As Wisconsin’s primary next Tuesday approaches, most of the action has taken place on the Democratic side (Mike Huckabee, trailing far behind John McCain in the polls, barnstormed the state for three days, hoping to fire up his base of conservatives and evangelicals). Barack Obama has been working the state nearly non-stop since Tuesday and Hillary Clinton arrives Saturday, planning to stump the state until primary day.

The intensity of the Democratic battle has shown up on Wisconsinites’ TV screens. Clinton, widely perceived as having lost momentum to Obama, has been itching to debate him and threw up an ad this week in which an announcer sneers that Obama would “prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions.”

Oh, yeah? countered Obama’s camp, coming up with an ad that accuses Clinton of “phony charges and false attacks.”

Perhaps predictably, it didn’t take long for some anonymous wiseguy to come up with a parody of Clinton’s ad.

Stay tuned.

A new poll of registered voters in Minnesota 10 months before the general election Democratic presidential candidates handily beating their Republican counterparts — with the notable exception of John McCain.

The poll, conducted by this week by SurveyUSA for three of the state’s TV stations, posed head-to-head matchups of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama against McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani or Mike Huckabee.

A few grains of salt: Much like national polls at this stage in the campaign, this poll can be as much about name recognition as about the state of the race if the election were held today. Also, with a relatively small sample size of 550 poll respondents, the survey has a whopping margin of error of 4.3 percentage points. That said, here are the matchups:

McCain, 49%
Clinton, 45%
Undecided, 6%

McCain, 49%
Obama, 42%
Undecided, 9%

Clinton, 50%
Romney, 40%
Undecided, 9%

Obama, 55%
Romney, 36%
Undecided, 10%

Clinton, 51%
Giuliani, 40%
Undecided, 9%

Obama, 52%
Giuliani, 36%
Undecided, 11%

Clinton, 50%
Huckabee, 42%
Undecided, 8%

Obama, 49%
Huckabee, 42%
Undecided, 10%

Full poll results and methodology are available here.

Two of Hillary Clinton’s prominent Minnesota supporters, former Sen. Mark Dayton and longtime DFL activist Rick Stafford, took to the telephone lines Friday afternoon to smack down Barack Obama over recent comments he made (a move the campaign replicated in other Feb. 5 states).

Speaking to a newspaper editorial board in Nevada (which holds its caucuses Saturday), Obama had said, “I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there, over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging the conventional wisdom.”

Arguable, and, on its face, not that controversial. But that’s not the way Dayton heard it. Clinton, he said, “has challenged the conventional wisdom” and that Republicans provided “really poor models” to the nation.

Those Republican ideas, Stafford added, came from the likes of Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann.

Referring to another Obama trope, that he’s not interested in endlessly re-fighting the battles of the 1960s and ’70s, Dayton reeled off the accomplishments of that era he laid at the feet of Democrats: Civil rights, Medicare, environmental protection. He even threw in the sainted names of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale (another Clinton supporter) for good measure. “Are these what he calls the excesses of that era?” Dayton demanded.

Only 18 days until the DFL caucuses. . .

Belated update: The Obama campaign offered this rebuttal:

“It’s hard to take Hillary Clinton’s latest attack seriously when she’s
the one who supported George Bush’s war in Iraq, the most damaging
Republican idea of our generation. While others were triangulating and
poll-testing their positions, Senator Obama has been fighting for
progressive ideals for over two decades.” - Obama spokesman Bill Burton

Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of the opening curtain of Monicagate, the scandal that paralyzed Bill Clinton during the closing years of his presidency, very nearly destroying it.

On that fateful day, the Drudge Report ran an “exclusive” report about an unpublished Newsweek article that reported that Clinton had been having an affair with a White House

intern, who turned out to be none other than Monica Lewinsky.

Despite the news media’s affection for anniversaries of all kinds, this particular one has received relatively little ink, despite (or because of) the fact that it comes smack-dab in the midst of Hillary Clinton’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination. (It was she, you might recall, who said the alleged affair was nothing but a pack of lies whipped up by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.)

First in the mainstream media to allude to it, however indirectly, was NBC’s Chris Matthews, who said the day after the New Hampshire primary, “[T]he reason she’s a U.S. senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around.” After a huge uproar, he apologized a few days ago.

Leave it to Drudge to return to it, however indirectly, when he linked earlier this week to a column from The Times of London, headlined, “Oral History: The Monica Lewinsky Scandal 10 Years On.” Before a where-are-they-now rundown of the scandal’s players, the piece offered this perspective: “Ten years on we know what happened to Bill Clinton. He is campaigning tirelessly for his wife as she seeks to win the second Clinton presidency. It is a curious twist of fate, and an indication of how deep were the repercussions of the scandal, that her campaign might not be happening if it weren’t for Monica Lewinsky.”

On Friday, the Washington Post front-paged a piece about Bill Clinton on the campaign trail, glancingly referring to the scandal and speculating that it may be a root cause of much of the anger and frustration he has publicly spouted while stumping. It also quotes him bringing it up himself while campaigning in New Hampshire: “Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn’t take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon … The Republicans were so mean to me when I was president that I was poorer when I left than when I got there.”

Finally, Timothy Noah filed a report in Slate, the online magazine, Friday that examines the curious near-silence about the whole situation and delivers a blow-by-blow recap of the whole thing for anyone who didn’t get their fill of it.

This week’s Democratic presidential food fight, over the rules governing Saturday’s precinct caucuses in Nevada, has been resolved. Short version: Barack Obama won, Hillary Clinton lost.

Here’s the AP’s somewhat longer take on the dispute:

An attempt by Democrats with ties to Hillary Rodham Clinton to prevent casino workers from caucusing at special precincts in Nevada failed in court Thursday.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan was presumed to be a boost for Clinton rival Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday because he has been endorsed by the union representing many of the shift workers who will be able to use the precincts on the Las Vegas strip.

“State Democrats have a First Amendment right to association, to assemble and to set their own rules,” Mahan said. Nevada’s Democratic Party approved creation of the precincts to make it easier for housekeepers, waitresses and bellhops to caucus during the day near work rather than have to do so in their neighborhoods.

The state teacher’s union, which has ties to Clinton, and other plaintiffs brought the suit against the special precincts shortly after local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination. The union is the largest in Nevada, with 60,000 members. The Clinton campaign said it was not involved in the suit.

The lawsuit infuriated D. Taylor, president of the Culinary Workers Union, who told the Wall Street Journal: “This is the Clinton campaign,” he said. “They tried to disenfranchise students in Iowa. Now they’re trying to disenfranchise people here in Nevada. You’d think the Democratic Party elite would disavow this, but the silence has been deafening.” (The Democratic National Committee belatedly supported the Nevada party’s stance.)

Of all the back-and-forth between the Obama and Clinton campaigns, the choicest was former President Bill Clinton’s lengthy on-camera rant about the whole kerfluffle:

For its part, the Obama campaign fired off a well-spun e-mail shortly after the judge’s ruling:

“We’re glad that the Nevada court upheld the Nevada Democratic Party’s
caucus plan which encourages voter participation. While the Clinton camp
clearly believed the voices of workers should be silenced in service of
their perceived political interest, they enjoyed a twenty five-point
lead two months ago and have much of the party establishment in their
camp. So, despite their inherent advantages we are pleased this should
be a close and competitive contest Saturday,” said Obama campaign
spokesman Bill Burton.

And late this afternoon, the Clinton campaign issued its own version of the decision:

“Nevadans have the opportunity to play a special role in the nominating process on Saturday, and we are thrilled with the energy and support we are seeing across the state. It is clear that Nevadans are excited about participating in this process. While we were not involved in this lawsuit, and have always said that we would play by the rules that we’re given, it has always been our hope that every Nevadan should have equal access and opportunity to participate in the caucus. Make no mistake –the current system that inhibits some shift workers from being able to participate, while allowing others to do so, would seem to benefit other campaigns. More importantly it is unfair. We also are concerned with recent news reports about voter intimidation tactics that would further discourage some Nevadans from participating on Saturday. Our strategy remains the same - we want as many people as possible to participate in the caucus, and we are going to reach out to as many Nevadans as possible in an effort to do as well as possible on Saturday. The Obama campaign has been clear in its belief that whoever wins the culinary union endorsement will win Nevada. We will leave it up to the people of Nevada to make that decision.”

In Michigan, all the leading Democratic candidates pledged not to campaign, after the national party sanctioned the state for moving up its primary.

Ditto for Florida, which will hold its primary on Jan. 29. But the Obama campaign grumbled Tuesday that the Clinton campaign is showing signs of violating that agreement.

Here’s a statement the Obama camp issued today: “Although Senator Obama did not remove his name from the Florida Primary ballot because Florida law did not allow him to do so, Senator Obama is firm in his commitment to neither participate nor campaign in the Florida Primary and its outcome has no bearing on the nomination contest. We raise Florida today because Senator Clinton has scheduled a fundraiser in Florida on Jan. 27th, and there are signs -– despite Senator Clinton’s public pledge to the contrary –- that she may be planning to campaign in the state –- inquiring about large venues and increased organizing activity -– ahead of the Florida primary.

“Our position and the position of the DNC is clear – neither the Florida nor Michigan primaries are playing any role in deciding the Democratic nominee and we are not campaigning in either state.”

A couple hours later, the Clinton campaign shot back:

“Let us be very clear. Senator Clinton signed a pledge that she would not campaign in any state that violates the DNC approved calendar. Therefore, we did not campaign in Michigan, nor will we campaign in Florida in violation of the pledge. We have two small scheduled fundraisers in South Florida on January 27, as explicitly permitted by the pledge, but we will not hold any open public campaign events. The Obama campaign has also held numerous fundraisers in Florida since signing the pledge. Contrary to the Obama campaign’s memo, there are no events at large venues, nor have we organized in the state…

“Let us be clear about something else, however. While Senator Clinton will honor her commitment not to campaign in Florida in violation of the pledge, she also intends to honor her pledge to hear the voices of all Americans. The people of Michigan and Florida have just as much of a right to have their voices heard as anyone else. It is disappointing to hear a major Democratic presidential candidate tell the voters of ANY state that their voices aren’t important.

“Make no mistake — the Obama campaign had no problems when its supporters and allies in Michigan ran radio ads and other campaign activities urging people to vote for “uncommitted” as a way to register their support for Senator Obama - and to give him a chance to compete for those delegates at the national convention… Now, with polls in recent days showing that effort and their candidate running far behind in both states, the Obama campaign has shifted tactics to say that those who cast a vote in either state don’t matter. We couldn’t disagree more.”

The sound you may have heard today were the Clinton and Obama campaigns madly spinning the results of a new poll that, choose one:

…proves she’s still the inevitable Democratic candidate.

(or)

…highlights her expanding vulnerability to a surging Obama.

Both campaigns, in dueling conference calls to reporters held an hour apart, brought out some big guns to tout the electability of their candidate.

Clinton’s team went first (after, coincidentally enough[?], announcing their call shortly after Obama’s people had announced theirs).

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, noting that his state has voted Republican in 16 of the past 17 presidential elections: “She has the best chance to be electable in the swing parts of the country. She has the strength and toughness. You never know until you’ve been through the crucible.” Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee: “I’m very comfortable with Senator Clinton being electable.”

Next up, Obama’s folks.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle: “He’s the one candidate with the unique ability to unite people. His crossover appeal is one of his greatest strengths.” Former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus, noting that HIS state has voted Republican only once in the past half-century: “We represent Red State America. You can see his crossover appeal in the unprecedented crowds and donors he’s attracted.”

The context:
The calls came a few hours after a New York Times/CBS poll was published, showing that “for all the problems Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be having holding off her rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire, she remains strong nationally, the poll found. Even after what her aides acknowledge have been two of the roughest months of her candidacy, she is viewed by Democrats as a far more electable presidential nominee than either Senator Barack Obama or John Edwards.”

But Obama could point to good news embedded in the poll, as noted by the National Journal: “Obama got a 5-point boost in support from last month in the CNN/ORC poll and a 4-point bump from October in the CBS/NYT measure, as the gap between the Illinois senator and front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton narrowed significantly in both cases.”

For the record, Clinton’s people mentioned Obama once by name; his didn’t mention her name at all.

When Michelle Obama hit Minnesota Wednesday afternoon, acting as First Surrogate for her husband, she lavished her attention and smiles on a couple of dozen students and staffers at the Hope Commiunity in south Minneapolis. She chatted about community organizing, empowerment, that kind of thing, for more than an hour.

But no, her spokeswoman said, no time to take questions from the gaggle of journalists standing by and watching the photo op. A shame, in a way, because she can be candid to a fault, like the time recently when she said Hillary Clinton was a polarizing figure and questioned the so-called inevitability of her nomination. “Sometimes we wear the same suit even if it’s got holes in it,” she said. “We need a new suit, not just a new tie or new pants.”

Typical self-centered journalist quibble, right? Not exactly, because it brought to mind the hermetic bubbles that both Barack Obama and Clinton have sealed themselves in for months on the campaign trail, a phenomenon examined this week by the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus.

Would a little give-and-take on the campaign trail be such a terrible thing? Wouldn’t it be nice to hear the candidates unlimber and expand beyond the 30-second sound bite? (Which, ironically enough, Michelle Obama mocked during her Minneapolis visit.)