In one sense, Barack Obama is quite fortunate that Tony Rezko's trial doesn't get under way until March 3, because it's unlikely to have any effect on the crucial contests taking place in Texas and Ohio the following day. If Obama wins in either state, as James Carville said recently, "this thing is done."

However, if Clinton manages to hold serve in Texas and Ohio, the ground shifts to Pennsylvania, which doesn't vote until nearly six weeks later on April 22. At that point the Rezko trial will be most likely be in full bloom.

Furthermore, if Obama does manage to knock Clinton out on March 4, the Rezko trial immediately becomes part of the general election narrative. Though Obama hasn't been accused of any wrong doing, it's clearly not helpful to have one of your major political benefactors on trail for fraud and corruption while you're trying to win the White House.

But before Obama faces that challenge, he's got to get through Clinton first. And the Clinton folks have no intention of letting the Rezko matter slip quietly into the night. In an interview with National Journal's Linda Douglass, Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson was asked why Hillary Clinton won't release her tax returns, an issue that's been brought up repeatedly by the Obama campaign - most recently after news broke that she'd loaned her campaign $5.5 million. Wolfson responded:

Much is known about her [Clinton's] finances. There's an awful lot of information disclosed by her, and if Senator Obama is actually, really interested in transparency, there are many questions -- for instance, about his relationship with indicted political fixer Tony Rezko that he could answer, that he has not. What was the exact nature of his relationship with Mr. Rezko? How many fundraisers did Mr. Rezko throw for him? How much money did Mr. Rezko bundle for him? How many business meetings did Senator Obama attend that Mr. Rezko was at? What was he doing at those business meetings? What favors did Senator Obama perform for Mr. Rezko? So there's an awful lot of information that, if Senator Obama is interested in transparency, that he could come forward and offer the American people.

As I've said before, it takes a lot of chutzpah for Clinton to go charging after Obama over filthy fundraisers given all the baggage she's toting around. Still, Norman Hsu is old news at this point, while Rezko's trial makes him "the new new thing," especially now that Obama is the front runner.

Already, anonymous sites like RezkoWatch have popped up, ready to detail all the sordid ins and outs of the trial and speculate as to what it all means for Obama. The Chicago media will certainly cover the trial closely, and national outlets will pick up pieces of it as well. It will definitely be part of the media bloodstream.

And there are other issues out there for Obama that will get more exposure as well, as Timothy Burger details today. The Clinton campaign hopes this will play into their contention that their candidate is the one who has been "fully vetted" by the national media, while Obama has not.