How is her ground game down there?

Obama will take TX by at least 8%. OH will be close, could go either way but likely within 4%. Clinton will definitely win RI, which may be her only post Super Tuesday win.

So after Little Tuesday, the math indicates she'll need 25% margins in the remaining states, and she will be facing WY and MS losses before PA.

It just won't happen. She'll be out by March 7 as the only way she can get back in the race is a favorable settlement of the FL/MI question and Dean and Obama hold too many cards to grant that with the current delegate counts of those two states.

I think one of the main rationales for her electability meme is damaged, that she wins the big states. Also, there will be the fact that the donors, already skittish, will likely dry up. So I think she should drop out if she loses Texas. Will she? Probably no better than 50/50.

she has to.
 how can she justify her campaign? she won't be able to win pledged delegates, and she can't claim that she won all the big states.
    And really, at that point with likely blowouts in Mississippi and north carolina, i can easily imagining him getting enough delegates that michigan and florida don't matter.

she would look divisive and undignified to continue

I would think so.  Bill Clinton has already gone on the record about Texas.  Moreover, as noted her funding will dry up and party leaders will begin to call for an end to the campaign.  She may also lose a number of the subsequent primaries by large margins, adding insult to injury.  I think she would want to keep fighting, but she would see the writing on the wall.

In practical terms, but almost as important is the media narrative, which will probably largely depend on the popular vote of the primary, and if the other candidate wins the caucus, it will be split somewhat.  That's important for momentum and fundraising if nothing else.

Frankly, I think it's a moot point.  I'd give some pretty good odds now on Obama taking both halves in Texas.

Ask the Clintons.  They said that Hillary had to win there.

obviously that has been a high # get the weaker candidate and then go after him in the GE

the poll does have all of this broken down: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollRepo rt.aspx?g=c6190368-049d-43a8-b5e7-d28f3a 3eba96

47% white 21% black 28% latino 4% other.

only a miracle gets her within 8 points in Texas at this point of the game.

open primaries have been unkind to Hillary. She needs a miracle turnout in the more sparsely inhabited parts of the state. With her going negative and the momentum continually moving away from her as Obama blankets those markets with ad buys, it's hard to see things working out for Hillary.

They're significant because they are the second largest state population wise.  They're significant for their sizable Hispanic population, a key demographic.

And let's be honest, they're significant because they're next up.

Nice. Keep insulting and trying to marginalize Texas voters.  That's a really, really good way to win them over to Clinton.

impossible to know.

among self described "liberals", Obama wins 50% 44%. they're tied among moderates. Obama wins Republicans 56-31%. cross-overs are 9% of the sample.

most interesting cross-tab is voters who cared most about the health care syste. Hillary won them only 48-42%. Her framing isn't working.

on immigration, Obama wins handidly as does Hillary when it comes to terrorism.

Sorry, Taylor Marsh is the equivalent of LGF or Freerepublic (strangely its actually worse than RedState), I'd need to see a more credible source.

Note though that the sample size on "already voted" is pretty small, under 200.  It would have a MoE of like 7-8%

We saw a similar situation come out of California. Clinton was up 20+ some points from early voting. She won by 9.2 points.

also note that the margin of air for those who've voted is fairly high.

the "glory" seems to be going down in flames.

Large MOE, and Rasmussen reports the opposite.  Unfortunately, the details are buried behind a pay wall.

True, that is a bizarre statistic.

The last time she tried the "unfocused kitchen sink strategy" was the week of Kindergate.  How did that work out for her campaign?  Yeah...

My question is if you don't have a single coherent message at this point of the campaign, what the hell are you doing staying in the game?

I don't think he can bring himself to do it.

Ha ha ha.  That's pretty good.

LMAO!  Definitely the belly laugh of the day.

Do they have Firewalls at the Pepsi Center?

Because it was a mile wide and an inch deep.  Based on name recognition, fond memories of the 90s and not much else.  As Hispanics get to know Obama they like him.

I lived in Peru for a year, speak Spanish, and have several Mexicanos working for my business (all legalized US citizens).  They all speak decent English, but when they go home they mostly watch Spanish language TV.  This has tended to cut them off from info about Obama.  When they started listening to him they really responded to his message.  I think there is some racial tension, but I also think that Latinos think it would be cool to have a POTUS of color.  They understand that he has had to deal with racism the same way they do.

as a latino, I prefer Obama's framing on immigration. I think Texan latinos were won over in the debate (something I had predicted would happen).

Talk might be cheep to you Hillary supporters but every time he talks about Latinos, it's level headed. His belief in issuing drivers licenses to immigrants resonates well throughout the community. It's a highly unpopular position to take but it's the right one.

The statement "another sample of the same population would be just as likely to show a difference in the opposite direction" is not exactly a correct statement.  The MOE is based on a mathematical "significance" or credibility.  I don't know what the exact significance of this poll is, but a lot of times, it is set at like 90% or 95%.  That implies that you cannot say there is less than a 10% or 5% chance that another poll would show Clinton ahead, not a 50% chance as your statement "just as likely" implies.

It could show that or it could show a double digit lead for Obama.  Margin of error goes both ways.

Margin of Error does not mean "an equal chance it it +4 or -4." Think of it in terms of possibility vs. probability. It's possible that a poll with Obama up 4, with a margin of error of 4 could mean Hilly candidate is, instead up four. But highly improbable.

Say the poll interviews 1,000 people. What the MoE says is that if you ran the EXACT same poll at the EXACT same time, based upon the sample size, you could wind up with a variation of the results within that margin of error. But the odds grow astronomically the farther out you go.

The whole reason for an MoE is that, for a MoE-free poll, you'd need to interview a massive number of people depending on the population size you were trying to represent. It's unlikely a 100,000 person poll in Texas could even be completed over a useful time period, short of waiting for the election itself.

Margin of Error is often cited as a reason why the census can't be calculated with samples, or is used to discredit unpopular polling data. In some cases, it's justified. But when you get into these small numbered MoEs (assuming you agree on the polling breakdown in the first place), you're making a mistake to think that being within the MoE equals being a tie.

That's why a one or two point diff is considered a statistical dead heat, because the possibility and the probability is concievable, especially given how polls calculate likely votes.

But once you get into 3 and 4 point land, I think the acceptable newspeak is "a lead, but still within the MoE."

This is not how margin of error works.

The Latino population is not monolithic. It includes  many ethnic groups with African, Native American, European and mixes of the three being the biggest but not only groups. The richest guy in Mexico is the son of Lebanese immigrants, the two opposing contenders for the Salvadorian presidency were from Palistinian families originally from Bethlehem. The biggest Japanese populations outside of Japan are in Brazil and Peru (Peru had Fujimori as President). Cultures on the Atlantic and Carribean tend to be Afro-European, on the Pacific Indian-European and in the far South of Latin America more European. Macho Latin America right now has 2 women Presidents.

Even among Mexican-Americans there are big differences. There are Mexican-Americans in the South West who were there from before the time of American independence and recent Mexican immigrants come from a large country that is very  culturally diverse.

It's a complex and diverse population that doesn't respond well to being stereotyped.

Colleges fill peoples heads full of evil liberal ideas.

Anyone notice how most of Team Hill's voter discounting could be ripped verabatim from a right wing talk show?

They are more afraid of change.  They prefer to stay with the familiar.  Not just in elections, in general.

It depends on the size of the win in Texas.  Rhode Island and Vermont will be more or less a wash, give or take a delegate or two.  A 5-point Ohio win is a net of around 15 delegates.  Any sort of Obama win in the Texas primary would translate to a caucus win and likely more delegates than Clinton wins in Ohio.

As I noted above, her campaign's already started trying to spin a loss into Texas into a narrative that we need to wait for Pennsylvania, etc. in case she wants to continue (and we've even had a poster here echo that) but the math becomes virtually impossible at that point.  If Clinton makes up no ground next Tuesday, she'd have to have a blowout win in Pennsylvania AND have Florida and Michigan count AND pull some of the states that look like they'll easily go Obama for the rest of the contest to even pull even in pledged delegates.

I don't think that's realistic, not to mention that any campaign loud enough to pull in MI/FL would likely push uncommitted Supers away.

Bottom line: if she doesn't chip away at Obama's delegate lead on March 4 by some tangible amount, she has no realistic chance of winning, barring a deus ex machina.

This worries me ( I fear they could frame Obama in the Kerry mold as an elitist) but I'm hoping the community activist part works here (I worry it might be discoutned do to the fact it was almost entirely in African American area's-- if they could find one of those Chicago Polish/SNL "Da Bears" type guys Obama helped, he'd lock the Blue Collar down), and oddly enough the race thing-- simply put most people don't see an African AMerican as a stiff patrician.

sry i posted it 2 times.  "subject too long" was still appearing

This should help Obama in Ohio, though I fear that it could be like in Texas and give him a sampling bias lead (more educated voters tend to be the Debate audience and they are also 20%+ Obama supporters anyway).

Obama wins self-identified "liberals", too.

making a simplistic assumption on that data is fairly irresponsible of you me thinks.

"conservatism" does not really exist to a great extent in either one of these campaigns. What's interesting is how Obama's language does in fact transcend party lines. We've all known for years that people vote against their interests.If Obama can speak to people in a way that changes their perception, all the better. if not, he'll lose the GE.

Making it sound like Obama is a conservative is a false out lie. He is one of the more "liberal" members of congress. He is far from perfect but so is everyone else.

Um, I think it could be due to African American Voters (tend to be more socially conservative) and Hispanic VOters (ditto) shifting Obama (in the case of Afican American voters it was of 75% or so earlier as opposed to the 85-90% it is likely now).

"If the trend continues . . . Watch the super delegates move in mass declaring for Obama in order force an end to the contest and get ready for the general. "

I call this the "Superdelegates Are Politicians NOT Kamikazes" argument

i was thinking the same thing ~ she was also in NOLA the other day, too.

writing off the states, maybe, or perhaps fundraising??  I thought i read someone that btwn the Potomac primaries and 3/4, either she or Bill were doing fundraisers every day.

who knows?  I know it doesn't look to be giving a speech in DC attacking your winning opponent ~ gives it that air of "politics as usual" imo

See my post to the Immigrant one you post. Your point is taken, Obama is not an Immigrant. That one of the great things about America. He isn't an immigrant he is an American thank you very damn much. The europeans and far too many other nations discriminate against people who do not have long histories, read ethnic-centrism and fear.

The rioting in France is due to long long anger from being outside the society. Ordinary equale treatment laws are substandard and lacking all over Europe.

But that is part of what he is saying. In Europe immigrant is a code word for invoking racism. Just as illegal immigrant is in America.

(I am not saying that immigration doesn't need to be managed and made legal, a path to legality must be enacted.)

Honestly its not just Europe, I can't think of a first world nation (or hell a non-first world nation) where a formerly oppressed Ethnic Minority has risen to power via free and fair elections (hence, no Declerk, Saddam, etc.)-- the closest I can think of is Fujimori in Peru (and admittedly that's thanks to the person who mentioned him upthread). I don't wnat to oversate it but I think that electing Obama would radically change the image of the United States in the eyes of the entire world-- racism (highly exaggerated) is one of the main clubs that oppressive regimes use to discredit the US in the eyes of their citizens, and its going to be pretty fricking hard to make the claim that America is this Klu Klux Klan state when Obama's up their delivering the state of the Union. Finally, and I don't mean to be the "ugly American" but its going to be nice to shove this in the faces of the more smug foreigners who really do "blame America first" its a symbolic act but in so many ways (on a personal level-- constitutionally, having a Con Law prof. banning torture, and restoring habeas will restore a lot of the pride I'd lost in my country) it represents the fufillment of the American Dream.

I don't know if they're harder to move in general, it may just be a function of Obama's narrative.  Anti-machine Democratic challengers always draw their appeal at first primarily from the upper-middle class and the highly educated, look at Dean '04 as a recent example, but this goes way back.  If it's enough to make the media pay attention, then it starts to go through the moderately well-informed.  Low information voters and the working class (not concurrent, but there is a corrolary relationship) are the last to embrace this kind of candidate.

Low information voters frequently favor the candidate with the high name ID. They certainly are not going to take the time to research candidate positions on the internet. They also are not likely to watch debates either.

In Hill's defense, she may have won the debate on points, but when you frame your opponent as an empty suit and he basically stands (so to speak, out of curiousity are all future 2 canidate debates sitting or what, I kind of want a standing debate with Mccain, he's short and they're confrotational so he might lose his cool) toe-to-toe with you then well your frame is pretty much shown to be a lie.

First off, this IS happening to a certain extent, but it is NOT significant in the overall picture of the Dem primary.  Second, the part that is questionable is when Clintonistas extrapolate this to mean they think she is a more difficult candidate to beat in November.  Is it really that, or is it that they just hate Hillary Clinton so much that they are willing to vote to stop her bid whenever they can, primary or general?  I think there is a lot more evidence of the latter than some crazy conspiracy.  Just check her negatives among Republicans, they're sky high.  It's no wonder they're voting against her when they have a chance.

Will if Dot Berkner's doing it, then BOY HOWDY, they all must be doing it.  

when will people learn that anecdotes just ain't evidence ~

I think that WV is prime territory for Clinton if it makes it that far (which is unlikely at this point).  There are few "latte liberals" or blacks and lots of lower income working class Dems, so the demographics should favor her.  Regardless, Obama is typically able shut down about 15 point just by starting to campaign in a state (and getting over the "familiarity deficit" that he starts with in every state).  With that many undecideds, if it goes that far, he will at least make a race of it.

I've noticed all along that Hillary has run strongest in Appalachia. She dominated here in East Tennessee and she dominated in southwest Virginia. And I mean DOMINATED. There are several counties this way where Hillary won with 80-90% of the vote. She didn't pull in numbers like anywhere in California, New York or Massachusetts. These are not highly populated counties but the margins there are as strong for her as African Americans have been for Obama. So I expected her to be ahead by about 40 points in West Virginia. That she's up only 21 points two months before the race here means that even folks here in Appalachia are starting to reconcile themselves to an Obama candidacy.

Frankly, I hope Barack Obama spends some time campaigning in Appalachia to help turn WV blue again, help out in VA and TN and even put KY in play. When he shows up, residual racist sentiment (which is very real here) starts to dissipate and Obama comes across more as an exotic JFK than a dangerous black man. Adding Jim Webb to the ticket would help enormously among these voters too. - A

WV and KY are her best remaining states (even better than OH and RI), low AA pop. but high southern whites (much like OK and TN), Obama's best non-caucus, non-small (both of which probably favor him due to organization) states are NC and MS.

  Some Pols can do this, some can't its the same reason that Bill Clinton (as absoultely witchhunted as he was) and Reagan (Iran-Contra, should have led to impeachment, and I would argue would have if say Dubya or his Dad were the president) were able to retain high approval (job for Clinton, personal for Reagan) ratings.

On the opposite end, Kerry (who biographically was far stronger than either Reagan or Clinton, much less Dubya), Gore were unable to achieve this because they lacked the necessary charisma/speaking skills.

The mistake people make is analyzing Dubya who won essentially by being the lesser of evils to swings one time (2004), as opposed to the choice like Clinton and Reagan were in their respective elections. Dubya also shows the drawbacks of a teflon/charisma canidate-- he only had base appeal in 2004, and thus was forced to win through a mixture of cheating (Ohio), hate (the SBVTs), and maximizing the base due to hate (Gay marriage amendments). The results for Dubs have been decidedly mixed: while he won the election he has faded more than any 2 term pres in memory (Clinton may have been impeached, but he gained seats in 1998, and was never this unpopular), seriously in my lifetime (I'm 25) I can't remember figure as universally loathed as Dubya (not counting the VP), hell historically, Nixon was only this low in the month before impeachment, and Carter never fell like this (Truman is the only one in polling this low and that was temporary).

There was a fight like that between a Mccain supporter and a Huckanaut, but it didn't make the news becuse the Mccain guy just stood there kicking his nemisis while the Huckanaut prayed to god for help :)

Actually this far out she led by like 10, but hey hold on to the delusion that NH was a miracle, rather than an anomaly if you like.