Hillary Clinton's faltering campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination is out of cash, short on hope and deeply in debt.

She has lent her campaign more than $11 million and may have to fork over more if she wants to stay in the raise.

Which brings up two questions: Can she afford to stay in the fight and, if she does, can she ever get her money back?

Sen. Barack Obama got a front-runner's welcome back at the Capitol Thursday, pressing congressional "superdelegates" to support him in a visit that had the look and feel of a campaign victory lap.

Kriss Riggs isn't one to spend her money on politicians.

"Even the place you can donate a dollar on your taxes, I refuse to do it," says the 60-year-old photographer from Blue River, Ore.

Likewise for Kate Schwartz, a 24-year-old marketing expert from Chicago. Past elections, she says, always seemed far removed from young people.

Perhaps Barack Obama's competitive juices need new outlets now that he has expanded his lead over Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On a five-hour flight from Washington to Oregon late Thursday, the Illinois senator came to the back of his charter plane for a spirited word game against reporters, and it was clear he did not intend to lose.

Her voice raspy, her tone determined, Hillary Rodham Clinton urged her supporters Thursday to ignore the political pundits who have declared her toast.

And so, the what-if season begins.

It's hard to believe that it's over, but for Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is. She will not be president in 2009.

How did a "sure thing" a year ago turn into a what-might-have-been today?

Now that it seems certain Sen. Barack Obama, barring some catastrophic occurrence, will be the first African American to carry a major party banner into the presidential election, will he persevere all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Recently the Department of Homeland Security came out with a report on the proper verbal etiquette federal agencies should use in talking about the murderous scum who are trying to kill us all. The report found its way to the Associated Press and a good thing, too, because the rest of us need to know this stuff.

Are Republicans falling in love with Hillary Clinton?

It sure looks that way. Rush Limbaugh has famously launched "Operation Chaos," urging GOP voters to cross party lines and vote for Clinton in Democratic primaries. His aim, of course, is to disrupt the nominating process and hurt Barack Obama's candidacy.

With Mother's Day coming on Sunday, I'm again missing my own mom (who died in 1995), but I'm also asking, and more fervently with each passing year, "what kind of a 'mom legacy' am I giving my own kids?"