OBAMA GAINS IN PENNSYLVANIA

With little more than two weeks to go until the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, Senator Obama has cut into Senator Clinton’s lead in the state, according to two polls released yesterday. Mrs. Clinton leads by a margin of 50% to Mr. Obama’s 41%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday, but her lead has steadily decreased from 16 points in mid-February and 12 points in mid-March, according to the same survey. A separate Public Policy Polling released yesterday shows Mr. Obama now leading Mrs. Clinton for the first time, 45% to 43%, a 28-percentage-point differential from two and a half weeks ago. Mrs. Clinton has maintained her lead in the Quinnipiac poll due in large part to the support of whites and women. She has a 25-point lead among whites and almost as big a margin with women. Mr. Obama’s recent gains have come from men and voters under 45.

MCCAIN AIDE: OBAMA CRITICIAM ‘DISHONEST’

A key aide to Senator McCain attacked Senator Obama yesterday, calling the senator “dishonest.” The aide, Steven Schmidt, made the comments during a discussion with reporters on a campaign flight. Mr. Schmidt was complaining about Mr. Obama’s repeated evocation of Mr. McCain’s statement last January that he could foresee a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for another 100 years. According to Mr. Schmidt, Mr. McCain was not speaking about continuing the war in Iraq, but rather about a continuing American non-combat presence there. “It’s absolutely dishonest,” Mr. Schmidt said, according to the Time Magazine Swampland blog.

CLINTON RELEASES SECOND ‘3 A.M.’ AD

Senator Clinton released a second ad with a “3 a.m. phone call” motif yesterday, but this time with the economy as the theme. National security was the subject of a widely discussed ad released during the Ohio and Texas primaries last month. In the new ad, Senator McCain is the intended target and not her Democratic rival, Senator Obama. “John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action in the housing crisis,” the ad’s narrator says. “He’d let the phone keep ringing.” yesterday, the McCain campaign released a response ad, the transcript of which was first reported on Time Magazine’s the Page blog. “Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama just said they’d solve the problem by raising your taxes. More money out of your pocket,” the transcript reads. “John McCain has a better plan. Grow jobs, grow our economy … not grow Washington. It’s 3 am, time for a president who is ready.”

ENDORSEMENT WATCH

Senator Obama yesterday picked up the support of a pair of superdelegates and the former chairman of the September 11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, who lends foreign policy heft to the senator’s campaign. Mr. Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman who also was co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, had praised Mr. Obama’s foreign policy view in the past and advised him on major speeches. “Barack Obama has the best opportunity to create a new sense of national unity and to transcend divisions within this country,” Mr. Hamilton said, “not by ignoring them or smoothing them over, but by working together with candor and civility to meet our challenges.” Also endorsing Mr. Obama yesterday were Governor Freudenthal of Wyoming and a former Montana senator, John Melcher, both of whom are superdegates.