1) Pennsylvania. As the democratic primary in Pennsylvania gears up, the latest electoral news has to buoy the Obama campaign: Not only did Obama win Mississippi by a 61-37% spread in popular vote, not only did he claim 17 delegates in Mississippi to Clinton's 11, but we now learn that Obama actually won the delegate race in Texas. According to CNN, when you combine delegates won in both the Texas primary and its accompanying caucuses, the latest estimate shows Obama with 99 delegates to Clinton's 94. As a result, between the states of Texas, Wyoming, and Mississippi, Obama has padded his delegate lead over Hillary Clinton by 13, and now leads by around 130 delegates (pledged and Super combined). This obviously puts extra pressure on Hillary to "run up the score" in Pennsylvania. The question is, is Hillary capable of a big win in Pennsylvania. In fact, is she capable of winning it at all?

While the demographics look favorable for Hillary--a larger number of blue-collar whites than the national average, a lower number of African-Americans than the national average, and a larger number of voters over 65 than the national average--discussions of the this primary typically omit one important wild card: Barack Obama has six full weeks to introduce himself to the Pennsylvania voters. In other words, this campaign may resemble the build-up to Iowa or New Hampshire more than it does that of Ohio or Texas. Obama will be able to hold his trademark rallies, but with a full six weeks, he will also have the time and space to do retail campaigning at business sites, at town meetings, and at people's homes. It is well established now that Hillary begins every state with a 10 to 20% lead in the polls; Pennsylvania is no different. But given the luxury of six weeks of campaigning, this could become a neck and neck struggle if Obama is bold enough to do the following:

a) First, he should completely rewrite his stump speech. Obama's stump speech, which served him so well in the early stages of the campaign, is now as stale as week-old toast. He needs to incorporate new ideas into his speech, ideas both big and small. The speech needs to be tailored to the specific economic needs of Pennsylvania, while still containing broad, visionary themes. In Pennsylvania, Obama should downplay slightly "the politics of hope," by this time a somewhat tired phrase. Instead, he should run aggressively against the politics of cynicism. Hillary Clinton made a colossal blunder in Mississippi by touting Obama as a "dream" running mate, because it completely undercut her dismissive "he's not ready" message, showing it to be just another Machiavellian tactic. Were I Obama, I would beat this like a drum in Pennsylvania:

Can anybody believe Hillary any more when she talks about "experience?" When she needs votes in Texas, she brings out the red phone; when she wants to siphon off my supporters in Mississippi, I suddenly become the "dream" vice president. It doesn't get much more cynical than that. If anyone ever needed a definition of the old politics, that is it!

Not a day would go by when I wouldn't mock her "dream team" statements.

b) In talking to workers, Obama should show something that we almost never see from him, anger, outrage, indignation. Being preternaturally "cool" plays well in academe, and it's fine in jazz circles, but if you're touring The Hershey Company, or Heinz, or Allegheny Industries, you had better show that there's some blood in your veins.

2) Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro's bizarre comments to the effect that Obama would not be where he is were it not for his race, tells us a lot not only about Ferraro, but about the country as a whole. Her comment is simply a cruder, uglier version of the position that numerous women have taken recently in interviews: They have come to believe that in politics, there is more discrimination against women, than against a black man. Normally I steer clear of foolish "my group is more discriminated against than your group" arguments, but the position taken by Hillary supporters is so flawed that it needs to be addressed. In the entire history of the U.S. there have only been four black governors. Since Reconstruction there have only been three black Senators. These facts hardly suggest a great receptivity to African-Americans in high office.

The notion of there being overwhelming resistance to a female president is actually a gross misreading of Obama's stellar political rise: He has been such a compelling candidate, his message and character have been so successful in drawing support, that bedazzled political observers have lost sight of just how singular and extraordinary Obama's accomplishment is. One year ago, the prospect that an African-American would be poised to win the Democratic nomination was all but unthinkable. It now stands as a profound irony that Obama has been so successful that all the Geraldine Ferraros of the world have jumped to the foolish conclusion that anyone could do it, or even more preposterous, that Obama's race actually helped him secure the nomination. The truth is, Barack Obama is the only African-American in the country who could have accomplished what he has done. He has outlasted a very deep and talented group of Democratic candidates, and he has done it in the midst of a scurrilous, guerilla email campaign that variously casts him as a Muslim, an Al Qaeda plant, and a foreign agent bent on destroying the U.S. By contrast, Hillary began the campaign as the candidate of inevitability, and at the outset of virtually every state primary she has had large, comfortable leads. The fact that Obama has won twice as many states as Clinton has nothing to do with any resistance to a female candidate; rather, it is because she has run at best a mediocre campaign, marked by shortsighted thinking, financial mismanagement, and organizational chaos.

When Ferraro's comments blew up in her face, Ferraro first accused those who criticized her as being "reverse racists." When that didn't work, she tried to backpedal slightly:

I said in large measure, because he is black.... let me also say in 1984 -- and if I have said it once, I have said it 20, 60, 100 times -- in 1984, if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have been the nominee for vice president.

Even when she tries to show some humility, Ferraro gets it wrong: Yes, her gender was one reason that Mondale picked her as his vice-presidential nominee. The operative word is picked. Ferraro didn't have to campaign for a spot on the ticket, Mondale simply picked her. By contrast, Obama has participated perhaps in the longest, most grueling primary season in history. His campaign has been a model of both grass-roots organization and of inspiration. Every vote that Obama has gotten has been well earned.

Finally, let's take a look at the respective responses of Clinton and Obama to Ferraro's statements. You be the judge. Here's Clinton

It’s regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides, because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal.

Here's Obama:

I just think that if somebody in my campaign suggested that Senator Clinton was only where she was because she's a woman, people would take great offense and rightly so, because she a very accomplished person, who is running a terrific and tenacious race.....

If anyone has any doubt about which candidate has the most grace and humanity, all one has to do is read these initial responses to Ferraro's rancid remarks. For Hillary, as usual, it's all about politics; the subtext of her comment is "his campaign does it too." For Obama, it's about principle; rather than taking the opportunity to attack Hillary, he goes out of his way to pay her a great compliment in the midst of this fiasco. Enough said.....