OK.  Well congrats on the 14 points loss in NC.

I hope this simple, but elegant analysis finds its way into every SD inbox and perhaps even to the desk of the courageous few in the MSM who would rather report the news than sell seats to the Coliseum (as in Roman) for the latest edition of lions vs. christians. Well done - recommended highly.

The percent of total numbers above are pretty much the same between VA and NC.  What's the point of this post?

even listen TO the facts they are facing?

Amazing.  And not good for their guy.

Must have Kool-Aid coming out of their ears!

arugment for why Obama cannot win against McCain.  I hope you don't mind but I will be using it in my letters to Super Delegates.  Thank you for doing the heavy lifting.  It is a great diary.  Recommended.

Excellent first diary and analysis, twinmom! Highly recommended!

To summarize:

Obama has lost 50% of his margin of victory for the same demographic mix in less than 3 months. Declines include:

40.3% decline in white men
26.6% decline in white women
2% decline in black men

This bodes ill for the GE.

If the Superdelegates give the nomination to Obama, not only will he lose in November but the party will be horribly damaged.

Wonderfully done.  You've said everything I've been feeling in the last 24 hours and put it into numbers for me.  But I am reminded that the skies were much darker in March, and the nomination process is long and complex.  The number is 2,209 and the deadline is August 28.  Barack Obama, if nominated, would have the smallest pledged delegate lead of any Democratic candidate in recent memory.  Worse still, his coalition represents a wing of the Democratic party which has proven at every opportunity that it can.  not.  win.

Clinton supporters, you feel glum today?  Imagine how you'll feel after we have President McCain.  We have a long road ahead and a lot to accomplish.  Now is not the time to quit.

This is very enlightening. Obama is losing steam, while Clinton is marching onward and upward. Thanks for pointing out these figures.

He got where he had been avoiding since the beginning.  He has become the candidate of a black candidate.  He doesn't have a coalition to win the general election.

Unfortunately for Clinton, her win in IN wasn't strong enought and his win in NC wasn't weak enough for her to make the argument at this point that he has lost too much of his stature to be the nominee.  For some time now, Senator Clinton has been in a sudden death playoff and she needs bigger moments than last night to keep playing for the nomination.

I'm sorry, too, but the nomination is now effectively over.

I think Clinton took a big blow last night in the arena of public perception.  The media was definitely in the tank for Obama.

But,

part of me now wonders if they're just doing it for ratings.  We all knew Obama would win NC by huge margins and it had already been factored into everybody's calculations.

Is the media going to feign shock when Clinton wins West Virginia next week?

"Oh my God, a stunning comeback by Hillary Clinton!"  

It's ridiculous.  We already know she's going to win there so it's not a big deal.  If they make a big deal out of it, I will think they're doing far more editorializing than reporting.  

If Hillary loses this nomination and Obama wins it, it will be by chance, not because Obama is a superior candidate.  Had the DNC looked ahead and was proactive instead of reactive, they would have anticipated the problems that they would or could encounter with the throwing away of Michigan and Florida.  Hillary would have gotten the momentum, delegates, and votes that she earned and deserved to get in those races, and thus the nomination.  If Wright had shown up earlier before the caucuses and before Obama's momentum began she would have won the nomination.  I have grown ashamed of my party through all of this, even though I knew before what nitwits the hacks in it are, it never hit me fully in the face before now.

The entire premise of this story is flawed, Virginia and North Carolina are very different demographically.  Obama won the white vote in Virginia largely due to the DC suburbs and exurbs, in North Carolina he did not have that advantage and more of the white voters where of the rural variety that have voted against him in other Southern states like Tennessee and Alabama.

Also, Obama had Tim Kaine in Virginia, Clinton had Mike Easley in North Carolina (despite what others say, governor endorsements DO help).

The fact of the matter is, Obama won the state by 15%.  THAT is the most significant number.

Fantastic diary.

THanks for some good figures. But why call this a 'decisive victory' for Obama? Or a victory for him at all?

See TexasDarlin's diary about yesterday's contests. Losing Indiana at all is a big defeat for Obama, as he was predicted for months to take it easily. It was also his last chance to win a big mixed industrial heartland state. HIllary had some exaggerated expectgations, that's all.

Losing NC would have been a decisive defeat for Obama, but winning NC was expected. He got it by an increase in AA support and turnout. But this is his last big AA state, and in November most of his AA states will go GOP as usual. In the white demographics where he needs support for Nov, he LOST support.

I think everyone is inhaling the smoke and mirrors....

I agree with the numbers basically but even as a person who generally wanted Hillary to win, I don't see how she can pull it off at this point. She was supposed to win Indiana by a lot and she didn't. She was supposed to be closer in NC and she couldn't do it. Despite the breakdowns, that's a tough break for her and it doesn't bode well for her campaign.

That means something is wrong with her message and I think it's her overly-tough talk on Iran.  When she made the comment about Iran, retaliation with the potential to "obliterate" them, that really did turn me totally off. That last thing we need is another war, or even tough talk like that.  Talking like that is really counter-productive and it made me question her wisdom.  The important thing to remember is that this same thing  happened to other people, the voters in those two states, and it must have turned them off too.  That kind of war-talk is really frightening to a lot of people and I think it really hurt her chances.  No one wants another war, least of all with Iran, or any more destablization in the ME. It's absolutely imperative that the next president knows that and makes NO MORE WAR a priority.

That is why I think it's time to let Hillary either go for the VP slot or bow out gracefully. I'm afraid her own words have made her too similar to John McCain's war talk for my comfort level.  I hate to say that because I wanted her to pull this off.  I've wanted a female president for a long time, but not one that will entertain the thought of more bombing and more wars.  We can all see now how that doesn't work!

the great analysis and ignore the snide remarks from SOME Obama supporters.  

I am so exremely PROUD of Senator Obama and the campaign he has run!!!  I am MORE proud of the millions of WHITE people and WOMEN who helped win the nomination!

As a Virginian in Appalachia, I can tell you Obama is still widely popular here, no less than in February.

And North Carolina is considerably more conservative than Virginia.  If you took the vote again, I'm pretty sure you would get the same numbers in Virginia.

And if not, it would only be because of the media's incessant harping on Jeremiah Wright.  But none of that means much.  The race is about delegates, and she has no chance of catching him.

I'm not sure if you mean that NC is more or less favorable to Obama because it is more Conservative?

Obama's support among self-described Conservatives also declined a meaningful amount from VA to NC. He had strikingly high support among Conservatives in VA (70%) which was reduced to 42% in NC (28pt drop).

NC
Liberal (40% of total)
Obama 62% / Clinton 36%

Moderate (38% of total voters)
Obama 55% / Clinton 41%

Conservative (22% of total voters)
Obama 42% / Clinton 51%

VA
Liberal (50% of total voters)
Obama 60% / Clinton 40%

Moderate (38 % of total voters)
Obama 64% / Clinton 35%

Conservative (12% of total voters)
Obama 70% / Clinton 27%

This is an election by the people of America who elect delegates to represent them at State and National Party Conventions.

This is not a race to "to find the strongest candidate for the GE, the candidate who can withstand a long, complex string of contests and show a solid base AND a broadening of support."

If your statement was true, then why hold elections?

If you were to pick Clinton today, what would you tell people in Virginia? Wisconsin? Minnesota? Georgia? North Carolina? Illinois? Colorado? Missouri? South Carolina?

Are black people not Democrats in your world? I will remind you that while White Democrats fled to Reagan during the 80's, Blacks have been the only loyal Democratic demographic - period.

Are College Educated voters not Democrats in your world?

Are Middle to Upper Wage Earners not Democrats in your world?

If you somehow believe that because some whites are voting for Obama NOW, that Clinton should get the nomination, then you are not counting:

- Blacks

• College/Youth
  
• College Educated
  
• Democrats Under 50 Years of Age

A few more points:

- Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos has added White voters to Clinton's total since McCain won the nomination. Did you notice how Clinton "picked up steam" since McCain locked up his nomination? In Texas alone, 200,000 Republicans voted for Clinton while only 120,000 voted for Obama. Obama lost the Primary election there by 97,000 votes. These people skewed the exit polling information

- Obama lost Indiana by 14,500 votes. Republican's gave her the win there to keep us Democrats fighting.

- Obama is up by over 700,000 votes in the popular vote count. This total does not include some of the caucuses where vote totals were not released. Some estimates put the real popular vote lead to over 1,000,000 votes. Regardless, 700,000 votes is a real lead. Obama retains the lead even when you count MI and FL which should not be the case due to party rules.

Look, I know you like HRC but you really need to keep your eye on the real price and support the party's nominee before we spend more money that could be used on the GE. In less than 2 weeks, Obama will be up by 10-15% points over McBush.

The sooner, the better.

I'm sure someone else can use different polls to show that the numbers favor Obama, or McCain for that matter.

We can only focus on the raw numbers of delegates.  

Don't put too much faith in polls.  They've been wrong so many times.

An Obama supporter could write a similar diary about Hillary's OH (10 point win), PA (9 point win) and IN (2 point win). She is going in the WRONG direction, right? If things are shifting towards her, why are her winning margins shrinking so much?

But I won't write that diary, it would be pointless. Although PA, OH, and IN are somewhat similar, as VA and NC are, there are demographic differences in each state.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I don't think Hillary should drop out. She's going to win WV even if he drops out, and maybe even KY (she'd win it for sure if she was in, not so sure if she was out), it would look bad for Obama to lose either state if she had dropped out. He'll win OR by a large margin, then there will be a flood of SD's switching to Obama, they'll make a deal, and it will be over so we can concentrate on kicking McCain's ass.

I know someone is going to post that they are very close and that neither of them has enough delegates. It's true. He's only got 9% more delegates than she does, and he's 177 delegates short. But they're getting so close to the finish line that it's obvious who is going to win.

If this were a 26.2 mile marathon, he'd have a 2 mile lead with only 2.3 miles to go. And he's running faster.

As a bonified Tarheel, you're really barking up the wrong tree by comparing NC to VA.  We've got nothing in common; culturally, politically, historically.  VA is richer.  It's also more tolerant of black governors.  Virginia was governed by Douglas Wilder at the same time that we had Jesse Helms in the Senate.

It might have something to do with the fact that the Clinton campaign was absolutely not prepared for a campaign after Super Tuesday and was virtually absent in the states following the supposed wrap up off the campaign.
The HRC campaign weighed it's chances and virtually gave up on everything between Super Tuesday and Ohio as opposed to the Obama campaign that had been working in all these states, including Virginia.

Then the Clinton campaign went all out in NC, poring in millions of her own, with WJC focusing allmost exlusively on white rural North Carolina.

So yeah it would be absoluttely amazing if that would not have had an impact.

Did you ever pause to think that this Clinton's improved performance is due to her improved campaigning in NC.  She expected the race to be over on Super Tuesday, and as a result, she had no organization in the rest of the Feb. primaries.

That, more than any failure on Obama's part, is the cause of these shifts you're talking about.  Had she been prepared to run an actual campaign in VA, she would have done much better than she did.  

It is symbolic of Clinton's lack of foresight, just like her vote to authorize the war in Iraq.