Dan Conley has a post today at Political Wire that strikes me as just about right, at least as far as Clinton is concerned.

Whether the Obama boomlet began as a clever way to hype his book, out of sheer boredom or after careful planning, there’s no question that it’s now taken on a life of it’s own. It’s become clear that the Obama campaign is the one with all the heat on the Democratic side and the more likely it looks that Hillary Clinton will decide to run, the stronger the pressure will build for Obama to get into the race as well. Why? Because he’s the only candidate with the power to capture the queen.

For all of Sen. Clinton’s poll and money advantages, the fact remains that Obama is the candidate party insiders are excited about. It’s the campaign everyone wants a part of. Nobody is saying the same for Clinton — her campaign is looking like the most corporate, oldest and blandest since Mondale in ‘84. Great campaign team? Sure … for the 1992 Presidential race. There are plenty of generals, but who wants to be a footsoldier for HRC? And speaking of wars, the longer the U.S. remains in Iraq, the better for Obama, who was aganst it from the start and has a plan to get us out.

Can another candidate break through in this environment? I think it’s unlikely. Bayh couldn’t even outshine Edwards, never mind Obama. Clark’s best shot was having the Clinton’s on his side in ‘04. Gore is too happy hanging out with Leo and Will Ferrell to get in now. Kerry is the walking dead. Edwards seems even more lightweight today than he did four years ago. Within six months, it will become clear that Clinton vs. Obama is the only game in town … and who wants to be on the side of the safe, corporate, vaguely pro war candidate in this party?

The video posted below has been getting a lot of attention on political blogs lately. Republican Ed Rogers takes the schoolyard taunt angle (most favored by the DC crowd) by ridiculing Obama’s middle name “Hussein.” “Put me down as somebody who counts him out,” Rogers says.

Maureen Dowd’s lede was pretty funny this weekend:

If you call Barack Obama’s office to check the spelling of his middle name, the reply comes back: “Like the dictator.”

However, there is a more important Arabic name associated with Obama that the national media has mostly left untouched to date: Rezko.

And finally, Tom Bevan attempted a bit of myth-busting recently that ironically relied on a false myth.

Consider just how meteoric Obama’s rise has been. In 2000, he lost badly to Bobby Rush in the Democratic primary in Illinois 1st Congressional District. Four years later, with only about a month left in the 2004 Democratic Senate primary, Obama was running tied with Dan Hynes for second place, ten points behind gazillionaire Blair Hull - until the frontrunner’s campaign imploded in mid-to-late February amid revelations his wife had filed a restraining order against him for abuse (I think he admitted kicking her in the shin during a spat, if I recall).

Barring that last minute turn of events, Obama would still be an Illinois State Senator and two-time loser for higher office that no one in the country had ever heard of.

That would be true if the Hull disclosure and its timing were purely accidental and completely unexpected. As I’ve said before, the Hull thing was a planned hit, timed to coincide with a televised debate and Obama’s first TV ads.

Hull was a damaged candidate. Everybody on the inside knew this thing was coming out eventually, even if it hadn’t been neatly packaged for media consumption. To claim that Obama would still be an unknown if Hull’s past had remained undisclosed is like saying Topinka would have won last month if nobody had voted in Chicago.