Clinton

More on the Canadian intervention in the American election

Should the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ask the Canadian PM to come to DC and explain the Canadian governments intervention in an American election?

It sure appears that the multiple leaks out of the Canadian government were targeted to tank Barack Obama. The GOP in Washington would much prefer to run against Senator Clinton, and these leaks appear to be an effort by conservatives in Canada to help their ideological cousins in the US by hurting Obama at a critical point in the election.

Josh Marshall has new information showing definitively that the Canadian leaks were designed to hurt Obama. New news accounts show the Clinton camp had similar conversations with the Canadians as the Obama camp - but only the Obama conversations were leaked. What makes this particularly gauling is that Senator Clinton has been much more critical of NAFTA than the junior Senator from Illinois.

So, Senator Biden, what to make of all this?

Towards Florida and Michigan primaries in June

Could we be headed towards early June Florida and Michigan primaries? How to pay? Governor Dean could ask all Democrats to chip in $25 and raise a quick $25 million. The two states themselves should chip in whatever remains, up to half the costs. If the primaries are scheduled for that first week in June it is possible for the nomination process to be over and a nominee picked by the traditional end time, early June, and allow the Democrats to end with lots of attention on two critical general election states.

Gvoernor Dean released this statement yesterday:

"We're glad to hear that the Governors of Michigan and Florida are willing to
lend their weight to help resolve this issue. As we've said all along, we
strongly encourage the Michigan and Florida state parties to follow the rules,
so today's public overtures are good news. The rules, which were agreed to by
the full DNC including representatives from Florida and Michigan over 18 months ago, allow for two options. First, either state can choose to resubmit a plan and run a party process to select delegates to the convention; second, they can wait until this summer and appeal to the Convention Credentials Committee, which determines and resolves any outstanding questions about the seating of delegates. We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time. The Democratic Nominee will be determined in accordance with party rules, and out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game.

"Through all the speculation, we should also remember the
overwhelming enthusiasm and turnout that we have already seen, and respect the voters of the ten states who have yet to have their say.

"As we head towards November, our nominee must have the united support of a strong Democratic Party that's ready to fight and ready to beat John McCain. After
seven years of Republican rule, I am confident that we will elect a Democratic
president who will fight for America's families in the White House. Now we must
hear from the voters in twelve states and territories who have yet to make their
voices heard."

Clinton Rising, Part 2

In my post yesterday afternoon, prior to the results last night, I wrote about the structural changes taking place in the Democratic race and the resulting big shift towards Senator Clinton.

The Clinton mo' continues today. After her big wins last night, the two national tracks we follow show continued, substantial movement towards her and away from Senator Obama. Gallup now has it 48% Clinton, 44% Obama, changed from 45%-45% yesterday. Rasmussen now also shows a similar spread, 48%-43%.

While Senator Obama holds a substantial and significant lead in the delegates, Senator Clinton is now in command of this race in a way I'm not sure we've seen since the voting began. Obama has a chance to change the narrative with WY and MS in the next week, but we are seeing the evolution of a very different moment in the campaign now.

I will have more to say about it all a little later.

Update: TPM Election Central projects that Senator Clinton will net out 10 more delegates last night than Senator Obama.

Update 2: Once again, Jonathan Alter over at Newsweek does the delegate math, and it still favors Obama.

Update 3: Texas. Kos writes it looks like Obama will win more delegates in Texas than the good Senator from New York. Does this mean he won Texas, and that he and Senator Clinton split the two big states last night?

Clinton rising

We all have our favorite polls. Mine has been the daily Gallup track. Today's track now has it 45%-45% Obama-Clinton, down from 50%-42% Obama-Clinton just two nights ago.

As we head into these critical contests tonight this poll and many others indicate that the Democratic race is going through some kind of structural change, and that the momentum is swinging towards Senator Clinton. I've been asked many times over the last few days why. And I will admit I simply don't know - there didn't appear to be a single large event that could have shifted the race this much. But shift it has, and as of tonight it sure appears that we have a new race on our hands.

Update 1: Rasmussen's Daily Track shows similar movement.

Update 2: Over at Daily Kos Markos offers an interesting take on what the Obama strategy might look like after tonight.

Update 3: Jonathan Alter makes a powerful case that even if Senator Clinton has a good night tonight and begins to capture new found mo', that delegate math makes it neigh impossible for her to pull this thing out. A test of this new mo' will come quick in both Wyoming Saturday and Mississipi next Tuesday.

Update 4: Josh Marshall and his site Talking Points Memo have done a great job of covering the efforts of the conservative Canadian government to inject themselves into the American election, a rather remarkable event. Keep reading his blog to stay on top of this developing story, and check out their most recent piece here.

Update 5: The battleground states. In the fall there are currently 9 states that will likely be the true battleground - CO, FL, IA, MO, NH, NM, NV, OH and VA. Obama has won CO, IA, MO, VA. Clinton NH, NM, NV and now OH. Each candidate has won 4 of the true general election battlegrounds, with Florida yet to have a legitimate content. So this claim by Clinton that she has won where it counts the most seems a little bit of a stretch, though Ohio and Texas were big big wins tonight.

Update 6. The delegates. Kos's first cut has Senator Clinton picking up to between 1 and 5 more delegates last night than Senator Obama. We will have more on this later today.

The battle for Ohio and Texas

A Sunday NYTimes piece by Adam Nagourney takes a look at the final strategies and tactics of the two campaigns in the all-important home stretch in Ohio and Texas.

Be sure to note the success the Obama campaign has had it with its google ads, something we talk a great deal about at our affiliate, the New Politics Institute.

Update - Remember California. As I look at Obama's small lead in the final round of Texas polls, I am reminded of California and the excellent campaign the Clinton campaign has run this year in the Hispanic community (from ads to issues to surrogates). Most of the final CA polls had Obama ahead or very close in California. But driven by a huge performance of Hispanics, a group difficult to poll, Senator Clinton won the state by ten points.

Could this pattern repeat in Texas? Could Hispanics deliver her another essential win? And what happens if she wins the popular vote and he the delegates? Going to be a fascinating night on Tuesday.

Update 1 - Two new polls out Sunday have OH and TX too close to call, with Clinton up 4 in OH and Obama up 1 in TX. Tuesday is going to be quite a night.

Update 2: A national AP piece on this consequential battle closes with this passage:

"The Clinton campaign clearly has much more money than they had before, but they are still being dramatically outspent by Obama," said Simon Rosenberg, head of [NDN], a think tank. "And things don't seem to be trending their way and they don't have a lot of tools to deal with it anymore."

More incredible numbers out of Texas

A Kos diarist has yet another report on the huge early vote numbers out of Texas. In the 15 largest counties there has been historic levels of turnout, and 3 times as many Democrats have voted as Republicans.

This year has seen record numbers of voters, record amounts of money and record numbers of citizens participating in the process - all of course wildly favoring Democrats so far.

If the Obama Feb money rumors are true - over $40 million - Senator Obama will have raised as much money in Feb as Senator McCain did in all of 2007. For more on this new age of citizen-led politics, check out the video of Joe Trippi and I at our recent forum on politics.

Obama's lead grows

Looking at the rash of new national polls there is no doubt now that we find significant movement towards Obama this week. The CBS/Times poll had him ahead of Senator Clinton by 16 points, the USA/Gallup had it 11, the new Rasmussen has it at 9, and the daily Gallup track, which had it even now has Obama up 5 - 48/43 - two days in a row. The last 3 TX polls have him up mid-single digits, and while she leads in OH and PA those leads have shrunk to 4-5 points.

In the last week or so, there has been a structural shift in the race with Obama now definititively ahead by 5-10 points. On Feb 5th he trailed by 14. So there has been at least a 20 point shift in the race over the last few weeks.

What does this mean for Tuesday? Obama now leads by his largest margin, and while it looks awfully good for him, this election has shown that almost anything is possible.

Fri Update: Today's Gallup Daily Track has it now 49-42 Obama up from 48-43 earlier this week. More evidence of movement in his direction.

Debate reaction

Obama continues to improve as a debater. Tonight, for the first time in a debate, he appeared Presidential. He has become more commanding, more self confident, more experienced in handling tough questions. He has come out of this thing a much better candidate than he went into it, and appears ready to tackle the next phase of the campaign. I thought he was awfully good.

I thought Hillary had a tough night. As always she showed flashes of what many love about her. She was smart, knowledgable, strong. But at times tonight she seemed off, emotionally off kilter, a little angry and even wierdly petty. Last week was one of her best debate performances. Tonight one of her, well, not so best.

There is simply no way this debate stopped Obama's momentum tonight, meaning that next Tuesday may be a hard night for the Clinton campaign.

New NYTimes poll has Obama leading 54-38

Many new polls out today. A new CNN poll has Obama now up in Texas. Gallup and Rasmussen national daily tracks showed no real movement, and have the race close. A new Gallup/USA has Obama up more than 10. But 2 polls out in Ohio have Senator Clinton still up by 7-10 points. So the news today is mixed, some evidence of more Obama movement, other polls showing the race stabilizing.

But the real news tomorrow will be the new CBS/NYTimes poll out tonight that has the race now at 54%-38% Obama/Clinton. This is a dramatic shift. Given its source, will probably drive the news coverage of the race for the next few days. Clearly this is not good news for Senator Clinton as she heads into the must win states of Ohio and Texas.

The question is whether this poll is accurate, and is capturing a new and significant dynamic in the race. If it is real I fully expect national polls taken at the end of the next week to have Obama up by mid to high single digits over McCain, a very weak candidate by any historical measure.

Update: Catch the drama of the race, live, Tuesday night on MSNBC at 9pm as Obama and Clinton meet in Cleveland for their final debate prior to all the important March 4th vote.

Rasmussen looks at the electoral college

The Rasmussen site has an interesting feature that looks at how the electoral college is shaping up this fall. Given the latest round of polling, it has the electoral college at 284 votes for the Democrat. But what is most interesting is how it projects what the likely battleground states will be - CO, FL, IA, MO, NH, NM, NV, OH, VA. I also not convinced that Arizona and Arkansas won't end up being in play but let us see.

So after all this money, time, debating etc it will all come down to these 9 states. 9 states. Will more come into play? Perhaps. But for now I agree with this first cut.

For a good visualization of the possible 2008 electoral college map look through the end of our recent report, Hispanics Rising.

Syndicate content