COULD HILLARY VANISH IN A PUFF OF SMOKE?

Her campaign spent part of last week in a very public argument with a waitress over whether Hillary Clinton left a tip.

National Public Radio interviewed Anita Esterday because in her stump speech, Ms. Clinton described Ms. Esterday (who must work two jobs to support her family) as the kind of person she intends to help when she becomes president.

"I wish she would have asked if she could talk about me later," Ms. Esterday told NPR.  "I didn't like it when someone called me up and said 'Hillary Clinton is talking about you.'"

She wasn't complaining about her circumstances, Ms. Esterday told Mr. Greene. "I don't think she understood at all what I was saying," Ms. Esterday said.  "I mean, nobody got left a tip that day."

The incident happened when the Clinton entourage stopped at the Maid Rite diner in Toledo, Iowa for lunch Oct. 8.  But it didn't become public until the NPR broadcast a month later.  Hillary Clinton's alleged stinginess swiftly made the rounds of the blogosphere.

When the brouhaha started, the Clinton campaign told NPR they paid $157 for the food the party consumed, and left a $100 tip.  Maid Rite manager Brad Crawford said the bill was paid, but added that "where Hillary was sitting, there was no tip left."

Contacted again by NPR last Thursday, Ms. Esterday stuck by her story.  Neither she nor the two waitresses who worked with her that day knew anything about a $100 tip.

"I've known a lot of these ladies most of my life living here," she said.  "I can't imagine them pocketing it."

After the original NPR story aired, a Clinton staffer came to the diner to apologize to her and gave her $20, Ms. Esterday said.  The staffer said the $100 tip had been left on the credit card.

That wasn't true. The VISA receipt shows no tip money. When informed of this, the Clinton campaign told NPR the tip was left in cash.  But, NPR notes, the campaign "has declined to make available a staff member who was present at Maid Rite and left tip money."

So do we believe Ms. Esterday and her coworkers, or do we believe the Clinton campaign?  The Clintons have a history of dissimulation, and, during her Senate campaign in 2000, Hillary Clinton stiffed a waitress in a diner in Albion, New York.

This incident could have a greater impact on the battle for the Democrat presidential nomination than tens of thousands of dollars in campaign ads.

Most pundits in Washington have already conceded the Democrat nomination to Sen. Clinton because of the large leads she holds in national opinion polls. 

But that lead is illusory, because normal people don't pay much attention to politics a year before the election.  It's not a surprise that there are a lot of undecideds in the national polls, or that the frontrunners in both parties are the candidates with the highest name recognition.

The polls in Iowa — where a higher proportion of voters is paying attention, because the Iowa caucuses are less than two months away — tell a different story.  There, Hillary Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is within the margin of error.

Sen. Obama is so wet behind the ears dolphins could swim there.  But he's a likeable guy — conservatives who attended Harvard law school with him, or who served with him in the Illinois legislature have nothing but kind things to say about him — who gives a good stump speech. 

He apparently wowed 'em at a big Democrat dinner in Des Moines Sunday night.  Sen. Obama also has plenty of money and — according to David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register — the best organization in Iowa.

People tend to vote for the candidate they like. The incident involving Ms. Esterday reminds us Ms. Clinton lacks Sen. Obama's warmth, and her husband's campaign skills.  Reports over the weekend that her campaign has been planting questions in audiences reinforce the view she is programmed and insincere.

Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 1992 despite losing in Iowa and New Hampshire.  But Hillary's campaign is based largely on an aura of inevitability.  Tarnish that aura, and her lead in the national polls could vanish like a puff of smoke.

Former Sen. John Edwards, the fading third candidate in the race, could determine the outcome of the Iowa caucuses.  If Mr. Edwards decides the high likelihood of being Sen. Obama's running mate is better than the tiny possibility of winning the nomination himself, and endorses Obama……….