hmmm, if I was the Obama campaign I would play up the Obama Brand is damaged.

everyone wants to say that, but they don't want to say NC is a must win? why?

if I were them, play up Hillary saying that this was a turning point, and point out that if it was, shouldn't she now be the favorite to sweep? and doesn't that include NC, its not a small state. and its got important demographics for the fall.

Wow for all the things Hillary did right, she still managed to bleed some key voters and will likely only gain 11-12 Delegates and still remain 130 behind.  Sounds like she didn't really accomplish much.

If Elizabeth Edwards were to endorse Hillary, it really would be stunning.  But I won't hold my breath.

The best song of the 2008 campaign is a song that was made for a series of truck commercials?

Try again.

I congratulated Clinton supporters last night.  But I and other Obama supporters always thought Clinton would win and my estimate was always at least 10 points.

Yes, she pulled it off.

But Clinton performed worse among Democrats in PA than she did in OH -- including among white registered Democrats -- and worse among a number of other demographic groups.  

Clinton continues to sweep the big states with the big populations.  That tells me she can win the GE.  This was a great victory, regardless of how the Obama camp tries to spin it.  

For all the upset about Mark Penn, Axelrod sure is raking in dough himself from the small donations going to Obama.  I'm certainly glad Penn is gone, but there are no saints in the business of running campaigns.

why wont you debate her barack obama?

are you a chicken barack obama?

MEET HER IN NORT CAROLINA!

OK, So Obama outspent Hillary 3 to 1, He is the supposed front runner and presumed to be the nominee but loses by 10 points in an important state and I am to believe that the Obama campaign in satisfied with the results.

Are you kidding me? Anything less than a win is a huge blow to the Obama campaign. This guy kind of reminds me of the guy in a marathon or a race that is just out there to set the pace but when it comes to the end of the race they never win.

I heard "This Is Our Country" so many times at John Edwards events in Iowa I though the guy was going to change his name to John Cougar Edwards.

Edwards got off the REAL best campaign song of the year at an Iowa City event with Tim Robbins, when he played "Salt Of The Earth" by the Rolling Stones.

After Ohio she was polling at an average of 53% in PA. She finished with 54% after campaigning 6 weeks and spending 5 million dollars. She also didn't get a double digit win.

This is where things stand after PA (from demconwatch):

Total Delegates

Clinton 1588
Obama 1715

When Hillary runs in the state whose demographics are favorable and gets a whole lot of media help, she can hang on to her base.

Let's remember all that's happened since March 4 - bittergate, rev. wright, hamas, the flag lapel pin, William Ayers.  All the things that were supposed to kill him.

What result?  He did better among white voters than he did in Ohio.  He's now practically certain to end the process with a lead in pledged delegates and in the popular vote.

And you think she is going to push 2/3 of the superdelegates her way because ... ?

One reason the Obama campaign is better about telling process stories is that they have a lot of material to work with.

that Obama should offer her the VP slot. If so, I have to agree.

Based on the last numbers I saw this morning, If you include Florida, Obama leads the popular vote by just over 200,000 which with the contest remaining can easily be overcome.

Let see Mister new way of politics say that the votes in Florida do not count.

To think that PR has any real significance is ridiculous.  PR can't even vote in the general election and the DNC giving them a primary is pandering to the Puerto Rican population in the states.  Of course Hillary will win PR by a large margin because of Bill's long history with the Island and other "cultural" factors.  

First, congrats to Hillary on her victory.  Based on the delegate count(she's still 130+ behind), this win, an enabled her to move to the next primary.  If she wins that won, she can move to the next, etc.

However, once Obama wins another election cycle, if he does, he we will take back the momentum and people will start looking at the rest of the calendar and wonder how she can win.

I've heard she won by less than 9.5%.

I didn't know the "double digit victory" included a decimal point.

Her last commercial was a sugar teat compared to what
Kerry did to Dean in Iowa.

I'm getting really fed up with NYT micro management.
They think because they endorsed her they can run
smear pieces like the one claiming her story about the
pregnant woman was fabricated.

the stellar economy that we enjoyed when Bill was prez.

a popular vote advantage unless she disenfranchises voters in the caucus states. Very easy to turn that one around.

Elizabeth Edwards to back Hillary? That would be HUGE, especially if John follows her. Don't think it could flip NC, if AAs continue to vote 90% for Obama and i can't see why they'd stop then NC is out of reach for Clinton. For her to get within 5pts would be huge.

The dirty little secret is Obama can't win in the general election for cultural reasons.

Does anyone know what the delegate count would be if the democrats did not have these idiotic delegate rules? Say they had a system similar to what the Republican have.

It would just be interesting to know.

What's the Matter With Obama?

Map of PA with counties won by each candidate:

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-gui de/2008/results/states/PA.html

Obama only won 7 out of 67 counties in Pennsylvania; this is just exactly what happened in Ohio, in Texas, in Missouri. In PA, Clinton won in Montgomery and Buck counties, suburbs of Philly, which were considered to be Obama voters. She beat him by 10 points overall; she beat Obama in Obama supporter Sen. Bob Casey's home county by winning 74% of voters, while Obama only won 29%. Democratic party leaders just want her to drop out; but voters want her to keep fighting. Democratic voters are not sold on Barack Obama. She beat him among voters over 45; Catholics; white men; white women; even in his own constituencies in Philly suburbs--the upper-income professional voters.

*

"Pennsylvania once again served as evidence that Obama had fundamental problems relating to blue-collar voters: The Illinois Senator got trounced in most of the state's working-class or rural counties, and was stuck in the 20s in a number of them -- a stunningly poor showing.

Even worse, Obama did not bring about strong turnout among young voters and his own position among white-collar voters was much weaker than usual yesterday; he for example barely held on to voters with a college degree. And all of this despite the fact that he massively outspent her and has been campaigning as the inevitable nominee for quite some time now.

If he wins the nomination, Obama will have to urgently address his significant weakness among blue-collar voters if he does not want the Reagan Democrats to desert the party once again."

http://www.campaigndiaries.com/

If Obama is the nominee 25% of voters will desert the Democratic Party in November and either vote for McCain or not vote:

I'm using the exit poll data on CNN.

Sex
More women than men voted and more women chose Hillary. She won a higher percentage of male vote than she usually does, @ 47%.

Age Info
The youth vote was only 10%. This should worry party leaders as Obama is strongest in this age bracket, which is also the least likely to turn out for a vote. What is very surprising is that the next age bracket, 30-44 was lower than usual as well, only 17%. Though the majority of both groups voted for Obama, they simply did not turn out to support him in the same numbers they have in earlier contests. Voters over 44 turned out en masse and strongly supported Hillary.

The youth vote Hillary did win was the whites under 29. I am still looking for sex breakdowns on this, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of young woemn voted for Hillary.

God Squad
Strange breakdown where people who attend church more than one per week and those who never attend both broke for Obama, but together made up only 27% of voters. Regular weekly church goers went with Hilalry by a big margin. She overpowered him 3-1 in the Catholic vote.

Money Matters
More voters, regardless of candidate, said Hillary would imrpove the economy than said Obama would do so.

Geography
Obama won Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, but lost all the rest of the state. This is not good as it is the rest of the state that is most likely to defect to McCain in November, and where Kerry was also soundly trounced.

Education & Class
Hillary wins overwhelmingly with non-college educated voters, 2-1, while Obama enjoys a small five point advantage among college educated and higher. Voters making less than $100,000/year favored Clinton. The rich favored Obama, but in an interesting pattern. Hilalry won vters belwo $75K in income,, and then the voting slice from $100-$150k and she won that group decisively.

Issues
People who think the economy & health care are msot important went with Hillary. People who think Iraq is most important went with Obama.

Unity
This statistic is a little tricky. 97% of voters polled gave an opinion on how they would vote in November. The number split indicates of the percentage providing that answer, how many are HRC supporters and how many are BHO supporters.

If Obama is the nominee:

72% will vote for him (37/63)
15% will vote McCain (90/10)
10% will stay home (99/1)

If Hillary is the nominee:
80% will vote for her (60/40)
11% will vote McCain (26/73)
6% will stay home (7/93)

These numbers should give Dean the heebie jeebies. HRC voters, the majority of Pennsylvania voters, are far less likely to support Obama than the other way around.

Further more, they are more likely to defect to McCain than BHO voters. That's not just costing a vote, that's adding one to McCain's side.

Later on in the survey, more people say they will be satisified if Hillary wins the presidency than if Obama wins it.

Party Affiliation
Once again, Barack Obama has failed to win the Democratic Party vote. 82% of the voters were self-identified Democrats and they went 53/47 for HRC. Further, Obama only squeaked out a 1% margin among Independents.

Another statistic is interesting: Obama's "Democrat for a Day" campaign paid dividends as 61% of people changing their party affiliation voted for him. Most of these appear to be Independents (remember, closed primary).

Race
Clinton won 60% of the white vote, Obama won 90% of the Black vote and breakdowsn on other ethnicities was not counted. This next statistic is the one that will be making the headlines tomorrow, however. 20% of people stated that the race of the candidate was important to them, and 59% of those voters voted for Hillary. This will be taken as prima facie evidence that "racists" gave her the win. Count on it. That is the only meme that will matter tomorrow as Obama tries to shame college educated whites into voting for him.

Decision Time & Momentum
Ocne again, the exitpoll shows that Obama has exhausted his popularity. People who made up their minds since Ohio and Texas voted for Hillary, and the late deciding voters picked Hillary 2-1. This is important as this is a pattern with her in the polls. People who decide late pick her.

Voters who favored Obama made up their minds in February, when he was riding the big media wave. Voters who decied on or before Super Tuesday slightly favor Clinton. The momentum is with her.

Take Away
Obama's momentum is over. He has once again failed to make significant inroads into core Democratic voters, and will probably suffer severe defections to McCain in those demographics.

Hillary once again shows that she can appeal to people across the spectrum of the party as well as to Independents despite a filthy and high-powered campaign to defeat her, despite being outspent 4 or 5 to 1, despite having the MSM and Left Blogistan repeating crap about her 24/7.

Obama cannot deliver the goods. He is damaged goods. He will do the party no good come November.

http://anglachelg.blogspot.com/

According to a poll I heard yesterday, Obama if the GE was held next week would lose Massachusetts. That tells you all you need to know about Obama's chance in the GE. If he can not win a state that is heavily democrat and was the only state to go McGovern over Reagan than you have a problem.

1) She bled 15 points.  

2) She bled 15 points.

3) She bled 15 points.

4) She bled 15 points.

4) He gained 15 points on Clinton.

5) You're delusional.

6) Celebrate Guam?

7) What 'questions'?  Oh right, Right Wing propaganda.  Gotcha.  I live next to the 'bloody 8th'.  You don't know much about Southern Indiana.  They ain't big fans of Clinton.

8) She bled 15 points in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Obama is up before the contest even starts in Indiana.

9) Like most of mydd.com, pure baseless speculation.

It wins every time.

Congratulations to the Hillary folks.

The pro-Obama media (wait a minute, that's redundant, let me just say, the media) simply ignored the fact that these two states existed, voted, and chose Hillary.  In Florida, both were on the ballot, you'd think they'd at least have mentioned Florida.  Florida, you know, the state that made the difference in the 2000 election?

It was as though it didn't exist.

I have a question for Jerome and Todd and all the other Clinton supporters on here:  what needs to happen in the race (particularly in terms of pledged delegates) for you to admit defeat and get behind Obama?

I'm asking this not as an Obama supporter, but as someone concerned about the divisions in the Democratic party and the netroots community.

The one thing that bothers me more than the tone of the Clinton campaign is the way that Clinton is demonized over at DailyKos. We, as progressives, should all be able to respectfully disagree on Democratic candidates, particularly when both candidates are as strong on the issues as these two.

I hope that, come the end of this nomination battle, that the netroots supporters of Obama and Clinton can put petty bickering behind them and work together to defeat McCain. Would those Clinton supporters who were/are boycotting DailyKos be willing to return if he wins the nomination?

10)  She kicked his arse last night!  :)

Jerome, your point 4 is merely a Clinton-friendly way of saying that the process is stacked against her. It is not the Obama campaign creating stronger "process stories" but merely a factor of the reality of the situation. She can't actually catch up in pledged delegates and therefore after Ohio, Texas and PA, states where she won but not in the necessary landslide, the people looking at the numbers reach the same conclusion: that Obama still has a virtual lock on the nomination

Clinton rocked!! You can parse words and gaffes all you want they didn't phase her in the PA primary and being outspent 3-1 and still giving a nice spanking to her opponent says she's still strong, she's not damaged.

I agree with Jerome in that she needs to push the popular vote and leave Obama with the egg on his face for MI and FL and might make him more apt to accept one of the many deals for counting MI and FL, but the general election focus is doing her more good and already left Obama trying to play the presumptive nominee which hasn't been going well for him, but it is giving both candidates some exposure to McCain.

I watched a short but interesting interview with Donna Brazile on ABC tonight and she was asked about the PA race. (we all know she's in the tank for Obama) She was asked why she hadn't committed yet and her answer was that she and many superdelegates are waiting until the voting is complete and AlL states are finished in June before endorsing a candidate. She congratulated Clinton on the PA win and putting a few digs in on Clintons 'negative' campaign and not Obama's negative she said she was glad Clinton brought up some points that were certainly going to be part of the general election. (not sure what to make of it but she sounded like she knew Obama needed more vetting- she made no comment on how she thought he was doing - just that fair questions had been brought up).

I'm pretty sure not all SD's are talking to each other but some probably are. She had been adament about PD's but she's changed her tone a bit on that.

I think so far this evening most of the media and pundits have certainly taken the cue from Hillary about "why he can't close the deal" and the huge difference in the money Obama's been throwing and not getting any 'results' from that.  Not sure they'll press on that part too much since it is the media who profits from all the TV ads. He'll still being lulled and wooed for his money right now.

Wow, the Obama people seem very bitter and upset today and they have a lot of reasons to be. The biggest one would be that once again Obama had a chance to end the primary season and knock Hillary out and he failed.

Yep, she's leading in the popoular vote if you don't count all the caucus states, you do count Florida, where nobody campaigned, and you give her a shutout in Michigan, where the popular vote shows Obama failing to capture A SINGLE VOTE.

Good luck trying to sell that argument, especially the last part, which is ridiculous beyond belief.  I seriously can't believe that Jerome can seriously even advocate such a strategy.  It's laughable.  

of the popular vote yet ---??

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/ 2008/president/democratic_vote_count.htm l

does anyone have a sense why?

1) Clinton again excelled at the expectations game. ( If you keep moving the goalposts, you can say that)

2) Clinton won the late deciders. ( She frightened them ala King George with Bin Laden and talk of "obliterating" Iran - let's call it the "scared sheeple" vote)

3) Obama's campaign again provided the needed boost for Clinton's financial needs. ( Clinton is broke)

4) Less is more worked for Clinton. ( See 3)

4) Clinton needs to follow-through better. ( Wow, an honest point!)

5) The Clinton campaign needs to talk more about the popular vote.( If she counts a state where she ran unopposed, things look less than horrible)

6) I don't know if Guam is going Clinton, but if it does, they should celebrate it heavily ( she doesn't have a chance at the nomination, so she needs to make as much noise as she can when she does win anything)

7) Clinton doesn't need to go negative but can encourage the questions. ( She doesn't NEED to but WILL. Like bringing up Ayers as much as possible, and other non-issues that scare her lily-white base)

8) Clinton can win Indiana, having placed her top-notched Ohio crew there ( Hopefully, Indiana voters are as dim-witted as much of PA - perhaps another Bin Laden ad will do it)

9) Clinton needs a strong high-profile surrogate in North Carolina. ( Endorsements only matter when Clinton gets them)

The only way Hillary has the popular vote is if Obama gets 0 votes for MI. I guess it's okay to disenfranchise all of Obama's supporters in MI. Huh? As well as those in Iowa, NV, Maine and Washington. But never mind.

The popular vote metric is NOT used for a reason. That reason is because:

It would penalize every state that had caucuses, as well as those that were not open primaries.

It would mean that less populace states would have little to no say in who was the nominee.

It would focus all of the attention on urban voters.

The whole point of pledged delegates is to give voice to voters - not drown them out.

In other words, in order for the popular vote to be fair to use now - we would need to go back a redo the entire primary season. What?

I agree with your premise that Obama's campaign has been better at controlling the narrative after big primary days. But to call the fact that he won those small states a process story plays into the Clinton narrative that only certain states matter...

Shouldn't we all be supporters of the 50 state strategy regardless of which candidate we are supporting?

#7 - Not sure what "need" to go negative is.  Clinton has been going negative since Super Tuesday and Obama hasn't been much better. Once you're in the mud it's hard to see your way out.  I doubt either of them are going to pretty this up for NC and IN.

#10 - PA was much ado about nothing.  I'm excited that we registered so many Democrats there, but this race really didn't change much.  Clinton had a 5% shot at the nomination going into PA, and she has a 5% shot at the nomination coming out of it.  Apart from Wisconsin, there hasn't actually been a SINGLE surprise result since Super Tuesday.  The States Obama was predicted to win months in advance he won, and the same for Clinton.  

I think Senator Clinton is doing the right thing by keep on fighting, I love the optimism of supporters, but unless Senator Obama is found in bed with a dead woman or a live sheep Hillary has already lost the nomination.

Obama correctly defined the problem - "It is a delegate race, stupid" and came up with the best solution for winning delegates.

Discussions about whether or not Hillary scored a double digit lead are very interesting, but a sideshow to the key issue, how far the overall delegate split  changed (which from Hillary's point of view, was not nearly enough).

1. "Game" is a good description. How a campaign can call a 20-25 point slide in the month prior to the voting a "win" is beyond me.
2.Late deciders. "talk" and SUSA polls are worth squat, and the numbers show Obama did much better with the newer voters.

3. David survived because he knocked Goliath out with the first rock. Clinton's donors are almost tapped out, while Obama seems to be printing his own money. 2.5 million will last her til about Thursday.
   
4. This would be a good point, except she's still paying Penn, and her "frugality" is more apparent then actual.
   
5. Now it's the popular vote? MI and FL? It's the DELEGATES, friend. Pop vote is nice, if her goal is the VP slot, otherwise she's whistling past the graveyard.
   
6. Guam? Did you say Guam? Puerto Rico, sure, she's already rigged that one nicely, but Guam? How many Delegates does Guam have?
   
7. "Clinton doesn't need to go negative but can encourage the questions" Um, that's called going negative. Stay out of the Spin Room, bro, it's messing up your logic...
   
8. & 9. NC is gonna break big for Obama. IN is a toss up, tho I'm guessing Obama by 4-6.

 Long story short, we waited the last six weeks to be right back where we started. Ugh. McCain must be thanking his Higher Power every day.

Count on that. Yes, it borders Ohio but Indiana is nothing like Ohio and shares the Chicago media market.

Also, there are contested Republican races there so Operation Chaos will have little impact.

Jerome,

Very well-written.  I hope some Clinton staffers take notes.

for the record, I have always hated 'This is our country' song from all those Chevy commercials.  Actually I hated those commercials.  Even though I don't doubt my own 'American-ness' it always reminds me that there are plenty of people in this country (the demographic that typically buys Chevy pickup trucks) that see themselves as more American than me.

Obama proved his financial edge is worthless, was against Hillary won't matter against McCain either because the product all that money is selling is flawed

This was 10 things. There are two #4's. But I guess math isn't that important when you think Hillary's still got a shot.

JUST A GENTLE JOKE DON'T KILL ME