My little politics blog

The part that annoys me most -- and I don't know if it is to Clinton's credit, or if it's Obama's problem, or if it happened independent of either of their attempts to shape the narrative -- is that Ohio and Texas were picked to be the Clinton firewall because they were so friendly towards her. She was long supposed to not only win but win big. If Obama steals Texas and/ or comes close in either one (OH, TX), that already represents a huge leap from where things were supposed to be.

But the leap was looking very promising late last week or so, so things started going even further than that -- wow, he might win BOTH of them!! How amazing would that be!

I think that got a bit out of hand, and that expectations are too high now. It should be amazing enough if he just stays close in OH and TX. Now a loss will be seen as a Problem.

Stopped raining.

It's cold, it's damp, it's unpleasant... but it's not raining.

March 04, 2008
Read More: Barack Obama

Ohio official rejects Obama poll-watcher letter


An official in the office of the Ohio Secretary of State has written local election officials instructing them not to accept an Obama campaign letter (.pdf) as sufficient documentation for poll-watchers to polling places.

The state's rules require a formal certification process for poll monitors. The Obama campaign, however, has distributed a letter signed by its state director, Paul Tewes, which states that the letter's bearer is "hereby authorized to serve as a legal poll monitor."

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Farrell wrote that Obama supporters have been presenting the letter to officials at polling sites, and attached the letter to his email, which appears to have been sent to election officials around the state.

"Our office's legal interpretation is that this letter is not legally sufficient on its own to allow someone to gain access to polling places," Farrell writes. "To be allowed access to a polling location an observer must be duly appointed as an official observer and have an official observer certificate.... Someone who wants to observe may present the attached letter in addition to the official observer certificate, but they must have the official observer certificate to legally gain entry."

Full email after the jump.

I read about that -- dunno. Seems like it could be the Obama campaign's fault. I don't really get it yet.

It just stopped raining here, Cycloptichorn, and I think the weather is still bad elsewhere.

I DON'T have a very positive feeling about tonight. I'm very, very gloomy in fact. Heh.

I'm a little worried that everything is breaking in the same direction -- towards Clinton -- and that it's going to be worse than we expect.

I dunno though.

Voted.

Voted!

After all this, I finally get to do the one thing that definite has a bearing on the results -- get to DO something.

No lines, not many people. I chose a time where there were likely to be fewer people, though. I might drive by the polling place later, see what it looks like.

Voting itself went super-smoothly though.

True. Thanks for the perspective.

I guess what I'm worried about is that Hillary will win bigger than we've been thinking in Ohio -- by 10-15 pts, say -- and that she'll win the popular vote in TX, and that the resulting media narrative will muddle things up. (Even if the delegate lead isn't shrunk by much and even if Obama eventually wins the TX caucuses.) I so want this to get wrapped up -- for Obama to emerge as the nominee and go from there.

An Obama campaign source, meanwhile, said internal tracking at voting locations in Texas through midday shows strong turnout, especially in African-American precincts.

The source said turnout is lower than projected in heavily Latino precincts and slightly higher than expected in areas heavy with students. Austin and Dallas are reportedly seeing some of the state's strongest turnout.

Speaking from the aisle of his campaign plane, Obama tried to lower expectations and looked toward nominating contests that come within the next week.

Gah... we are just not going to get closure tonight.

Quote:

OHIO PRIMARY
State of confusion

A projected record turnout Tuesday and voters' option to use paper ballots rather than touch-screens could delay results deep into the night and deepen mistrust of Ohio elections around the country.

I've been skeptical of the "Hillary campaign makes Obama look blacker" thing I've been seeing for the past couple of days, but this doesn't look too good:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/5/131156/5021/187/469677