Hope she's got a good boat, because I think the tide has turned:
Pennsylvania Polls
11/5/07 -- Clinton 48% Obama 15%
12/3/07 -- Clinton 43% Obama 15%
01/14/08 -- Clinton 40% Obama 20%
02/18/08 -- Clinton 44% Obama 32%
03/31/08 -- Clinton 47% Obama 42%
04/22/08 -- Clinton 54% Obama 46% (with 76% reporting)
Hillary parlayed a 33-point lead into an 8-point win. Impressive fold. Nationally, among Democrats, in the same period, Obama has moved 33 points, from 23 points down to ten points over She Who Must Be Nominated.
Hillary was handed the nomination on a presumptive platter, and (to mix the metaphor) couldn't close the deal.
I'm not sure what she is celebrating, but I think I see where the tide has indeed turned since November.
In a Pennsylvania contest pitting two Democratic powerhouses, one putting together a coalition of blacks and educated white suburbanites, the other counting on the support of white ethnic, union, and blue collar voters, the former can take the state in the right circumstances. How do we know that -- because that is exactly how Fast Eddie Rendell beat Sleepy Bob Junior in the 2002 Pennsylvania Gubernatorial primary. This year, Obama is relying on the same coalition that swept Rendell to victory, while Hillary is courting the Casey coalition. Ironically, but not unexpectedly, Casey is backing Obama and Rendell is stumping for Hillary.
Rendell took only ten counties that year -- but he took them by wide enough margins to offset Casey's middle and northeastern state strength. Philadelphia went to Rendell by a couple hundred thousand votes and he swamped Casey in the elite Philly suburbs, where he won nearly 80% of the vote. He also took the Allentown area of the state by a big margin.
Unfortunately for Obama, he hasn't been able to generate Rendell-like leads in those areas of the state this year. But there are two lurking issues that Rendell and Casey didn't have to deal with which could disrupt expectations -- the invisible seven percent and the disproportionate proportional award of delegates.
The Seven Percent Solution
Three months ago, the Obama forces began a voter registration drive in Pennsylvania. It wasn't as massive as the ones they mounted in other states, but it was significant enough. By the time the deadline to register came in late March, the Democrats in Pennsylvania found themselves with over 300,000 new party affiliates. County voter registration offices were overwhelmed by the response and it is only within the last few weeks that they managed to get the newly-minted voters on the rolls.
All those polls of registered democrats in the state -- you know the ones that have been showing a steady eroding of Hillary's once-20-point-lead down to the margin of error? Well, those polls were taken from a registration list that doesn't include those 300,000+ newly registered democrats.
That group, invisible to the pollsters, could make a significant difference in the results that we see today.
Why?
Well, for one, the new registrants are much more likely to actually turn out and vote, even in this year of the large turnout. Turnout, particularly in Philadelphia and the 'burbs is of particular importance to Obama as he works to cut into Hillary's mid-state strengths. Rendell succeed in '02 by pushing record turnouts in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs.
For another, estimates are that the new registrants are breaking Obama at a clip well in excess of 60-40. Add to Obama's numbers 63% of the 38,000 new dems in the union and working class towns in the Lehigh Valley (Allentown/Reading), and you understand why Hillary and Bill have spent so much time there in the last few weeks. There are nearly 30,000 new dems in Pittsburgh, and almost 5,000 more in NEPA (Wilkes-Barre, Scranton) -- Hillary's Western and Eastern presumed strongholds. And in Obama's strength, Philadelphia, they added over 50,000 new Democrats.
The new democratic voters amount to about 7% of the expected turnout today -- keep that in mind when looking at the polls and their MOEs -- seven percent of today's voters were excluded from the polling pool. It might not amount to a new New Hampshire, but it could serve to explain why at the end of the day Hillary's expected ten-point-plus win winnows down substantially.
Disproportionate Delegate Scheme
In putting together the rules for this years delegate selection process, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party opted to award disproportionately more delegates to congressional districts that have gone democratic in the last two elections. This means that winning a reliably-democratic district will net more delegates than winning a similarly-sized republican district.
Not good news for Hillary as her strength comes mainly in the reliably-republican areas of the center and west states. Obama is more likely to win more of the reliably-democratic CDs than Hillary and, even if he does lose the popular vote by six, seven, or even eight points, he could walk away with more delegates -- or shave Clinton's net gain to meaninglessness.
Watch the Turnout
Rendell's victory over Casey in 2002 was based on overwhelming numbers -- huge margins in Philadelphia, 80% of the vote in the Philadelphia suburbs, and big wins in the Lehigh Valley. Polls don't show Obama with Rendell-like numbers in any of those areas.
But, a large turnout in those areas will help Obama threaten the Clinton-expectations. In Philadelphia, a large turnout early will be extremely significant as the African-American population there tends to vote later in the day. If the Philadelphia turnout is high by lunchtime, it could mean that Obama stands to post Rendell-like numbers there.
Obama could win this with high turnouts in key areas of the state. If you start to see numbers like 70% turnout in the Philly suburbs and 60% in the city, and high turnouts in the State College area (home of Penn State's main campus), and in Lancaster in South Central Pennsylvania, which has seen an influx of new residents from Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC, it could mean a surge of Obama supporters showing up to create a rough night for Hillary.
On the other side of the ledger, NE PA (Wilkes Barre, Scranton), Erie County, and Pittsburgh and surrounds, are Clinton counties and strong turnout here could favor her. (Careful here, though. Erie added almost 7,000 new democrats this year and Pittsburgh nearly 30,000.)
Wait for It
The early numbers should show a huge Obama lead -- if they don't, Obama is in for a rough night.
But don't jump to assumptions. The Central and Western counties in Pennsylvania are notoriously slow reporting and that is where Hillary is counting on to win this thing for her (apart from NEPA).
Early Night
This isn't going to be another New Mexico, though -- the results will be known relatively early, 9:30, 10 pm Eastern, at the latest.
Michigan voters prefer Gore, Thompson. Meanwhile, Hillary is preparing to fight the next war.
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From Political Grind:
There's more.BOSTON – A telephone poll of likely New Hampshire voters, conducted by Suffolk University students from February 24-28, 2007, revealed top Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are statistically tied for the lead among Democratic voters in the Granite State. Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani had a 10-point lead over John McCain, his nearest rival. The results of the poll were officially announced today.
The poll revealed thatDemocrat Obama would defeat Republican Mitt Romney in a head-to-head match up and tie McCain and Giuliani, while Clinton would only defeat Romney. Republican front-runner Giuliani defeated Democrats Clinton and John Edwards in a head-to-head match up and tied Obama.
The survey of 500 Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters likely to vote in the 2008 presidential election found that Hillary Clinton’s unfavorability rating of 48% was the highest unfavorability rating of any candidate.
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"Throughout the war in Iraq, we have been given assurance after assurance by our government only to find out that facts on the ground reflect a completely different reality.
"Last week, after being told by President Bush that his plan to escalate this war would be well-planned, well-coordinated, and well-supported by the Iraqi government, we find out in this week's New York Times that none of this is true. Military officials tell us that there is no clear chain of command between Iraqis and U.S. commanders and no real indication that the Iraqis even want such a partnership.
"I cannot in good conscience support this plan. As I first said two months ago, we should not be sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, we should begin redeploying them to let the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever and to pressure the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to finally reach a political settlement.
"Escalation is a failed policy opposed by generals, Democrats and Republicans, and now even the Iraqis themselves, and the fact that the President is already moving ahead with this idea is a terrible consequence of the decision to give him the broad, open-ended authority to wage this war in 2002.
"It now falls on Congress to find a way to support our troops in the field while still preventing the President from multiplying his previous mistakes. That is why I not only favor capping the number U.S. troops in Iraq, but believe it's imperative that we begin the phased redeployment I called for two months ago, and intend to introduce legislation that does just that."
From the one, the only, Joe Bageant:
Call it consumer conditioned numbness, which it is. But it is safe to say most Americans give not a happy damn about the rest of humanity, starving infants, the homeless and whatnot, so long as the unhygienic swarms stay the hell out of our yards and don't bring up that tired commie stuff about our lifestyle being based upon armed global theft and sweatshop misery. In that way, we all test positive for the Devil's hickey.
Republicans may flaunt their hickeys like high school kids in the locker room, but guilt-plagued Democrats, feeling the smart of the mark of the beast, console themselves that they can banish it at the ballot box, if only they close their eyes and wish upon a star. Thus their comfortable self-delusions that the Tiger Woods of the Democratic Party, the technically black Barack Obama, is somehow blessed with an inner moral compass lacking in the rest of society, and therefore does not bear the damnable mark. Wiser souls, aware that Obama possesses a net worth of several millions, a Harvard law degree and a career born in that venerable political whorehouse called Chicago, assume the Devil's mark is probably located on his posterior where we cannot see it.
Democrats are dancing around the head of Donald Rumsfeld like a scene from Lord of the Flies, heating up the tar buckets and plucking the goose in eager, nay, wild, anticipation. Personally, I love the smell of tar and feathers in the morning and am quite willing to march on the White House as we speak. I like revenge as well as the next guy. But I also consider myself a compassionate man, one perfectly willing to let Bush's cabinet choose whether they wanna play the mommy or the daddy in the Big House, then move on to the real problems, such as the fact that a gallon of Old Grandad is nearly 50 bucks here in Virginia, or the fact that we are still a nation of people, half of whom were happy to elect a bunch of war criminals -- TWICE! -- and still are.Much more, go read it all . . .
Ah, but lo and beshit, the Democrats have rescued us. If you can call running around like chickens with their heads up their asses while the Republicans did what they always do -- get caught stealing the national silverware, while bombing the hell out of some miserable piece of dirt as a distraction, thereby self-destructing in 12 years as usual, but getting obscenely rich in the process.
Pardon my cynicism, but the view is pretty damned sorry from here in the cheap seats. From down here it looks like every Yankee liberal north of Virginia seems convinced they are now shitting in such tall cotton, that all they need do from here on out is foist Hillary Clinton on the many poor miserable bastards unfortunate enough to be called heartland Democrats because we don't have the balls to become heavily armed libertarians. Nominating Hillary might just drive us to it.
Meanwhile, we watch the only woman who can give the ambitious Hillary a run for the money when it comes to "the sneer behind the smile," Nancy Pelosi. (Sorry Nancy, I used to get hot in unmentionable body areas when you stepped in front of the cameras, before I saw your financial reports and the shiv in your stockings. Now, call me a chauvinist, but somehow, you come off much the same as Condi Rice and Hillary.) Then it's on to the main act, in which we watch Honey Boy Obama "pass" in elite liberal society as a goddamned negro, for christ sake! Will wretched wonders never end?
