The Note: Ring Tone

Feb. 29, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hears the phone ringing, and it's the sound of her last best shot at capturing the Democratic nomination.

"It's 3 am, and your children are safe and asleep," says her closing ad for Ohio and Texas. "Who do you want answering the phone?"

Yowsers. It's about as subtle as a blunt-instrument-of-a-message can be. And it worked for Walter Mondale and Lyndon Johnson, as George Stephanopoulos pointed out on ABC's "Good Morning America" Friday: "This is the nuclear option. It's either going to work or it's going to blow back," he said. (It's Roy Spence, trying to recreate his Mondale magic.)

The $35 million raised by Clinton this month just might buy her another four or five days of loyalty from her supporters, and it surely will get her latest message (among many others) in the necessary circulation in Ohio and Texas.

It also would purchase about two-thirds of Sen. Barack Obama's fundraising month. And that message is getting old for Camp Clinton. (Some well-funded Obama pushback -- the ad featuring retired Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, praising Obama as the right candidate on foreign policy, is coming back into circulation.)

As we enter what may be the twilight of the Clinton era in Democratic politics, Clinton, D-N.Y., is stuck in uncomfortably familiar territory. Despite the distinctly sharper message, for all the loyalty and dedication of her supporters (and raising $35 million this month despite the February blues is real cause for celebration for Terry McAuliffe and company), a nomination may be slipping away here: By the same measures the Clinton team is citing, supporters of Obama, D-Ill., are fired up and ready to go -- and then some.

Clinton found the fundraising surge "heartwarming," she said on the trail, but even McAuliffe's enthusiasm has to be curbed by this: Obama is expected to top $50 million when February's receipts are counted, ABC's David Chalian reports. (Ponder that figure -- 29 days, $50 million.)

Her frustration is palpable -- and understandable. Her core message about Obama isn't changing, but it isn't getting -- or, at least, hasn't gotten -- through. "I think the best description actually is in Barack's own book," Clinton told ABC's Cynthia McFadden in a "Nightline" interview Thursday, "where he said that he is a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to hear."

"He just hasn't been around long enough," Clinton continued. And she learns the downside of an inevitable candidacy: When you're knocked from your perch, nobody forgets that once were the frontrunner: "I'm still being treated like that -- in terms of people coming after me."

"Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field, but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there," Clinton said.

How much sympathy would a lawsuit earn her? The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Jay Root: "The Texas Democratic Party is warning that its March 4 caucuses could be delayed or disrupted after aides to White House hopeful Hillary Clinton raised the specter of an 'imminent' lawsuit over its complicated delegate selection process. . . . Democratic sources said representatives from each campaign had made it clear they are keeping all their options open but that the Clinton campaign in particular had warned of an impending lawsuit."

(If the Clinton campaign was really caught off guard by the Texas system, what better example do you need of lack of preparation for post-Feb. 5 states? And if they were aware of the quirks, isn't it a little late to be trying to get the rules changed?)

Amid signs that she's falling behind in Texas, what makes this period episode painful at Camp Clinton is the sense that everything they know how to do is being done, yet nothing is really shifting.

"The display of fundraising muscle came even as Clinton (N.Y.) slipped in national polls and suffered several setbacks at the ballot box. She said more than doubling what she had raised in January has left her well positioned for another primary-season comeback," Matthew Mosk writes in The Washington Post.

But: "The most reliable sign that Obama remains the better-financed candidate is on television sets in Texas and Ohio, where he has aired nearly twice as many campaign commercials as Clinton."

Obama is planning a Monday evening two-minute ad buy across Ohio and Texas, ABC's Sunlen Miller reports, as he tries to close this race out.

Yet Obama knows he's had match point before. "Remember New Hampshire," he told reporters on board his plane Thursday. ABC's David Wright, Sunlen Miller, and Andy Fies: "Obama sought to lower any expectations he might win those two states, saying he'll be happy if Clinton doesn't achieve a blow-out in Ohio and Texas."

He's closing with a much different message than Clinton: Obama told the Cincinnati Enquirer Thursday that Clinton's "natural inclination when she's campaigning has been to draw very sharp lines and paint Republicans as folks who just have to be crushed and defeated. . . . I do think that there is that sense of aggrievement on her part that makes if difficult to essentially bring the country together."

What has to give Obama pause is that the attacks are flying from all directions. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is already focused on defining Obama for the general election, and he found an interesting way to portray Obama as the candidate of the past (no small feat for a 71-year-old man).

McCain "sought to portray the Democratic front-runner as representing the Iraq politics of the past by focusing on the decision to invade in 2003 rather than what to do now," ABC's Jake Tapper and Bret Hovell write. Said McCain: "What we should be talking about is what we're going to do now. And what we're going to do now is continue this strategy which is succeeding in Iraq."

(Though how's this for a senior moment? "I am a proud conservative, liberal Republica -- conservative Republican," he said, catching himself, ABC's Jake Tapper reports. "Hello?" he said as the crowd laughed. "Easy there.")

Slips of the tongue notwithstanding, McCain is seeking to unite the conservative base by railing against the Democrats. "Far ahead of rival Mike Huckabee in delegates and the polls, Mr. McCain has taken advantage of the lack of meaningful primary competition to highlight the differences between himself and the eventual Democratic nominee," Wayne Slater writes in The Dallas Morning News. "And while he mentioned both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton by name, his sharpest criticism was aimed at the Illinois senator in what sounded like a rehearsal for the general election campaign."

President Bush offered up some unsolicited advice from his press conference podium on Thursday: focus on the primary, he warned. He "strongly criticized Barack Obama's expressed readiness to meet with foreign leaders cast as tyrants, warning that such discussions 'can be extremely counterproductive' and 'send the wrong signal,' " James Gerstenzang writes in the Los Angeles Times. "He also challenged Democrats' skepticism about the North American Free Trade Agreement, and reminded Obama that Al Qaeda has been seeking to establish a base in Iraq 'for the past four years."