, and he knows it."

Look who's enjoying himself: "I know you think it's crazy, but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight," Bill Clinton said on the trail in South Carolina, Geoff Earle reports in the New York Post.

"They're flesh-and-blood people and they have their differences -- let them have it."

Obama is raising questions of his own, suggesting that Clinton isn't serious about South Carolina -- and that she's too polarizing to get elected. "I think the South Carolina voters will have to make an assessment in terms of how seriously she's taking the state," Obama told the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody.

"She said last night that Bill Clinton wasn't the one running for President, but this is the next primary and he's the one who's staying behind."

And this: "I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is can she get the people who voted for me?" he tells.

But the most telling exchange of the day may have come on a rope line, when The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny asked what should have been a softball for Obama to answer: "Are you allowing President Clinton to get in your head?" Per ABC's Sunlen Miller, "it took Obama three tries to answer the question, in what turned into a testy exchange."

Obama shot back: "I am trying to make sure that his statements by him are answered. Don't you think that's important?"

On "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, Obama said he hasn't been looking for a fight with either Clinton. "I am sure that there are going to be disagreements on policy. My hope is what we stop is some of the sort of presentations of each others' records that may not be accurate," he said.

"The only thing I want to make sure is that when he goes after me, he goes after me on the basis of facts and policy differences, and stuff isn't just made up."

And he -- again -- addressed his past ties to Tony Rezko: "We have returned any money that we know was associated to Mr. Rezko. . . . Nobody had any indications that he was engaging in wrongdoing," he said. "In terms of appearances . . . I should not have entered into any kind of agreement with him."