This follows Obama's trend. His entire campaign has been "slow and steady wins the race" and the calendar has helped him in that respect. Once again he appears to be slowly but surely eating away Clinton's lead, as he has done in so many states so far in this race. Time is on his side - which makes me skeptical of a Pennsylvania strategy for Clinton.

Wishful thinking (of Clinton supporters) aside, the handwriting was on the wall when Obama won big in WI.  The momentum was undeniable.

RI is the firewall!

Hillary to go strongly negative in tonight's debate.  And watch for Obama to eviscerate her for doing so.

...HRC is in trouble, deep.  She NEEDS...absolutely NEEDS blowout victories; LANDSLIDES.

The part elders are starting to fall into line (Dodd's endoresement was meant to send a message I am positive), Obama's lead in the primary delegates is insurmountable without 25-30 point blowouts in all of the remianing contests.

That 30 point need becomes 40 points for the remainder of the states If HRC splits delegagtes in TX/OH.  

The super-d's are starting to join Obama too.

The voting can't come soon enought for HRC...the longer it goes on the more support her opponent drums up.

Not being snarky here... just statements of fact.

The momentum is going the other way though.  The idea that it's going to suddenly stop, reverse, and do so in a large enough way (and in a short enough time) to actually make any of the math work for a win... just isn't really plausible.  

I wonder if Obama will show up in Rhode Island to try and sweep March 4?

The Clinton Campaign statement from the very near future:

"We are not worried about Ohio, we are confident that Ohio doesn't matter, as its a wishy washy state  that isn't worth our effort anyways"

Mr. Penn is collecting your donated dollars by the millions.

Where does the buck stop in the Clinton Campaign?

..that if she loses Texas big enough she will drop out within a week of March 4th, no matter what happens in Ohio. any kind of Clinton loss in texas will basically make her chances mathematically slim to none, but a substantial loss in Texas will bring unbelievable pressure from the party to drop out. On a separate note I also hope she doesn't go nuclear in the debate tonight. It hasn't helped her thus far and I don't see why it will start working now.

"So while it looks like Clinton may still be up 9 or 10 points in Ohio . . . " ~ so while it looks like what?!?  up by 9 or 10??  i mean really, at least say she could be up by 9 or they could be tied ~

The Penn Mccain connection scares, me as an Obama supporter and I think it should terrify HRC fans, I mean why wouldn't he use Hillary as a bludgeon to help Mccain win the election, its not like he cares if it destroys her post-primary career.

Far too early post-mortems aside, I think it IS actually a testament to Hillary Clinton the candidate that this race still isn't over.  I tend to agree that we've reached the beginning stages of the end, and I likewise agree that the 'end of the beginning' happened the evening of 2/5.

I'm not even here to toss kudos to a soon-to-be vanquished primary opponent....

But the fact that Hillary Clinton is still in the fight - needing to land a knockout in this round, but still in the fight nonetheless - is a testament to Hillary Clinton.

That's not to say she didn't have a lot of advantages coming in - that slowly diminishing superDelegate lead didn't happen by accident.  The primary schedule very much favored her.  She's raised a heck of a lot of money.

Barack Obama had plenty of his own obstacles to overcome, but so too has Hillary Clinton (some, like her awful staff, self-inflicted).

Still - both these candidates have had their moments where lesser candidates would have imploded.

Neither has.

To me - that's what makes Obama's standings all the more impressive.  Hillary Clinton's campaign may have sucked - but she herself most certainly did not "lose" this race.

Barack Obama is winning it.

Bill announced that Texas was it. Ohio can see that Texas is lost, or will in a few days, see that Texas is lost and it's over.

On HRC going strongly negative in the debate tonight from a poooster abve -- will it hurt Obama in the general, or will the negative attacks create sympathy?

If she uses points that might hurt Obama in the general doesn't that defeat Clinton's legacy and trash her standing in the party?

HRC is not crazy like some pretend supporters here, pffft, she is a great Democrat. This will be hard fought battle of position, drawing blood doesnt win in this debate, it hurts the attacker.

Voters who HRC needs are the "we like him, can he really do this?" crowd. Attacking him will only draw cries of unfair and loose those people.

HRC's strongest message " You know I can do this, I've got grit and the heart we need, the fate of our nation is in your hands."

Strongest message, best for the party too. This is the kind of speech/debate that will help make her Senate Majority Leader too. If she is perceived as hurting the party, fellow Dem. senators will be pissed.

I have never read Daily Kos.  The signal:noise ratio on that site has always been way too low for my liking.

This is the AFC Title Game. Most recent years, that game has been the best of the season. And then the Patriots, Colts or Steelers would be sent out to face the Waukesha Seagulls or some similarly weak NFC team, and we'd all watch for the commercials.

I really believe -- and am pretty sure it's not too colored by hope -- that McCain is a Wakesha Seagull.

P.S. I'm an Eagles fan. Sigh.

We like MyDD precisely FOR the attacks. It makes us battle-tested and ready for the General Election.

Funny I thought that the name of this website was MYDD not MYHILL!

I've thought that Clinton wins Ohio by 5 points for about a week now. I do think you're right that a 5 point poll lead in Ohio translates to a 8 or 9 point win for Clinton. This is the one state that I think the pollsters will oversample obama's support more then they should. why? because independents aren't around to really skew results.

but in the end, I do see the polls showing a tie and clinton winning between 3-6 points.

That you don't know these blog's histories?

Yeah, the hell with her future.

Looks like John Lewis will be announcing he officially endorses Barack Obama, possibly as early as today...

well, different strokes for different folks.

I will say that DailyKos has been stronger in terms of keeping progressives up to date on FISA, GOP scandal and down ticket races. I understand if this is your sanctuary however.

Well here's the thing.

MyDD was never about an individual candidate... it was never supposed to be.  Neither was DailyKos, for that matter.

MyDD was always a place for progressives and Democratics to talk inside baseball politics, to talk campaign strategy, to talk policy, to talk about the dynamics of a race.

I love DailyKos - it's sort of the mothership - but MyDD was always the "thinking partisan's site", by my measure.

It's less crowded, there are a lot of really, really smart folks here.  Veterans of campaigns.  Veterans of think thanks.

I don't want to break ANYONE's spirt.  That doesn't mean there aren't jackass Obama supporters who don't lend much to the argument.  That doesn't even mean solid posters don't sometimes cross the line.... I don't necessarily count myself as a "solid poster" - but I do know I have also crossed the line on occasion.

Baseball and politics are my two passions.  Just because I'm a Cubs fan and an Obama supporter doesn't mean I cannot still talk intelligently about baseball or politics generally.

DK DOES sometimes develop a herd mentality.  I dislike that - and when it does - I generally drift over here.

So far as I'm concerned, if your SOLE point to play candidate partisan games -- there are plenty of other places to do so.

I think it's unfortunate when ANY nominal "Democratic" or "progressive" site becomes a candidate hub.

There has been a lot of poll analysis and number-crunching on these here Internets, but I'm thinking about another way to look at the situation.  Seems to me that it's very difficult to conceive of a scenario where Hillary wins the nomination with a sense of legitimacy.  You have to resort to really creative math to cook up a recipe that gives her a solid lead in pledged delegates going into the convention.  Thus, it seems to me that the only way she could pull this out is by sweet-talking a bunch of superdelegates into casting their vote for her at the convention.  And if that happens, there is gonna be big trouble in the Party.  I don't think any of us wants our nominee to go up against the Republicans in November if our candidate doesn't enjoy the support of a unified party.  I just don't see how Hillary acheives that from where we stand at the moment.  

Poll that shows Hillary 51 and Obama 40?