With rumors that Joe Biden may be the vice-president nominee, most of the talk has been about his expertise in national security and foreign policy.

But there's something he did that is much less known, but is very significant. How significant? Biden called it, "The single, most important legislative accomplishment in my 32-year-old career in the Senate."  

So what was did Biden do?  Joe Biden is the Senator most responsible for federal policy to combat violence against women.  He took on the issue, learned a good deal about it, and got a bill passed under difficult political circumstances. And he has not left this issue alone. He has continued to be a leader in the fight against violence against women.

The first of these bills was the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which was part of a much larger crime bill.  The bill introduced new provisions against interstate stalking, created grants for state and local programs, and increased funds for training prosecutors and police officers. It also created an office dedicated to these issues within the Department of Justice.

With the publication of the memos from within the Clinton campaign in The Atlantic, we can see the internal strife within that operation.  Not only does this show the different approach of the No Drama Obama crew, but it demonstrates quite clearly that Hillary Clinton did a poor job of heading her campaign team and that her purportedly excellent executive skills were not as advertised.

But there's more here -- both reflections on the past and, more importantly, cautions for the future.

First - the past -

Did the Clinton campaign push the Wright tapes into the public eye?
So far the evidence is minimal, captured by a line in one of Penn's memos.

As Jake Tapper notes:

Penn writes that if they come out of Iowa and it's a two-way race with Obama, "on Friday we do a media interviews (sic) and basically say that he is unvetted, discuss his ever-changing positions. Release the tapes. Create immediate pressure that deprives him of oxygen.'

With a campaign nearly bereft of positive messaging, the McCain campaign intends to continue where it left off this weekend.  The ad with the smears about Obama's foreign policy and the nixed troop visit will be joined by others, to be negative and surely as untruthful.

According to Politico

In a private conference call with outside allies Friday, McCain campaign chief Steve Schmidt said they would greet Obama’s return to the country with even sharper attacks this week, according to a source on the call.

With the new ad out where McCain attacks Obama for not going to see wounded troops in Germany, I wonder if this whole thing was a big Rove-like set up.

Recall that the Obama folks were planning to go on the hospital visit but were told quite late in the week that they couldn't go with campaign staffers, only with congressional staffers.

But since the Obama folks learned of this so late, after the congressional staff had left, they went ahead and canceled the trip.  

So someone needs to ask
Who approved the visit without telling the Obama folks that they needed to have congressional staff along - and then who told them otherwise - and what links do they have to White House staff or the McCain camapaign?

The impact of an event like the Obama trip doesn't come quickly.  Since most people don't follow news closely, its impact comes over time, as people less interested in politics pick up bits of reaction from more informed friends and family and by seeing what columnists say, what the covers of newsmagazines look like.

So although I think it's too early to see the true impact, I present two examples of why it's been a success.

Recently I wrote a diary about how some Clinton supporters are agitating to have Clinton's name placed in nomination at the convention.

Some of them are doing this because they claim this will show Clinton more respect.  Others actually think that Clinton could end up getting the nomination.

Now this same story has been picked up by the Huffington Post which has it as its headline when you go to the page.

So I thought I'd throw this question out there -- Should there be a roll call with both Obama and Clinton as nominated candidates?

You may have thought this nomination fight was settled.  

Well, some claim it isn't - And they think Clinton still can get the nomination.

And some of Clinton's delegates are involved.

They are organizing so that they can get enough signatures to put Clinton's name in nomination.  To do this, they will need at least 300 signatures. Plus Senator Clinton would need to sign a paper allowing her name to be placed in nomination.

As far as I know, Clinton has not agreed to do this.

But some Clinton delegates are going forward.

The last few weeks we've seen two things going on:

1. A McCain campaign that's not particularly together, without any coherent themes.  Given how uncharismatic their candidate is, it's a problem for them.

2. Obama speaking on a series of issues which have upset the grassroots. FISA is probably the biggest example.  Some have gone so far as to question whether they would vote for Obama or, even if they'd vote for him, if they'd contribute their time and money for the campaign.

Well, the time is coming to decide -- Will you fight or stay pure?

This is a key moment because McCain has reorganized his campaign operation and he is bringing in the Rove forces.

Today John McCain's campaign decided that it could not advertise on some of the PUMA like web sites-- the ones that promote Hillary Clinton and which are maliciously anti-Obama.

John McCain's campaign will stop advertising on several pro-Hillary Clinton Web sites that have attacked Barack Obama for being unpatriotic and, in one case, compared the Democratic nominee-in-waiting to Adolf Hitler.

This is really nasty stuff.

McCain's ads have also shown up on a pro-Clinton Web site named "Obama WTF" that accuses Obama of being "spineless," having "communist influences," "courting Jew haters" and being "in the pocket of America haters."

SavagePolitics.com, another anti-Obama site that has been targeted with McCain ads, has called Obama a "bold faced liar, a thief, a sexist and a racist."

With a tendency toward incredible meanness and name-calling, Hillaryis44 has hit a new low.

As we all know, journalist Tim Russert passed away on Friday.  It is clear from the coverage, that he was a very fine and caring man, to his family and to his co-workers. One of the most moving pieces I saw was a clip of Chuck Todd talking about Russert's love and appreciation of his father Big Russ and his son, and the way that Russert loved to interact with children. Russert also reached out to co-workers with family problems.  And of course he was a prominent journalist.

So what is the reaction of Hillaryis44?  To write a diary filed under "Scum" and to have postings like this:

Russert-Hillaryis44

Karma baby that is all I will say, first Kennedy and his brain tumor, then the flooding in Iowa and now Russert... Obamatrons beware the wrath of God, you could be next

I am hoping this nomination fight will get done soon and that Hillary Clinton, instead of stoking resentment against Obama, will try to calm down her deadenders.

Then I came across a new site which some Clinton supporters have set up with gems like this:

Beware of the giant alien-like amoeba that is currently terrorizing the United States of America. It’s known as the "BO". The BO is an amorphous creature from Chicago which landed in the U.S. Senate encased in a teflon meteor. This "BO", which is actually a living creature, attaches itself to rich ultra-left liberals, college students, marxists, and black people. The mass grows larger as it dissolves the common sense of it’s victims, then engulfs and eats any remaining shred of independent thinking.

HILLARY’S LEAD IN THE POPULAR VOTE SINCE MARCH 3RD
498,056
This is NOT a very strong indicator for the candidate claiming he is the nominee. I suggest we send this information to ALL super delegates. Perhaps by putting the NUMBERS in front of them, some of them will get off the Koolaid.

Remember Alegre? She used to post a lot here and then went on a well-publicized strike.

Well, according to a diary now on mydd written by someone other than me, she goes on conference calls for Hillary bloggers where they get their talking points.  

Not much of a diary but as I was cruising the blogs I came across a Clinton "blogger" conference call.  I started listening to the call and who do I hear but our local celebrity Alegre.   She said she was going to take her two children to the May 31 DNC meeting to share her views.  Now here is the kicker, she sounded like a normal, even nice person.   It was obvious she has a lot of emotional energy invested in this process but it was a very sincere caring passion.  I often think she goes over the top in her post but after getting a chance to hear her actually talking to Sen. Clinton I have a different, better view of her.  Still over the top but a a sincere over the top.  

As someone who has been involved in Democratic politics for over 35 years, this year has been amazing.  I started as a Clinton supporter and switched to Obama after the Iowa caucuses.  I have friends on both sides of the nominating battle.  

It has been a long and competitive process.  For many, if not most of us, great passions have been aroused.  In my view, those passions have mostly been aimed at supporting our preferred candidate.  This bodes well for the Democratic party's ability to come together to win the White House.

And, in my view, it is already happening.  You can see it in the two tracking polls.

Rasmussen has shown a close race in recent weeks.  Today's poll shows a marked uptick for Obama, giving him an 8 point lead over Clinton. But, more strikingly is what Rasmussen says about the polling since Tuesday's election:

Two nights of interviews for today's update were completed after the Indiana and North Carolina Primaries. For those two nights on a stand-alone basis, Obama leads Clinton by eleven percentage points.

Rasmussen

Zogby has been ok in some primaries but not in others.

But his numbers are jumping around like crazy the last few days.

The Saturday one-day sample gave Obama a lead:

Obama. . . had a good today at 46% to Clinton's 44%

Amidst all the talk about Obama's remarks, the Allentown, PA paper has endorsed Obama today.  The Allentown Morning Call serves Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.

In talking about Obama's ability to inspire and Clinton's tendency to polarize, the paper says:

Sen. Obama offers that vision to a nation that, like President Lincoln's, is divided. It is not about to set out on a literal civil war, but Republican and Democrat, young and old, conservative and liberal have much to fight about and are at each other's throats with little provocation. Finding common ground is the key, and Sen. Obama is better able to do that than Sen. Clinton. She has become a polarizing figure, an image that stems in part from the bitter partisanship of Washington during President Bill Clinton's administration. It was not for nothing that the journalist James B. Stewart called his book about the politics of those years ''Blood Sport.'' That rancor was not primarily Hillary Clinton's fault, but it is real, it persists, and her campaign so far has not dealt effectively with quelling it.

Besides telling an inaccurate story about what happened when she landed in Tuzla, there are other parts of Clinton's story that are flat wrong.

As Josh Marshall reports:

Sen. Clinton has said on a number of occasions that she was "the first, you know, high- profile American to go into Bosnia after the peace accords were signed because we wanted to show that the United States was 100 percent behind the agreement."  But this also seems to incorrect.

According to some quick research we did, it turns out that Madeleine Albright, then UN Ambassador, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili, then-Sec Def Bill Perry, various members of Congress and President Clinton himself had all visited Tuzla a few months earlier.

I was just reading Ben Smith's at Politico and noticed that someone in the comments has come up with a great action idea -- advertise in your local paper.

Here's the comment:

I just donated and also took out a full page ad in my local newspaper exposing the Bosnian lie. Money talks. Obama supporters need to put their money where their mouths are and start putting ads out. I put ad in our pennysaver too. If the media isn't doing it get the news out whichever way you can

I think this is brilliant!

The YouTube showing Clinton lying on St. Patrick's day about being under fire when she arrived for her Bosnia trip, followed by the news story from the time showing that she did, in fact, have a placid arrival ceremony is well worth circulating.  Bosnia YouTube  And I'm sure it's going viral real fast.

But a lot of people are not going to hear the news that way.  An ad in the local paper can be pretty inexpensive and it can include a link to the video, along with a statement that "There's no reason you should just believe me on this. Check it out yourself."

A few people can split the cost.  What say you?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a diary that showed that Hillary Clinton hyped her role in passing the Family and Medical Leave Act.

As the chronology and evidence laid out in that diary demonstrated, the bill had been passed twice by Congress and vetoed by the first President Bush. Congress decided to pass it once Bill Clinton was sworn in.  Two weeks before Clinton became president, congressional leaders announced their intention to pass it. It was HR1 and S1, the first bills introduced by Congress.  They were passed quickly and Clinton signed the bill into law sixteen days after taking office.