Big Trouble for Mitt Romney

This is not good news for Team Romney.

Quinnipiac:

President Barack Obama is over the magic 50 percent mark and tops Gov. Mitt Romney among likely voters by 9 to 12 percentage points in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/New York Times Swing State Poll released today.

Voters in each state see President Obama as better than Gov. Romney to handle the economy, health care, Medicare, national security, an international crisis and immigration. Romney ties or inches ahead of the president on handling the budget deficit.

Matching Obama against Romney in each of these key states - no one has won the White House since 1960 without taking at least two of them...

In this race, Mitt Romney needs -- absolutely needs -- Ohio and Florida to win. MSNBC's First Read notes that Romney begins a bus tour today that "has to do more than stop the bleeding for Romney in Ohio; it has to be the beginning of a turnaround for him in this state. Losing Ohio isn’t checkmate, but it’s close." Losing Florida and Ohio? That is checkmate -- and Mitt can't tour both states at once. So he seems to be piling all his chips on Ohio.

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Voter ID and How the Media is Failing Democracy

Here's some bad news; American democracy just took another hit.

New York Times:

A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday refused to grant an injunction on a new voter identification law that Democrats say could harm President Obama’s re-election chances by unfairly targeting minorities, college students and others in a key swing state.

The decision by Robert Simpson, a commonwealth court judge, clears the way for Pennsylvania to require voters in the Nov. 6 general election to produce photo identification before they are allowed to cast ballots.

This isn't entirely bad news -- or, at least, not as bad as its being presented. The odds of this affecting the election outcome are slim to none. Pennsylvania's RealClearPolitics polling average is Obama +7, with the most recent poll putting the president up 11 points. At this moment, to call Pennsylvania a "swing state" -- as so many are doing -- looks like an abuse of the term. Romney's looking pretty doomed here and voter ID can't possibly disenfranchise enough people to make the difference for him (Nate Silver estimates the law would skew results 2.4%).

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Romney Can't Buy Love

Politico has the story of Mitt Romney triumphant five-state sweep of primary elections last night:

Mitt Romney swept all five Republican primary elections Tuesday night, putting an end once and for all to any hopes for a comeback by his beleaguered GOP primary opponents.

The last state to be called was New York, where voting ended at 9 p.m.; Romney was previously projected the winner in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

There was little suspense in tonight’s elections. Only in Delaware, where Newt Gingrich camped out in recent days and collected endorsements from top local officials, was Romney at any risk of losing. Even a Gingrich victory there would have been unlikely to complicate Romney’s glide to the Republican convention in Tampa.

Yes, nothing but smooth sailing from here on out. Just a non-stop express train to the Oval Office. There's only one hitch: Mitt's actual showing was more than a little weak.

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Fracking: Bad for You, Good for China

The Marcellus shale formation is a huge deposit of rock that formed from the floor of a prehistoric sea. And it's massive. Taking up a large chunk of (mostly) the northeastern United States, it stretches from Alabama to New York, laying under vast swaths of many of the states in between:



Like any ocean, the ocean that formed the Marcellus was heavily populated by lifeforms, and this means that the lifeforms left behind organic chemicals -- which means fossil fuels. In this case, natural gas.

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The Important States of America

The question going into the elections in Pennsylvania today isn't who'll win, but whether it'll make any difference. With most polls showing a tight race, the best either campaign can do is to try to spin what's almost certain to be a near tie. A win -- likely by Clinton -- will be nothing to write home about, percentage-wise.

For their part, the Clinton campaign have been trying to create a meme that delegates don't actually count, it's the states you win that count. Apparently, there are relevant states and irrelevant states -- relevancy seems to be measured by which states Clinton won. "The big states" that a Democrat has to win have gone to Clinton, the argument goes, so she's in the best position to win in November. This argument makes perfect sense.

Unless, of course, you refrain from lobotomizing yourself with an ice cream scoop. If you leave your brain intact, it doesn't make any damned sense at all.

Think back to the 2004 elections. There were these things called "battleground states" or "swing states." How many of these swing states were the big ones? Not many. According to the New York Times, the swing states were Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and New Hampshire. Of those, Clinton has won Ohio, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Florida. The problem here is that Michigan and Florida don't count -- neither was a real contest. Obama has won Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

The argument that Clinton won all the "important states" and therefore is entitled to run for "President of the Important States of America" dies there. If you measure "important state" more realistically, Obama won more of those states' delegates. Meanwhile, Clinton's "big states" are a mix of sure dem wins, sure dem losses, and toss ups. Winning New York, for example, doesn't mean a damned thing -- does anyone on Earth expect McCain to take that state? A Democrat may need New York to win, but a Democrat win there is also a really safe bet. No one who lives in the real world would argue that Obama would lose the Empire State.

For his part, Bill Clinton kinda-sorta made the "important state" argument recently, only to abandon it -- all at the same event.

Washington Post:

Following a rally for his wife's campaign at Market Square in Pittsburgh, former president Bill Clinton suggested his wife would already be the nominee -- if she were running under Republican party rules.

"If we were under the Republican system, which is more like the Electoral College, she'd have a 300-delegate lead here," he said. "I mean, Senator McCain is already the nominee because they chose a system to produce that result, and we don't have a nominee here, because the Democrats chose a system that prevents that result."

I think he means that if all states were "winner take all," like the GOP races, Hillary would be in the lead. I was going to check this math, but you've got Florida and Michigan throwing everything off, along with Texas's weird "pri-caucus," which gave the regular voting to Clinton and the caucus to Obama. Just going through all the possibilities would make a post that would be just as boring for you as for me, so screw it. Let's just say that it doesn't matter -- we aren't playing by Republican rules (as much as Team Hillary have been acting that way), so this is hypothetical crap with no relation to the real world.

Besides, Bill immediately said that his glorious hypothetical Hillary victory would be under a really bad system. "Disenfranchisement is not a good strategy for Democrats," he said. "We do a better job when people are in power. So I just don't agree with that." Let's see if I've got this; Hillary should be winning, except she's not, because we're using too good a system for that.

Great argument, Bill.

Of course, the Clinton campaign is running out of arguments -- good or bad. An new analysis by Bloomberg shows that Clinton's chances of getting the nomination are slim to none. And getting worse with each contest.

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.

Clinton needs "blowout numbers," says Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant who isn't affiliated with either campaign. "The wheels would have to come off the Obama bus, and the engine would have to blow."

Considering what's already happened with the Obama campaign, I'd say that was unlikely. You remember the kid who'd wipe out on his bike then say, "I meant to do that?"

Yeah, that's Barack Obama -- only in his case, you believe him. His skill at getting out of potentially embarrassing situations is becoming legendary. The wheels aren't going to come off that bus unless he actually kills someone.

For the record, I don't think he'll kill anyone.

Needing a big win -- and not expecting to get one -- the Clinton campaign is trying to "pre-spin" the Pennsylvania results.

Christian Science Monitor:

The latest major polls show her winning the Keystone State by an average of five points. That would not be enough to make substantial headway in either her convention delegate count or the popular vote. But Clinton campaign aides have made clear that a win is a win and that they plan to spin even a narrow victory into a major loss for Senator Obama.

"If Obama fails to win Pennsylvania, it will be another sign that he is unable to win in the large states that a candidate for president on the Democratic ticket needs to win," Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson told reporters in a conference call last week.

There it is again, the pitch for the nomination to run for the President of the Important States of America. Like that Hawaii, Wyoming, Minnesota, S. Carolina, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Mississippi, or any of the other 27 states Obama has won? You ain't worth crap -- despite the fact that you're over half of the states in the country. Apparently, there are only a handful of states that actually count. Elections are held in your states just to keep you busy or something.

The unavoidable fact of the matter is that there's a very simple theme to this primary election -- the longer it goes on, the more ridiculous and insulting Clinton's arguments get.

Remember Pennsylvania, in the unlikely (but not unrealistic) event that Barack Obama wins your election today, you'll find yourselves labeled "not important" and an argument will be made that superdelegates should pay no attention to your votes.

Suddenly, you won't be relevant enough to be worth caring about.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; spin; propaganda; elections; 2008; Today's primary vote won't determine whether Hillary or Obama is the nominee -- it'll determine whether Clinton says Pennsylvania is important

Where a Knock Out was Needed, a Draw was Called

Last night's Democratic debate in Texas ended in what most observers are calling a draw. Clinton managed to get a hit in, but it didn't play. Trying her plagiarism charge for the nth time, Clinton said, "[L]ifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in; it's change you can Xerox."

The statement was rewarded with some booing.

The statement also illustrates a deep problem with Hillary Clinton's campaign -- it seems to be ignoring its own misfires. The plagiarism angle was test-flown in Wisconsin and it crashed. Yet, here she is, trying the failed line again. The campaign is not adjusting.

The reaction of analysts to Clinton's performance in the debate is that things look bad. Political Wire helpfully gathers a few:

Chuck Todd, for MSNBC: "Clinton ended the debate on a VERY conciliatory note and for the first time sounded like a candidate who realized she might not win. It must be an odd position for her but the confidence she exuded for just about the entire debate disappeared there at the end. I wonder if showing some vulnerability might actually help her with some undecided voters."

Marc Ambinder for The Atlantic: "This was the night where we all learned that Hillary Clinton understands the moment in history we are in, and that she is smart enough and gracious enough to realize that her party is more important than personal vanity, that there are things she just cannot say about Obama because it would hurt him in the fall, and that more likely than not, she will not win the nomination."

ABC News' Rick Klein: "If all you're doing as a voter is making a judgment based on this debate, it's easy to come away supporting Clinton. But that's not how the election works -- the fact is Sen. Clinton was looking for ways to recast the debate tonight, and we didn't get that. A few new lines on a few old arguments do not result in any changed dynamics, not by my judgment. If you're an Obama fan, you're generally pleased with the night."

Walter Shapiro in Salon: "The very tentative guess is that Hillary Clinton still managed to inspire voters in Texas and Ohio to look again, perhaps for the last time, at the candidate whom they are poised to jettison in favor of Barack Obama."

The only good news is that last from Shapiro -- and even then, the assessment is that Clinton has one last chance. The problem is that she needs a lot more than that. Not only does Clinton need to win Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, but she needs to win them convincingly. That seems unlikely.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that the polls in at least one key state are moving in the wrong direction for team Clinton. That poll puts Clinton at 48% in Texas, with Obama at 47%. ABC tells us that Texas is still about 25% undecided. Obama is closing.

"If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be. It's all on you," former president Bill Clinton told voters in Texas.

In Ohio, her margin is wider, but nowhere near a safe win and nowhere near what she needs to win. In that race, Clinton polls 50% and Obama gets 43% -- with a third undecided. As I pointed out earlier this week, Obama owned the undecided in Wisconsin. Ohio's and Wisconsin's electorates are similar. And the amount of time between now and March 2nd is time enough for the Obama ground game to eat up a good chunk of that undecided vote.

As Marc Armbinder suggests, the even Clinton sees the hurdles she must clear and has to be seriously considering the very real possibility that they're too high to clear. In her closing at the debate, Clinton -- albeit indirectly -- spoke about the possibility of her defeat. "Whatever happens, we’re going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends," Clinton said. "I just hope that we’ll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that’s what this election should be about."

If that sounds a little like a concession to you, there's a reason. When John Edwards suspended his campaign, his speech included the line, "But I want to say this to everyone: with Elizabeth, with my family, with my friends, with all of you and all of your support, this son of a millworker's gonna be just fine. Our job now is to make certain that America will be fine."

At this point in time, I don't see this campaign going all the way to the convention. I don't see a brokered convention. And I don't see Texas and Ohio as a "last stand" for Clinton, so much as a "Hail Mary." If she pulls this campaign up and out of this dive, it'll be the political comeback of the last fifty years -- at least. I wouldn't count her out just yet, but I wouldn't put any money on her winning either. Those chips go to Obama.

Last night's debate was considered by most to be the closing arguments in this campaign. Clinton doesn't seem to offer any real changes to her message. At this point, the whole thing looks like Obama's to lose -- which seems unlikely. "The chances of Obama doing something that's going to cause a major problem are about as low as her doing something that will turn it around," Democratic strategist Bill Carrick told AP's Rob Fournier. "When you start pressing to come back, it's usually the person who's behind who makes the mistake."

Still, no one in history has ever had a crystal ball that worked right. The unforeseen is unforeseen for a reason. The Clinton cause is not entirely hopeless, but the grounds for optimism are fading fast.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; primary; Democrat; Texas; Ohio; Pennsylvania; Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton's last chance