As Barack Obama stepped into his waiting SUV on the tarmac in Williamsport, PA, a reporter standing near-by asked the senator if to react to Senator Clinton’s claims that Obama has been complaining about Wednesday night’s ABC News debate.

“Did you hear me complain?” Obama responded. “You tell me who’s been complaining about the media for the last six months,” he added as he entered the car.

Yesterday in Raleigh, Senator Obama told voters, “Last night I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people. Took us 45 min. 45 minutes before we heard about health care, 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard about jobs, 45 minutes before we heard about gas prices. Now, I don’t blame Washington for this because that’s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversy and they like playing gotcha games, and getting us to attack each other.”

At a town hall meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, Barack Obama brought up last night’s debate to jeers from the pro-Obama crowd. ABC News was criticized by several, including the Washington Post, for a one-sided debate that advantaged Senator Clinton. “I will tell you it does not get much more fun than these debates. They are inspiring events,” he said with a grin and a hint of sarcasm.

“Last night I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people. Took us 45 min. 45 minutes before we heard about health care, 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard about jobs, 45 minutes before we heard about gas prices. Now, I don’t blame Washington for this because that’s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversy and they like playing gotcha games, and getting us to attack each other,” he said.

Just minutes after his campaign ended a conference call on how Senator Clinton has gone too negative over the past couple of weeks, Obama noted, “I have to say, Senator Clinton looked in her element. She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there. Ya know? That’s alright. That’s her right. That’s her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit,” he said while making a twisting gesture with his hand.

He then scolded, “That’s the lesson that she learned when the Republicans were doing that same thing to her back in the 1990s, so I understand it, and when you’re running for the presidency then you’ve gotta expect it and ya know you’ve just gotta kinda let it, ya know..” As he trailed off, he brushed off his shoulders and laughed.

Obama later told the North Carolina crowd that the debate was good practice for the general election. “If the Republicans come at me I will come right back at them. You know – I’ll be honest with you – I’ll be honest with you – it’s a little harder to do with a fellow Democrat because you know I’m trying to you know, show some restraint. You know I won’t have this much restraint with the Republicans.”

Watch Obama’s remarks here:

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The Obama campaign released the Obamas’ 2007 federal tax returns on its website today, showing the couple made nearly $4 million from Barack Obama’s books, “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams From My Father.” This is a big jump in income for the couple, who pulled in close to one million dollars in 2006.

Today on a conference call, Campaign Manager David Plouffe was asked by a reporter if the campaign would release Senator Obama’s tax returns from 1997-99 as the Clinton camp has requested. Plouffe replied by saying his candidate had released taxes from the entire decade, presumably referring to 2000s, but did not say whether or not they would release returns from the previous decade.

“We think on issues of transparency and disclosure, which is important in making sure people have faith in their government again, Senator Obama has released all of his earmarks, something Senator Clinton has not done,” Plouffe said.

Obama’s tax returns at a glance:

Total income: $4,238,165

Adjusted gross income: $4,139,965

Salaried income: $260,735

Net profit from books: $3,943,378

Federal taxes paid: $1,396,772

Total charitable contributions for 2007: $240,370

Mayor Mike Bloomberg joined Senator John McCain today at the senator’s economic speech in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It was not tantamount to a Bloomberg endorsement - just last month, the New York City mayor introduced Democrat Barack Obama at the Illinois senator’s own economic speech in Manhattan.

But it’s clear Bloomberg is a McCain fan. The mayor introduced McCain as one “who is nothing if not forthright, who no matter what your political affiliation or your views are, really deserves to have the term hero attached to his name,” citing the entire McCain family’s military service.

Bloomberg also referred to the presumptive Republican nominee as his “good friend.” He spoke about visiting McCain’s Arizona ranch and eating BBQ ribs “a little on the well done side,” and said the two have gotten together “a number of times” since.

In 2001 when Bloomberg was seeking the top New York City office, Senator McCain was there to help then candidate Bloomberg campaign. “I remember he was showing me how you press the flesh and walk down the streets and say hello to complete strangers. I was a relative novice at that,” Bloomberg recalled. “I got elected because of you, so if the people of New York are happy, they should say thank you to you, I guess,” he added as the non reporters in the room approvingly applauded.

But he was not there on a personal mission. Bloomberg explained that he was speaking out to “advance New York City’s agenda because I want to stimulate kind of a forthright discussion that I certainly believe New Yorkers want to hear.”
He added that it’s “critical” that presidential candidates explain their views, how they would get it passed through Congress, and how they would pay for it. The former Democrat-turned Republican-turned Independent popular New York mayor added, “I think it’s fair to say that it’s unlikely that any voter will agree with everything that you hear today or that you hear from any one candidate, but the measure I think we ought to apply in judging candidates are they candid, do they offer concrete solutions to our most difficult problems? And that’s what we’ll be looking for today.”

Bloomberg has not appeared at any of Hillary Clinton’s campaign events in New York.

Barack Obama hit his 48th state today with campaign stops in Montana (this is a personal count for Obama and does not reflect the number of states where he’s campaigned).

“This is some pretty country,” Obama observed. “I think I need to learn fly fishing. Get some waders, go out there, clear my head. We may have to come back to Missoula. There’s no doubt about it,” he said to about 8,000 people at the University of Montana at Missoula.

Both Democrats are campaigning in “Big Sky Country” today, and both Obama and Senator Clinton will speak at tonight’s Mansfield-Metcalf dinner in Butte. The candidates are fighting for each of the state’s 16 pledged delegates, up for grabs in the state’s primary on June 3rd. Montana, a rural red state with a largely caucasian populace, is the kind of state where Barack Obama has done well in past primaries, where his ability to appeal to Independent voters has played well in similar states.

“I didn’t know if it was going to work – me coming out here – black guy, funny name, you know, big ears,” he said with a smile. “What we knew was if we were going to be able to compete, it would have to be a grassroots movement that people would have to get organized and make it happen, and that’s what’s happened, that’s why we’ve won twice as many states as the other candidate in this race,” he said, referencing Senator Clinton, who has done well in more traditional Democratic states like California and New York and in states where there is a large working class population like Ohio.

Even though both candidates are duking it out for delegates in what has become a long primary for the Democrats, Obama predicted the party will unify prior to the Democratic convention in August.

“Listen, I admire Sen. Clinton – she is a tenacious candidate, she is a terrific senator and so we are gonna be unified by the time we get to Denver in August. We will be unified,” he said. “My difference with Sen Clinton is not on policy for the most part, it’s that I don’t think she understands how profoundly we have to change Washington in order to bring about the changes that need to happen,” he observed. But even Clinton, Obama said, is better than McCain.

“Whatever differences I have with Senator Clinton, they pale in comparison with the differences I have with John McCain,” Obama said to cheers. “He wants to continue this war in Iraq maybe for another 100 years; he wants to perpetuate the same tax breaks for the wealthy that he himself called irresponsible when George Bush first passed them.”

Barack Obama addressed an AFL-CIO conference this morning in Philadelphia, just one day after Senator Clinton spoke at the same forum. Yesterday Senator Clinton was introduced to the theme song from the 1976 movie Rocky (Obama opted for his usual “City of Blinding Lights” by U2) and used the Rocky analogy in her speech.

“Well, could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten half way up those Art Museum steps and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s about far enough?’ Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people,” Clinton told the union members.

Today in response, Senator Obama said to those same union members, “I know there’s been some talk about Rocky Balboa over the last couple days. And you know, we all love Rocky.” The audience laughed. “The last time I checked, I was the underdog in this state,” he continued. Obama has consistently polled behind Senator Clinton here in the Keystone State, sometimes by as much as double digits.

And giving Clinton a reality check, Obama added, “We’ve got to remember that Rocky was a movie.”

It is just a movie, of course, but it should be noted that in the work of fiction, Rocky ends up losing the final bout in a split decision to his rival, Apollo Creed.

Today at a town hall meeting in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Barack Obama told voters they “face a clear choice in this election.” The Pennsylvania primary where Obama face off against Hillary Clinton will be held in 3 weeks, but Obama wasn’t referring to his Democratic competition, he was talking about John McCain.

“He’s on a biography tour right now, so I want to be clear that most of us know his biography and it is worthy of admiration. This is a man who’s a genuine American hero and has served this country with distinction, but my argument with John McCain is not his biography, it’s his policies,” Obama said, not mentioning Clinton.

Obama linked McCain with the current president by saying the presumptive Republican nominee was offering four more years of George Bush policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy and more trade agreements that don’t look after the American people.  He equated McCain’s response to the housing crisis to “little more than standing on the sidelines and watching millions of Americans lose their homes” and accused McCain of employing lobbyists as advisors.

And in what’s become a back and forth between McCain and Obama, the senator from Illinois continued to say his Arizona colleague would sustain war in Iraq for up to 100 years. “Senator McCain has been saying I don’t understand national security, but he’s the one who wants to keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq for as long as a hundred years, even though this war has not made us safer,” he said. “It may make sense to George Bush and John McCain, but it is the wrong thing to do, it is not right for our national security, it’s not right for our economy, and it’s not right for American leadership around the world.”

Of course he didn’t completely ignore Hillary Clinton. During the question and answer period, Obama was asked about how he would unite the Democratic Party after a long and protracted primary season. “I don’t buy this whole thing that people are super divided,” he replied.

“It’s true that Senator Clinton’s folks are passionate and my folks are passionate and some surrogates have said some things that create some bad blood, but look, when we’re at the convention and we as Democrats talk about our vision of the country and who we’re fighting for, if we stay focused not on the personal ambition of the politicians, but we stay focused on the fact that there are people out there who are counting on us to do something about health care, to do something about the home foreclosure crisis, to do something about the war in Iraq, then that will remind us of why we got into this thing in the first place,” he assured the crowd.

When asked about Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) comments in an interview this week that Senator Clinton should drop out of the race, Senator Barack Obama admitted he hadn’t broached the subject with Leahy, who was an early Obama endorser. “My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants. Her name is on the ballot and she is a fierce and formidable competitor and she obviously believes that she would make the best nominee and the best president and I think that, you know, she should be able to compete and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able,” Obama told reporters at a media availability.

Just how long the primary campaign will continue has some Democrats, like Leahy, worried.  The concern is that as Obama and Clinton campaign against each other, the more likely it is the Democratic Party will fracture and Senator McCain will stand to benefit. Obama rejected that notion, saying he though those claims were “overstated.”

“I think the party is going to come together. You can’t tell me that some of my supporters are going to say, ‘well we’d rather have the guy who may want to stay in Iraq for a hundred years because we are mad that Senator Clinton ran a negative ad against Senator Obama.’ I think the converse is true as well,” he explained.

That said, Senator Obama said he hopes the nominee will be selected prior to the Democrat’s August convention. “When we’ve completed all the contests that are remaining, some time in early June, that at that point there are no more contests and I think it is important to pivot as quickly as possible, for the superdelegates or others to make a decision as quickly as possible so that we can settle on a nominee and give that nominee some time before the convention to select a vice president or presidential nominee to start thinking about how the convention should be conducted,” he said.

A brokered convention is something Obama hopes to avoid. “At that point, there won’t be really anything, any further information to be had. We will have had contests in all fifty states plus several terroritories. We will have tallied up the pledge delegate vote. We will have tallied up the popular vote, we will have tallied up how many states that were won by who. And then at that point, I think people should have more than enough information to make a decision.”

As Barack Obama put it today, this primary season is “like a good movie that lasted about a half and hour too long.” When addressing a crowd in Pittsburgh today, Obama joked, “I think there are some people who felt like God, when will this be over?” He later qualified this by adding, “It’s been hard and tough because both Clinton and I understand what is at stake, how important this race is, how important the next presidency will be to the American people and to families right here in Pennsylvania.”

But there are many within the Democratic Party who agree that the longer the race to determine the Democratic nominee goes on, the more it could fracture the Party and, come November, hurt the eventual nominee. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who was an early Obama supporter, today told Vermont Public Radio, “There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination…She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that’s a decision that only she can make. Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate.”

Neither Senator Obama nor his campaign has suggested that Senator Clinton should drop out of the race, but they are quick to point out that the pledged delegate math doesn’t add up to a Clinton nomination. But it will likely not add up for Obama either as neither candidate is likely to amass the needed 2,024 to win the nomination.

Which brings us to the now infamous superdelegates - the former presidents, governors, senators, congressmen, and other political types who may very well end up holding the fate of the Democratic nominee in their hands should both candidates fall short of that magic number. As it stands now, Clinton still leads Obama in the superdelegate count (250 - 216), but Obama has been closing ground quickly since February 5th, picking up 66 to Clinton’s one. And each superdelegate get is crucial.

Today, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) became the latest superdelegate to pledge support for Barack Obama. The junior PA senator heaped praise onto Obama for his intellect and his judgment, and told reporters he hoped the Party picks a nominee by late May or early June. “If you get too far into the summer, I think positions begin to harden and I think that we lose time to not just unite and bring people together, but also we’re giving the Republican nominee more time to make the case against our nominees without having enough rebuttal because they’re going to, their nominee will come at us very hard and I think we hope that we can resolve this,” Casey said.

But, Casey also noted he wasn’t sure who the nominee would be, even if he “hopes” it’s Obama.  “[Senator Clinton's] a great Senator, she’s a great leader. And one thing we all agree on, all of us as Democrats across this commonwealth and across this country – we agree on so much, and one thing we agree on is in 2008, we’re going to elect a Democrat to the presidency of the United States.”

And with that observation, the crowd cheered and Obama nodded in agreement.

Bill Richardson became the second former ‘08 Democratic candidate for president to pick a pony for the Democratic nomination, when he endorsed Barack Obama today. The news hit on the AP wire a little at 3am, Eastern this morning, that Richardson, the former New Mexico governor, would join Senator Obama make his announcement on the campaign trail in Portland, Oregon. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), endorsed Senator Obama last month in Ohio.

Obama explained the timing of the endorsement, which comes after a week’s worth of bad news for his campaign. He told reporters, “Last week, Governor Richardson agreed to endorse me, but we couldn’t get scheduled logistically because he had to go take a vacation with his wife, very wisely. So it took us till today to actually make the public announcement.”

Richardson, who served in President Bill Cinton’s administration, said that up until a week ago, he had been torn by two “very strong, good candidates.” Ultimately he made his decision  because he considers Obama to be “something special that the country needs right now,” citing Obama’s humanity, intellect, and judgment.

His decision was reinforced upon hearing Obama’s speech Tuesday, Richardson said. “He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility,” he said of Obama’s speech.

But with long-standing ties to the Clintons, he described his conversation with Senator Clinton last night to inform her of his decision as uncomfortable. “Let me say I’ve had better conversations,” Richardson said with a laugh. As he told the some 12,000 people in Portland, “The 1990s were a decade of peace and prosperity because of the competent and enlightened leadership of the Clinton administration, but it is now time for a new generation of leadership to lead America forward.”

While Hillary Clinton has remained mum in response to the endorsement, Mark Penn, a Clinton senior advisor told reporters on a conference call, “Perhaps the time he could have been most effective is long since past.”

“You know, that’s unfortunate. I want to get away from that,” Richardson said, standing next to Senator Obama at a media avail, saying this comment implied he could only help rally the Hispanic vote in states like Texas. “I want to go where Senator Obama has, where he’s calling on all of us to come together, not to be stereotyped,” he said.
In a lighter moment during his speech introducing Senator Obama at the Portland rally, Richardson strayed from his prepared remarks to recount a story to demonstrate that Obama is a “really good guy.”

Lamenting that he was never called upon during the numerous Democratic debates, he recalled being surprised when asked a question by the moderator of an undisclosed debate. “Needless to say, I wasn’t listening and I turned to Senator Obama in horror about to say, ‘Would you repeat the question,’ and Senator Obama whispered, he said, ‘Katrina. Katrina.’ And so I then gave my answer on Katrina,” Richardson said with a grin. “He could have thrown me under the bus, he but he stood behind me.”

“Don’t tell anyone about that incident,” he joked.