So now what? Like a lot of people, that was my first thought this morning, as I checked the final results

That's an all things being equal memo...so...if current demographics, conditions, favorability ratings, themes, etc. stay static, they think they'll pull off a squeaker.

Personally, I think if they win 10 contests in a row in February, they'll probably also win the big states on March 4th...

Did the boneheads amongst the DNC not forsee this potential contingency?  Morons!

The Obama campaign goes for the the throat, There Will Be Blood :-)

Obama Directly Attacks Bill's Presidency, Blames It For Massive Dem Losses

tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/.../obama_directly_attacks_bills_p.php

[In what may be Obama's most direct and aggressive criticism of Bill Clinton's presidency yet, the Obama campaign dropped a new mailer just before Super Tuesday that blasts "the Clintons" for wreaking massive losses on the Democratic party throughout the 1990s.]  

Brad, take another look at the link:  It does say which states -- the document is describing losses in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania and wins everywhere else.

Everyone is saying 'delegates,' but you know what I think? Legitimacy.

Both will have loads of delegates, enough to screw each other up.

I think it comes down to this, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.

If either wins all 3, they win.

If HRC wins any 2, she wins.

If Obama wins 2 and sweeps the expected littler states, he wins.

Anything else is a clusterf**k.

(e.g., he wins the little ones and 1 big one, he wins the little ones by a lot and loses the big ones by a little, all bad/confusing scenarios...)

Obama needs to put a couple of big primary states in his holster to actually CLAIM the mantle.

Sheeyit, once this primary is over the general election should be a cakewalk.

Also, this should be a call for the DNC to get rid of superdelegates. A convention brokered by party elites will not be helpful for either candidate in the general election; there's no advantage to the party in making their decisions in smoke-filled rooms. (

Also, this should be a heads up to the Democratic party to get rid of superdelegates. It's not helpful for either candidate in the general to be selected by superdelegates in the primary; there's no advantage to the party as a whole to select its candidates in smoke-filled rooms. (Or, with the likely smoking bans at the convention, gum-wrapper-filled rooms.)

So Obama, the candidate having so much seeming difficulty with Hispanic/Latino voters so far, may be relying on Puerto Rico in the end?

The document actually says they are predicting victories in 19 of 27 states not that they are predicting wins in all but Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

ttowey74:  Crap, my earlier "correction" needs to be corrected -- I was using "everywhere else" loosely.  Brad, never trust a commenter!

On a related note, my sense is that Obama needs to pull out a victory in one of those big states his campaign is apparenly predicting as a loss.  My sense before Super Tuesday was that a tie was a win for Obama.  I'm finding that the expectations game was played so well by the Clinton folks that the tie is going to Hillary -- as a "momentum stopper."  (Did she really stop his momentum?  Who cares?  Perception is reality.)  Then again, maybe Obama is playing an expectations game of his own....

jhildner  

Gonna offer a dissent here Obama isn't running a campaign, he's leading a movement and movements thrive on a little adversity. For instance, Obama's best fundraising day was the day after New Hampshire. Hillary's self-funding (read: money from Kazakhstan) move has spawned an incredible backlash from the Obama folks.

The more the media declares Clinton "legitimate" the better things are for Obama. He only comes up short when he starts looking inevitable.

Have fun, guys.  The Republicans now have nearly ten months to prepare for the general election.  The Dems will be bitching and biting at each other until late August, early September.  Then they've got two months to get their national act together.

You may still beat the GOP.  But it ain't going to be a rout.

And, if I were to bet now, I'd say McCain is the next president.

With Mitt Romney dropping out of the race today, you're right Chan, the Republicans can start running their general message while the Democrats keep to the left to win the nomination.  If they can't switch to their general message until August or September, that gives McCain (who already has appeal among independents) a real advantage.

What Chan said, *except* the 10 months part. D'you really think the Republicans can gel around McCain? Or does it matter whether they do or not. I've seen stranger things than the present ideological split in the GOP, but they're mostly Democrats.

On a related note: Howard the Dean has spoken, to wit, the nominee must be settled before the convention; that not to do so - meaning a brokered convention - could prove disastrous to the party's ticket in the fall. Why must this be so??

What is Obama's argument for a win in Washington state? Just better organization? The demographics don't, based on his and Clinton's past performance, necessarily give him a special edge. True, the Puget Sound is home to a lot of the kind of affluent voters who have favored him in the past, but they are heavily clustered in upscale Seattle neighborhoods and its most upscale suburbs. The same Puget Sound region is also home to a great many union and working class voters, and the two largest cities on the Western side of the state, Tacoma and Vancouver, are blue collar towns. Plus, the percentage of African Americans, statewide is very tiny -- only a little more than 3%. While both Asians, who so far have favored Clinton by 3 to 1, and Hispanics are represented in the population at about or more than twice that percentage. Furthermore, in the more rural and conservative Eastern part of the state, Hispanics will make up a significant percentage of caucus goers.

I'm not saying Obama can't pull it off. In certain sections of Seattle and its suburbs, and in the university towns, most especially Olympia and Bellingham, he should do really well. But well enough to carry the state in in which Indpendents and Republicans will not be able to participate in the caucus ? In a state that is especially friendly to female politicians (our governor and both our US Senators are women)? I don't know.

A novel suggestion.

TULLIUS has heard so many formulae for who has which delegates: 1) The AP formula, 2) The New York Times formula; the 3) Real Clear Politics (is it clear?) formula; and so many parsings of which pledged super delegates and unpledged super delegates can change their votes (mostly from being for Sen. Clinton to change to Sen. Obama for some number of reasons). There are no end of scenarios for the supposed "predicament" we are in. Most spinning numerologies (that would make Pythagoras blush) that involve 1) Obama rising curves of momentum and 2) caucuses where the Illinoisian's ground team is supposedly more well versed are designed to show how Sen. Obama comes out a winner despite being behind in the delegate counts the way most people count them. Most scenarios seem to be thinly spun out from the recognition in his own leaked memo that there's not much hope even in his own leaked memo of winning Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These scenarios include the (very UN-Vermont) notion of Dean cracking heads together.

And so he proposes a very modest modus operandi: let the voters decide and see where we come out. Calm down and breathe while this process is taking place. The sole means of determining electability known to Tullius (being an old-fashioned Democrat) is by means of elections.

Tullius believes we have two fine candidates both quite well versed who can take their case to the voters. Let it happen.

For want of a better label, let us refer to this as the: "let the chips fall where they may" scenario.