This is the weirdest election season. I still think that John Judis is on to something the full manifestation of which may still be unfolding. I am amazed by two things: (1) That Obama has so succesfully seduced sophisticated political analysts and not just college students and (2) How seriously said analysts often take political tracking polls. The polls are all we have to go on but they have been often less than reliable at major junctures this election season and projecting foward to the general election at this point is fraught with peril. Just ask ex - President Michael Dukakis.

The only interesting question is whether Obama will win big enough in NC for the supers to start falling off the fence in big numbers.  If there really is the potential for a 2 million turnout in NC, Obama could put a net 100,000 popular votes back on the board tomorrow bringing his margin back above 700,000, out of reach for Hillary with only about 3 million people left to vote.  The net delegates for Hillary out of PA-NC-IN will likely not exceed eight (still a lot better for Hillary than the draw or worse that would have been expected before the Second Coming of Wright, engineered no doubt by Hillary's campaign).

So, what do you think the supers will make of the fact that with Bitter-gate, Wright redux, more than 4 million votes cast and 349 delegates selected Hillary will have gained perhaps 8 pledged delegates against Obama's pre-PA lead of 166 and something like 100,000 net popular votes -- about 2.5% of the delegates and 2.5% of the popular vote.  Net, these were supposed to be good demographics for Hillary.

If she performs as well in the remaining primaries, she could expect to be down more than 150 pledged delegates and more than 500,000 popular votes at the end of races on June 3.

I haven't done a lot of research on the Electoral College map, but a review of Rasmussen today showed that, of the 31 states for which they posted poll results, 5 would flip from Hillary to Obama if Obama were the candidate and none the other way.

So, please remind me, what is the argument for Hillary to receive the nomination?  What will it take for 100 more supers to fall off the fence, bringing the uncommitted pool down to 168 out of which Hillary would likely have to make up a net of approximately 135 (giving credit for her 15 net supers today)?  

If even 70 more supers fall off the fence covering Obama's 15 shortfall there and he is still more than 150 pledged delegates ahead on May 7, can we finally move on to the general election?  Can the Hillaristas admit at that point that she will not capture more than 80% of the uncommitted supers under any plausible circumstance?

Yes, liberal, tracking polls are unreliable within a certain range.  But in any already seasoned race that has actually seen multiple rounds of voting, one candidate does not suddenly perform by big numbers away from the tracking polls, certainly not on average.

Judis is onto exactly nothing.  He has seemingly forgotten how to add, subtract, multiply and divide plus everything and more that he ever learned about the law of large numbers.

Roidubouloi: I am a would be wonk so I love numbers. But there is something that might be called "numberism", the mathematical equivalent of scientism. The polls sure caught Barack by surprise in New Hampshire, did they not? And certain tropisms, sentiments, and reflexes are notoriously hard to quantify.

Let's put aside the numbers for a minute. The fact that Obama is (may be) closing in Indiana is amazing to me. From where I sit (the NE side of Indianapolis) he has done very little to go out and actually convince undecideds to vote for him. This is something tep has observed on this forum many times before. I never quite got it -- I mean, I'm convinced! What's to convince? Look at the alternative!

OK, I'm gonna go on a bit so feel free to scroll down. Let's say that I'm your average low-info voter: I catch stuff here and there on the evening news. I listen to commercial radio some, look at the newspaper every once in a while. In fact, if it weren't for NR, the Internet and the fact that I've been completely obsessing over this election, that's about where I'd be. I don't have cable or anything other than broadcast TV -- not sure where that puts me in the representativeness of my admittedly impressionistic impressions.

So first thing I see is Obama running a nice introductory commercial that basically says, his grandfather served in Patton's army (hmmmm, but "Dreams" says he didn't see any action...), he started out organizing in Christian churches, good ma-and-punkin-pie stuff. Clinton follows shortly with a Bayh-endorsement ad. Yes, he was governor and now senator so he must be universally beloved, right? Upon seeing this my first reaction was that he was older than I expected, and as phony as I had remembered. Haven't seen this one lately -- maybe others had the same reaction. So far, Obama's ahead on points.

Next thing I notice is, the deadline for registering for the primary, 5 or 6 April, is coming up. I get an email from the Obama campaign looking for volunteers, so I sign up. This is right around the March 5 primaries. No follow-up from anyone. Do they have all the help they can get? Three weeks or so go by. That week I hear there is voter registration activity going on in W. Lafayette. Then, the last

week of registration I go through the Obama website and see there are some scheduled registration events, and I sign up for one, spend a few hours in the sun on an urban street corner -- a surprisingly rewarding experience. But I mean, grassroots is one thing -- but the only thing?

So another wave of ads -- I don't listen to commercial radio much, but I did hear some, so he must have been saturating ... NAFTA-related, another promoting independence from foreign oil. I have never really understood why he made such a big deal of NAFTA, though my sister says its a bigger deal down in southern Indiana. Now it seems like everytime you turn around there's a Clinton making 2,3,4 stops a day somewhere in the state. Obama was the first to make a stop in the state, then made an early bus tour; he's been around plenty. Now, I think that people get that it's three against one, but still, slight edge to Clinton.

My mom has not voted Democratic since... Jimmy Carter. She's planning to vote for Obama. She tells me one of the women in her quilting group won't vote for him "because he's a Muslim." My mom says, "That's not true." "Well, his father was." My mom just rolls her eyes. Here's where Wright is a problem. You could point to his long-standing association with an active Christian church, but... um... nevermind.

So more TV ads from both sides. Hillary's ads, usually containing some misinformation or other, (the flyers are the worst) never have Hillary talking except to say, "I approved this message." Obama's ads feature him front and center. He's really likeable. OK, great, but here's the thing. They are almost completely contentless. If I had to go just by the ads, about all I'd be able to tell you about him is, he doesn't take money from the oil companies, he wants to change the way things are done in Washington, and... that's about it. Hillary's at least make it sound like she knows what she's talking about. So why, when he _knows_ he has this perception problem, does he continue to run the same old message? We Hoosiers are a backwards people, but by now we know who the candidate of change is. He could be doing so much more -- he's an explainer par excellence. I did catch a bit on the local news, early on in the gas tax holiday foofaraw, explaining the repercussions, how the proposal would affect construction jobs. That was good. I can anecdotally corroborate Noam's surmise that his position has won at least one guy I work with -- but I was rather stunned to discover he had even been contemplating Clinton. Obama cannot rely on the local media to do more than replay his "let's go change America" closing bit. He's got to adapt or fade. If he's been running this way since Texas-Ohio it's a wonder he's doing as well as he is.

Ugh, can't believe I left the T off TNR...

Letsinb: Great, there is that mantra change ,again. But what kind of change? Obama is great at florid rhetoric but he seems to have a Ross Perot - like illusion that he can stride into D.C. and transcend partisanship. As for sincerity, I didn't see much of that on advertisement during Obama's twisting trajectory concerning the Wright affair. This mass seduction by Obama deserves intense study by sociologists and psychologists in the coming years.

great post letsnb!

I spent some time watching MSNBC and CNN today to try and get a sense of the media's expectations

Letsinb - I've noticed that Barack presence here in Indiana, in terms of the ground game, has been sorely lacking up until the past week or so.

I'm volunteering in Anderson, and the locals didn't really get involved with the campaign until we had a lot of out-of-state volunteers harassing them almost non-stop to come in.  Even then, most of the work is being done by those out-of-state volunteers (myself included).  People around here just aren't getting very excited about things.  A lot of that is attributed to the fact most Democrats keep a low profile in states like Indiana, as well as a huge aversion to talking politics in general.

Additionally, I don't think the campaign has capitalized on volunteer prospects from their website like they should have.  In my experience, the best way to volunteer is to walk into your local campaign office and ask.  Most of the field organizers will be happy to have help and will go out of their way to assist.  Of course, if you dial the list alphabetically you'll end up in places like... Anderson.

bcbaird: Re. your observation that Democrats here keep a low profile, that is absolutely right. In the past I've felt like a member of a persecuted sect. Sometimes we don't even know who the other Democrats are. It's a sign of Bush's deep unpopularity that here it is now permissible to openly criticize the man.

libref: After Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, my first criterion in deciding who to vote for this election has been, "Who's gonna give me the most truth?" And what some hear as florid rhetoric I hear as truth telling. I first took note of Obama last election cycle -- he was on one of the Sunday shows, actually _listening_ to the question and trying to respond to it, integrating alternate views, something I had not seen from a politician in, like, forever. Clinton's continual spin and attempts to construct alternate realities are to me as "rhetorical" as it gets. But, I have also wondered how Obama is going to move from a critical mode (which has not been critical enough for me) to one where he actually exercises power. It's a delicate balance because all power wielding (unwieldy expression) involves some degree of manipulation. All I know is that I have come to see Clinton as status quo and I refuse to participate in its perpetuation.

liberal,

A.  New Hampshire was at the beginning of the season when things are more volatile because not all the themes have been laid out,

B.  The difference between the polls and the results weren't all that much even then.  It had a big psychological impact because the pundits were saying that Hillary was finished if she didn't win there.  In hindsight, the odds that Hillary would have withdrawn after just a handful of races was nil.  But the narrative makes it all seem very portentous.

C.  At this point, it will take  a lot more than a modest change in psychology to alter the outcome of the nomination process.  And that is my point.  Based on the latest polls, nothing much will change tomorrow except that it will be that much more obvious that Hillary is out of time and opportunity.  The odds of a deviation from the polls big enough to change that are quite low.

It isn't scientism or numberism. It is simply an appreciation for probability.  Well before PA, I was able to say that the odds of any material change were low, and that is exactly what has happened.  It just isn't obvious to people who don;t understand how to project things and how to give probabilistic weights to outcomes.  Could a meteor hit Indianapolis in the middle of the voting?  Sure, but I wouldn't bet on it.  I isn't "numberism" to recognize that the odds of such an event are extremely low.

By the way, pre-PA I said the likely outcome there was a gain of 12 delegates for Hillary and that is exactly what happened.  That didn't take any great insight.  All you had to do was know how to multiply and what to multiply.

letsinb

Don't be amazed.  Bush ran on a platform of "compassionate conservatism."  That was it.  What did it mean?  No one knew, no one seemed to care much.

"Interestingly, at least in Indiana, the robo-polls show Hillary doing slightly better among African Americans than the live-interview polls. I wonder if they're picking up on a queasiness black voters are less comfortable sharing with human interviewers."

Or reverse-Bradley?

roid: Elections are not about math -- addition and subtraction no matter how much Obama supporters like you push that meme. I live in Boston -- and the Sox were down 3-0 before they went on to win the World series in 04, and you all know what happened in the last quarter in last year's SuperBowl.

Low probability events -- darn it -- sometimes just do happen. It has been a weird primary season thus far -- and the math you quote is based on a pre-Wright fantasy. If you cared about the Democratic party -- you'd be worried about what your computational skills says about McCain in the fall against either of these candidates, and would be working to make them succeed, instead of making the point to the rest of us.. that you are oh so the prescient One in these blogs!

sundar - scary post - so exactly opposite of the truth as to boggle the mind that someone claiming to be a Democrat posted it.  

Yeah right - up is down, man!  Pass  the word!

I'm not prescient, sundar.  That's my actual point, that it requires absolutely no prescience whatsoever to see what was going to happen.  But you do have to be willing to consider reality as it is and you do have to know some simple arithmetic.

Your baseball analogy is a poor one because, in that case, you are dealing with a very small number of events.  It is the law of large numbers that makes it easy to see how improbable the Hillarista fantasy is.

Beyond that sundar, even the baseball event you are describing has happened only once in a history of more than a century.  No one claimed that it was impossible for Hillary to win, just so improbable that, if she cares about the Democratic party (an oxymoron, I know, since it is quite clear that Hillary cares only for Hillary), she should be willing to weigh her chances against the damage done to the party's prospects in November.  If she had been willing to run "a la Huckabee," touting her own merits with running a Republican smear campaign against a Democratic opponent, her campaign to nowhere might have been amusing but not objectionable.  But she couldn't behave that way. Hence there is every reason, in my opinion a duty for all good Democrats, to deride her self-serving, destructive bahavior.

This morning's news reports here in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area had state election officials quoting 400,000 casting early ballots (dunno where the 500k comes from).  70,000 were registered Repugs, 70,000 were independents.  So the balance of registered Dems voting early is pretty large.

Should be interesting to see what kind of a line I run into later this morning when I go vote.  Along with the presidential race there's been a quite bitter NC gubernatorial primary that should bring out quite a few voters alone.

"I speculated last week that some black voters could be even more pessimistic than white voters about what Wright's done to Obama's electability"

My guess is that these would be the same type of black voters who would feel guilty and vote Obama in the exit poll. So we may never know...

All:

I have a delegate chart with the remaining states projected, leaning superdelegates projected (18 to Obama), and "Pelosi Democrats" awarded to Obama (these are the 7 folks who said they'd vote for the pledged delegate winner). I've also projected all of the add-on delegates.

According to my calculations, Obama needs 5% of the remaining 195 superdelegates to win. Hillary Clinton needs 105% of the remaining superdelegates to win (it doesn't add up to 100% because the Edwards delegates throw the numbers off).

Do you believe in miracles?

"pre-PA I said the likely outcome there was a gain of 12 delegates for Hillary and that is exactly what happened. That didn't take any great insight. All you had to do was know how to multiply and what to multiply."

If a Democrat were capable of simple arithmetic, it now seems clear, he would not have supported Hillary in the first place. So I think it's a bit unfair to expect Hillaristas to be able to understand the simple mathematical realities by which Hillary will win or lose the nomination.

No, it is not impossible for Hillary to win the nomination, just as it was not impossible for the Red Sox to win the '04 ALCS. But it is extremely unlikely, and more to the point it can only happen if Hillary achieves certain things. The first thing she must achieve is a 69-31 sweep of all remaining states, including both NC and IN. If she merely ties Obama overall today, she will need to win all remaining contests by margins of 80-20. If she does that, she will still need to win the support of half of all remaining unpledged unelected delegates -- a cohort that has been breaking to Obama by a 5-1 margin lately.

Alternately, if Hillary wins every remaining contest (including IN and NC) by 63-37, and then gets MI and FL delegations seated in full, then she will be tied with Obama, and will then need to win half of all remaining unpledged unelected delegates.

The problem for Hillary is not that these events are unlikely. It's that to date she failed to do any of the things she needed to do to make victory happen. Hillary has to start actually accomplishing the difficult tasks required to make the unlikely happen. Hillary doesn't need to win IN today. She doesn't even need to win IN and NC today. She needs to win IN and NC by a 38-point margin. If she fails to do that, she will finish the day further from the nomination than she started. No amount of mumbo-jumbo about "momentum" or "electability" or other fictional psychic forces will change the fact that the nomination will be decided by a discrete number of actual delegates casting actual votes.

In Boston they do.

Fabulous, rhubarbs!  May the (fictional psychic) Force be with you.

I dunno Rhub, if Obama loses North Carolina, he will face a lot of pressure to fall on his sword regardless of the math. North Carolina is a must win for him, and if he wins, Hillary is done. Of the last 4 contests it will be two and two: Guam and North Carolina for Obama, and Pa. and Indiana for Clinton. Don't laugh about Guam, it counts as a win and a win is a win, coupled with lead in delegates and popular votes and soon we need never see that frozen scary smile of Hillary Clinton anymore.

roidubouloi  

"Don't be amazed.  Bush ran on a platform of "compassionate conservatism."  That was it.  What did it mean?  No one knew, no one seemed to care much."

You are correct about the Bush "compassionate conservatism" slogan which is exactly what now makes a lot of people uncomfortable with the "hope and change" argument of Obama. Platitudes and rhetorical arguments from the mouths of politicians are virtually meaningless which brings us full circle to Obama's lack of a meaningful track record. The people who are so hot on Obama are taking him on faith and what he says. Don't forget Bush said he was a uniter not a divider. Obama says he is going to usher in an era of new politics. I will give him about as much chance of bring a new politics to Washington as to the chance of the meteor hitting Indianapolis before the polls close. Everyone seems to wonder why older voters don't respond as well to Obama. The reason is simply we have heard all of this political shtick many times before and are not as easily swayed as younger voters. Call it cynicism if you will but I call it experience and judgment.

What will likely matter after tonight is how hard Clinton is willing to fight, and of course, whatever is going on in the heads of the undeclared superdelegates.

r-brown,

I am not suggesting that anyone ought to accept "hope and change" merely because the country accepted "compassionate conservatism."  I am making a positive observation, not a normative one, about what actually works in political campaigns.  

I view the experience vs. lack of experience argument a bit differently.  In Hillary and McCain we know what we are going to get.  Obama is a gamble.  Based on what we know, I am willing to take that gamble.

Zogby polls are anywhere from worthless to dangerous.

So what to make of the really high turnout in IN? And what about the huge percentages of folks switching over to vote Democrat? I cannot believe very many people take Rush's urging seriously, but who k nows. Do these trends tend to favor one over the other? I know, I can just wait a few hours and know, but...

>which brings us full circle to Obama's lack of a meaningful track record. The people who are so hot >on Obama are taking him on faith and what he says.

I've examined Hillary's and Obama's track records side by side, and it is precisely on that account that I am an Obama supporter.

I've been canvassing all day here in Greensboro and will be very surprised if Obama isn't carrying the Piedmont area by 7-10%. The organization has been great. At least half of the Obama voters I talked to today had already voted.

Anecdotal, sure, but there is still excitement--and resentment toward, what one lady called, how Hillary Helms had run her campaign. I just don't see many of these voters, particularly elderly African Americans, voting for her in November, regardless of what the polls say. People in NC recognize racial politics when they see it.

How frustrating that winning or losing the popular vote, by any percentage, stirs (or chills) the blood and stiffens (or softens) the spine for efforts to come; yet, the gain or loss in delegate strength is puny to insignificant. I imagine as the nomination "process" grinds on, people get crazier (and angrier). If I were Howard Dean I'd have developed acid reflux before now.