Lookee here! Clinton has decided to win Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania! Whatever it takes!

Marc Ambinder has the goods.

Allies of Hillary Clinton plan an expensive, stealth campaign to buttress her standing in the must-win states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. They're canvassing Clinton donors for pledges of up to $100,000 in the hope of raising at least $10M by the end of next week.

Nothing wrong with that ... or is there?

The money will be placed in the account of a political committee organized under section 527 of the tax code. ...

... By law, the 527 cannot coordinate its activities with the Clinton campaign, although at least one major Clinton donor with direct ties to the campaign said last night that the effort was an open secret among donors.

There's the problem.  Right there.  And it's compounded by this:

(Update: Per ABC's Jake Tapper, the group is calling itself the "American Leadership Project" and is staffed by several veterans of the Clinton White House.) ...

... Two Democrats said that the 527 plans to run television ads and send pro-Clinton literature in all three states. One of the Democrats said that the ads will also include contrast messages against Obama.

Contrast messages.  Those are the messages where someone comes along and contrasts your version of events with, say, their version of your cutting and running from the swift boat -- stuff like that.  Really, folks, the distance between Clinton and Bush diminishes daily. But the Clinton campaign is up against it and bloody well determined to win, so this new venture was dreamed up when Hillary had to contribute $5 million of her own funds to the campaign a few weeks ago.  In contrast (legitimate contrast), Obama is expected to show a $35 million haul for February alone. 

While all of this is being cooked up, John Edwards' union support is going to the Obama campaign.

... Perhaps as early as today, a consortium of Service Employees union locals will disclose its own plans for mobilization in Ohio and Pennsylvania on behalf of Barack Obama, an irony that will not be lost on those covering the race closely: a similar SEIU compact in Iowa ran ads praising John Edwards and drew strong protests from Obama's campaign.

Speaking of campaign money, the link to the Ambinder article above came from Reason magazine.  Armbinder's news about Hillary's 527 also has this comment from Reason contributor, David Weigel, about McCain, Obama, and the matter of  public financing of elections.

As much as I agreed with Obama's decision to laugh off his campaign finance "pledge," I thought there was the nugget of an issue there. It was an example of the candidate/messiah alighting to earth and behaving like those other politicians. But next to Clintonistas creating a slush fund for attack ads? In a party whose members still shiver and vomit when they hear the words "swift" and "boat"? Obama's back to being Mother Theresa.

Also: Just as it's fair to ask Obama and his surrogates what he's ever achieved, it would be fair to start asking McCain why his signature, hard-fought achievement in the Senate has become such a dog's breakfast.