Corporations and convention party planners are scrambling to comply with sweeping ethics rules in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 that prohibit lobbyists from paying for gifts, including meals and music. In place of the old rules, confusion over what is legal has taken center stage.

A roll-call vote for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton could help Senator Obama look magnanimous instead of messianic. Fair or not, the man has earned himself a reputation as arrogant. By making a grand gesture, inviting (even publicly urging) Mrs. Clinton to sign the (already circulating) petition to have her name submitted for nomination would help Mr. Obama look like a swell guy.