+ Loads of new polls out today for the upcoming Texas primacaucus. Clinton's up. Clinton's down. Even if the precise numbers aren't clear, one thing is: Texas is in play.
+ Josh Marshall thinks John Lewis' switch from Clinton to Obama is a turning point in the campaign. Given Lewis's stature within the party, I can't say I disagree.
+ Tom Schaller digs into the numbers to explore just why Lewis might matter so much. An excerpt of a must-read post:
The argument being made on recent media calls by the Clinton camp is that if they do well enough among pledged delegates in states like OH, TX and PA, those gains will again put her within reach of using her advantage among superdelegates to get over the top. But since Obama's pledged regular delegate lead presently exceeds her verbally committed superdelegate lead, unless she continues to get more than 50 percent of the remaining superdelegates not as-yet committed, her overall net margin among superdelegates will either stay the same or shrink. If the first 10, post-Super Tuesday results are any indication, the "superdelegate scenario" math is not getting any better and may in fact be getting a bit worse for her.
+ Lately it seems everyone is getting on the "bash Mark Penn" bandwagon. Even so, Scott Lemieux's hilarious take on Penn is worth passing along:
Shorter Mark Penn, Union Buster (TM): "The states that vote for Obama are insignificant. In fact, the only states that count are our home state, California, Texas, and states that held straw polls we can retrospectively claim to be primaries, preferably with the candidate who would be soundly beating us if any of his victories counted excluded from the ballot."
I can't say that the thought of having this strategic mastermind in charge of a general election campaign fills me with great hope. It also seems to me that it would have been better for Clinton to take some of the 5 million bucks she's paying to get advice from idiots and use that to actually advertise and/or organize in the "insignificant" states.
+ Might as well keep beating up on Penn. Dan Balz:
Like Obama, Clinton threw everything possible into the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, spending $20 million to $25 million on what turned out to be a losing effort. The experience seemed to sour the Clinton campaign on caucuses -- she has repeatedly disparaged the caucus process in public remarks -- and ever since, her team has largely ignored them in favor of states with primaries. If the Democratic race is all about delegates, as the Clinton campaign declared shortly after the Jan. 8 New Hampshire contest, the decision has given Obama an unexpected gift.
Here is a simple way to understand the consequences of that choice. Take two states that held Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5: big New Jersey, with 107 pledged delegates at stake, and tiny Idaho, with 18 delegates up for grabs. Clinton won New Jersey's primary and made headlines for doing so early on that night, while Obama won Idaho's caucuses long after many of those watching had gone to bed. But because of the rules of proportionality, Clinton netted just 11 more delegates than Obama from her New Jersey victory, while he gained 12 more than her by winning Idaho.
Now here's the thing you have to understand about Penn: He's supposedly a pollster, so math is supposed to be his strong suit. That he could have so badly misunderstood the math of caucus states suggests that his strategic genius has been vastly over-hyped. Delegate counts involve simple ratios. Ratios are something you would hope a $5 million pollster would understand.
So I will say it again: What does it say about Clinton's judgement that she would trust her campaign strategy to someone who so obviously does not understand how primary campaigns work?
+ And last but not least (for now!), Ted Danson has decided to hit the road and campaign on Clinton's behalf. Because nothing will help Sen. Clinton break Obama's lock on the under 40 vote like an appeal from a man who had a hit TV series back in the 1980s.
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