This isn't exactly news -- even the Hillary camp has been reported to believe that she must win both of these states.

The question is, is she just done, period? Even if she does win both Texas and Ohio, will events by that time have spiraled too far out of her control? By that time she'll have lost (presumably) 10 states in a row, most by margins of 20+. There's turmoil in her campaign. Superdelegates -- her own "committed" superdelegates -- are whispering to reporters about the possibility of jumping ship. Would even a clear victory in these two friendly states be enough to turn all this around?

I doubt it. Winning New York and California did little to interrupt Obama's march to victory. And those are the REALLY big ones, psychologically as well as in absolute numbers.

My sense is that destiny has already passed Hillary by, and that her own team is coming to grips with that dire likelihood.

How long until she turns on the water works again?

I don't think Obama can come close to a win in Texas.

Perhaps he should throw double the money and effort into Ohio (and run a small budget campaign in TX) in an effort to end this now?

How does she survive 3 weeks of this?

Is there a more detailed explanation for the line that Obama cannot win Democratic primaries in Texas or Ohio? It seems to me that Democrats have resided in these two states for some time--and that said Democrats have been reliably voting for folks like, oh, John Kerrey or Al Gore in primaries and in general elections--even if the state went to a Republican.

What exactly is mean by the statement that Obama simply "cannot" win and that Hillary will win in the Democratic Pary primary, even if it is by 5 percentage points? These are declarative statements missing any analysis.

Cough up the analysis, and let's try and keep it restricted to a PRIMARY.

She didn't even threaten the 40% mark yesterday. this is all over but the crying. Obama will win Wisconsin 60-40. He'll win HI 60-40. Has Hillary hit 40% since super tuesday? LA maybe?

LOL. And you have to be a Democratic Strategist to figure that out? I'll go James one better. She has to win Pennsylvania, too.

I don't particularly care what Hillary MUST do. I know there's a whole lot wrong in my country and too few people in government are trying to fix it. I'm in favor of hearing good ideas from people willing to do that.

I don't care who hears Ann Richards, who is staking out which Alamo stand, who gives foot stomping sermons, who's green, short, fat or ugly. So long as they 'splain what they'll do a whole lot more than they talk about strategy, inevitability, and all that frogslop that has zero to do with my family, community and country.

I was reading the NYT today. There were two separate articles about the campaign on the same page. It was p. 17 I believe. One article said that Ohio and Texas had become Clinton's "seawall." A news analysis piece by Adam Nagourney below the same article said they had become her "firewall."

Which is it? Seawall or firewall? I would argue that it should be "firewall," since one of the Obama rally chants is "fired up."

I was reading a scenario by one of Taylor Marsh's miserable commenters this morning about how Hillary will win Texas. It looks bleak in Houston and Dallas. Austin and all it's dirty hippies are a lost cause. But the rest of the state looks good! I almost laughed out loud. Marsh herself seems to have
realized last night that Hill's chances have slipped away and while she's still encouraging her
readers to keep a stiff upper lip and periodically blathers on about strategy she's toned down her most virulent attacks against Obama. I wonder when her readers will follow her lead.

Totally off topic, but I see that there are head-to-head match-ups from CO and NH up there in the poll tracker now. This is good, because I have been saying for a while that we need head-to-head polls from swing states, not national averages, in order to make meaningful decisions about electability in Nov. Once again, we see that Obama bests McCain in the red swing state of CO, but that McCain bests Clinton there.

Even more significantly, NH was blue in 2004, but the head-to-head polls there today show McCain beating Clinton and Obama beating McCain. In other words, Clinton is poised to lose states that John Kerry carried, the which does not augur well for her chances in the fall. We need to gain states which Bush carried, not lose those which Kerry won.

>Carville is setting up the first
>part of the story, and ignoring the second.

Exactly - it's like a straw man argument. When he says "Hillary must win TX and OH" he's trying to negate the fact that Hillary must win TX and OH by landslides. He's trying to create the impression that if she just skates by in those states it will justify whatever FL-MI-superdelegate trickery he has up his sleeve for later.

Carville and Matalin are like two rotting, stinking beams in the corrupt house of K-Street that's at the root of most of the country's problems. Rent the HBO series "K-Street" - they made this "reality show" willingly, and at one level it paints a sympthetic portrait of them, but then the Plame scandal forcefully injects itself into the plot - forcing them to cancel the show and revealing them for the poisonous scum that they are in countless ways - both subtle and obvious.

It is a HUGE tactical error for HRC to not vigorously contend Wisconsin. You can talk all day long about Texas and Ohio, but without a win in Wisc. a state she should've been able to compete in, and was leading in polls just a couple weeks back, this election is over.

The momentum will be far too great, the headlines will be '10 in a ROW!' and there is no spinning possible that will make a difference. The truth is, even a small win in Wisc would probably have not been enough to overtake Obama, considering the structure of the TX primary.

Her only hope at this point is to win Ohio, Penn, and TX all somewhat convincingly...and to do that, she needs to win in WI something Penn & Co. seem to be already somewhat conceding.

As someone that will be pulling for the Obama/HRC winner, I hope Obama wins either TX or Ohio and HRC stands down. It'll be bad for the Dems if this thing has to wait SEVEN weeks for Penn. to play out.

I for one would not trust what Carville says simply because he has been a Clinton insider for at least 20 years. An equally likely explanation is that he is lowering expectations so that if Clinton does reasonably well in OH and TX, then they can claim she has rescued her campaign from the death throes and now has gained "momentum."

However, if an impartial political expert says the same thing, I would give it some credence. In other words, consider the source.

Wow - that Carville is a genius.

Here in Baltimore, you’d think Obama had already won the nomination. On Monday, about 11,000 people cut school and cut out of work to see Obama at the First Mariner Arena. Obama was 2 1/2 hours late which meant that many folks who parked cars at a meter, found their cars had been towed. But they didn’t mind much, which is my point, given the Obama experience they had just witnessed.

On Tuesday, these and many more folks braved the rain and icy roads to give Obama 60% of the vote to Clinton’s 37%.

Perhaps the Clinton camp already sees the writing on the wall. They seemed to have conceded the Potomac primary in the days leading to the vote, even tho they needed a virginia win and needed Maryland to be close.

Consider as perhaps indicative that there was no big pre-primary ‘fire up the troops’ rally for Clinton in Baltimore or College Park, Fredrick or anywhere elsin MD. Sure, Chelsea was spotted at Baltimore’s Belvedere Square Market (which has amazing homemade soups and breads) and Hillary addressed workers at a White Marsh factory, but not much else, and Bill was disappointingly quiet.

Perhaps no firing up because Clinton is already toast.

I think the Potomac Primaries will go down in the political history books for the 08 campaign as marking the beginning of the end for Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

As of this morning, she faces a delegate and financial crunch. And given the blogosphere’s persuasive demands for transparency this primary season, the Clinton chore wrestling superdelegates (behind closed doors) away from a clear Obama mandate will be closely scrutinized and documented. And the Clintons probably do not want to be remembered for playing Bush to Obama’s Gore. Thus an all the more urgent situation for Hillary since she must now win about 57% of all the remaining delegates.

The potomic primaries might also be remarkable for signalling a progressive resurgence that actually and finally reaches the levers of power.

In addition to Obama, Donna Edwards victory in Maryland’s 4th CD is a victory, according to Kos, not only for “more democrats” but “better democrats.” Donna Edwards beat a democratic incumbent by telling voters in PG county that he was not progressive enough and was too far to the right of the dem party, and it worked. A similar message failed in 2006 when Edwards lost in her first run against Albert Wynn. The times are a changin.

Yep. 2008 seems different. Obama’s “yes we can” bromide is suddenly being felt in people’s bones (and up chris mathews leg). i never would have guessed.

Is Clinton toast?

According to the Potomac, the toaster is plugged in, fired up and ready to go!!
see koulflo.wordpress.com