May 2008

(Via guardian.co.uk.)

Hillary Clinton’s campaign today indicated that she intended to fight on even as her hopes of winning the Democratic presidential nomination dwindled.

Clinton failed to close the gap on Barack Obama in two key primaries last night, winning Indiana by a slim margin - 51% to 49% - but seeing that outweighed by her rival’s 56% to 42% landslide in North Carolina.

Indiana provided an exhilarating finish, with the outcome in doubt almost until the last vote was counted, six hours after polling closed.

Obama had prematurely conceded defeat and Clinton made a victory speech, but her margin continued to shrink as the votes kept coming in.

Clinton had needed to win both North Carolina and Indiana, the last two big states left in the contest, to stand a chance of reining in Obama.

But in a speech in Indianapolis last night, she gave no indication that she was ready to concede, saying: “It is full speed to the White House.”

Clinton’s schedule for today includes a rally in West Virginia, where voters head to the polls next week, and a fundraising event in Washington.

Tomorrow, events are planned in Oregon and South Dakota, which vote on May 20 and June 3.

But with only six primaries left, Obama is within touching distance of securing the Democratic nomination to face the Republican, John McCain, in November’s general election.

Last night, Obama secured a bigger share of the delegates - who will choose the nominee - to add to his already commanding lead.

With 99% of the vote counted in Indiana, Clinton had 638,274 (51%) and Obama 615,862 (49%).

Full story here.

(Via Newsweek Politics.)

Barack Obama not only nearly clinched the Democratic nomination Tuesday night. He also answered a big question about the fall campaign. The glass jaw that Hillary Clinton and John McCain thought they saw turned out to be an illusion. In the jingle of the old Timex watch ads, he took a licking and kept on ticking.

Oh what a difference a week makes. April 28 was only last week but it feels like six months ago. That was the day Obama got hit by a one-two punch. First, his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, dominated the airwaves with his offensive rant. The same day brought news that Hillary had decided to join McCain in calling for a summer gas tax holiday, sure to be popular with voters angry about high costs at the pump.

For the first time since February, Clinton seemed to have a real shot at the nomination. Still reeling from his big loss in Pennsylvania, Obama was battered by charges of elitism and disconnected from a big chunk of the Democratic Party. From bad bowling to “bitter” to arugula-eater to disciple of an America-hater, he seemed to be floundering.

May 6 looked ominous. With African-Americans making up only nine percent of Indiana Democratic voters, Obama was in deep trouble there, behind in the polls and slipping. North Carolina was also headed in the wrong direction, with some surveys showing only a five-point Obama lead. In most earlier primaries, including those he won, Obama slipped further on the last weekend. Even his closest aides thought Indiana and North Carolina would be no different.

Last week, not a soul in politics would have predicted that Obama would win North Carolina by 14 points and virtually tie in Indiana. But through a combination of luck and smarts, the campaign ended on the theme that Obama ran on: Old politics vs. new politics.

By conventional standards, Clinton was in the groove, focusing on bread-and-butter issues and pummeling Obama for being out-of-touch with angry motorists. Many pundits reported that “the working girl” was “on fire” and on the move.

Full story here.

(Via Salon News.)

Hillary Clinton is one day and two important primaries closer to oblivion. Her hairbreadth victory here in Indiana coupled with her double-digit defeat in North Carolina on the last big night of the 2008 primary season provided a dreams-deferred, delegate-deficit downturn in her already dispiriting fortunes. Not only is Hillary clinging to the hands of a clock in an old-time Harold Lloyd silent movie, but the clock face has begun to wobble.

Barack Obama — who survived and even prospered after Jeremiah Wright’s jeremiads created the worst week of his political career — felt self-confident enough in his victory speech from Raleigh, N.C., to offer an all-is-forgiven unity message directed at the supporters of his “formidable opponent” who harbor “bruised feelings.” But the most important message of the evening was not embedded in Obama’s words, but buried in the interstices of the exit polls. It was not that Obama did particularly well among lower-income white voters, but that he did well enough to prevent Clinton from mounting a renewed can’t-win-in-November argument.

In North Carolina, Obama swept every economic subgroup, along with 93 percent of the black vote and a healthy 36 percent of the white vote. The verdict from Indiana was more ambiguous, but Obama, often portrayed as an upstairs-downstairs candidate whose coalition seemed based on investment bankers and the inner city, won at least 43 percent support in every income category. (A cautionary note about the invaluable but imperfect exit polls: They are crude instruments that have an addictive power because on Election Night they are essentially the only game in town.)

Full story here.

(Via Informed Comment.)

Barack Obama pulled closer to clinching the nomination last night, widening his lead over Hillary Clinton in voted delegates and in the popular vote. He overwhelmingly took Indianapolis and narrowed her earlier lead to only 2%, about 20,000 votes out of the hundreds of thousands cast. Obama even got 35% of working class whites in Indiana, which suggests that while Clinton is stronger with that constituency, Obama has an appeal there as well. He is clearly raising far more money than she, so voters are voting for him with their pocketbooks.

Full story here.

(Via AmericaBlog.)

This is a huge point. Huge. Earlier today, Hillary’s people tried to argue that even if Obama reaches the 2,025 delegates he needs to become our nominee, Hillary will continue to contest the election until Florida and Michigan are seated. Yeah, only one little problem. NBC’s Chuck Todd, who is brilliant and highly respected on such things, just said that you can give Hillary Florida and Michigan - on her terms - and she still loses the nationwide delegate count and the popular vote. She still loses the nomination.

Full story here.

(Via MyDD.)

The upshot is that there is no way to spin away what happened tonight: Senator Clinton had a really bad night and Senator Obama had a phenomenal one. It’s impossible to overstate the significance of what he accomplished, not only considering what he’s overcome over the past three weeks but also considering how decisively he denied Clinton what she needed to continue to have a credible path to the nomination. To put it plainly, tonight was her final shot and she needed to win Indiana by 8-10% and to lose NC by 1-3%; in other words she needed to do about 10% better in each state than she did in order to keep Michigan and Florida relevant and the popular vote in play for superdelegates. Unfortunately, she was unable to do either. Zogby was right this time and Survey USA…and I…were wrong.

Which leads me to the conclusion, sadly, that I no longer see a real path to victory for Hillary Clinton and I now believe Barack Obama will be the nominee of our party.

Full story here.

(Via Newsvine.)

Tonight, Cnn’s Bob Constantini relayed unconfirmed and undisputed reports that Senator Hillary Clinton gave her campaign for the Democratic nomination another infusion of cash.

Senator Clinton is locked in a tight race for the Democratic nomination that many believe will be largely determined tonight in the primary contests in Indiana and North Carolina.

The Clinton campaign has suffered through staff shake-ups and financial woes, spending the last few months in the red on their balance sheet. It has been reported widely that the campaign has had problems paying vendors and and finding enough funds to compete in television advertising, although staffers have claimed the earlier Pennsylvania contest, won by Clinton, produced record breaking donations through the campaigns website. Financial data is expected in the upcoming days.

Reports have circled the campaign for months, painting the culture of staff as divided and contentious. Long-time friend Patti Solis-Doyle was widely believed to have been forced out, and trusted director Mark Penn had to step down in early April after supporting a free trade deal with Columbia that was against the position of Senator Clinton.

At the time of this report the numbers of the contests are still being counted. It appears that it will go as expected: a strong win to Senator Obama in North Carolina and a narrower win for Senator Clinton in Indiana.

(Via Talking Points Memo.)

NBC just reported that Hillary Clinton is holding no public events tomorrow. We’d earlier reported that she’d cancelled her morning show appearances. But that’s not that surprising. There’s not a lot good to talk about. But canceling all public appearances, if that’s what they’re saying, is a different story.

(Via Open Left.)

On Friday I wrote about Clinton’s ability to consistently win among late deciders. The last SUSA polling from Indiana suggests the pattern may be repeating in Indiana.

The SUSA Indiana poll has Clinton up 54-42. If you look at the recent polling in Indiana, what becomes apparent is most of the volatility is around Clinton’s number. Clinton ranges from a low of 42 (Zogby) to a high of 54 (SUSA). Obama, in contrast, ranges only between 42 (SUSA) and 46 (PPP). This repeats the pattern in Ohio where Clinton ranged in final polling from 56 to 44, but Obama ranged in all but one poll from 42 to 44 and in Pennsylvania where Clinton ranged between 46 and 54 while Obama polled within a narrower range (in most cases between 42 and 44.

This polling suggests that the undecided in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania actually at some level lean to Clinton, something that the exit polling seems to confirm.

This suggests Clinton is likely to win by at least 10 in Indiana. In fact, I would not rule out a Clinton win of 15 or more.

As I also wrote last Friday, late deciders in southern states have broken for Obama and not Clinton. The intuition here is that in places like Indiana the undecided tend to be white and lower class (and break for Clinton) while in the South the undecided tend to be African American (and break for Obama).

Full story here.