dajafi wrote:Clinton bounced her campaign manager today; my understanding is that thriving campaigns don't tend to do that.

Obama's way ahead in the Tuesday contests too. There's probably some risk of Clinton, looking to contests a month from now, falling into the same trap Giuliani did when he waited for the Florida primary to save him.

After Tuesday they were thought of even. Obama swept her this weekend in the northeast, northwest, south, and mountain states. She's way behind in the Potomac polls.

She was, however, ahead in the last Wisconsin, Ohio, and Texas polls. Obama, however, could be seen as the inevitable front runner and reverse people's opinions there. South Carolina and Florida did that for McCain. Clinton needs Wisconsin badly and that's just so she can win either Ohio or Texas, let alone both. I wouldn't be surprised if she's already in Wisconsin.

I think the article is right about a lot of stuff (talk radio and the interest groups are too doctrinaire for their own good a lot of the time), but there's definitely been a lot of conservative resentment about Bush on spending and immigration, and there is real frustration on the part of the base that they were unable to nominate one of their own.

Unfortunately, the way talk radio is, hyperbole is standard, so instead of the McCain nomination being treated as a setback, it's the end of the world.

dajafi wrote:

Macho Row wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

dajafi wrote:Obama with a narrow lead in early returns from Maine.

CNN link

Very cool but not necessarily reliable Google link

He's pulling away.

This is interesting. Maine was thought of as a state that Clinton should win. I wonder how they would spin a 10+ point loss to Obama there.

They'll say it's an outcome of the caucus system. This is valid, if for no other reason that the Obama people tend to organize their asses off, which matters in caucuses.

But the narrative will be bad for them anyway. Clinton bounced her campaign manager today; my understanding is that thriving campaigns don't tend to do that.

Obama's way ahead in the Tuesday contests too. There's probably some risk of Clinton, looking to contests a month from now, falling into the same trap Giuliani did when he waited for the Florida primary to save him.

Yeah, I was a little surprised that the media wasn't making a bigger deal out of the change in the Clinton campaign. I think it is a mistake if for no other reason than it gives the impression, at least to me and dajafi, that the Clinton campaign is crumbling (which could, in fact, be the case).

I still believe that if Obama gets his pledged delegate lead up to the 100 - 110 after February 19th (it is currently 56 prior to Maine) he will be competitive in Texas, Ohio and PA (i.e. comes close to splitting the delegates) and the super delegates start seeing the writing on the wall and jump from the SS Clinton.

jerseyhoya wrote:I think the article is right about a lot of stuff (talk radio and the interest groups are too doctrinaire for their own good a lot of the time), but there's definitely been a lot of conservative resentment about Bush on spending and immigration, and there is real frustration on the part of the base that they were unable to nominate one of their own.

Unfortunately, the way talk radio is, hyperbole is standard, so instead of the McCain nomination being treated as a setback, it's the end of the world.

I think there's more than that. The talk radio folks would have been fine with Romney, who by any conceivable standard is less conservative than McCain.

Hyperbole was also a big part of the '68 legacy. The forums are different, to be sure.

dajafi wrote:Obama's way ahead in the Tuesday contests too. There's probably some risk of Clinton, looking to contests a month from now, falling into the same trap Giuliani did when he waited for the Florida primary to save him.

On the one hand, the fear that Obama will get a ton of momentum is very real. On the other, with the Rudy comparison, his problem was that he fell out of the national conversation and never demonstrated he could win a primary. Neither of those will be problems for Hillary.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I think the article is right about a lot of stuff (talk radio and the interest groups are too doctrinaire for their own good a lot of the time), but there's definitely been a lot of conservative resentment about Bush on spending and immigration, and there is real frustration on the part of the base that they were unable to nominate one of their own.

Unfortunately, the way talk radio is, hyperbole is standard, so instead of the McCain nomination being treated as a setback, it's the end of the world.

I think there's more than that. The talk radio folks would have been fine with Romney, who by any conceivable standard is less conservative than McCain.

Hyperbole was also a big part of the '68 legacy. The forums are different, to be sure.

Well, they're also self important egotists, so they wanted their rings kissed by the nominee, and that's not gonna be the case.

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I think the article is right about a lot of stuff (talk radio and the interest groups are too doctrinaire for their own good a lot of the time), but there's definitely been a lot of conservative resentment about Bush on spending and immigration, and there is real frustration on the part of the base that they were unable to nominate one of their own.

Unfortunately, the way talk radio is, hyperbole is standard, so instead of the McCain nomination being treated as a setback, it's the end of the world.

I think there's more than that. The talk radio folks would have been fine with Romney, who by any conceivable standard is less conservative than McCain.

Hyperbole was also a big part of the '68 legacy. The forums are different, to be sure.

Well, they're also self important egotists, so they wanted their rings kissed by the nominee, and that's not gonna be the case.

They've put themselves in a position where they risk either irrelevancy or doing serious damage to the Republican party. I think they're going to take their party down with them. Huckabee might join them.

If I'm right, you're going to lose big in 2008. If my analogy holds even a little bit, you're going to see a Republican party dominated by fringe single issue elements, alienated from much of the mainstream American electorate. You'll have no one who can articulate a conservative political philosophy in a persuasive way. Conservatism will be associated with the failures of Bush, botched FEMA rescues, high deficits, and the crazed freaks like Dobson, Malkin, and Bill O'Reilly, who instead of flying their freak flag talk about how great it is to waterboard people the government thinks might be somehow involved with terrorists.

There are some differences. McCain isn't McGovern (that would be Huckabee) he's more like Humphrey. But I doubt Humphrey could have won in 68. All the Democrats need to do is avoid nominating their Nixon.

drsmooth wrote:

pacino wrote:we need a drsmooth/flightrisk monkey knife fight

sure, my gizzard on a plate inside 15 seconds

that's just what you'd ALL like

We have no quarrel here. Besides, the Dr. is all style AND all substance. I know when I'm beat. Naw, I'll continue to administer my signature "Get-a-hold-of-yourself!" slaps to the verbose, hysterical, screeching, washwomen of the board.

Seriously, can Obama win the general election. Parents were over tonight and my dad thinks he has no shot. Not enough white people will vote for him.

Disco Stu wrote:Seriously, can Obama win the general election. Parents were over tonight and my dad thinks he has no shot. Not enough white people will vote for him.

I dunno. White people in Iowa and Maine seem to like him well enough.

John McCain won a bunch of delegates in the Louisiana Republican Caucus. Or Ron Paul did. The primary resulted in well nothing either.

The state of Washington might have assigned 18 delegates from theirCaucus. They'll have a primary for 19 other delegates.

I'm not really paying close attention to this, but I keep reading speculation that Clinton is sandbagging with all of this changing of campaign managers and leaks of money problems. Presumably to help shape the appearance of a "comback kid" with momentum.

Do you guys think there is any truth to this, or are we really seeing a campaign that's flailing?

VoxOrion wrote:I'm not really paying close attention to this, but I keep reading speculation that Clinton is sandbagging with all of this changing of campaign managers and leaks of money problems. Presumably to help shape the appearance of a "comback kid" with momentum.

Do you guys think there is any truth to this, or are we really seeing a campaign that's flailing?

Even if it's true, does it sound like something you'd do if you were really confident?

I suspect they see real problems in their internal polls.

VoxOrion wrote:I'm not really paying close attention to this, but I keep reading speculation that Clinton is sandbagging with all of this changing of campaign managers and leaks of money problems. Presumably to help shape the appearance of a "comback kid" with momentum.

Do you guys think there is any truth to this, or are we really seeing a campaign that's flailing?

Can't it be both?

I think they're in real trouble, but not as bad as they're projecting it to be. They've raised a ton of money since that story leaked that they were gonna stop paying their staffers. They're not as flush with cash as Obama is, but they aren't going to lose this campaign because of money. Switching campaign managers is something campaigns do to look like they're changing things to get a shift in momentum.

VoxOrion wrote:I'm not really paying close attention to this, but I keep reading speculation that Clinton is sandbagging with all of this changing of campaign managers and leaks of money problems. Presumably to help shape the appearance of a "comback kid" with momentum.

Do you guys think there is any truth to this, or are we really seeing a campaign that's flailing?

Last July McCain changed campaign managers and was pretty much broke. Look where he is now.

FWIW, RCP now has Obama leading Clinton by four delegates INCLUDING SUPER DELEGATES:

Pledged Supers Total
Obama 1,007 139 1,146
Clinton 929 211 1,142

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... count.html

Obama has 17% to 21% average leads in Virginia and Maryland (total of 200 delegates) so my 100 to 110 delegate lead after 2/19 is probably way too conservative; it might be closer to a 130 to 140 pledged delegate lead.

If he adds an Edwards endorsement this week...

Foreshadowing:

"Obama also beat two former Democratic presidents to win a Grammy award on Sunday night.

His recording of his book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream," took the recording academy's award for best spoken word album -- topping former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter."

McCain's three little words: "A Hundred Years"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs[/youtube]

The man has the temerity to say there will be other wars! And that people won't care how long we're in Iraq for if the casualties stop! Radical! Neocon! Warmonger!

Disco Stu wrote:Seriously, can Obama win the general election. Parents were over tonight and my dad thinks he has no shot. Not enough white people will vote for him.

Whites will vote for him (other than older women). I worry more about asians and latinos. States that don't have large latino or asian pops should go to Obama (since California is done - what other states have enough of these two groups to make a difference?)

After this past weekend, Clinton shaking up her campaign staff today, and the upcoming Tuesday sweep, Obama could start to pull away a little. If that were to happen maybe Dean steps in then and tells Clinton to drop out before it has a chance to get uglier later on, closer to the convention.