Update: The Obama campaign Released the Following statement this afternoon, via email:

"Senator Obama had a terrific conversation with President Clinton and is honored to have his support in this campaign. He has always believed that Bill Clinton is one of this nation's great leaders and most brilliant minds, and looks forward to seeing him on the campaign trail and receiving his counsel in the months to come," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

6/24/2008 - When Senator Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign, and offered her "full throated support" to Barack Obama, his future got so bright, he had to wear shades. Now, on the heels of news that she will be campaigning with him in Unity, N.H., this Friday, comes the endorsement that could bounce Obama right into the White House. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the former President of the United States, Mr. William Jefferson Clintoooon! (through a spokesmaaaaan.) From Reuters:

"President Clinton is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States," Clinton's spokesman Matt McKenna told Reuters in a one-sentence e-mail.

Well, that went as expected. It will be interesting to see what the spin on this is. It was a feel-good event, and Hillary spoke beautifully, but I want to see what she's like stumping by herself. I bet she really lets McCain have it then.

2:02 Ah, no Dream Ticket. Yet!

2:01 Can you imagine sitting next to him on a plane? "Can we get some extra peanuts here? Yes, We Can!"

1: 55 We will recruit an army of teachers? "Sing you're A-B-C's, you maggot!"

1: 51 "...they can do it better than the boys, and they can do it in heels!" That was a little clumsy. Hillary looks like she's having fun. "I still don't know how she does it in heels." Maybe we can get him a pair.

1: 47 I want Barack Obama to speak at my son's birthday party. "He has worked tirelessly to remove every diaper, to scatter every pot and pan, to make sure that no wall, and no piece of furniture, has to go without random crayon markings.



Aha! Live video! Thanks to Diana.

Update: I spoke with a well-placed source in Hillary Clinton's campaign, who told me a couple of interesting things. He said Obama will definitely not be picking a VP just to win a state, and that the short list now includes Hillary, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, and maybe Chuck Hagel. I've got a good feeling about this.


He also said, as I have, that Obama is doing so surprisingly well against McCain that he can pretty much pick his own ticket, but that the longer the choice takes, the better it is for Hillary.


Also, here's video of Bayh telling Andrea Mitchell today that he would say yes if asked to be VP.


The Obama campaign has sent out the final details on the candidate's first joint campaign appearance with Senator Hillary Clinton.

CHICAGO, IL- Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama will hold a "Unite for Change" Rally this Friday in Unity, New Hampshire. Both candidates received exactly 107 votes in the western New Hampshire town in the primary. See below for important event details regarding ticketing and parking.

Full text of the press release follows the jump. There's one detail that is omitted here, and that is whether or not Barack Obama will announce Hillary Clinton as his selection for Vice President.

This comes on the heels of Barack Obama's appeal to donors, Wednesday, to help pay down Hillary's campaign debt, and a reported meet 'n greet today between Obama and Hillary's big donors. There's magic in the air!

Ordinarily, I'm not a betting man, but one of my readers issued a challenge that I couldn't just ignore. Since tomorrow is so fraught with symbolism, I have a feeling in me bones, so I'd like to give my readers, and fellow writers, a chance to get in on this. To find out why I'm so sure there will be a Dream Ticket, just click the words Dream Ticket.

Update: Further details on Hillary Clinton's first campaign appearance with Barack Obama were released today by the Obama campaign. Via email:

FRIDAY: Senators Clinton and Obama to Campaign Together in Town of Unity, New Hampshire

Candidates received 107 votes apiece in Granite State town

CHICAGO, IL- Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama announced today that they will hold a "Unite for Change" Rally this Friday in Unity, New Hampshire. Both candidates received exactly 107 votes in the western New Hampshire town in the primary.

That's a nice bit of symmetry there. This will be an important event to watch.

The Obama campaign sent out the following press release this morning, via email:

Chicago, IL – Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton announced today that they will campaign together on Friday, June 27th. Further details to be announced soon.

That's it, that's the whole thing. Remember, you heard it here first.

Why the tease? That's not the usual MO. Does this portend, um, I don't know, a (echo-y voice) DREAM TICKET?!?!?

Time will tell, but you can keep checking back here for details as they are released. At the very least, their first stump appearance together will give us some clues.

Doesn't it seem like this primary campaign began about the same time they replaced the pull-off tabs on Pepsi cans with the safety tabs we have now? Wasn't it around the same time that Shelley Hack made her debut as the fifth Charlie's Angel? Didn't the Fonz actually jump a shark in the middle of it?

But now, it is finally over. The general election has begun. Hillary Clinton has conceded, which means no more even remotely fun conference calls. The confetti that I collected from the floor of the Hillary Clinton celebration in Philadelphia has been duly delivered to its rightful owner. We have the Veepstakes to look forward to, and after that, a string of lopsided debates. The only real suspense now is the possible nature and effectiveness of the "October Surprise."

To help me laugh through my tears, MSNBC's Countdown put together a nifty compilation of video clips to summarize the 2008 Presidential Primaries.
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We've been through this before haven't we? We all remember back in the days of yore (January). Immediately after Obama's stunning win in Iowa, the media, punditocracy and most Democrats fell all over themselves to coronate Obama as the new rising star and Hillary as yesterday's news. Then she won New Hampshire and the narratives all turned around on a dime.

And leading up to this Super Tuesday we had rumors of Hillary dropping out, there was disarray in the campaign (no reports of lamps being thrown) and commentators openly speculating about when, not if, she should give it up.

Er. Not so fast. Just like New Hampshire, Hillary has shown resilience in her core demographics, white, rural, union workers, females, and lower income folks. She's won Ohio and she's looking good in TX. This is after another win in Rhode Island as well.

If she wins three out of four, this race is not over, far from over, and might be a tipping point in her favor, or a long slow slog to a superdelegate driven convention. What it is not, as of right now, is an Obama coronation. He missed his opportunity to close the door. Hillary's back.

As you would expect, the media and blogosphere are rightfully skeptical about the latest Hillary tearup. And to the counterpoint of my fellow blogger, I think this one could be OK.

Yesterday she was reported to have welled up when she visited Connecticut. A lawyer who introduced Mrs Clinton to a crowd at the Yale Child Study Centre, where they both worked in the early 1970s, appeared to cry as he recalled her bell-bottomed trousers and his pride at what she had since achieved.

As opposed to the last time, this is an old friend, not an anonymous questioner, and to be fair, she is a long, long way from the fashion disaster that was the seventies, and her role in it. Yes, it's entirely possible this one could be staged, as so many other situations have been. But it could be real as well.

I'm just saying, talking to an professor from the old days when you're this close to being president... It's not nothing.

New Hampshire's Union Leader is calling Hillary Clinton out for what it sees a string of lies:

Courting voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, last August Sen. Hillary Clinton signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in the Michigan or Florida Democratic primaries. She participated in both primaries and is campaigning in Florida. Which proves, again, that Hillary Clinton is a liar.

Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot when others removed theirs, she campaigned this past weekend in Florida, and she is pushing to seat Michigan and Florida delegates at the Democratic National Convention. The party stripped those states of delegates for moving up their primary dates...

...Clinton coldly and knowingly lied to New New Hampshire and Iowa. Her promise was not a vague statement. It was a signed pledge with a clear and unequivocal meaning.

There's no excuse for what Clinton is doing. This crass attempt to out-maneuver her opponents will come back to haunt her. And scheduling a "victory party" in a state where you've pledged you wouldn't campaign--in an attempt to make it look as though you beat your rivals even though they kept their promises and didn't set foot in Florida-- is beyond the pale.

Here's the NY Times article about all the candidates signing the original pledge. And here's the AP story about her about face. This isn't about winning the general election, as some commentators have suggested, it's about Hillary trying to pull a fast one. For those who think that tonight's "victory party" doesn't break the terms of the pledge, what about this weekend's rallies in Miami and Sarasota? AP story can be read here.

Many readers have pointed to Obama's national ad, which also ran on cable TV in Florida as proof that both candidates broke the pledge. Kos has a response to this nonsense. Read it here.

Primary elections have a funny way of dividing a party. Candidates who agree with each other on the vast majority of issues must stake a claim on the differences with their colleagues and, sometimes, friends. The question then becomes, how to mount an effective, damaging attack on a rival you respect?

Mitt Romney has a novel, good news/bad news approach: Start your TV ad praising the good in your opponent, call him a good Christian (Huckabee) or a war hero (McCain), or some such. Then, once he has his guard down, sock him in the eye with a sharp jab at his tax policies or his support of a failed immigration bill.

While the same dynamic can be found on the Democratic side, we've witnessed a sea-change of late concerning two of the top three candidates. Leading up to the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama and John Edwards engaged in an escalating duel of words. At one point, Elizabeth Edwards accused Obama of possessing a "holier than thou" attitude.

Latest poll from CNN shows an astounding jump for John McCain in the wake of the New Hampshire win.

McCain has the support of 34 percent of registered Republicans in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Friday. That's a 21-point jump from the last CNN/Opinion Research poll, taken in December, well before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary earlier this month.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa Republican caucuses, is in second place in the new survey, with 21 percent of those registered Republicans polled supporting him for the GOP nomination.

Pretty good for a guy who was running on fumes in July and by October I was wondering whether he would stay in at all. I still don't think he can win though, but he is enjoying a very good week. Rounding out the pack, Rudy takes 3rd with 18% and Mitt Romney is at an awful (considering the money and organization) fourth place with 14%. Fred Thompson is the caboose with 6%.