Time-intensive real-life duties have forced DCMediaGirl to suspend her radio show and blogging for a short while. (Can you imagine what it’s like in most media headquarters these days?) But I have a strong hunch that she would love what Joe Scarborough said today as a panelist on NBC’s Meet The Press today. Tom Brokaw — the debate moderator who’s so sleep-inducing that pharmaceutical companies are hoping he may provide the next breakthrough cure for chronic insomnia — set up Joe for some insightful commentary:

MR. BROKAW: You, you’ve been through campaigns before, Joe Scarborough, you’re a keen student of what’s going on. McCain is beginning to run out of some options, but we’ve been there before with him.

I think you’ll like Joe’s reply:

MR. SCARBOROUGH: We have been there before with him. A year ago John McCain’s political career was pronounced dead on arrival. Remember, he had that bloated campaign staff in the summer of ‘07, and then of course as we got closer to, to the executioner walking out on stage and finishing it, John McCain came back.

And McCain always closes strongly.

I, I just–I, I want to offer a warning to the Barack Obama campaign, which I’m sure they won’t listen to, but I would say go to Florida, go to Ohio, get out of North Carolina. You don’t have to win 350 electoral votes.

These campaigns always tighten up. We are not a 60-40 country, we are a 51-49 country. And maybe this year it’s 51 Democratic, 49 Republican.

But it’s going to be close in the end, and he may regret spending time in North Carolina. It–maybe it looks like he’s going to win now, but I’m telling you, as we’ve seen, these national polls, when they tighten, all these state races close.

I would just be concerned about getting too clever by half. …

How ’bout that?!?!?! (Hope you get to see this, DCMediaGirl!)

Read the full transcript.

Hillary is telling her supporters that this race isn’t about the math, it’s about the map. She is well aware that she is much more likely to beat Mcain than Obama.

The endorsement of Obama by John Edwards dampened the hopes of many Hillary supporters. But Hillary is running hard and making some very interesting last-minute moves.

So, what is happening in Camp Hillary right now? Consider the picture prominently featured on Hillary’s Web site:

Hillary as Sun Queen — beautiful, strong, iconic — is a rather unusual move at the end of a campaign. She radiates power, empathy, and the vulnerability of John F. Kennedy and is strikingly similar to another woman of the people, Eva Peron:

Her conference call with bloggers on Friday was a move more normally associated with a campaign’s kick-off than the final few weeks. Also on Friday she began running an ad in Oregon which specifically targets Obama’s biggest supporters in the media:

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is another New Hampshire moment where there’s a disconnect between the media’s desire to quickly anoint Obama and the reality that this is a very tight campaign in which Hillary has a legitimate path to the nomination. I believe that Hillary remains in the race because she knows the state of the race better than the media or the neo-liberal bloggers. She knows what many super delegates are telling her in private; the fact that she will do very well in Kentucky and Puerto Rico; the potential for Obama to implode; and the imminent decision on how Michigan and Florida will be seated.

Although it’s a minority view, there are pundits out there who see a scenario where Hillary wins. Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics writes:

I will predict that West Virginia will be either her best or her second best finish, behind only Arkansas. Kentucky should come in right behind the two. This alone should be enough to induce some caution. I think it is too hasty to declare her finished just days before two of her three best states.

If, for a moment, we turn off the volume on Obama’s cheerleaders in the media and consider the results of Pennsylvania and West Virginia (41 point landslide!), it’s clear that Obama is the far weaker candidate to face McCain. The Clinton Team knows this to be true. They know Hillary will be ahead in the popular votes. And that without the DNC’s self-destructive but intentional games with Michigan and Florida, Hillary would have spent months with an “insurmountable” delegate lead and the nomination. Remember, Hillary was counted out before New Hampshire. Unless she says so, there is still a very real contest, and with Hillary we could win the White House this year.

As riverdaughter writes:

she’s not getting out of the race, not when she’s winning in the popular vote by more than 50,000 votes. There’s still Kentucky, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana and Puerto Rico and more voters to help her put some distance between herself and Obama. So, she’s in it to win it. And why shouldn’t she? She’s won more of the crucial states than he has.

UPDATE II: The transformation that Scaife underwent when he met Hillary is very similar to that of Larry Johnson when he met Hillary for the first time. Larry presumed he wouldn't like her and that he'd never vote for her; instead, Larry left the meeting convinced she'd make a great president.]

I just got the report below by e-mail, from a friend, of today’s Meet The Press, where Russert apparently goes off about Hillary’s meeting on March 25th with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper. (On Tuesday, I posted a video clip and link to the board’s full video record and transcript.) Important: It was an editorial board interview of a candidate, just like those that other newspapers conduct. It so happens that Richard Mellon Scaife was present at the board’s interview. Why not? He owns the newspaper. Here’s my friend’s report:

Ok, I caught two minutes. Made my blood boil. Had to stop. But, Russert does the most ridiculous thing. He shows the Scaife picture, brings up all the Scaife smears, without acknowledging they are lies, then asks what is going on here. One of his guests says something about Hill has tried to mend fences with political enemies, but is there something more nefarious going on here?

Are these people for real? Jesus, he owns the Philly Tribune. It’s an editorial meeting. Not hard to connect the dots, right?

Then Russert uses that bogus poll about Hill’s approval rating [the discredited NBC poll]. And her losing to McCain, Obama winning. That’s when I had to turn it off.

On a much brighter note, the Washington Post has quite an editorial today titled, “Don’t Stop Campaigning / Why the rush to push Hillary Clinton out of the race for the nomination?”:

[...]

A time may come when someone should gracefully bow out. But their extended contest informs the electorate and serves to battle-test them both. We don’t see why the process should be short-circuited when millions of votes are yet to be cast and two qualified candidates believe themselves to be the best potential Democratic nominee.

There is no lack of excitement in the Democratic Party. States that have cast ballots have reported record turnouts. Registrations are through the roof. Just last week it was announced in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22, that since November the number of registered Democrats increased by about 161,000. Altogether, Democrats now outnumber Republicans there by about 830,000. And this contest is far from over. While Mr. Obama leads Ms. Clinton in the popular vote and in the number of pledged delegates, it’s assumed that neither candidate will win the 2,024 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

One proffered justification for ending the campaign now, in fact, is the assumption that we know pretty much how everything will turn out. Ms. Clinton will win Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama will carry North Carolina and so on. But throughout this campaign, just about everything we’ve “known” has been wrong: Mr. McCain was finished, Ms. Clinton was inevitable, Mr. Obama had New Hampshire locked up. No doubt the Democrats have gotten themselves into a fix with rules that may leave the final decision to unelected superdelegates — but why is the answer to that less democracy? Why not give as many voters as possible a chance? …

The editorial cites numerous issues — from North Korea to affirmative action — that haven’t been addressed sufficiently in media reports and interviews of Sens. Obama and Clinton, and ends with this:

The list of issues to hash out is endless, and doing so in polite political combat could produce a stronger Democratic candidate for the fall and a better-informed electorate.

Read all of the editorial.

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I just checked, and neither the video or transcript of today’s Meet The Press is up yet. But the video will be up soon, with the transcript soon thereafter. MTP is good about getting its videos and transcripts up very quickly.

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UPDATE: From Richard Mellon Scaife’s op-ed today, March 30th, “Hillary, reassessed“:

Hillary Clinton walked into a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conference room last Tuesday to meet with some of the newspaper’s editors and reporters and declared, “It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do.”

The room erupted in laughter. Her remark defused what could have been a confrontational meeting.

More than that, it said something about the New York senator and former first lady who hopes to be America’s next president.

[...]

The very morning that she came to the Trib, our editorial page raised questions about her campaign and criticized her on several other scores.

Reading that, a lesser politician — one less self-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign issues, less confident of her positions — might well have canceled the interview right then and there.

Sen. Clinton came to the Trib anyway and, for 90 minutes, answered questions.

Her meeting and her remarks during it changed my mind about her.

Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect (or even, perhaps, expecting the worst), took courage and confidence. Not many politicians have political or personal courage today, so it was refreshing to see her exhibit both.

Sen. Clinton also exhibited an impressive command of many of today’s most pressing domestic and international issues. Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on.

Particularly regarding foreign policy, she identified what we consider to be the most important challenges and dangers that the next president must confront and resolve in order to guarantee our nation’s security. Those include an increasingly hostile Russia, an increasingly powerful China and increasing instability in Pakistan and South America. …

Read all of Scaife’s op-ed. (Special thanks to Andy for pointing me to Scaife’s op-ed.)

UPDATE II / SEE ALSO: Larry Johnson’s description of the transformative meeting he had with Hillary Clinton. Larry writes:

If you had asked me before my first visit in 2005 if she could be president, I would have said, “There are two ways–no way and no way in hell”.

Then read what happened when Larry, along with two experts in the Middle East, went to her Senate office and talked with her.