The Debate. The morning after Philadelphia debate, I woke up and turned on my TV, only to find that a media consensus had already developed about the performances. On MSNBC, the anchors of "Morning Joe" were quoting--and agreeing with-- the New York Times' assessment that it was Obama's "weakest debate performance." Media groupthink was in full blossom. Other pundits suggested that Obama had looked rattled, weak, and unsure of himself. My reaction was one of surprise. Perhaps I had watched a different debate than did the vast punditocracy, but in the debate I watched, Obama had done quite well. Was I mistaken, or had the pundit class missed the forest for the trees? Let's examine:

On his MSNBC show, Joe Scarborough asked pointedly, "How could Obama not know that they were going to ask him about Reverend Wright and the 'bitter' comments?" Huh? Obviously Obama knew that he would be asked those questions. What he didn't know was that Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous would fixate on those questions for 52 minutes. It should have been clear to Scarborough that Obama had made a conscious decision to not get in a spitting match with Hillary during the debate; for that decision he has been pilloried by many in the media.

Just as he could have used his large financial advantage in Pennsylvania to blanket the airwaves with ads decrying Hillary's Bosnia fabrication, so he could have played attack politics during the debate. Obama simply chose to take the high road, understanding that neither he, nor the Democratic party would benefit from the tit for tat fracas that the moderators were looking for. He could have attacked Hillary on numerous fronts, but declined.

Take, for example, one of Hillary's favorite themes, the notion that all her "baggage" has been explored already, and that this has given her a kind of clean slate with the electorate; the idea is preposterous. It is precisely because of her baggage that Hillary would go into a general election with some of the highest negatives ever recorded by a candidate. Further, all of the many issues where Hillary has been accused of shading the truth--Travelgate, Filegate, her windfall profit in the cattle futures market, her knowledge of the Gennifer Flowers affair, even her fabrication that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary (he climbed Mount Everest five years after Hillary was born and was unknown before then)--are things that the Republicans would gleefully recycle during a general election, but which Barack Obama is far too principled to raise. Hillary's claim that she has been "fully vetted" notwithstanding, let me address one other issue that the Republicans would raise if she were the nominee:

Chelsea Clinton and 9/11. One week after 9/11, Hillary went on NBC's Dateline, and later the Today Show and claimed that Chelsea had been jogging near the World Trade Center during the attacks on the Twin Towers:

She had gone on what she thought would be a great jog. She was going down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She was going to get a cup of coffee and - that's when the plane hit!

The problem with this story is that Chelsea has subsequently written that she was at a friend's apartment, asleep, four miles from the World Trade Center, when the first plane hit. This fabrication has something in common with Hillary's Bosnia untruth; it is an unnecessary lie, told entirely for purposes of self-aggrandizement. Here is former Clinton associate Dick Morris on the 9/11 untruth:

So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely it was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voters’ affection), a real New Yorker, Charles Schumer (D), spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School, located next to the Trade Center, being at real risk on Sept. 11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene.

Once can only cringe when reading this story.

Who Won? From where I sat, Obama actually came out ahead in the debate, for two reasons: First, even during the debate, he objected to the tabloid nature of the questions, and earned the respect of the viewing audience by refusing the invitation of the moderators to engage in mud wrestling. In addressing Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, he reminded me somewhat of Joesph Welch during the McCarthy hearings, decrying the flawed nature of the proceedings. Second, the debate so saturated the electorate with tabloid issues, that it actually put to rest "bittergate" and allowed Obama to get back on his populist message. And for anyone who hasn't understood the meaning of Obama's phrase "a new kind of politics," the Philadelphia debate demonstrated it perfectly. As Obama noted the next day, Hillary "was in her element," being able to lob hand grenades at her opponent. There are, however, times in life when being "not in one's element" is a good thing; that tawdry debate was one such time.

Is Obama tough enough? Since the debate, Obama critics have been quick to raise the question, "How can he stand up to Kim Jong-il if he can't be aggressive during a debate?" The answer is a simple one, but one that the pundit class keeps forgetting: The reason that the Democratic race is so dominated by trivia, gaffes, and personality issues is because there are no serious policy differences between the two candidates. It is because there are no major differences between Clinton and Obama that the campaign has devolved into nitpicking and mudslinging. Indeed, those watching the debate the other night breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't treated to 15 minutes of argument over mandated versus non-mandated health care. We no longer care about such policy minutiae. Once the general election starts however, the vast differences between the Republican and Democrat will once again elevate policy to center stage, and the nature of the discourse will improve considerably. I will guarantee that at that juncture, we'll see Obama's full toughness.

Does Hillary still have a chance? With each passing day, Hillary's chances of winning the nomination get smaller. The flow of superdelegates declaring for Obama is slow, but inexorable, and yesterday's endorsements of Obama by ex-Senators Sam Nunn (Ga.) and David Boren (Ok) were profoundly symbolic, because these men represent the conservative wing of the Democratic party. Another symbolic endorsement was that of Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of Labor. Astonishingly, Reich becomes the 5th member of Clinton's Cabinet to endorse Barack Obama. The others are former Secretary of Energy and Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, former Commerce Secretary William Daley, former Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta, and Federico Pena, who at different points was Clinton's Transportation secretary, and Energy secretary. This speaks volumes about which candidate is the uniter and which is the divider. As I've stated before, Hillary's days are numbered.

One often sees in the music industry an artist who bursts onto the scene with an exciting and original new sound. Once successful, however, this artist who was so daring at first, begins to play it safe, zealously guarding his success. The musician who was once so dazzling and edgy, after tasting success makes a headlong dive for the middle of the road. I use this example because, as we wait out the seemingly endless span of time before the Pennsylvania primary, my worry is that Barack Obama has become the political version of our music star. The Obama campaign that once was so inspirational has given way to a politics of safety and centrism. Worse, the authenticity which catapulted Obama to success seems to be fraying around the edges.

To be fair, Obama is currently in a strange electoral limbo: Having a sizable lead in the race for the nomination, while at the same time not able to put Hillary away, his campaign has once again gone into a kind of prevent defense. The Obama we observe these days is more concerned about making a mistake than he is about putting out an authentic message.

Trailing in Pennsylvania by 5-10 points, Obama's principled view of campaigning doesn't permit him to exploit Hillary's Tuzla fabrication, or the fact that Bill Clinton received an $800,000 payment from a Colombian trade group that supports the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, while Hillary was arguing against it. Nor has Obama spoken out about Hillary's chief strategist, Mark Penn, who was also wallowing in hypocrisy, promoting the Colombia Free Trade Agreement though his lobbying firm, while the Clinton campaign purported to oppose it.

The problem with the Obama campaign is that such a passive strategy creates little opportunity for Obama to peel away the needed votes from Hillary in Pennsylvania. The very issues that draw voters to Obama--character, integrity, and the striking disparity in competence between the way the Obama campaign has been run, and the chaotic, dysfunctional Clinton campaign--seem to be taboo subjects for Obama. Simply put, Hillary has run a terrible campaign, a fact which speaks quite poorly for her executive skills. But have you ever heard Obama raise this issue in a campaign speech? Never.

Obama's lack of killer instinct may, from a character standpoint, be a positive. He is a nice guy. But from a political standpoint, it leaves him at great pains to close the deal with the American voter. Obama is apparently willing to take the risk that he can run out the clock on Hillary, and back into the nomination. But what worries me more than the timidity in Obama's campaign style, is the manner in which he has become risk-averse on the policy front. Let's look at two of the issues where Obama has recently forsaken principle for what is politically safe:

Hamas. Perhaps the biggest policy difference between Obama and Clinton is Obama's readiness to engage in dialogue with our adversaries. After seven years of a Bush administration that preferred name-calling and antagonism toward rogue regimes over diplomatic outreach, this is a welcome change. The prospect of real dialogue with the likes of Raul Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jong-il, is a major upgrade from the childish Bush doctrine. But when Jimmy Carter announced this week that he would go to Gaza to meet with Hamas, we suddenly found that Obama's pledge to meet with rogue regimes was not as iron-clad as we had thought. Here is Obama on dialogue with Hamas:

It is not a state and until Hamas clearly recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism and abides by, or believes that the Palestinians should abide by previous agreements ... I don't think conversations with them would be fruitful.

Huh? This is perhaps the dumbest thing that Obama has ever said. It contradicts the heart of the Obama doctrine, which maintains that dialogue with our foes is essential to the promotion of peace. Hamas is the democratically elected representative of the Palestinian people. It has not only the backing of the majority of Palestinians, it controls all of Gaza. The idea that Obama puts forth, that somehow Hamas exists in a special universe of malevolence as compared to Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il, is preposterous, and shows just how insecure Obama feels about his Jewish support. In fact, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, published a poll in February showing that 64% of Israelis support the idea of direct talks with Hamas. Even Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Advisor of George Bush the elder--along with numerous international experts--has expressed his support for negotiations with Hamas. Not only is such pandering to the Jewish community beneath the dignity of the Obama campaign, I don't believe it will win him a single vote. Obama would earn far more respect from both the Jewish community and electorate at large if he simply said the following:

A bedrock principle of the Obama administration is that we will seek dialogue with international groups with whom we have profound disagreements. Just as 50 years of antagonism toward Cuba did not advance the interests of either the US or the Cuban people, so the absence of a serious diplomatic initiative in the Middle East during the Bush term has neither served the Israelis nor the Palestinians in moving toward a peaceful resolution. The Obama administration will be far more focused on diplomatic surges than military surges. We will have careful, constructive dialogue with the leaders of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.

Obama's inconsistency on this issue threatens the intellectual integrity of his entire diplomatic approach.

Gays. When Obama gave that riveting speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, he invoked all the opposing groups that he hoped to bring together, rich and poor, red and blue, black and white, gay and straight. Yet, one rarely hears Obama use the word "gay" anymore. His avoidance of gay issues boiled over this month, as the Philadelphia Gay News, frustrated that Obama would not give them an interview, published on its front page their interview with Hillary Clinton, and left a blank space to signify Obama's refusal to speak with them. Here is the editor of the Philadelphia Gay News, Mark Segal, talking about their decision:

We don't put ads on our front page, so we didn't lose any money by doing so. Although, no publisher wants a blank space in their paper! Or as we call it, you know, creative white space! [laughs] We wanted to make it clear from the very start that we had done our research. And I think what is shocking is that the campaign has not been able to refute our facts. It has been 1,522 days since he's spoken to local gay press.

That goes back to 2004. That's not acceptable. I am the former president of the National Gay Newspaper Guild, and last week, during a break in the meeting, former publishers and editors were sitting around the table, and half of them were Obama supporters. And we all started discussing the fact that practically every one of them has gone after Obama for an interview — and they've all gotten the runaround!

And here is an excerpt from the editorial that the Philadelphia Gays News ran:

At this point in the Democratic presidential campaign, we're able to view the candidates by their actions. And we have found that Sen. Barack Obama would rather talk at the LGBT community than with them... The fact is that Obama has spoken with the gay press only twice, and one of those interviews...was in 2004, before he became a U.S. senator. The other limited interview occurred after controversy erupted when his campaign added an anti-gay minister to his tour of the South. It has now been 1,522 days since Obama has been accessible to our community.

My question here is simple: What in the world is Obama thinking? Does he really think it will cost him votes to sit down with a gay editor and reaffirm his support for civil unions, workplace anti-discrimination legislation, and the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell?" Yes, one should fault Obama here on principle, but one should fault him even more on his political judgment. These issues are simply not that controversial and polarizing anymore. I can understand why John McCain refused an interview with the Philadelphia Gay News. But for Barack Obama to be scared of talking to the gay press, while at the same time Hillary is holding an Elton John fundraiser is ridiculous.

Speaking of Elton John, I liked his first album, and hated all the rest of his stuff. Obama would do better to follow the example of the Beatles: If you want to make a lasting difference, keep challenging your audience and don't pander.

Hillary Clinton's vow to continue her candidacy all the way through August is giving many Democratic loyalists heartburn. Clinton ominously told the Washington Post on Sunday, ""If we don't resolve (the dispute over Michigan and Florida), we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for." The prospect of the Democratic race lasting until the Denver convention in August has caused scores of Democrats to break out in a cold sweat, as they envision open warfare during the late summer months. I'm here to reassure all the nervous nellies in the Democratic party that this frightening scenario will never come to pass. Here's why:

1) Money. One of the dirty little secrets of this primary season is that the Clinton campaign is broke. As of the latest reporting to the Federal Elections Commission, Clinton had 11 million dollars in cash, 9 million dollars in debts, and 5 million that she had personally loaned her campaign in February. When you do the arithmetic, that puts her 3 million dollars in the red. Worse, the website politico.com reported yesterday that the Clinton campaign has for the last several months resorted to a time-honored strategy of money management: stiffing vendors. Numerous vendors, from caterers in New York, to photographers and event planners in Iowa, to telecommunications companies all over, have reported that the Clinton campaign is simply not paying their bills. These vendors, terrified that they will never be paid, have gone public, warning other small businesses to get money up front from the Clinton campaign before providing any services. Here is how politico.com described Hillary's money crunch:

She owed Iowa’s Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees $3,500 for catering and venue costs, New Hampshire’s Winnacunnet Cooperative School District $4,400 in event costs, Qwest $24,000 for phone service, various branches of the Iowa-based supermarket chain Hy-Vee $15,000 for food, beverages and catering, and $7,700 to Ohio and Massachusetts branches of the theatrical stage employees’ union, for equipment costs.

In fact, about a third of the nearly 700 individual debts Clinton reported at the end of February were for various types of “event expenses,” including $319,000 for catering and venue costs, $420,000 for equipment, $11,000 for photography and $9,000 for security.

In addition to her many debts to the small businesses that set up her campaign events, it is now clear that many of her top staffers have gone unpaid:

Some of Clinton’s biggest debts are to pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn, who’s owed $2.5 million; direct mail company MSHC Partners, which is owed $807,000; phone-banking firm Spoken Hub, which is waiting for $771,000; and ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who’s owed $467,000.

Barring a major influx of cash, it is unimaginable that the campaign can continue to function carrying this kind of debt. It is certainly true that historically, many presidential campaigns have taken years to pay off accumulated debt, sometimes settling on pennies on the dollar, so the Clinton campaign is not unique in this regard. However, when companies become aggrieved enough to go public and label the campaign a deadbeat operation, it raises the specter of a public relations disaster. When your campaign is based on the notion of "getting America back to work," and that of empowering the little guy, it seems morally untenable to balance your books by stiffing the many companies that have set up your rallies and town hall meetings.

It is interesting to reflect on the source of Hillary's money problem. By conventional standards, she has actually raised a substantial amount of money during this election cycle. Further, there are many supporters who would like to contribute more to the Clinton campaign. They are prohibited however, by campaign finance law. Campaign finance law limits individual contributions to a candidate during the primary season, to $2300. Many of the well-heeled individuals who have supported the Clinton campaign would love to pitch in another $10,000--or more. Their hands are tied however, by the legal limits. The Obama campaign, by contrast, has a large army of small contributors--50 to 100 dollars--who are well below the legal ceiling and can continue to financially support his campaign.

As I have stated many times before, Hillary's threshold for embarrassment is astonishingly high, so she may decide that a reputation as a deadbeat is a small price to pay for the survival of her campaign. However, it is a difficult sale to make, to go into Johnstown or Altoona, preaching populism while refusing to pay your bills. Asked about the matter on MSNBC yesterday, Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson said artfully, "We're paying our bills in a timely manner."

Disinformation. As consumers, we are shockingly naive about accepting at face value candidates' statements about the future of their campaigns. The day before he dropped out of the race, John Edwards was telling us that poverty was the "fight of my life," and he would continue his candidacy until the convention. The next day, when he suffered another last place showing, this time in his birthplace of South Carolina, he was forced to confront reality and leave the race. And if I may digress for a moment, how can a man who has designated poverty the fight of his life still not have endorsed a candidate by now, any candidate? If John Edwards allows the North Carolina primary to come and go without making any endorsement, without helping the Democratic party move beyond its current gridlock, he will have left a lasting stain on his reputation. Mitt Romney, one day before dropping out of the Republican race, was assuring voters that he was in the race to stay. That was presumably before his wife got him behind closed doors and beat the daylights out of him for spending the family fortune.

What I am saying is that candidates' bold statements that they will "fight to the last day," should be taken in the same vein as the sports owner who declares that his manager's job is secure; usually that means that the manager should put a "for sale" sign in front of his house. And so it is with Hillary's recent statements. All of the bravado that we hear is for public consumption, to reassure potential contributors, and to maintain the morale of her supporters. Make no mistake about it, barring an exceptional showing in Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign is on life support. And the public is starting to recognize this fact, as the Gallup tracking poll shows Obama's national lead over Hillary ballooning to 10 points yesterday, and leveling off at 8 points today.

North Carolina. Even if Hillary manages to deliver a win in Pennsylvania, she is going to run into a buzz saw in North Carolina. The Tar Heel state is made for Barack Obama. With African-Americans making up half the Democratic electorate, and a significant number of upscale, educated whites in the "research triangle" of Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, it would take a miracle for Hillary to be competitive in the state. The latest Gallup poll shows her trailing by 18 percentage points. She will suffer a crushing defeat in North Carolina, not unlike her losses in Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina. And if she should lose in Indiana on the same day (May 6), her campaign will come to a screeching halt.

So the next time you hear a Democratic operative wringing his hands and predicting doom for the party, just think about the array of land mines that lie in front of the Clinton campaign. It won't be long now.