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Sharper focus on Obama

  • Justin Webb
  • 3 Mar 08, 08:27 PM GMT

Barack Obama at a campaign event in San AntonioSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: The event over, the candidate has answered reporters' questions and it seems to be - I have been attending these events off and on for some time now - that the atmosphere is sharper than it was.

I noticed as the local reporters were doing their stand-ups in the crowd, as Obama pressed the flesh, that phrases like "questions being asked" etc were floating around the room. And at the presser, the first question was about NAFTA and the contacts that Obama had or did not have with the Canadian government (he is accused of giving the Canadians winks and nods regarding his desire to see NAFTA re-negotiated) - and the second was about Tony Rezko! He kept his cool but he is, in these final moments, on the defensive...

This piece is not entirely hostile but asks searching questions.

The Rezko affair: new readers start here

  • Justin Webb
  • 3 Mar 08, 05:57 PM GMT

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: In an Obama event with veterans in San Antonio and the bandwagon looks to be rolling on at a steady lick. As always the challenge for the Obama people is to provide space enough to hold everyone who wants to come (and to accommodate the press - who'd have thought Dana Millbank of the Washington Post would be turning up in San Antonio even a month or so ago? - or indeed the BBC?).

This appears to be the last word on what Hillary's bottom line really is.

Meanwhile anyone regarding themselves as a "new reader" when it comes to Tony Rezko would do well to look at this - not new but a good intro to why he matters and what the links with Obama really are.

What happens next?

  • Justin Webb
  • 3 Mar 08, 08:31 AM GMT

So the battle lines are drawn and the sense of what happens next captured in this fairly representative piece which sees all the pressure on Mrs Clinton to perform above expectations or quit the scene. I am in San Antonio Texas, bathed by warm breezes and trying to avoid having to broadcast from the Alamo (I will fail!)

Bear in mind nothing anyone has predicted so far in this election has turned out to be the case. She wins both?

Meanwhile Texas is fascinated as well by another piece of political news - and I see the Bush Library plans are pushing ahead nicely.

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