Hopeful Under Cloudy Skies

Obama by double digits, but what about Merkley? A squeaker if we're lucky. And Poblano, now everyone's go-to guy (I think he's a guy) predicts only a 19-point Hillary win in Kentucky. (Actually, it's his extremely complex model that predicts it; he'd take Hill and the 19 if he were betting. But still, his model has been really accurate in the past--more so than polls.)

I'm going out on a limb and saying it'll be fifteen in Oregon. It exceeds all reasonable measures, but I'm in an expansive mood.

Just for the record

I'm going with Hillary by eight in Indiana and Obama by two in NC. She always rallies impressively and exceeds polls. And, since polls now give her a 4-6 point lead among Hoosiers and Obama a 5-point lead in NC, that's my prediction.

But this is a fun fantasy prediction if you want to be in a good mood until tomorrow evening.

Pennsylvania Polling (and Poll)

Finally! It feels like we've been trapped in some version of hell these past six weeks as everyone tried to manufacture news from the mutterings of candidate surrogates. It's like a breath of fresh air to actually focus on voting again. So what to expect tomorrow? Here are the recent poll numbers in PA (aggregate of seven polls taken between 4/18-20):

Obama: 43.7%
Clinton: 49.1%
Average undecideds: 6.1%

But, as you know, the aggregates fail to tell the full story. You can tell more by what the trend is. So, for recent polls, here's what the movement looks like:

PPP: Clinton +8%
Zogby: Clinton +4%
Rasmussen: Clinton +2%
Quinnipiac: Clinton +1%
Strategic Vision: Obama +2%
ARG: Obama +7%
SurveyUSA: Obama +8%

All of those include debate before and afters, so it captures an important spread. I think the thing to look at are the undecideds. Based on what the Pollster brains believe, they're likely to favor Clinton. This corresponds to what we have seen recently, particularly in Ohio and Texas. Franklin believes it's because undecideds skew older, which is good evidence.

On the other hand, the big question is: have the pollsters weighted their numbers correctly? Pennsylvania is a closed-primary state, so pollsters have been adjusting for Clinton's strength among Dems. But wait! There was a huge rush of new voters (200k+) who are likely disproportionately Obama voters. How disproportionate? How much will the Obama ground game affect turnout?

Here's my guess. Let's call Clinton's lead six points. She will pick up another two points from late-deciders. Obama will offset that with new voters and a better ground game--though since Hillary has had six weeks to prepare, his advantage will be less. Give him 2-3 points back, and I see Hillary winning a 5%-6% vote.

(That, of course, creates a morass in the primary, with neither candidate able to claim an outright win. But Hillary will pick up just a few delegates and perhaps 150,000 popular votes, both of which put her further in the hole.)

But that's just one blogger's opinion. What thinks you?

Friday Obama News Dump

I know that it's mainly just Mom reading this blog now, but she may have missed some of these stories, and anyway, I don't write often enough. Hi Mom!

Polls
Gallup's has been tightening (this week it started at 11, went to 8, 7, and three today), but this is rather shocking: a Newsweek poll has Obama absolutely hammering Clinton.

Here are the numbers, compared with the last Newsweek poll finding a statistical dead heat in March:

Obama 54% (45%)

Hillary 35% (44%)

One key finding with regard to the debate: The poll was taken on April 16th and 17th -- which is to say, on one day before the debate, and on one day after. And the Newsweek pollster says that there was no real shift in support from one day to the next.

The Thin Blue Line
Within active police officers, the "thin blue line" is the unspoken word of brotherhood that prevents one cop from ratting out another. Or anyway, that's how it works on teevee. There's a similar, but less acknowledged line in journalism. Working journalists are loth to talk smack about each other. I think the reason is because reporting is a high-wire act. Sometimes you get things wrong, and whenever you commit your words to the story, there's a certain anxiety of getting it wrong. Reporters also know that the majority of the information they collect can't and won't go into a story. So when a bad story comes out, there are a number of reasons why the rest of the press goes mum.

All of which is why this petition is so remarkable. It was written by working journalists, and something like forty have signed it.

We're at a crucial moment in our country's history, facing war, a terrorism threat, recession, and a range of big domestic challenges. Large majorities of our fellow Americans tell pollsters they're deeply worried about the country's direction. In such a context, journalists moderating a debate--who are, after all, entrusted with free public airwaves--have a particular responsibility to push and engage the candidates in serious debate about these matters. Tough, probing questions on these issues clearly serve the public interest. Demands that candidates make pledges about a future no one can predict or excessive emphasis on tangential "character" issues do not. This applies to candidates of both parties.

Neither Mr. Gibson nor Mr. Stephanopoulos lived up to these responsibilities. In the words of Tom Shales of the Washington Post, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Stephanopoulos turned in "shoddy, despicable performances." As Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher describes it, the debate was a "travesty." We hope that the public uproar over ABC's miserable showing will encourage a return to serious journalism in debates between the Democratic and Republican nominees this fall. Anything less would be a betrayal of the basic responsibilities that journalists owe to their public.

New Attack Ad

The trouble just keeps coming on the elitism front. Now Obama is under fire for the words of the Boss.



Robert Reich Endorsement
Reich, who initially met Bill Clinton when they were Rhodes scholars together in the 60s, has endorsed Obama. I mention this because Reich has always been one of the most impressive and likable people in Washington. Not surprisingly, he did it on his blog. Also not surprisingly, his seems to be more an endorsement of possibilities than policy:

[Obama] also presents the best chance of creating a new politics in which citizens become active participants rather than cynical spectators. He has energized many who had given up on politics. He has engaged young people to an extent not seen in decades. He has spoken about the most difficult problems our society faces, such as race, without spinning or simplifying. He has rightly identified the armies of lawyers and lobbyists that have commandeered our democracy, and pointed the way toward taking it back.

All right--happy friday.

Obama Errata

Some random odds and ends floating around. First, Beinart's piece from the Post yesterday highlights something I've been thinking (though he may make the case too strongly, but still):

Presidents tend to govern the way they campaigned. Jimmy Carter ran as a moralistic outsider in 1976, and he governed that way as well, refusing to compromise with a Washington establishment that he distrusted (and that distrusted him). Ronald Reagan's campaign looked harsh on paper but warm and fuzzy on TV, as did his presidency. The 1992 Clinton campaign was like the Clinton administration: brilliant and chaotic, with a penchant for near-death experiences. And the 2000 Bush campaign presaged the Bush presidency: disciplined, hierarchical, loyal and ruthless....

Of the three candidates still in the 2008 race, Obama has run the best campaign by far. McCain's was a top-heavy, slow-moving, money-hemorrhaging Hindenburg that eventually exploded, leaving the Arizona senator to resurrect his bankrupt candidacy through sheer force of will. Clinton's campaign has been marked by vicious infighting and organizational weakness, as manifested by her terrible performance in caucus states....

At the top, in fact, the campaign is quite hierarchical. There's no question who's in charge: David Axelrod, a grizzled Chicago street-fighter whom Obama has known since he was 30. Axelrod and his subordinates believe their guy represents a new kind of politics, but they're not above using old-school, hard-ball tactics -- even against his own supporters -- to help him win. Last spring, for example, when the Obama campaign realized it couldn't control a popular Obama page on MySpace, it persuaded the company to shut the page down.

It is this remarkable hybrid campaign, far more than Obama's thin legislative résumé, that should reassure voters that he can run the government. As president, he'll need to keep his supporters mobilized: It will take a grass-roots movement, breathing down Congress's neck, to pass universal health care. But in dealing with those very supporters, he'll also have to be ruthless so as not to get caught up in the kind of side skirmishes, such as gays in the military, that weakened Bill Clinton early on. Obama's experience whipping up support on MySpace while simultaneously tamping it down is exactly the kind he'll need in the Oval Office.

Pennsylvania polling is tightening up, with the exception of yesterday's SurveyUSA results, showing Clinton up by 18. Throw that one out and look at all the others that have been conducted since April 1, and Obama's trailing by a very modest 3.6%. Include the outlying S-USA and it's 5.7%. But what to make of the S-USA poll, which has been the most accurate in the primaries so far? The mood in the blogosphere is to give S-USA its credit and split the difference--put it at about 10%. Dunno, but the Obama team is playing it right--driving down expectations and predicting a double-digit defeat. If he can close to within single digits, it could be a huge blow to Clinton.

Penn: bad for Obama. What's the old adage? When your opponent is busy committing suicide, just get out of the way. On the other hand, we probably put far too much weight into the importance of campaign functionaries. Almost no voters know Mark Penn. I doubt seriously they're watching the campaign and thinking this version of Hillary is radically different from the impression they already have. So why is it all Penn's fault?

Finally, this bit of satire is circling the internets, justifiably. A woman after my own heart:

In a move that's sure to be seen as controversial, Hillary has contacted the NCAA Board of Directors to argue that Memphis is actually better qualified to be National Champion.

Ms. Clinton stated that Memphis, while losing the game, had actually shown more ability to act like a National Champion on Day One. She argued that Memphis had passed every test during the game, including scoring more points than Kansas for 38 minutes. For 38 minutes they had shown the experience necessary to be National Champion. "Just because some team comes along in the last minute and scores more points than the other guy doesn't mean they're necessarily able to be National Champion on Day One."

Obama and Hillary: Tied Nationally

I just heard a reporter on the local news report a tracking poll that had one of the candidates out by two points. It was apparently not the Gallup, which has Obama ahead by 3 today. What struck me was that she reported it like it was a basketball score or high weather temperature--an actual data point. Of course, two points means it's in the margin of error. And any tracking poll will vary day-to-day in any case. So far from it meaning that a candidate was actually leading by two (I don't even remember which was supposed to be leading), the real value of the tracking point is to say they're tied.

Don't believe me? Gallup's tracking poll goes back 17 days. If you do a trend of those 17 days, Obama stands .1% in front of Hillary, 46.3% to 46.2%.

An absolute dead heat.

Reporters should be required to learn what poll numbers mean before they're allowed to report on them. Of course, their ignorance is probably better for business, so I doubt we'll see anything like that anytime soon. Especially in a burg like Portland, Oregon.

Richardson for Obama

Just minutes ago Bill Richardson endorsed Obama, who is now speaking to the crowd. By chance, it's in Portland and on local TV. I'm watching it live.

Very Cool!

Annotating Clinton Spin

This is funny. The Obama team annotates a Hillary memo--amusingly.

From: Bill Burton
Sent: Wed 3/12/2008 6:36 PM
To: Bill Burton
Subject: FW: The Clinton Memo... as annotated by the Obama communicationsdepartment

To: Interested Parties
From: Clinton Campaign
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Re: Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground [Get ready for a good one.]

The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can't win there, how will he win the general election?

[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.]

After setbacks in Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama needs to demonstrate that he can win the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the last state with more than 15 electoral votes on the primary calendar and Barack Obama has lost six of the seven other largest states so far - every state except his home state of Illinois.

[If you define "setback" as netting enough delegates out of our 20-plus-point wins in Mississippi and Wyoming to completely erase any delegate advantage the Clinton campaign earned out of March 4th, then yeah, we feel pretty setback.]

Pennsylvania is of particular importance, along with Ohio, Florida and Michigan, because it is dominated by the swing voters who are critical to a Democratic victory in November. No Democrat has won the presidency without winning Pennsylvania since 1948. And no candidate has won the Democratic nomination without winning Pennsylvania since 1972.

[What the Clinton campaign secretly means: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT WE'VE LOST 14 OF THE LAST 17 CONTESTS AND SAID THAT MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA WOULDN'T COUNT FOR ANYTHING. Also, we're still trying to wrap our minds around the amazing coincidence that the only "important" states in the nominating process are the ones that Clinton won.]

But the Obama campaign has just announced that it is turning its attention away from Pennsylvania.

[Huh?]

This is not a strategy that can beat John McCain in November.

[I don't think Clinton's strategy of losing in state after state after promising more of the same politics is working all that well either.]

In the last two weeks, Barack Obama has lost ground among men, women, Democrats, independents and Republicans - all of which point to a candidacy past its prime.

["A candidacy past its prime." These guys kill me.]

For example, just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama won 68% of men in Virginia, 67% in Wisconsin and 62% in Maryland. He won 60% of Virginia women and 55% of Maryland women. He won 62% of independents in Maryland, 64% in Wisconsin and 69% in Virginia. Obama won 59% of Democrats in Maryland, 53% in Wisconsin and 62% in Virginia. And among Republicans, Obama won 72% in both Virginia and Wisconsin.

But now Obama's support has dropped among all these groups.

[That's true, if you don't count all the winning we've been up to. As it turns out, it's difficult to maintain 40-point demographic advantages, even over Clinton]

In Mississippi, he won only 25% of Republicans and barely half of independents. In Ohio, he won only 48% of men, 41% of women and 42% of Democrats. In Texas, he won only 49% of independents and 46% of Democrats. And in Rhode Island, Obama won just 33% of women and 37% of Democrats.

[I'm sympathetic to their attempt to parse crushing defeats. And I'm sure Rush Limbaugh's full-throated endorsement of Clinton didn't make any difference. Right]

Why are so many voters turning away from Barack Obama in state after state?

[You mean besides the fact that we're ahead in votes, states won and delegates?]

In the last few weeks, questions have arisen about Obama's readiness to be president. In Virginia, 56% of Democratic primary voters said Obama was most qualified to be commander-in-chief. That number fell to 37% in Ohio, 35% in Rhode Island and 39% in Texas.

[Only the Clinton campaign could cherry pick states like this. But in contrast to their logic, in the most recent contest of Mississippi, voters said that Obama was more qualified to be commander in chief than Clinton by a margin of 55-42.]

So the late deciders - those making up their minds in the last days before the election - have been shifting to Hillary Clinton. Among those who made their decision in the last three days, Obama won 55% in Virginia and 53% in Wisconsin, but only 43% in Mississippi, 40% in Ohio, 39% in Texas and 37% in Rhode Island.

[If only there were enough late deciders for the Clinton campaign to actually be ahead, they would really be on to something.]

If Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral with a big win in Pennsylvania, he cannot possibly be competitive against John McCain in November.

[If they are defining downward spiral as a series of events in which the Clinton campaign has lost more votes, lost more contests and lost more delegates to us - I guess we will have to suffer this horribly painful slide all the way to the nomination and then on to the White House.]

[Thanks for the laughs guys. This was great.]

Incidentally, I'm out of town for the next five days, so no posting. Not that you'd notice.

The "Biggest States" Argument

If Obama beats Hillary in pledged delegates (as he surely will), wins the most states (he has 24 plus DC already), and has received the most votes overall (likely), the Clinton campaign will deploy the last missile it has: "yeah, but we won the big states." While this is technically true, the argument isn't perfectly bulletproof. Here are the largest fifteen states, and the candidate who won them.

1. California [C]
   
2. New York [C]
3. Texas [C]
4. Pennsylvania [likely C]
   
5. Illinois [O]
6. Ohio [C]
7. North Carolina [likely O]
8. New Jersey [C]
9. Massachusetts [C]
10. Georgia [O]
11. Virginia [O]
12. Washington [O]
13. Wisconsin [O]
14. Minnesota [O]
15. Missouri [O]

In Hillary's favor: she will have won four of the five non-home states in the union, and six of ten. Include home states, and she won four of the five largest, and seven of the top ten. But if you look at states 11-15, Obama ran the tables. So of the top 15 largest states, Obama won eight if you include home states, seven if you don't -- a majority in each case.

Obviously, Hillary will make the argument that the big states should be limited to the top nine (I doubt she'd include Georgia), but there's a slippery slope--she doesn't want to risk denigrating those 11-15 states, at least four of which will be in play in November.

Hillary Rising

All the news points to a Clinton rally: she's beaten back the attack in Ohio (Obama's staying in Texas through tomorrow), and has regained mo in Texas. There's Canuck-gate and Rezko-gate and the 3am phone call and the dueling tweed jackets. Advantage Clinton down the line. Oh, and then there's this: Ohio Republicans are rallying to Clinton because they don't want to face Obama, says an unnamed reader of a blog.

But hey, Obama appears to be closing in Rhode Island.

As always, I'm feeling grim about things. Unexpectedly, I'm not alone. Hillary ain't done yet. If this post works, you'll see that I've got a poll up. This is an amusing feature, given that the reader can be of only so many minds. But let's see what s/he thinks (full discloser, she: hi mom!), anyway.

Hillary's Rezko?

This is interesting.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has declined to return $170,000 in campaign contributions from individuals at a company accused of widespread sexual harassment, and whose CEO is a disbarred lawyer with a criminal record, federal campaign records show.

The federal government has accused the Illinois management consulting firm, International Profit Associates, or IPA, of a brazen pattern of sexual harassment including "sexual assaults,” “degrading anti-female language" and "obscene suggestions...."

Wolfson dismissed the notion that keeping IPA money reflected a lack of concern about sexual harassment. "Sen. Clinton is proud of her long record of championing women's causes," he said. "When the EEOC rules on the allegations involving Burgess, we will consider that outcome in assessing if there is any reason to return his contribution." Of the $170,000 total in donations from all IPA officials and employees, Burgess and his family members personally contributed $16,000 to Sen. Clinton, campaign records show.

Sexual harrassment hits her pretty hard, too. What percentage of those working-class women she champions have experienced harrassment? Ain't insignificant, that's for sure.

Good News, Bad News

Good news: Marc Ambinder crunches his own numbers and concludes:

If Florida and Michigan's delegations are seated fully to her advantage, and if she wins in Ohio by 65% and wins in Texas by 65%, and all other percentages hold, she can win the nomination.

Assumptions here.

Bad news: Texas is swinging back to Hillary, at least according to one analysis.

But a survey of 591 registered voters who are likely to vote in the Democratic primary in Texas conducted last night (February 27) indicates that Sen. Hillary Clinton has regained the lead in a race that remains within the survey’s margin of error. The results were:

Clinton: 47%
Obama: 43%
Undecided: 10%

“This is a classic sign that a race might be starting to turn. We see the undecided voters increasing and unsettled numbers in key age brackets. Moreover, Clinton has expanded her lead among Hispanic voters, while holding onto white votes. She has dropped slightly among women, but has gained among men.

So.

McCain - A Winning Strategy?

Since this approach worked so well for Hillary, McCain has decided to adopt it:


While we're on McCain, you should be aware of Josh's very dark prediction for the coming campaign. I hope to hell he's wrong about it--but if he's right, voters will definitely have a real choice.

The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty thrown in, but we'll have to see. The details and specific arguments are sort of beside the point. They're like the libretto in a Wagner opera, nice for some narrative structure. But it's the score that's the real essence of it, the point of the whole exercise.

Now, a good deal has been made out of John McCain's repudiation of talk radio yakmeister Bill Cunningham, who led off for McCain at one of his rallies with the full run of Obama sludge. But don't be distracted or fooled. This is more like an example of what the digital commerce folks refer to as 'channel conflict'. You've got your multiple distribution channels. You've got the way McCain's selling the product. Broadcast. Broad and thematic about McCain. But you've got a number of other product channels to sell through, most of them a lot grittier, but no less essential for ultimate success.

Both can work simultaneously. In fact, in the kind of campaign McCain's running, they're both essential for success (see the 2000 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina). The key is just that the channels don't cross. Because that's when the trouble starts and they can begin to undermine or even short-circuit each other. And that's what threatened to happened here.

Don't insult your intelligence or mine by pretending that John McCain's plan for this race doesn't rely on hundreds of Cunninghams -- large and small -- across the country, and the RNC and all the GOP third party groups, to be peddling this stuff nonstop for the next eight months because it's the only way John McCain have a real shot at contesting this race.

If McCain really wants to repudiate this stuff, he can start with the Tennessee Republican party which dished all the slurs and smears about Obama being a Nation of Islam-loving anti-Semite, just today. And once he's done talking to the people who will be running his Tennessee campaign, we'll have a number of others he can talk to, like the head of his Ohio campaign, former Sen. Mike DeWine, who gave that Cunningham guy his marching orders.

Let's just not fool ourselves, not lie to ourselves about what's happening here and who's in charge.

Gird for the worst, hope for the best, I guess.

The High Road

Hillary to Barack: "Shame on you!" Barack to Hillary:

The Daily News's Michael Saul, at Obama's presser, put to him David Plouffe's quote that circulating the photo of Obama in African dress was "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election," and asked if Obama agreed.

"I think that at this stage in the campaign there are going to be dust-ups, particularly at the staff level," Obama said. Certainly I don’t think that photograph was circulated to enhance my candidacy."

"Do I think that it is reflective of Senator Clinton’s approach to the campaign? Probably not," he said.

Which kind of president do we want?

Experience, Truth, and a non-Movie Post

Terrible to be interrupting your Oscar Sunday with politics, but the Hillary campaign provoked me into it:

Hillary said the Obama camp were being bad Democrats: "It is blatantly false and yet he continues to spend millions of dollars perpetuating falsehoods. It is not hopeful. It is destructive, particularly for a Democrat to be discrediting universal health care."

Dee-lightful: Obama's a liar and a traitor to the party. First things first--let's dispense with the charge of lying. Although Hillary doesn't like the way Obama characterizes her statement, the source Obama cites backs him up. I'm sure Obama doesn't agree with Hillary's characterization that he's all talk, either. But that's hardly a lie, and it really isn't even bare-knuckle politics. (Appears that it's the truth, which makes the sting even worse for Hillary, no doubt.)

Obama has yet to hit Hillary on the central thesis of her campaign, but this might be the moment to do it. Truth is, we can't know what Hillary's view on NAFTA was because she wasn't the president when it was passed. Hillary wants to run on Bill's record ... unless she doesn't. Look, if she's going to claim that those 8 years are her experience (as she does, ad nauseum), then she has to actually run on the record. Having it both ways while excoriating Obama for inexperience is BS. She apparently wasn't enough of a foe of NAFTA to actually say so out loud, so she's stuck with it now.

And there are those who want to give her credit for the experience, like Kevin Drum:

Seen through this lens, the problem with Obama isn't that he's less experienced than Hillary, but that he's inexperienced, full stop. And again, like it or not, John McCain will certainly use that as an argument in the general election campaign in a way he couldn't against Hillary. Sure, he's got 25 years to her 15, but that doesn't matter. Beyond a certain point voters aren't interested in who's got more experience, and 15 years is well beyond that point. If McCain tried to paint Hillary as inexperienced, it would be a waste of breath. Nobody would buy it.

Really? Obama hasn't hit Hillary on the issue of Bill's experience, but McCain will hammer it ruthlessly. He'll force her to pick a side--running on Bill's record (and accepting the de facto admission that that means Bill will be helping to run the show for the next eight), or backing off it. And aside from her senate years, she's got absolutely bupkis on relevant experience. She was a laywer and a politician's wife. The "35 years of fighting" is pure fiction.

Obama may not get credit for the Illinois state house, as Kevin believes. But he's been actively involved in politics since the mid-80s, and spent a number of years as a professor of constitutional law. All of that is more relevant than the Rose Law Firm experience Hillary periodically invokes.

¡ Viva Obama !

Sweet.

Hillary's Effectively Done

Okay, it's back to movies for the rest of the week, but here's one more prediction. I expect that over the next few days a storyline will emerge that may doom the Clinton campaign: Barack's inevitable, and for the good of the party, Hillary has to step down if she doesn't win decisively in Ohio and Texas.

Obama's now up by roughly 140 pledged delegates. In order to get back in the game, Hillary will have to dish out a fair thumping--which will only result in a moral/momentum victory. Even a win of 20 points in both states, currently unimaginable, just gets 60 back from Obama. Meantime, he would be defraying these gains in other states. In fact, using this delegate calculator, it turns out that if she wins every remaining state by a margin of ten points, they'll be tied.

This reality will dawn on the Dems in the coming days. If, as everyone has been thinking, this thing goes to Puerto Rico, that's 108 days from right now (June 7). The Dems can't survive a 3+ month long battle--we have to have a nominee sooner or risk sacrificing the gimme election in November. So here's how it's got to play out--Obama will close the gap in Ohio and Texas and perhaps win Texas. Ohio, to be charitable, will go to Hillary. Obama will still be over 100 pledged delegates ahead, and the party will coalesce around him. Pressure will be overwhelming and Hillary will have to step aside. Even the Clinton campaign calls it "hard to imagine" that Clinton can catch Obama in pledged delegates. If they think trailing badly and drawing things out will secure the Superdelegates they need--well, that would be yet another miscalculation by the campaign.

I know I'm usually super gloomy about Obama's prospects, but the numbers don't lie. Barring scandal or other unanticipated game-changer, it's all but over.

Whew

Exits: Obama won among everyone under 60, including whites (by nine points). He won among the poor and those without a college degree. He won every region, every income category. He won among Democrats. He tied among unmarried women. He won ... well, you get the picture. Final Wisconsin tally--58-41%.

And maybe this is the most telling finding of the exits: when CNN asked if the candidates had attacked the other unfairly, 54% said Clinton alone had, but only 34% said Obama had attacked unfairly.

Weirdly, Clinton tried to pre-empt Obama's victory speech (not shockingly, the stations stayed with Barack), and the surrogate who introduced her attacked Obama pretty visciously:

Machinists Union President Tom Buffenbarger, introducing Clinton, hit Obama in...colorful...terms, my colleague Ken Vogel reports.

"Yes we can? Give me a break," he said.

He also compared Obama with "Janus, the two-faced god" of Roman mythology. He called him "silver tongued" and a "thespian" and "the man in love with the microphone."

"He’s not just a trained thespian, he’s a terrific shadow boxer. You know the type. Outside the ring, he pretends he can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee," he said. "But Barack Obama is no Muhammad Ali. He took a walk every time there was a tough vote in the Illinois state Senate. He took a walk more than 130 times. That’s what a shadow boxer does. All the right moves, all the right combinations, all the right footwork, but he never steps into the ring. He walks away from the fight.”

He also drew a contrast between the “editor of the Harvard Law Review or a fighter for working families."

So did McCain:

Will we do that, or will we heed appeals for change that ignore the lessons of history and lack confidence in the intelligence and ideals of free people? I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday from history and return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than the people.

Will the next president have the experience and judgment and strength of purpose to respond to each of these developments in ways that strengthen our security and advance the global progress of our ideals? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan,* and sittting down without preconditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?

(I kid you not--he actually said that. Translation: "I'm doubling down on the success of the Bush years!--are you with me?!")

Release the hounds, things are seriousing up.

[Update: I'm adding to that McCain quote so you can see the Dubya-esque route he has chosen. Particularly egregious is the accusation that Obama said he'd bomb Pakistan. As McCain knows, and as the media will emphasize, this is a lie. He suggested a strike against Osama bin Laden in remote parts of Pakistan if the Pakistanis were unable to act. This passage, replete as it is with gross hyperbole, accusations of terrorist-coddling, and lies, is right out of the Bush playbook.]

Madness in the Badger State

As always, I wake up gloomy on the day of primaries. It's Pavlovian--losing so often over 30 years leaves me with an autonomous reaction of disappointment. Maybe Obama will win today, but I fear the cagey badgers going wrong. Three things:

1. Righties voting for Hillary in the open primary because they fear Obama;
2. Blue-collar rural voters reacting to the culture cues Hillary's putting out and rejecting the "elitism" of Obama;
3. Blowback from Obama's good run, fatigue over his message, and effective tarnishing by Clinton.

Dunno what will happen, but my erstwhile homestaters are capable of anything. They elected Joe McCarthy, remember?

Incidentally, I'm taking a break on politics after this post (with some backsliding, no doubt, when the results come in), to do my annual Jeffies--the thinking cineaste's response to the odious Oscars.

Hillary: Tough, Experienced, Ready on Day One

Hillary, whom I'm doing my best not to despise as this election goes along, has employed a couple of unforgiveable tactics: she's trying to game the delegate system even if she loses, and she's giving the GOP lots of talking points about how to attack Obama if he does become the nominee.
And it's the second one that's turned my Monday morning sour.

At an RNC donor event over the weekend, Republicans outlined their plan of attack against Obama--and it's essentially taken directly from Hillary's playbook:

The first called for pointing out what the GOP views as a seeming incongruity between Obama and the mantle of commander in chief. The second point harkened back to Obama’s days in the Illinois state Senate, noting how his “pattern of voting ‘present’ offers many openings to question his candidacy.” The third offered hope to the GOP faithful that “we can be confident in a campaign about issues.” A fourth bullet point relayed how “undisciplined messaging carries great risk,” while the fifth and final attack point stressed, “His greatest weakness is inexperience. He is not ready to be commander in chief. He is not ready to be president.”

Sound familiar? The worst part of this isn't that they'll attack Obama directly with these--they'll quote Hillary in making them. You'll see ads with her making these points and hear surrogates and the campaign quoting her--an entire effort led by Hillary Clinton.

Hillary, of course, offers solid day-one readiness and vast experience to run the ship of state. Oh really? This is the woman who ran her campaign so badly that her manager lied to her about how little money she had, who adopted a strategy of "inevitability" that gave Obama a talking point after winning Iowa that has turned him into the front-runner, who ignored caucuses because she didn't think the pissant delegates from Idaho mattered, and who staked her entire strategy on knocking Obama out on Super Tuesday. And now there's this:

While the Hillary Clinton campaign has made the Ohio and Texas contests on March 4 into their new firewall, they have only recently discovered the arcane rules of delegate selection in Texas, which could potentially mean that even a substantial popular win translates into only a slight edge in delegates.

The Washington Post reports that Hillary strategists learned in a closed-door meeting this month about the Texas contest, which splits delegates among the state Senate districts and also between the primary and a caucus held that night. It's ultimately a commentary on their lack of planning for a race lasting after Super Tuesday — when they thought they'd have the race locked up — that they have only just now learned of delegate rules that were of long-standing public knowledge.

Ready on day one my ass.