Supers, Endorsements and Bull

There are additions and subtractions to the super-delegate totals every day. Hillary had her best day in awhile with three announcements (Obama had one) but the totals over the past day or two still favor Obama. The latest NBC count shows that Hillary's once formidable lead in Supers is now 30: 260-230. The story according to the AP is the drip-drip towards Obama.

The Obama campaign trotted out a bunch of Philadelphia city council and PA state rep endorsers today, but Hillary still has more. Kos has weighed in on the PA polls and as I suspected, he thinks SUSA is the most accurate--that Obama is behind by double digits. But it does remain an outlyer, and one poll today that counted leaners (those who are sure and those who are leaning towards a candidate) shows it single digit close. Meanwhile, Obama is on a bus tour in Indiana, where this whole thing could be decided, and he's close enough there to win it. And that's another reason his campaign may be spending big in PA--to keep Hillary worried and pinned down there. (The Sniper Fire theory?)

Okay, it's on to the bull. Issue #1: Obama has a radio ad in PA claiming he doesn't take money from oil companies. Hillary has an ad calling this deceptive because corporations can't contribute to campaigns by law. Today Bill made fun of the claim. Well, maybe the script could have been better--it's oil company lobbyists Obama doesn't take money from, but Hillary does. And Hillary has received a third more in donations from employees of energy corps.

Issue #2. A voter asked whether Billary pocketing $800,000 from a Columbia trade deal proponent while she opposes this isn't conflict of interest. Hillary just laughed--long and hard, you know, like she does. Laughed it off? Close to a million dollars? There's no problem there? Why? Because it's chicken feed if you've raked in more than $100 million? So your price is higher than that? I'm sorry--it IS a problem, and it is not funny. That's a little less than one fifth of the $5 million Hillary lent her campaign from that same account. A campaign that by all accounts is hurting for money--with debts that may soon go to the collectors. Could that be why Bill couldn't keep his hands off those ridiculous fees? It's all part of a pattern--Bill, Penn, others in her campaign, and her campaign itself. Not funny.

Issue #3. Bowling. The smartass guys, the Chris "I'm just a blue collar guy who makes $5 million a year for shooting his mouth off" Matthews crowd all put Obama down for bowling badly in Altoona on his PA bus tour. How this was bound to lose him blue collar macho votes, just so embarrassing.

Well, Walter Shapiro went back there for Salon and found out what I told you all long ago: Obama got points for showing up and for joining in. One dedicated bowler there said, "The fact that he bowled at all was good. It showed that he isn't afraid to be average." Nobody gave a damn about his score. In fact, the story corrects several mis-reported facts. His score wasn't 37, it was 47 when he left before finishing the seventh frame. And by then someone else had bowled for him--an eight year old... Those ace reporters didn't even get his shoe size right. It was reported as 13.5. But the kid who dispensed the shoes says it was 12. And he remembers. They ALL remember--that bowling alley is the most famous place in town now.

And even in that dour SUSA poll which has Hillary thumping Obama in western PA, one of the places where he showed significant strength was Altoona and Johnstown.