Looking at the counties reporting so far, Obama's strongholds have yet to report in any large margin. I'm confident Hillary will win IN, but by about 3-5 points only.

Posted at May 6, 2008 8:07 PM in response to Meanwhile, In Indiana...

The apology appears sincere, so I would suggest that Obama accept it. It would be easy to flood the airways with our outrage about the "boy" usage, but Obama can show himself to be the bigger person. I'd advise him to meet with Davis and personally accept his apology.

Posted at April 14, 2008 5:04 PM in response to Rep. Davis (R-KY) Apologizes For Calling Obama "That Boy"

I think both Clinton and Obama did a good job in questioning. Clinton rightly questioned why the US was even thinking about increased involvement in southern Iraq (where Britain was the main force until recently). She also chastised the administration for even thinking of making a troop agreement with Iraq without consult and consent of Congress.

Obama rightly focused on the definition for success. His best question was on whether the current status, assuming it could be maintained without a large US presence, would be viewed as success. The ambassador didn't answer it and instead tried to do a tangent and talk about a precipitous withdrawal. I think that is a question that should be posed to McCain. Would he accept a messy success vs a rosy success?

Posted at April 8, 2008 6:25 PM in response to Obama: We Have to Apply "Measured, But Increased Pressure" on the Iraqis

Beware of the fast-closing Obama polls. We've been burned way too many times already. Remember NH, CA, MA, OH, TX? Clinton originally had huge leads (20% or more) and days or weeks before it fell to tied or Obama up a few points. I am still convinced if Obama loses by less than 10%, he should consider it a moral victory. I'd hate for all the press to "think" Obama might win PA and then Clinton wins by 5% and calls it a big comeback.

Posted at April 3, 2008 5:29 PM in response to Poll: Hillary Up By Only Two Points In Pennsylvania

What I was surprised about is how quickly Fox News stopped discussing the Obama speech. I was bouncing between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, and the first two networks continued to discuss it until the top of the hour. Fox News, to the best of my knowledge, spend only about five minutes on the speech. I was bouncing, so I don't know what pundits on Fox News was saying, so I'd appreciate a video on that.

As for the discussions on CNN and MSNBC, it was all over the place. Some pundits viewed it as the most important speech on race since MLK, while some (read Pat Buchanan) felt it blamed all of black anger on whites (which is just flat wrong for anyone openly watching). I was really hoping that Pat would've seen the bigger picture of getting beyond our anger, but it doesn't look like Pat is ready to go there yet.

Posted at March 18, 2008 12:52 PM in response to Headline Writers At The Major Networks Slow To Get Obama's Message

It's regrettable he has to even give this speech, but I understand that he has to. It's a delicate titerope he'll have to walk tomorrow, but if anyone can do it, it's Obama.

And to give the Clinton camp some props, I've been impressed that they've decided to stay away from this and not jump on the bandwagon. Granted with all the right press pushing it they didn't need to, but I'm still happy to see Clinton supporters not pushing it as well.

Even McCain looked like he'd rather everyone just stop talking about it as well. I don't agree with others that McCain is playing good cop/bad cop.

Posted at March 17, 2008 2:48 PM in response to Obama To Give Major Speech On Race, Wright

The sad truth is that none of the current Presidential candidates are immune from this type of relationship. McCain and Clinton have both had financial supporters that acted stupid and possibly illegally. It would be great if Obama didn't have that type of mistake, but in today's politics that's just not going to happen.

Combine this with the Wright issue, and the public now knows he is not St. Obama, which is probably a good thing to get out of the way sooner rather than later. I still believe if you compare the Presidential Judgment that all three candidates would display, Obama is still the far better option.

Posted at March 17, 2008 2:29 PM in response to Obama Spends 3 Hours with Chicago Press to Chat about Rezko

I don't think it's that important for Obama to win in PA, and I think internally the Obama camp will agree with that. As long as they close it to a single digit loss (55-45 or closer), they will be perfectly happy.
If Clinton wins PA by 60-40, then there certainly will be concerns, and Clinton would have a better chance at swinging the uncommitted delegates her way (not likely to happen, but odds do increase).

The question for Clinton is, what happens after a 55-45 win? Virtually all the remaining states look like Obama wins, with NC the only question. They can't successfully argue that Obama would lose CA, NY, MA in a general election. They could say that he'd lose PA and FL, but Obama could turn around and say that he'd be able to add CO, NM, MN, and other midwestern states that Clinton would have no shot in. Her only chance in my mind is to blow Obama out of the water in PA and argue that Obama has peaked and heading downward.

Posted at March 11, 2008 3:34 PM in response to SurveyUSA: Hillary Way Ahead In Pennsylvania Primary

After I did this, I saw someone else did a similar blog, using 3 percent and 5 percent as the "too close to call" number. I was using 4 percent, so I broke in the middle.

tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/survey-usa-with-tossups.php

Posted at March 6, 2008 7:25 PM in response to Digging deeper into SurveyUSA 50 state poll

After I did this, I saw someone else did a similar blog, using 3 percent and 5 percent as the "too close to call" number. I was using 4 percent, so I broke in the middle.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/survey-usa-with-tossups.php

Posted at March 6, 2008 7:23 PM in response to Digging deeper into SurveyUSA 50 state poll