Will Clinton Win Massachusetts?

Will there still be a parade if the Pats lose on Sunday?

Yes, but it will be in New York.

She will certainly win in Cambridge

I think it more likely that she wins Ca and loses in Mass.
NY will be a tossup, I think, with whoever wins it winning by a very small margin.

If Clinton doesn't kill Obama in NY, it will be a major upset. She is well loved there and won re-election very convincingly.

She almost certainly will NOT win in Cambridge.

Cambridge is liberal urban area with a large number of educated professionals.

All of these things favor Obama.

((I would gladly bet on this if you would like.))

I agree ebrown. I was recently at a NE ivy covered college and all the dorm windows had Obama posters.

This Hillary is liberal thing is funny.

The fact is Hillary is not a liberal-- she and her husband are centrists. If you look at their policies, and her votes in the Senate, she falls in the center on many issues from gay rights, to immigrant rights to the "war on terror(tm)".

Hillary did nothing to earn the liberal label. It was given to her (along with her husband) by right wing yahoos who were trying to win elections.

The people who insist on calling Hillary a liberal do so because...

1) they don't really understand American politics.
2) they put way too much weight to what hate radio airheads say.

The funny thing is that Obama has better policies... and a significantly better record in Congress, but because hate radio already gave Hillary the "liberal" tag, Obama is going to be accepted as the moderate.

Go figure.

Why then, don't those under 35 years of age run to the polls?

Next Tuesday, most of the voters will be over 65 years of age, many on walkers, some blind and others very senile. But, they're the voters who'll bring Hillary into the White House.

Mean while the college kids will be asleep or eating their chips and drinking their soda...

Clinton could also beat Obama in Illinois. There's a big Hispanic population with much love for Hillary and there's much hatred between Blacks and Hispanics in Chicago and many other parts of Illinois.

...crazy people with pink hair and black fingernails.

I find your statement just bizarre. We're talking about voting, not playing slot machines in Atlantic City.

Most of the voters will be 65+ in age. This is a known fact. Check out the stats and you'll see that those in the 35 and younger range often don't vote, thus allowing the elderly to gather momentum.

I repeat my offer of a friendly wager. The results are published by precinct so there will be official figures of which candidate got the most votes in Cambridge.

I propose this bet against either one of you.

If Clinton gets the more votes than Obama in the city of Cambrige, I will give $50 to the charity of your choice. If Obama gets more votes than Clinton, you will write the same amount to the charity of my choice (which will be the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition).

Romney, Clinton Lead in Massachusetts
A history in the state may be pivotal in the battle for its delegates
By Kent Garber
Posted January 30, 2008

Mitt Romney and Sen. Hillary Clinton are the Odd Couple of next Tuesday's Massachusetts primary; although they hail from different sides of the political spectrum, they share a key political advantage in the state: their roots.

Clinton planted her stake in Massachusetts early in her career and has nurtured it since. She attended Wellesley College, just outside Boston, in the late 1960s, and worked for an advocacy group near Cambridge, Mass., in the 1970s. As first lady, the connection went king-size. The Clintons befriended the Kennedy clan, socially and politically, and their alliance produced not only a file of regal-looking photographs of yachting trips and green lawns but also a critically important network of loyal Democrats in Massachusetts.

Romney's ties to the state are more obvious and also more recent. After a failed campaign against Ted Kennedy for U.S. Senate in 1994, he ran in 2002 for governor of Massachusetts, won, and served a single four-year term that ended in 2007.

Not surprisingly, both Clinton and Romney now hold commanding leads in statewide polls ahead of the state's February 5 primary. One recent poll puts Clinton ahead of Sen. Barack Obama in Massachusetts by more than 30 points, 59 percent to 22 percent. The same poll shows Romney up on McCain, 50 percent to 29 percent.

Candidates of both parties have recently put Massachusetts in their Super Tuesday crosshairs, for somewhat different reasons. Democrats see the state's delegate count?-121 in total, 93 of which will be awarded on Tuesday?-as the sixth-largest bounty to be won on a day of voting that will see more than 20 states up for grabs. For Republicans, the delegate prize from Massachusetts is proportionately smaller, but the state is potentially radioactive: A Romney loss here would be embarrassing.

Still, observers say that neither Clinton nor Romney has an iron lock on his or her respective party's primary, despite the poll numbers and each's biographical marks. On Monday, Ted Kennedy, a longtime Clinton friend, endorsed Obama during a high-profile rally at American University in Washington. Invoking the memory of his brother, former President John F. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy praised Obama as the only candidate in the race who understands "the fierce urgency of now." Obama also has the endorsement of the state's junior senator, John Kerry, as well as the state's Democratic governor, Deval Patrick.

It remains to be seen whether any of these endorsements will translate into actual votes. As a tactical matter, small states tend to be fertile turf for effective ground operations, and the Clinton campaign seems to have the upper hand at this point in Massachusetts. Supporters and staff have been campaigning there for more than a year, and her candidacy has attracted the steady, enthusiastic backing of the majority of the state's local politicians, who frequently volunteer their own personal staff to knock on doors for national politicians. Manpower has been ample, with one Clinton aide noting that the campaign was able to send more than 2,500 Massachusetts staffers north to New Hampshire for the Granite State's January 8 primary.

The Obama camp does not see Massachusetts as unwinnable?-Obama gave a speech at Boston University last April to publicly launch his campaign effort in the state?-but its operation has been smaller, less vocal, and targeted more toward students and younger voters.

Recent news reports indicate that voter registration is, in fact, booming. William F. Galvin, the secretary of state, recently told a local newspaper that his office fielded "literally thousands of phone calls" from potential voters in early January. But some observers worry that the effort is too little, too late and say that the results of past elections suggest the youth vote is too small to tilt the state in Obama's favor. Exit polls from midterm elections in 2006, for instance, show that 18-to-29-year-olds accounted for only 11 percent of the electorate.

As for the Republican race, McCain is likely to be buoyed somewhat by the state's unique voter makeup. Much was said in early January about the high percentage of registered independents (44 percent) in New Hampshire. But the figure is even higher in Massachusetts: Just over 50 percent of voters, nearly 2 million of them, are registered as "unenrolled," which means they can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary under the state's "semiclosed" system. By contrast, only 13 percent of the state is registered to vote Republican.

"Independents are going to be critical for McCain if he is going to pull off an upset in Romney's backyard, but it's hard to tell right now which direction the unenrolled voters are going to lean," says Doug Kriner, an assistant professor of political science at Boston University. "Romney appears to have a very tight grip among Republican identifiers."

Among Massachusetts Republicans, in fact, Romney still holds a largely favorable opinion, even though he left office with an approval rating in the low to mid-40s. "His reputation is solid," says Robert Willington, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party. One other factor likely to play to his favor: the splintering effect of Super Tuesday on candidates' time and money. "We saw the most activity when our neighboring state of New Hampshire was up for the primary," Willington says. "So far we haven't seen too much in terms of paid advertisement from either party."

USNews.com

Why do you say?

I had pretty much thought it was a toss up between Clinton and Obama here in the state and especially in the city of Cambridge. I may be wrong about that. A local news show was saying MA is Clinton country. We shall see.

edit: I see now I am with ebrown on this issue (go figure!). Had I any money I would double his bet.

If Hillary takes Massachusetts, it'll be a big slap against Kennedy...