The Washington Post reports on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's differing strategies for winning delegates on Tsunami Tuesday, February 5.

Hillary is targeting four big primary states, California, New York, New Jersey and Arkansas, while Obama is gearing up for the six caucusing states -- Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska and Idaho.

Another Obama strategy:

In New Jersey, one of his targets is independent voters. In Georgia and Alabama, he is seeking to replicate his South Carolina strategy by targeting African Americans.

It's not just about winning a state because there's delegates to be had even for coming in second. For example, [More...]

Nat Hentoff, writing in the Village Voice, has some constitutional questions for Barack Obama.

Once in a while, Obama makes a passing reference to our diminishing individual liberties, but hardly ever in his stump speeches. At an early-morning rally the day of the New Hampshire vote, he told some 300 students at the Dartmouth College gym: "My job this morning is to be so persuasive . . . that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack." One of the reasons to vote for him, he continued, was his pledge to end the Bush-Cheney era of "wiretaps without warrants."

He didn't add that Bush wants to make this spying on us permanent. And when he's not in front of a roomful of students with the television cameras on him, Obama hardly ever shows the urgent passion for restoring the Constitution that he exhibits on other issues. Hillary Clinton also invokes "change" as if it's a medicine to cure all ills, but she too largely ignores the incremental disappearance of the Bill of Rights—including the last rites for our guarantees of personal privacy.

Hentoff's questions for Obama:

So what are Obama's plans to restore the Constitution—especially regarding the activities of our domestic and international intelligence agencies? And in view of Bush's legacy with the Roberts-Alito Supreme Court, what would President Obama's criteria be for filling any vacancies during his time in office? It would help if he would tell us now which Supreme Court justices, past and present, he most respects, and why.

More...

I know this will come as a big shock to Obama adulators, but Barack Obama does not always tell the truth:

He also did not tell the whole truth about what he said about Ronald Reagan or what he was conveying about Republicans being the party of ideas fighting the conventional wisdom. He also started the attacks, personal or otherwise last night.

Unlike some people, this does not bother me. I always knew Barack Obama was just a pol. Heck, I have been criticizing him for picking the wrong POLITICAL strategy. Even now I do not question his commitment to a progressive and Democratic agenda, nor do I question Hillary's. I think Kevin Drum nails what the question is now:

It's official, Fred Thompson's out.

Let's hope Giuliani's next.

By the way, we have 20 new posts today, so please scroll down and onto the next page if you want to read all of them.

I'm off to the jail now, back tonight.

Not an endorsement, but strong words of encouragement:

So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.

I agree with Yglesias that Edwards has largely been a positive force in this campaign, though I have disagreements with him on some key issues. Like Jeralyn, I would like to see him fight on as well.

I was hoping to avoid writing about the Barack Obama-Tony Rezko connection as I believe Obama did nothing wrong. Big Tent Democrat agrees it's a non-issue. Unfortunately, the AP is highlighting it today.

That said, perhaps if Obama hadn't attacked Hillary last night as a "corporate lawyer sitting on the board of WalMart", she wouldn't have responded calling Rezko a slumlord and it wouldn't be in the AP today. From the transcript (More...)

Bump and Update: Tim Masters was freed from prison today, 9 1/2 years after his conviction for a murder he did not commit.

Lots more below.

Speaking for me only

In what seems like a millenium ago, I criticized Barack Obama for embracing a Republican frame that Democrats abhor people of faith. Since then, Obama has made his appeal in a much more positive way, including in South Carolina. Barack Obama has really found a way to make his appeal to persons of faith without denigrating Democrats.

It appears that Bill Clinton is retrogressing on this issue:

[Clinton] took Democrats to task for failing to challenge the GOP among religious voters, for whom moral issues are important. 'Democrats have made a mistake by not entering the debate,' he said.

Entering what debate President Clinton? The debate about how godless and sinful Democrats are? This is bad politics from Clinton. And seeing as how he is the principal Hillary Clinton campaign surrogate, bad politics from the Clinton campaign. Bad show Mr. President.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the richest of them all? Via AOL Money:

Barack Obama's house:

Obama has a large, stately brick home on Chicago's South Side with an estimated value of $1.9 million. The Chicago Tribune describes it as a "96-year-old Georgian revival home that has four fireplaces, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar."

Personal wealth:

Compared to the other candidates, Obama seems a pauper with assets of between $456,012 and $1.1 million.

Hillary's house:

More below:

In a blow to the Bush Administration which sought a life sentence, a Miami federal judge today sentenced Jose Padilla to 17 years, 4 months.

The judge factored in Padilla's "harsh" sentencing conditions.

'I do find the [prison] conditions were so harsh that they warranted conditions for sentencing in this case,'' Cooke told a crowded courtroom of attorneys, family members and media.

35 years ago, women did not have a constitutional right to control their bodies. That changed when Roe v. Wade was decided. It is fashionable today in legal circles to attack the legal reasoning of Roe. While I believe Justice Blackmun's prose could have been better, the central legal premise was and remains sound:

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, . . . ; in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments . . . ; in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights . . . ; in the Ninth Amendment, . . . .; or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . . These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," . . . , are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage, . . . ; procreation, . . . ; contraception, . . . .; family relationships, . . . ; and child rearing and education, . . . This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. . . .

35 years ago today, an important step was taken in recogizing the equality of women and in recognizing the right to privacy. Fighting to preserve this advance has been central to progressives and Democrats since then. The challenge remains. Roe now probably stands with a precarious 5-4 majority in the Supreme Court. There is no more important issue in this Presidential campaign than the appointment of Supreme Court justices. John Paul Stevens is 87. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter are 68 and older. We MUST elect a Democrat. Nothing is more important in this election.

Hillary Clinton is on her way to Salinas, California where she will receive the endorsement of the United Farm Workers, founded by Cesar Chavez.

Clinton is wheels up to California, where she’s set to pick up a major endorsement from the United Farm Workers of America — founded by legendary Latino organizer Cesar Chavez. The union backing only strengthens her already rock-solid support among Hispanics.

It is expected that 5,000 will attend the event.