The Note: Trails Mixed

May 28, 2008 -- Five questions that could determine everything or nothing:

1. If a Bushie falls in this forest, who cares to hear him?

2. Do Democrats want to see Obama's stretched map, or listen to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (stretched) arguments on electability? (And does Clinton need to run the table in the last three contests to keep her in the game?)

3. Can the general election just start, or does white smoke have to emanate from a Washington, D.C., hotel room this weekend?

4. If Sen. Barack Obama seeks to morph Sen. John McCain into President Bush's mini-me, how long before history crashes in? (And does it matter that Obama flubbed some history of his own?)

5. Why on earth would the Clinton campaign be running a new slogan contest NOW? (Thank you for the e-mail, Chelsea, and here's a write-in suggestion: "My mom ran for president, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.")

This is how it looks this Wednesday: Obama has basically stopped running against Clinton, and has starting running against McCain (via President Bush.)

McCain, to varying degrees, is running against both Obama and the president -- but shares just enough with both of them to make things interesting.

Clinton has (mostly) stopped running against Obama -- and now she's running against The Establishment (its media, its math, and its method of viewing the political world).

But the point is: She's still running. It comes to this for the once-inevitable, always-inimitable candidate: Three final rounds primaries and one final meeting in a Washington hotel room should be all that stand between her and the end.

Yet while everyone looks for her to grope her way to the exit, she's finding reasons to stick around. James Carville, on ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday, said the end of voting June 3 could bring a "split decision," with Obama up in the delegate count and Clinton having received more votes.

"I think a lot of superdelegates are going to say, wait a minute, you got more votes than he did? . . . And look at those polls," Carville said.

And he blasted the Obama campaign for trying to score political points out of Clinton's comments Friday regarding the RFK assassination. "The way that they handled this South Dakota thing was not helpful at all. . . . This was not a good thing," Carville said. "Obama tried to pull a clever political trick, and it backfired on him."

Clinton herself got maybe a little carried away here, speaking in Billings, Mon., Tuesday night: "Based on every analysis of every bit of research, and every poll that's been taken and every state that a Democrat has to win -- I am the stronger candidate against John McCain in the fall," she said, ABC's Eloise Harper reports.

Still, the road to 2008 has already split -- and Clinton's not following the route she planned out. "The differing paths the two Democratic candidates took Tuesday signaled the looming end of their contest, with Obama campaigning as though he already is his party's standard-bearer and Clinton still contesting the nomination," Scott Martelle writes in The Los Angeles Times.

In that general election that's starting without Clinton, Obama wants McCain and Bush to be running together. Obama is "trying to make Bush McCain's running mate," ABC's Jake Tapper reported Wednesday on "GMA." "Hillary? Hillary who?"

McCain's fund-raiser with President Bush Tuesday defines the terms of their new relationship -- and lets Obama hone his argument on that very subject.

"No cameras. No reporters," Obama said at a campaign event in Las Vegas, per ABC's Sunlen Miller. "And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn't want to be seen, hat in hand, with the president whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years." McCain knows his politics -- and a photo-op was about all he wanted with his rival/friend/rival.

"On Tuesday, Mr. Bush's role [in McCain's campaign] became much clearer when he held his first event for Mr. McCain. He will show up to raise money (thank you very much), and he will say and do as little as possible, at least in public view," Steven Lee Myers writes in The New York Times. "The politicking seemed far removed from the sunny day at the White House in March when Mr. McCain, still flush from his triumph over a crowded primary field, and Mr. Bush appeared like two old friends."

It'll be hard to find Bush on Wednesday, too, when he headlines a McCain fundraiser alongside former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass. "The fleeting public appearances of an unpopular president on behalf of the potential heir to the leadership of the Republican Party underscore the delicate balance for McCain, who is trying to appeal to a restless GOP base that continues to embrace the president while reaching out to moderates and independents who want to move beyond the Bush administration," per The Washington Post.

MoveOn.org is back with another McCain/Bush spot. (Detect a pattern in Democratic messaging yet?)

And a new memoir plops itself into the race, perhaps sealing the relationship off at arm's length. This time it's Scott McClellan -- a card-carrying Bushie, and the first of the true inner circle to fully defect -- who drops terms like "propaganda," "permanent campaign," "strategic blunder," "grave mistake," and "terribly off course" on the Bush White House (and puts the best quotes on the dust jacket).

"The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as 'authentic' and 'sincere,' is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected," per Politico's Mike Allen. "McClellan's tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House 'spent most of the first week in a state of denial,' and he blames [Karl] Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover."