Monday Evening Anti-Gloom

No, there's no better news exactly. Even over at The Field, Al G. is now predicting a ten point victory in popular vote for Hillary in Ohio. His projections on Texas will come later, and I'll hold off on my comments on Texas until I see what his numbers look like.

The only whiff of counter-trend I'm getting is from reporters in the field rather than pollsters and pundits: that the youth vote may threaten Hillary's assumed win in Rhode Island and may well be a mighty if unpredictable force in Texas. Hillary's final event in Ohio was badly attended.

The major anti-gloom for Ohio is precisely in today's bad news. I can feel the energy redoubling among the Obama get-out-the-vote operation everywhere. There's also a report from earlier in the week that union canvas of Ohio households was finding a lot more Obama support than Hillary support.

Plus there's real anger developing against Hillary for implying that John McCain is more qualified to be President than is Obama. Rachel Madow, no Obama supporter by any means, said bluntly on Keith that Hillary's statement sounded like someone wanting to be McCain's vice president, not the Democratic nominee. At the moment there are at least 3 reccommended diaries on this subject at Kos.

Hillary's campaign of fear may have gone too far, regardless of how she does in Ohio and Texas tomorrow. With the delegate math against her, this is going to suggest how far she will go to divide the party even though she has little chance of winning the nomination. The consensus seems to be that if she wins Ohio, she'll stay in the race. But any pressure on her to get out is only going to be intensified by this. I expect Bill Richardson to endorse Obama on Wednesday, at the very least.

That statement is also going to energize the Obama troops (it already is.) There isn't going to be an identified Obama voter tomorrow who isn't going to get contacted, driven to the polls through snow and/or rain in Ohio, and ice storms in Rhode Island. They're going to work the neighborhoods in Ohio and Texas from before the polls open until they close. The campaign has already closed 20 point gaps in both big states, and the expected big turnout, the new voters, the early voters and the crossovers make all of this a big question mark. And while today's events did not help Obama, tomorrow's energy and commitment will.

Crossover voters, by the way, is a factor that the media isn't considering: the McCain campaign is off to a bad start, and is in the news at the moment for accepting endorsement from a preacher who calls the Catholic Church the "Great Whore." That could motivate Republicans and Independents to vote in the Democratic primaries tomorrow.