JESTING CLINTON PROPOSES BOWL-OFF WITH OBAMA

Setting aside debates over party unity, superdelegates, and calls for her to end her campaign, Senator Clinton is proposing a new way to decide her contest with Senator Obama. “We clearly need to do something so that our party and our people can make the right decision,” Mrs. Clinton announced to reporters yesterday, April Fools Day. “So I have a proposal. Today, I am challenging Senator Obama to a bowl-off.”

MURDOCH DAUGHTER TO RAISE FUNDS FOR OBAMA

Breaking from her father’s political leanings, Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of conservative press tycoon Rupert Murdoch, will host a fund raiser for Senator Obama at her home in London this month. Guests will have to pay $1,000 to attend the event, which will take place April 28; those who pay $2,300 will have access to a VIP reception beforehand. The donations will have to come strictly from expatriates, however, as federal law restricts political contributions to American citizens and permanent residents.

CLINTON SAYS SHE, LIKE ROCKY, IS NO QUITTER

Speaking in the fictional boxer’s hometown, Senator Clinton compared herself to Rocky today, saying that she would never back down from a tough match. Addressing recent calls for her to end her campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it was as if “Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s about far enough.'”

“When it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people,” Mrs. Clinton said. As several commentators noted, though, Sylvester Stallone’s character actually loses the boxing match at the end of the movie.

MCCAIN PLANS DECENTRALIZED CAMPAIGN

Senator McCain is reportedly planning to delegate an unusual amount of authority in his presidential campaign to regional managers who do not work from the campaign headquarters in Northern Virginia. “We prefer daily operational, tactical decisions be made by those guys,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, told the Washington Post. Ten people picked to fill the slots are training in New Mexico this week.

ELIZABETH EDWARDS SWINGS AT MCCAIN ON HEALTH PLAN

Elizabeth Edwards, the spouse of a former Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, is mounting a concerted attack against the health care proposals put forward by the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator McCain. “Despite fuzzy language and feel-good lines in the Senator’s proposal, I do understand exactly how devastating it will be to people who have the health conditions with which the Senator and I are confronted (melanoma for him, breast cancer for me) but do not have the financial resources we have,” she wrote yesterday at a liberal Web log, ThinkProgress.

OBAMA WINS TEXAS DELEGATES, 99-94

In a new Associated Press tally of delegates from Texas, which uses both primaries and caucuses to select its delegation to the Democratic Convention, Senator Obama prevailed over Senator Clinton, 99-94. That tally includes seven delegates given to Mr. Obama and two to Mrs. Clinton yesterday after the AP completed a review of the results of county conventions held across the state over the weekend. In the March 4 primary, the former first lady defeated the senator of Illinois, 51% to 47%. However, he more than made up the difference with a strong showing at the caucuses the same day.

UNION CHIEF SAYS CLINTON OPPOSED NAFTA

A top labor leader says Senator Clinton was definitely opposed to the North American Free Trade Agreement when she was first lady. “I know that she spoke against it, she opposed it,” the president of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Gerald McEntee, said yesterday, according to CBS News. “Maybe she does not even remember this. … The day that they got the votes, Hillary Clinton called me … She said, and this really sums it up, she said, ‘We lost. We lost, the votes were there for NAFTA.’ So anybody who tries to hang it around her neck, is hanging it around the wrong neck.”