Where's the SurveyUSA poll? Why aren't they polling anymore? Who's asked them to stop? Who owns SurveyUSA anyway? I want to know where they have polls in the field?

Oops, Obama copy-catted a speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6x1H08aFc

If you believe ARG in WI you have to believe ARG in TX with Obama up by 6. I don't believe either of them.

The only outlier is American Research Group...

Hm, maybe "outlier," like "beauty," is in the eye of the beholder, but to my eye PPP also looks like an outlier there. Indeed, PPP is arguably more of an outlier than is ARG, because ARG agrees that it is close. What makes ARG unusual is that it shows Clinton slightly ahead, but in a whole mess of statistical ties, does it really matter which ones show which candidate ahead? Meanwhile, PPP is an outlier from the rest in so far as it shows Obama with a lead wider than the MOE. If I heard the Sesame Street "one of these things is not like the other" music playing, I would go for PPP for predicting a statistically significant margin for Obama rather than ARG for showing Clinton ahead by a slim margin.

The money is on Obama in WI.

84-17

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/latest_results_from_rasmussen_markets

Obama/Hillary trading around 80/20 on the Wisconsin Dem primary board at intrade ...

Keep in mind, that WI is an open primary with one ballot. With McCain shorn up the nomination, you could have some GOPers vote HRC just to upset the apple cart. It wouldn't take much.

Like everywhere, the feeling here in WI is that Obama most assuredly has the momentum, but we'll see how the numbers turn out. He had thousands turning up all over to see him. HRC? She had 500 in Kenosha I believe and Bill's gatherings drew only a couple hundred (it was actually kind of sad to see allllll this space in a ballroom).

Weather tomorrow is supposed to be below 0 in the morning and only low teens in the PM (colder in the north). Don't know what that will do to the turnout, just thought it should be noted.

"So Obama has said this before, and the press has reported it before (although not necessarily as a gotcha piece). Of course, the difference is that Obama is now the front-runner. More importantly, what would the reaction be if Clinton were the candidate accused of borrowing lines from another politician -- even one who is a friend and who shares the same media consultant?"

from: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/18/676739.aspx

Wow, a rival campaign highlighting something? Hillary is so evil. Of course, Obama never does that. That race-baiting memo just appeared magically in his hands...

PPD's got a pretty good record, actually.

As for ARG? I kind of imagine their robot questions must go like this:

"Press 1 for Hillary Clinton." (Long pause)
"Press 2 for Barack Obama." (Short pause)
"Sorry you did not select anyone within the time alotted. Do you want to select Hillary Clinton?" (Long pause.)
Sorry, you did not select anyone within the time allowed. Don't you want to vote for Hillary Clinton? You've heard of her, right? She's the most famous. Press 1 to vote for Hillary Clinton." (Long pause.)
"Okay, look, we're not finishing this thing until you make a damn decision capice? Press 1 to select Hillary. (Long pause.) Or, if you absolutely have to, Press 2 to choose "undecided."

It'll be interesting to see if the late-deciding voters go for Hillary as happened in the early primaries or if Obama's momentum reverses that.

Wisconsin likes populism and movements, I think Obama pulls this off even with Hillary's negative advertising on TV and in mailers.

Remember though that this is a state that is a lot more than just Madison and Milwaukee. There are about 5 million people and over half are outside of those two regions. It is there that Obama's work in the state all of last week will pay off.

I'll post more on this later. But I think there's good reason to believe that the Wisconsin polls are underestimating Obama's margin.

It works like this. There are three quirks to the Wisconsin process: it's a state without party registration, it allows same-day registration, and it uses a single ballot. Let's take those in order. First, the fact that Wisconsin voters don't register with a party makes it more than ordinarily difficult to weight samples correctly. Partisan identification becomes, even more than usual, a matter of voter whim - and a function of how the question is phrased. Then, there's same day registration. In the fall of 2006, 20% of voters registered on the day of the election. That makes it incredibly tough to produce an accurate sample of "likely voters." Standard questions ("Are you registered to vote?" "Are you a registered Democrat?") simply don't work in Wisconsin, but I've seen no evidence that these pollsters are adjusting their instruments accordingly.

But the big difference in Wisconsin is the single ballot. Voters entering the polls get a ballot with sixteen names, split between the two contests. They can only vote for one nominee, be it a Republican or Democrat. But every voter has the choice of every candidate. That makes a really big difference. For one thing, it lowers the bar for crossover voting - it's easier to mark a name in the privacy of the booth than to actually ask for a Democratic ballot. But the big problem for pollsters is a little different. Lots of folks decide on election day which way they're going to vote; many don't decide until the ballot's actually sitting in front of them.

The local pollsters, who are used to polling in Wisconsin, understand how this skews results. The Badger Poll, for example, asked voters to select from a single list of names that included both Republicans and Democrats. But there haven't been any local polls released for months. The national polling operations appear not to have paid attention to this quirk - or if they have, they've provided no evidence of it in their releases. (And they should have - a Wisconsin poll needs to be structured very differently to be accurate, and that's something which any honest pollster ought to disclose.) The problem is that pollsters begin, right up front, by screening their sample. In general, they try to restrict it to likely voters - that is, to voters who are likely to cast their ballots in the Democratic Primary. So they ask something like: "Do you intend to vote in the Democratic Primary?" or "Are you leaning toward the Republicans or the Democrats?" But in Wisconsin, there's no such thing as the Democratic Primary - there's a single election and a single ballot that produces two sets of results. Questions of partisan identification, or of current partisan primary preference, are liable to screen out independent and GOP-leaning voters who, once they have an actual ballot in front of them, might well choose one of the Democrats. And every poll that's reported partisan cross-tabs, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, shows Obama dominating that demographic.

There is million a slip between cup and the lip.

While polls have done little to reassure people- it does show Clinton closing in on Obama by the hour. Also, exit polls show those who make up their minds in the last day or two usually tend to vote for Hillary.

The current polls are good news to Hillary. She has done a fabulous job in lowering expectations in a state with demographics that correlates with her voting pattern. So even a modest win will appear Herculean for her, while even a Herculean win for Barack will seem expected;

The only battle HRC camp has won since Feb 5 is the PR war. Obama has won eight states in comparision.

The stakes are high for both parties here.

Obviously, Hillary has to keep it reasonably close, as everyone has remarked. How close is open to interpretation, of course.

But Obama pretty much has to win it to keep anything resembling momentum going. If he loses it, and loses that perception of momentum, what does he have going for him when he enters TX and OH? If he can't win in the far more favorable ground of WI, how might he possibly win in TX, OH, and, eventually, PA?

Latest Penn/Wolfson gem: Clinton campaign downplays
Wisconsin. They "do not believe in the momentum theory of politics."

I wonder how the good folks in Racine, Madison, etc. feel about being told their state is not crucial to Hillary's plans to occupy the White House. Maybe some of them will lose their incentive to go to the polls, or even go, but vote for Obama.

http://tinyurl.com/2qp78n

New Texas numbers from CNN. Cut to ensuing panic in Hillary hq.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/18/poll.texas/index.html

Polls have been bollsheet through this whole primary process. I'll believe it when I see it tomorrow.

There is no reason Obama *should* win WI.
Just because it is close to IL doesn't mean anything - there is no love lost between WI &IL that is for sure.

Other than the Madison area and some areas in Milwaukee, it is pretty conservative and blue collar. This is the state that had Tommy Thompson as govener for forever. That isn't to say it doesn't vote contrary (Russ Feingold) but it isn't a slam dunk by any means. IMO as a native, is it favors or disfavors both candidates equally - the wild card being the voting process which is fairly open.

Why are the Hillaries going on and on and on about polls and if Obama loses Wisconsin? The primary is tomorrow. This is a lot of wasted energy over nothing if Obama wins. Why make such a big deal now? If he loses tomorrow you'll have plenty to crow about. But if he wins you look like pathetic having made such a big deal about what his losing means.

Meanwhile, where's the blue Smurf girl? At least she's cute and amusing.

Can Eric Kleefeld explain why if Hillary wins Wisconsin, it will be what he describes as a "surprise comeback?"

Hasn't she had a large lead in Wisconsin for months?

Uh-oh! A gaffe by Michelle.

A commenter at dailykos said that Michelle Obama said on radio in WI that this was the first time in her adult life that she is proud of her country because people are embracing change. No quotes. This a paraphrase. The commenter says this comment has had a lot of radio play in WI and some backlash.

It is hard without a direct quote and a context to make something of this, but even if meant in the best possible way, it comes across off-key. It sounds like she meant well, but her words do not seem to fit her sentiment. She is celebrating change, but expressing it in an awkward way.

Oh well. Any damage she does to Obama is a lot less than the damage Bill has done to Hillary. In the Newsweek profile of her she seems to be very much mainstream America, and not likely to diss her country. Bad choice of words, but it could cause Obama some worry, not that he needs it right now.

Right now, aside from trying to win in Wisconsin, the two side issues on his plate, the McCain funding dust up and the Gov. Patrick speech-lifting (it is not plagiarism whatever Hillary says), the more bothersome really is the speechifying thing because that is where his strength is supposed to be. The funding thing, people are going to toss aside as everyday politics, but using his friend's words leads to a perception that he is not as inspirational as he appears. That is nonsense, but here perception matters, and he just has to deal with it.

My feeling is that he can overcome this lapse by beginning to show more of his platform for change, and rely less on speechifying. It should be no problem for him because he has many well-developed ideas, but now he needs to articulate them in public. He should also gradually begin to introduce us to some of the very savvy people in his corner, for example, his economic and foreign policy advisers like Robert Reich and Samantha Powers, his security adviser like Gen. McPeak.

In a way these crises can help him mature in the long run. As the Chinese say, in every crisis their is opportunity. Here is an opportunity for Obama to show that yes, he can.