Of course, the remaining danger for Obama is now not anymore that Hillary somehow catches up on him in terms of the number of delegates they win. He will end up with a lead in pledged delegates.
But neither of them will get enough to get by without the support of the remaining undecided superdelegates. So the risk is rather that Hillary will somehow embark on a winning streak now, and bloody up Obama in state after state to come - PA, NC, IN, KY, WV, Puerto Rico. So that by the time the convention nears, Obama is still ahead a couple dozen delegates, but has hardly won a primary in three months, while Hillary has been winning for months (the drawn-out time over which this last half a dozen to a dozen states is stretched works in her favour that way).
Thats the one scenario in which the undecided superdelegates may decide en masse that, apparently, the voters have gotten second thoughts about Obama, who turned out to not really be up to the race after all - and thus they shouldnt feel bad about making a pragmatic choice for the candidate who's still up and standing.
It's not the most likely scenario, but thats the one to fear -- and an argument purely focused on delegate math doesnt address it.
I agree with that and would only add that narrowing the pledged delegate gap to something insignificant also makes the superdelegate's choice less clear. As in, there's no clear voter choice, so those other factors begin to weigh in more heavily.
Well heck, he's going to have to keep on winning if he wants to win, for sure. No surprise there.
Obama's up to 48-41% on the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, and up more then 5 points on the Gallup. It would seem that any bounce Hillary got from her wins last Tues. was short-lived; I think it's sunk home to people by now that she didn't win any delegates, and Obama is still in the driver's seat.
Cycloptichorn
I don't know, I think it's just more about the attacks wearing off. She's not sustaining them and with good reason. There's a pattern. If you remember the Wisconsin (I think) primary where she leveled that plagiarism BS right before the election so that it was all anyone talked about going into the vote. Her timing wasn't quite right with that one because he still won, but she got better with Ohio and TX. It helped that she was already heavily favored. I expect her to do the same thing before Pennsylvania and any other primary that she is already favored to win. The result is a one-two punch of her victory combined with him having to play defense. The waters are calm right now because she's not really contesting today's or Saturday's primaries, and because if she stayed on the offensive there would be a backlash. No, better to let the memory of the nastiness fade away. Then, if/when he brings it up he looks defensive. Everyone is already focusing on Penn as if the two primaries in between weren't even happening. They're buying into her theme that they don't really count.
The whole idea is to create the illusion of momentum. Nobody cares about the 100 delegate lead -- especially when seating FL and MI could so easily bring it down and the superdelegates could do the rest. She's got a formula and it's one that I hope Obama has caught onto by now.
FreeDuck wrote:I don't know, I think it's just more about the attacks wearing off. She's not sustaining them and with good reason. There's a pattern. If you remember the Wisconsin (I think) primary where she leveled that plagiarism BS right before the election so that it was all anyone talked about going into the vote. Her timing wasn't quite right with that one because he still won, but she got better with Ohio and TX. It helped that she was already heavily favored. I expect her to do the same thing before Pennsylvania and any other primary that she is already favored to win. The result is a one-two punch of her victory combined with him having to play defense. The waters are calm right now because she's not really contesting today's or Saturday's primaries, and because if she stayed on the offensive there would be a backlash. No, better to let the memory of the nastiness fade away. Then, if/when he brings it up he looks defensive. Everyone is already focusing on Penn as if the two primaries in between weren't even happening. They're buying into her theme that they don't really count.
The whole idea is to create the illusion of momentum. Nobody cares about the 100 delegate lead -- especially when seating FL and MI could so easily bring it down and the superdelegates could do the rest. She's got a formula and it's one that I hope Obama has caught onto by now.
Yep, but her formula is quite the long-shot. Obama's pledged delegate lead does matter - it's currently 150 or so and likely to rise more by the end of the game. And the truth is that this gap will be difficult for Clinton to overcome. Many super-delegates for both sides will be committed supporters who aren't just going to abandon their person. Every PD that Obama picks up, is just one more that Clinton has to flip; it really will be difficult for her to flip as many as she will need to win.
Obama has been more on the offensive this week, which is nice to see.
Cycloptichorn
I really question whether Hillary proactively got the Ohio and Texas wins (and is Texas even a win? Yes, I'm still obsessing about that).
She had enormous advantages going in. Then several things happened that were not under her control but that worked to her advantage -- the two SNL episodes, the media "correction" as a result of that (IMO), and the NAFTA story. And -- this is big -- I think there were way too many postmortems from the media, stories about what her campaign did wrong et al before her campaign was even over. I think that had a similar effect to the tears backlash in NH. "Take that, know-it-all media."
Plus, I do think the "keep her in it so we can win it" people had some small effect -- quite possibly vanishingly small, so I don't stake too much on that.
There were some Obama deficits, too, like not really getting out a message to cut through the clamor in those last several days. Also I think there was a failure in terms of letting the possibility that he'd win Ohio and Texas take hold -- they always thought they'd lose both and they should have kept expectations firmly in check.
But the point is that I don't actually think that Hillary's campaign were machiavellian masters who pulled this string and then that string et voila. I think things just kinda happened that way, for a wide variety of reasons.
I think that's important because I don't think such perfect storms are very likely to recur, and I don't think Hillary's campaign actually has the power to conjure them.
I'm not crediting her with all of it. But I see a pattern in her behavior and I think it's clear that she's timing her attacks for effect. That doesn't mean that she will be successful every time -- clearly she hasn't been. But it's something to watch and be prepared for.
As for the delegate lead, I agree it's important and that Obama should keep his eyes on the prize and continue the delegate hunt. But perceptions matter and Hillary is working them. If FL and MI get seated or even if there is a redo, the people's choice won't be so clear anymore. (Though I think Obama could win Michigan in a redo.)
FreeDuck wrote:I'm not crediting her with all of it. But I see a pattern in her behavior and I think it's clear that she's timing her attacks for effect. That doesn't mean that she will be successful every time -- clearly she hasn't been. But it's something to watch and be prepared for.
As for the delegate lead, I agree it's important and that Obama should keep his eyes on the prize and continue the delegate hunt. But perceptions matter and Hillary is working them. If FL and MI get seated or even if there is a redo, the people's choice won't be so clear anymore. (Though I think Obama could win Michigan in a redo.)
Well, why would the people's choice be less clear?
Obama will still be ahead in popular vote count and pledged delegate count if FL and MI get redone. There's little doubt that he would do better in both places, in terms of delegates and votes, then he did last time, for sure.
Cycloptichorn
In terms of this, though:
FreeDuck wrote: Her timing wasn't quite right with that one because he still won, but she got better with Ohio and TX.
I don't think it was because of how she timed her attacks that she won Ohio and (maybe! ;-)) Texas. I think it was because of a whole lot of other things. And I think the plagiarism charge may have actually HURT her in Wisconsin, timing notwithstanding. It was stupid and petty, and Obama ended up winning by more than polls predicted.
As in, I see what you're saying about patterns and agree that it's something to watch out for and prepare for. I just don't think she necessarily "got better," or that such patterns have had any particular effect as opposed to sometimes correlating with stuff that would have happened anyway.
Agreed about Michigan.
Cycloptichorn wrote:
Well, why would the people's choice be less clear?
Obama will still be ahead in popular vote count and pledged delegate count if FL and MI get redone. There's little doubt that he would do better in both places, in terms of delegates and votes, then he did last time, for sure.
Yes he'll be ahead, but by how big a margin? The worst case scenario graph that nimh posted seemed to suggest that the margin could be reduced to something bordering insignificance.
FreeDuck wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:
Well, why would the people's choice be less clear?
Obama will still be ahead in popular vote count and pledged delegate count if FL and MI get redone. There's little doubt that he would do better in both places, in terms of delegates and votes, then he did last time, for sure.
Yes he'll be ahead, but by how big a margin? The worst case scenario graph that nimh posted seemed to suggest that the margin could be reduced to something bordering insignificance.
Worst case scenario has him losing a whole bunch of states between now and June. I think it's fair to say that he will win some if not most of them.
Cycloptichorn
sozobe wrote:In terms of this, though:
FreeDuck wrote: Her timing wasn't quite right with that one because he still won, but she got better with Ohio and TX.
I don't think it was because of how she timed her attacks that she won Ohio and (maybe! ;-)) Texas. I think it was because of a whole lot of other things. And I think the plagiarism charge may have actually HURT her in Wisconsin, timing notwithstanding. It was stupid and petty, and Obama ended up winning by more than polls predicted.
As in, I see what you're saying about patterns and agree that it's something to watch out for and prepare for. I just don't think she necessarily "got better," or that such patterns have had any particular effect as opposed to sometimes correlating with stuff that would have happened anyway.
Agreed about Michigan.
I think she would have won Ohio anyway, but that her attacks made a difference (can't say for sure "the" difference) in Texas. I'm not saying she won because of them. In fact, I think it's exactly that illusion that she's trying to create.
As I said in my earlier post, she's trying to create the illusion of momentum. She does this by making him look like he's under fire at just such time as she's going to win. The win itself is completely expected as the attacks should be by this point. The result: lot's of "Obama needs to fight back" stuff coming out of the talking heads, which has the effect of making him look and sound weak. There's a metaphor here somewhere that will make my point clearer when I find it.
Even the "she's a fighter" mantra is an illusion. The only one who's having to fight for anything is Obama. The wins she's gotten are the ones she was expected to get. But she huffs and puffs anyway -- "shame on you" and so forth so that it looks like she really worked hard for it.
Of course, keep in mind that I'm totally making all of this up as I have no real idea what's going on in her campaign.
Ah, I understand what you're saying better now.
I completely agree with this:
FreeDuck wrote: I'm not saying she won because of them. In fact, I think it's exactly that illusion that she's trying to create.
And the rest of it too actually.
So we are getting ready tonight for MS. It is, reportedly, the poorest state in the US. Not much good going on there with regards to incomes, jobs and life expectancy (the lowest in the country).
And that was before Katrina devestated much of the coastal region two and a half years ago.
Biloxi is roaring back with glitzy casinos, but up state is hard scrabble farmland that is not too fertile under the best of times. Drought makes things worse.
Clinton and Obama have certainly been campaigning there, but I seem to be hearing that turnout is not all that big. Delegates (33 of them as I recall) will be awarded based on winners in the various Congressional districts.
There are some other races going on, which might increase turnout a bit.
The AP is reporting 90% of the black vote going to Obama compared to 1/3rd of the white vote for him.
