The Note: Clinton Comeback?

Feb. 28, 2008 -- As we learn that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is out, and Sen. John McCain is only possibly in (how much doubt does Ted Olson not have about his constitutional eligibility for the presidency?), it already feels like the general election has begun.

But before we get there, the challenge that will consume the next five days: Can a Clinton campaign built for power, not speed, move extremely quickly to claim the only commodity that matters to her right now?

That would be momentum, not delegates -- they don't really matter to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton anymore, because Clinton has already essentially lost the delegate race (a fact that both campaigns recognize and concede).

Barring unforeseen circumstances (an utter and total collapse -- think Rudy + Fred + Hillary, squared), Sen. Barack Obama will finish the primary season with more pledged delegates than Clinton (though not enough to clinch the nomination). He's closing the superdelegate gap as well (Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., quickens that pace by making his switch official).

The only road back for Clinton, D-N.Y., involves capturing a whole lot of momentum in a very small amount of time. Winning (the popular vote, at the very least) in Ohio and Texas is a must -- or March 5 will bring an exodus of fundraisers and superdelegates both (and, just maybe, staffers, too).

"Aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), coming to terms with the idea that she must win contests in both Texas and Ohio next week or face enormous pressure to drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, are pouring all of the campaign's dwindling resources into the March 4 primaries," Anne Kornblut and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post. "With each passing day, her climb appears steeper."

If she makes that climb, that gives her quite a hill to roll down. Winning the next big states would put her back in the game precisely because she's been counted out. The message fits the narrative: I'm tough, tested, ready -- and Obama can't close the deal.

Oddly, amid the spin and counter-spin, Clinton needs the stakes to be huger than huge March 4 if Comeback is to be Character. "Sen. Clinton's best hope, many party strategists say, may be a split decision," Jackie Calmes writes in The Wall Street Journal. "Yet anything short of a double win likely will raise pressure on Sen. Clinton from the Democratic establishment and big donors to clear the field for Sen. Obama."

With the delegate race lost (though not quite "won" by Obama, either), only big wins matter anyway. Rather than gaining a delegate edge, "Clinton instead may need to rely on chemistry, a chain-reaction set off by big wins in the March 4 races and in Pennsylvania in April that will persuade wavering delegates that she's the stronger candidate to face the Republican nominee in November," Bloomberg's Hans Nichols and Catherine Dodge report.

She just might have some life left: "Inside a bad night in Cleveland is a glimmer of hope," Bloomberg News columnist Margaret Carlson writes. "She's at about the same low point she reached in New Hampshire when women rallied to her side as they saw the smile fade and exasperation and sorrow take its place."

Yet even getting as far as March 4 is a challenge -- just keeping her supporters' chins up is a task unto itself. "There is a real emphasis on holding what we have," Harold Ickes tells Adam Nagourney in a New York Times profile. "We are very aware of the pressure on delegates and the need to hold them."

Nagourney has Ickes "stepping out front to make the public case for Mrs. Clinton, at a time when campaign advisers have pressed to lower the profile of her chief strategist, Mark J. Penn." Says the man himself: "I'm a little dismayed by the lack of fight on the part of our staff."

This doesn't help: "Something's happening in America, something some of us did not see coming," John Lewis tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bob Kemper. He's not the first -- and is unlikely to be the last -- to go from Clinton to Obama: "I support his candidacy for president and will cast my vote for Sen. Obama as a superdelegate at the Democratic convention," Lewis said.

This is a tough dance for Clinton -- Texas in particular is tight. And Clinton can't afford perceptions that the primary is over -- a sentiment that Wednesday's combatants (Obama and McCain) are only too happy to foster.

McCain, R-Ariz., was thrilled to lecture Obama in the wake of Tuesday's debate, and Obama was equally thrilled to push back. "Al Qaeda is in Iraq. . . . It's called Al Qaeda in Iraq," McCain lectured Obama, per ABC's Jake Tapper and Bret Hovell. Countered Obama: "I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

Anyone doubt what the general election might look like? Your preview, as Tapper laid out Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America": "John McCain attacking Barack Obama as naive and weak on national security, Obama striking back by reminding voters of McCain's stalwart support for the very unpopular war in Iraq."

"The exchange highlighted what could become a seminal issue in a general election campaign between McCain and Obama, who is the Democratic front-runner," Christi Parsons and Rick Pearson write in the Chicago Tribune. "The exchange between the two served to further subdue Clinton's role as she looks to Tuesday's primaries in Ohio and Texas to try to stop Obama's momentum."

"The flurry suggested the two White House front-runners are ready to mix it up now even as they wait to see if next Tuesday's primaries put Hillary Clinton in the rearview mirror," Michael Saul writes for the New York Daily News.

McCain will be endorsed by former senator Howard Baker, R-Tenn. (off the Thompson train), Thursday morning in Houston, per McCain's campaign.

Another McCain-Obama battle continues to bubble up: Obama's "challenge to his rivals has boomeranged into a test of Mr. Obama's own ability to balance principle and politics in a very different context," David Kirkpatrick and Jeff Zeleny write in The New York Times.

"After taking in $100 million in donations, Mr. Obama is the one setting fund-raising records, presenting a powerful temptation to find a way out of his own proposal so that he might outspend his Republican opponent. And the all-but-certain Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, is short on cash and eager to take up the fund-raising truce."

It may be that McCain-Obama match-up that prompted the day's other big news: Everyone's favorite Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor is not running for president. So says the headline on Michael Bloomberg's New York Times op-ed, but the "but" is big: His endorsement, he writes, is out there -- ensuring that his name (and his ego) will stay in the mix.

"I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance," Bloomberg, I-N.Y., writes. "And while I have always said I am not running for president, the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach -- and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy --