The Money Primary

"Team Hillary might be banging their heads against the wall, asking what they need to do to get some impressive press coverage; they smash the all-time fundraising record and yet they're still poked for 'not meeting expectations.' On the other hand, when $10 million comes from the Senate run, the $26 million looks milder, and we're looking at what has to be the biggest and most impressive fundraising machine in either party in American history. And the Democratic field seems, so far, much more unified around their big three than on the GOP side."

"Yes, her first quarter is big," says Andrew Sullivan. "But she's the obvious front-runner, her husband is the last Democratic president and he's fundraising for her as if he's trying to settle another sexual harassment suit."

Lots of chatter about former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd breaking with the president. At Daily Kos, McJoan notes that Dowd's son is in the military and expects to be deployed to Iraq:

"Funny how perpectives change when it's your own kid's life on the line. Dowd's disavowal of Bush is likely to strike many as just so much political opportunism--seeing the national tide turning against not only Bush but the kind of vicious, hyperpartisan politics that Dowd helped engineer to get Bush into office, he's looking at how to save his own political skin and future prospects.

"Perhaps so, but he's burning a lot of bridges to do so and this very public break with this president is significant. What's more, regardless of motive, Dowd's right. Our leaders do have to understand what the American people want. And that's getting us out of Iraq, the sooner the better."

Time's Jay Carney is more sympathetic:

"What's striking about Dowd's explanation is the sense of responsibility that permeates it. He doesn't just think Bush has made mistakes; he's speaking out as an act of atonement -- or, as he puts it, 'to restore balance when things didn't turn out they way they should have.' "

But Dick Polman is suspicious:

"What are we really supposed to think of this guy? Could it be that his renunciation of Bush seems a tad opportunistic? Is it out of line to suggest that this pollster, even while giving voice to his sincere disappointment in Bush, is also distancing himself publicly in order to salvage his own reputation and ensure that he works in the future? . . .

"What Dowd didn't say, and what the story didn't say, was that he was arguably the prime architect of the Bush strategy that he is now denouncing. Generally, when ex-aides trash a president, it's because that president failed to heed their advice ('if he had only listened to me'); here, we seem to have the opposite. Dowd is trashing Bush in part because he did heed Dowd's advice."

At HuffPost, Parachutec sounds downright mad:

"Not so fast. You can't say you want to 'restore balance' and say you want all politcal conflict to go away while you go on walkabout for some quality time with your mid-life existential crisis. Your psychodramas helped to [soil] the bed, now get over yourself and join the fight - yes, the fight - to undo what you've done . . . Grow up and take some responsibility, and stop pretending nice rhetoric and kumbayah will make anything right again. It won't . . .