Thursday, January 31, 2008
Here Comes Barack
Just saw these new polls, presumably taken after SC and the Kennedy endorsement (but before Edwards dropped out). It is now a tie in Connecticut, Hillary leading Massachusetts by only 6 points (she was up by 37 points in the previous poll listed on that site), and even more importantly only 3 points in California (she also had a double digit lead in Cali in previous polls).
Even if he loses, cutting down the margin in Massachusetts is important because it has 121 delegates. If Obama can do better in NY than Hillary does in Illinois and then blow her out in Georgia (don't know if this is likely or not but definitely lots of black voters there so hopefully similar to SC) and keep it close in Mass and New Jersey (again not sure how close he'll be able to keep it in NJ) then Obama comes out about even in the non-Cali 100+ delegate states, which seemed to favor Hillary heavily a week ago. In most of the smaller states, Obama seems like he has the advantage, though it varies from state to state of course. So if we assume Obama can come out with only a small loss from NY, NJ, Mass, Illinois, and Georgia and beat Hillary in the rest, then California will be the huge momentum shift. If he closes the gap even more (apparently Ted Kennedy is campaigning hard for him there) and can manage to win California, then Obama will be our next president. If winning such a diverse state, without all that many black people, doesn't give Obama the ever-elusive electable tag, I don't know what will. Even more importantly, Cali has a whole shit ton of delegates (441). Winning is obviously ideal, especially for the media coverage and the opportunity to spin it into momentum for future states, but it now looks like he'll at least be able to keep it close and more or less split the delegates at worst, which is much better than it looked pre-SC.
It should be really interesting but there's my optimistic blueprint for a successful Super Tuesday for Obama - keep it real close in Massachusetts (the Kennedy endorsement has to help here right?), keep it somewhat close in NY and NJ, win big in Illinois and Georgia, take an overall victory from the rest of the states, and win in Cali (or at worst lose small). Now come on Edwards, endorse Obama and keep the momentum going (and you too Al Gore).
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2 comments:
Couple random thoughts:
Right now, Hillary's probably going to win New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
Obama's probably going to win Kansas, Alabama, Georgia, and Illinois.
California and Connecticut are Hillary leans, but as you pointed out, he seems to have some statistical momentum in both places (I think there was actually a poll that showed him ahead among likely primary voters in California yesterday, but Hillary has something like a 20 pt advantage with absentee ballots).
But California isn't winner take all. Any district in which there are an even number of delegates probably goes 50/50. So the trick is doing well in districts in which an odd number of delegates are at stake.
California is also an open primary, but only for Democrats. Independents can't vote for the GOP, so gotta figure that gives Obama a slight edge, maybe one that the polls aren't showing. Same is true for college campuses.
Watch Mass. He now has the endorsement of the three biggest politicians in the state -- Kerry, Kennedy, and Gov. Deval Patrick. That's gotta matter.
I didn't realize California was only an open primary for democrats. That is great news - I was actually worrying that all the momentum McCain has been gaining there (Arnold endorsement, etc) would hurt Obama because a good amount of independents would choose to vote in the Republican primary for McCain instead of in the Democratic primary (like in NH, where McCain's big win was bad news for Obama).
Other than California, I'll be most interested to see what happens in Massachusetts. As you said, Obama has all the big endorsements there - if nothing else it'll be an interesting test of just how important endorsements are. I definitely expect Hillary to win in Mass but am hopeful Obama can at least keep the margin small.
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