You know what tomorrow is?  Yes, the FEC deadline for April fundraising and spending figures.  All we really know is that the Clinton campaign has admitted to borrowing more from Hillary, and that it claims debts of somewhat more, possibly $20 million.

What is the real story, though?

follow me over the jump.

I am a dutiful audience for Keith Olbermann and saw a very interesting clip from a speech by Hillary Clinton out in the past couple of days in which she addressed the arguments for how voters should vote.  'You can vote for or against any candidate, and for any reason,' she began, 'You can vote for the one who has, say, the best hairstyle, if that's what you want to do' and then went on to make her normal stump speech argument, 'to treat it like it is a job interview.'

But as usual, when there is a good soundbyte, like 'typical white person' or 'Damn America' or 'they become bitter and cling to guns', the context becomes lost, and that is where we enter the zone of Silly Season.

more after the jump

Before they devour themselves once more, perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss’s "Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!" (The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as "Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!") They could sing:

"The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. ... I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. ... You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!"

So opines MoDowd in today's NYT.   More after the fold...

I have seen numerous diaries on here talking about strategy Barack Obama needs to employ in order to win against Clinton, urging him to fight back, to counterpunch swiftly, to take the offensive, so that he would not be seen as an empty suit or a weak leader.  

And the argument against his getting more forceful have been that it would cause him to get off-message, it would sully him with Clintonian gutter tactics, it would make him seem ungentlemanly, he would be 'picking on the girl', or that it would raise his negative perceptions among voters.

More after the fold...

I saw a diary here a couple of weeks ago that argued it was 'time that Barack got angry' in order to let Americans know that he has conviction and is not afraid to show his strength.  At the time I thought that was a bit overstated and that it might only play on defense.

But today Barack fought back hard at an AP press annual meeting.  This is I think exactly what the doctor ordered to put 'Bittergate' in perspective:  more after the fold:

Pundits, campaign operatives, journalists and curiosity seekers by now have begun been poring over the Clinton tax returns to look for meaning and political fodder since they were released to an expectant America on Friday.  I couldn't resist my own curiosity so I pressed the link for 2006 and opened them up myself.  60 - WHAT pages?  My eyes glazed over after seeing just how many entries said 'See Note such and so' and I realized that despite my own experience and education in financial accounting and taxation, this stuff was beyond me.  But something took hold during the late hours of Friday night after contemplating just how difficult it is to keep notes on every foreign-sourced speech Bill made...

More below the fold.

This is my first diary, because I finally have something to say.  I have never contributed to a political campaign until March 2008 when I gave what small amounts I am able, to Barack Obama.  This is because, while I have always voted either for an independent or a Democrat in 30 years of adult life, I have never before felt able to do more than vote for a lesser of two evils.

We are facing such a choice now.  It is our good, and bad fortune, to have two viable candidates for President from which to choose, and as we approach the final frenetic weeks of voting, tempers have flared to incendiary.  But let's be honest: rhetoric will not give Obama, the frontrunner, that additional edge to push him over the top.  This has been a hotly contested race that has come down to only a few choices that are beyond the limits of campaigning to resolve, and as so many others have pointed out, it is time to look to the general election.