The Daily Five: Healing In HD

1. Last night on Fox News, Karl Rove floated his own balloon containing a novel way Barack Obama could end up being the nominee. In June, after all the states have finished voting and assuming he has an earned delegate lead of about 100, he could,say, you know what, let's go ahead and seat those delegations from Florida and Michigan based on their January primaries. Why the hell would he consider this, given that Clinton would close the delegate gap by more than 50 and would pull to near-even -- or even ahead of -- Obama in the popular vote? It would give the undecided superdelegates a reason to vote for Obama. It would show them that he's willing to put the party's interests above his own; it would be a gesture of mangnamity that Hillary Clinton could not match; it would display, at once, confidence and humility; it would give him a way to dominate the post-early-June news cycle.

The Obama campaign declined to comment.

2. Matt Bai:

Here’s a political postulate for you: whether or not a bad moment sticks to the candidate depends on how closely related it is to the core rationale of that candidate or his opponent. In other words, if your gaffe goes directly to the main argument you are trying to make about yourself with the electorate, or if it substantiates the most relevant thing that your rival would have us believe about you, then it has the potential to become a serious problem. If, on the other hand, you do something completely idiotic that is tangential to what voters most hope or fear about you, then you tend to get a pass. So Mr. Kerry’s choice of wording hurt because it played into the main theme that the Republicans had chosen to discredit him—the notion that he wanted to have everything both ways. By contrast, Mr. Bush’s brush with the law had nothing to do with the story he was telling about himself as a competent manager, nor did it underscore the central argument that Democrats were advancing about him (because, really, there wasn’t one).

3. Joe Klein's Gore scenario is just plausible enough to consider. Would Gore want it? His friends and advisers say he's moved beyond politics, but the chance to run for president without (a) weathering a primary campaign, which he did not enjoy and (b) the chance to run with a good possibility of victory might cause him to change his mind. Gore has never said "no" to the idea of running for president in part because he envisioned a scenario where he might want to run. Would Obama backers really be happy if Gore took the top spot? Because Klein raised the question, does Gore now need to say no, never?

4. Barack Obama will air his first ad in Indiana tomorrow. (Check out the leather jacket!)



5. The 700 Club is going high-def! On Monday!
For some reason, that's just cool.