Did he project Rev . Wright .

The speech he made today will help a little at the margins at best.

What I have heard all day was how he threw his white grandmother under the bus.

That was unnecessary.

Good numbers for Clinton, but I need to saying something:

The Pennsylvania primary is April 22, 2008.

Attacking on Clinton's tax returns isn't silly if he makes it part of a larger point on transparency. And he should hit the lobbyist angle hard. In fact, these are probably his best lines of attack if he wants to refrain from getting his hands too dirty.

Obama certainly can't attack Hillary on lobbyists since he's just as guilty.
However, on the campaign trail he implies he's never taken donations from Washington lobbyists!

Edwards always gave him a big break on that - and never mentioned Obama only switched in 2007.

Another flip flop that began in 2007 - like his positions on the war and his minister.

Wasn't she up by 20 recently? How is this a Hillary surge?

Maybe people will watch his Philadelphia speech today.  Maybe they'll see for themselves that the pygmy politics of play-acting can be swapped for an adult discussion.

Maybe.

Probably not, but maybe.

I know, I know, Reverend Wright, Reverend Wright, Reverend Wright.  Bad man, terrible man, horrible man.

Geraldine Ferraro, good woman, misunderstood woman, fine lady.

Hillary good.  Barack bad.  Over and over and over.

But maybe enough people are simply tired of the charade.

One can hope.

Today's speech will make a difference.

He will still lose PA but probably by no more than 8-10% and will more than make up the lost delegates in North Carolina and Indiana.

The key challenge is not PA but getting out of the Florida-Michigan debacle with only a small loss.

If the DNC is stupid enough to award those states to Hillary as per the original vote, the Dems will go down in flames in November as millions of Obama youth and African Americans desert the party.

MP

There is still a month.  The focus is going to change.  Today's speech should help.  He only needs to get within 10 or so  points in PA and has a month to recoup some of what he lost in this last lousy news cycle.  I think this is the nadir of his campaign and that drop is to be expected.  

"His white grandmother under the bus."  Define throwing under a bus please?

"I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."  How is expressing a difficult truth in a loving way throwing under a bus?  

"Black anger" and "white resentments," he said, have "distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze: a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed."

Anyone ever read about Penny Pritzker, Obama's Senate and Prez finance chair?

   Superior Bank, half-owned by the wealthy Pritzker family, was shut down by the FDIC Friday after a bailout plan by the Pritzkers, who own the Hyatt Hotel chain, and their partner, New York real estate developer Alvin Dworman, fell through. The bank failed because it had lost nearly all of its more than $2 billion of assets on bad loans to high-risk borrowers, federal regulators said.

   The FDIC reopened the bank Monday as Superior Federal and is seeking a buyer and a new CEO.

   Superior's failure could cost the FDIC $500 million or more--some observers now are pegging the loss at closer to $1 billion, one of the largest bank failures ever.

On September 11, 2001, Ellen Seidman, Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, told the Senate Banking Committee:

   Superior, which had assets of $1.8 billion as of June 30, 2001, became critically undercapitalized largely due to incorrect accounting treatment and aggressive assumptions for valuing complicated financial instruments known as residuals. "The risk from a concentration in residuals at Superior was exacerbated by a faulty accounting opinion by the institution's external auditors that caused capital to be significantly overstated, and by management and board recalcitrance in acting on regulatory recommendations, directives and orders."

http://obamasdeckofcards.blogspot.com/20 08/02/obamas-subprime-problem.html

Personally I think his performance in Pennsylvania is all but irrelevant for the nomination. He saved his political hide from the Wright controversy today and that was really Hillary's only hope.

She can continue to make things messy and continue to hurt his general election chances, but he's got it sealed up now.

The real question is how much of a delegate net will she grab with a 12 point win? How are they distributed? If BO gets 90% vote in AA communities in Philly and in Pitt, how will that translate to delegates? What does it mean if she cleans up in Scranton and Harrisburg?

I think we all realize she is going to "win" Pennsylvania, but can she grab enough delegates to even make it appear like she is competitive in the elected delegate race. The momentum that HC got out of big wins in Texas and Ohio ended when it became clear that BO gained just as many delegates in Ms. and Wy.

This is the problem with the MSM treating these primaries as electoral college triumphs and not as a series of small micro-contests. She needs delegates. Momentum is not quantifiable. Otherwise, he says the morning after Pennsylvania, "Scoreboard!!"

First, the PPP states:

The survey's margin of errors is +/- 4.0%

Second, the selection appears to be intentionally dishonest.
The Q poll says

#  White voters go with Clinton 61 - 33 percent, compared to 56 - 37 percent February 27.
# Black voters back Obama 76 - 18 percent, compared to 69 - 23 percent February 27.

Clinton even appears to be making in roads among black voters in the state. She trails just 63-27 with that group, which Obama has tended to get over 80% of the vote from in key primary states so far. She has a 40 point lead, 63-23, with white voters.

Spreadsheet? Come on she is going to blow him away in Pennsylvania and have bragging rights to having one all but one large blue state, that being Illinois. You "0" supporters are hilarious

While I love to see a 26-point lead in PA, I'm thinking that's not sustainable.   Assuming the black vote returns to him by 90-10 margins, that reduces the lead to 16 points.

I'm not sold that the speech helped Obama, although I don't think it hurt him either.  The politics of race, the issue of race, is something where I don't think a speech is going to significantly impact perceptions and realities when it comes to individuals.  I may be proven wrong about this, but there's been a legacy of discourse on the issue that would seem to suggest that.  To deny race as a factor in anything is to deny, in many respects, reality.

This was a very necessary speech for Barack.  He had to make that speech.  He had to talk about it.  I don't think this puts anything to bed just yet.  That said, there's another reality out there.  Simply put, the onus on PA has always been on HRC.  They have to win this, and win big, whereas Obama just has to avoid losing badly.  

I think it'll be crucial to watch the news cycle in the next few days.  How does HRC take back the media attention.

You and I both know that Obama is going to lose PA but that is besides the point. The dem primary is over. Hillary has lost. There is no conceivable way that she can win. Especially now that re-votes in MI and FL are kaput. This thing is over. The Pastor video and subsequent uproar was a test for the super delegates to see how he was going to survive the Limbaugh/O'Reilly/Gingrich assault come summer and fall. He passed.  This is over. Obama has won more delegates (100- 150 and counting). Obama has more votes (almost a million). Obama has won more states (2 to 1) Hillary cannot catch up. Its statistically impossible. PA is irrelevant. The supers will weigh in shortly and we can all move on.

He's already locked up the election.  Even if he gets blown out in PA, he's still going to be the nominee.

dictate that he will be the nominee?  I've never understood why Obama and his supporters don't just lie low and coast to victory.  Going negative now can only hurt his ability to get Republican and swing voters in November.

lol  Good one.  Judgement...with this and Rezko just under way.  Mmmm, yeah.

He will make up for a loss there  in Indiana and NC.
He just gained 10 extra delegates in IA on top of what he was projected to win on election day. That wipes out Clinton's big win in Ohio. And he won TX, when delegates are counted. He will also win more superdelegates because they are politicians too and see that is the best way to improve their own reelection chances.

Clinton will win PA. She will have more party flaks voting for her. That is not enough to make up for her losses in February. She can hang on hoping for a miracle, like Huckabee did. It will work just as well for her.

A couple of things what "bounce" 12 points is pretty much what it was earlier if not a slight improvement, the 26 point edge has not only a massive amount of undecideds but as someone pointed out earlier highly flawed internals.

steve- if what you're saying is the case (and its highly debatable) how are "H" supporters planning on spinning her blowout losses in virtually every swing state: VA, MN, WI, WA (for her at least), CO, and IA (add her probable blowout losses in NC and OR one flippable for O the other solid blue for him and MCcain for her) outside of the tossup states (NM and MO) and the screwy, "up in the air" states, she's won two states that could be considered tight (OH and AR) and only one of those (AR) is a state that Obama doesn't have a very good chance in. Even including FL (MI is not countable, all data suggest it would be a draw right now and Obama was not an option for voters), she has the edge in what 3 current swing states (FL,OH,AR) add PA and that's 4, in what way would that be the sort of definitve case that supers would need to overturn Obama's delegate edge.

Heh - the PPP poll under-weights women.  Only 55% of the poll.  In Ohio, it was 59%.

If you reweight the poll, it's 61-27 - a 34 point lead for Hillary.

Whats puzzling about Obama supporters is they really equate the nomination with the presidency. It doesn't work that way in America and Barry may think he will "get her voters" but he is in for a rude awakening. Hillary has gotten plenty of votes too you know! I guess we aren't part of the Democratic Party. What chances would the Dems have in November without blue collar whites, white women, seniors, Jews and Latinos? McCain will put all those voters in play against Obama. Obama has people under 30, blacks and latte liberals. Whether Clinton OR Obama like it or not they cannot win the general without the other.

I feel she was very gracious to Obama today, when she talked about his speech.

I love it when they are friendly to each other. I hate it, when they fight.