Indiana

Tuesday was a decisive night for Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton won Indiana, barely, giving her as many states on the day as Obama got.

But the result made clear one thing: It doesn't matter anymore.

Ever since she fell hopelessly behind Obama in the pledged-delegate and popular-vote counts during a string of February defeats, Clinton has clung to a long-shot nomination strategy. She would not be able to overtake him in delegates or popular votes in the late primaries, but she could use them to shake Democrats’ confidence in Obama as a general-election candidate.

This would mean winning overwhelmingly in the late states where she was favored and picking off some or all of those that he had been expected to win. Only then, with Clinton making a compelling case that Obama’s supporters were abandoning him in droves, would superdelegates—loath to overturn “the will of the people” and to risk the devastating intraparty warfare that would come from thwarting an African-American who won a pledged-delegate majority in the primaries—be receptive to lining up with her en masse.

To Clinton’s credit, she strung this all out longer than many thought she could. She won in Ohio and Texas on March 4, when defeat would have meant the end for her. Then she pulled out Pennsylvania on April 22, and suddenly the wind seemed to be at her back. She began receiving a hearing from some opinion-makers on her specious “big state” argument and her questions about Obama’s seeming inability to connect with white working-class voters (something that made the coverage of Jeremiah Wright’s untimely reemergence all the more devastating for him). For the first time since January, Clinton picked up a new batch of superdelegate endorsements and when she latched onto a gas-tax-holiday plan and began bashing “elitists,” game-changing wins in Indiana and North Carolina suddenly became plausible.  read more »

Barack Obama's campaign just released the remarks he's prepared for tonight's primary night rally in Raleigh, N.C., in which he said his campaign stands "less than two hundred delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination ...."

He called Hillary Clinton a "formidable opponent," and congratulated her for her victory in Indiana, and expressed confidence that the party would be united come November.

The full speech follows:  read more »

Barack Obama is winning. North Carolina is his, comfortably, and his delegate-count continues to climb ever closer to a requisite primary-ending majority.

So why has his campaign felt like a long march over broken glass?

“It is painful to watch,” said an influential Obama supporter and delegate in an interview the day before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. “It’s exhausting for everyone involved. It’s exhausting for Barack and Michelle. It’s exhausting for all the campaign staff, and I know it’s exhausting for the supporters.”  read more »

A pair of outright wins by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday could prompt immediate chaos, with already-jittery Democrats questioning anew Barack Obama’s general election viability and Clinton potentially moving into position to run the table in the remaining contests and to reverse some of the crucial metrics that have favored Obama and sustained his perceived inevitability for nearly three months.

Conversely, a pair of outright Obama wins would almost instantly end the Democratic fight, with previously uncommitted superdelegates interpreting an Obama victory on Clinton turf as cause to step in  read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—Barack Obama has become a family values candidate.

Wracked by questions over his beliefs, patriotism and values following the most tumultuous passage of his campaign, Mr. Obama has sought solace – and a new story line – in family.

Over the past few days, Mr. Obama steeped his speeches in talk about his grandparents and parents and physically evoked the imagery of idyllic Americana by campaigning with his wife and two daughters around picnic tables and playgrounds.  read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—Barack Obama continued his assault on John McCain and Hillary Clinton over their proposed gas tax holiday today during a speech his campaign billed as his plan to fight for working families and against special interests. Responding to a new advertisement from Clinton about the gas tax, Obama, speaking in a high school here, said,“Keep in mind that this is an idea that will save you all together, half a tank of gas.”

He argued that no experts or editorials had supported Clinton’s plan.  read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana’s Republican Party has its headquarters across the street from the office building where Obama held his press conference this morning, and where Obama supporters and campaign staff are still meeting and looking at charts of poll data.

   read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—In a question-and-answer session following his remarks about the gas tax holiday supported by Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Barack Obama acknowledged that the last week has been a bad one for his campaign, filled with what he said was “an awful lot of noise.”

When asked how upset he’d be if he lost in Indiana because of the controversy created by his former reverend, Jeremiah Wright, who he said he has not spoken with since the pastor’s poorly received media tour, he smiled and said, “I’m always mad when I lose.”

He seemed resigned to the damage done by the Wright story.

“We’ve had a rough couple of weeks, I won’t deny that,” Obama said when asked about how the controversy had hurt his chances in Indiana. He added, “I don’t think what happened with Reverend Wright was helpful,” that voters in the two states were “legitimately upset by it,” and that he didn’t doubt the controversy would be “factoring into the mix” of concerns weighed by voters.

“I have no doubt that these are going to be tight races—they have been tight throughout,” he added.  read more »

So far, 2008 has been the year of artificial momentum and warped expectations, and Hillary Clinton has been the beneficiary.

In contest after contest this primary season, we have seen the illusion of momentum, created by the spillover effect from recent results and whatever the dominant media narrative of the moment happens to be. So, for instance, when Barack Obama scored a clear win in Iowa and Hillary Clinton finished in third place, the Clinton Collapse instantly became the media’s obsession and Obama overtook Clinton in New Hampshire polls almost overnight.  read more »

SOUTH BEND, Ind.—Barack Obama is doing his own listening tour in Indiana.

“What I want to do is spend more time listening than talking,” said Obama at a small event at the fairgrounds here, where he discussed farming policies, subsidies and crop-dumping with a few dozen voters sitting around on bales of hay. Obama reminded them that he could also draw a crowd, listing his major events over the last few days, before saying, “It’s wonderful to see these big crowds but the problem is you don’t really learn a lot when you are listening to yourself talk. “  read more »

SOUTH BEND -- Here's the scene in a barn at a fairgrounds where Barack Obama will be speaking this afternoon--another example of his more intimate approach to campaigning he has favored of late.

A few dozen voters are sitting in a ring around bales of hay, in the middle of which is a small white stool for the candidate. Behind a medal guard rail a few feet back there are seats reserved for at least twice as many reporters as there are Indiana voters.

The Massachusetts Democratic primary, along with nearly two dozen other primaries and caucuses, was held on Feb. 5. Hillary Clinton won it by 15 points, one of her best showings anywhere this year, and Michael Dukakis voted in it—but he won’t say for whom.

“I voted for a candidate, yeah,” is about all Mr. Dukakis, the state’s former governor and a lifelong resident of Brookline, will say.

Mr. Dukakis has maintained an adamantly neutral public stance throughout the campaign, hoping instead to sell both candidates and their campaigns on the need for assembling a massive grassroots organizing effort—a captain and six block leaders in all 200,000 precincts in the country—for the fall. But he also said that Barack Obama will probably be the nominee and the race decided by early June, and possibly much sooner, with primaries in Indiana and North Carolina on tap next week.  read more »

NOT FINISHED  read more »

When even Fox News declares a Republican dead, you can take it to the bank the race is over. And so: R.I.P. John Hostettler. The Indiana Republican is now officially the first Republican Congressional incumbent to lose. His was a a top-target seat for the Democrats, but the apparent size of Democrat Brad Ellsworth's win is eye-opening.

On May 3, the New York Observer plans to reduce its trim size. The paper's width will shrink from 13 3/4 inches to 12 1/2 inches, making it as wide as The Washington Post. The length will remain at 22 1/2 inches. Editor Peter Kaplan said that the paper will continue to run its normal complement of seven stories on its front page, but in a five-column format rather than the current six. The inside pages will remain six columns. Kaplan said the move should result in "significant savings," cutting around $100,000 in annual newsprint costs. "It's money that I'd rather allocate elsewhere," Kaplan said. "The vitality and well-being of the paper demands that we don't waste money. I thought this is the best way to allocate resources without hurting the advertising and editorial properties. "It gave us a face-lift," Kaplan added, "that we needed." Nancy Butkus designed the new front page. "Nancy Butkus is creating a front page that is strong and decisive, while continuing to evoke the era of The Front Page when New York had 11 dailies," Kaplan said. Before settling on the current dimensions, Kaplan said, the paper had considered going to the much-hailed Berliner format, the elongated quasi-tabloid size adopted by the Guardian and Le Monde. The only American printer, however, with a Berliner capability is being built in Lafayette, Indiana and will not roll its presses until this August. So the New York Observer will publish the same size as other narrow broadsheets.

"We're not narrow, we're svelte," said Kaplan. --Gabriel Sherman

Last Sunday, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers embraced the state of Israel with a passionate sel  read more »

As we excitedly approach theTony Awards on June 3, few people realize that one Tony winner has alrea  read more »

When the egregious Bob Knight finally was dismissed from his job as head basketball coach at Indiana  read more »

Crisp but comfortable traditionalism," read the obituary for Mark Hampton in The New York Times .  read more »