The Note: Hillary's Choice

Feb. 25, 2008 -- Some politicians miss cues (sorry, Mike Huckabee, but jokes -- like campaigns -- rise and fall on the timing).

Some see cues and ignore them (welcome back, Ralph Nader, and this no joke -- but no keen grasp of timing, either).

For others, the cues are just starting to be delivered -- and we may see soon whether gentle tones from the orchestra are enough to convince a candidate to exit the stage (or whether the director will have to cut straight to commercial).

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., could fast be approaching the decisive moment of her campaign. She has eight days to slow the juggernaut that is Sen. Barack Obama's campaign -- or those tentative voices (heard now even among denizens of Camp Clinton) asking her defer to the good of the party will rise into shouts.

Her internal struggle pits the Clinton campaign against the Clinton legacy. The Clintons, of all people, know you can't stop thinking about tomorrow -- and they have many tomorrows in Democratic politics regardless of how this campaign turns out.

Viewed another way, Sen. Clinton is already at the decisive moment of the campaign -- down though not yet out, and in desperate need of new line of attack that can shake up a race that's tipping against her.

She found a defiant new voice on Sunday, her outrage joining sarcasm and incredulity over the fact that she finds herself at this point: "I could stand up here and say lets just get everybody together, lets get unified," Clinton said, per ABC's Eloise Harper.

"The sky will open, the light will come down celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know that we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect."

She's focusing on an Obama mailer on trade that she describes as deceptive -- but more generally, she is trying to focus attention on a rival who has never gotten the same scrutiny she has.

"Clinton traded her usual wonky style this weekend for a fiery, populist tone," Perry Bacon Jr. and Alec MacGillis write in The Washington Post. She's channeling John Edwards: "You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear," said Clinton.

This is the tactic she'll ride into Tuesday's debate in Cleveland -- the one where she said over the weekend she wants to have a debate with Obama "about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign."

"If you're not wiling to be pinned down, if you continue to put forth misleading information about one of the most important issues we face, namely how to get everyone health insurance, then what is it that people are really hanging on to as people cast their votes?" Clinton tells the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody.

"I think there is a big difference between talk and action. And there certainly is a difference between the words of Sen. Obama's speeches and the actions of his campaign."

But pardon us if we thought we'd detected a closing argument or two before. "She tried TV ads saying he ducked debates. She accused him of plagiarism. She disparaged his huge crowds. She called his attacks on her shameful and dishonest. On Sunday, Clinton turned to ridicule," Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak write in the Los Angeles Times.

"Clinton's string of tactical adjustments comes amid Obama's 11-contest winning streak, which has given him the lead in delegates to the party's national convention."

"For Hillary Clinton in particular, this week is do or die," ABC's Jake Tapper reported on "Good Morning America" Monday. "Her shifting tone may symbolize internal tensions within the campaign as to how to wage the fight this week."

Camp Clinton is hoping for a swing in the pendulum of media sympathy and scrutiny -- and they hope every reporter in the country saw the opening skit in the return of "Saturday Night Live."

"The obvious bias of the pundits dancing on Hillary's grave. It's the only dance they know," Bill Clinton said Sunday, per ABC's Sarah Amos.

That frustration appears to boil over onto the Drudge Report on Monday -- with the picture of Obama dressed as a Somali elder that a Clinton aide is reportedly convinced we'd be seeing "on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC." (If it really is the work of someone associated with the Clinton campaign, it has atypical fingerprints all over it -- and it's an interesting call on a day where Clinton is giving a "major" speech on foreign policy.)

In a rare week without a primary or a caucus, everyone gets to breathe -- though not for long. "Two weeks as the underdog on the brink of elimination could cast Mrs. Clinton in a more sympathetic light," John Harwood writes in The New York Times.

"And the lull before March 4 could lower the temperature for the hotter candidate." Said Obama strategist David Axelrod: "I'd be lying if I told you we won't miss February."

The candidate sees inspiration in the signs at her rallies, AP's Beth Fouhy writes. "In Houston last night, it was, 'We Want Experience, Not An Experiment,' and 'The White House Is No Place for Training Wheels,' " Clinton said at a Boston fund-raiser Sunday. "People are starting to say, 'Hey, you know, we've got two candidates. We've been a little more focused on one than the other in terms of asking hard questions."

She can try to change that by asking those questions herself on Tuesday, and through a pitter-patter attack on the stump. But the stakes are larger than her campaign.

"If Hillary Clinton attempts to disembowel Obama and fails, there might be a backlash that could reduce her stature in the Senate and Bill Clinton's reputation as an elder statesman," John F. Harris and Mike Allen write for Politico.

A twist on the dilemma: Even if she wins Texas and Ohio by substantial margins, she will almost certainly still trail Obama in the delegate count. "If Hillary Clinton wanted a graceful exit, she'd drop out now -- before the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries -- and endorse Barack Obama," Newsweek's Jonathan Alter writes in an agenda-setter.

"Withdrawing would be stupid if Hillary had a reasonable chance to win the nomination, but she doesn't," Alter writes. "To win, she would have to do more than reverse the tide in Texas and Ohio, where polls show Obama already even or closing fast. She would have to hold off his surge, then establish her own powerful momentum within three or four days."

One of the reasons she's not going anywhere anytime soon: "Who will tell her that it's over, that she cannot win the presidential nomination, and the sooner she leaves the race, the more it will improve chances of defeating Sen. John McCain in November?" columnist Robert Novak writes.