TRAIL MIX: May Back Obama -- Semi-Colin Powell?

By: Emily Vaughan Our daily roundup of the latest from newspaper political campaign blogs: Colin Powell isn't towing the GOP line this time around. Though he served under both Bush administrations, he told Wolf Blitzer on CNN that he will be "looking for a candidate that seems to me to be leading a party that is fully in sync with the candidate and a party that will also reflect America's goodness and America's vision" - and that may even be a Democrat, says Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times' The Caucus.

Hillary Clinton went back to school, giving a 75-minute lecture to Larry Sabato's Politics 101 class at the University of Virginia. The New York senator fielded questions from the students, some of them Hillary supporters, some Obama supporters, and some even Republicans, says Jim Tankersley at the Chicago Tribune's The Swamp. Sabato recently moaned that it was outrageous that the country could go through decades of having a Bush or a Clinton in the White House.

Now John McCain has both Bush brothers on his side: Jeb endorsed the Arizona senator and wrote him a $1,000 check reports Juliet Ellprin at The Washington Post's The Trail. The former Florida governor is another important conservative supporter for McCain, who is still trying to prove to the Republican base that he is "conservative enough."

Ron Paul hasn't dropped out, exactly, but the 72-year-old Texas congressman acknowledged his tough reality in a statement on his Web site. With McCain having all but locked up the Republican nomination and it being mathematically impossible for Paul to win, he scaled back his campaign to concentrate on re-election, though he warned a McCain endorsement will not be forthcoming, says Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times' Top of the Ticket.

Al Gore also isn't making an endorsement any time soon, preferring instead to play the role of the "elder statesman." Gore's endorsement may be the most important of all, topping one by John Edwards or Ted Kennedy, but Gore's neutrality, for now, could make him the facilitator of an agreement among Democrats down the line, Mark Memmott says on USA Today's On Politics.

Chris Cillizza at his The Fix at washingtonpost.com notes that Huckabee may challenge McCain in Virginia today, plus: "In Maryland and D.C., Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is expected to win easily over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). Virginia is the battleground of the day, as Obama has Gov. Tim Kaine and a polling lead on his side while Clinton is banking on a strong focus on the economy in recent days to convince voters in the state's southern reaches that she is the better choice." As usual, he runs a contest for readers to pick winners -- and percentages.

A new poll shows Obama may be the stronger Democratic candidate to counter McCain in the general election, but Clinton doesn't want to be counted out yet. She suggests that because she has already been the butt of so many Republican attacks, she is better equipped than Obama, who would be more vulnerable to a Swift Boat-type negative campaign, says Amy Chozick at The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire.

Here are some leading newspaper blogs quoted above (and not).

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn?blogid=14

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence