Signs point to Obama closing to a tie in Ohio and possibly leading in Texas. This is terrible. If Obama outperforms his polls like he has done in nearly every contest since February 5 then no win in later states can save Clinton. As a Pennsylvanian let me just say that sucks. Really, look at it from our perspective. For the first time in the history of presidential primaries we might actually matter. It’s all some people talk about. It would be tragic to get this close and then have Ohio steal our one shot at relevance like they stole the general in ’04.
Then again the thought of Mark Penn doing a smug little victory dance on Russert makes me ill, so call me torn.
4tehlulz
Oh God no. Not another six weeks of this shit.
SGEW
Huh. You know, I’ve never thought of that angle before (specifically re: PA). But, um, my sympathy really only goes so far. Sorry.
rob!
well, you could look at it this way–if Obama manages to win Ohio AND Texas (even I as an Obama supporter thinks this a long shot), then you could look at HRC packing it in as wanting to spare herself the humiliation of losing in PA, since Obama is ALREADY catching up to her there, and that’s like seven weeks away!
if he wins Ohio and Texas tomorrow, PA will not look like a Firewall, it will look like a bonfire of HRC campaign signs.
KCinDC
Look, it would be one thing if Pennsylvania were voting in a week or two, but if they have to keep going through April 22 the Clintons are just going to get further and further into the slime. I’d like for Democrats to have the opportunity to build up and practice a get-out-the-vote operation in Pennsylvania, but it’s not worth it.
Evinfuilt
I’m voting tomorrow morning, then in the evening. I love that my vote actually counts for once, and heck, I get to vote twice. Us Texans are important after all.
Vote Early, Vote Often :)
Pip's squeak
4tehlulz Says:
Oh God no. Not another six weeks of this shit.
I agree. Living abroad, following this netly these past eight weeks has wrought havoc on my sleep.
TheFountainHead
(Cause I didn’t see the new thread, putting this here too.)
Mark Penn says, “Fuck You!” to the Clinton Campaign.
SGEW
I’ve had to explain the Texas Two Step to, oh, about 500 people over the last week or so. A lot of the time the response is: “Really? Is that legal? Isn’t that, like, vote fraud or something?”
Ah, Texas.
estragon
I hope this is true, but I think a 5-10% loss in Ohio and a tiny, tiny loss in Texas for Obama are more likely. It would be awesome if he took both of them, but I think we’re getting our hopes up too much. Remember that he was behind by 20% or so in both of these states not too long ago.
Zifnab25
People who elect Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter to the Senate do not deserve relevancy.
And besides, Penn has a big hand in winning the actual Presidency. I don’t see why you’d be worried about the Primary. The good guy wins, the telephone lady loses. Just be happy and get ready for the tidal wave in November.
L Boom
I’m for the MUP, but in the worst case scenario any victory dancing by Mark Penn would probably last all of three seconds before he had a heart attack.
Really, though, I’m hoping that Obama completely dominates tomorrow, then maybe people will stop paying Penn vast amounts of destroy their campaigns. Why would anyone need to worry about a Manchurian candidate in the primaries when we’ve got Mark Penn as the Manchurian consultant?
Jon H
Don’t discount the likelihood of Clinton monomania seizing control beyond all rational likelihood of her being able to win the nomination.
SGEW
Hoot! So true, and so sad.
Why does Mark Penn hate America?
Jon H
If Clinton fails to win everything tomorrow, and it goes to PA, then at least we can look forward to the spiral of recriminations from the Clinton camp.
Penn’s already claiming he’s had no direct authority or control of the campaign.
Jen
The Obama campaign keeps asking me to make calls, which I didn’t do, but I did place one call to my sister in Ohio. She’s doing her residency there, and was undecided because she prefers HRC’s health care plan and she thinks some of the coverage has been sexist and unfair. She thinks Obama is more likely to win in the general, but she is pretty immune to his charms. I got her to say she’d probably vote for him, and a reluctant vote counts just as much.
zzyzx
I think the two states are split tomorrow and Clinton moves on.
Maybe it’s just the return of the rain today, but my prediction is that Clinton spends the next 6 weeks driving down Obama’s positives without building up her own, uses that to get close enough to PA to win, and eventually causes a floor fight at the convention which she wins, getting her to an exciting 190 or so electoral votes in November.
myiq2xu
Obama caught lying about NAFTA and Rezko’s trial starts today.
But do the MUPpets care? Hell no! They would rather do a Thelma and Louise off a cliff (with the Democratic party in the trunk) than admit their pony oinks.
Zifnab25
Only if its a reluctant vote for Clinton. Reluctant votes for Obama don’t count.
ThymeZone
I’m torn too. Pennsylvania has these insane political fortunes (Santorum, for crying out loud). But it also has Pittsburgh, which I think is a really cool city — a place where they put a marker in a sidewalk to commemorate a home run, of all things. A place like that deserves something.
I took a cab ride in Pittsburgh in 1996 and got into a conversation with the cab driver about the Mazeroski home run. I thought the man was going to burst into tears. Going on 50 years after the game. You can’t make up that kind of passion.
libarbarian
Its 3am.
Who do you trust to decide the next Democratic nominee.
A bunch of mountain hicks in Pennsylvania or smart people in Texas and Ohio?
*This message brought to you by the People who are out of Ritalin and Randomly Babbling.
Zifnab25
I doubt it. Even if Hillary “wins” Pennsylvannia – or Ohio, or even Texas for that matter – she’ll only claim a handful of delegates. Not nearly the number needed to put her over the top on Obama’s 100-odd delegate lead. Showing that she can, in fact, win a state or two, might give her traction with Superdelegates. But I don’t think she’ll ultimately have the swing at the convension necessary to take the nomination.
Clinton has already lost, she just doesn’t know it yet.
Jen
And oh yeah, she had gone to Cuba years ago on a student-visa type thing to research their health care system. She’s been disgusted with Bush for cracking down on that and has been a supporter of opening up relations with Cuba ever since seeing how hard it was for them to get simple medical equipment and supplies due to the embargo, yet how seriously they took their responsibility to the health of their citizens. So I reminded her of Obama’s rather more liberal stance on talking to Cuba, and she agrees with him in general that there’s no harm in just talking to almost anyone.
zzyzx
Obama’s the defendant there right?
What? Oh, well he’s politician A then, right?
What? Oh, well at least he’s one of the centerpieces of the trial right?
Huh? Minor footnote. Well I’ll continue being afraid anyway.
ThymeZone
When Obama gets up on a podium with Rezko, like McCain did with Hagee, and graciously accepts his support, like McCain did with Hagee, then I’ll worry about the Rezko story.
No matter how big a crook Rezko is, he can’t have stolen money from as many people as Hagee has stolen from.
Zifnab25
I guess you’re not a big fan of the old Jesus saying, “Give unto Caeser what is Caeser’s and Hagee what is everything else.”
myiq2xu
Obama claims he’s innocent and he wouldn’t lie about that, would he?
Just ask Canada.
dlw32
I, a fellow PA voter, was at one point excited by the possibility of my vote mattering in the primaries. Then I’ve seen the reports of commercials run in states that currently matter. I’ve decided I’d rather not spend every commercial break vomiting.
zzyzx
But it’ll be enough for her to go on and continue trying to destroy Obama. Her supporters are depressing me now. They’ve given so much power to this right wing machine they’ve built up in their mind that they want to destroy our candidates just to save time.
If they worked in the military, they’d drop bombs on our troops in basic training. Hey, the enemy will do that, so we have to know in advance who will be able to survive a bomb dropped on top of them.
TheFountainHead
First of all, what exactly did Obama lie about? Second of all, Rezko’s trail has what to do with this campaign? Third of all, speaking of liars, no one is a bigger liar on NAFTA than Hillary Clinton. The fact that she has pretty much gotten a pass on that would have made me think she’d be the last one to throw stones about lying on NAFTA.
Jen
That TPM link has four different polls for OH ranging from Obama up by 2 to HRC up by 9. The polls are really sucking this year, aren’t they? Didn’t polling used to be a lot more accurate?
zzyzx
Errr, um, innocent of what? He’s not on trial here.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Have we forgotten here that Mark Penn will be doing his smug victory dance after Obama fails to get 72% of the vote?
“This just goes to show that Obama’s momentum can no longer accelerate, and will simply continue at the rate of gain of 1 point per 2.8 days. This gives our campaign crucial time to lock in the Azerbaijani and Inuit vote. Change begins March 4th. We look forward to Move-In day at the White House.“
cleek
OT: Hagee interprets the Great Seal. teh Joos R evweewear!
SGEW
Y’know, as a free-trade moderate (read: “What do you mean by ‘free’, white man?”), I was actually reassured by the Canadian report on Prof. Goolsbee’s, um, disingenuousness (at best: BUT, importantly, not substantiated yet. No one’s “caught” yet, calm down). NAFTA is a tremendously nuanced issue, and the “I’m aginst it” vs. “I’m fer it” debate is really obvious political rhetoric. I’d be happy to know that Goolsbee was assuring other economists that no, Sen. Obama is not a Ron Paul/Pat Buchannan isolationist nutjob, he just needs to say this kind of stuff to get elected. The Economist kind of shares my take (which is, actually, not too reassuring, now that I think about it).
Hear hear: shout out to Pittsburgh. Great town, cool scene. Honestly, a lot of the rest of Pennsyltucky can go secede already, as far as I care.
The Other Steve
When John McCain was running for the nomination, they declared “This is a man with the intellect of Hobbes!”
Too late, I realized they were talking about Calvin, and not Thomas.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
No, the political field used to be frequently sterilized to prevent any occurrences of upset or misunderstood realities. Now this… er… dark-skinned “person” has shown-up without reading the Rulebook of Civilized Politics, and we have all of these pests running around “campaigning” for him. And they don’t even know that his candidacy doesn’t count!
If this continues, I’m sure we can look forward to more savage, British like government. Votes of personal ideology. Conference calls with constituents. Disagreements on the floor of Congress!
The thought of confrontation and irregularity is TOO MUCH TO BEAR!
The Other Steve
I think it’s ironic to see Hillary Clinton attacking opponents for political rhetoric.
Come on, who here actually thinks Hillary will end the Iraq war, and pull us out of NAFTA? Let’s get a show of hands.
Jen
AP:
So it used to be she had to win TX and OH, then just one of them, and now they don’t matter either way? The goalposts are showing some wear and tear…
ThymeZone
She has to enjoy double digit wins in TX and OH in order to move the delegate count enough to give her a mathematical chance to win the delegate count before the convention.
That has been known for a month now, but the pundit-campaign-spinorama-bullshitatorium keeps morphing this simple truth into ten different completely irrlevant scenarios.
This is necessary in order to prop up the tv viewership. This contest is just about over. At least two people close to the Clinton group, including Dee Dee Myers and Carville, have said that if she loses Texas, she has to quit the campaign Wednesday morning.
Meh. Who the hell knows what she’ll do?
zzyzx
My continuing bleakness makes me think that Clinton gets in some pointless fight about two weeks after she wins her election that continues all throughout December, causing her to use up all of her political capital before she’s even inaugurated.
SGEW
Y’know, I would much rather have a President with the philosophy of the tiger Hobbes, rather than Thomas “Never Question Your Leader” Hobbes.
mrmobi
Indeed, but I would remind everyone that both candidates talked about the “threat” of a withdrawal from the treaty facilitating a change in the fundamentals of the deal itself. Neither one of them would take the bait about scrapping the treaty.
Iraq. Now that’s a bird of a different color. Whichever candidate (among the Democratic winner) is elected, I believe we are going to be in Iraq, with costs including continuing, horrific casualties and multi-billions per month in treasury for at least a decade.
Obama has stated clearly himself, “there are no good solutions in Iraq.” Does that sound like we’re going to be out of there in six months?
I don’t think so.
JC
This is probably the likely outcome. Ohio and Texas are BIG states, and you need a lot more time, to change the momentum, no matter how good your ground game is.
Obama’s campaign has done an excellent job, changing the polling from 20 back, to near even in Texas, and down by 5-10 in Ohio.
Who, realistically, thinks that in a big state, you can in the course of a couple of weeks, change the minds of several million voters, without some big screw-up?
TenguPhule
What we need is a great neutral party like St. McCain to come between our candidates and say “Cut the Bullshit!”
And then Ponies will fly.
GSD
The goalpost have been taken down and a basketball hoop has been installed.
This is a new game.
-The Hillster
ThymeZone
Leading in Texas within MOE margins, according to all the tvorrhea over the weekend. Not “near even.”
And, there is no need for him to actually “win” in either state. Obama essentially seals the delegate lead with a close finish or better in either state. All he has to do is hold on to the ball and run out the clock.
jxn
Hey everything can change Bush can always start another civil war:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
Martin
Obama looks solid for Texas, but I suspect Ohio will be a loss for him. SUSA has Hillary trending up. The NAFTA dust-up is killing Obama in Ohio. From what I can tell, most Ohioans have the same blinding hate for NAFTA as Democrats have for Republicans and Republicans have for humanity.
Ohio seems to be lost within itself – has been for a good decade now.
Martin
TZ-
I know that mathematically he doesn’t need to win Texas, but if Hillary takes Ohio by 5-10 as SUSA is showing, he really does need a solid win in Texas to get Democrats to step in and end this thing. If it appears she is trending up at this stage (as Ohio would show) then they’ll back away and let PA, NC, and OR play out. Psychologically he needs a solid win.
JC
In terms of the delegate count, I agree. And I hope for an Obama win in Texas. And you are correct, in that, within the MOE, polling shows a tie.
Again, I just think it’s harder to change the demographics and inbuilt opinions of millions of voters, in a two week period, with ground game. You need more time.
But I hope you are right!
caustics
Campaign managers call it Pennsyltuckey for a reason–it’s an absolute nightmare to try to pin it down using a state-wide strategy.
Whereas the Frothy Mixture was too stupid to figure it out, Arlen Specter pretty much wrote the book on being a pliable senator in a purple state.
That said, we do have a pretty cool governor…
JGabriel
Estragon:
Really? Everything I’ve seen indicates a likely win for Obama in Texas – that’s just in the polling. Once you addd in how Obama’s past organizanational successes indicate an advantage in caucuses, I’d guess Obama’s looking at a 5-10% win in Texas.
Ohio, I still consider too close to call. If forced, I’d speculate that Obama’s tendency to outperform the polls may give him the advantage there as well.
(Bias Disclosure: I like both Obama and Clinton, though I probably lean *slightly* closer to Clinton. Just to make clear that the above is not the wishful analysis of a die-hard Obama supporter.)
So what’s your reasoning for thinking Clinton can win both contests? BTW, I’m asking out of true curiosity, not out of argumentative purposes – I’d like to know what I’ve overlooked, if anything. The only thing I can think of that might help Clinton in Texas is is the Latino vote both comes out in higher numbers *and* goes for Clinton in a higher proportion than anyone expects.
.
Cyrus
Ex recto explanation: the massive turnout in some primaries and caucuses so far, as well as the unusually high youth turnout, is confusing pollsters. Some are still using the usual formulas, some are projecting demographics and turnout based directly on Iowa, etc.
ThymeZone
Yeah, I don’t know what that means, it sounds like punditblather to me. Clinton cannot win with non-superdelegates unless she wins substantial victories in both TX and OH. Once she fails to do that tomorrow, which is almost a certainty, then her nomination hangs on superdelegates, and after those, it hangs on whatever grotesque backroom maneuvers she can pull off.
I seriously doubt that the superdelegates are going to fall in her favor at this point unless she pulls off a comeback of shocking proportions. That is why nearly everyone said, just a few weeks ago, she either wins big in both TX and OH or the contest is over. Even Bill Clinton basically said it two weeks ago.
The elephant in the tent is the disappearance of her huge polling lead in Texas. That indicates a trend. That trend is going to be a little hard for the superdelegates to ignore. They can smell a popular uprising better than we can, they are politicians. When it comes down to popularity versus lukasiak-style mathematical machinations and rationalizations, and political triangulations, I predict they go with popularity. All of the superdelegates I have heard speak to the topic have said the same thing.
Martin
The only way Clinton drops out is if the rest of the Democratic party – probably led by Richardson steps in and tells her that it’s over – that they’ll throw their support behind Obama en-masse if she doesn’t which would be publicly humiliating.
The only way that they do that is if both the delegate math and the prospects for that math to change are solidly in Obama’s favor. We ran the entire month of February thinking that Obama had this in the bag even when he was behind in delegates because the forward trend was massively in his favor. If Clinton can show that she can pick up delegates still, the party will give her the benefit of the doubt on the superdelegates and let her continue on. If Obama can keep her from doing that, then it’s done.
In Ohio, Obama was closer than the most recent SUSA polls shows. They’ve been our best measure so far, and if that poll is real (Clinton 54, Obama 44) then it’ll give the appearance that she can turn races around and possibly bring sds on that alone.
Remember, the DNC is headed by Dean. He’s not going to deny voters for the sake of picking a candidate . And even if the math still is working against Hillary, if there is the *appearance* of her improving (even if the math really doesn’t bear that out) then I think they’ll let her continue. What matters here isn’t the delegate count but the psychology of the democratic leadership who will step in and make a call.
And I think you give the superdelegates a little too much credit. The Democratic party has been doing things the Mark Penn way for decades – and almost all of these guys got where they are by running that playbook. Half of them thought that Dean was a freaking lunatic for denying the playbook. I’m not sure that the greybeards of the Democratic party are willing to recognize Obama as the future of Democratic politics given that the guy probably scares the fuck out of them. Their overstuffed Rolodexes of money sources depreciates in value every time Obama wins – and a lot of these guys live and die by that.
Cain
I suspect that the polls are skewed because a lot of the people who have been coming out to vote (the younger set) tend to have cell phones and not so much land line. That would shirnk that particular demographic and all you have are old farts like us. :-)
cain
Jamey
OT: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-steelers-roethlisberger&prov=ap&type=lgns
Imagine how much he might have earned if he wasn’t the spitting image of Will Ferrell.
Mary
I think that even if Obama pulls all 4 states tomorrow, by varying margins, Clinton will stick around. She’s getting media attention for her bias claims, she’s hoping Obama will get dinged by the NAFTA merdefest (there’s some bilingual CanCon for you!), and she probably sincerely thinks she’s the better choice. In her mind, throwing the kitchen sink, the toilet and the Roto-Rooter at him is justified if she can somehow get the lion’s share in upcoming states, get FL and MI seated to her advantage, and win back enough superdelegates to regain the lead.
I really think she’s in here for the long haul. And I don’t see how the party can yank her back, or even if they will yank her back. If Obama has a bad week in the media, they could slip back to their usual state of timidity. Better the flawed, mediocre choice than the stellar, potentially risky choice, eh?
ThymeZone
No, don’t agree. Without the solid, substantial wins in both TX and OH, she doesn’t gain enough delegates to make a difference.
She’d have to enjoy landslide victories in every remaining primary in order to have a chance at a majority of delegates. The primary delegate majority is pretty well a done deal for her, she is too far behind now.
It doesn’t matter if something goes in his or her favor after that. By Tuesday night, we’ll know whether she has a mathematical chance at a delegate majority. If she doesn’t have that, continuing her campaign is going to be destructive to the party. She can’t win without maneuvers or superdelegates.
This has not changed in weeks. It’s not my assertion, its the analysis of anyone who takes the time to sit down with a spreadsheet and run the numbers. Unless she wins a major delegate net plus tomorrow in TX and OH, the pledged delegate contest is over.
Any strategy that has her winning a nomination after that requires giving her the nomination while she has less than a plurality of pledged delegates on the first ballot. Unless every analyst has been wrong for a month on this and nobody caught it, that’s still the situation today.
b-psycho
Heh…I remember awhile back someone described the state as “Pittsburgh on one end, Philly on the other, Alabama in the middle”. Dunno who that was.
Jamey
Myiq1/2xu:
Now I’ve seen it all: An inverse form of CDS.
Martin
The polls are screwed up because the ‘likely voter’ model is totally fucked this cycle. The likely voter model is tied to white protestant men running for office. Both candidates are bringing out a lot of unlikely voters – especially Obama.
The most startling moment in the 60 minutes piece last night wasn’t Hillary’s for-shit excuse for a defense for Obama, but the guy essentially in tears saying he was leaning toward Obama in spite of the fact that he believed the Muslim/pin/pledge smears were true. I thought that was stunning.
Svensker
Was just forced to listen to Brit Hume do the “news” a bit ago. He explained that as soon as voters realize that Obama’s record is actually really thin, and that he’s not bipartisan at all (since he voted against telecom immunity and John Bolton) and that even his thin record stinks, first Hillary will start winning, then McCain will like totally win. Brit might actually have said “that darn MUP!” but I can’t be certain.
Just wanted you to know so you wouldn’t let the polls or the voting fool ya.
Martin
The delegates aren’t the issue. It comes down to what the party needs on its side to go in and tell an 8 term president and his wife that it’s over. And they need a lot more to tell Clinton to give it up than they would in order to tell Obama the same thing. Call it some kind of weird respect thing, but that’s just how it works. I think they need to make the case with the Clintons having essentially no defense to staying in.
Martin
Heh, 2 term/8 year, pick one…
JGabriel
Zzyzx:
Clinton’s already ahead in PA – or, more accurately, still ahead in Pennsylvania.
I hate to say this, because I’m from PA, but racism is still pretty common there – especially outside of Philadelphia. They have a tendency to blame all their problems with drugs and crime on ‘the blacks’, despite most of it being due to putatively ‘white trash’ scourges like oxycontin and meth.
It’s not at the level of widespread KKK activity – though there were still a few apathetic cells even in the 80’s, when I moved away – yet there’s still a widespread discounting/dismissal of, and resentment towards, the civil rights movement. I can’t account for it, but it’s there.
Obama could still win Pennsylvania. In fact, his candidacy alone may help in breaking down some of those last vestiges of racism there. But it’ll be more of a slog than most people expect, especially for such an ostensibly blue state.
That’s why even Obama’s campaign strategist’s still have, and have had since day one, Pennsylvania marked as a likely loss. At any rate, though, his campaign has made some pretty impressive inroads, and I suspect the result will be damned close, either way.
.
Jen
That sounds logical, but does that mean that people are telling pollsters that they probably won’t vote, then they do go out and vote? Or is the “likely voter” model based on something other than what the poll-ees are telling the pollsters?
I told you guys this before, but my Caller ID came up AP/IPSOS a couple of weeks ago and boy, howdy was I ready to take a politics poll. Alas, it was a poll about fiber.
DrDave
Me, too. I went to all the trouble of changing my party affiliation from “Unaffiliated” to “Democrat” so I could actually vote in a primary that matters and it looks like it won’t.
Damn.
OTOH, I also bet a few people last fall that Hillary would not be the nominee so at least I can drown my sorrows in ribs and beer on someone else’s dime…
wingnuts to iraq
The best part of ohio left when I did.
And all my friends left Ohio too.
All the good people LEAVE OHIO when the can.
ThymeZone
I’ll give you the Mulligan on that post :0
But anyway, no, hard bitten politicians are not going to throw their party into the meat grinder for the Clintons. The choice is going to be easy, go with the popular phenom and get — wait for it — unity at the convention, or go with the Power Past Couple and get a party meltdown.
They’ll choose Obama. You heard it here first. Well, not really, because the SDs I have heard speaking to this lately are saying basically the same thing.
ThymeZone
In other news — CNN is reporting that a “devastating ice storm” will make it impossible to “go anywhere” in northern Ohio tomorrow, and may force cancellation of the primary.
Heard this less than 5 mins ago.
chopper
yeah, so obama is the big liar on nafta, he’s in big trouble because someone he knows is on trial, and the obamabots are the ones trying to drive the party off a cliff.
yikes.
John S.
No doubt this is a result of Obama’s ties to Rezko.
Rezko pumped all sorts of money into Obama’s campaign and Obama used his influence to get funding for a weather machine. Now, they are using that weather machine to disenfranchise voters in Ohio.
Not that Obamamaniacs will care about the MUP fucking with mother nature – as long as it helps him win.
ntr Fausto Carmona
All I have here is an official flood watch through tomorrow night.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh. Philadelphia.
And a whole lotta Alabama in between.
Cassidy
If it breaks apart we can watch Barack and Hillary battle it out on the Island of No Return.
Martin
It’s actually quite complicated. The really good pollsters will build a likely voter model around what the subjects tell them combined with historical trends – both for the region and for similar recent elections, but also validate that model against voter rolls. Anyone can go down to the polling place and confirm if they voted or not – and the good polling outfits will do exactly that to see if people told the truth on the phone (they don’t). By just surveying people on the phone, you tend to overestimate the likely population since unlikely voters often hang up on the pollster, but you can’t count them as unlikely since they simply didn’t give any answer.
But good ‘likely voter’ models with evidence are based on the last election. They can’t anticipate the 18-22 population other than by trend since none of them have data to offer for the last 4 years, and primary participation is quite a bit different from GE participation – so for these late states which normally don’t get a say, the support data is terrible. And GOTV efforts – particularly like we have seen in the Obama camp with HUGE numbers of volunteers (I understand all 88,000 precincts in Texas have Obama precinct captains) tend to pull out a lot of ‘unlikely’ voters in the last 24 hours, and they will mostly break in favor of the GOTV source. Clinton has done a lot to catch up on that front – especially in Ohio where her unions are very strong.
All told, that they get close at all is pretty remarkable in an election like this.
Rick Taylor
I’ve been supporting Hillary and I suppose I still do, but even so, it would be a relief if Obama did win so convincingly that the primary was over. It would be great for Democrats to finish with sniping at one another, and concentrate on winning against the Republican candidate in November.
L Boom
Are you on Obama’s fundraising lists? The call for cash to help out with the weather machine went out about a month ago, then they just finished up a push for money for the earthquake machine. I think the plan is for a volcano machine next, then a machine to knock the moon out of orbit after that, with a contingency plan for a time machine if the primary is going to stretch out to August.
The MUP is nothing if not well-prepared.
AkaDad
I was trying to decide on what snack to eat, and as soon as I read this, I knew.
Popcorn
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Yeah… Too bad I’m not a Democrat, and I don’t care if I help destroy a party that doesn’t have the collective spine to dare impeach a war-criminal.
Your party is a sad sack of shit, myiq.
Hopefully Obama didn’t get too much of either party’s excrement on him that he delivers on what he’s offering.
Punchy
Does Obama have any kids?
ThymeZone
CNN may have said “may” and not “will” WRT to the ice storm.
Apparently whether they get the ice depends on the track of the coldest air. Or something.
I am therefore predicting that warm, balmy zephyrs will come up along the Dixie Highway and propel waves of Obama voters to the polls, sweeping Brunhildary to ignominious defeat.
Jen
I nominate Martin for Useful Smart Informed BJ Commentator. Don’t let the fact that your competition is slim detract from the tremendous honor it is, really, just to be nominated.
Martin
Hmm. I think I’ve read absolutely everything on the dustup and I can’t see the lying. Enlighten me.
Jen
It’s supposed to be 70 degrees here today. I am some distance from Ohio, but it’s not my fault they live there.
Face
Joe Sakic says yer full of shit.
Napoleon
The weather predictions here in North East Ohio don’t look all that bad for tomorrow morning. Basically we are looking at a typical crappy winter day.
John S.
Desperation is a stinky perfume.
stickler
Jen:
A poll about fiber? What kind? Fiber optic cables? Bran cereal? The relative merits of hemp or jute ropes?
The mind boggles at the possibilities. And who would pay for such a gripping study? Tell us more!
Jim
Contrary to the initial concept of this thread, Hillary, God forbid, seems to be the one with momentum, expanding her lead in Ohio and closing the gap in Texas. If she wins three of four tomorrow, it’s trench warfare for the next month until Pennsylvania.
JGabriel
B-Psycho:
You’re not wrong, though Indiana/West Virginia (suburban/rural PA is kind of combo of the two) would be a more accurate reference point than Alabama.
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Grand Moff Texan
I’m just glad the headline wasn’t “Come On Hillary,” ’cause I’d have to point out that, you know, there was an alternative.
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John S.
Excellent analysis from the comments over at TPM:
The media is obsessed with the narrative, but at the end of the day this is all that really matters.
Jen
The supplemental kind. Fortunately, I was unable to assist them with their research, but I did give them TZ’s number.
Martin
I wouldn’t go that far. She’s only shown signs of any improvement in Ohio – and that only over the last 48-72 hours and only in one poll (though a good poll). The others show them flattening out with Hillary leading by 5-6 or so. She’s lost ground consistently in Texas and RI, and seems to have brought things to equilibrium in Texas at best. So, not momentum really, but she’s show she can stem the bleeding – but that’s something. The story will lie in the results. People have come to expect Obama to beat the polls (as he did all through Feb) but Clinton had basically no ground game at all after super tuesday. Ohio and Texas are different stories, so I think the polls will be more accurate this time. In a relative sense it does feel like momentum on her part, though. It’ll depend a lot on how the supers see it. This is really their election to stop or let play out now.
John S.
Well, that’s certainly how the media will portray it. Not because they are biased against Obama, but because they like juicy stories. When it looked like Obama might close things out, they were all over the Hillary death-watch. Now that Hillary might have new signs of life, they are all over the Hillary comeback.
And even when they are completely wrong, they’ll just go “oops” and continue spinning their bullshit all over again.
Martin
BTW, I used to live in central PA and I’d agree that regionally it does resemble WV at times and IN at times. I recall going with a friend of mine to drop something off with a relative in a PA coal town. Though it was only about 25 miles away it was like entering a totally different state. Economically ravaged, lots of health issues, etc. But for the most part I didn’t find rampant racism among people that would consider voting for a Dem in the first place. Mainly it was the big truck with gun rack and confederate flag crowd. I don’t think they’ll have much impact on the primary.
Wilfred
The media is like Scheherazade – it stays alive because it controls the narrative, and the stories it spins are just as fantastic.
crw
I suspect Obama will do well in Texas. I know quite a few Republicans down here who are extremely meh on McCain, but hate Clinton with a burning passion. They’re planning to or already have voted for Obama, just because they want to see Clinton humiliated.
I’d be surprised if the polling models are picking up this dynamic.
norbizness
I love the new definition of momentum: up by 20-30 a month ago, up by 3-5 a few days ago, and up by 6-10 today. You can also do a few checks of her advisor’s predictions concerning the 3/4 primaries that occurred in mid-February: publicly proclaiming that they expected her to be LEADING in delegates after they were over.
Reminds me of the Bush Administration: things are terrible, but not the worst they’ve ever been, even though that also happened on our watch as well. SUCCESS, says Penn!
John S.
They aren’t.
These Obama vs. Clinton polls – for the most part – don’t take into account Republicans, Independents and other voters outside the ‘likely Democratic voter’ model, which includes younger people and first time voters.
That is why I think Obama has consistently outperformed polling by an average of 8 points in the contests thus far.
Martin
SUSA polls do take non-Dems into account. They aren’t that weak. But you can usually tell right off the top of who the sample is. Is it likely voters or registered Dems or likely Dem voters, etc.
And the definition of momentum is whatever the receiver views it as. Don’t expect that joe lieutenant governor can gauge his impressions over a 4 week period when it’s much easier to do it over a 2 day period. If it goes from ‘Obama even’ to ‘Clinton won by 5’ in 48 hours, he/she’ll think that Clinton has momentum even if the narrative was ‘Clinton by 20’ a month ago. Determining victory from the delegate math was useful back when the delegates could decide this.
So again, this won’t be decided by the voters directly. Short of Obama or Clinton winning nearly 100% of the remaining votes, superdelegates will call this thing like it or not. And my guess is that half of them can’t balance their checkbook let alone do delegate momentum calculus so they’ll go on the internal party narrative. The internal party narrative has always favored Clinton. Even now she still leads on the superdelegate count. If the superdelegates can look at the external party narrative, they’ll see something different and should back Obama, but don’t underestimate their own sense of ‘we know best’. They’ve been running the ‘we know best’ election playbook for decades and though it consistently turns out losers, they keep playing it all the same.
The Other Steve
The way I figure it… we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
All the polls show the race pretty much tied. So I’m not sure how this will benefit Hillary since she needs to win by a 20-30 point margin to make a dent in the MUP.
It should be noted that Minnesota showed Hillary up by 10 a week before she lost by 40.
Wilfred
Actually, that’s to Obama’s advantage. The absurdity of placing the election in the hands of relatively few people means that the ones already not promised something have a lot to gain by not declaring. However, I’d bet that years of maneuvering has led Clinton to exhaust nearly all that she could possibly promise certain supers and that she’s ‘promised out’ – there can only be one Ambassador to France, after all.
I’d like to see the list of undeclared supers – they’re sitting on a collective gold mine, literally and figuratively. Who’s got more (political) gold to give?
JGabriel
John S. (quoting a comment from TPM):
That sounds about right, for the day after Texas and Ohio.
The thing is, if Hillary can start racking up enough wins to whittle Obama’s pledged delegate lead to less than, oh, say a hundred delegates, then it’s really not unfair of her to try to win on the basis of getting more superdelegates.
That was the purpose (one of them anyway) for setting up the superdelegates in the first place – to give the party leadership a say in the event of a close race.
It seems like Obama’s goal should be not just to win, but to get and maintain a lead of, at least, 200-300 pledged delegates. If he can achieve that, then that should be a convincing enough margin for the super-delegates to confirm his nomination.
As far as Hillary dropping out is concerned, if it gets to the point where it’s mathematically impossible for her to get within 200 (maybe 150, if you really want to push it) votes of Obama’s delegate lead, then she should drop out.
Short of that, I think calls for her to drop out are kind of premature.
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zzyzx
By the way, if Clinton wins tomorrow, takes this to the convention, and we have a devastating floor fight that leads to a McCain victory, I hope everyone remembers that fun time you had in Pennsylvania when you had a primary.
Wilfred
Bullshit goalpost shifting. Here’s a personal message for party leadership. If Obama has more delegates and the supers make Clinton the candidate anyway because, well, he won but it just wasn’t enough then they and the Party can go fuck themselves. When they come with their unite behind Hillary and beat MCCain my answer, and that of many other people, will be – Blow Me.
Does anybody realize what McCain will do with that scenario in the general? How many independents who came out to vote for Obama will vote for Clinton after getting shit on?
JGabriel
Martin:
Possibly. Some of the people I was thinking of would certainly fall into ‘gun rack and confederate flag’ category. Others, however, were older registered Dems who wouldn’t. And I tried to indicate that it isn’t ‘rampant’, so much as a pervasive, low-level, racism. I guess I’d characterize it as being mid-way between the level you’d see in the South, and the level you’d see in the rest of the country.
It’s weird. Bigotries tend to go hand in hand, but I wouldn’t characterize PA as particularly sexist – about the same as the rest of the country, excepting the two poles of the major cities and the South. But it’s a dichotomy that favors Clinton in PA.
Anyway, maybe you’re right, maybe most of the state has become less racist since I moved away two decades ago. If so, though, it hasn’t reach the Wyoming Valley area, which I visit about once or twice a year for holidays. And it hasn’t reached the Hazelton/Harrisburg area either, as evidenced by the recent town ordinances to deny housing to undocumented immigrants in Hazelton.
I don’t want to deny your own experiences there, but I have to say mine leave me skeptical. That said, even I’ll admit that the racism there has diminished over the past 2-3 decades. But every time I visit, I still hear, at least once, something that makes me think, “Jesus Christ, will guys fucking climb into the 21st Century already.”
ScottS
But she isn’t going to get within 100 votes. Obama will win MS and WY. Even if Clinton sweeps PA, IN, WV and KY, it probably won’t be by large margins, and Obama still has OR, NC, SD, and MT. Even in NH, Obama hasn’t ever *lost* support, I just don’t see him surrendering much ground (and, in fact, he’s been able to gain on Clinton ~20 points in less than a month in the current firewall states).
Obama will have 150+ pledged delegate lead unless he makes a series of blunders. Clinton staying in the race to see if that will happen just damages the party. Damage committed in the unwavering belief that she is THE ONE, the ONLY ONE, who can be a successful Democratic president. The arrogance of this strategic line is really breathtaking.
It is amazing to me that I’m hoping beyond hope that Obama wins the popular vote in the TX primary tomorrow so he can get the symbolic win he supposedly needs. After 11 blowouts and an insurmountable delegate lead, Clinton should need a blowout of her own to show that she’s still viable. And yet, narrow victories in both States somehow makes them even again. What malarky!
JGabriel
Wilfred:
Fair enough. I’m not advocating that Hillary should under those circumstances. In fact, I agree with you – I think that scenario could easily tear the party apart.
But – and this, not goalpost shifting, was my point – from the perspective of the Clinton campaign, it’s going to look premature to drop out of the race until Obama has a commanding lead in pledged delegates. My guess is that they’ll define that as the point where they can’t mathematically come within a 100 delegates of Obama.
Which, by the way, I think will happen. So, I don’t see a lot of point in making angry denunciations that she should drop out until then.
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p.lukasiak
As a Pennsylvanian let me just say that sucks. For the first time in the history of presidential primaries we might actually matter.
are you kidding me? I mean, it would have been cool to be part of Super Tuesday or something like that, but if this election continues, our state is going to be nothing but wall-to-wall Russerts, Mitchells, Tumulties, Broders, Dowds, Blitzers and Crowleys for the next seven weeks.
Think Iowa and New Hampshire combined — but on steroids.
I want Hillary to stay in regardless of what happens tomorrow… but the last thing I’m looking forward to is having our state become the center of a media circus….
JGabriel
ScottS:
That’s kind of silly. If the Democratic candidates can’t survive the political process within their own party, then we’re definitely gonna lose when the Pugs bring out the big guns. So, I’m not too worried about that scenario. I’m certain that letting the process play out a little while longer isn’t going to kill us.
The larger problem, to my thinking, is Clinton’s aggressive pursuit of changing the rules to seat the FL and MI delegates. That could damage the party – which is why I hope wins nominating process goes in with a enough delegates to hold a commanding lead. If it’s to be Obama, then I hope he gets those wins in TX and OH.
Frankly, I think the Dems handled that situation poorly. They should have cut the delegates in half for those states, like (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) the Republicans did. A penalty in the form of diminished representation, rather than zero representation, would have been more politically astute.
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Temple Stark
Man decry the pendits by beocing one. There’s alot of BS in this thread. Here’s my two squeezes worth:
i can’t get past the fact that if Hillary wins Ohio and Texas – and the trend is returning back to her favor if you look at a spectrum of polls – then it is she who has won the many states that are likely to be blue, with Texas beign a lot closer than most people think.
That’s somewhat significant, and easily overlooked by Obama supporters who cite quantity over quality. He’s won a lot of states that will remain red in the general election so, arguably, when it comes to the Electoral College which how the system still works, his wins there won’t amount to much.
Now it is perhaps obvious that with Clinton out of the race, the blue states would still vote blue. But then we come to the superdelegates. With wins in Ohio and Texas – and I think if she doesn’t win both she should bow out gracefully – they’ll be much less likely to think Hillary doesn’t deserve her shot. They’ll stick with her and, if they believe in her, they should.
A small second point. I find it incredibly disingenuous for people to say, no FL and MI delegates should not be counted and them’s the rules to then turn around and say if the superdelegates get to decided the outcome that’s unfair and undemocratic. Them’s the rules, too.
Temple Stark
Remove a few typos there and we have English. .. Temple
ThymeZone
Welp, after reading this thread over and marveling at the mental gymnastics people will do to prop up the idea of Burnhilldary staying in the race after tomorrow (” no matter what happens,” if you can believe somebody actually posted that) …. I think I know what will happen.
The Hildebeast will bow out on Wednesday, and start an independent bid for the White House. She will become the Female Joe Lieberman, and might even pick Joe for her running mate.
On election night in November, she will have teams of lawyers fanning out across the country to challenge vote counts, and we will still be watching this train wreck in December.
She’ll just win by wearing everybody else down.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
TZ! Please brace. Terrible information below!
The 22nd does not prevent Bill Clinton from sitting as VP. At all.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Although, the 12th does happen to stick its head into the argument and hamper things seriously. At least there’s some good news.
shaker o salt
Yeesh! Reading all of this makes me feel like I’m back in high school. The candidates are handing out stickers with candy on them, i.e. “be a Smartie and vote for Marty” and there are shouting matches on the campus between opposing candidates.
I think the primary is getting ugly because people such as Thymezone, above, are making it ugly with the name-calling. You don’t like the opposing candidate, okay, we get it. But what is this? Pretty in Pink? Jaysus.
May the best candidate win and then get our support in November. If you are not grown up enough to deal with and vote for the eventual winner, then you deserve 4 more years of Bush type politics.
ThymeZone
Is this the thread where Paul Lukasiak official endorses the position of Rush Limbaugh?
Limbaugh.
Lukasiak.
p.lukasiak
Is this the thread where Paul Lukasiak official endorses the position of Rush Limbaugh?
methinks that TZ may have fallen on of his Arizona cacti, and it wound up stuck in a very inconvenient place :-P
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
If you can’t figure out which candidate will lead us to more Bush-type politics, then you _really_ haven’t been paying attention.
Mismanagement. Delusion. Dishonesty. Appeals to fear. Willful ignorance of agreed rules (FL & MI). Plagiarism (“Yes she can”). Spiteful mockery. False accusation. Self-victimization. Secrecy.
The “best” candidate is already known, thanks to a very clear disqualification. Now all that remains is to show this contemptible politician that she is unwelcome to our votes.
ThymeZone
That’s why they don’t call us Arizonan’s “spineless.”
Heh.
Okay, lame, but what can I do with such material?
AnneLaurie
Bob Shrum wants his title back, or he says he’ll sue!
demimondian
Nah, p.luk. TZ is the cactus spine himself — or, perhaps, the prick you experience when you run into the cactus.
[Thanks. I think my coat’s the green one with the puke on it. I’ll be going now.]