Trouble in Penn?

More like a glimmer of hope that the Democrats' troubles may end after Penn.

I'm delighted by the trend, but concerned that he could be peaking too early and we'll see a repeat of New Hampshire, California and Texas, where Obama appeared to close a seemingly insurmountable gap, only to suffer a last minute reversal.

Yeah, how is this "trouble"? It's trouble for the Republicans since it makes it more likely for Clinton to drop out, meaning she'd stop attacking Obama and let him focus on going after McCain. But most of TNR's writers and readers aren't Republicans, so this is an odd perspective to see in a TNR blog.

The only meaningful thing I see in this poll is that it continues a surprising (to me, anyway) trend in which Hillary's support has dropped below 50 percent. A candidate with majority support, as opposed to mere plurality support with a large pool of undecideds, typically has an impregnable advantage. If the other guy has 48 percent support, you can still catch him by persuading undecideds to choose you. If the other guy has 52 percent support, you can only catch him by persuading a significant fraction of his supporters to abandon him for you. Much bigger challenge.

For Hillary, any tightening of the race that leaves her above 50 percent support is no big deal. But a tightening of the race that drops her below 50 percent support is the necessary first step for any cascade failure by which she loses the state. She's still in a strong position in Pennsylvania, and the other dominoes required for her to lose the state probably will not fall. But they cannot fall unless this domino falls first, and it just did.

rhubarbs: good point, clearly made. Thanks.

wiat until her tax returns are released. In Pa. now Hillary has very little advertising running, ceding it all to Obama (she is saving her money for her catering feasts and luxury hotels, money she has to pay upfront after stiffing people in Ohio). Hey, Hillary doesn't do second class.

I guess this is why the resident Hillaryites have been touting Kentucky polls lately.

They said the same thing about Ohio.  If there's one thing we've learned in the last few months it is to be distrustful of polls.

The gap in pledged delegates between Obama and Clinton is currently as big as it's gonna get.  It will only narrow with the remaining contests.  This is why people want Hillary out now, because her victories in upcoming states will narrow that gap and call into question a clear leader.  Let us ask ourselves, if at the end of voting the pledged delegate gap is fewer than maybe 50-60 pds and the popular vote separated by a few percentage points, no candidate will have a mandate from the party and no candidate will reach the pd threshold.  Remember small percentage leads are insignificant ala Richardson who endorsed Obama over Clinton due to her .5% victory in NM.  It will have to go to the convention.  Let's get ready for it.

Poor tammya, wishful thinking, as is the case with Clintonites everywhere.

If blue-collar and not so terribly "racially friendly" Pennsylvania goes for Obama then it is all over of Hillary.

One of the things that irriates me about the TNR blogs are the personal attacks by some responders on others.  This is the case with micceelf.  Why not just debate the points I raise, instead of calling me poor tammya.  Political debate is why I blog here.  I don't personally attack anyone.  Its funny how the Obama supporters cry foul when their candidate receives personal attacks yet they regularly launch them themselves.  So, do you want to engage my point, miceelf?  Happy to debate you.

"Let us ask ourselves, if at the end of voting the pledged delegate gap is fewer than maybe 50-60 pds and the popular vote separated by a few percentage points" Sorry, but why don't we go further and ask ourselves if Hillary sweeps the remaining contests with 100% and takes the lead as well, since that is just as likely. She won't get anywhere near 50 to 60 pledged delegates (unless Obama melts down), so your question is built on an assumption not supported by facts. Her net gain from her victories in Texas, Ohio, and RI have been erased by Texas (the caucus) Vt., Wyoming, and Miss. And if Obama wins both Oregon and Indiana, as seems likely, as he will certainly win North Carolina, then at most Hillary will be able to gain about 15 or 20 delegates from here on out (and if she has to crow about Puerto Rico, she will look pathetic since that vote is meaningless for November)

Hillary is running out of money as well, her ad buy in Pa. is nonexistent, and she is relying on Republican crossover egged on by Rush to pad her margins there. If the perception develops that she won in Pa. due to this (fairly or not) that can not possibly help her case with superdelegates either. Obama need only ask them "do you want to make Rush happy? nominate her."

I believe McCain is far more decent and honorable than Bush, but after 8 years of criminal neglect can we afford another 4 years of benign neglect on the economy, and a very conservative Supreme court whose goal will be to undo the past 50 years?

Can Hillary will the nomination? It seems highly unlikely. Is her continuing to run less or more likely to result in Obama winning in November? Obviously, less likely.

Is Obama manifestly unfit for office  so that Hillary can feel justified swinging the vote to McCain? If she feels that way then she should just say so, but for her to claim that she is 10% better therefore she must fight tooth and nail, even though she is 10% behind shows her lack of faith in her fellow Democrats and in America. You might say that 10% is not much, but when there is 2 minutes left in the game and you need a miracle to even tie, much less win, then you have to consider what is best for America. Playing the spoiler would be an ignoble end for Hillary.

If you are a McCain supporter, then obviously this plays into his hands so lucky for you. If you think only Hillary can save America though, well I just don't understand that reasoning.

Okay, tammya- do you really believe that in the sum of the remaining contests, Clinton will receive substantially more delegates than Obama? I expect her to win PA and KY. But I expect those wins to be offset by his wins in SC and Oregon. You're anticipating her to win the remaining contests by a sum of more than 100. I find it hard to take that kind of prediction very seriously. Forgive me for the harsh tone (although, referring to you as engaging in wishful thinking isn't as harsh as all that). It's just that some of Clinton supporters come up with these outlandish scenarios so frequently that it gets tiresome. I should not have applied that to you, however.

tammya, fair enough, but it's not enough simply to assert things. Be specific: How, exactly, do you see Obama's pledged delegate lead narrowing so significantly? Say Hillary wins Pennsylvania with a margin of about 12 percent (call it 55-43, with a few votes going to Edwards or whoever else is on the ballot). For Hillary, that would mean a net gain of about 18 delegates. And that's the richest prize left. Even a 20-point margin in Kentucky only nets Hillary a gain of about 10 delegates. But a 10-point Obama win in North Carolina would net him about 12 delegates, more than wiping out any potential Hillary gain in Kentucky.

So where do the other 80 delegates your scenario assumes come from? Ontario? Moosylvania? Calisota? Or are you assuming that Hillary will win 63-point victories in both Indiana and Puerto Rico? (Which would be required to make up the delegates you claim she will win, and even that assumes Guam, Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota cancel their primaries.) Is a scenario that requires Hillary to win at least 81.5 percent of the vote in any state really, well, realistic?

So, please, show your work, or expect to be mocked when you make outlandish claims.

Sorry, tammya, but claims like yours have been made in the past on other threads, and don't hold up. There's guesswork involved because people haven't voted yet, but if you look at the remaining states there are some where Hillary is likely to win (examples: PA, KY), and others where Obama is likely to win (examples: OR, NC). If you add up the delegates in those states, the totals in both columns are likely to be about the same. Unless Hillary trounces Obama in her remaining states, she won't make up much ground, if any. She needs to score blowout wins.

Bottom line: barring an unexpected blowout, Hillary will finish about as far behind as she is now. She might even lose ground.

Have the rest of you seen this video tube posting that does to HRC on NAFTA what the sniper fire in Bosnia one did to her foreign policy experience and of course her credibility?  Take a look.

www.youtube.com/watch

Will it catch fire as did the Bosnia Sniper Fire one?  Will the mainstream media pick it up?  or only after it has exploded on the Internet?

For all the reasons stated here. IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN

So the more interesting reason is why does she keep doing it and hurting herself in the process?

Ideas anyone?

Slate's delegate calculator seems to think differently, tammya, if we plug in our best estimates based on polls, demographics, and historical voting patterns. Hillary will probably gain a few delegates, so technically, the lead may be slightly smaller come June, but not enough to come within 100 of Obama.

If we want to make poll numbers up, then by all means, yes, Hillary will win 95% of the remaining delegates and go to the convention with enough supers to put her over 2,025. And, in a magnanimous show of post-partisanship, she will make Republican Abraham Lincoln her running mate (not the dead one, a 37-year old Republican guy from Jacksonville, FL, who happens to be named Abraham Lincoln) Oh, and then the Iraqis militias are going to give up---we'll have shock and awed them into submission---convert to Christianity and set up a progressive, liberal, constitutional democracy. And it turns out there actually *were* WMDs, they were stuffed underneath the cushions of the couch the whole time! ...but it's better to base one's speculations on facts and reasonable guesses.

The Bosnia controversy may very well have the effect of Swift-Boating Hillary's campaign, if not during the primaries, certainly during the general election should she win the nomination (not likely).  The funny thing is, she did it to herself.

I don't see Hillary winning the nomination at this point, and current trends point to her not being able to close the delegate gap after PA.  She might still take the state (god knows what she'll throw at Obama in desperation), but it certainly will be a Pyhrric victory.  I think Obama, at worst, can hold her to a five point win.

Of course, Rasmussen could be way off and I'll look like an idiot on the 22nd... which isn't too different from the way I look now.

Frankly, the real trouble in PA will start on Friday when I drive up there.

I really think what we are see in PA is people 'discovering' Obama.  Many, like us here, have been following the primaries very closely, but my guess is that a majority of Americans get all their news at 7pm and from US and People.   Seriously, in Kentucky, there has been little if any news about Obama's pastor or Hillary's trip to Bosnia in the local papers - so if you held a poll here, people are going to go with who they know, and let's face it everyone knows Hillary.   So as the local news coverage increases as the candidates spend more time locally, people start really evaluating the situation and who they will vote for.

All.  I read your assumptions/predictions about what the pd count is gonna be after the remaining contests.  I, myself, have no idea what the margins will be.  Yet none of you address the hypothetical I raise.  Ask yourselves what it means if the candidates are even closer at the end of the day, which they might just be  It means that no one has reached the critical number and no one has a clear mandate for the nomination.  Given this, it is possible that the super ds might work out some kind of deal at the convention.  I think we need to step aside and see this race for what it is: a very, very close one.  I know Obama supporters would like to think otherwise, but it's truly close.  Maybe the people are split and the candidates are closer to a tie.  How do we reconcile it?    Surely someone will get the nomination (and if fact, I'm betting friends that Obama will), but there will be fallout on either side.  I think we need to start discussing how to deal with this instead of trading endless barbs about which candidate will be the nominee.  This is how I-- a Clinton supporter-- will wind up backing Obama if he's the candidate.  

tammya, why should anyone address hypotheticals that are based on mathematical results that can be shown to be beyond the realm of possibility? There is an unstable sea cliff off the Virginia coast that could collapse at any moment -- true! -- and when it does, it will send a tsunami racing up the Chesapeake and Potomac basins, drowning Washington, DC under an 18-foot wall of water with little to no warning. This could happen today, or it could happen 10,000 years from now, but it will happen. So why don't we address the hypothetical that Washington, DC is wiped out by a tsunami before the election, and one or more of the candidates is missing and presumed dead? What then?

In a larger sense, though, the race is not tied. Yes, it is close. But one candidate has maintained a clear lead in all important metrics for the duration of the contest. Obama is winning and has been winning all along. It's nice for Hillary that she is in a strong second place, but second place is not first place. And Obama's lead in votes cast right now is larger than the margin by which Gore beat Bush in the 2000 popular vote.

I know that as Democrats, we like to feel like we're being fair to everybody all the time. But this ain't t-ball; we can't just give out participation trophies and declare that everyone is a winner and throw an ice cream party at the end of the season. Someone has to win, and everyone else has to lose, and however much you may wish to declare a tie that's not what we have here. We have one candidate with a lead, who has held that lead all along, and who will finish in the lead. And in point of fact being the person who finishes in first place is a mandate -- the only mandate -- for the nomination, even if the other candidate has finished a strong second.