“Let the conversation begin,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Jan. 20, 2007. It’s probably not going to end today. But her campaign is, at noon in Washington.

For some of her supporters, the conversation is only just beginning, as both of the presumptive nominees pursue their votes. The Times’s Jodi Kantor looks at the lingering feelings of the women who passionately supported Mrs. Clinton in the primary, and finds that many of them still see her as their leader and have lasting frustrations with party leaders who tolerated what they perceive as a pervasive sexism in media discourse around the candidate. The Washington Post’s Monica Hesse examines the tendency of Democrats to examine, and self-examine, the ulterior motives behind their support of one candidate or the other:

It was a campaign of underlying meanings. A campaign where people asked who you were voting for but really wanted to know who you were. The two candidates are politically similar — so a strong preference for one must be because of something else, right?



Over at The Los Angeles Times, Cathleen Decker looks at the potential of a female president in the future. While Mrs. Clinton certainly did some things to pave the way, she finds, Mrs. Clinton’s ambition might have been exceptional, and the “mixed signals” on gender roles (remember “testicular fortitude?”) leave aspiring female candidates with no clear model.

Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, recommended that Senator Barack Obama present an ambitious conversation-starter on sex akin to the one he offered on race.

Senator John McCain’s campaign is taking a more lighthearted approach to chatting up these women, at least in a new blog it debuted last night, The McCain Report.

The latest entry says, “Attention disaffected Hillary supporters, John McCain is a huge ABBA fan. Seriously.” Embedded is a YouTube video with the famous refrain:

If you change your mind, I’m the first in line

Honey I’m still free

Take a chance on me

Real subtle, guys.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama did have a conversation of their own on Thursday night. The Times’s Jeff Zeleny has more details, along with a preview of the media deception to come as the candidates try to get below-the-radar face time with prospective running mates.

Much of the campaign conversation is also likely to revolve around the economy amid news about leaps in oil prices and unemployment and drops in the Dow, predict Jonathan Weisman and Robert Barnes in The Washington Post.

Mr. Obama faced criticism in the Middle East when he said on Wednesday, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” But then he attracted criticism from pro-Israel groups when he sought to clarify the remarks, which some saw as backtracking. In any case, Republicans have used the issue to bring out the dreaded double-F word: “flip-flop.”

The campaigns also had dueling conference conversations with reporters about the Everglades on Friday. As Mr. McCain toured the Everglades in Florida, the Obama campaign attacked him for a vote against a spending measure to protect the swampland. Their debate was weedy.

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have championed campaign finance issues. But The Times’s Leslie Wayne looks at a what some are calling the last loophole in campaign finance: convention donations.

Elected Democratic officials have been calling on corporations — meeting with Wall Street executives and flying to San Diego, Philadelphia and Las Vegas — to raise the $40 million the party has budgeted for the convention, in August. In return, these Democratic officials are promising corporate donors “sponsor benefits packages” that include private sessions with federal officeholders and other influential party leaders. This search for cash comes as national party committees, like the D.N.C., are barred from soliciting or spending soft money, the unrestricted donations to political parties. But there is one major exception to these limits: the unlimited contributions from corporations and unions for the party’s convention. Even more, donations for the conventions, unlike other campaign contributions, are fully tax-deductible to corporations as a business expense.

(We’ve excerpted from the part that talks about Democratic efforts, but as Ms. Wayne’s article makes clear, this is happening with both parties’ conventions.)

The Post has what we have to admit is a pretty cool, somewhat whimsical interactive timeline of the campaign. As far as the future goes, Mr. Obama is looking forward to the 2016 Chicago Games.