What is Rendell talking about "less than 1%"? Obama leads by 2.5-3% in the popular vote (RealClear numbers). Unless of course he's including Michigan and Florida - which I guess he is. If that's the case, are they really going to make the case that she's won the poplar vote by including those two non-contests and drag this out all summer?

Posted at March 28, 2008 4:39 PM in response to Hillary Supporter Ed Rendell: Let Pennsylvania Voters Have Their Say

You've got this wrong: "Obama's wife saying that his candidacy has made him proud of America" - you mean "HER proud..." not "HIM proud..."

Posted at March 20, 2008 2:56 PM in response to McCain Aide Suspended For Pushing Racially-Charged Obama-Wright Video

A. Zogby?

B. Listening to Evan Thomas on NPR talk about the circle of hatred between the media and the Clinton campaign - reinforced by her attack on the press in the debate - it suddenly occurred to me that the Clinton campaign may in fact be employing the rope-a-dope tactic that Muhammad Ali employed to beat George Foreman: needling the press intentionally to accelerate the rate at which they write her political obituary, and the glee with which they do it, and so seems to be humiliating her, only to inspire a certain portion of the electorate, otherwise wavering on supporting her - mainly undecided women - to rush to her side because they don't want to see her humiliated.

Meanwhile, just as in New Hampshire, the press seems unable to wait until AFTER she loses to write these stories about the campaign imploding and Obama being unstoppable and so on - which may well have resulted in enough female voters being pissed off and rallying to her side to help her pull out a poll-defying, back-from-the-brink-victory. Her campaign couldn't have done this intentionally in New Hampshire - but could they have learned the lesson of New Hampshire well enough to help create the same dynamic here?

Posted at February 29, 2008 1:05 PM in response to Zogby: Obama Up In Texas, Close Race In Ohio

Speaking of words where have I heard words like this before: "It is about picking a president who relies not just on words but on work, on hard work..."

Oh yeah, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ38wu5Fp6w
- Show quoted text -

Posted at February 19, 2008 10:48 PM in response to Hillary's Speech: Words Don't Matter, Work Does

Anyone else think that maybe the polling errors last night (when exit polls and some last minute polls showed Obama winning several more states than he did), and the exact same problems in New Hampshire - and with exit polls in the 2004 Bush-Kerry race - which built up waves of optimism then undercut by the results - and so made otherwise fairly predictable and relatively close losses look and feel like crushing defeats - may simply be the product of a rare phenomenon confronting the pollsters: wild enthusiasm for one candidate? The theory that was used to explain 2004 exits - people who voted for Kerry rushed from the voting booth fired up and ready to talk to exit pollsters about their vote, with less enthusiasm from Bush voters leading them to dodge interviews, would pretty neatly explain what we're seeing this cycle with Obama, wouldn't it? (Plus it could answer the question of why every major national poll on the eve of the 2000 election showed Bush winning the popular vote - there's little doubt that his voters were more psyched about their guy than Gore's were.)

So if that's where we are, it may be that the narrative people like Chris Matthews keep trying to foist onto this race every time they get 'evidence' from pollsters just before and just after the votes are cast showing Obama with momentum that will finally KO Hillary, just will never happen this year. People voting sort of dourly will continue to cast 'grown up' or even somewhat cynical votes for Hillary, and not want to talk about the whole thing all that much, and people voting for Obama will continue to be inspired and more willing to answer pollsters' calls before they vote and fill out their forms after they vote. Is it really surprising that people voting to transcend the racial divisions of America are more revved up than those voting for incremental improvements, like the shorter financial aid forms Hillary promises?

But if we stop expecting that sort of breakthrough for Obama, and accept that his success in this process may be to get through the rest of the states in a virtual tie with Hillary, in terms of delegates, rather than routing her into defeat, as Chris Matthews keeps expecting, maybe we'll be better braced for the voting to end in June without a clear winner. Then it will be up to the party to just pick the candidate they decide is best placed to hold the states Kerry won and pick off some of those that went for Bush in 2004.

Posted at February 6, 2008 11:11 AM in response to Hillary Campaign: We Stopped Obama's Momentum Dead