He's opened the floodgates. Obama would like nothing better than to knock Ms. Clinton out of the race tomorrow. If spending on campaign ads make the difference, he will. Impeach Bush.
I do think the Clintons will go Nuclear. I don't think they will just allow Obama to win even if he becomes the Dem candidate. I think secretly, the Clintons will try to undermine and do everything they can to make sure Obama doesn't win the general election. If Obama wins the presidency, that pretty much ends the Clintons return to the White House. They will try to do eveything they can to make sure he doesn't win so that it sets up Hillary to run for President in 2012. They aren't going down without a fight.
New American Research Group polls tonight: HRC by 14 in Ohio, HRC by 3 in Texas http://americanresearchgroup.com/ That represents a gain of 10 points in Texas and 9 in Ohio since the middle of last week. We'll see if it holds...
Absolutely - if he can hold Texas, he's in good shape. But he needs to win the popular vote. If not, Hillary has the justification to go on - especially with her Ohio lead looking like it's growing - and that means six more weeks until Pennsylvania. This is his opportunity to end it. After that, there's not an opportunity for a while. And given that it's only been about 8 weeks since Iowa, you're talking about doubling the length of the campaign (at a minimum) if he can't deliver a knockout tomorrow. I think his big campaign weakness is coming back to bite him yet again. Once again, he's promoting himself as a front-runner and really let the expectations game get out of his control. He does much better as the scrappy underdog than the frontrunner. Just like going negative seems to come across really badly for Hillary, frontrunning seems to sometimes come across as arrogance for Obama. As for the negative attacks - I agree with you that most of it is pretty above-the-board negative. I do think the "as far as I know" comment in regards to not fully criticizing the Muslim "smear" was pretty tacky and dirty, though.
It looks like every poll shows pretty reasonable leads in Ohio. Obama has to hope his supporters are more committed and whatever caused his bumps in other states over the polls continues here. He also might benefit from what is supposed to be horrible weather *if* his supporters are more committed. On the flipside, he has yet to overperform polls in states he wasn't winning in the polls, so he may not get any benefit there. Texas is a whole different story. The polls are pretty even. The early voting, according to the polls, was also pretty even. But the distribution by county seems like it substantially favors Obama - so who knows what's going on there. And then of course there's the caucus and whatever effect it has. I have no idea how all this plays out. I think Obama can break even on delegates tomorrow - that's my hope at this point, given the situation in Ohio. He has yet to lose a day in the campaign in terms of delegates, so hopefully that continues (he tied in NH and won in NV in terms of delegates; and won every other day). To knock her out though, he needs to win the popular vote in Texas. He can't just win the delegate count here.
Maybe this was in an earlier thread and I missed discussion about this, but did you actually watch/hear the interview? If you read the exchange it looks much more innocuous. I only mention this because I heard about this earlier today, had much the same reaction as you (eww, slimy), then read the transcript and thought it was much ado about nothing. Just a case of a reporter asking the same question over and over trying to get a provacative answer: STEVE KROFT: You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim? HILLARY CLINTON: Of course not. I mean that's, you know, that, there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says, and, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that. KROFT: You said you take Sen. Obama at his word that he's not a Muslim... CLINTON: Right, right.. KROFT: …you don't believe that he's a Muslim. CLINTON: No! No! Why would I? There's nothing to base that on. As far as I know. KROFT: It's just scurrilous…? CLINTON: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.
Cool - no I hadn't actually seen the video. Only reports from others. The full transcript doesn't appear nearly as bad the "As far as I know" part without the many other answers. Thanks!
You got to see this video. My initial reaction was that Clinton reached new lows. but after watching the interview, I changed my mind. The 'Of course Not' was very assertive and I believed when I heard. Rest of it was the reporter asking the same question in different ways. It did not even seem like Clinton was trying to sound doubtful
I am guessing that in the moment, she thought she might as well be a little ambivalent about it, but that was just her instinct, and she realized right away that she didn't want to play that game.
FB, if you watch the video, as dylan pointed out to Major with the transcript, she isn't intending anything like what has been implied by some Obama supporters on the major news outlets. I saw a guy on CNN (I know him, but his name escapes me right now), who I know had to have seen the exchange with Ms. Clinton that "got all the press," yet he deliberately pumped up the scurilous charge that she was being ambiguous about Barack's religion for political gain. She wasn't at all. Just google the video and watch it. It isn't helping Obama's campaign as being the candidate for change when he has people doing old style political spin while deliberately distorting what his opponent said. What is particularly galling is that she was defending him and saying how she'd suffered the same kind of political mudslinging for years. Well, beautiful weather in Austin for the vote! Should be a great turnout. We've got two great candidates, in my opinion, who are Democrats everyone can be proud of, and two great Democrats who (this I really like) are unabashedly Democrats. Proud of their party and pushing, each in their own way, for real change. As a longtime Democrat myself, I'm thrilled that we've managed to have such solid choices who will upend business as usual in Washington, if this political process can ever end. Impeach Bush.
ROCKET RICH, with all due respect, that is WACKED!!! No way are they thinking like that. If any two people are Democratic to their core, it is Hillary and Bill Clinton. If someone dislikes them, fine, but don't toss out these bizarre scenarios that sound like they came from a Rush Limbaugh radio program. Your "idea" is simply absurd, IMO. (with all due respect! ) Impeach Bush and Save Us from Canada!
If this is true, this would pretty much be the knockout blow: http://thepage.time.com/2008/03/04/...as-50-more-superdelegates-in-his-back-pocket/ That said, my first instinct on this is that these 50 superdelegates are likely waiting for the race to realistically be over before committing. If Hillary were to win TX, OH and RI today, it wouldn't be, and there may not be much to come out of this. Also, the caucuses may work to Obama's benefit yet again. Even if Hillary wins the popular vote, here's the Chronicle's projection: http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/ That would give Obama a net gain of 5 in Texas...
I saw it, thanks. I was agreeing all along that she didn't want to play it that way. I do think that at some point her mind did think about it(perhaps because it's been conditioned to do so by all the games in Washington) and that she rejected it. That's good.
Nice find, but I find it hard to believe they could hide 50 superdelegates that well. But something very strange is going on here. For the past 4 or 5 days, the Obama campaign has pretty much been on complete media silence. Hillary's dominated virtually all the headlines, and I'm wondering if the Obama people went braindead or if they have some weird plan in mind. At any point, they could have released their fundraising numbers, for example, and interrupted the Clinton coverage. Or while Clinton was out on 60 Minutes, SNL, and the Daily Show, Obama's been nowhere to be found media-wise. I'm not sure what to make of it.
I voted for Obama today. I hope he will enable the refunding of the American Research Machine aka academia. I also hope he will restore some of the civil liberties lost since 9/11.
Nah, agree with Deckard again. If Mitt can support McCain, the Clintons will get behind Obama once it is over. This (Obama-Clinton) campaigning has hardly even been the bloodiest or dirtiest of the primaries this year. Either side will close ranks when it is over. I do hope Obama can take Texas. I don't want the Clintons feeling so empowered they have a real shot to come back and that being even more negative could serve them.
I agree with ROCKET RICH. Us New Yorkers have seen up close the true colors of this creature and all it is capable of.
