Also from a reader – Obama’s tentative schedule in Indiana:

WED – 9th – South Bend
TH – 10th – Gary and a location TBA
FRI – 11th – Columbus, Bloomington, Terre Haute
SAT – 12th – Muncie

This brings to mind a thought I’ve had for some time now. For all the talk about how the grueling and long primary schedule is damaging to Obama and Clinton, I can’t help but think that there have to be serious advantages involved in having organized a state-by-state; county-by-county infrastructure throughout the entire country prior to the general election. Oh, and as for Obama’s managerial experience, it isn’t being President — nothing is — but there has to be some substantial credit due for having managed a $300 million/year nation-wide organization, building it from the ground up in very little time.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Hillary Clinton’s story about a woman without health insurance and an Ohio hospital lately. If only our crack media had applied the same level of scrutiny and investigation to George Bush’s tales of WMDs in Iraq and Judith Miller’s yarns about aluminum tubes and the like.

Oliver Willis rightfully takes Sen. Clinton to the woodshed over her continued tap dancing over Iraq. The facts are these. America’s involvement in Iraq has been as wasteful as it was unnecessary. To plenty of us, it was clear that Iraq was not involved in 9/11 and was not a significantly greater threat to the U.S. than any number of other countries around the globe. Barack Obama was one of those people. He was criticizing the war before the war started in the context of a Senate campaign when such a position wasn’t necessarily popular.

Clinton still hasn’t admitted she was wrong to vote for the war. She doesn’t have to, of course. She says her war vote was based on her “considered judgment” at the time. But then she pretends she was critical of the war in Iraq before Obama was. This just isn’t true. Obama was criticizing the war before Clinton voted for it.

We’re supposed to vote for Clinton (or McCain for that matter) based on all of their foreign policy expertise? It was this so-called expertise that drove us straight into the ditch. What Oliver Willis suggests about Clinton’s Iraq war vote is unprovable, but I think it’s likely the case:

At the time Sen. Obama was running for his seat and criticizing the war before it even began, Sen. Clinton was lining up with the rest of the senate to burnish her national security credentials and vote for the war in Iraq.

That’s my take on so many of the “centrist” Democrats (as if it’s radical, left-wing stuff to oppose an unnecessary expansion of government expenditures to engage in an interventionist war of choice). People like Clinton and Kerry, Lieberman and Bayh, Daschle and Reid just had their fingers to the political winds and guessed that they’d be penalized in the future if they voted against the war. So, they abdicated their responsibility to vote for good policy and went with the path of least resistance. That happens, I guess; but it was a pass-fail test, and I haven’t been coy about which side I think is which. There is forgiveness to be had if one demonstrates an ability to learn from one’s mistakes — Edwards went this route. He recognized that he cast his vote the wrong way. Clinton hasn’t achieved such recognition. This makes suspect her claims (and those of McCain, incidentally) to superior expertise in foreign policy.

If there were someone with a long and distinguished resume who made the right decision about Iraq who still had a chance to win the Presidency, maybe that would be a compelling reason to vote for that person over Obama on the basis of foreign policy. But, no such person exists. My political calculus suggests that the “pro” of “right on Iraq” outweighs the “con” of “doesn’t have a long resume”.

Fort Wayne Observed has the text of Obama’s speech in Fort Wayne today, reflecting on the legacy of Martin Luther King.

But while those sanitation workers eventually got their union contract, the struggle for economic justice remains an unfinished part of the King legacy. Because the dream is still out of reach for too many Americans. Just this morning, it was announced that more Americans are unemployed now than at any time in years. And all across this country, families are facing rising costs, stagnant wages, and the terrible burden of losing a home.

Part of the problem is that for a long time, we’ve had a politics that’s been too small for the scale of the challenges we face.

It’s the politics of Willy Horton.
It’s the politics of John McCain’s black baby in South Carolina.
It’s the politics of bin Laden morphing into Max Cleland.
It’s the politics of the purple heart band-aid.
It’s the politics of Vince Foster.

The Obama campaign raised $40 million in March, following a $55 million February, and a $36 million January, bringing his total for the year to date to $130 million.

Part of the remarkable story is the manner in which he is raising it. “More than 442,000 contributors across the country gave more than $40 million in March. More than 218,000 donors contributed to the campaign for the first time, and the average contribution level was $96.” In other words, lots and lots of small donors.

The Clinton campaign has yet to release official numbers and has been dogged by rumors that money is tight and that they aren’t paying their bills in some cases, but apparently the number $20 million has been leaked as her March fund raising total. McCain raised $13 million.

As we learned from the Dean campaign in 2004, money isn’t everything. That being said, a candidate would rather have more of it than less.

Kos has a really good post up on Howard Dean and his leadership of the DNC. The highlights:

1. Dean has shown leadership on Florida & Michigan. He made clear before the primaries started that the rules needed to be enforced. He’s enforcing them. The Clinton campaign agreed with the sanctions until it became politically disadvantageous for them. Just because Dean doesn’t agree with the Clinton campaign’s new position doesn’t demonstrate a lack of leadership.

2. The Florida Democratic party openly mocked the DNC’s sanctions. They probably shouldn’t come to the DNC now, looking for help out of the mess they created for themselves.

3. The Washington D.C. Democratic establishment dislikes Dean. Democrats in the rest of the country like him quite a bit. There are reasons for that, and Dean is on the right side of those reasons.

He concludes with three bullet points about Dean’s position:

* Florida and Michigan violated DNC rules. Their contests don’t matter. The DNC rules committee can re-evaluate at the appropriate time.

* Florida and Michigan are more than free to hold sanctioned contests if they want.

* Dean thinks the process should play out. And once the final contest is in the books, in June, the super delegates should declare their preferences.

Thanks to Hoosier 1st for the heads up. Former, long-time Congressman Lee Hamilton is endorsing Barack Obama. I’m not one to think that endorsements are huge things, one way or the other, in terms of motivating voters; but, in terms of endorsements, this is a big one. Hamilton is a significant and well-respected figure in the world of Indiana politics and national politics.

Hamilton, who co-chaired the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and headed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he was impressed by Obama’s approach to national security and foreign policy.

“I read his national security and foreign policy speeches, and he comes across to me as pragmatic, visionary and tough,” Hamilton said in an interview yesterday. “He impresses me as a person who wants to use all the tools of presidential power.”

Hamilton, 76, also sided with Obama, 46, on two foreign policy stances that have been criticized by Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, 71, the presumptive Republican nominee. Both have dismissed the Illinois senator, saying he doesn’t have the experience to deal with critical foreign policy matters.

. . .

Hamilton said he agreed with Obama’s position on meeting with U.S. adversaries such as the leaders of Iran without conditions. Also, Obama’s consideration of unilateral military action against terrorist hideouts in Pakistan is already U.S. policy, Hamilton said.

If you have Hamilton on one side of a foreign policy debate and McCain and Clinton on the other side, I think the smart money goes with Hamilton.

Survey USA, who has a pretty good track record this primary season, released a poll taken 3/29 – 3/31 showing Clinton leading Obama 52 to 43 in Indiana. As per usual, old white women break heavily for Clinton and young black men break heavily for Obama.