Hillary's final ad

James Forsyth 5:56pm

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Youthful exhaustion

James Forsyth 11:31am

Joe Klein’s report from the final weekend of stumping in Pennsylvania is well worth reading. This observation would particularly worry me if I was the Obama campaign:

Energy: Obama seems either bummed or pissed or exhausted. He could be near death and still be a pretty good speaker, but he's very much off his game right now. Clinton, by contrast, is on fire--as energetic and passionate as I've seen her. 

One of the oddities of this campaign is that Obama—by far the youngest candidate—tires more easily, or at least more visibly, than anyone else running. Indeed, Obama has blamed the most spectacular misstatement of the election so far on his tiredness.

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Off message Obama says McCain would be better than Bush

James Forsyth 11:03pm

In Pennsylvania today, Obama contradicted one of the Democrat’s key campaign messages when he said that John McCain would be a better president than George W. Bush.

"Either Democrat would be better than John McCain," he said. "And all three of us would be better than George Bush."

The Democrats have been busy arguing that a McCain presidency would just be a third term for Bush and so Obama’s remarks will be seen as a gaffe. But I actually think Obama is being shrewd, the charge that McCain is the same as Bush is just not going to stick so moving off it is sensible. But the McCain camp will be glad to have this on the record.    

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The two sides of the Obama campaign

James Forsyth 10:30pm

John Dickerson has a great Slate column on how the Obama campaign it while deploring the old politics is quite happy to practise it.  As Dickerson writes:

“I'm going to stand behind Senator Obama when he speaks. When he's decrying the trivial distractions in politics, I think he may be crossing his fingers behind his back.

As the Senator's campaign train wound from one speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics to the next speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics, his campaign hosted a conference call to engage in the practice the candidate

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When Hillary might drop out

James Forsyth 10:21pm

Geoff Garin, Mark Penn’s replacement as Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, was debating his opposite number on the Obama campaign, David Axelrod, on Meet the Press. Garin turned in a rather shaky performance, repeatedly having to admit that he wasn’t up to speed on certain issue. One answer of his, though, seemed particularly telling: 

MR. RUSSERT:  Will Senator Clinton stay in this race through all the primaries in June?

MR. GARIN:  There’s not a reason not to, but, look, I think that will be dictated by, by events.  Her commitment now is to

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