Isn't Survey U.S.A one of the more nuttier polls?

Doesn't need to win any of these states, just fight her to a pledged delegate draw. But of course, the media is going to spin this as a comeback for Clinton and say that this race is tighter than ever. Then she'll lose Wyoming and Mississippi by double digits and he'll pick up more pledged delegates than she did in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island. And we will be back where we started: Obama with a commanding lead in pledged delegates and Clinton talking about winning big states.

I can only imagine how excited the Republicans must be at this point.

Damn these polls! They're driving me crazy. I feel as if I'm being toyed with. I reject and denounce all polls (until the next positive Obama poll of course--I'm a flip-flopper).

Nice analysis davidv. I agree that it will be hard for Clinton to make much delegate progress even in her best case scenario, but there would be a psychological impact to above-marginal Clinton wins in TX and OH that could keep the superdelegates on the fence and the race open at least through PA in April and longer if there are do-overs in FL and MI.

Better to start out just denouncing, then pull the reject card if challenged. You go in denouncing AND rejecting things straight away and you can slip a disk.

Looks like kitchen sinks work.

C-Span/Reuters poll shows Obama up in TX and OH.

Sigh.

Texas should be Obama's in popular vote, 50-48 or so. He has outperformed the polls with his ground game pretty consistently. A split in the popular vote should win him a +3 to +6 in delegates anyhow given the TX delegate allocation rules (remember the "grown men crying"?). It is hard to see how he doesn't go 60-40 in the caucus, winning +10 or +15 there on delegates there. Ohio she picks up maybe 10-12 delegates. Vt/RI cancel, or are +3 or so for Obama, who is vastly ahead in Vt, but under 10 in RI with a chance to tie (proportionality makes that a split). Obama will gain ground tomorrow, including the caucus.

Wyoming he had great cross-registration in the final weeks, and will do a Nebraska/Maine on her there. Mississippi is Obama country.

Next week Obama is up 180 in pledged delegates. The funny part is that he can _lose_ Texas by two or three points and the same result obtains. It will simply cause more thrashing about in death throes, bitterness, and weird press that will hurt us in the fall.

The Democratic Party needs her out (if it wants to win), but she shows a Bushian obliviousness to her own failure, so who knows.

Josh's post on the main page is confusing. You don't get super-duper bonus style points for winning Ohio. They tried that argument about California and New York, and they're still getting drilled. The firewall is breached, even by a rough tie, and we're going to be net positive tomorrow.

Game over.

And this hasn't yet taken into account any effect of Obama's lies about NAFTA-CTV-Canadian government.

Notice how readily Obama, even as late as last Friday, issues a categorical denial? No ifs, ands, or buts in that denial, no parsing and weasel words that he could possibly fall back on to make himself look like he was doing anything other than lying through his teeth.

Notice how readily the man lies? It comes so easy for him! He has a real gift!

Don't know if this is going to get enough traction before tommorrow to do him damage, but I have zero doubt but that the Republicans will store this up, along with his plagiarism, to make him pay in the general - if Obama ever gets to the general.

Any poll that believes Hillary leads Obama by 13% among early voters is a poll on crack.

Another great post by Al Giordano of The Field:

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=816

This man has been spot-on in most of the reporting during these primaries so have a look at what he says. He's been running all over Ohio and Texas for the past couple of weeks and he's made his prediction on Ohio: Hillary eeks out the popular vote 51-49%, but Obama carries the delegate count 72-69. Here's the actual post:

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=809

He also predicts that Obama will win in Texas. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Al continues his hot streak!

It's going to be amusing if Hillary wins both OH and TX, and wins OH by a nice margin.

Then all the poorly concealed gloating and triumphalism by the Obama campaign and partisans is going to come back to haunt them. Nothing like presuming to tell an opposing campaign that they should just pack it in after the next set of elections -- and then losing those elections -- to set expectations in the worst possible way if you turn out to lose those elections.

Then, it would be a case of: Hubris, meet downfall.

I'm personally not going to make any predictions about how things will turn out, since the evidence is just too unreliable and equivocal -- but it won't be good for Obama if he loses both elections, that's for sure. And he'll have no one but his own campaign and supporters to blame.

Put aside for now all the polls and the arguments and counter-arguments: the results tomorrow and going forward rest on two issues:

(1) Who of the two has clearly demonstrated that better leadership?

(2) Whether Clinton Fatigue is going to be a real factor. Are people going to walk into the voting booth and ask, "Do I really want 4 to 8 more years of the Bill and Hillary show? And am I ready for real change?"

On issue (1) it is close to a draw with a nod to Obama because he has run a better campaign. But the issue is fuzzy because neither has had a real chance to demonstrate whether they are ready to be president. Nobody does into you get into the Oval Office.

On issue (2) Obama is the clear winner.

Advantage: Obama

I rest my case.

Check out buckeyestateblog.com for some discussion of this. It looks like the Clinton campaign has hired phone bankers in the south of the state. My aunt canvassed in Cleveland this weekend and saw no sign of any Hillary GOTV, but this would not be expected to be a good area for her.

We've gotten three or four different robo calls from the Obama campaign and surrogates, and the Clinton campaign tried to robocall us twice in the same night but the robot never actually said anything. There's Obama flyers on our door, and so far no Clinton ones, and we haven't gotten a single piece of direct mail from either candidate. (Unless there's some today.)

[I]f he loses both elections... he'll have no one but his own campaign and supporters to blame.

Rarely do I agree with much of anything that Frankly0 writes, but this is one of those rare occasions where we agree. If Obama loses both TX and OH, he will have no one to blame but himself and his own partisans. I do not expect that he will lose both TX and OH, but if he were to do so, I agree that the blame would lie with the Obama campaign itself.

Greg -

How is wiping away a double-digit lead in the polls a loss, exactly?

The only reason Clinton is hanging in there is because she's gone aggressively and wildly negative. Has nothing to do with who she is and what she brings to the table. It's the weakest kind of support.

What's paradoxically frustrating and encouraging is that Obama just seems to refuse to go darkly negative himself. Good grief, there is so much to work with with the Clintons! It would be so easy. But he doesn't do it.

So I think his ground game needs to change (and probably will) after tomorrow. I'm not sure how, precisely, but he'll need to do at least three things:

1. Another stem-winder speech tomorrow night.
2. Position Clinton as the front runner again.
3. Pound away at how clean his campaign has been compared to Clinton's and how her negative campaigning, campaign infighting, persona-changing, etc. foreshadow the kind of president she'll be.

For those of us hoping tomorrow would be decisive and we could pound that final nail in the Clinton coffin? Probably not. In fact, since Clinton has clearly delighted in negative campaigning, we can look forward to plenty more of it. So goeth Tracy Flick.

OK, we can't have a president with yellow teeth. Yellow pant suits are one thing, a dirty yellow mouth is something entirely different.

Any word on the final numbers for Sen. Obama's February fundraising? When Sen. Clinton released her numbers last Thursday, all we heard was that his tallies were (a) more impressive and (b) somewhere around $50 million.

I have to believe that Sen. Obama's campaign is waiting for strategic reasons to release the final numbers and that it isn't an issue of still counting up the dollars.

Predictions:

1. Hillary wins moderately big in OH (8-10 points).

2. Obama narrowly wins TX by 1-2; Obama also wins more net delegates.

3. Hillary camp proclaims she still "won the day" and vows to continue one provided that Penn, Ickes and Wolfson don't shoot each other

4. Obama's camp points out the truth/data/facts that she mathematically no longer has a chance

5. Richardson, Biden, Edwards, Gore and Pelosi come out for Obama and urge Hillary to quit

6. One of Hillary's lead strategists/pollster/minions signals that she will; one signals that she won't; one doesn't signal

7. The truth about the Clinton Foundation's fundraising activities seeps out and/or another Bimbo eruption occurs

8. Hillary cries again on TV

9. Polls for her get worse

10. She finally throws in the towel (while secretly hoping to have damaged Obama enough so he loses in the fall and she can run again in 4 years)

Feasible?

I just watched some interesting critique of these polls showing Hillary taking the lead at this point. These polls weigh the responses they get from a diverse call list in the same proportion that those diverse groups voted in 2004. For example...if African Americans made up 11% of the voters in 2004, African American responses in a current poll are weighted for 11% of the total. However, if people think that African Americans and Young Voters and Independents are not going to come out in historic numbers tomorrow, then you are crazy and in denial. This imbalance in voter participation vs 2008 poll results is why Obama has been out-performing the polls for the last dozen states.

Also, it should be noted that there has been record early voting in Texas and Ohio, which happened while Obama has been on the rise and riding momentum. I suspect these numbers will play in his favor, much like the early voting in California helped Senator Clinton.

All that being said, I think Barack Obama wins Texas by 8, Ohio by 2 (although this could go either way), and Vermont by 25. Clinton wins Rhode Island by 7.

These polls you are reading at this point don't hold much stock when you look at the way they are configured. I think early voting, non-traditional voters, high African American turnout, and a superior get out the vote effort is worth 10 pts to Barack Obama in Texas and Ohio.

And before the Clinton Fans say that we Obama supporters love th polls when our guy is ahead, I agree. It's becasue if a poll shows Obama ahead by 7, it usually means he is going to win by 17. A slim lead for Hillary doesn't mean the same as a slim lead for Barack. Barack always seems to overperform on election day because of the aforementioned intangibles.

A slim victory by Hillary Clinton in Ohio and a loss in Texas, and watch the superdelegates line up behind Barack Obama. Our time has come, and WE are the ones we have been waiting for!

Go Obama '08.

A slim victory by Hillary Clinton in Ohio and a loss in Texas, and watch her go into "comeback" mode, abetted by a chastened media that suspects they were too hard on her, and an irresistably cliched comeback narrative.

She's been able to frame the last week to her advantage and capitalize on people's doubts about Obama - she's very good at back-to-the-wall street fighting. Give her seven more weeks to launch unremitting attacks on Obama and see what happens.

The batch of polls out of Ohio today show Obama's going to lose by a substantial margin tomorrow in Ohio. In Quinnipiac's poll for instance it's notable that Obama is losing among White Women by a giant 40 point margin (26% to 68%). In both the PPP poll and the SUSA poll Obama is losing among Whites by a 25 point margin. The PPP and SUSA polls are also notable for the low percentage of Ohio Independents indicating an intention to vote -- that's one of Obama's demographic strengths indicating they won't be showing up on voting day. I believe Obama's campaign, to be losing now like this, must have done something wrong in Ohio over the past week. What? A key part of Obama's core message, one of his key advantages against Clinton, is -- to quote from one of his ads -- "I will always tell you where I stand and what I think". That claim has been totally contradicted by his posturing on international trade and NAFTA over the past week. His loss in Ohio tomorrow must be attributed, in part at least, to his NAFTA ads undermining his core message about straightforwardness. As a footnote, the more-or-less same ads, but with a lower profile, also ran in Wisconsin (but not in earlier states -- not in Maryland and Virgina for instance). In Wisconsin the NAFTA theme disappeared in the last few days before polling, and Obama gained in those few days. In Wisconsin in the days when the ads were running and in the news -- specifically the few days around his economic speech at Jainsville -- he wasn't gaining. The truth is that Obama's NAFTA stuff is phony and it's a turnoff, and it's bad press, and it's a basis for people to see Clinton as not worse after all.

Crist getting McCain's Veep nod WILL NOT PLAY WELL with the VALUES crowd in Florida or anywhere else. Certain Republican pols from Florida have a consistent "issue" that has resulted in disgraceful resignations over the last three years.

McCain/Crist would be a great boon to the Obama presidency.

Disclosure: This is a cross-post from another TPM thread, hoping to calm some fidgety minds here.

I have read a number of reports that the Obama ground team has been very effective in both TX and OH to get people who attended his rallies to go directly from the rally to vote early. If this is true, and all this took place in the past week or so, it is possible that even as I type this, Obama may have already built a significant plurality of the early votes, offsetting whatever new polling and news that are likely influence voters tomorrow. This is a tedious way of saying I think Obama is going to do better than the latest polls indicate because of the early voter effect.

The second dynamic is that the polls indicate the preferences of people who responded to calls from their long lines, whereas thousands of Obama supporters have only cell phones, and are therefore invisible to pollsters. Again, another factor that may help Obama perform better than the latest poll numbers.

Am I whistling in the dark? Maybe but not entirely.

Maybe you are SunTzu, but the points you bring up just underscore the fluidity of this thing....

Zogby was wrong about CA, MA, NH, MO, and TN. Why does anyone believe what this guy has to say. After every election, he's on C-SPAN trying to explain why he was so wrong. If I were as wrong as this guy is, I would be fired. Why hasn't this guy be fired or discredited?

I think it's pretty clear that given any slight remote possibility, the Clinton campaign will fight all 15 rounds. With FL & MI as possible do-overs, and the voters likely to be tilted in her favor given her shrewd political pandering to them, I see no realistic scenario that has her quitting anytime soon after Tuesday. Even a sweep of all four states by Obama won't be enough. He would have to utterly dominate in both TX and OH in order to deliver a true knockout blow - unlikely.

Best case for Obama is to pad his earned delegate lead a little coming out of Tuesday, hopefully with a small victory in TX, and a small loss in OH. Then he'll need the supers keep pouring in at the pace they have since Super Tuesday. Good results on Saturday should help. A small win in PA would be important. He needs to build enough of a delegate lead (earned+ Supers) such that it becomes impossible for her to even come close to catching up with major victories in MI & FL. Too much mojo for HRC to overcome, and she bows out before the convention, but not before all the voting is done.

Best case for Clinton is to get surprising results on Tuesday... nice solid win in OH and eek out a small win in TX. The spin will be that she's turned the tide and making a comeback. This could dampen Obama's support on Saturday. Maybe she starts getting some Supers again, while Obama's spigot shuts down to a trickle. She begins to close the gap in the overall delegates count. Hold ground in PA. MI & FL come around and she trounces Obama. Fight goes to convention, and she's able to use her connections and friends in high places to pull strings and win it there.

This is far from over. Tuesday won't change that unless one side or the other significantly - VERY significantly - outperforms expectations. This is about round 10 of 15, so go grab another beer and settle into your easy char.

Publicus, don't be rediculus. Democrats are still trying to decide who will make the best President. All Hillary needs to do is stay within striking distance in the polls, take at least Ohio, use that momentum in Pa. and its anyone's bet once again. My money is on a Clinton/Obama ticket this fall and a wipeout of the Republicans. Its morning in America, sportsfans.

If Clinton wins the popular vote and loses the delegate count she'll get the supers and the nomination and most people will see that as the right thing to do. If she loses both and gets the nomination most people will see that as wrong, even most Clinton supporters including myself. The only way that ship will float is if Obama strikes a deal and is her vp. Even then he'll have to sell it to the American people, she won't be able to.

Clinton prefers McCain

From Situaiton room transcript clip of Clinton:

CLINTON: I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.

This is way over the line... and bad for the party. I hope Josh gives this some attention.

If Clinton supporters also fear these scenarios, they are not going to stay home because Obama supporters were snotty. Isn't there some saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face?