Jeff Zelany writes about the brewing Senator Clinton / Senator Obama feud spilling over into their Senate lives. He reports their formerly friendly relationship cooled around the time Obama started musing about running:

Many Senate observers, even those close to Mrs. Clinton, say they believe she set the less-than-collegial tone. But Mr. Obama offered a glimpse into his own competitiveness two years ago when a Chicago television reporter who had come to Washington to interview Mr. Obama informed him that he had snagged a hallway interview with Mrs. Clinton.

“I outpoll her in Illinois,” Mr. Obama said. After realizing his remark had been overheard, he said: “That was a joke!”

I have to be honest here, I don’t entirely buy the Obama/Clinton feud. I believe its a lot of hype built up in the media to sell headlines and fill up cable slots. I also think both candidates are calculating enough to have planned this out months ago. I don’t doubt they both have their “game faces on” and that they are ready to take the other out to win, but the rest of it I think is just filler made up in the minds of observers.

To believe this story you also have to believe that in the middle of all this “not talking” Obama & Clinton both magically appeared as the last voters on an Iraq spending bill in order to take a position they could sell to the left while guaranteeing the bill passed. That just happened to transpire where they both walked out in a pretty coordinated manner to vote?

From the Washington Post:

Mitt Romney was about a minute into an answer about his commitment to fighting the global spread of AIDS and health care diplomacy on Wednesday when a waitress behind the counter yelled out a question.

“What about our nation? How ’bout the USA? C’mon!” yelled Michele Griffin, a 12-year veteran behind the counter at one of Manchester’s most famous eating establishments.

She turned to walk away, but the former Masschusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate called her back, sparking an emotional and confrontational 10-minute exchange about health care and the needs of the working class.

This week Senator Barack Obama gave a speechto the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hours before his campaign leaked specific sections which noted the Senators willingness as president to attack al Qaeda in Pakistan regardess of that nations willingness to cooperate. It was an obvious answer to the attacks on his foreign policy and military prowess which came after the debates, it was also pretty tuff talk bordering on a “get your act together or we will do it for you” ultimatum to Pakistan.

Thomas B. Edsall wrote that this was the latest of many breaks from Obama from the liberal establishment, he notes about one a month throughout the campaign. Previous breaks have included:
- Changing Affirmative Action from being race based to economically based
- Raising the retirement age & payroll taxes to make social security solvent
- Acknowledging a problem with black males & parenting the blame of which he put solely on black men
- Endorsing merit pay for teachers, a big non-starter for teachers unions

Yesterday John Edwards assailed Rupert Murdoch’s decision to buy the Dow Jones Co. & with it the Wall Street Journal. In a statement Edwards said all his fellow Democratic candidates should resist taking money from News Corp executives and return all donations already received (including of course the very publicized donations from Murdoch himself to Sen. Hillary Clinton). There is, of course, a twist to the story.

“I’m challenging every Democratic presidential candidate to refuse contributions from News Corp executives and return any they’ve already taken, beginning with Rupert Murdoch. The time has come for Democrats to stop pretending to be friends with the very people who demonize the Democratic Party.”

Edwards, as the New York Post points out published a book with HarperCollins (owned of course by News Corp) from which he made at least $800,000. So why was it OK for Edwards to get rich off of the company but not his fellow candidates?

You will have to ask Edwards as thus far his people aren’t commenting.

Thoughts From the Blogosphere

Michelle Malkin | Roger L. Simon | Red State

Associated Press reports the Senator now supports immigration reform that brings tuff enforcement without a path to citizenship.

McCain has been PUMMELED by the right on his previous stance on immigration and most see this latest move as purely political.

Personally I don’t know how this couldn’t be seen as a political move and so I wonder how it will play. The big hope for McCain is that the core group of Republican voters haven’t been paying attention so far. Other than that…