GOTV operation will make all the difference...

Interesting numbers when it comes to race:

"Pennsylvania Democrats approve 65 - 23 percent of the way Obama is handling race issues in the campaign, with white voters approving 62 - 25 percent and black voters approving 80 - 14 percent.

Voters approve 56 - 28 percent of the way Clinton is handling race issues, with white approval at 60 - 24 percent and black approval at a negative 35 - 48 percent."

The most significant number in this poll is 6% undecided.

This is down from 9-12% in recent weeks during which Hillary's lead has been slipping. Earlier, when Hillary held a big lead in Pennsylvania, the undecided was only 5-6%. Then it doubled to 9-12%.

If this Q poll portends the future, it suggests that voters who were leaving Hillary are beginning to coalesce around Obama. The previously higher undecided numbers suggested that were wavering & still making up their minds. The important part of this was that they could still come back to Hillary on election day. If the Q poll holds up, it would appear that she has lost them.

The other significant piece that reinforces this thesis is that for the first time Obama is polling above 45%. Even when Hillary's lead was slipping, Obama was not rising. She was simply dropping. He has been consistently in the 41-45% range in the past month. (Of course, he was lower than that earlier when her leads in PA were ridiculously high.) Now it appears that he has a solid base of support in the state.

Hillary is in real trouble. If this continues, it could all be over in 2 weeks.

Hillary began with a 20% lead. She won't have the luxury of cushions like that in the GE. If Obama finishes within 5% Hillary MUST drop out. Anything within 10% should be considered a victory for Obama considering the fact that he started way behind and nearly all of the PA Dem establishment lined up behind Hillary.

If he manages to keep it as close as today's survey, it will make it that much tougher for Hillary to make the case to super-delegates that she still has any kind of reasonable shot at closing the gap with Obama.

Newsflash: She has had no reasonable shot at closing the gap with Obama for several weeks now. I'm not sure why, given your proximity to the spin machine that is the Clinton campaign, you believe that a closer than expected win would suddenly cause them to view reality any different than they have now.

The media has saved them. Whatever you think of the proportional system it has worked against her efforts to close the gap and to Obama's favor. This thing is OVER.

Seems further proof of what I consider a good axiom about the campaign -- the more voters know of Obama, the more they like him and the more voters know of Hillary, the less they like her.

I'm guessing that this poll does not yet reflect the fallout from Mark Penn's betrayal of Hillary's blue collar supporters by scheming with the Colombian ambassador about how to ram through a trade agreement with a country that murders union leaders -- and from Hillary's failure to sever all ties to this unprincipled, unethical scumbag.

Perhaps once this pathetic episode resonates with the voters, we will see this headline: Penn Swings Penn. to Obama.

The latest SUSA poll has Clinton up by 18 points.Go Hillary !

Bob Herbert of the Times this morning, interviews people in blue-collar district of PA. Straws in the wind favorable for Dems.

Hint: they don't care for Bush and by extension, ain't crazy for McCain either.

Her husband leaned forward, as if for emphasis: “Bush has devastated this country,” he said, “and McCain would be more of the same.”

Roger Adams, the steelworker, was a Reagan Democrat. He switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican in the 1980s. Now he’s back with the Democrats. “I hope Hillary gets the nomination,” he said. “But if she doesn’t, I’ll vote for Obama without any trouble. We can’t stand another four years of Bush, and that’s what McCain would be.”

DEMOCRATS: MANAGE YOURSELVES!

Democrats who want to win the general election have to hope that Pennsylvania voters will give Obama a victory or a very near miss, so that the party can coalesce around his candidacy and we can get on with it. Superelegates need to do their job: make timely decisions for the good of the party, and stop looking over their shoulders timidly.

Heading toward November, it is going to be tough going against McCain no matter what, and the longer the Clinton exercise in tactical self-preservation lingers, the weaker our chances, because we Democrats cannot shape definitions of McCain in the early months as long as we are bickering internally. Democratic gains across the board will be weaker if we continue to show ourselves mired in policy-free race and gender wars. Many voters will conclude we cannot run our own affairs (just as HRC clearly could not effectively manage her own campaign).

I have nothing against HRC herself. She might well have been a strong candidate if she had liberated herself from Penn and her husband and managed an effective and more authentic campaign. But she did not -- that water is long under the bridge. This has been effectively over for her for a long time. We Democrats need to move on.

Theda Skocpol, Cambridge MA

First, Hillary has not engaged in her last-minute smear campaign yet. Second, the demos in PA are hugely against Obama (compared to HRC). I don't care how much tightening there is in the polls, I agree with Al from The Field -- we'll be very lucky to keep the margin to 10. It's more likely a 15-of loss.

Right! We forgot. Pennsylvania won't count because Obama outspent her. What were we thinking?

Rajesh - I just checked SUSA's web site, and it's 12%. Their latest PA poll is from 4/1 - here's the link: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportPopup.aspx?g=c33bbc21-2d16-4747-ae93-214709784559&q=45558

If they have a more recent poll, please provide the link...

Hillary will pull some last minute stuff--maybe victim card, attack ads, race card, who knows what else--and Pennsylvania voters, who are already sympathetic to her message (old, white), will be swayed.

If you are an Obama supporter, please please please don't participate in this goalposting.

The simple fact is that, if Obama gets within ten points, he will have seriously dented her lead, and proven he can compete anywhere.

If he can get within ten of Clintons in Penn, then he can make a dent in red states against McCain.

It's not about winning. It's about being competitive. So far so good, but please (as exciting as they are) don't fall for the polls and the new narratives.

This is great but I am still looking for a 10% win for Clinton in PA. She has a machine similar to the one that worked for her in NH. GOTV folks like Nick Clemons can do a lot with perspiration to counter the effects of a bad campaign. Clinton should own PA. Anything close to 10% remains a great showing for Obama.

Clinton v. Obama in Penn. is the unmoving force against the object that can't stop anything. It's demographically probably the worst state in the union for Obama, and Clinton at this point is such a wounded candidate, with 90+% expectations of losing the nomination. I don't think it shows anything one way or the other regardless of the outcome, and it certainly won't change any math. If Clinton didn't quit before Penn., I don't see why she would quit after unless she somehow gets burried by a big margin, which is well nigh impossible.

The Political Groundhog predicts six more weeks of zzzzzzz.

I'm sorry Kash79, but you are linking to an old survey. Here is a link to the latest from the Survey USA site: http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/04/01/pennsylvania-obama-making-inroads/

This SUSA poll and related NBC online coverage is very confusing..even the article "posted" as referecned by JZ appears to really relate to the earlier poll versus the one SUSA did for its clients in PENN showing an 18 point lead for Clinton. Can ANYONE clarify this or is it just confusing reporting on the NBC website?

As a former PA boy, I will tell you it is probably the most racist state north of the Mason-Dixon line. As a reporter for the Williamsport Sun-Gazette I covered the move of the Aryan Nation white supremacy group from the Idaho panhandle (just over the fence from me now) to Potter County in northern PA. I'm pulling for Obama, but there are a lot of old, racist white folks in upstate PA. GOTV Philly! We need you on this one.

Unless Clinton pulls out a HUGE victory in PA (30%+), April 22 won't make much of a dent in Obama's delegate lead (and will be mostly cancelled out in NC immediately afterward). We all know it's going to be up to the superdelegates.

He outspent her in PA -- because of his phenomenal ability to raise money from grassroots donors. If you're a superD, does this point toward Obama or Clinton?
She couldn't hold on to her earlier 20-30% lead in the early PA polls -- as someone pointed out above, a this is a cushion the Dem candidate won't have in the GE. If you're a superD, does this point toward Obama or Clinton?
She says that small/red/purple/large-black-pop states don't matter (unless they are Ohio, in which case they matter a lot). You're a superD who wants to be re-elected, and wants other Dems to be elected, in your state. If you're from Texas or Kansas or Washington or Iowa or Illinois or Virginia or Georgia or Wyoming (or, well, anywhere but California, New York or PA), does this point you toward Obama or Clinton?
States she writes off as red, like Colorado, Wyoming and Texas, might be purple if Obama is the candidate. Does this point you toward Obama or Clinton?
His campaign registered huge numbers of new Democratic voters, including young and African-American voters -- and, unlike Kerry, actually got them to come to the polls -- even where caucuses made participation kind of a burdensome pain in the ass. (We can safely bet that Republican vote-suppression techniques will make voting an ordeal in low-income Latino/a and African-American precincts in swing states, as they did in 2000 and 2004.) Does this point you toward Obama or Clinton?

Clinton by 30 embarrassing Snobama to drop out.

Lets get to crushing mcwar until he shows that famous temper.