North Korea Leader Kim May Be Ill as U.S. Pushes Nuclear Effort

By Jeff Bliss and Heejin Koo

Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is sick and may have suffered a stroke in the past month, a U.S. intelligence official said. The possible sidelining of Kim comes as the U.S. is pushing to end North Korean nuclear-arms work.

The official, who declined to be publicly identified, said it was noteworthy that Kim didn't attend the 60th anniversary celebration of North Korea's founding yesterday.

The communist dictatorship had taken a major step toward easing its international isolation by agreeing to abandon the nuclear program in exchange for broader ties with the U.S. and aid for its struggling economy. Implementing the deal has stalled in the past month.

Kim's health may not be behind the threat to start up the Yongbyon reactor, a major facility that is supposed to be shuttered under the accord, according to Gary Samore, a former nonproliferation adviser to President Bill Clinton. Rather, that reversal may be driven by the North Koreans' sense that the U.S. is raising the bar on requirements for verifying the status of the country's nuclear program, he said.

``They believe they have a legitimate complaint,'' Samore, now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said in an interview. If Kim is incapacitated or dies, North Korea's nuclear policies are unlikely to change, he added.

Scientists at the Yongbyon plant, which produced weapons- grade plutonium, are moving equipment out of storage and are ``taking some of the steps that would allow them to restart'' the reactor, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington this week.

Hill in Beijing

The top U.S. negotiator on the North Korea issue, Christopher Hill, conferred last week in Beijing with other governments on the stalled disarmament effort. China hosts a diplomatic forum with Kim's government that includes the U.S., Japan, Russia and South Korea.

U.S. intelligence had other reasons to believe Kim is ill besides the no-show at the anniversary parade, the official said. He declined to describe those conclusions. The Associated Press reported early yesterday about the intelligence assessment of a possible stroke.

The South Korean government said Kim's absence at the celebration was unusual. ``We think that it is highly irregular, since he made an appearance during the 50th and 55th anniversary'' events, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho Nyoun said in an interview.

Succession Scenarios

Kim hasn't publicly signaled a choice of a successor. He has three sons and a brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek, who may be among candidates to ascend to power. Some analysts have suggested that military officers might take over, with the Kim family either out of the picture or providing a figurehead ruler.

If Kim is seriously ill, ``it could be a major turning point for North Korea because he doesn't have a clear successor,'' said David Kang, a government professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and co-author of ``Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies.''

``I would imagine whoever takes control of the military will be able to control North Korea,'' Kang added.

A person who answered the telephone at the North Korean mission to the United Nations denied that Kim might have suffered a stroke. ``That is not true,'' the person said before hanging up without identifying himself. A subsequent call to the mission wasn't answered.

Kim is 67, according to a birth date accepted by sources including GlobalSecurity.org, a military-research group, and the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute. The North Korean government says Kim is 66 and was born in 1942, a date that some scholars say was chosen for propaganda purposes to celebrate his 40th birthday in 1982, the year his father turned 70.

Hairdo, Cognac

Known for his bouffant hairdo and zip-front olive-green jackets, Kim has led the impoverished country of 23 million people since his father, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994. South Korea's intelligence agency says he favors imported cognac, horse riding and driving fast cars. The little that is known of Kim outside of North Korea tends to come through the filter of the state-run media.

North Koreans are suffering through their worst food shortage in a decade, exacerbated by China's controls on grain exports, the UN said last week. China took the measure to curb surging food prices in its domestic market.

McCormack declined to comment yesterday on Kim's health or the potential ramifications of any illness. ``Obviously this is a very opaque regime,'' McCormack told reporters in Washington. ``We don't necessarily have a good picture into the decision- making processes of the North Korean regime.''

Soviet Support

North Korea emerged as a Soviet-backed state after World War II, when talks between the Soviet Union and the U.S., later involving the UN, failed to reach agreement on unifying the southern and northern parts of the Korean peninsula. In June 1950, North Korean troops crossed into the South, and U.S. forces came to the South's defense under a UN mandate.

A 1953 truce stopped the fighting, while retaining the political division, and no formal peace treaty has been negotiated.

North Korea and the U.S. enjoyed a brief period of warming relations in 2000, after Kim Jong Il held his historic summit with then South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in June.

In October that year, Kim sent Vice Marshall Jo Myong Rok to Washington, who carried with him a letter inviting President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang. That led to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit the same month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net; Heejin Koo in Seoul at hjkoo@bloomberg.net

At this U.S. Open, Mickelson 'just didn't perform'

By Jerry Potter, USA TODAY
SAN DIEGO — Phil Mickelson turns 38 on Monday, but he plans no big celebration at home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

"I'll take it easy," he said Sunday. "I need a day off."

Mickelson finished at 6-over-par 290, a disappointing tie for 18th in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, a course he played for the first time about 30 years ago. He shot 68 in the final round but had fallen out of contention with 75 on Friday and 76 on Saturday.

This was supposed to be Mickelson's best chance to win an Open, one of two majors the world's No. 2 player has never won. (The other is the British Open.)

"I felt great before the tournament began," Mickelson said. "I just didn't perform."
Always the thinker, Mickelson decided it best to take the driver out of the bag and play his 3-wood off the tee, giving him a better chance to hit fairways. He tried it for two days, but the strategy didn't pay off. He hit only six of 14 fairways each day. He added the driver for the last two rounds, but he hit six fairways Saturday and seven Sunday, finishing at 44.64%, a tie for 79th in driving accuracy.

"I just didn't execute," Mickelson said. "There are some courses that we'll play later when I may use the 3-wood instead of the driver."

He made the choice because he hits the ball about 275 yards with a 3-wood and more than 300 with a driver. The shorter club should have helped him hold it in the fairway.

"I've lost Opens where I didn't hit it in the fairway and I was hitting drivers," he said. "I thought I'd try another club. It didn't work out."

Torrey Pines was redesigned by Rees Jones to force players to hit drivers off the tees as much as possible. Jones rebuilt the greens with plateaus and other obstructions so the hole locations would be difficult to access. The best way to reach them is with short irons into the greens, and the best way to have short irons into the greens is to hit drivers off the tees.

Mickelson might have gotten into the hunt had he not taken a 9 on the par-5 13th on Saturday. Three times he spun the ball back off the green with a wedge.

"I had 82 yards to the pin," he said. "I'm 5 over par. I'm trying to make a birdie and get myself back in contention. I don't regret going for the pin. I just came up short."

With Mickelson, there always questions.

How long will it be before he wins a major championship? He answered that at the 2004 Masters, almost 12 years after turning pro.

How long will it take him to win a second? He answered that in 2005 at the PGA Championship.

Now, how long will it take him to win a U.S. Open? At least another year, when the Open returns to Bethpage Black on Long Island, site of one of his four runner-up finishes.

U.S./EU: Bush, European Leaders Show Unity On Iran, Global Problems

The United States and the European Union, at a summit meeting in Slovenia, have said they were ready to contemplate extra measures against Iran if Tehran continues to refuse to stop enriching uranium.

Both U.S. President George W. Bush and his hosts, Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Jansa and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, spoke at length about the importance of maintaining a strong trans-Atlantic alliance.

Jansa, making a pitch for multilateralism, said no one country could solve the world's problems.

"The world is now complex," Jansa said. "Nobody, alone, can solve all problems. World peace, security, and promotion of democracy, climate change, and the fight against poverty are global challenges today."

Bush concurred and he paid tribute to Jansa and Slovenia's journey over the past 20 years. He said that despite some disagreements Europe and the United States share strong ties based on fundamental, common values.

"The thing that unites us, and this is important for all of us to realize, is that we share common values and people say, 'Oh, that's just corny, that doesn't mean anything.' It means a lot if you believe in human rights and human dignity and rule of law and freedom to speak and freedom to worship. That's a lot," Bush said. "That's a foundation for a very firm and lasting relationship."

The two sides issued a joint statement on Iran. The United States and the EU warned they could deploy extra measures against Iran on top of existing UN sanctions if Tehran does not suspend its uranium enrichment.

Those measures were not detailed. But the U.S. president, once again, explained why both Europe and the United States want to see Tehran abandon its enrichment program.

"We've always made it clear to the Iranians that there is a better way forward, that if they want to have a relationship with the EU-3, the United States, and other countries, all they have to do is verifiably suspend their enrichment program," Bush said. "The reason why that is important is if they learn to enrich, it means they've learned a key part of developing a nuclear weapon. And if they end up with a nuclear weapon, the free world is going to say, 'Why didn't we do something about it at the time, before they developed it.' And so now is the time for there to be strong diplomacy."

Tehran insists the program is strictly for civilian purposes -- generating electricity -- and has so far resisted such appeals.

But Bush recalled recent statements by the Iranian leadership calling for Israel's destruction, saying it highlighted the potential threat posed by Tehran -- especially if it acquires nuclear weapons.

"If you were living in Israel, you'd be a little nervous, too, if a leader in your neighborhood announced that he'd like to destroy you," he said. "One sure way of achieving that means [of destruction] is through the development of a nuclear weapon. Therefore, now is the time for all of us to work together to stop them."

On other issues, the EU and the United States spoke with one voice today. Bush predicted a new international deal to combat climate change could be passed this year.

Barroso said the two sides were also working together to overcome the current global economic turbulence.

Bush now travels to Germany, for dinner and talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

With Fall Vote in View, Obama Assails McCain on Economy

RALEIGH, N.C. — Senator Barack Obama, with the Democratic stage to himself for the first time, began a two-week assault on Senator John McCain’s economic policies in a series of battleground states on Monday, moving to define the general election campaign by focusing on the economy as the central theme.

In a speech at the North Carolina state fairgrounds here, Mr. Obama assailed Mr. McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, for what he characterized as a dangerous ignorance of economic matters. His remarks signaled how he plans to pound away at his core argument: that electing Mr. McCain would mean four more years of what he termed the failed economic programs of the Bush administration.

Mr. Obama used the address to reach out to lower-income and lesser-educated Americans who rejected him in the Democratic primaries in favor of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who formally conceded the race on Saturday and pledged her support for Mr. Obama.

The speech came at the start of a tour that suggested where the Obama campaign saw the key battlegrounds in November: Monday’s speech was in North Carolina, which has long voted for Republican presidential candidates but which has a large black population, and he will be traveling to Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida to press the economic theme.

In his remarks on Monday. Mr. Obama spoke of hard-pressed workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana struggling to pay their bills and afford gasoline for their cars. He laid the blame squarely at the feet of President Bush and his Republican enablers, including Senator McCain.

“We did not arrive at the doorstep of our current economic crisis by some accident of history,” Mr. Obama said to an invitation-only audience here. “This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle that was beyond our power to avoid. It was the logical conclusion of a tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long.”

He added a moment later: “We were promised a fiscal conservative. Instead, we got the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history. And now John McCain wants to give us another. Well, we’ve been there once. Were not going back.”

The pieces of the economic program that Mr. Obama laid out on Monday are not new, but the context assuredly is. This is the first full week of the general election campaign and Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain are beginning what promises to be an aggressive fight over the economy and the Iraq war.

Mr. Obama, by announcing a two-week tour to stress economic issues, chose the ground for the first battles in this general election contest, shoving Iraq and national security matters, where Mr. McCain has far more experience, to the background for now.

Mr. McCain, who is attending fund-raising events in Washington and Virginia on Monday, issued a statement belittling the Obama speech.

“While hardworking families are hurting and employers are vulnerable, Barack Obama has promised higher income taxes, Social Security taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes and tax hikes on job-creating businesses,” a McCain spokesman, Tucker Bounds, said in a statement issued before Mr. Obama’s remarks. “Barack Obama doesn’t understand the American economy and that’s change we just can’t afford.”

Mr. Obama spoke to an audience of 900 invited guests, including a number of Democratic governors in town for a conference on education. He was introduced by Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina, who had previously endorsed and enthusiastically supported Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama decisively won North Carolina’s Democratic primary last month.

Before Mr. Obama delivered his remarks, Pamela Cash-Roper, an unemployed nurse, spoke of her family’s economic pain caused by a series of medical crises. Mrs. Cash-Roper, who described herself as a lifelong Republican, said she turned to government for help, “but help was nowhere to be seen.” She said she was supporting Mr. Obama because he had been working for “hard-working Americans like us for more than two decades.”

In his remarks, Mr. Obama proposed a series of short-term measures to relieve the hardships of American families and rescue the economy from the brink of recession.

He advocated an additional $50 billion in immediate fiscal stimulus, expansion of unemployment benefits and relief for homeowners facing foreclosure. He proposed new rules to prevent mortgage and credit card fraud and urged tax reductions for middle-income families and retirees.

Advisers to Mr. Obama said all of the new programs would be paid for by a combination of tax increases, elimination of waste and savings from the drawdown of American troops in Iraq. He has said in the past that he would allow the tax cuts enacted by the Bush administration to expire and impose higher taxes on some investment income.

Mr. Obama posed the difference between him and Mr. McCain as a fundamental choice between the future and the past, the ground on which he hopes to fight the general election campaign.

“That is the choice we face right now — a choice between more of the same policies that have widened inequality, added to our debt, and shaken the foundation of our economy — or change that will restore balance to our economy; that will invest in the ingenuity and innovation of our people; that will fuel a bottom-up prosperity to keep America strong and competitive in the 21st century,” he said near the end of his 40-minute address.

“It is not an argument between left or right, liberal or conservative, to say that we have tried it their way for eight long years and it has failed,” he added. “It is time to try something new. It is time for a change.”

Mr. Obama delivered the now-requisite praise for Mr. McCain’s years of service in the military and in government. But the generosity quickly gave way to a harsh attack on Mr. McCain’s economic theories and credentials.

On economic matters, Mr. Obama said: “John McCain and I have a fundamentally different vision of where to take the country. Because for all his talk of independence, the centerpiece of his economic plan amounts to a full-throated endorsement of George Bush’s policies. He says we’ve made great progress in our economy these past eight years. He calls himself a fiscal conservative and on the campaign trail he’s a passionate critic of government spending, and yet he has no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for big corporations and a permanent occupation of Iraq policies that have left our children with a mountain of debt.”

Clinton's Road to Second Place

By JACKIE CALMES
June 4, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, once positioned to be Democrats'"inevitable nominee," won't be. On Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama won enough delegates to claim the party's presidential nomination.

Inside the Clinton campaign and out, the finger-pointing has begun. The bottom line is this: She called the biggest plays, and she got them wrong.

Conversations over months with dozens of Clinton staffers, advisers and supporters suggest that over her 17-month campaign, the second-term New York senator and former first lady was smart, substantive and tireless. The surprise was how good a campaigner she grew to be.

Still, these people say, Sen. Clinton is responsible for what one confidant called "grievous mistakes." Those help explain why Sen. Clinton -- the best brand name in Democratic politics, and an early favorite to be the first female nominee in U.S. history -- lost to a relative newcomer who would be the first African-American major-party nominee.

A campaign spokesman said the Clintons were unavailable for interviews.

The mistakes boil down to mismanagement, message, mobilization failures and the marital factor.

Mismanagement

Insiders say control over the campaign resided with a small clique of loyalists close to Sen. Clinton but at odds with each other. Ultimately, however, she relied on an inner circle of two -- her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their longtime pollster, Mark Penn -- whose instincts often clashed with those of the campaign veterans around them.

As Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign took shape amid her easy Senate re-election race in 2006, she wanted Mr. Penn to serve as both chief strategist and sole pollster. Virtually no one else in the campaign did. Since his work on Mr. Clinton's 1996 re-election, current and former associates have criticized Mr. Penn as too data-driven, more comfortable with centrist general-election campaigns than Democratic primaries, socially awkward and not a strategic thinker.

For campaign manager, Sen. Clinton chose the more popular Patti Solis Doyle. No one doubted that Ms. Solis Doyle, hired 17 years ago as the future first lady's scheduler, spoke for the senator. Yet even friends say she had little to prepare her to lead what would become a $200 million presidential campaign with nearly 1,000 employees.

The clear front-runner for all of 2007, Sen. Clinton was shaken by her third-place finish in the first contest, Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses. Big donors demanded a management shake-up. The morning of the New Hampshire primary Jan. 8, she told Ms. Solis Doyle she wanted another manager.

Other staffers protested. The senator hesitated. Her headquarters was rattled for a crucial month up to the 20-plus Super Tuesday contests in early February. When she ousted Ms. Solis Doyle in mid-February, it was done so coldly and publicly that hardened colleagues say they were stunned. Ms. Solis Doyle -- who still has a Hillary Clinton sign in the yard of her Washington home -- and Sen. Clinton haven't spoken since, an associate said.

"I take my fair share of the responsibility for the mistakes that were made," Ms. Solis Doyle says now. But she said she got the campaign up to speed quickly, kept the trains running and the egos in check, and for a year fostered a fun yet disciplined atmosphere.

Colleagues told Sen. Clinton that Mr. Penn should have been fired instead. Insiders resented that the pollster-strategist remained CEO of public-relations giant Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, given the potential conflicts. Their fears were realized in April, when The Wall Street Journal reported he was helping a client, Colombia, win Congress's approval of a trade pact that Sen. Clinton opposed. Mr. Penn was replaced as head strategist by Geoff Garin, though he remains in frequent touch with both Clintons.

Critics' bigger complaint was that from the campaign's start Mr. Penn had been its only pollster. Other campaigns typically use many pollsters to provide alternative views; Sen. Obama has had up to four. Ms. Solis Doyle says that throughout 2006 and 2007, she urged Sen. Clinton to add more. Sen. Clinton told advisers Mr. Penn is "brilliant," and multiple pollsters would slow consensus on strategy.

But top aides chafed that Mr. Penn used his control of "the numbers" to win most disagreements. "He could go straight to the [former] president of the United States, who in turn got to Hillary," says a senior strategist. "After a while, people just shrugged their shoulders and said, 'Hey, look, this is how she wants her campaign run.'"

Mr. Penn defends his polling analyses, and counters that others were responsible for budgets and field operations. "The misleading thing here is, the title of chief strategist connotes that I was in charge of things," he said. "It was a much more complex structure than any title connotes." As for the core staff's divisions, he evoked Abraham Lincoln's contentious but largely successful cabinet. "I think she had in mind a 'team of rivals' idea, and it almost worked."

'Flawed' Message

Sen. Clinton's management choices, it is widely agreed, gave rise to fatal strategic blunders. The main one, in the eyes of many associates, was her message: She emphasized her Washington experience when voters wanted change.

Before her January 2007 debut as a candidate, the senator's team wrangled over how to portray her. Ms. Solis Doyle, communications director Howard Wolfson, media strategist Mandy Grunwald, policy chief Neera Tanden and senior strategist Harold Ickes wanted to promote her as a candidate of change -- the first woman president -- her Washington years notwithstanding. They also wanted to counter the candidate's high negative ratings among the general population by revealing the witty, engaging woman they knew.

Mr. Penn, by contrast, believed that voters would need to perceive Sen. Clinton as tough and seasoned enough to be the first female commander in chief. Emphasizing her gender too much, he argued, would undercut that. He also said Sen. Clinton would look weak if she apologized for her 2002 war vote, though it was especially unpopular in Iowa.

When one insider pleaded during meetings in 2007 to humanize the candidate, witnesses say Mr. Penn responded: "Being human is overrated." His polls, he said, showed "soft stuff" -- talking about Sen. Clinton's mother, for example -- had no effect. Her early attacks on Sen. Obama, on the other hand, had moved numbers in her favor. "People don't care if you have a beer with the guys after work, or whether you're warm and fuzzy about your mother," Mr. Penn argued -- they care about issues like health care.

Sen. Clinton, issue-oriented and intensely private, backed Mr. Penn.

Some supporters in Congress and big donors still begged Ms. Solis Doyle to show the senator's softer side -- get her onto more women's TV programs and late-night shows. But when Ms. Grunwald, the media adviser, last year suggested having Chelsea Clinton in an ad, the senator glared at her. When advisers arranged to have her open "Saturday Night Live" last fall, she vetoed them: "That's too risky for me," they recall her saying.

She relented only on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, as polls showed her trailing badly. State supporters, including former Gov. Tom Vilsack, flatly told her Iowa Democrats know she's qualified, they just didn't like her. In December, she suddenly appeared on stage in Iowa with her daughter and mother. She held "The Hillary I Know" events featuring old friends. But for Iowa, it was too late.

Campaigning next in New Hampshire, she visited voters' homes more and took dozens of questions. The most memorable moment was unplanned, advisers insist. On the eve of the state's Jan. 8 primary, as her brain trust huddled in a hotel basement anticipating defeat, advisers got emails from reporters that Sen. Clinton had just cried at a women's round table. They cursed, fearing a campaign-ending backlash.

Instead, she won New Hampshire, and exalted at her comeback-victory rally that she found her "voice." Later, she agreed to appear on "Saturday Night Live." But supporters say she deployed her softer side inconsistently.

Emphasizing experience over likability and change may have been her "fatal flaw," Ms. Solis Doyle has told others.

Mr. Penn succeeded on one level, as Sen. Clinton scored high in polls for leadership and drew a majority of votes from men. But her marks in polls for delivering change, and for likability, fell over time.

Failure to Mobilize

The campaign's most inarguable mistake was its failure to organize voters in states with caucuses rather than primaries. That left Sen. Obama to build what proved an insurmountable lead in convention delegates.

Many supporters blamed Ms. Solis Doyle and her deputies. But the failures started at the top with the Clintons' bias against caucuses and an ignorance of key party rules. Early on, the campaign figured she would lock up the nomination with Feb. 5's Super Tuesday primaries. Caucus states wouldn't matter.

The Clintons were unfamiliar with caucuses: Mr. Clinton had left Iowa to native son Sen. Tom Harkin in the 1992 Democratic race and was unopposed there for his 1996 re-election. They considered them less democratic than primaries, where turnout is greater and voters quickly cast secret ballots. Caucuses, by contrast, are long meetings -- discouraging those with work, child-care or health conflicts -- where votes are made in the open. Plus, in Iowa especially, Democratic caucuses were dominated by grass-roots activists, many of them antiwar liberals who resented Sen. Clinton's Iraq vote.

Advisers point to a missed opportunity. Veteran Iowa organizer Steve Hildebrand had sought a job with Sen. Clinton in mid-2006. In a 45-minute interview, the senator talked about congressional elections but never mentioned the coming presidential race, Mr. Hildebrand says. Months later, he signed on as Sen. Obama's deputy campaign manager and oversaw his Iowa push.

By last summer, when the Clinton campaign began organizing in Iowa, the volunteer-strong Obama network had already mobilized supporters statewide. Advisers say the Iowa loss hardened both Clintons against caucuses. With money getting tight and polls in caucus states discouraging, Sen. Clinton scaled back spending and appearances in places such as Idaho and Nebraska, effectively forfeiting them.

Mr. Ickes, a rules expert, had long argued against the strategy. Last June at a meeting at the Penn home, Mr. Penn suggested Sen. Clinton would get all 370 state delegates when she won California's primary, attendees say. Mr. Ickes, they say, mocked him: "The vaunted chief strategist" doesn't know that party rules aren't winner-take-all?

Mr. Penn calls the account "totally false."

Then and later, others say, Mr. Ickes would lecture that the rules give each candidate delegates in proportion to their share of the vote. He argued that Sen. Clinton should compete even in caucuses she'd lose to limit Sen. Obama's delegate gains. "Even if you lose, you win," these people recall Mr. Ickes saying. But he failed to press the matter, they say.

Clinton 'Craziness'

Finally, the campaign failed to acknowledge the "Clinton fatigue" felt by many Democrats. Mr. Clinton's controversies on the stump only fanned it.

Early on, even some of Sen. Clinton's biggest admirers feared that another Clinton presidency would be undercut by distracting dramas of her marriage and her husband's activities. Several confidants separately referred to the "meshugas" -- Yiddish for craziness. But early polls and interviews showed most Democratic voters saw Mr. Clinton as his wife's best asset.

Through 2007, she mostly campaigned alone to build credibility. He kept largely to his foundation's global philanthropic work. Insiders say Mr. Clinton seized a more central role after Democrats' Oct. 30 debate in Philadelphia.

Sen. Clinton, usually the debate standout, bobbled a question on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants and endured days of criticism. When Democrats debated two weeks later, Sen. Obama fumbled the same issue. Little was made of it.

"That's when Bill Clinton just lost it," says an adviser. Associates say he called to vent: "They torture her on this drivers license issue for weeks, and then the media gives this guy a free ride?" After Thanksgiving, the Clintons brought aides to their Washington home, and he told them: "If the media is not going to take this guy on, then we have to."

Mr. Penn backed him, arguing that the campaign should have taken on Mr. Obama early in 2007. Mr. Penn lost then largely because Sen. Clinton's Iowa team protested that negativism would backfire there.

When Sen. Clinton lost Iowa anyway, Mr. Clinton came to headquarters bearing bagels and a plan to effectively take over, with his wife's blessing. Yet he ended up mostly on the road, and took credit for her comeback in New Hampshire. Energized, he decamped to South Carolina to court the black vote. When advisers objected that Sen. Clinton should leave its Jan. 26 primary to the now-surging Sen. Obama, he cried, according to one, "That's nuts!"

Once known for his sunny optimism, Mr. Clinton became a finger-wagging scourge against media bias and Sen. Obama. The man once dubbed "the first black president" railed against accusations that he was using race against the candidate trying to be the real thing.

Obama, Awaiting a New Title, Carefully Hones His Partisan Image

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — In his telling, his opponent is wrong on the Iraq war and wrong on the ailing economy, a would-be George W. Bush running for what amounts to a third term.

“This is a guy who said I have no knowledge of foreign affairs,” Senator Barack Obama says, his voice hitting a high C on the incredulity scale, before he adds: “Well, John McCain was arguing for a war that had nothing to do with 9/11. He was wrong, and he was wrong on the most important subject that confronted our nation.”

The crowd rises, clapping and cheering at this pleasing whiff of partisan buckshot.

As Mr. Obama stands poised to claim the crown of presumptive Democratic nominee, he is, gingerly, fitting himself with the cloth of a partisan Democrat despite having long proclaimed himself above such politics. That his shift in tone was inevitable and necessary, particularly as Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, slashes at Mr. Obama as weak on Iran and terrorism, does not entirely diminish the cognitive dissonance.

For 17 months, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has changed remarkably little about his stump style. He projects the image of a post-partisan candidate with the confidence of a man convinced he holds a copyright.

“He is an intensely serious guy whose identity and behavior and tone is pretty rigid, and that’s fine,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant who once worked for former President Bill Clinton and is now unaffiliated with either Democratic candidate. “The first rule of politics is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

This might account for the careful manner in which Mr. Obama frames his attacks on Mr. McCain.

Mr. Obama sets up his political jabs with a to-be-sure-my-opponent-is-not-a-knave disclaimer. He reminds his audiences that Mr. McCain, of Arizona, is a war hero, and he honors his service. (That Mr. Obama’s tone sometimes suggests that Mr. McCain, 71, might have been a Civil War veteran is surely coincidental.)

When a question is raised about Mr. McCain’s recent, incorrect assertion that the number of American troops in Iraq is at “pre-surge levels,” Mr. Obama waves his hand magnanimously. Everyone, he tells listeners, makes a slip of the tongue.

At this point Mr. Obama slips the rhetorical shiv into his rival.

“The problem is that John McCain can’t admit he made a slip, and we’ve seen this movie before,” Mr. Obama told an audience in Great Falls, Mont. “Just like George Bush, John McCain refuses to admit a mistake.”

Mr. Obama’s advisers argue, gamely if implausibly, that he has not dipped his cup into a partisan well. “I don’t look at it as partisanship,” said Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama’s communications director. “I look at it as a difference of philosophy.”

Mr. Obama remains a stirring speaker, and he has three or four stories that he tells consistently and well. But for all his oratory — and he can move audiences to tears and shouted professions of love — Mr. Obama is no emotional bleeding heart.

Some months back in Ohio, he sat at a round table of six late-middle-aged women who were struggling with the indignities of poor heath and ailing finances. Afterward, Mr. Obama confided that one woman, with her humor and hopeful manner, reminded him of his mother, who died of cancer at age 53. As she spoke, he said he despaired that he could not help her immediately.

But while his manner was attentive at that round table, Mr. Obama gave little hint of his fierce emotional undercurrents. His rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, tends to excel in this province of the private. He does not.

“He is a public speaker; Hillary is a private speaker,” said Mr. Sheinkopf. “Do not expect great moments of emotional connection; expect great moments of emotional direction.”

Mr. Gibbs, the communications director, agreed, to a point. “There is a performance art aspect to this that I don’t think came naturally to him at first,” he said.

But Mr. Obama is an agile student of politics. At a town-hall-style meeting last week in Rapid City, S.D., he wandered into the crowd to talk with a middle school student who had inquired about Mr. Obama’s views on immigration.

“You seem like a pretty sharp guy,” Mr. Obama told him.

“Thank you,” the boy replied.

“You want to go into politics?”

The boy shook his head. “I want to do film.”

Mr. Obama broke into a broad smile. “Film? Excuuuse me!”

Soon they were bantering about the comparative merits of “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.”

In style of dress, Mr. Obama ends as he started: a studiously formal fellow. When he bowled in Pennsylvania, he did so in a white shirt and tie. (This added to the derision over his low bowling score.) When he visited Mount Rushmore last Saturday evening, no reporter was much surprised to see him strolling through the inky darkness in his suit jacket with his tie knotted just so.

There is, however, good reason for a candidate to be a careful custodian of his image. As Mr. Obama, 46, is a young man by the standards of presidential politics, the formal lends gravitas.

And the list of presidential candidates who have tried midcampaign image makeovers is a long and unfortunate one, filled with formal politicians who try flannel shirts and wonkish governors who push Army helmets down over their hair.

The more successful candidates, from Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt through Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, tend to comfortably inhabit a single, consistent personality.

When it comes to Mr. Obama, a certain comic aspect attends to these fashion deconstructions. He is like a minimalist musician hitting a new note; the slightest change in his look excites speculation. Are you sure he undid his tie?! What depths of emotion must roil beneath that cotton dress shirt!

Mr. Gibbs recalled a fashion columnist who analyzed Mr. Obama’s penchant for not unbuttoning his second button when he rolled up his sleeves.

It was this familiar Mr. Obama who could be found on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Mitchell, S.D., standing on a riser by the Corn Palace, which with soaring onion domes and corn-stalk walls suggested a hallucinatory Kremlin rendered in maize. He had those shirt sleeves rolled up, and told a few well-received old chestnuts.

All standard operating procedure, and as the applause washed over, Mr. Obama mentioned a fellow senator who was a war hero. Except, well, it turned out this hero supported suspending the federal gasoline tax for three months, and that is just pandering.

“That’s a gimmick, O.K.?” Mr. Obama said. “It’s to get a politician through the next election.” And so it goes as Mr. Obama gallops off into the general election.

China seeks earthquake aid from Japan

(CNN) -- China is turning to its former enemy Japan for help as it seeks to boost its relief operations after the deadly earthquake that has devastated the southwestern Sichuan province.

China has begun talks with Tokyo about what would be the first significant military dispatch involving the two countries since World War II, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

"Given the magnitude of this disaster, if some countries or militaries are ready to provide us with material in urgent need, we will express our welcome," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, AP reported.

The Kyodo news agency said Japan plans to dispatch Self-Defense Forces aircraft to transport tents and other relief supplies to main airports, but the troops will not be allowed to go into the affected areas.

The Beijing regime has welcomed aid from the international community as it seeks to help the 158,000 people evacuated from nearly 170 areas.

The official death toll from the quake climbed to 68,516 on Thursday; another 365,399 people were injured and 19,350 missing. About 5 million are thought to be homeless, the government says.

However, its relations with Japan have been cold since the invasion by its neighbor in the 1930s, which caused a residual resentment among the Chinese population, especially as chemical weapons were abandoned there by Japanese troops, AP said.

China has criticized Japan for atoning for its war-time activities, but relations have thawed in the past two years, and leaders from each nation have since made symbolic visits to meet their peers.

One of China's main concerns after the May 12 earthquake is to deal with the effects of its aftershocks, with landslides having created dangerous "quake lakes." Video Watch footage of the landslides »

Thousands of people evacuated after the initial 7.9-magnitude quake face the prospect of having to be moved on again due to fears of massive flooding if the the lakes burst, CNN's Kyung Lah reported Thursday.

"They have had to move not once but twice, and this could just be the tip of the iceberg, the government says. Up to 1.3 million people could be affected by the quake lakes," Lah said. Video Watch report from tent city in Mianyang »

Efforts to drain the quake-created lake in Beichuan county were hampered by pouring rain Thursday, AP reported.

However, workers continued to dig a long spillway to relieve the water pressure building as the Jianjiang River fills in behind the massive pile of rock and soil.

"The government says if they are able to alleviate the pressure, then they will be able to save these towns from flooding over," Lah said.

"These residents are waiting without electricity, and they are exhausted. They say they are hoping for some good news." Video Watch how rain has caused further problems. »

The lake is holding 130 million cubic meters (170 million cubic yards) of water -- equal to about 50,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to Liu Ning, chief engineer of the Ministry of Water Resources.

Creating a spillway to relieve the pressure is expected to take 10 days, state media reported, allowing enough time if the lake continues to rise at its average of about 2 meters (6 feet) per day.
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Meanwhile, soldiers doing relief work in the already-devastated town of Beichuan were injured when a stockpile of chemicals being used to disinfect the rubble ignited in a storage building, AP reported.

A fire crew official said 61 soldiers were taken to a hospital in the town, which had been evacuated due to the quake, the agency said.