Is it just me, or is Hillary now effectively spending Barack Obama's money to continue running against him, albeit more gingerly than before. Just combine a couple pieces of information from today's Times (and elsewhere):
Mr. Obama made his own peace offering to the Clinton camp, albeit a tactical one, suggesting he would be open to helping her retire her campaign debt. “I’d want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,” he said. ...
Publicly, Mrs. Clinton is signaling that she is in the fight to win. In her speeches and in personal pleas to undecided superdelegates, she argues that she has proved better than Mr. Obama at attracting support from Latinos, Roman Catholics and older and working-class voters, and is better equipped than he is to win the swing states in November. ...
The Clinton campaign began running new television advertisements in West Virginia and Oregon that do not mention Mr. Obama. The West Virginia spot focuses on trade deals and special interests, while the Oregon one criticizes the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war.
On Thursday, Mrs. Clinton affirmed her intent to fight for victories in the six Democratic primaries left. She tells her audiences, and herself, that the exercise strengthens party muscles.
I don't know what choice Obama has, since he clearly wants to keep Hillary happy and unite the party. Still, there's something perverse about Hillary running up debt he's going to help pay off in order to kinda make the case against him.
--Noam Scheiber