Something to keep in mind as we wait for tonight's results. Bloomberg:
To overtake Barack Obama in the nationwide popular vote, Hillary Clinton needs a bigger win in tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary than she has had in any major contest so far. And that's just for starters.
After more than 40 Democratic primaries and caucuses, Obama, the Illinois senator, leads Clinton by more than 800,000 votes. Even if the New York senator wins by more than 20 percentage points tomorrow -- a landslide few experts expect -- she would still have a hard time catching him....``Popular vote matters,'' says Steve Grossman, a marketing executive and one of Clinton's top fundraisers. ``If there is an opportunity for her to pick up enough popular votes, that is a powerful calling card to the superdelegates to say the will of the people is a split decision.''
To earn that split decision, though, Clinton would need a 25-point victory in Pennsylvania, plus 20-point wins in later contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Even that scenario assumes Clinton, 60, would break even in Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon -- a prospect that's not at all certain.
To say that's a prospect that is "not at all certain" is more than a small understatement. In NC, the latest poll from PPP has Clinton down by 25%. In Oregon, SUSA has her down 10%. In Indiana, SUSA has her down 5%. And although I haven't seen any polls for Montana, I continue to believe that there is simply no way that one is going to be close.
Only Kentucky, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico look set to give her the numbers she needs. But even in PR the margin is already below that magical 20% mark, and Obama hasn't yet turned his attention to the commonwealth. I know everyone seems to think Clinton will take the island easily, but I'm not convinced.
Either way, we're precisely where we were 5 weeks ago. Clinton cannot win this thing, but she nevertheless campaigns on. Thankfully, it seems that people are beginning to tire of the relentless negativity, and as a result I continue to believe that a backlash is just a matter of time. The Supers aren't stupid; most of them are elected officials who need to win elections too.
Several times in the past I've predicted we'd see a mad rush of Supers to Obama's camp, and each time my prediction has been wrong. But hey, my track record on predictions has always been mixed. I'm really bad at guessing timing, but I'm pretty good at predicting dynamics and directions. So let me go on record again with yet another Super prediction: We'll see some movement by the Supers over the next 2 weeks, and then a big rush after Obama's sweep of the NC/IN primary day in two weeks.
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