A Poll showing Obama gaining?
It must be a TPM/DailyKos/MSM anti-Hillary Plot.

Let's all remember that Hillary has to win PA by at least 20% (and then NC by at least 20%, Oregon, etc etc) to even pretend to be making a comeback.

These polls are going to be my undoing.

I cannot go up and down emotionally like these numbers do. LOL! They'll lock me up.

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

I don't buy it. I swear if the narrative for the media after Pennsylvania includes one mention of the word comeback, I'm never turning on my TV again.

These crazy polls make me want to piss in my pantsuit!

Puerto Rico is the last large State to vote and delegate gold.

Hillary Clinton: 50 percent
Barack Obama: 37 percent

Leno said that he does not believe it. He said it is Hillary Clinton we are talking about folks. She is like Glenn Close in Fatal attraction, and no matter what you do to try and get rid of her, she will still jump out and attack you with a big knife.

I simply cannot believe no one has talked about last Sunday's Opus. The one in my paper was hysterical and that was what it was about.

Does anyone think she'll drop out if she wins by less than 10%?

I think the pressure for her to drop out will increase if that happens.

But what she does - I am not going to guess. I give up - my instinct tells me she won't, but there will come a point where that will no longer be an option - I guess in January, '09.

If Hillary wins by two points she's going to throw a ticker tape parade. That bar is always shifting, like the wedgy in her pantsuit.

Anyhow, I'm cold going out on the limb. (Yes I am) I am predicting that Obama will win PA!

That's right. I said it and I mean it.

Unless, of course, it's rigged.

Like New York and California were.

Anyhow, I'm cold going out on the limb. (Yes I am) I am predicting that Obama will win PA!

I love you for that - I hope so much you're right.

I think I'll just go with your assessment. :) I hate having insomnia again over who is going to be president.

flyonthewall, what about the PA trend lines at Pollster.com? As Greg D immortally put it once before, Obama's line is on viagra. It actually looks just like the line in OH, only it's two weeks ahead of schedule. I'm not saying that it won't flatten, but it doesn't look like it's flattening yet.

If the "Columbia Trade Agreement" story has legs in the media (once Elton John blows over), that could do damage for her in PA.

Mr. Penn, Mr. Wolfson and Slick Willy all received big money from Columbia to push that trade deal. And Hillary the lone voice in the wilderness crying, "NO!". I just don't buy it. If Hillary were to somehow squeak her way into the big house, that Columbia trade deal would pass faster than NAFTA did (which she also "opposed", even though the records say she pushed for it, hard.)

Obama should draw these comparisons in a new ad specifically for PA and blanket the state with them.

Hillary is a snake oil saleswoman peddling destructive trade deals. Even as she claims otherwise.

The PA lunchbox crowd has to wise up.

Hello

Here is another good news from PA for Sentor Obama. What matters is that he ends up as close as possible...It is an uphill battle, but I hope he will another bus tour next week, or spend several days in Pa, before and after the debate...

A bevy of city and state elected officials - specifically, six City Councilmembers, three state represenatives and two state senators - are expected to endorse Barack Obama for president at 2 p.m. today in City Hall.
"In addition to voicing support for their preferred Democratic candidate, this endorsement event is meant to balance the endorsements of other political leaders in the city and state, including Mayor Nutter and Governor Rendell," stated a press release announcing the event.

Nutter and Rendell are backing Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.

The Council members who will announce their support of Obama today are: Curtis Jones, Bill Green, Jannie Blackwell, Donna Reed-Miller, Jim Kenney and Wilson Goode, Jr.

Among the Pennsylvania lawmakers will be state senators Shirley Kitchen and Vincent Hughes, and state representatives Jewell Williams, Harold James and Tony Payton Jr.

"In Pennsylvania, we realize that top party officials are not with us as it relates to Senator Obama's candidacy," Jones said, "but there are three words that were born in Philadelphia and still resonate across the Commonwealth today, and they are 'We the People.'"

"uncomfortably large blow out like Ohio"

Didn't Clinton win Ohio by 10 points? I would not call that an "uncomfortably large blowout."

15 or 20 points, sure, but not 10 (especially when she *needs* to win by 15 or 20).

What should be happening right now (though of course it never could) is that all the TV pundits should be getting pinned down on EXACTLY what they will be saying about Hillary's chances/argument for continuing if PA is a 2-point win, 3-point 4, 5, 6...on up to 20+. Otherwise they just make it up on the spot based on what they all hear each other saying.

Of course it's fully her call, but if you don't think thoise first few TV hours after the margin is established are what determines the perception, you're just not watching.

The now-immortalized Chris Matthews has been the most clear on this that I have seen so far, saying he thinks a 10+ win is a game-changer. (Which I think is very generous and perhaps is influenced by the anti-Hillary perceptions of him that he knows are out there.) I'd like to hear what he'd say about 7 or 8, but at least we have that view to which he can be held on April 22-23.

The other TV opinion trendsetters to whom we all react should also state where they stand on these questions now, because conditions really are static and there is no reason that we should just let them pontificate based on the prevailing wisdom in the room when there really should be a sound logic to what they say that we could draw out of them today.

Clinton is dropping - and it is no suprise. She has no mathematical chance unless she sweeps the rest of the states by 20% and the Tuzla "under fire" comments have damaged her credibility.

Meanwhile, the Wright controversy can be boiled down to what Obama's former minister said versus how Clinton just out and out lied. Clinton's negatives have gone up and independents are going to be running away from her. It also cuts directly to her "experience" - her experience is mostly in her own mind. Brett Farve's wife doesn't have the experience to perform as a quarterback.

Now that Iraq is getting worse - her vote for the Authorization of Military force resonates more as we are spending billions on the war and our economy is going down the drain - not to mention the soldiers who have lost their lives on the needless war.

Also, PR's not last anymore. Montana and one of the Dakotas (Fanning?) vote of June 3, all but guaranteeing Obama two wins to close this thing out.

Despite the high profile endorsements against him, Obama's used this month to set up a great organization in Pennsylvania. Campaign offices in Philadelphia, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties are pulling in hundreds of volunteers each weekend day, and from what I have seen, the staffers are very smart about how and where to use these people most effectively. Coupled with the fact that Obama's right hand man in Iowa took over the PA operations a few weeks ago, this organization should do a good job turning out voters on election day.

NCSteve you really hit the nail on the head there.

I agree, there is no way Obama will eek out a win in PA, based on the current polling trends. Reminds me a lot of TX and he didn't win the primary there.

On the SF myBO listserve, we got some info from on the ground in Scranton, and let's just say there is plenty of racism bubbling about that really shook up the volunteers.

I believe Obama said if he gets within 10 points, that's a victory, which seems to be a more realistic expectation.

I think its the opposite and the MSM its so biased as TPM has become lately against Hillary,it reports on these types of incendiary findings. Her base is safe, the undecided will flock to experience because its the economy, yes the ECONOMY !

SUSA the bestest poll in this cycle has Hillary the same 1 mo. ago. --only 1% less.

Polls are ALL about how and who you ask for an opinion.

Analysts like Fly and Poblano do not penetrate to a meta-level of analysis of polls, but there is such a level, and its perspective is rather comforting to people who find their emotions whipsawed by polls that don't seem to make sense.

That meta-observation is rather simple. The people in PA HARDLY KNOW WHO TO BE FOR because the media manage the narrative in a sort of 51-49 manner - which makes them seem stronger in the decision-making process, but which renders that process more difficult for citizens, since the media narrative doesn't make very much sense of things either. (It mostly portrays the rise and fall of personalities, like a Greek chorus, because journalists refuse to become issue experts.)

This equates to a free pass for Republicans, in this sense. We're all bad; that's why God is punishing us. The party of money, which is certainly ungodly something or other, enforces the law of money and happiness here on earth. Rich people are happy, and poor people need to pray a lot.

The Democrats could straighten this situation out, if they could produce a sort of "holy" leader, who would lead us as God wishes. The only thing is, the party of money, ever since Chappaquiddick, has had a deal going with the media and the people who pay attention to them: if anybody can find a single sin or flaw of major proportions in a Democratic candidate, we're penalized back to Existential Square One.

There's always a Democrat who is really a Republican in the mix. Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, to coin a phrase. If there were a true white knight from Camelot (and Obama can qualify as white), he could lead America to real change, in which major money fortunes, the biggest piles of money and gold in the world, would have to acknowledge for at least a few years the sovereignty of government, instead of considering government a sort of sales force.

Republicans are the "default" government. They are just supposed to keep order and be even-handed in dealing out poverty. They want to oppress the common people quietly, without display. Democrats could represent a merely symbolic return of popular power (Clinton). But they could also represent real sovereignty, an attempt by government as an entity to establish control over large corporations.

Global finance either leads to war or to increased global central planning. A war reduces all wealth, and rich people too have to start over at a lower level, though they will still manage to be distinguished from non-rich people. Everyone would prefer not to do it that way, but globalization inevitably bring different groups of rich people into conflict. Not all their desires can be met (since they desire very much).

Entrepreneurial imagination was supposed to provide projects to lead the culture and the economy of various countries forward. But that imagination has failed, and mere amounts of money - which after all are as hard to "mark to market" as any subdivision in a swamp - are all that distinguishes one fortune from another. (On the other hand in Asia great dynastic traditions in manufacturing and engineering are being established.)

In this case government must fill the void and decide on great projects for a culture and an economy. For example, a decision to set the United States on a course to make it the world's pantry, and an effort to keep world food prices down, in return for some continuation of American political leadership worldwide. Instead of being a broken-down house-producing economy (which once was a manufacturing economy), the US can be a dynamic food growing economy.

But in such a project, government would have to claim sovereignty and indeed eminent domain over the facilities of many rich people. In the interest of the people, these assets and these structures (of management, etc.) will be seized and operated as if war had been declared. The owners will be given an opportunity to participate - what modern fortune does not have its roots in some war? - but the government, having realized that the management of the economy has more immediate national security consequences than military procurement itself, must impose measures on business that will keep the capitalist, so to speak, from selling anybody the rope they hang us with. American business can be said to be selling America short, or selling America out, without realizing it. But that is the cue for government to step in with force.

And the faith of the people in a President they consider morally good is an important element in the conspiracy of the people and a government against the rich, when ownership by a few wealthy becomes a motive for decoupling from the historical aspirations of a society, rather than a necessary concentration of resources and decision-making power to the end of realizing those aspirations.

The rich will never let go on their own, even though the very drop in the value of the dollar is an indication that they no longer believe in their own inflated worth! They will put the good Democrat through many ordeals; but it is possible, after all, that Obama is a nice guy. It is possible that he loves his wife, and doesn't really have any hankering to be worshipped by bimbos. It is possible that he has the right balance of intelligence and integrity to get the US out of the historical ditch its wagon is now in.

It seems silly to let the economic, cultural, and historical renewal/survival of the US depend on the scrupulousness of character of one man; but if that man were such, that would be something different. And somehow that seems to be required in order for cut-own-throat capitalism to be superseded.

In some future age, I hope that we will get out of this cumbersome arrangement, caught in the vortex between Gemeinschaft of myths about individuals, and Gesellschaft in which the little people become mere spare parts for the machine the owners construct. There should be global management of resources. There should be an agency of government that has the authority to prevent genocide and severe famine. This is not so impossible. In some sense the most evil argument of all is made by the rich, when they assume that there always have to be winners and losers. A society or culture can be touched by history, like the Greeks, and produce great marvels in a few centuries. But this possibility doesn't require other societies to be decimated in return.

This is why people call media totally biased - working as an arm for Obama campaign... it's shocking that news organization like CNN can stoop to this low.. they completely discarded the Survey USA poll which has the best record in this election cycle and included ARG.Are u fucking kidding me, ARG... which has the worst record in the cycle?? I tell you why they didn't do it.. because it didn't fit their storyline of their chosen candidate. it's because they are in the TANK.

I still believe in polls, and I take this one seriously, but I'm starting to wonder. Years ago we used to believe in the impartiality and fairness of network news. Time has greatly eroded our trust. Now just today I read a poll that says an Obama/Hillary ticket would lose to a McCain/Rice ticket in New York State. I'm really starting to wonder if maybe we'll begin to hear how polls are manipulated and as prone to bias as the news. I know American voters are easily swayed by the wind, and go for idiots like Bush. I know the middle class will vote again and again against its own best interests to elect someone like Reagan, simply because they find the guy likable. So maybe the polls are right when they show McCain doing so well. But I really have to wonder if we are really that stupid.

This strikes me as a tad simplistic (which could speak to most of CNN's political reporting, come to think of it).

The Pennsylvania polls have been all over the lot and merely averaging them does not take into account that some are just wrong. We also know from experience in this cycle and before that it is hard to poll for a primary. Too many variables not matched by prior elections to give the numbers crunchers much of a baseline. Obama's unrealistically high standing in the days before the California primary comes to mind. Ditto (on a much smaller scale) Rhode Island.

That said, Obama seems to be closing in all the polls -- and that cannot be good news for Hillary.

As a cheeky, 22-year-old college student, I have enjoyed CNN's campaign coverage from the beginning. But the silliness and meanness of this poll has me wavering in my support of Obama.

Perhaps there is some merit in Hillary's superior health care experience and readiness to lead on Day 1.

Hey...she ain't dead yet. Kinda like Monty Python's Mary Queen of Scots. lolololololololololo. Seeya at the Convention.

Clinton v McCain and Clinton v Obama in Ohio are tied, as of today.

So much for the Ohio argument for Clinton.

Obama is up by 10,000!
No, wait a minute, must be a mistake . . .
Obama is DOWN 230,553,000!
No, wait . . .

The reason TV/News columns, supporters, pollsters such as CBS,CNN, Yahoo etc.. and Newspapers reporters/supporters give Obama so much press is because Obama pays them $$$$Big Dollars $$$ for their advertisement of lies, on their network and news columns, and money talks whether it be the truth or a lie, so dont be bought by all the hype and rhetoric you read, remember the facts is what we will be facing at the of this election

I think a lot of the later-breaking undecideds will lean toward Obama.

Hillary is well-known in PA. If you're from PA and haven't broken for her yet, you're more likely to break for Obama. When Dems get to know Obama, they generally like him. That's why he closes deficits and grows his leads--in virtually every state he visits.

I'll take Obama and 5 points in PA.