Although Obama was already trending up, I think some of this movement has to reflect voters getting to digest Hillary's scalding "shame on you" press conference tantrum from over the weekend. That was just utterly unbecoming of how people expect a president to behave temperamentally in public. It was another of a string of candidate incidents for her jump-the-shark moment when we look back after March 4th.

"Why do they continue to waste money on national polls?"

Lots of people gamble on elections. They need to calculate odds.

Watching Obama run this campaign is like watching a young Bobby Fischer play chess. Dominating, move by move, until the checkmate. It gives me hope for the kind of foreign policy the country could have with him in charge. Can you imagine having a president who can think strategically?

There goes her America firewall.

Chickens. Hatched. Not yet.
Stop Counting.

I think you're right. I suspect there's much cringing in Hillaryland each time that clip is aired. I believe I've seen it a dozen times now, and not because I've been particularly looking for it. It was especially jarring coming after her dignified closing comments in the Texas debate. The mailings were relatively mild--I have a few problems with them but they'd been around for awhile and they no more misrepresented her positions on health care and NAFTA than her mailings have misrepresented his positions over the past couple of weeks. It's pretty clear this was a desperate tactical gambit, and her allusions to Karl Rove's playbook fell flat. It doesn't help that self-righteous anger isn't the biggest hammer in her public speaking toolbox.

Note that Hillary Clinton is still within 4 points of where she was polling a month-and-a-half ago. It's just that Obama's support has doubled, which is not so much her doing as it is his. Despite what history is going to say, Hillary ran a very good race -- up to and including Super Tuesday. After that -- sorry, Mark Penn -- the wheels just came off.

I don't know whether it was because her campaign was strapped for cash, or that they thought the eleven delegate contests that fell after Super Tuesday and before March 4 were for a variety of reasons unwinnable, and therefore best deemed insignificant. But under proportional delegate allocation rules, the size of the victory can be just as important as the size of the state. For example, Obama netted more delegates out of Kansas than Clinton did out of New Jersey.

For all the talk of the unstoppable Clinton ground game, her campaign's execution was quite poor. Here at my precinct caucus, there was little sign of any organized effort by or for Hillary. In one state after another Hillary lost, by increasing margins, without even acknowledging that this was happening -- even after the votes were counted.

Did Mark Penn even understand the arcane Texas delegate-allocation rules -- rules that make that state such an uphill fight for her -- at the time that Texas was selected as one of her "firewall" states? That is incredible incompetence, but it almost doesn't matter. A month is just way too long to let your opponent's fires burn.

Sen. Christopher Dodd to endorse Obama

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080226/ap_on_el_pr/obama_dodd

Hillary: Go Away, We Don't Want You Any More!

Soon she'll be hitting Huckabee levels at this rate..

You might want to cue it, actually — rather than line up for it in Great Britain!

Mark Penn told me that America doesn't really matter. Hillary's polling great in Estonia.

It's all about the Microtrends™, baby! Hillary '08!

There am too! On one hand, you has Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania. Them is many large. On the other there be Idaho, North Dakota and Arkansas, which is much small.

I agree. Her self-righteous anger over a pretty standard mailing seemed out of tune, and the Karl Rove reference was way over the top.

To compare a mailing that she herself might have sent in different circumstances to the whispering campaigns and other filthy Rovian tricks is like invoking Hitler in a debate - you pretty much lose the moment you've done it, because it's obvious you're grasping at straws. It reminded me of the first President Bush's hysterical speech about spotted owls, when it was becoming clear that he was going to lose to Bill Clinton.