Texas GOP Embarrasses Us All, Plus State Poll Update

First, a button which should have got the vendor thrown bodily out of the Texas GOP convention this past weekend, but apparently didn't:

Click here for open racism.

According to the above, the button was for sale at a booth run by these guys. They don't have that button in their listings, but they have others which are real *cough* winners.

This is right up there with the Obama sock monkey, made in Utah.

Aside from that comparison, words fail me- except that I hope every single educated white person and every minority group in Texas gets to know about that button- and votes on that knowledge come November.

On to the national level, FiveThirtyEight has updated its estimates and polling averages in the past twelve days since I first broke down the states into Solid, Wobbly, and Leaning/Tossup. Looking at the numbers, there have been some substantial shifts in 538's mathematical regression model, which forms the baseline for their predictions. These shifts, based on the recent national bump for Obama from getting the Democratic nomination, uniformly favors Obama. I'm going to give some weight to recent polling, though, to counterbalance bias at 538 if it exists, to hold states out of Solid status if there's any doubt.

SOLID --> WOBBLY - Well, no. Once I call a state Solid, I don't give a damn about it anymore; there's no way the vote is going to shift enough for it not to go for that person. It might end up closer than 10% come the election, but it's going to stay in that column barring an electoral earthquake. Forget it.

WOBBLY --> SOLID - Massachusetts goes Solid to Obama, with the two most recent polls showing him up over 10% (and the most recent over 20%)

WOBBLY --> LEAN/TOSSUP - Florida goes from Wobbly for McCain to Leaning McCain; North Carolina goes from Wobbly for McCain to Leaning McCain

LEAN/TOSSUP --> WOBBLY OBAMA - Colorado.

SHIFTS WITHIN LEAN/TOSSUP - Indiana and Missouri go from Lean McCain to Tossup. Virginia goes from leaning McCain to Lean Obama. New Hampshire and Ohio go from Tossup to Lean Obama.

So, here's my numbers:

SOLID OBAMA (12/51) - 157 EV
WOBBLY OBAMA (7/51) - 59 EV

SOLID McCAIN (10/51) - 69 EV
WOBBLY McCAIN (10/51) - 91 EV

LEAN/TOSSUP (12/51) - 161 EV

On the 6th my estimate of solid + wobbly was Obama 214, McCain 202- pretty close. The above shifts change that to Obama 216, McCain 160- not so much a gain for Obama as weakness on McCain's part.

We'll keep watching the polls...

On to the General...

Well, a reminder of my final question from last post:

Now, in the next few days, we get to see who blinks first- does Obama give in to Clinton blackmail, or does the Democratic Party finally, at long, long last, tell its two problem children to take a hike?

And less than a day after I typed that- hell, less than twelve hours after I typed it- the answer came. Clinton's superdelegate supporters finally gave her the come-to-Jesus talk she's needed for at least the past month, letting her know they were about to defect en masse. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said point-blank that the vice-presidential slot cannot be negotiated for- much less extorted as it appeared Clinton was going to attempt Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Representative Charlie Rangel- Clinton's sponsor in the world of New York politics- led a group of over twenty Clinton-endorsing Congresspersons to warn her that she had until today, Friday, to endorse Obama before they bolted.

Tomorrow Clinton will make it official, and in the interim she's already been backpedaling wildly from anything that hinted of an attempt to extort the VP slot on the ticket. She'll still try to negotiate concessions from Obama, but now she will come not as someone holding power over him, but as a supplicant- important, but a supplicant all the same.

So, with that the drama of the Democratic nomination cycle appears to be over. Now comes the time to look ahead to Obama v. McCain.

The famous Chuck Todd has a list of which states favor whom in a recent MSNBC.com First Look column. I disagree with several states' placement, though. I prefer the statistical analysis of FiveThirtyEight.com, which I'm going to break down thusly:

SOLID STATES (20/51). These states currently show a greater than 10% advantage for one candidate or the other in 538's estimates (demographic analysis adjusted by state polls), with a couple of exceptions based on circumstances 538 hasn't taken into account. These states will be set aside and NEVER CONSIDERED AGAIN, because nothing short of disaster on one side or the other is going to swing the nation or any one state by more than one voter out of ten.

(Electoral votes by state in parenthesis.)

SOLID FOR OBAMA: California (55), District of Columbia (3), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maryland (10), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11) - 145 EV
SOLID FOR MCCAIN: Alabama (9), Arkansas (6), Arizona (10), Idaho (4), Kentucky (8), Mississippi (6), Oklahoma (7), Tennessee (11), Utah (5), Wyoming (3) - 69 EV

WOBBLY STATES (19/51). These states show between 5% and 10% advantage for one candidate or another at 538, or are states where Bob Barr's candidacy or known bad polls may throw off 538's estimate by enough to bring the margin within 5% to 10%. These states probably will go to the named candidate, but still bear watching.

WOBBLY FOR OBAMA: Connecticut (7), Iowa (7), Massachusetts (12), Maine (4)*, Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), Oregon (7) - 62 EV
WOBBLY FOR MCCAIN: Alaska (3), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Kansas (6), Louisiana (9), Montana (3), North Carolina (15), Nebraska (5)*, South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Texas (34), West Virginia (5) - 133 EV

* Maine and Nebraska award two statewide electoral votes, and award their remaining electoral votes based on results in each congressional district. This leaves the potential for those two states to split their electoral votes.

So, that's 214 electoral votes to Obama, 202 to McCain, barring some pretty large shifts.

That leaves the balance with:

TOSSUP STATES (12/51): These states currently show an advantage of less than 5% at 538. This is doable. We'll break this down into Leaning Obama, Leaning McCain, and True Tossup- those states with a difference of less than 2%.

LEANING OBAMA: Colorado (9), Pennsylvania (21), Wisconsin (10) - 40 EV
LEANING MCCAIN: Indiana (11), Missouri (11), North Dakota (3), Virginia (12) - 37 EV
TRUE TOSSUP: Michigan (17), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Nevada (5), Ohio (20) - 51 EV

There's your true battleground- those twelve states.

As for the wobblies... we'll watch them for a while, see if they narrow or widen from now until the end of July. If they widen beyond 10%, they'll be bumped up to Solid status; below 5%, and they'll go into the Leaning/Tossup category. We'll try to ignore the polls during convention season, since party conventions usually give candidates bumps in the polls that don't last long. Come October 1, anything that's still in the Wobbly category will be listed as Solid, since it'll be too late (barring disaster) for the candidates to make more than a 5% shift.

Obama Wins... What Now, Clinton?

Well, last night Barack Obama got the endorsement of nearly 70 superdelegates, bringing him a net gain in excess of fifty votes at the Democratic convention in Denver... leaving aside the delegates he won in South Dakota and Montana.

Now not only is Obama over the halfway point under the current rules (which, as of Saturday, sat Michigan's proposed 69-59 Clinton-Obama delegate split with half a vote each, and Florida's delegates as voted ditto), but he's only about fifty delegates shy of taking a majority of delegates even by Clinton math- the 2,208 delegates which Bill Clinton has been preaching the past month or so.

More to the point, even if every single superdelegate still not endorsing went to Clinton, she cannot surpass Obama. Hillary Clinton has, once and for all, lost the nomination fight.

Unfortunately, judging by her speech last night and by her actions earlier in the day, Hillary has not given up the fight.

Now, let's bear in mind that Hillary Clinton, by all odds and expectations prior to January, should have won this election. This process- especially with Obama's relative weakness over the past two months as he tried to switch to a general election campaign- was not so much won by him as thrown away by the Clintons. Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News have given reasons for this which I agree with in part. My personal summation of the Clinton failures:

1. Mark Penn. This election has demonstrated that having Mark Penn as your political campaign's senior advisor is like having Barney Fife as head of security at your company. Penn abused his fellow workers, bounced the campaign from one message to another like a four-handed man playing ping-pong solitaire, and made grievous strategic errors (like believing the Democratic delegate race was winner-take-all). Once the Clintons fired Penn their campaign finally straightened out and ran well... but by that time it was entirely too late, because...

2. Failure to contest states. Obama was able to win Super Tuesday's delegate count because he actively contested every one of those states except Oklahoma (where he came in third behind a man who had dropped out of the race). The Clintons, however, focused their attentions on the big states- New York, New Jersey, California- and generally ignored the smaller states. They went on to challenge only Virginia and Wisconsin out of the eleven contests between Super Tuesday and Ohio-Texas-Rhode Island-Vermont Tuesday, allowing Obama to run up the pledged delegate lead. After that point all Obama had to do was split the remaining delegates 50/50, and that's just about all he did. Obama won because the Clintons yielded ground to him they shouldn't have.

3. Race-baiting. Yes, Bill Clinton, that notable loose cannon, started it, but Hillary Clinton continued it, always appealing to "hard-working white voters." The decision was made early on- possibly even before Bill Clinton started belittling Obama as being just another ethnic candidate with limited appeal- to abandon the black vote to Obama in exchange for a boost in support from racist whites. Not only did this decision cost them entire states, but it gave Obama a much more unified bloc of voters than Clinton could claim in any other demographic- which, in turn, gave Obama more delegates.

4. The message. Hillary Clinton campaigned as the experienced candidate, the long-time Washington insider, and the inevitable nominee- essentially, as Bloomberg and other sources point out, the 2000 George W. Bush strategy. Only with the departure of Mark Penn did these messages get chucked out the window in favor of the populism and, let's be honest, naked demagoguery that the Clintons do best.

Which leads to the final, and most fundamental, reason Hillary lost the nomination:

5. Bill Clinton. Bill brought Mark Penn into the race. Bill took charge of the South Carolina fight. Bill Clinton, on the campaign stump, spoke as if he was running for his own third term. Most important, by claiming experience as First Lady during Bill's Presidency, Hillary also perforce took the blame for the many errors and scandals of that era. In the end Bill was relegated to rural speaking, where he could appeal to the only demographic that still approved of him: white, rural, poor, uneducated people over 50. Bill Clinton was little short of a disaster for his wife's campaign; the best thing she could have done was keep him out speaking in other nations for his foundation, well away from politics.

More to the point, although many Democratic voters have fond memories of the Clinton years, most Democratic officials do not. Bill Clinton presided over a long-term crippling of his own party- in no small part due to his insistence on abandoning states entirely if they could not be won for the Democratic presidential ticket. The term "Clintonism" brings to mind lying, corruption, irresponsibility, slash-and-burn politics, and betrayal- nothing positive. As Chuck Todd points out:

Think about this fact. Since February 5, [Hillary] secured fewer than 40 superdelegate endorsements... 40! No matter what the polls said or what her margins of victory were in Ohio or Pennsylvania or West Virginia, the party leaders would not allow themselves to be swayed away from Obama. Perhaps the Clinton hold on the party was gone a lot sooner than some of us in the media realized. These folks were simply looking for an excuse to dump the Clintons. The inability to prevent Howard Dean from taking over the DNC or the Dems taking back Congress without the leadership of the Clintons may have been more significant in telling the story of how the Democrats kicked their Clinton habit. This may be Barack Obama's party now. But this ceased being the Clintons' party a long time ago. However, we only noticed this now.

So now we know why Hillary lost.

But now the question is: why hasn't Hillary admitted she has lost?

Let's look at the speech she gave last night, just after South Dakota was called for her. She claimed she got the most popular votes; she made repeated accusations, veiled but present, that Obama would be an illegitimate nominee; she left her fate up to her supporters, who at the time were chanting, "Denver! Denver! Denver!" She deliberately does not recognize Obama as having won the nomination; she explicitly does not concede the nomination fight.

Yet, before and after the speech, she has made it plain that she would accept the vice-presidential spot under Obama, should it be offered.

This is an obvious setup for an extortion ploy: give me what I want, or I will ensure that you lose in November.

And what does Hillary want?

First and foremost, the VP slot. She wants to be next in line should something happen to Obama, and she wants to be the apparent successor in 2012 or 2016.

This alone, however, will not be sufficient. I foresee she will make other demands in private and public:

* The lead role in the Denver convention. She wants to be the star of the convention- over and above Obama. The least she'll accept here is the presentation of a co-presidency, with she and Obama holding equal power.

* Her healthcare plan, with individual mandates, to become part of Obama's platform.

* Clinton supporters to dominate Obama's cabinet.

* Use of the Obama donor network to pay off Clinton's campaign debts and to repay the money she's loaned herself.

And, she will argue, if she does not get all of these things, she'll continue the fight to Denver or possibly beyond, sabotaging Democratic chances in November and throwing the Presidency to McCain.

If Obama gives in, the result will be worse than Cheney; Hillary Clinton will, in all respects but title, be the President. This is, of course, unacceptable, not merely because it's a Clinton asking it, but because no presidential candidate can give in to such naked extortion and appear strong at the same time. If Obama gives Clinton what she wants- indeed, in my opinion if he gives her ANYTHING- he will indeed appear to be appeasing her, as his Republican opponents claim he seeks to appease terrorist regimes.

Hillary has apparently made a decision to get everything she can for herself, and to hell with the Democratic Party. Now, in the next few days, we get to see who blinks first- does Obama give in to Clinton blackmail, or does the Democratic Party finally, at long, long last, tell its two problem children to take a hike?

LP Convention Weekend: Who's Going to Win?

Well, since Hillary Clinton essentially admitted she's staying in just in case an assassination happens -- again -- and thereby ticked Keith Olbermann off so much that he said, point blank, she was not fit to be President (YouTube here), and thereby all but destroyed her chances at being Obama's VP (which Al Giordano's anonymous sources, in the face of denial by both campaigns, say was already zero)...

*GASP*

... OK, that was going to be a really long sentence. Let's start again.

With the Clinton campaign stumbling, with Clinton superdelegates beginning to defect to Obama, and with a Survey USA poll now showing Obama ahead in Ohio over McCain, the Democratic race is not merely over, it's showing signs of ending its zombie reign of terror.

And, by a strange coincidence, this weekend is the Libertarian Party convention- when the LP nomination fight, among other things, finally ends.

I was going to write an analysis of the various candidates- again- but Phil Weigel at Reason Online already did it. My only significant change is in the order of strength he gave the candidates- and not only will I correct that, but I'll give my own prediction of how the nominations go.

Now, this year the Libertarian Party is enforcing, for the first time, a bit of restriction on its Presidential candidates. The support of fifty delegates is required for a Presidential candidate to be placed into nomination. Based on yesterday's reports from the convention, we can estimate only about 400 delegates today- less than half the almost 900 delegates at the LP convention in 2004. We can, therefore, ignore candidates who won't get more than 10% support from the convention.

My personal estimates of support within the convention:

MARY RUWART - 33%
BOB BARR - 20%
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT - 15%
GEORGE PHILLIES - 10%
MIKE GRAVEL - 10%
STEVE KUBBY - 5%
CHRISTINE SMITH - 5%
ALL OTHERS - 2%

This is actually very rough- I'm just going for multiples of 5 on my estimates. I personally believe that support for Ruwart is stronger than this. I'm also being VERY generous to Mike Gravel- I don't think he'll be able to get on the nomination ballot.

Anyway, since one man's guess is as good as another, I'll stick by these numbers. Going by these, we can presume that Ruwart, Barr, Root, Phillies and Gravel will be the only ones on the ballot tomorrow- certainly the only ones (besides None of the Above) after the first ballot.

Christine Smith and Steve Kubby will both throw their support behind Mary Ruwart. The "all others" support will scatter- and to be simple I'll split it between Ruwart and Barr.

So, the first ballot, I predict, will be:

MARY RUWART - 44%
BOB BARR - 21%
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT - 15%
GEORGE PHILLIES - 10%
MIKE GRAVEL - 10%

Now, if Ruwart's initial strength is greater than I'm estimating here- and I strongly suspect it is- then she wins on the first ballot, or no later than the second, with disastrous consequences for the LP. (If you didn't read the links above, Ruwart is a strong anarchist who makes a living from New Age quacksalver books. In one of those books, she made the argument that age-of-consent laws violated the rights of the child to have sex- which fact was brought into the open by Root's campaign this month.)

This is Ruwart's best shot- an early knockout. Gravel's support, such as it is, is going to be pragmatists within the party- ditto Root. Phillies, as the reformer candidate, is more likely to support Bob Barr than Mary Ruwart... but since Phillies has spoken ill of all the other candidates, and Phillies and Ruwart are the only long-time Libertarian activists of these five, it could go either way, or his bloc of voters could fragment.

If Ruwart's support is as I'm predicting here- or less- then we go on to another ballot, minus Gravel. Gravel's support goes more to Barr than to any of the others, with my prediction:

MARY RUWART - 45%
BOB BARR - 28%
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT - 16%
GEORGE PHILLIES - 11%

Next drop Phillies. If Phillies supports Ruwart, then his bloc will fragment, but enough will go to her to get her the nomination. I personally think Phillies will back Barr instead- which means his reform-minded supporters won't give Ruwart the time of day.

MARY RUWART - 45%
BOB BARR - 39%
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT - 16%

And that leaves three. Who do you think Root will support- an anarchist who he's openly attacked as being in favor of underage sex, or a fellow former Republican?

Long story short- the more ballots there are, the better Barr's chances are for nomination. There is a very, very strong chance that Ruwart wins early, though- she is quite definitely the frontrunner, especially at a convention where the anarchists and purists have organized to undo the work of the 2006 Portland convention.

Tonight we'll see the LP Presidential debate on C-SPAN (9 PM EDT). I may or may not watch- after all, I've already got a (non-LP) candidate. I will, however, watch the ballot tomorrow- just to see how far off my guess is...

Obama's Magic Number v. Clinton's Math

OK, neither Kentucky nor Oregon was any real surprise- except that Clinton was significantly stronger than I expected in Kentucky, and Obama significantly stronger than I expected in Oregon. By my count Clinton netted ten pledged delegates on the night... but that, of course, wasn't nearly enough.

I've updated my spreadsheet in certain ways this morning. First, I've gone back to the pre-Feb. 5th numbers and given Obama ten more delegates- the Edwards pledged delegates who, thus far, have openly endorsed Obama. Second- and more important- I've taken away the presumption that Clinton and Obama would evenly split the post-Pennsylvania delegates, and put my running total in place instead. Finally, I've brought my estimate of the superdelegate endorsements as much up to date as I can.

Here's the breakdown:

PREDICTED OUTCOMES:
PUERTO RICO - Obama 25, Clinton 38 (60-40 Clinton win)
SOUTH DAKOTA - Obama 8, Clinton 7 (Obama 55-45 win)
MONTANA - Obama 9, Clinton 7 (Obama 55-45 win)

FINAL ESTIMATED PLEDGED DELEGATE TOTALS: Obama 1,702, Clinton 1,551.

CURRENT SUPERDELEGATE ESTIMATE: Obama 304.5, Clinton 278.5.

TOTAL: Obama 2,006.5, Clinton 1829.5.

DELEGATES NEEDED TO WIN: Obama 19.5, Clinton 196.5

SUPERDELEGATES OUTSTANDING (including add-ons not yet named): 212

So now the countdown begins: twenty superdelegates, and Obama claims victory- without Florida and Michigan.

And, for Obama supporters like myself who worry about worst case scenarios, what if Clinton manages to get Florida and Michigan counted fully- an eventuality which no pundit, not even the most pro-Clinton, believes will happen?

Well, take the total above: Obama 2006.5, Clinton 1829.5 to start.

PLEDGED DELEGATES MI/FL - Obama 67 (not counting 55 "uncommitted"), Clinton 178
SUPERDELEGATES MI/FL - Obama 10, Clinton 15
TOTAL MI/FL - Obama 77, Clinton 193 (Clinton net +116)

TOTAL DELEGATES W/MI/FL - Obama 2083.5, Clinton 2022.5

SUPERDELEGATES NEEDED TO WIN - Obama 126.5, Clinton 187.5

And if you give Obama three-quarters of the Uncommitted delegates from Michigan (41) and half of John Edwards' pledged delegates from Florida (6):

ADJUSTED NEEDED TO WIN - Obama 79.5, Clinton 187.5

But this scenario- the absolute best Clinton can hope for, and it's still a loser- isn't going to happen. Michigan's Democrats have voted to split their delegates Clinton 69, Obama 59. Terry McAuliffe, one of Clinton's campaign handlers, has already said they'd be happy with half-representation from Florida and Michigan. And the Clinton campaign can claim, at best, only 13 supporters in the 30-person Rules Committee which will meet May 31 to decide the fate of those two states' delegates.

So- the actual magic number for Obama is somewhere between 80 on the highest end, and 20 on the lowest end.

I prefer the low end, so let's start counting down, shall we?

Is It Over?

I waited until MSNBC called Indiana for Clinton to begin writing this.

Hillary Clinton won Indiana by a margin of slightly more than 20,000 votes. Hillary will get 37 delegates to Obama's 35- a net gain to the Clintons of two delegates.

Predictions on North Carolina are still iffy, but Obama won by fourteen percentiles statewide. Estimates range from the Green Pages' low-end of a net 11 delegates to Obama (63-52) to MSNBC's high-end estimate of a net of 17 (66-49). I'm using the more conservative of those two for my own calculations.

My current estimates:

PLEDGED DELEGATES: Obama 1,595, Clinton 1,423. (Obama + 172)
SUPERDELEGATES: Obama 254, Clinton 270. (Obama -16)
TOTAL DELEGATES: Obama 1,849, Clinton 1,693. (Obama +156)

And remember the Magic Superdelegate Number I made for Obama- how many more superdelegates he needs to snag to stop Clinton from swinging the nomination that way? The Magic Superdelegate Number, going into the vote today, was 67.

Sixty. Seven.

Presuming Clinton and Obama split the remaining pledged delegates evenly- actually, throwing a few extra to Clinton- Clinton would now need over 85% of all currently undeclared (and, in some cases, currently unknown) superdelegates to win the nomination.

Obama only needs 25%.

What's more, let's stick to pledged delegates. Obama, by my math, currently has 1,595. In order to get a majority of pledged, decided-by-voters delegates, he needs 1,627- thirty-two pledged delegates to go. Even if Obama only got 16% of the vote through the rest of the elections- the minimum level to get any delegates at all in a Democratic primary or caucus- he'd get 5 in West Virginia; 9 in Kentucky; 8 in Oregon; 11 in Puerto Rico; and 2 each in Montana and South Dakota, for a grand total of 37- five more delegates than he would need to secure a clear majority of pledged delegates.

And that's if he fell flat on his face tomorrow morning. Obama's predicted to win Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, and he'll get 30% in Kentucky and West Virginia no matter how white and bigoted voters there may or may not end up being. I'm currently predicting Obama to get 106 pledged delegates (to Clinton's 119) in the remaining contests.

In other words- the race for pledged delegates is now over. Obama has won, barring a massive coronary. That victory will become official in two weeks, when Obama wins Oregon.

These are not merely bad numbers. These are not merely impossible numbers to overcome. These are numbers which might- mind you I say MIGHT- be giving the Clintons cause to reconsider the pledge she made in tonight's speech- to continue on to the convention, and thence to the White House.

Because, according to MSNBC, the Clintons have cancelled all their media and campaign events for tomorrow. (Except, that is, for a fundraiser- which might be necessary to get the Clinton campaign out of debt.)

The last time a candidate did this, Mitt Romney dropped out of the race.

Stay tuned, sports fans, we might actually get news on something besides a doomed-from-birth gas tax holiday or Reverend Fucking Wright.

Like, say, the current battle between the Maliki government and al-Sadr's forces for control of Baghdad...

The Next Day

Well, the exit polls didn't hold up after all.

Clinton ended up winning not with a 4% margin, but a 9% margin. She managed to hold most of the Philadelphia suburbs- I'd expected her to win Burks County handily, but other results were a little surprising.

More to the point, she won 75-25 in most of the rural counties around the state- numbers almost identical to her results in predominantly white areas of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Anyone who wants to complain about James Carville's much-repeated quote about Pennsylvania being Pittsburgh in the west, Philadelphia in the east, and Alabama in the middle can just shut up right now, thank you.

No matter how much Obama likes having his "50-state contest" talking point, these results should be more than enough for him to write West Virginia off completely, and Kentucky nearly so. Clinton is going to win those by landslide margins- Kentucky by 60-40, West Virginia by almost 70-30.

Another point that bears noticing: beyond getting out the basic message, money does not matter in elections. Obama spent nearly three times as much as Clinton in Pennsylvania. Some people claim that this forced the Clintons to put more money than they wanted in there, but I doubt it; they had to win Pennsylvania, and really had to win by much more than the 9% they got. Obama's first strategy- to downplay Pennsylvania as Clinton country and a state where they would be happy with a good showing- was the right way to go. Dumping money in as he did over the past three weeks was a strategic blunder; it made him look weak for apparently trying and failing to score a knockout blow, and it means he has that much less money to spend on Indiana, a state with a legitimate chance for a knockout.

That said, although Obama underperformed in the state, Clinton only reached her expectations- she didn't surpass them. My prediction six weeks ago was for a delegate breakdown of Clinton 83, Obama 75; early projections at the Daily Kos suggest the final breakdown will be Clinton 84, Obama 74. That's a ten delegate net to Clinton... which Obama can make up by a simple 10% margin of victory in North Carolina in two weeks. Polls currently show him leading there by as much as TWENTY percentiles- which could lead to as much as a 69-46 margin there, or a net delegate pickup of 23.

So, what are my predictions for two weeks? Looking at poll trends, I'm going to call Indiana for Obama by only about 3% statewide- say 51% to 48%. I'm going to be a little conservative and call North Carolina at 57-43 for Obama as well, with Clinton winning most of her vote in the western mountain area. Breaking that down into actual delegate projections (thanks to the Green Papers for the details):

INDIANA

Statewide at-large: Obama 8, Clinton 8
Pledged PLEOs: Obama 5, Clinton 4
CD-1: Obama 4, Clinton 2
CD-2: Obama 3, Clinton 3
CD-3: Obama 2, Clinton 2
CD-4: Obama 1, Clinton 3
CD-5: Obama 2, Clinton 2
CD-6: Obama 2, Clinton 3
CD-7: Obama 4, Clinton 2
CD-8: Obama 3, Clinton 3
CD-9: Obama 2, Clinton 4
TOTAL: Obama 36, Clinton 36

So- a null result in Indiana.

NORTH CAROLINA

Statewide at-large: Obama 15, Clinton 11
Pledged PLEOs: Obama 7, Clinton 5
CD-1: Obama 4, Clinton 2
CD-2: Obama 4, Clinton 2
CD-3: Obama 2, Clinton 2
CD-4: Obama 6, Clinton 3
CD-5: Obama 1, Clinton 4
CD-6: Obama 2, Clinton 3
CD-7: Obama 4, Clinton 2
CD-8: Obama 2, Clinton 3
CD-9: Obama 2, Clinton 4
CD-10: Obama 1, Clinton 4
CD-11: Obama 2, Clinton 4
CD-12: Obama 5, Clinton 2
CD-13: Obama 4, Clinton 3
TOTAL: Obama 61, Clinton 54

That's a net of seven delegates for Obama- and that's planning for a disastrous loss to Clinton in the mountainous west of the state, plus a couple of borderline districts.

So, in two weeks Obama makes up most of the ground he lost today. Not to worry. (Much.)

And finally... remember my Magic Superdelegate Number? As of today's endorsement of Obama by Oklahoma governor Brad Henry, Obama's magic number is 89 superdelegates. 89 more superdelegates, and he slams the door on Hillary's ability to overturn his lead in the pledged delegate count- presuming, of course, that the remaining contests, plus Pennsylvania, come out with both candidates splitting the pledged delegates.

Oh, Clinton has her own magic superdelegate number: 238.

There are only 304 superdelegates total who are still apparently neutral or undeclared. 67 of those are either empty seats (state add-on delegates) or superdelegates whose terms of office expire before the convention in Denver (Hawaii's DNC positions and state chairman). That means Clinton needs every single remaining superdelegate that currently holds the position... plus one.

Or, in percentage terms: Obama needs 29% of the remaining superdelegates. Clinton needs 78%. (The difference is John Edwards' 18 remaining pledged delegates.)

Unless Obama's superdelegates begin to defect, Clinton really can't win... and it's Clinton, not Obama, who has had problems with superdelegate defections.

Clinton will still win Kentucky, West Virginia, and more than likely Puerto Rico. She has an even shot in Indiana- but that's all, and it's not enough.

But until she realizes and accepts that- and I doubt she ever will- she'll continue the contest, which is doing nothing but hurting both candidates for the November race.

(You notice, of course, that all the people who say the continuing contest is good for Democrats are conservative/Republican activists?)

Awaiting Pennsylvania Results

It's been three weeks since I've posted here- partly because I've been busy, but mostly because the Presidential campaigns have been full of shit- all of them, Obama's included- the past three weeks. Nothing about policy, nothing about character, everything about cheap shots and finger-pointing and evading questions. With that actively repelling me from the political scene, and nothing much appealing to me more locally to write about, and with a lot of other personal worries, I didn't feel like writing much.

Now the day has come, and as I type this the race is too close to call- that means exit polls were probably within 10% or less margin between the candidates. That's a bit surprising, all things considered. I'd have expected a blowout.

My main concern, all along, for Pennsylvania is summed up by this USA Today article, spotted by good old Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish.

The money quote:

The irony of today's Pennsylvania primary is that the historic race and gender confrontation between Obama and Clinton is being staged in one of the most reluctant states to elect a woman or African-American to major office. Until now, that has been the only way to win big in Pennsylvania — be male and pale.

I'd go farther and say that, outside of Philadelphia, being pale is much more important than being male.

The non-fannish Pennsylvanians I've met over the years have all been not merely conservative, but angrily, intolerantly conservative. I recently bemoaned the happy, smiling racism that pervades my part of east Texas, but in Pennsylvania rural areas- and in working-class white neighborhoods in the cities, too- the racism is not happy or smiling.

"But wait!" you shout. "Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love!" Yep- but it was also a city of very deep social divides almost from its founding.

"But all Pennsylvanians aren't like that!" Never said they were. Fans tend to be major exceptions- sci-fi fans, anime fans, fannish people in general tend to be more accepting people. But Pennsylvania is also the home of the Amish and of other isolationist groups. How many black Amish have you ever seen?

And look at the article I linked to above. Only four blacks elected to Congress from PA- ever. Only six women elected to Congress- ever. One woman to statewide office (the current Lt. Governor)- ever. No black statewide officers- ever. Racism and sexism alike still rule in Pennsylvania, but for Democrats sexism is weaker than racism.

"But those people are dying off!" Yes, they are. The racists and sexists are mostly older people- fifty years or older- throughout the nation. But Pennsylvania is a state with relatively few young people. Young people leave the state as soon as they can. Only Florida has an older population on average. The racists and sexists are still very much in control- as witness tonight's exit polls, which show 27% of today's voters over the age of 65.

Obama's not going to win the state. The only question is whether or not he keeps Clinton's win small- which just might happen. Obama erred in outspending Clinton 3-1 in Pennsylvania; he could have done just as well working at parity, and investing the difference in Indiana (which is a coin-flip at the moment) would have been a better shot. On the other hand, Clinton will be in debt by $10 million with only $8 million in cash-on-hand tomorrow. A simple win isn't enough for Clinton to survive. She needs the 10 percentile plus victory just to keep donors giving her money. A 20 percentile win is what she actually needed to cut into Obama's delegate lead significantly... and she did not do that.

The campaign staggers on another two weeks, while McCain continues to get a pass by the national media and the two Democratic candidates alike. Indiana becomes the true showdown state, a state where both campaigns are evenly matched... or would, if Clinton can find the money to compete.

And as I type this, the call comes in for Clinton. 1% of the vote in, with nothing out of Philadelphia, and she leads 60/40. Wait- 3% of the vote, 55/45. Must be a Philly precinct coming in there. In any case, she's held the state, despite all the money Obama threw in.

That doesn't say much about Obama.

It says everything in the world about the voters of rural Pennsylvania.

Now to sit back and see how the delegates break down.

EDIT: About half an hour after I posted the above...

I just looked at MSNBC's exit poll for PA.

By calculating the male-female breakdown of votes, I show the exit poll as predicting:

CLINTON - 51.8%
OBAMA - 47.8%

That's only a four percentile spread. That's damn close, if it holds. No wonder they held off on declaring a winner.

Even MSNBC, which has been as far in the tank for Obama as any news network, is blathering now about how disastrous a loss in Pennsylvania is for Obama. I disagree. If the 4% number holds up (actual results, with 20% of precincts in, 53-47 Clinton), Clinton will really, REALLY be hurting tomorrow morning...

(Almost) Official: Obama Wins Texas

First, a quick note: Clinton compared herself yesterday, in a speech in Philadelphia, to Rocky Balboa. Perhaps she's forgotten that, in the original movie, Rocky lost...

Anyway, the results from the second round of Texas caucusing/conventions are in. Obama's percentage has shifted a little in his favor. Burnt Orange Report predicts a 37-30 split in favor of Obama; MSNBC calculates a 38-29 split. I favor MSNBC, for the moment, and I've made some adjustments in my totals.

(And happier for me- remember, I didn't get to be a delegate to the second level because my voting box went 2-0 Clinton... but my county, overall, only favored Clinton 9-7.)

What's more, Mississippi has reported its final vote totals for its primary. In that report, Obama gets one more delegate (and Clinton one less) than previously estimated.

A slew of new polls are out for Pennsylvania:

Rasmussen: Clinton 47%, Obama 42% (Clinton down 5% in past week)
Survey USA: Clinton 53%, Obama 41% (Clinton down 2%, Obama up 5% in past three weeks)
Quinnipiac: Clinton 50%, Obama 41% (Clinton down 3% in past three weeks)
PPP: Obama 45%, Clinton 43% (28-point swing from two weeks ago)

Ignoring the actual results (especially that last one, which is downright impossible to believe), we get a definite trend not so much for Obama as against Clinton.

I still don't think Obama will win Pennsylvania- unless Clinton's "Bosnian Sniper" lie continues to roll against her- but my prediction that Clinton only nets eight delegates out of that state looks to be firming up quite a bit.

Other polls out show Clinton slamming Obama in Kentucky (no surprise) and Obama slamming Clinton in North Carolina (also no surprise). No change in my personal predictions there. Survey USA, on the other hand, shows Clinton up by nine points in Indiana, which is surprising- since the only prior reputable poll showed Obama up nearly 2-1 in that state. That, of course, was during Obama's 12-contest winning streak.

I still predict that Clinton wins Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky; that Puerto Rico is unpredictable; and Obama wins all other contests, including Indiana. The net result will still be close to an even split of remaining pledged delegates. After adjusting the Texas delegate count, I show the magic superdelegate number (the number of superdelegates Obama needs to end Clinton's ability to use them to overturn his delegate lead) at 106.

Slate only gives Hillary a 10% chance to get the nomination at this point. Rasmussen's political markets show Hillary with 15.4% probability of the nomination. More and more people are beginning to realize that Pennsylvania is not the winner-take-all contest of this primary season; they're seeing, instead, that nothing short of a catastrophic Obama collapse or a truly corrupt Democratic national convention will get Clinton the nomination. They're also seeing that Clinton will do anything- lie, cheat, and steal- to win that nomination, even if it means the destruction of her own party.

(Oh, Obama: retail politics is good, but stick to basketball. Stop bowling. Please. Even I can break 100 as often as not; I'd be truly upset at bowling a 37, especially with world media filming every single gutterball.)

P. S. this was originally intended to be posted yesterday. I've made some edits and adjustments to bring it up to date... and just as I'm doing a final fact check, MSNBC announces the Democratic governor of Wyoming is coming out for Obama. Magic number now 105.

First Signs of the Obama Speech Reaction

Well, first the bad news.

Carrie Burdoff Brown at the Politico reports that in the white working-class neighborhoods of Philadelphia Obama's speech was counterproductive; those voters apparently will accept nothing less than a total rejection of Rev. Wright by Obama. In fact, most of the people quoted in the article wouldn't vote for Obama even if he did reject him. This is bad, because Obama needs voters like this to keep Pennsylvania close when the vote comes.

Glenn Peter, 54, a patron at Rauchut’s Tavern, said he heard finger pointing, not reconciliation. He took issue with Obama’s explanation that Wright’s observations of a racist America were reflecting the racial scars of his past.

“I don’t want to hear that you are blaming us for him saying this,” said Peter, who is white and worked at an auto parts factory until it was shuttered several years ago. Cutting ties with the church “would have been the best way to do it. That way, I could have been able to listen to him again.”

On the other hand, when Ben Smith at Politico mentioned this article on his blog, the response was that the people interviewed for Brown's piece would never vote for Obama anyway. Several people said that if Jesus Christ himself returned in the form of a black man, the NE Philadelphia ethnic enclaves would vote against him. Other commentators pointed out that there were plenty of white voters in that area who would, indeed, vote for Obama. My view: the white population of Pennsylvania is well represented by the article's sample, and Obama will find it all the more difficult to keep the result within a ten-point spread when the vote happens next month.

MSNBC reporter Carrie Dann writes that reception of the speech is mixed in North Carolina. She gives three viewpoints: the negative viewpoint is from a 72-year-old white man who identifies as Republican. The second viewpoint, from a former Clinton supporter converted to Obama, ignores the speech. The final viewpoint adores the speech, but is apparently undecided between Obama and Clinton. This article, more than the first, serves as a reminder: "data" is not the plural of "anecdote." We have to wait and watch the polls, which took a distinct downward trend before the speech, to see what's really happening.

"I think he played the race card too much," says George McNeill of Aberdeen, N.C., as he politely nudges to the side his plate of ham mac n' cheese. "In all honesty, I got the idea a time or two that he was more looking down on the white race than I thought he should."

. . .

"He's not talking in a foreign language to anybody," Ruffin says, scanning the line of faces - black, white, young, and old — with trays piled with sliced turkey and unapologetically gooey pieces of pie. "He understands white. And he understands black."

He says that negativity in the race had started to leave a sour taste months ago. But it wasn't until the last few weeks that he finally made the switch when Hillary Clinton proposed that Barack Obama would make an excellent contender — for vice president. "He's the frontrunner!" he chuckles. "There's somethin' just not quite right with that."

. . .

As a lifelong churchgoer and a Southern woman at her core, Deborah Parish has a deep appreciation for the religious and racial roots that anchor Obama's identity.

A white woman often transplanted by her husband's military service, she's had her taste of unsavory comments from ministers at the many churches the couple has attended throughout their travels.

"We've had pastors who I haven't agreed with," she says in defense of Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "But I didn't stop going to church. Because I'm not going for the pastor, I'm going for my soul."

The first of those polls gives me a bit of cause for hope. Gallup's tracking poll shows Obama closing on Clinton today, after a five-day slide which took him from a 50-44 lead to a 49-42 deficit yesterday. (Today's score: 48-43.)

Obama made a major speech on Tuesday addressing the race issue in large part to help move past the controversy. While Tuesday night polling showed no immediate benefit for Obama, the Wednesday results were more favorable to him, as reflected in the slight drop in Clinton's three-day average lead. This suggests at least the possibility that Obama has stopped his losses. The tracking data over the next several days will be a crucial indicator of the lasting impact, if any, of the Wright controversy.

Viewpoints from the media provide further food for thought. Amy Walter of the National Journal writes that Hillary Clinton's last hope of winning the nomination, making the "electability" argument to sway superdelegates, was eliminated by Obama's decision to lay his views on race out in the open:

This should benefit Clinton, right? After all, her plea to primary voters as well as superdelegates has been to let the process play out until the last vote is cast, to allow for a proper vetting of the candidates. But it seems as if Obama's speech effectively turned the "electability" question into a code word for "acceptable to whites." If so, it means that superdelegates will be very wary of opening a racial divide among Democrats that won't heal before November and may not for a long time to come.

Quite frankly, I'm dubious about this- I really don't think we know yet whether or not Obama has succeeded in re-defining the race issue or the Wright issue. Associated Press reporter Charles Babington reports that a large number of Republican activists and advisors are rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of attack ads linking Obama and Wright. John McCain's campaign has already suspended a staffer who created such a video and posted it to YouTube.

Should Obama become the Democratic nominee, conservative activists are virtually certain to remind voters of Obama's ties to Wright, perhaps by using the videos in TV ads, several strategists said.

"He can give a speech a week, and it's not going to make the issue go away," said Chris LaCivita, a Republican adviser who helped create the "Swift Boat" ads that severely damaged John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

. . .

At least one conservative activist already has posted a video on the Web site YouTube with Wright's most incendiary remarks mixed with snippets from Obama speeches and interviews, which are edited to make the senator seem to be sputtering and unpatriotic. The Politico, a Washington-based newspaper, reported that the two-minute video was the work of Lee Habeeb, a former producer of the Laura Ingraham Show, a conservative talk program.

The Politico quoted Habeeb as saying, "I'm trying to join the YouTube generation and have some fun. We wanted to see if we could get in circulation."

The video was distributed Thursday by a McCain campaign aide, Soren Dayton, who subsequently was reprimanded and suspended. "We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy," campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said.

There is the possibility that these efforts could backfire on McCain, but I doubt it. Swift Boat didn't backfire on Bush; Willie Horton didn't backfire on Bush the Elder. What's more probable is that similar efforts could backfire on Clinton.

It seems, according to Eloise Harper at ABC News, the Clinton campaign has been using Rev. Wright to try to persuade Democratic superdelegates that Obama is unelectable in the general election.

However at a Thursday press availability in Terra Haute, Indiana after a report surfaced that the Clinton campaign was pushing the Wright story to superdelegates arguing that the relationship hurt Obama's electibility -– Clinton refused to deny that her campaign was pushing the story.

. . .

When Clinton was then asked specifically if her campaign was pushing the Wright story –- she shrugged and took the next question, ignoring the reporter.

Bob Beckel, head of Walter Mondale's 1984 Presidential campaign- the last time superdelegates decided the nomination- has weighed in not just on this issue, but also on the overall superdelegate issue.

The third key to Mondale's nomination, and arguably the most important, were superdelegates. Superdelegates were created in the early '80s with the strong backing of the Mondale campaign. These were party leaders (most with long histories with Mondale) who would decide the nomination if a candidate failed to get enough pledged delegates for a convention majority. Mondale had predicted enough delegates to claim the nomination after the last primaries on June 5th, '84. We came up short and needed roughly 50 superdelegates to commit. They did, allowing Mondale to claim the nomination on June 6th.

Did we twist arms and call in old debts like the Obama campaign believes the Clintons are doing? Sure, but that kind of pressure rarely worked. Our strongest arguments (which sold virtually all 50 superdelegates) were that: Mondale had won the most pledged delegates overall, gotten the most popular votes, and, more importantly, had won the home states or districts of the superdelegates we had targeted that day. Without a compelling reason, superdelegates were loath to go against the majority of their constituents. It was true in '84 and it should be true in '08.

. . .

But the Republican right wing has seized on the Wright story and is unlikely to let it go. For John McCain this has serious downside potential. Anger in the black community towards Republicans is established and immutable. But if conservatives are perceived as exploiting yet another race story, anger could spread to moderate Republican and Independent voters, many in the suburbs, where the Republicans have been bleeding support the last decade.

For those supporters of Hillary Clinton who see the story as a way of selling superdelegates on Obama's unelectability, the downside is far more dangerous. If the Clinton campaign is caught using the race card, particularly after Bill Clinton's 'cracker tour' of South Carolina, it will assure a Clinton defeat in November. Not only will blacks boycott the polls, so will many of the millions of young voters Obama has brought into the political process.

. . .

To repeat, for the benefit of undecided superdelegates; the nominating voting process ends on June 3rd. Superdelegates will have all the information they need (and none of the excuses they've been hiding behind) to declare support for one of the candidates by June 4th. If voting trends continue as they have, there is no other choice but Barack Obama.

If they go with Hillary Clinton, the case against Obama's electability better be a strong one. If not, superdelegates will be responsible for ripping the party apart in an election year that favors Democrats on every front. These "party leaders" will also be responsible for alienating our most loyal constituency and locking the door on our first young recruits in decades.

Do it on the "big state" argument and you deserve to be laughed out of town or maybe horsewhipped in Denver.

Of course, as we've seen already, the Clintons never think about tomorrow, never think any further than the battle at hand. They will say and do anything they can to win the nomination, and only then will they consider the general election. Mark Penn is already pointing to polls that show Obama has lost his general-election poll lead over John McCain... but he fails to point out that Clinton is also losing, in the same polls, by the same or greater margins. They are willing and eager to throw away the general election in their efforts to win the nomination.

To sum up: a bit too early to say what the speech has done, but it is definitely not the big winner a lot of the media have painted it as. Wright is not going to be allowed to fade from public consciousness, which means he will continue to hurt Obama until at least the general election, if not long after. Wright harms Obama's ability to cut into Clinton's base. The one positive about the speech is that it is likely to reassure superdelegates- on whom all depends for both candidates. Anything else is too early to say- until new polls over the coming week clearly show trends after the speech.

(Well, there's two positives, actually. Breaking news tonight is that State Department contractors, on multiple occasions, illegally accessed Obama's passport records. Obama supporters can now point to a vast White House conspiracy to send in modern-day Plumbers to dig up the dirt on the Democrats, and suggest that Bush would prefer Clinton in the White House to Obama. Obama himself would never do such a thing, but...)

(Oh- and adjustments to superdelegate estimates tick Obama's magic number to shut the door on Clinton down one. Magic number now 112.)

The Dem Race: Where's the Finish Line?

The Democratic nomination is going to be decided by superdelegates.

With re-votes in Michigan and Florida now all but impossible, it can be no other way. Pennsylvania has 158 pledged delegates up for grabs; after Pennsylvania, the total available is 415, for a grand total of 563 pledged delegates remaining. My best estimate of pledged delegates shows Obama with 1,419- still needing 605 delegates to get to the 2,024 mark required to secure the Democratic nomination. Clinton lags well behind Obama on pledged delegates. Neither candidate can win the nomination without superdelegates.

The question now is: how many superdelegates are needed?

Well, let's dispose of the remaining pledged delegates first. My current estimates- which still stand, pending better data- show Clinton netting a meager eight delegates from Pennsylvania, Obama netting five delegates from all the other remaining contests combined. In other words, it looks like they'll split the remaining pledged delegates about evenly.

Since the question is now superdelegates, let's go ahead and do just that- make an estimate to see how many superdelegates each candidate needs to win the nomination, presuming an even split of pledged delegates henceforth.

Half of 563 is 281.5; we'll give the odd delegate to Clinton.

If the remaining pledged delegates split dead even this way, that gives Obama 1,700 delegates to Clinton's 1,531.

Now let's factor in those superdelegates who have already endorsed Clinton or Obama. Based on an average of five different sources, I show Clinton having about 247 superdelegates endorsing her to Obama's 211. Add those to the above total, and Obama goes up to 1,911 total delegates, Clinton 1,778.

With the above estimate, there are currently 337 superdelegates remaining in play, of whom about seventy have not yet been chosen- unpledged delegates who are named by each state party, either by executive committees or conventions depending on state.

Out of that 337 total, Obama only needs about 113, or about 35% of the remaining superdelegates, to clinch the nomination.

Clinton, on the other hand, would need 246- over 70% of the remaining superdelegates- to clinch the nomination.

I'll be monitoring this website to see where superdelegate endorsements go, and I'll make irregular updates as things develop. For now, though, the magic number for an Obama nomination is 113 superdelegates. If he gets more than that in new endorsements from this point forward, the last door to a Clinton nomination slams shut.

That, of course, presumes an even split of pledged delegates henceforth (not guaranteed); it presumes no defections from either camp (not guaranteed); and it ignores the probability that the number of superdelegates will change, as it has done several times in the past two weeks (definitely guaranteed). As those factors change, they'll be worked into the estimate, too.

Here's hoping, eh?

Bill Clinton on the Rush Limbaugh Show

As some of you might have heard, Bill Clinton called in to the Rush Limbaugh show on the day of the Texas-Ohio-Vermont-Rhode Island primaries.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan and Talking Points Memo, I have an MP3 of the interview with Rush's substitue guest host, Mark Davis of WBAP (a Dallas talk radio station). I'm going to transcribe the MP3, let y'all read, and make up your own minds about what the Clintons had in mind.

Mark Davis interviews Bill Clinton on The Rush Limbaugh Program, March 4, 2008:

DAVIS: It's a pleasure to welcome former president of the United States Bill Clinton, welcome, sir, I know you're proud to be out there for your wife, and what do you think her chances are today in Texas and Ohio?

BILL CLINTON: I feel very good about it. I, ah, I have traveled all over rural Ohio going to a lot of small towns and places that are often overlooked but that are key to winning Ohio and, uh, in primaries and general elections, and I've done the same thing in Texas. I've been to twenty-eight different communities in Texas in the last two weeks, and of course made multiple stops in the bigger urban areas, in Dallas, in Houston, San Antonio.

I think she'll win here today, because she's run a great campaign, she's had wonderful Texas volunteers and people coming from every phase of her life from other states to help her... I think our daughter's worked hard here, she's done a great job, and I also think Texans don't like being told that they gotta get in line, that this race should be over. I think most Americans want it to go on, and mostly I think she's just come across as the person most ready to be President, most offering change you can count on in the economy and on the national security issue, including bringing the soldiers home from Iraq, so I feel good about it.

DAVIS: So many things have been focused on change and hope, obviously, Senator Obama sort of brought those into the lexicon, and Hillary's talked about being the kind of change you can rely on, the phone in the middle of the night ad- are you a fan of that ad, and is that exactly sort of what you felt you needed to do in this last week and say, sort of along the line of, "speeches are great, but who do you want in the Oval Office if crisis should strike?"

CLINTON: Yeah, because if you go back and look at that ad, you know, it's not an ad which invokes fear. It's very positive, upbeat, um... music there- it's a very matter-of-fact ad that says that presidents get awakened in the middle of the night. I got awakened in the middle of the night a lot of times in those eight years.

And you, you have to make those quick calls that affect the national security of the country but also the real lives of people who may be... for example... captured in Bosnia, trying to stop ethnic cleansing, or who may be involved in a political crisis in the Middle East, or in a tribal war in Africa, or other things, and I think that what she was trying to say in that ad was the absolute truth, which is that she is a seasoned leader who can be trusted with the national security and with the welfare of the men and women in uniform. That's why you've got about thirty former generals and admirals supporting her, that's why she was the only Senator in the United States Senate asked to be on a small commission to plan the future of the military by the Pentagon, and that was back when the Republicans were in the majority.

People know who have dealt with her that she is very good on these issues, very strong, very reliable, that she does not have a quick temper- she is got a solid sense of what needs to be done, and the decision making of a president under those circumstances I think is important- I think that that matters, and in that sense she's far better prepared to be president tomorrow than I was when I ran.

DAVIS: You need a big win in Texas, and in Ohio; Pennsylvania would be nice, if the narrative can shift, and if she can get some of that momentum back. How badly do you also need a do-over on Florida and Michigan- some way to get those, those delegations to weigh in, especially if it seems that things are going back her way?

CLINTON: Well, I think first of all that the Democratic Party really has to think long and hard about the million people who voted in Florida, because the Florida Democrats had nothing to do with when their primary was scheduled. That was a Republican legislature and a Republican governor. Secondly, the Florida Democrats were on record at the time as pleading with the Republicans to let them move their vote to February 5th. And they were denied.

Thirdly, Hillary clearly followed the rules- that is, she only raised funds in Florida, she never did any advertising there, and fourthly Senator Obama DID advertise in Florida, for a week or ten days on television with a national cable TV buy. And in spite of the fact that he did and she didn't, she won a big victory there. I think if those people are disenfranchised, or are told they have to undertake the expense of another election, they will be very angry and they will feel that... you know... that it's not just the Republicans who disenfranchise voters in Florida.

I don't think we want to put Florida at risk. I think it is very interesting that the Republican Party caused all this- and they NEVER intended to disenfranchise all the Florida voters, 'cause they know they need Florida to win.

Now, in Michigan it's a little bit different because the other candidates took their names off the ballot, but they did it because they knew Hillary was gonna win, and because it was a way of saying, "Oh, look, we're on your side," to the other early states. Some resolution of that will have to be found. But I do think it's important to note that even there there was an aggressive campaign against Hillary funded and led by the local supporters of Senator Obama, and she still did remarkably well, so I, I don't know what's gonna happen. We need to find a solution to the Michigan issue, and I think if they work hard enough they'll figure out some decent way to do it.

DAVIS: Last thing, sir, thanks so much, there's so much history being made- we either get our first black president or our first woman president- if we get our first woman president, I know you get this all along the trail so lemme just give it to you as our final question, the first male presidential spouse, you have a great line about what do we call it- what to the Scottish people call it, the "First Laddie," I don't know what we'll call it, and I know you said you'll do whatever she wants you to do, and that's great, but surely you'll want to have some, um, some input, especially on foreign policy, you have been president, and what shape do you see that input taking, and the legacy question comes to mind too, sir, would you view her presidency as a proper adjunct, a proper addendum to yours?

CLINTON: Well, first let me say that I believe if she's elected, and if the Congress passes her plans for, uh, creating millions of new jobs through a commitment to energy independence and clean energy, and her healthcare and education proposals, I think the economy will produce new, more new jobs and more broadly shared prosperity in her term than it did when I had the privilege of serving as President- I think they'll have more prosperity.

So I think she will have her own legacy.

In terms of what I would do, I would expect that we would continue to talk about everything just like we have since the first day we met. And I would be willing to do anything I could to help on any front around the world or around the corner, so long as it did not undermine of building a strong team. A president succeeds in the end not only on having great personal qualities, but also by putting together a strong team. And you need a strong vice president, a strong secretary of state, strong secretary of the treasury, nobody wants to undermine that. But if I can help in any way on any specific mission, I will do that, and I will do anything I can to give the best advice I can, but I'm not gonna Bigfoot anyone on the team that's important.

I think that she has shown repeatedly in her career in the Senate an astonishing ability to make good decisions, and, and pull people together, and she'll do great, and if I can help, I'm THERE. And, um, I'd be honored to do that.

DAVIS: Mr. President, thanks so much. Politics are what they are, but the talk show host in me hopes that you guys are around for a long time in some form.

CLINTON: Thank you!

DAVIS: 'Preciate it a lot, sir. Take care.

CLINTON: Bye-bye.

Well... do you think this was a call for Republicans to cross, or just a generic media performance for the campaign?

Poll Watch

Just before the Texas-Ohio contests, I noticed the polls, both in those states and in general, taking a sudden dip away from Obama and towards Clinton.

Now, I'm seeing the polls begin to move back the other direction.

Gallup has Obama back in the lead, albeit within the margin of error.

Rasmussen shows Clinton still ahead, but barely, after being up as much as six points during the week.

Does this show a trend? Does this mean that Clinton's name-calling is backfiring, or that Obama's assaults on her record are succeeding? Too early to say.

But it is a sign for Obama people like myself, who have spent the past week in dire mood swings, that all things pass.

More SurveyUSA: Fifty State Comparison

First things first: Yesterday, the day after Texas and Ohio, Survey USA show Clinton beating McCain 48-46; Obama tying, 46-46.

With that in mind, check these:

Fifty State Survey: Clinton 276 Electoral Votes, McCain 262

Fifty State Survey: Obama 280 Electoral Votes, McCain 258

As you might guess by those numbers, there are some complexities. Quite a few states shift one way or the other depending on which candidate gets the Democratic nomination.

CLINTON WINS, OBAMA LOSES: Arkansas, Florida, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey
OBAMA WINS, CLINTON LOSES: Washington State, Oregon, Virginia, North Dakota, Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa, 2 of 3 districts in Nebraska

As you can see, each candidate drops states the Democrats should be able to rely on. Neither one is, by this measure, better or worse than the other- although the fact that Obama picks up more states is a point in his favor.

Let's look at the states each candidate brings "in play"- that is, a difference of 5% or less between the two candidates.

OBAMA'S IN PLAY (AHEAD): Michigan (+1), Nevada (+5), New Hampshire (+2), North Dakota (+4), Virginia (+<1)
OBAMA'S IN PLAY (BEHIND): Alaska (-5), Florida (-2), Nebraska (-3), New Jersey (-<1), North Carolina (-2), Pennsylvania (-5), South Carolina (-3), South Dakota (-4), Texas (-1)
CLINTON'S IN PLAY (AHEAD): Delaware (+5), Hawaii (+4), Minnesota (+4), New Jersey (+5), New Mexico (+<1), Pennsylvania (+1), West Virginia (+5), Wisconsin (+4)
CLINTON'S IN PLAY (BEHIND): Iowa (-5), Michigan (-<1), Missouri (-4), Oregon (-5), South Carolina (-3), Tennessee (-<1), Washington (-2),

... hm, that doesn't show much, except that each candidate defines different battleground states, depending.

Put it another way: let's eliminate all the states listed as "in play" and compare only the states that show a preference for a candidate stronger than 5%. What are the electoral votes then?

OBAMA 236, MCCAIN 129, the remainder up for grabs

CLINTON 180, MCCAIN 198, the remainder up for grabs

And that brings things into focus. Yes, Obama threatens Democrat victory in battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida... but he also brings a lot of red states into play. Clinton, on the other hand, puts a few blue states into play, if not all the way into the red category.

Obama's coalition, in other words, is stronger and broader than Clinton's, which is really not much more than the old Democratic party machine.

There's a talking point for my fellow Obama supporters: the media may claim that Obama is the riskier candidate, but the polls say that Hillary Clinton is the true gamble.

Survey USA Poll: Texas is In Play... if Obama is Nominated

Burnt Orange Report has the story.

Survey USA poll on November matchups:

MCCAIN 47%, OBAMA 46%

MCCAIN 49%, CLINTON 42%

Interesting point: racial breakdown, black v. Latino...

BLACK TEXAS VOTE:

CLINTON 69%, MCCAIN 10%, UNDECIDED 21%
OBAMA 89%, MCCAIN 5%, UNDECIDED 7%

LATINO TEXAS VOTE:

CLINTON 61%, MCCAIN 34%, UNDECIDED 6%
OBAMA 57%, MCCAIN 35%, UNDECIDED 8%

In other words, Obama still has the Latino vote for the most part... but Clinton has lost a significant chunk of the black vote, possibly as much as 15%.

What this tells me is this: Clinton won in Texas on the back of Rush Limbaugh Republicans and white racists. Those groups will vote for McCain... but Obama pulls in most of the rest of Clinton's voters in the general election, which would not work the other way for her.

If I weren't saving up now for a major business expense in April and a dental visit ASAfiscallyP, I'd be donating more to Obama right now...

... especially since the New Republic reports Michigan about to announce a re-vote...

... by CAUCUS.

Which means the WORST Obama will do is 45% (as in Nevada), and more likely a clear victory, should it come to pass...

Post-March 4th Analysis

I'm having a very significant revulsion reaction right now to the talking heads. The campaigns- all of them- are just repeating their same old talking points over and over, and none of them are willing to answer any questions that might challenge their position.

Yesterday was the worst-case reasonable scenario for the Obama campaign. Reasonable means that nobody expected Clinton to win 60-40 in either Ohio or Texas or better. This was as bad as anybody who watched the contest would reasonably expect it to end up from the Obama camp's point of view. They lost their momentum, ending a twelve-contest winning streak. Furthermore, they failed to defeat Clinton's big-state strategy- and thus failed to force her out of the race.

So far as I can tell this morning, Obama's rumored announcement of fifty superdelegate endorsements isn't going to happen. Bill Richardson's endorsement of the candidate ahead in the delegate count isn't going to happen. A Democratic party leadership intervention isn't going to happen. This race doesn't just go to Pennsylvania; it goes on clear to the convention, plain and simple.

The popular talking point among the media is that Clinton won by regaining her base of support, reversing the inroads Obama had made into that base. That doesn't explain, though, why that base went back to Clinton in Ohio and Texas.

Clinton's attacks worked. Beginning in the Ohio debate- which I didn't score, and in retrospect maybe I should have- and continuing with attack ads and insults and borderline slander on the stump, Hillary kept Obama on the defensive all week, resulting in nearly a two-to-one advantage among those who decided their candidate in the last three days (and a 60/40 split of those deciding in the past week). This especially hurt Obama in Ohio, where the NAFTA-Canada story allowed Clinton to misrepresent what actually happened as Obama himself double-talking on the NAFTA issue.

Ben Smith at politico.com also suggests that race favors Hillary; as many as one in five voters are still voting based on race, and Clinton wins that vote by a stronger margin than the overall result. The difference, though, isn't enough to change the outcome in yesterday's results, if the MSNBC exit polls are accurate.

Obama has to not just counter Clinton's attacks; he has to find a way to take the initiative. His attempt to attack Clinton on NAFTA backfired big time; never attack your opponent's weakness in an area where you, yourself, are also weak. Clinton has shored up her vulnerability on Iraq and is seen as the most qualified to keep America safe; Obama has to undermine this, especially since Iraq is the one and only issue-based advantage he has. He also has to demonstrate that he has experience and substance- an argument Clinton has been winning despite the facts.

Now, here's my own delegate count at present. It's looking like, at best, Obama will win the Texas caucuses by 55-45. Of course, those delegates won't be decided pro forma until June, three rounds of county and district and state conventions later. Despite that, I'm going to project that Obama gets 36 delegates to Clinton's 31.

That makes the delegate math from yesterday, by my best estimate (and using projections from various sources on district-based delegate counts):

OHIO - Clinton 77, Obama 64
TEXAS PRIMARY - Clinton 65, Obama 61
TEXAS CAUCUS - Clinton 31, Obama 36
RHODE ISLAND - Clinton 13, Obama 8
VERMONT - Clinton 6, Obama 9

MARCH 4 TOTAL - CLINTON 192, Obama 178

In other words, Clinton nets a total of fourteen delegates.

Adding these in to my own running total, I get the following totals:

TODAY'S TOTAL, PLEDGED DELEGATES: Obama 1,380, Clinton 1,236 (Obama up by 144)
TODAY'S TOTAL, PLEDGE PLUS ESTIMATED SUPERDELEGATES: Obama 1,574, Clinton 1,477 (Obama up by 97)

Now, looking forward, here's the good and the bad news. Bad news first.

BAD NEWS

1. Pennsylvania is a closed primary. That means that Obama supporters must register as Democrats not later than March 25. I'm going to go a step farther and make this prediction, barring a Clinton disaster: Obama loses Pennsylvania. He'll win Pittsburgh (narrowly) and win Philadelphia (strongly), but the rest of the state is mostly rural, mostly conservative, and mostly white, with a strong racist tinge. Obama has a definite ceiling in the Democratic race there, and I'm setting it at 45%. I'm predicting Philadelphia's 158 delegates to go 87 to Clinton, 71 to Obama.

Obama will have to dump a lot of resources into Pennsylvania to make it this competitive- and to avoid appearing to turn his back on what will be a battleground state. That will be wasted money, for the most part. For the moment Obama has it to waste... but he should set some aside for post-Pennsylvania contests, because he's going to need those contests badly.

2. Michigan and Florida may come back into play. The Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, has offered a state-funded re-do of the Democratic primary. If a similar movement comes up in Michigan, it will be difficult to stop a re-do from happening. Obama is not likely to win either state- Michigan is Ohio only more so, and Florida's results are not likely to change from the original in any meaningful way. Bringing these two states in more or less erases Obama's current delegate lead, if the numbers from January hold up- not just in pledged delegates, but in superdelegates who currently have no vote, and who are unanimously in Clinton's back pocket. My view is, if Michigan and Florida count, Clinton wins.

3. There's only one caucus left- Wyoming. After Wyoming, with only twelve delegates, the rest of the contests are primaries. Obama doesn't have any substantial blowouts coming to him. (I'm still predicting that racial polarization will lead to a Clinton narrow win in Mississippi, although I'll be very glad to be wrong.)

4. It is mathematically impossible for either candidate to win without superdelegates. Obama has, by my estimate, 1,380 pledged delegates. The goal to reach, remember, is 2,025. There are only 613 pledged delegates left, and Obama needs 645. It is now official; superdelegates will decide this election.

Now the good news:

1. Without Michigan and Florida, the math does not favor Clinton. There are only 613 pledged delegates left. What's more, there are only about (by an average of estimates) 361 neutral superdelegates remaining. That's less than a quarter of the delegate total currently in play (although, remember, the superdelegates can potentially shift at any time).

By my calculations, Obama currently needs 451 delegates (46% of the total number remaining) to reach the magic number of 2,025; Clinton needs 548 delegates (56% of the total number remaining). Clinton would have to win all the contests like she won Ohio last night and like I feel she's going to win Pennsylvania- and she's not going to be able to do that- and she needs to pull down a lot more superdelegates.

If you do away with superdelegates altogether and focus on pledged delegates alone, as the website ObamaIsWinning.com does, the magic number is 1,627 delegates. Obama needs only 247 of the remaining 613 pledged delegates to reach this number (40%). Clinton needs 391 (64%). In order to get 64% of the delegates, Clinton is going to have to get substantially more than 65% of the actual vote to get those delegates.

2. More of the contests remaining favor Obama. For a concise rundown, Hillary must be considered favored in Pennsylvania, West Virginia (rural, poor, bigoted) and Kentucky (ditto). Obama is favored, and pretty strongly so, in North Carolina (the second largest remaining contest, with 115 delegates in play), Oregon, South Dakota, and Montana. Indiana could be an even split (red state, adjacent to Illinois, v. large rural white vote and large "rust belt" constituency), but a poll from mid-February showed Obama with a 40-25 lead (and a massive undecided). And Puerto Rico, the last contest, cannot be called for Clinton, because...

3. All the heavily Latino states have spoken. The Latino vote has been pretty consistently 2-1 Clinton- with Obama's support coming almost universally from the youngest Latino voters. However, the one contest remaining with a large Latino vote is Puerto Rico... and Puerto Ricans are not the same, by any means, as the Latino vote here in, for example, Texas. Puerto Rico politics is vastly different, based on a combination of patronage and internal statehood v. commonwealth arguments. What's more, the governor of Puerto Rico has endorsed Barack Obama. Finally, Puerto Rico has a large minority of citizens of African descent. Puerto Rico could go either way, or split right down the middle, depending on circumstances.

4. Obama is still winning the money race. Obama is still out-raising Hillary; rumor has it, he raised over $50 million in February to Clinton's $35 million. If he uses his money advantage wisely, he can compete in more contests than Hillary- enabling him to take an advantage.

Balancing the bad and the good, here are my current projections for the remaining contests:

WYOMING - Obama wins 9 delegates, Clinton 3 in the final caucus.

MISSISSIPPI - Clinton edges out Obama, winning 18 delegates to his 15.

PENNSYLVANIA - Clinton wins handily, 87 delegates to 71.

INDIANA - Clinton closes a bit but not enough; Obama wins this neighboring state, gaining 41 delegates to Clinton's 31.

NORTH CAROLINA - Obama wins North Carolina on the black vote, gaining 64 to Clinton's 51.

WEST VIRGINIA - Absolutely overwhelmingly Clinton. I think the best Obama can hope for is what I'm giving him- an 19-9 delegate split in Clinton's favor.

KENTUCKY - Also strongly Clinton, but not quite as much as West Virginia, thanks in large part to Louisville. Clinton picks up about 31 delegates to Obama's 20.

OREGON - The Washington caucus was overwhelmingly Obama; the beauty-contest primary was an even split. To my mind Oregon is more liberal, and thus slightly more Obama. Obama gets 29 delegates to Clinton's 23.

MONTANA - A substantial Obama win, but not many delegates- Obama 9, Clinton 7.

SOUTH DAKOTA - Another Obama win, but one fewer delegates. Obama 8, Clinton 7.

PUERTO RICO - Your guess is as good as mine, especially since there are rumors that the delegates will be picked without regard to the primary vote. I'm splitting them evenly for now, giving Clinton the edge, 32-31.

Add all of these together and you get a pledged delegate vote (by my estimate) of Obama 1,686; Clinton 1,545. Obama beats Clinton by 141 delegates in the pledged vote, but just BARELY gets over 50% of the pledged delegate total. If all of Puerto Rico's votes go to Clinton, Obama still beats her and still gets 50%... but by such a small margin as to call it a tie.

Factor in superdelegates currently endorsing candidates and the overall totals are:

OBAMA 1,880: CLINTON, 1,786.

That's just under a hundred-delegate difference; that's well below the 2,025 needed to wrap up the nomination. Obama falls 165 delegates short.

Barring an overwhelming and firm turn of the Democratic leadership towards Obama, this goes all the way to a brokered convention in Denver in August...

... where the machine, the environment, and the tactics all favor Hillary Clinton.

Those of you who fear a repeat of 1968 have every right to do so.

Failure.

Early votes in my county (Polk, TX) show Clinton leading two to one. No word about my home precinct.

Ran the precinct caucus. Vote was 5 for Clinton, 3 for Obama (with one provisional voter for Clinton). Unfortunately, my precinct only got two, count 'em, two delegates to the county convention. By Texas Democratic rules, a candidate who gets less than the number of caucus-goers required for one whole delegate (no rounding allowed) is not viable.

Thus, my precinct posted both delegates for Hillary.

I'm sorry, all. I should have done more.

(I didn't even give out all that many flyers, what with chipping a tooth while eating Chex mix between cars.)

And exit polls in both Texas and Ohio indicate that people who decided on their candidate in the past week favored Hillary Clinton... which means that mudslinging and desperation worked for her, and that Barack's NAFTA attacks did NOT.

It looks like a depressing day and a depressing night for me, and for Obama supporters everywhere. Not because Clinton makes up any ground- I suspect today will be a delegate wash, or close enough. I still think Obama will win the nomination provided it does not go down to the convention. (If it goes to the convention, Clinton wins.)

It's depressing because the race continues, Clinton continues to trash Obama, and Obama, once he's nominated, is that much more crippled in a race against McCain.

Lead-up to Tomorrow's Primaries...

The latest flock of polls show that Obama's slim lead in Texas has vanished, leaving the candidates perfectly tied. They also show Clinton's lead, in the last day or two, growing again in Ohio. Check Pollster.com for more details.

These polls generally show the same reasons for this last-minute Clinton revival:

* Clinton has succeeded on one issue- health care. More people place health care as their top concern than did a week ago, and Clinton holds a huge lead among such people.

* Clinton and Obama split independents in these polls. Before Obama was winning independents from 60-40 up to 75-25.

* Clinton and Obama split crossover-voting Republicans. Before Obama, well, see previous.

It's looking like a good night tomorrow for Clinton and a disappointing one for Obama, but that's not enough for Hillary- if the Dallas Morning News is to be believed.

Christy Hoppe reports:

In training materials being handed out by the Clinton campaign, it is clear that they want to control those caucus sessions.
The materials say in part, "DO NOT allow the supporter of another candidate to serve in leadership roles."
It goes on to say, "If our supporters are outnumbered, ask the Temporary Chair if one of our supporters can serves as the Secretary, in the interest of fairness.
"The control of the sign-in sheets and the announcement of the delegates allotted to each candidate are the critical functions of the Chair and Secretary. This is why it is so important that Hillary supporters hold these positions."

This was discussed up and down the blogosphere yesterday, and I'm here late, but let me lay down the basics for those who didn't read the arguments.

First- Christy Hoppe does not produce the Clinton campaign materials themselves, and no one else has reported on them that I can discover, so there's no verification of what can only be considered a brazen attempt to fix the Texas caucuses.

Second- this article has revived talk that the Clinton campaign used similar tactics to shut Obama voters out of the caucuses in Nevada, rigging the results in Las Vegas.

Third- some people have argued that these precautions are merely to ensure a fair vote. My response: why do you need to make sure that ALL officials in the caucus are Hillary supporters to ensure a fair vote? Surely fairness would require equal participation? And the determination to control the sign-in sheets and vote records above all else- that's not necessary for a fair vote. For a fair vote, all you need is access to make sure the records are correct.

You only need to control the paperwork above all else if you intend to rig the paperwork.

Clinton is quite willing to destroy the Democratic Party, if need be, to get the nomination. Her every action seems to demonstrate this- right up to her announcement today that, even if she loses all four primaries tomorrow, she won't quit until the convention in Denver. She's still counting Florida and Michigan. She's still counting on superdelegates- although MSNBC reported an estimated count yesterday that showed her leading by less than fifty superdelegates, 256 to Obama's 209.

It's worth noting that, although Rasmussen today shows Clinton with a one-point national lead in their tracking poll (Clinton's first lead in three weeks), yesterday's Gallup daily tracking poll showed Obama up by eight points, 50-42. My read: Clinton's tactics are alienating those who have already voted for her, who no longer have a say in the process. While campaigning, though, she's succeeding in casting enough doubt on Obama to hold on to narrow majorities. She's not attracting people to herself: she's driving people away from Obama.

It's a strategy that only has a longshot chance at gaining her the nomination at this point, but it's definitely a strategy that will fail in November. Unlike Obama, McCain cannot be attacked as untested. He could be attacked as untrustworthy and untruthful- his "straight talk" is anything but- but so far the media hasn't picked up on it. Furthermore, Clinton has the highest negatives of any candidate in the race, and has had that distinction since she entered the race. She can't win unless she demonstrates a reason to support her, rather than to oppose someone else.

My suspicion: Clinton wins both Ohio and Texas popular vote. Obama at least ties, possibly wins outright, the pledged delegate count in those two primaries. Obama wins the Texas caucuses handily, but by a lesser margin than other caucuses. Obama wins Vermont overwhelmingly; Clinton wins Rhode Island by ten points or more.

The race goes on to Wyoming on Saturday, Mississippi a week from tomorrow, and then Pennsylvania in six weeks. Bill Richardson may come out for Obama- who will definitely lead in delegates after tomorrow- but there will be no great intervention by Democratic leaders such as Gore, Carter, Pelosi, Reid or Edwards. The Clinton campaign will wobble unsteadily on, looking for any and all sneaky tricks possible to undermine Obama's appeal, with no thought whatever for what happens if Obama wins the nomination.

And the Obama camp sits down and re-evaluates its strategy, I hope.

But tomorrow I'll be at my local polling place, handing out flyers and making a last-minute push to get out the vote. And I'll caucus, for whatever good it does: I won't be able to make the county convention due to my business, which means that if the campaign continues after tomorrow my caucus vote gets lost.

Here's hoping I'm wrong.

Texas Dem Debate Transcript Review

(if I can ever get the damn transcript on CNN's site to download...)

OK, here's scoring: a Quotable (something that can be used in an ad down the road to help you, or something people will remember) is worth +1 point. An Un-Quotable (something you really wish you hadn't said) is worth -1 point, as is any total fumble of an issue. Nothing else scores: nothing else will be remembered tomorrow, much less November.

Clinton gets to go first, and she begins by buttering up the locals- standard political campaigning.

I want to take on the tough issues that face us now. I want to stop the health insurance companies from discriminating against people because they're sick. You know, it's unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of race or gender or ethnic origin or religion, but it's OK to discriminate against sick people.

And we're going to end that, because it's time we said no more.

--- Translated for those who don't speak Hillary: "I'm going to force corporations to lose money hand over fist to cover the chronically ill." Guess who gets charged more by the corporations to make up for it? Nonetheless Hillary gets a Quotable, 1-0.

Now Obama's turn:

In Youngstown, Ohio, talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of bad trade deals like NAFTA, literally seeing equipment unbolted from the floors of factories and shipped to China, resulting in devastating job losses and communities completely falling apart.

--- Heard Obama use this line the other day at the rally. Marc Ambinder reports in his debate coverage that during the debate the Clinton campaign sent out an email accusing Obama of plagarism- again- on this line, this time from the Kerry 2004 campaign. Bear that in mind for later...

OBAMA: The problem we have is that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die.

--- would be a Quotable, except that Obama's used it before, at the rally I attended and in other televised speeches. No score.

RAMOS: Very simply, would you meet with him or not, with Raul Castro?

CLINTON: I would not meet with him until there was evidence that change was happening, because I think it's important that they demonstrate clearly that they are committed to change the direction. Then I think, you know, something like diplomatic encounters and negotiations over specifics could take place.

--- Clinton blathers a lot before and after this point, but this is the core of her answer. "Do what we want you to, and then we'll have negotiations about having negotiations for an actual meeting, but don't hold your breath about normalization between the USA and Cuba."

But I do think that it's important for the United States not just to talk to its friends, but also to talk to its enemies. In fact, that's where diplomacy makes the biggest difference.

--- Obama strikes back, and scores a Quotable.

SCORE: 1-1 tie.

But a moment later...

BROWN: But that's different from your position back in 2003. You called U.S. policy toward Cuba a miserable failure, and you supported normalizing relations.

BROWN: So you've backtracked now...

OBAMA: I support the eventual normalization. And it's absolutely true that I think our policy has been a failure. I mean, the fact is, is that during my entire lifetime, and Senator Clinton's entire lifetime, you essentially have seen a Cuba that has been isolated, but has not made progress when it comes to the issues of political rights and personal freedoms that are so important to the people of Cuba.

So I think that we have to shift policy. I think our goal has to be ultimately normalization. But that's going to happen in steps. And the first step, as I said, is changing our rules with respect to remittances and with respect to travel.

--- Obama has to dodge, and he does it well.

Clinton responds, taking a lot of unmemorable words to say what she said before: play nice and then maybe we'll talk. Obama responds:

I think, as I said before, preparation is actually absolutely critical in any meeting. And I think it is absolutely true that either of us would step back from some of the Bush unilateralism that's caused so much damage.

But I do think it is important precisely because the Bush administration has done so much damage to American foreign relations that the president take a more active role in diplomacy than might have been true 20 or 30 years ago.

Because the problem is, if we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time. And I think that it's important for us in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step.

--- In other words, Clinton's diplomatic strategy is no different than George W. Bush's in Obama's eyes. That would be an excellent point to make... but Obama doesn't make it quotable. Score still tied, 1-1.

The debate goes on to the economy. Obama says that the two of them are just about the same on the economy and on trade, sharing the same Democratic agenda; however, what's needed is someone who can actually make the agenda happen by building bridges. He says all of this very not quotably. Rather than go into policy specifics, though, he defers to Clinton.

CLINTON: I would put a moratorium for 90 days, to give us time to work out a way for people to stay in their homes, and I would freeze interest rates for five years. Because these adjustable-rate mortgages, if they keep going up, millions of Americans are going to be homeless. And vacant homes will be across the neighborhoods of Texas and America.

--- The second half of this sounds nice- "if we don't do what I say, you'll be on the street." The first part, and especially the freezing of interest rates for five years... that's total government control of the credit market. That's past socialism clear into communism. Unfortunately, it's not Unquotable, really; it's also not Quotable. Score still 1-1.

And, finally, we need to end George Bush's war on science, which has been waged against scientists and researchers...

--- This would be Quotable... if, alas, if anyone CARED. This last line got applause, but it was so far off the political radar that the moderator hustled Clinton to a premature end to her answer.

The discussion turns to immigration: would you stop immigration raids that have broken up the families of over three million American-born children?

But when we see what's been happening, with literally babies being left with no one to take care of them, children coming home from school, no responsible adult left, that is not the America that I know.

--- Clinton scores a Quotable!

SCORE: Clinton 2, Obama 1.

Obama reminds us that he was one of the prime movers behind the 2007 Democratic/Senate version of immigration reform that died in the House. (He does not mention the fact that Clinton was NOT one of those movers.)

Number one, it is important that we fix the legal immigration system, because right now we've got a backlog that means years for people to apply legally.

(APPLAUSE)

And what's worse is, we keep on increasing the fees, so that if you've got a hard working immigrant family, they've got to hire a lawyer; they've got to pay thousands of dollars in fees. They just can't afford it. And it's discriminatory against people who have good character, we should want in this country, but don't have the money. So we've got to fix that.

--- not Quotable, but this is one of the reasons that I outright LOVE Obama's position on immigration. He gets it.

The problem that we have is that we have had an administration that came in promising all sorts of leadership on creating a U.S.- Mexican relationship. And, frankly, President Bush dropped the ball.

--- and I'm going to call that a Quotable, even if he didn't get applause right on that line.

SCORE: 2-2 tie.

The debate goes on to the border fence, which in Texas is about as popular as a sailor with the clap in a whorehouse. Both Clinton and Obama voted for the new border fence, which is still working its slow way through the bureaucracy... and even that is stalled because dozens of property owners have refused access to government surveyors.

CLINTON: I think when both of us voted for this, we were voting for the possibility that where it was appropriate and made sense, it would be considered. But as with so much, the Bush administration has gone off the deep end, and they are unfortunately coming up with a plan that I think is counterproductive. So I would have a review...

KING: Does that mean that you think your vote was wrong, or the implementation of it was wrong?

CLINTON: But, you know, John, there is -- there's a lot we've learned about technology and smart fencing. You know, there is technology that can be used instead of a physical barrier...

--- Clinton utterly dodges the question, and rambles to do it. Unquotable to her.

SCORE: Obama 2, Clinton 1.

One last point I want to make on the immigration issue because we may be moving to different topics: Something that we can do immediately that I think is very important is to pass the Dream Act, which allows children who through no fault of their own are here but have essentially grown up as Americans, allow them the opportunity for higher education.

OBAMA: I do not want two classes of citizens in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

I want everybody to prosper. That's going to be a top priority.

--- and score a Quotable for Obama!

SCORE: Obama 3, Clinton 1.

Final immigration question: is there anything bad about the USA potentially becoming bilingual? Neither has a memorable answer: both believe all Americans should speak English, but also that all Americans should be at least bilingual to interact with the global economy.

Now the debate gets personal: the moderator asks Clinton to say, flat out, whether Obama is "all hat and no cattle," as she described Dubya last week.

And there are differences between our records and our accomplishments. I have to confess, I was somewhat amused, the other night, when, on one of the TV shows, one of Senator Obama's supporters couldn't.

--- thank heaven Hillary botched this sentence, otherwise it would have been a very dirty and underhanded Quotable. It's even worse, considering that the supporter in question is State Senator Kirk Watson... former mayor of Austin... the city where the debate was held.

As it is, score is still 3-1 Obama.

OBAMA: Now, I think that Senator Clinton has a fine record and I don't want to denigrate that record. I do think there is a fundamental difference between us in terms of how change comes about. Senator Clinton of late has said: Let's get real. The implication is that the people who've been voting for me or involved in my campaign are somehow delusional.

(LAUGHTER)

And that, you know, the 20 million people who've been paying attention to 19 debates and the editorial boards all across the country at newspapers who have given me endorsements, including every major newspaper here in the state of Texas.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: You know, the thinking is that somehow, they're being duped, and eventually they're going to see the reality of things.

--- and the 'delusional' line gets another Quotable!

SCORE: Obama 4, Clinton 1.

The moderator brings up plagarism. Remember that during the debate the Clinton campaign sent out an email accusing Obama of plagarism... AGAIN.

OBAMA: And the notion that I had plagiarized from somebody who was one of my national co-chairs...

(APPLAUSE)

... who gave me the line and suggested that I use it, I think, is silly, and...

(APPLAUSE)

... you know, this is where we start getting into silly season, in politics, and I think people start getting discouraged about it...

(LAUGHTER)

... and they don't want...

(APPLAUSE)

What they want is, how are we going to create good jobs and good wages?

How are we going to provide health care to the American people?

How are we going to make sure that college is affordable?

So what I've been talking about, in this speeches -- and I've got to admit, some of them are pretty good.

--- "Silly season" is ANOTHER Quotable, and "some of them are pretty good" comes close, but not close enough.

SCORE: Obama 5, Clinton 1.

CLINTON: And, you know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox. And I just don't think...

OBAMA: Come on.

(CROSSTALK)

CLINTON: No, but, you know, but, Barack, it is.

--- The transcript does not mention the round of booing at this point, but it was there. Unquotable, with instant reaction, for Clinton; furthermore, the talking heads afterwards are pretty much unanimous about it being the worst moment for either candidate of the entire debate.

SCORE: Obama 5, Clinton 0.

You know, when I proposed a universal health care plan, as did Senator Edwards, we took a big risk, because we know it's politically controversial to say we're going to cover everyone.

And you chose not to do that. You chose to put forth a health care plan that will leave out at least 15 million people. That's a big difference.

When I said we should put a moratorium on home foreclosures, basically your response was, well, that wouldn't work.

--- Well, that last statement is an outright lie, since Obama's own plan includes a moratorium on home foreclosures that's actually longer than Clinton's proposal. Obama said Clinton's whole plan, with its five-year rate freeze, wouldn't work.

However, the repeat of Hillary's claim that the Clinton-Edwards-Romney plan- force everyone to buy corporate health insurance- is superior to Obama's let-people-do-without-if-they-want proposal... sadly, that's Quotable.

SCORE: Obama 5, Clinton 1.

When I released my plan a few months later, we were in a debate and Senator Clinton said we all want universal health care. Of course, I was down 20 points in the polls at the time, and so my plan was pretty good. It's not as good now, but my plan hasn't changed. The politics have changed a little bit.

--- Obama almost calls Clinton out on changing her position on Obama's healthcare plan. But not Quotable.

So we've got a lot of similarities in our plan. We've got a philosophical difference, which we've debated repeatedly, and that is that Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it.

And my belief is, the reason that people don't have it is not because they don't want it but because they can't afford it.

--- This, however, IS Quotable.

SCORE: Obama 6, Clinton 1.

Obama goes on, not quotably, to point out that the reason Clinton failed to reform healthcare in the 1990s is that she used secrecy and confrontation- old style politics- and that a new politics will be needed to achieve it now.

The moderators ask Clinton if she thinks Obama is not ready to be Commander in Chief. Clinton, instead, takes the debate back to healthcare to rebut Obama's point about universal coverage.

And you know, in one of our earlier debates, John Edwards made a great point. It would be as though Social Security were voluntary. Medicare, one of the great accomplishments of President Johnson, was voluntary. I do not believe that is going to work. So it's not just a philosophical difference.

--- and that is Quotable, alas. The problem is that Social Security and Medicare guarantee coverage to everyone. Hillary's proposal would force everyone to buy health insurance from the same companies who sold home insurance to the residents of New Orleans. Guaranteed? I don't think so. Unfortunately, too many people won't think of that, so Hillary scores.

SCORE: Obama 6, Clinton 2.

OBAMA: Number one, understand that when Senator Clinton says a mandate, it's not a mandate on government to provide health insurance, it's a mandate on individuals to purchase it. And Senator Clinton is right; we have to find out what works.

OBAMA: Now, Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they have concluded that that 20 percent can't afford it.

In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were. They don't have health insurance and they're paying a fine.

--- and Obama nails it on the head at the top, with another Quotable. The rest of it past the first sentence isn't quotable, but the first sentence is worthy.

SCORE: Obama 7, Clinton 2.

In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh penalty, and Senator Clinton has said that we won't go after their wages.

--- I don't know where she said that, but she did say in an interview a few weeks back that she would consider garnishing the wages of the uninsured to pay for their healthcare.

We FINALLY get back to the question: is Obama not qualified to be Commander in Chief, Mrs. Clinton?

CLINTON: ... So when you think about everything that is going to happen, what we can predict and what we cannot predict, I believe that I am prepared and ready on day one to be commander in chief, to be the president, to turn our economy around, and to begin making a lot of these very difficult decisions that we will inherit from George Bush. And that is what I am putting forth to the voters.

--- That's right: Clinton entirely avoids the actual question. She's not willing to directly attack Obama's readiness. This is interesting- indeed, several pundits have pointed this out, that she was tossed a hanging curve, hell a grapefruit in baseball terms, and she refused to swing.

Obama, of course, thinks he IS ready, and he makes a play to Texas military families: the revolving-door deployments will end when he becomes President. Less than a hundred miles south of Ft. Hood, that's a good thing to say- and Clinton, in her blathering about being ready to be CinC, didn't mention Iraq once. Kosovo, Pakistan, "over eighty countries," but not Iraq.

But it also means using our military wisely. And on what I believe was the single most important foreign policy decision of this generation, whether or not to go to war in Iraq, I believe I showed the judgment of a commander in chief. And I think that Senator Clinton was wrong in her judgments on that.

--- Zing! But not Quotable.

Obama goes on to explain how Al Qaida is stronger than ever in Afghanistan, how our troops are taking Taliban weapons because it's easier than getting supplies from our own side, how the elections in Pakistan leaves our Musharaf-is-our-bestest-buddy policy in the lurch... and softly implies that Clinton is, to a certain extent, responsible for this. Very quiet, very sneaky... and very not Quotable.

Bottom line: Clinton won't say Obama's not qualified to be Commander in Chief, but Obama's willing to at least hint that Clinton's past judgment disqualifies her.

Question: is Iraq better now than it was before the surge?

Clinton answers: only tactically. The Iraqi government hasn't improved at all. Politically things are just as bad. She'll ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces to produce withdrawal plans within sixty days of taking office; of course, the most she'll commit to is one or two brigades a month.

Obama says that the military situation is much better, and praises the soldiers based at Ft. Hood. Now it's his turn to play the local flattery card.

But this is a tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder. And I think that, when we're having a debate with John McCain, it is going to be much easier for the candidate who was opposed to the concept of invading Iraq in the first place to have a debate about the wisdom of that decision... than having to argue about the tactics subsequent to the decision.

- Good, but not Quotable.

Obama reminds us that we aren't just ignoring Afghanistan: Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, China and Iran have gained greater global power under Bush's watch because of Iraq.

And that is also an argument that we have to have with John McCain because he has said that he is willing to have these troops over there for 100 years. The notion that we would sustain that kind of effort and neglect not only making us more secure here at home, more competitive here at home, allow our economy to sink. As John McCain says, he doesn't really understand the economy that well. It is clear from his embrace of George Bush's policies that he doesn't, and that's what I intend to change when I am president of the United States of America.

--- Almost, but not quite, Quotable. Sorry, Obama.

The moderators accuse Obama of being secretive about earmarks, although he's low on the list of big earmarkers- very low indeed. He fires back, claiming full disclosure and offering the details to the moderators.

As I indicated earlier, one of the things that I did last year was to pass a bill with Tom Coburn, very conservative Republican but a sincere fiscal conservative. And we got together and created what we call Google for Government. It's a searchable database, where every single dollar of federal spending is posted on the Internet, so that ordinary voters can take a look. And if they see a bridge to nowhere being built, they know where it's going and who sponsored it. And if they see a no-bid contract going to Halliburton, they can check that out, too.

And you know, the idea is that we open up the process so that the American people can make judgments about whether or not government is doing what it's supposed to be doing with its taxpayer money. And I've been consistently in favor of more disclosure around earmarks.

--- not Quotable, but a very good example of how Obama does have accomplishments... as well as success reaching across the aisle.

It also shows, by the way, that Obama shares one key economic point with libertarians: the demand that the government's spending be entirely out in the open.

Clinton, on the other hand, had four times as much spending on earmarks as Obama- the moderators give the numbers for both, but not the comparison. Instead the moderators ask the question: since John McCain doesn't do earmarks at all, doesn't he own you on the issue of pork barrel spending?

Well, no, not at all. Because he supported the wasteful tax cuts of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, with the billions of dollars that have been spent, and wants it to continue.

--- I think that's a Quotable, myself.

SCORE: Obama 7, Clinton 3.

We borrow money from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis. That is not a winning strategy for America.

--- And another for Clinton! She does a lot better when she's attacking Bush and/or McCain.

SCORE: Obama 7, Clinton 4.

Clinton is asked next:

RAMOS: As we can see, this has been an extremely close nomination battle that will come down to superdelegates. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat in government, said recently, and I'm quoting, "It would be a problem" -- and this is a question for you, Senator Clinton -- "it would be a problem for the party if the verdict would be something different than the public has decided."

Do you agree?

CLINTON: Well, you know, these are the rules that are followed, and you know, I think that it will sort itself out. I'm not worried about that. We will have a nominee, and we will have a unified Democratic Party, and we will go on to victory in November.

(APPLAUSE)

BROWN: Senator Obama, go ahead. Do you have a response to Senator Clinton?

OBAMA: Well, I think it is important, given how hard Senator Clinton and I have been working, that these primaries and caucuses count for something. And so my belief is that...

(APPLAUSE)

... the will of the voters, expressed in this long election process, is what ultimately will determine who our next nominee is going to be.

--- Clinton dodges, Obama sticks. Neither really Quotable, but Clinton comes off looking slightly better.

You know, when I meet mothers who are trying to figure out how to get health care for their kids, it's not just the desperation of that single mom. It's also that when they try to find some help, oftentimes they're hitting a brick wall.

And they don't get a sense that the debates that are happening in Washington right now relate to them at all. And what they believe is that people are trying to get on TV and they're trying to score points and they're trying to win elections, and that they're not interested in knocking down the barriers that stand between the American people and their dreams.

--- Obama scores a long and somewhat verbose Quotable. Why? Because this is visual language. It gives a series of very clear mental images, easy to understand, easy to remember, even if it is rather long.

SCORE: Obama 8, Clinton 4.

Final question: what was the moment of your greatest trial? (This is a question that John McCain has an unbeatable answer to, so it's worth trying out on the Democrats.) Obama points to his overall childhood, but refuses to name a single moment. Wise, since although he comes from a broken home he generally had a good, even somewhat privileged, childhood- private schools, top-notch universities, deeply involved mother and grandparents.

Clinton doesn't actually refuse to give a specific, but she slides away from the question to play up just how many people have it worse than she does. Neither candidate is Quotable, until Clinton gets the very last word:

And, you know, no matter what happens in this contest -- and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored.

(APPLAUSE, as Hillary shakes hands with an awkward-looking Obama)

CLINTON: Whatever happens, we're going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that's what this election should be about.

--- This was THE line of the post-debate commentary, so obviously it's Quotable.

BUT!

Less than an hour after the debate, Ben Smith at Politico.com and Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo point out significant resemblances in these last lines to John Edwards' and Bill Clinton's prior speeches, from 2007 and 1992.

Which makes all her talk about plagarism and empty speechgiving even more hypocritical.

Which will doubtless be discussed in days to come.

Which makes the line not Quotable, but regrettable, and ultimately Unquotable.

FINAL SCORE: Obama 8, Clinton 3.

To give my thought on why she gave that line, I posted a comment on Marc Ambinder's blog commentary on the debate. It's one of three things, I said:

(1) Preparation to concede the nomination to Obama if (more likely when) she loses either Texas, Ohio, or both.

(2) A manufactured "crying moment", a sign of vulnerability intended to gin up a burst of sympathy from the voters.

(3) A cheap way to make Obama look like a glory hound because he didn't extend the olive branch first.

The one thing it definitely wasn't- as Ben and Josh revealed, and Keith Olbermann has already mentioned on TV- was genuine.

Clinton failed to bring Obama down anywhere except maybe, MAYBE, on healthcare- and I personally think Obama answered her very well on that. Clinton's efforts to make plagarism stick as an attack backfired BIG time. She passed up several opportunities to attack Obama on more substantial issues, while Obama used every opportunity to point out his substance. Finally, her last statement gave her great sympathy, but in the end made her look weak.

Chalk this up as a big win for Obama... and a major loss of an opportunity for Clinton.