The Note: Testing Time

March 10, 2008 -- Cue the grown-ups: More than tearing itself apart, the Democratic Party is splitting itself in half -- and there aren't too many big voices around who can (or will) do anything about it.

Consider that, in a space of a week, we have gone . . .

. . . from writing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's obituary to reserving rooms in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and beyond (and watching the Clintons speculate -- more deviously than idly -- on running mates).

. . . from knowing that Ohio and Texas are the two most important states on the calendar to realizing that Florida and Michigan actually are (and from watching the Democrats thrash at each other up over superdelegates to watching them tear each other up over Florida and Michigan -- again).

. . . from crowning Sen. Barack Obama to wondering how much he wants it and back again (while pondering Clinton's campaign turmoil anew).

. . . from studying the delegate count to discovering that it (almost) no longer matters in this race (math is stubborn -- and you've got to love a game where Wyoming has almost as much bearing on the margin as Ohio and Texas -- but are we really going back to talk of delegate-poaching?).

. . . from watching Sen. John McCain worry about his party's unity to watching him lock down the big minds and bigger wallets (though measuring up the Denny Hastert legacy suddenly seems quite easy, at least in his old district).

Into this weary chaos, what does this week bring? An election in Mississippi on Tuesday that appears likely to extend Obama's delegate lead (110 at latest count, per ABC's delegate scorecard*).

Maybe some resolution to the Florida and Michigan debacles. Perhaps another aide or two from somebody's campaign being pressured to resign over a dumb comment that means precisely nothing (who benefits from this sort of just-another-typical-campaign silliness?).

And surely continued nastiness between Clinton, D-N.Y., and Obama, D-Ill., that does speak to something larger about them both, even if it takes the party backward. Obama's Wyoming win did get him his first news cycle in maybe two weeks (and how many of those can you lose without costing yourself superdelegates?), but the testing of Barack Obama -- and Hillary Clinton -- has only just begun.

"It is tempting to say that the Clinton campaign's plan is to burn the village in order to save it -- that Hillary Clinton believes that Democrats, hypnotized by Obama, are making a historic mistake from which only she can rescue them," The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza writes.

"And it is tempting to add that this means the political destruction of the man who is still most likely to be the Democratic nominee."

Says Clinton strategist Mark Penn (eager to claim credit again?): "Independent and Republican support is diminishing as they find out he's the most liberal Democratic senator." Yet Lizza quotes a Clinton adviser who offers a more candid assessment: "Inside the campaign, people are not idiots. Everyone can do the math," the adviser says. "Everyone recognizes how steep this hill is. But you gotta keep your game face on."

(The New Yorker piece is headlined "The Iron Lady," and the new issue's cover has Obama reaching over Clinton -- in bed -- to try to grab the red phone; do 3 am phone calls adjust for daylight savings? Meanwhile, Newsweek puts Clinton by herself its cover under the headline, "Hear Her Roar.")

We get it -- Clinton is tough enough -- but the game face is hard to keep for a campaign that once prided itself on its discipline. Yet another week opens with tales of Clinton campaign infighting (even as we wait for the first such story to emerge out of Obamaland.)

"Even as Mrs. Clinton revived her fortunes last week with victories in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas, the questions lingered about how she managed her campaign, with the internal sniping and second-guessing undermining her well-cultivated image as a steady-at-the-wheel chief executive surrounded by a phalanx of loyal and efficient aides," The New York Times' Adam Nagourney, Patrick Healy, and Kate Zernike write.

It seems that the candidate of Day One took a few weeks and months to get the knack of campaign management. "Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager," the Times trio writes.

"Juggling the demands of being a candidate, she paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois."

Some adult supervision would be nice here. But Bill Clinton is otherwise occupied, Howard Dean is disinclined (or ill-equipped) to play the voice of reason, and Al Gore still must be convinced to step down from his mount.

Enter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in what will not be the last such comment if this campaign lingers as long as we now expect it to. "There is absolutely no question that I have concerns about the attacks that are being made on one candidate or another," Pelosi said Friday, per the San Francisco Chronicle's Zachary Coile.

On Monday, the Obama campaign turns to foreign policy and national security, with three former armed-service secretaries citing his judgment (without Obama himself present) at a news conference in Washington.

Wyoming matters in part because a fresh victory allowed Obama to take control of the narrative again, at least for a day or two.

"Sen. Barack Obama's campaign sharply criticized the tactics of his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, charging her campaign with attempting 'to deceive the American people just so that they can win this election,' " Perry Bacon Jr. writes in The Washington Post.

After Mississippi votes Tuesday, Obama won't have contests to derive any bounce from: Six long weeks of nothingness descend on the campaign -- plenty of time for some media madness.

New York magazine's John Heileman wonders whether Obama can withstand the new media scrutiny that's coming his way: "It's clear to anyone with two eyes in his head that the kid-gloves days are over for Obama," Heileman writes.

"Suddenly, the press is treating him more like it has handled Clinton since, er, day one. As a front-runner, in other words. The shift in tone and temper is coming as something of a shock to Obamaland, and not least to the candidate himself."

Though the whole press corps hasn't turned on him yet, as The New Republic's Noam Scheiber writes.

"In truth, the press hasn't turned on Obama. There are simply two different press corps covering him, and the crankier one carried the day in San Antonio [at Obama's contentious press conference last week]. In some respects, the split resembles the now-familiar divide in the Democratic electorate between blue-collar voters and affluent liberals."

First, though, another chance at victory for Obama, who campaigns in Mississippi Monday.

"The Illinois senator is favored to win tomorrow's Mississippi primary, where more than one third of the state's electorate is African-American," Nick Timiraos writes in The Wall Street Journal.

"The primary is also open to Republicans and independents, who have favored Sen. Obama but who polls show may favor Sen. Clinton in the state."

(Clinton and her surrogates have hit Mississippi repeatedly in the past week, but on Monday she is back to her habit of skipping ahead to contests that favor her: She spends the day campaigning in Pennsylvania.)