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Pollster.com added a few more states and as usual included a few polls I didn’t have yet. The only resulting change was Wisconsin, which moved from leaning Obama, to weak Obama. So we’re now down to only 14 states and 164 electoral votes in that annoying “could easily go either way” category. OK, that is still a lot.
A new poll results in moving Nevada from “Weak Obama” to “Leans Obama” as Obama’s lead there drops to less than 5%. So at this point, assuming any of the “Leans” states could really go either way we could easily see any result between: Obama best case: Obama 375 vs McCain 163 (Best case meaning that candidate wins ALL of the “leaning” states… and also wins DC where there are no polls yet… so the best cases are clearly unlikely cases, but they provide outer bounds.) That is a huge range with all these less than 5% lead states in play. There are 15 states and 174 electoral votes in that category at the moment. That is a LOT. I imagine that as we get closer to November some of those states will move solidly into one camp or the other. But there is certainly the possibility that we will get to November with a huge number of electoral votes in states that are essentially too close to call until the votes are actually counted. And wouldn’t that be fun. Sam and Ivan talk about:
Good article, worth reading the whole thing: The Obama Doctrine
Pollster.com added some new states with full tracking graphs and such. Only one of these resulted in any category changes for me. Minnesota, including several new polls I didn’t have… jumped from Leaning McCain to Weak Obama. The “easily possible results” range (assuming that any state where the leader leads by less than 5% could really go either way) narrows somewhat with this change. We now have everywhere from McCain winning by 66 to Obama winning by 106 being very possible. At the moment, if every state that is even leaning to one side or another actually went that way, McCain would win by 14 electoral votes.
For the first time in a bit, Hillary picks up some superdelegates. In today’s update on CNN’s delegate tracker, Clinton picks up six superdelegates, while Obama picks up one. Basic stats at the moment: There are 922 delegates yet to be allocated (including both pledged and super). Obama needs 402 of them to win (that’s 43.6%). Clinton needs 539 of them to win (that’s 58.5%). I’ve talked a bunch about the math over the past few weeks. How basically given the numbers this is impossible for Clinton absent a complete implosion of the Obama campaign. There have been a number of articles on this elsewhere too of course. The latest in this genre, which got a lot of attention in the blogosphere yesterday, is this one: Story behind the story: The Clinton myth
And it goes on from there. It is very worth reading the whole thing. Right now I’m watching some C-Span coverage of a rally from last Thursday. Michelle Obama talking to a large crowd somewhere in Pennsylvania. It is probably the first time I’ve watched her in a really extended setting… a full length speech rather than just a few minutes here or there, usually when introducing her husband. I just have to say, she is pretty damn impressive in her own right. So when does she start her run for Senate? If Barack becomes President, I understand there will be a vacancy in Illinois. :-)
Obama converts 2 more Edwards delegates from Iowa and picks up one more superdelegate from Wisconsin. Obama’s lead slowly but surely grows during this time between primaries. A number of people have noted that there have been *NO* new superdelegates added to the Clinton column since Super Tuesday, while Obama has added a bunch. Has she just been telling all of her supporters not to announce so she can have a big announcement one day with a whole bunch of super delegates? Or is she actually not convincing any more of them? Dunno. Anyway… if Obama keeps getting delegates here and there in the time before Pennsylvania, it will raise the possibility that even when Clinton wins Pennsylvania, will she actually end up in a better position than she was right after Ohio and Texas? Or will Obama have gained enough ground by then that she closes the gap, but only to mid-March levels? It depends how many more superdelegates Obama is able to round up in the meantime, and if Clinton starts grabbing some of her own too. Just watched it over lunch. It was detailed. It was thoughtful. It was nuanced. He explained himself without apologizing. He condemned Wright’s controversial statements while expressing respect for the man in other contexts. He explained how things were more complex than the caricatures you get through quick sound bites and video clips. He talked about the origins of the sort of feelings that Wright expressed and how they fit into a larger context which he understands, but does not agree with. Etc. Bottom line, it will only convince the people who are already convinced. For example, it all made sense to me. But people will still have the impressions of Obama that they had yesterday. This will likely change very few people’s minds. Perhaps there will be a few people who took the time to watch the whole thing who were concerned before who will be swayed by this. But it will be a small number. Once this is digested into clips and soundbites that will be repeated, people will only pay attention to the bits that reinforce what they thought anyway. And there is plenty here for both sides. Only if you watch all (or most) of it do you get the balance Obama is trying to achieve. And that is complicated, so it won’t play well. The one thing Obama could hope is that this satisfies the PRESS. That they will think that after this there is no more to say about the issue, and so therefore they will move on, and ignore those who try to keep the issue alive by saying “this was already addressed”. If so, then Obama will leave this damaged, but not still bleeding. But it will not undo the (I think unjustified) damage of the last week. Anyway, here is the YouTube of the speech for those who want to watch it. (Link originally via Irish Trojan.) |
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