A pair of random Hillary thoughts:
1.) Is it possible that Hillary has caught a big break from Time's new publication schedule? Since its re-launch about a year ago, Time has closed its weekly print issue on Wednesday night and hit news stands Friday. Newsweek continues to close Saturday night and hit news stands Monday. Now, obviously, the big news-weeklies don't pack the punch they used to. But I have to think that glowing coverage from both of them would have, in addition to effectively giving Obama millions of dollars in free direct-mail, created a mini-sensation on television, too. (Having said that, my understanding is that Time and Newsweek try to avoid featuring the same person on their covers, so maybe Obama wouldn't have made both.)
But, thanks to Time's Wednesday close, only Newsweek will get the chance to fawn over Obama in print before Tuesday's vote.
2.) Mark me down as completely agreeing with Mike and Paul Begala on Hillary's blame-Iowa spin. Not only does she sound like a sore loser, and not only is it strange to hear the one-time front-runner suggest she was always an underdog there, but it comes perilously close to playing the gender card in a really unbecoming way. I lost because Iowans just don't like women--what is that? Sounds like the kind of gender-victimhood the Clintonites have always said they rejected.
P.S. A disclosure: My fiancee is an editor at Time.
--Noam Scheiber