Hope V. Fear, the Future V. the Past

It should be pretty clear, Indiana and North Carolina. Above and beyond the crazed distractions, this is still what it's about: hope versus fear, the future versus the past, and reality versus the old politics.

According to Howard Fineman and others, Hillary thinks she has a winner with her advocacy for a gas tax holiday this summer. It fits right in with her new image as the working class girl (even if she can't figure out how to work the 7/11 coffee machine.) So the question now becomes: are people going to choose someone for President of the United States for the next four years on the basis of the slim chance that they'll save maybe thirty bucks this summer?

Obama has all the arguments why it's a bad idea, and most economists agree with him. Plus the fact that it has no support in Congress, and it ain't going to happen. So what can Hillary do about it anyway? It's May. Summer starts in a month. She's a candidate for a presidency that begins in January. If she is so sure this is a wonderful thing, why isn't she back in Washington fighting like hell in the Senate to get it done?

Well, because she doesn't care if it gets done or not. Pandering is one thing. Cynical manipulation of voters' desperation takes it to a new level of scum behavior.

Will people buy it? As Obama says about the possible effect of the Wright drama, "we'll see." The TV pundits are sure it will. For me, it adds to the theme of the week around here: if Indiana and North Carolina don't repudiate this kind of politics, and this kind of media concentration to the exclusion of real problems for real people on the Rev. Wright--especially since they haven't made a peep about the white right wing nutcase preacher Hillary (a white person) prays with, or the very white, very right wing very nutcase preacher who writes that America is under God's curse, whose political support John McCain (a white person) sought and got---if Indiana and North Carolina doesn't repudiate all this by voting heavily for Obama, then this country is screwed. And so is this planet.

Yes, Obama can still win the nomination, and he can still win the election, and he would still have a chance at gaining the mandate he needs to go forward with real change. But it gets more difficult and more contentious if North Carolina and Indiana don't come through.

It's an important moment, and a tense one. I saw a story about morale problems in the Obama campaign, and less than overwhelming efforts in Indiana and North Carolina. I got so many appeals for contributions in the last couple of days that I'm really worried about the Obama campaign's April take. And it looks like Obama's schedule is in flux, with possibly more attention being paid to North Carolina, which should be in the bag by now. It seems Clinton is concentrating on Indiana.

Yet if you watched the YouTube excerpt I linked yesterday, you'll see that Obama has never been sharper. If you watch this one, you'll hear him talk informally with voters (in Indianapolis Thursday) about real ways to make real change--the idea I hadn't heard before was a new level of transparency and involvement for everyone via the Internet. So here's what I think about this: we couldn't ask for a better candidate who would be a better President, nor could we really ask for a better campaign in terms of focus, intelligence and eloquence. We couldn't ask for a better additional voice for it than Michelle Obama's. So if we go down, I'm satisfied it couldn't have been presented better.

The people who go to see him are getting that. It's the people who aren't that need to experience it. Maybe this round of media he's doing will help. Although he has to wade through these absurd questions. What about the flag pin? Are you wearing a flag pin, Mr. or Ms. Questioner? Was Hillary wearing one at the last debate? Was McCain? Does this question make any sense at all?

Yes, it's true that super-delegates are still moving towards Obama, but he needs a big win in North Carolina and a win or a very close loss in the popular vote in Indiana to get this campaign back to reality.

I'm going up to Oregon tomorrow, where I'll be giving visible support to Obama in advance of the primary there, and if I get time from other business, maybe some canvassing. But I probably won't be posting for a few days. Which is okay because I've said it. Indiana. North Carolina. It comes down to them.

Update: Just before I close my computer, this breaking news: that a former Democratic National Committee chair appointed by Bill Clinton, who endorsed Hillary on the day she announced, is switching to Obama Thursday, and urging other super-delegates to join him to bring the race to a close because it is becoming destructive. And he's doing it in--get this!--Indianapolis. He's urging Indiana to vote for Obama. This might even get the media's attention...And it may account for some of that scheduling change. Happy Thursday!

Divorcing Mr. Wright

Barack Obama divorced himself and his campaign from Rev. Wright due to Wright's performance yesterday, an invitation to the National Press Club arranged by a Hillary supporter. If you watch Obama make his statement and answer questions (which you can here) you will see his anger and sadness, and you will know why. He is eloquent and forceful, and this should end the Wright watch for statements Obama has to answer.

The unfairness--and the racism-- of this controversy vs. McCain's free ride with the preacher whose political support he sought and accepts, is the subject of this New York Times editorial. But there it is. However, it presents voters in Indiana and North Carolina with an opportunity. For years it's been clear that at least some voters are more interested in substantive issues and questions than they are in this distracting exploitation. But politicians who have exploited these distractions have often won votes. Voters can bring this campaign back to reality by not voting for Hillary, and by voting for Obama. If Obama wins both contests, then reality wins.

As predicted, Clinton has moved up in the national and state polls, but she is not clearly in the lead anywhere. Because of Wright it may take several more days before we know whether Obama recovers from PA and Wright. By the weekend, those polls should tell us more, although in fact the polls that came out today and yesterday are all over the place in both states.

Following up on yesterday, it seems the North Carolina gov is pretty toothless--a lame duck who is characterized as lazy--and his statement of support was graceless at best, and borderline offensive. Meanwhile, an interview with Elizabeth Edwards confirmed that at the moment her husband has no plans to endorse anyone before the North Carolina primary.

What surprises me is that the Clintons haven't done anything outrageous lately. They always follow perceived victories with some sort of arrogant mistake. But the week is young. (Of course both Clintons continue to be shameless scum. But they aren't attracting so much attention for it.)

Meanwhile, Obama is stronger than ever on the stump. "This campaign isn't about me. It isn't about Hillary Clinton. It isn't about John McCain. This campaign is about you." This is a great appearance.

Here's another, a shorter clip on a specific issue. Obama on the McCain/Clinton gas tax proposal: it will mean at best saving $30 total over the course of the summer, and may cost 7,000 jobs in construction just in North Carolina, which would have been paid for by the tax. "This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea designed to get them through an election."

Meanwhile, there's been a certain pushback on the latest "elitist" argument, seeing much of it for what it is: what used to be called anti-intellectualism, but which is actually anti-intelligence and pro-stupidity, as well as misplaced romanticism about salt of the earth beer drinking NASCAR loving folks by talking head millionaires in suits, and the political consultants who love them. So for some sort of antidote, try this and this.

Terse Monday

Obama got it from the right--thanks to Rev. Wright--and from the left today, both Daily Kos and MoveOn.org pissed that he did an interview Sunday on Faux News.

If the widely quoted sentences from the Times story I referenced earlier are accurate, the Obama campaign may believe it is losing in Indiana. Why else say that they expect the primary campaign to go on past June 3?

Rachel Madow on Keith tonight provided Obama with a brilliant strategy for responding to the latest Wright appearances, which I will now mesh with my add-on: Obama can delineate the church-state separation, the spiritual and political, reaffirming the JFK position, stating that Wright was a spiritual pastor and not a political advisor, while noticing that John McCain is politically embracing preachers whose political positions are terrible, and could affect foreign policy, i.e. the U.S. was founded to wage holy war on Islam.

Clinton is getting the endorsement of the North Carolina governor tomorrow. That's not good news. How bad it is--how politically powerful he is-- nobody seems to know. But it makes him virtually the only officeholder in the state to endorse Hillary.

Former North Carolina Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards has not endorsed, and people are wondering if he will now. I doubt it. If he endorses Clinton, his political career will be over, even as an advocate for his causes of fighting poverty, etc., because in this polarized situation, black voters in North Carolina and elsewhere will never forgive him. And if he endorses Obama--I noted in a poll awhile back that his endorsement would actually make people less likely to vote for Obama. So if he's smart, he keeps quiet.

The Day of Decision

Next Tuesday, May 6, may turn out to be the most fateful day so far in this fateful election year. North Carolina and Indiana hold primaries, and among the possibilities for their outcomes are several that could go a long way in determining who the next President will be.

Because Barack Obama lost the Pennsylvania primary, he needs to win a big state to silence doubts about the current state of his candidacy. Hillary Clinton has to win at least one of these two states to stay even marginally credible as a candidate. If Obama wins both, he will clearly be the nominee, and Clinton may well drop out. If Clinton wins both, it will devastate the Obama candidacy, perhaps beyond repair. At the moment, Obama is expected to win North Carolina, and Indiana is about even. Clinton has media momentum and has won more of the "working class white" vote in the past several contests. Obama has his base constitutency, plus some other advantages in each state.

I expect the polls coming out this week to be stronger for Clinton, as a result of the PA vote and the subsequent media coverage. If the polls continue to go that way by next weekend, then Obama is in trouble, but I don't expect that to happen. In any case what happens this week on the ground in both states will prove or disprove whatever the polls show. The situation is further complicated by the fact that both states are in the midst of early voting right now.

These are fateful contests for this election and therefore for the future. They may be fateful in a much smaller sense for me. Because I realized this week, for various reasons but most recently and particularly Hillary's reckless statements about "totally obliterating" Iran, that I can never vote for Hillary Clinton. So if Barack Obama doesn't get the Democratic nomination, I won't be voting in November 2008. (I voted for Obama in the CA primary.) And if I don't, it wouldn't surprise me if I never voted again. Because after 2008 I don't think there will be much point, at least in my lifetime.

Barring one of the candidates dropping out, the decision on the nominee will ultimately, formally belong to the super-delegates. I believe they are waiting for May 6. If Obama wins big in North Carolina and even comes close in Indiana--and a victory there allows Clinton to stay in the race--then more super-delegates will feel comfortable in declaring for Obama. I don't think there are many super-delegates who actually favor Clinton. There are some, perhaps many, who are afraid of her and Bill. And there are others who may be heeding the media CW and worry about Obama as a candidate. But they are all only waiting for Obama to win again. That's my guess.

Right now both these contests are utterly mysterious. Obama looked stronger in PA than a 9 point loss, so his crowds and the polls may not be saying anything dependable. On the other hand, Hillary's campaign may be mostly smoke and mirrors at this point. It's entirely possible that Obama will win both states big. But at the moment it is just barely possible that Hillary will squeak out a victory in North Carolina, and win Indiana by 5 points or so.

It could be that Hillary has all that just folks appeal. Or it could be that without mayors and governors delivering voters for her, she can't compete. At last look, Obama has most of the Democratic officeholders in North Carolina, including mayors. In Indiana he's been endorsed by the mayors of Gary, South Bend, Evansville and Bloomington; Hillary has the mayors of Hammond and Anderson, but she's not going to get Indianapolis, Muncie or Terre Haute because those are all Republicans. Senator Evan Bayh is for Hillary, and his is a respected family in the state. But so was Bob Casey's in PA.

So I'm staying away from tea leaves for these contests. I just hope PA didn't cut into the enthusiasm of Obama's on the ground forces because everything could depend on these two elections in just eight days.

Meanwhile, the super-delegates may want to examine the latest article about how Hillary's disorganized campaign presages her approach to the presidency, and this suggestion that contrary to her campaign theme, "...Hillary Clinton has not, in fact, survived the worst that the Republican attack machine (and its pilotless drones online and on talk radio) can dish out. We will learn what the worst really means if she is nominated."

Among the small but steady stream of super-delegate and other Obama endorsements comes this intriguing one: from the Oregon coalition of Latino leaders. For a partisan overview, there's this diary at Kos, which also has the video of Obama's 3-on-3 basketball game in Indiana--and here's the direct link. He's got game.

Interesting that there are two articles this morning, one in the Washington Post, one in the New York Times, about how Obama is relating his basic argument to economic issues in Indiana.

Bright Lines and End Games

When Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the #3 Democrat in the House, began speaking to reporters this week (here's one article in the New York Times) he added some important factors to the public evaluation and conduct of the Democratic campaign. He spoke for African American voters, who increasingly feel discounted in the dialogue. He told the Washington Post: "I am very concerned that if we keep talking as if it doesn't matter ... that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote ... since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he's in trouble. Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of black vote. [That's] like saying that 92 percent, they don't matter....I think that the way everybody has been reporting this Pennsylvania thing, it's almost saying black people don't matter. Only thing that matters is how white people respond. And that's what bothered me. I think I matter."

This is a powerful argument. The white privilege component of media coverage can't be discounted either. But in terms of super-delegates (and Clyburn is one--so far uncommitted) this message is crystal clear: ignore black voters at your electoral peril. If they feel overlooked or cheated, it could cripple the Democratic party in every election this year, and for years to come.

But that's only one of Clyburn's messages. The other is the recklessly negative campaign being run by the Clintons. On Keith Friday, Clyburn defined the bright line: keep it positive and on issues for the rest of the contests, or there will be consequences. Everybody wonders how this campaign will end--who will step up to keep the party from destroying itself? If Hillary goes on the attack again, it could very well be the African American Democratic officeholders who force the issue.

Hillary's negative campaign already lost her an important supporter: one of her fundraisers and a Puerto Rican leader, Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon. He not only has left the Hillary campaign--he's switched to Obama. Both Clyburn's statements and Guerra-Mondragon's defection are major developments, given the timing, and they will reverberate for some time.

These are movements against the solid backdrop described by Elizabeth Drew, one of the most experienced and distinguished political journalists in America: "The torrent of speculation about the end game of the Democratic nomination contest is creating a false sense of suspense – and wasting a lot of time of the multitudes who are anxious to know how this contest is going to turn out." How it's going to turn out is that Obama is going to be the nominee because he will have the most delegates when the voting is over, and (as JedReport points out) he will have won the majority of delegates available by contest (all delegates except supes and add-ons) by May 20. And the nomination is won by delegates--nothing else.

Drew also underscores the importance of what Clyburn said in 2 of the 3 reasons she cites as why the supes will go to Obama: a. Hillary is so polarizing that down-ticket Dems will have little chance of picking up Indies and Republicans, b. to deny Obama the nomination if he is ahead would alienate African American voters for generations, and would lose young voters, Is and Rs who switched parties; and c: Because the black vote can make the decisive difference in numerous congressional districts, discarding Obama could cost the Democrats numerous seats."

These delegates aren't worried about the PA results, she writes, because Obama attracts the I's and R's that Hillary won't, while retaining most of the Democratic base, which is her strength.

I'd go further than that: Hillary won among the non-black Democratic base in states where she had the muscle of the political establishment: the governor and especially the mayors. Without the mayor of Los Angeles, she would have lost California. Without the mayors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, she might well have lost PA. (I don't think she won PA anyway--the memory of Bill did.) With that kind of muscle behind Obama, plus the constituencies he brings to the election, the Democrats could win all across the country--and Democratic officeholders and political operatives know it.

There have been rumors since before Texas that a large group of supers are ready to endorse Obama en masse. He's been getting a slow but steady succession of them, but if he wins North Carolina big and comes close or wins Indiana, it would make sense that it will finally happen then.

Cooler Heads

Cooler heads prevailed Wednesday, even within the excitable CW. For instance:

The Pennsylvania Primary was Hillary Clinton's last chance to deliver a game changing blow to Obama's campaign for the nomination. She failed to deliver.
Pennsylvania provided her with her final real opportunity to knock the wheels off the Obama campaign. She needed a crushing victory of 18% to 25% to have any real chance of altering the math or the psychology. Demographically, Pennsylvania was made for Hillary: the second oldest state in the nation, heavily blue collar, Catholic and rural -- Hillary's voter profile. She started with a lead of almost 20 points. But her final margin -- which the Pennsylvania Secretary of State says was only 9.2% -- fell far short of what was needed to stop Obama's nomination."

According to CBS News, Hillary won 9 more delegates than Obama did in PA. Other estimates go as high as 12. Obama won 25 net in Virginia.

Chuck Todd, the numbers impressario at NBC, says that Clinton's chances have diminished, not increased. Even if she is to attract super-delegates, she will have to win where she is not expected to win, and that's North Carolina.

And after a pretty hot rebuke to Hillary (see below), the New York Times coolly dismantles her electability argument in Thursday's paper:

Yet for all of her primary night celebrations in the populous states, exit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia.

According to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls on Tuesday, Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones — just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries.

And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republican in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women."

The rebuke came in an Wednesday editorial, which began:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."

This from a newspaper that editorially endorsed Hillary. While Obama is criticized as well, the bulk of their ire falls on Hillary, fingering especially that last-day TV ad that threw 9-11 and Osama bin Laden with the rest of the kitchen sink. The harm this is doing, plus the demonstrably false electability argument, should hasten the super-delegates to Obama. Word is that there's one supe or endorsement a day scheduled until North Carolina and Indiana. (There were two today, plus endorsements from 29 North Carolina legislators.) If he wins one or both, it could become a flood.

But what Hillary won in PA was apparently donations. It's not clear how much but maybe enough to keep up the attack, requiring Obama to raise more. And so the obscene waste of money continues. Practically the only beneficiaries of this are media companies, so naturally they hype this at every opportunity.

Heartbreak

The first hour was dour for Hillary, because it was "too close to call." There was talk of Hillary's campaign going broke and being unable to go on. But then, suddenly, it wasn't too close, she was declared the winner, and the next hour was about how Obama couldn't close her out. At about 10 pm eastern she supposedly peaked at 8% ahead. But by 11p she's hovering around a ten point spread.

Now the future of the Democratic Party and perhaps the future itself, may well be decided in Indiana in two more weeks.

Inside the numbers and the final delegate tally is all for later. Right now I remember why I left Pennsylvania, several times. Could it be any clearer, since my own demographic--white older working class outside big cities, and raised Catholic yet--turned away from the future so decisively? There is a core of intolerance that showed itself in so many places in the state. It's more than racism, although there is plenty of that. It's resistance to anything not within the highly conflicted, self-contradictory and self-destructive white working class culture. It's why young people have left PA and are leaving PA still. And most ironically, it's a powerful but unstated reason there aren't better jobs. Innovation and imagination are as unimaginable as a black man running for President.

So the campaign leaves PA behind. If it made any history today, it was to continue the sorry march to self-destruction. Until today, or maybe yesterday, my head told me that Clinton was going to win by 14. Then I started to let myself be persuaded than PA could be better. And as usual, PA broke my heart.

Meanwhile, here's the way less invested folks see it--or spin it...from the Obama campaign:


To: Interested Parties
Fr: The Obama Campaign
Re: A fundamentally unchanged race
Da: 4/22/08
Tonight, Hillary Clinton lost her last, best chance to make significant inroads in the pledged delegate count.

The only surprising result from Pennsylvania is that in a state considered tailor-made for Hillary Clinton that she was expected to win, Barack Obama was able to improve his standing among key voter groups since the Ohio primary. For example, among white voters, Obama narrowed the gap with Clinton by six points. Among voters over 60, he nearly cut the gap in half, from 41 points to 24 points. And Independent voters – the group that will decide the general election and a group Obama is particularly strong with – were not able to vote in Not surprisingly, she led by as much as 25 points in the weeks leading up to the election.

As he has done in every state, Barack Obama campaigned hard to pick up as much support and as many delegates as possible and was able to stave off Clinton from achieving a significant pledged delegate gain from Pennsylvania.
The bottom line is that the Pennsylvania outcome does not change dynamic of this lengthy primary. While there were 158 delegates at stake there, there are fully 157 up for grabs in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6.

And Andrew Sullivan:

It's worth recalling what this primary came to be about, because of a self-conscious decision by the Clintons to adopt the tactics and politics of the people who persecuted and hounded them in the 1990s. It was indeed in the end about smearing and labeling Obama as a far-left, atheist, elite, pansy Godless snob fraud. That was almost all it came to be about. It was the Clintons' core message and core belief. And if anywhere would have proved its salience, it would surely have been beleaguered and depressed central and western Pennsylvania; and it would surely have worked with white ethnic voters over 50.

It did work, it seems to me. It will work, to some extent. It's valid in the sense that Rove is not stupid. But it works less and less the younger the vote is; and it is obviously losing some of its divisive salience even among the older generation. It is fading as a tool. Used by Democrats, legitimized by Democrats, embraced by Democrats, the Rove-Atwater gambits have been paid the highest compliment by the Clintons these past few weeks. But a single digit win against a young black man in a polarized race suggests that this compliment was past its sell-by date. It was an act of desperation, and one last grab back to the past. It didn't quite do what it was supposed to do. Nearly, but not quite.

The past is receding; but the future has yet to be born. This is hard labor. Necessary labor. But the direction of this country is clear, it seems to me. And heartening.

History

Pennsylvania could make history today. It could essentially make Barack Obama the 2008 Democratic nominee, by providing him with a victory that no one (almost) is predicting or expecting. Or it could simply make his nomination inevitable, by providing him with enough votes to drain the Clinton campaign of any last chance.

At this point, hours after the candidates have wrapped up their campaign and hours before the voting starts, it's all possible. Even what Hillary needs--a 25 point win--is possible. But the last polls show a much tighter result. The most respected--SUSA-- has Hillary with a six point lead. The poll with the best record in the primaries--PPP--actually gives Obama a 3 point lead, the only poll to show him ahead. The last poll, the not-so-respected Zogby, shows Clinton with a ten point lead. (Meanwhile, the Tuesday national tracking poll from Gallup shows Obama has regained his 10 point lead.)

Anecdotal analysis from actual PA pols suggest it is very tight, and that turnout is the absolute key--not only the size of it, but who turns out. For much of Monday, the CW was centered on the 300,000 plus new registrants (slightly more than half being former Indies and GOPers), and the buzz in the Philly area. There was talk of Obama's strength in places like York and Lancaster, and the impression that it's about 50-50 in Clinton's stronghold of the Scranton area.

One optimist is Booman of the Booman Tribune, who lives in PA, based partly on his analysis of where the new registrants are. But even he picks Clinton at between 5 and 10 points. Al G. at the Field predicts Clinton by a bit more than 5%, but his district by district analysis shows she'll pick up only 4 more delegates. (This is the place to go, by the way, for numbers; he links to other such analyses as well.)

If anything changed anything in Clinton's favor today, nobody's talking about it yet. There were new ads, and robocalls, but Clinton ended her day in Philadelphia with a crowd of 5,000 (Obama got at least 35,000 and maybe double that). Obama ended his day with a town hall meeting in McKeesport for capacity 2500 and at the University of Pittsburgh rally for a capacity 10,000, easily topping her crowd earlier in the day.

So anything (just about) is possible: a ten point Hillary win to an Obama victory. There are just so many Pennsylvanias--and not only the condescending portraits painted by TV. MSNBC even polled to see who is ahead with gun owners, beer drinkers and bowlers. To them it's simple: working class conservatives in the West, liberals in the East and "Alabama" in between. All of those stereotypes correspond to some reality, but they are too simplistic to explain this Commonwealth. It's a lot more than that.

When the PA Governor's office of Bob Casey, Sr. was my client, I produced a document called "The New Pennsylvania: A Commonwealth That Works." Today will show which Pennsylvania shows up--the new or the old.

As for how to spend the day, I'm going to try to stay away from leaked exit poll information and turnout estimates for as long as I can. Ohio and Texas looked real good for Obama until the returns started coming in, and I'm not going to make that mistake again.

But once the TV blather really gets started and the returns do start coming in, here's the spin I expect. First of all, if these last polls and the buzz today are in the ball park, it's going to be awhile before a "winner" is projected, and even longer until the popular vote percentages settle down. (And of course, longer still until the most meaningful numbers: the delegates.)

But some of the campaign and media spinmeisters have tipped their hand. Obama said in Pittsburgh today that he wasn't predicting a win, but he thinks it will be closer than many people think. The Clinton campaign emphasizes that a win is a win by any margin, and Hillary is absolutely counting on it, because she's staying in Philadelphia election night (while Obama will be in Indiana. He's spending Monday night in Pittsburgh and returns to Philly before his evening rally in Indiana.)

The media chooses its own reality, and the CW in chief, Mark Halperin says Clinton must win by 10.5 to claim a meaningful victory. The Mouth of MSNBC, Chris Matthews, gave his over/under number as 8 points--the percentage she needs to change the game. (He was predicting a 14 point Clinton victory just the other day.) These are really cheesy numbers, because in that range they change nothing. Hillary will get pretty much the same number of delegates if she wins by 8 or 10 or 12 points. And none of them is enough to make a substantial difference in delegates or the popular vote. Hillary was ahead by 20 points just six weeks ago. I really wonder whether any of them are honest enough to say that. I guess we'll see.

Hillary herself may have tipped her hand a bit in her interview with Larry King, no longer claiming she'll fight all the way to the convention. More signals came Monday that June is when the Democrats want it all to be done. There's no real possibility that Hillary will be in position to be the nominee in June.

And Obama got another super-delegate Monday. From Ohio.

Reality Check

Obama held what sounds like a great rally in Scranton Sunday night. Some 4800 enthusiastic people saw not only Obama and Caroline Kennedy, and the ever-present Bob Casey, Jr., but several other Caseys--all from Scranton--including Senator Casey's mother, Eleanor, wife of the former Governor Bob Casey. (I met Eleanor once--charming, intelligent woman.) The three paragraph summary in this Time story is a pretty good excerpt, and tells you that Obama is really on his game now, despite the widely reported throwaway line about even McCain being better than Bush.

The Obama campaign has worked hard for votes in Scranton, according to this article in the Washington Post, even though they've had to deal with racial slurs and threats. And even though they would consider losing by anything under 30 points there a victory. (I've posted a bunch of photos from the PA weekend campaign at Captain Future's Dreaming Up Daily.)

Final election forecasts will be everywhere Monday, and will influence the spin as the actual results come in on Tuesday night. I'll save my predictions of what that spin will be like until I summarize the predictions. But at the close of Sunday, some reality checks emerged that ought to be part of how the PA vote is evaluated.

There has been plenty written about how it will become nearly impossible for Clinton to pull even with Obama in delegates gained as the result of contests, without a blowout win in Pennsylvania that leads to one blowout win after another through to the last in June. But Bloomberg evaluated her chances of catching Obama in the popular vote, which some in her campaign have held out as her last hope. And their story on this is devastating:

"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."

The story goes into excruciating detail of what that means: Clinton would need a 25-point victory in Pennsylvania, plus 20-point wins in later contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Even that scenario assumes Clinton, 60, would break even in Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon -- a prospect that's not at all certain.

More than just big margins, Clinton would need record voter turnout too. In Pennsylvania, she would need a turnout of 2 million, about half the state's registered Democrats; in the 2004 primary, about 800,000 voted. She would also need turnout to almost double in other states where she leads, and reach some 1 million in Puerto Rico, which is about how many Democratic- leaning voters went to the polls in a 2004 gubernatorial election.

That's more than a mountain to climb--that's walking to the moon. And maybe without shoes--because the one bit of news Sunday night was the fundraising numbers the campaigns had to file by midnight. According to official numbers, Obama started April with $42.5 million cash for the primaries (and another 9.5 for the general.) Although the filing deadline came and went without an official announcement from the Clinton camp, a spokesperson there said the Clinton campaign started April with about $8 million it could spend on primaries.

So what are the pundits going to say Monday and Tuesday? That she needs a 10 point victory, or any victory to stay in? Or are they going to say that realistically she needs a 25 point victory in PA?

Last Days Before PA Votes

Today Barack Obama did a town hall in Reading that filled the space with 2500 people. Tonight there's an "On Track for Change" rally in Scranton, with Caroline Kennedy as well as Bob Casey, who has been with him through this last swing. That should be interesting, as it is Clinton turf to the max.

Tomorrow, the day before the election, he has two scheduled stops, a town hall in McKeesport and finally a rally in Pittsburgh. Clinton will hit the big spots in every region of the state Monday: Scranton, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Sunday showed what Obama is up against. Not only is he battling against two Clintons campaigning simultaneously in different places (the Billary factor) but he is being attacked by McCain as well as the Clintons.

The Obama campaign is making some strange moves--they've reignited health care as an issue very late in the game, they're going negative more than in the past. Obama may have hurt himself by splitting hairs in Reading--he offhandedly said that all three candidates would be better than Bush. Media and Clinton jumped on it immediately. Things are frantic out there.

This blogger, who is an on the ground canvasser, mentioned some of the new wrinkles in the Obama campaign (including differences in the ground game), and like me wonders if it reflects internal polling. He says it just doesn't feel like Ohio, and suspects the Obama campaign thinks it is close. One could reach another conclusion, of course.

The latest polls show Hillary hovering around 50% with Obama closing in. Most polls are showing about a five point spread. Add five for late deciders and Hillary may still get her double digit win, but it could also drop down below that. At this moment, and at this distance, I'd say the best Obama could hope for is 7. But that's without knowing what no one knows: turn out, who will turn out and who won't; whether the Republicans who switched to Democratic registration are overwhelmingly for Obama or split (with generous dollups of Rush Limbaugh subverters); which way the Independents who registered D will go, and by how much.

PA is an expected win for Clinton, and a must win. How the results will be spun is another question. But what seems likely at this point is that she won't get many more delegates than Obama will, and unless she gets 60% of the vote and this translates into major victories in North Carolina and Indiana in two weeks, it won't mean much.

In the meantime, there's this smart and entertaining piece on the ABC debate by Frank Rich. My favorite sentences: "The trashiest ads often bumped directly into an ABC announcer’s periodic recitations of quotations from the Constitution. Such defacing of American values is to be expected, I guess, from a network whose debate moderators refuse to wear flag pins."

What's satisfying to me about Obama's final argument is that fundamentally it hasn't changed--he's talked specifics and so on, but he is making his basic argument, as in this two and a half minute clip from his rally in Harrisburg Saturday night.

He's getting good crowds everywhere, and it will be interesting to see how they turn out for him in Scranton and Pittsburgh. Good crowds don't guarantee or even necessarily indicate victory in any election, but what they are telling me is that Clinton is unlikely to pile up the popular vote margin she needs to make PA a game changer.

All Aboard

It turns out that Barack Obama's day in PA is being spent on old fashioned whistestops aboard a train, from Philadelphia to an evening rally in Harrisburg. I took that train route many times--it's incredibly beautiful, and it gets even more beautiful west of Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. They used to have historical guides ride some of those trips, and they would point out some of the rich history along the route. Of course, Obama has some other perks--like his own car. And he gets to toot the whistle. It's not fair.

Obama's campaign site suggests he's staying on the train Sunday, but the route is unconventional: back east to Reading, north to Scranton (where Obama and Bob Casey and family will be joined by Caroline Kennedy), then west to McKeesport and ending in Pittsburgh. The Scranton stop is very interesting--this area, where Hillary Rodham's family has deep roots, is considered all hers. Even more so than the Pittsburgh area. What does the Obama campaign know?

It also turns out that his Philadelphia speech last night was a template for his closing argument in PA, asking voters to declare their independence from the old politics, while mentioning Hillary's use of such politics more pointedly than before. It's an interesting tactic. Hillary, like most pols, likes to end on a positive, but this is forcing her to be defensive as well.

But Obama is also accentuating his positive message ("Get on board the change train!") as you can see from this video clip of his stop in Downingtown.

The expectations game is also underway, with Hillary's people suggesting the election will be close and emphasizing how much more money Obama is pouring into media in the state. Saturation ads are a risk, maybe especially in PA, because people can get annoyed by them. Add robocalls--which the Clintonistas are doing much more of, often negative attacks on Obama--and both campaigns risk alienating people who just want this to be over. Still, these moves and statements make me wonder what the non-public polls that each campaign has are telling them.

As for the intensity on both sides, man, I can feel it on this coast.

Otherwise, Obama picked up a super-delegate, and so did Hillary. The New York Times has a couple of pieces on defections and money troubles in the Clinton campaign, while the Gallup daily tracking poll has Hillary ahead for the first time in awhile. The fallout from the MoveOn.org tape continues within activist circles. Since it was founded at a key moment to defend Bill against impeachment, one of its founders asserts: "Without Move On, she would not be Senator Hillary Clinton. She would be the wife of disgraced-and-removed former President Clinton." And he asks In a third Clinton term, who will be the next core constituency to be steamrolled when the Clintons think the situation calls for it? Labor? Latinos? Who knows?" And for at least one now former Hillary supporter, this was the last straw.

There have been a number of eyewitness diaries on Kos about the Philadelphia rally last night--this one is especially good. A great point about the children coming to these events. If nothing else, this is something that's going to remain with the next generation.

Update: This neat diary with slide show from the Paoli stop, plus an overview of the campaigning today from Booman.

Home Stretch

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, then PA votes. Both candidates will be in the Commonwealth this weekend. One theory about how a campaign thinks they're doing is where they go in the closing days. Obama held a tremendous rally in Philadelphia Friday night--at between 35 and 40,000 it was the largest of the campaign, and some 5,000 enthusiasts kept it going with a spontaneous march a mile through the city. But he's leaving eastern PA, his acknowledged area of strength, and going to central PA Saturday and Sunday (Harrisburg on Saturday, Mike!) which is supposed to be Hillary territory. Hillary and Bill are both in western PA Saturday, defending her strongest area. It will be interesting to see if Obama keeps going west on Monday, to end in Pittsburgh.

The Obama strategy may simply be to hold down Clinton's popular vote margin, and introduce him in these areas with the general election in mind. Or his own polls are suggesting he is secure enough in the east to make Hillary defend the west.

So where was the CW today? Some were sounding doom for Hillary. Others were suggesting that the attacks on Obama may be working, and that PA will go big for her as undecideds slide her way.

In the long run, Reuters as well as others suggest that Clinton is pretty much finished. One interesting calculation said that after the primaries are over, Obama should be less than 100 delegates from the majority needed to win.

Then there is the Newsweek poll of Democrats nationally that saw the preference change from a virtual tie last month to a 19--yes, that's 19 point advantage for Obama. Besides Reich, Obama won the endorsement of foreign policy heavyweight and moderate Democrat Sam Nunn, and moderate Dem Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma.

But at the same time, the daily Gallup tracking poll has seen Obama's ten or 11 point lead gradually dwindle this week to 3. The Wall Street Journal said that Clinton needs a double-digit win in PA to remain viable, but some politicos like Pennsylvanian hard-baller Chris Matthews predict she'll get just that--in the neighborhood of 14 points. Hillary got some delegates as well Friday--one supe and two add-ons from New Jersey.

Then there are Events. One bit of breaking news Friday was yet another tape surfacing from a closed-door meeting, but this time it's of Hillary dissing the powerful group MoveOn.org (which ironically was formed to defend Bill Clinton against impeachment.) Some commentators feel this will hurt her in PA, especially because she is also on video praising the group in public. It has already hurt her with one prominent online supporter, Jane Hamsher of FiredogLake. MoveOn is a major anti-war force these days. Will this hurt Hillary with them? This may develop further this weekend, but it's hard to see who she will lose she hasn't already lost in PA, except perhaps antiwar women who've stuck with her. But if she were to be the nominee, she would need credibility with them, and she would need MoveOn. Another bridge to the 21st century burned?

Still, it seems unlikely to hurt her with those working class PA voters. There may be a lot of them in PA--their percentage of the eventual PA primary vote is one of the big unanswerable questions right now--but there's an argument that they're a shrinking demographic, and one that doesn't vote Democrat anymore anyway. The theory here is that Dems need to lose them by no more than 10 points or so.

These three days can be a lifetime, and then there's Tuesday when the last voters decide. Conventional wisdom is that if they're undecided at that point, they'll go for the past and vote for Hillary. How good CW is anymore will be tested in PA.

Finally, for Obama friends, don't miss this one minute video, adding some effects to a bit of Obama's speech in North Carolina, brushing off attacks.

The Motions

A theory emerged today, begun by Pat Buchanan of all people, but picked up by others, that these "manufactured distractions" (as Obama calls them) and the usual petty "character" issues (not flag burning this year, but a flag pin; not an ACLU membership card but serving on the same charity board with a former member of the Weather Underground who is now a well known, highly credentialed and pretty old Chicago citizen, etc.) that Clinton has helped unleash will ultimately benefit Obama, because if they don't work now, the Republicans won't have anything to use on him.

It's tricky, because the polls are showing Obama within 6 points or so in PA, and depending on a lot of unknowns, that may well be artificially low--he could be behind by more. If he doesn't come in under 10 points behind Clinton, the media may believe that these issues had resonance. But if PA doesn't buy them, who will? That's the thinking. Not very flattering to PA, and not very accurate, but if it means that some voters in the Commonwealth are especially vulnerable to these kinds of attacks, it's probably true. The question is: how many. I have to agree with Mike (in a Wednesday comment) that the Rendell machine is the biggest single factor favoring Hillary.

Generally it looked to me that the opinion on the debate turned as Thursday wore on, and the extent of the anger and disgust with ABC became clearer. Obama handled it perfectly. First of all, he went to friendly ground, in North Carolina. And he added the perfect gesture--a hand sweeping his shoulder, brushing off the manufactured distractions, after talking about how it took 45 minutes (probably longer) before he was asked the first substantive question on issues that voters care about. Some pundits and the old pols they listen to don't believe this--they think Obama should have hit Hillary harder. But I think he was right, it's not what voters want to hear, and by the end of the day, some media mouths were getting it.

But if the theory is right, keeping the campaign going isn't all bad. On the other hand, the nomination contest is just about over, and Howard Dean wants a nominee. He told CNN he wants super-delegates to begin declaring who they will vote for, starting right now. (One more did--from Oklahoma, a vote for Obama.)

Then there's the math, as they've been saying, that gets more compelling literally every day. According to this, Obama picked up another delegate in Ohio, as the result of absentee and provisional ballots just counted in a particular county. The revelation of that biggest of recent days for Hillary--when she won a close to 10 point victory in the Ohio popular vote, and a narrower popular vote victory in Texas--she picked up a net gain of five delegates. And even if she wins PA as expected, she may pick up as few as five or ten delegates there. Obama will get them all back and then some in North Carolina in early May.

So PA will tell us whether there is a "game changer" or whether we're just going through the motions until June 3. The problem may be interpretation. Realistically, Clinton has to win PA by 20 points, maybe 15, to change anything. Whether ABC News will see it that way is unlikely. The rest of the media, who knows? But super-delegates. Yeah, I think so.

Meanwhile, the Clintonians are touting the debate itself as a game changer. But the only thing Hillary seems to be changing is the minds of people who supported her. Today it's expected that Robert Reich, Billary's first Labor Secretary, will endorse Obama today. Although he's been favoring Obama, he'd said he'd vote for Hillary out of loyalty--until her recent negative campaign in PA. Obama also picked up another former Clinton supporter--this time a delegate, from DC.

And this morning's NY Times has a story saying Hillary's attacks haven't swayed. "Yet despite giving it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground."

Fallout

Pennsylvania State Senator Leeanne Washington, and Democrats Dar Thomas and and Susan Petrow announced this morning that they are switching from supporting Hillary to Obama because of Hillary's negativity and dishonesty.

The Philadephia Daily News endorsed Obama, and the Harrisburg Patriot News also did yesterday. That's pretty much a clean sweep of major PA newspapers. This doesn't necessarily translate into popular votes-- Obama swept the big papers in Texas, too. But it helps even out Clinton's Rendell machine advantage.

The ABC debacle last night got big ratings, especially the first half hour. But the fallout continues today with a major level of rage against the network and its "moderators"--if ever a word was ironic, this is it. Most but not all reviews say Obama had a bad debate or even his worst debate, but a few got the point that he was talking directly to voters about the "gotcha" questions, and Hillary remained negative, scoring debate points, but underscoring her reputation.

But I believe voters hear Obama when he says (and he said in the debate):

I think what's important is to make sure that we don't get so obsessed with gaffes that we lose sight of the fact that this is a defining moment in our history. We are going to be tackling some of the biggest issues that any president has dealt with in the last 40 years. Our economy is teetering not just on the edge of recession, but potentially worse. Our foreign policy is in a shambles. We are involved in two wars. People's incomes have not gone up, and their costs have. And we're seeing greater income inequality now than any time since the 1920s.

In those circumstances, for us to be obsessed with this -- these kinds of errors I think is a mistake. And that's not what our campaign has been about.
What our campaign has been about is offering some specific solutions to how we move these issues forward and identifying the need to change the culture in Washington, which we haven't talked at all about, but that has blocked real reform decade after decade after decade. That, I think, is the job of the next president of the United States. That's what I intend to do. That's why I'm running.

Obama is betting that people hear him on this. I'm betting on it, too, because if they aren't, this country is finished.

Debate on Mars

Because the American Bullshit Network taped-delayed tonight's debate for the West Coast, I had the unusual experience of hearing the punditry pronouncements before I saw any of the debate. Often enough I've found my experience of debates different from what I heard from commentators, but tonight it's so different that there must have been another debate in a parallel universe I didn't see.

Chuck Todd is only one of the pundits who saw this as a bad Obama performance, partly because the A Bullshitters spent the first 50 minutes of a two hour debate on what Obama kept calling "distractions." (Apparently only Halperin dissents, giving Obama a B+ grade, and Clinton a B.) Every time these issues come up--'bitter,' Rev. Wright, the flag pin for chrissakes, and now an elderly Weatherman--the pundits go crazy, they find a few people who are credulous and offended, and then there's an election and/or the polls come out, and nobody else really cares. Obama has answered these questions, and he did so insistently and in context again tonight.

The upshot was that for those 50 minutes, he did most of the talking, and Clinton just stood there. He couched all his explanations and answers in terms of his rationale and main argument for running. I think he talked directly to viewers and voters, and he connected. And so I think Chuck Todd and the others are full of the same shit as the American Bullshit Corporation "journalists," neocon Charlie Whatshisname and former Clinton press secretary George Stepinitalloverus.

Update: The TV punditry didn't have much to say about ABC but print and Internet writers sure have. Tom Shales, TV critic for the Washington Post, writes that the ABC hosts "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."
"For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with."

This is how people were responding on live threads during the debate and now in a host of online columns on HuffPost, etc. ABC got thousands of critical comments, there's talk that the studio audience was in revolt. ABC hasn't heard the end of this. Even Gov. Ed Rendell was critical.

In the meantime, Obama picked up four more super-delegates Wednesday. And that doesn't count Bruce Springsteen--the boss also endorsed him.

And as Kos points out, Hillary ceded her stealth "he's unelectable" argument by admitting that Obama can win against McCain.

The saddest line in Shales' rebuke was that the cable channels did a better job running these debates. My first thought after seeing much of the debate was expressed by Marty Kaplan--give these debates back to the League of Women Voters--and by a commenter on his thread-- and put them on PBS.

Wednesday Begins Well

Good morning, Mike, and anybody else who might be listening in. Had to share this with you if you haven't heard: the Pittsburgh Post Gazette endorsed Obama today:

So forget all the primary skirmishing. Sen. Obama is every bit as prepared to answer the ring of the 3 a.m. phone as Sen. Clinton. Forget this idea that Sen. Obama is all inspiration and no substance. He has detailed positions on the major issues. When the occasion demands it, he can marshal eloquence in the service of making challenging arguments, which he did to great effect in his now-famous speech putting his pastor's remarks in the greater context of race relations in America.

Nor is he any sort of elitist. As he said yesterday in effectively refuting this ridiculous charge in a meeting with Post-Gazette editors, "my life's work has been to get everybody a fair shake."

This editorial began by observing that one candidate is of the past and one of the future. The litany of criticisms heaped on Sen. Obama by the Clinton camp, simultaneously doing the work of the Republicans, is as illustrative as anything of which one is which. These are the cynical responses of the old politics to the new.

Sen. Obama has captured much of the nation's imagination for a reason. He offers real change, a vision of an America that can move past not only racial tensions but also the political partisanship that has so bedeviled it."

In advance of the debate ABC hosts tonight, ABC and the Washington Post conducted a poll of Democrats, and it shows Obama with a ten point lead over Clinton nationally (about the same as the latest Gallups), but shows Clinton falling far behind on all the qualities: leadership, change, trust, etc. Her campaign is doing her in. But the Post story on it also says that the Dems surveyed weren't overly anxious to see the campaign end. Sigh.

So, always nervous about debates. Clinton usually gets a bump, but this time there's almost a week until election day. Right now my guess is that she's about ten points up. Based on past performance, you have to add about five points to her poll totals once election day comes. Though I'd like to see this one be different.

I keep waiting for the Change but it hasn't come yet, and it may not until the general election. But maybe it has. Maybe I saw it in some tape of Obama walking down a street in Bloomington, IND shaking hands. Maybe in the film on him visiting the Post-Gazette offices. Maybe in his last few speeches. But the Change would be when everybody knows he's the candidate, he's different, he's the President. An updated JFK effect maybe.

It'll be interesting to see what the mood is in and around that debate.

Astrology

Well, maybe HufPost has it right, when they group poll results with astrology forecasts. Another new poll actually has Obama leading in Indiana by five points, and it too was taken over the weekend and yesterday. This LA Times/Bloomberg poll shows Obama leading in Indiana 40% to 35%, and Clinton leading in PA by 5 points. Obama's lead in North Carolina is 13%, which is under what most other polls show. So who knows.

But for what they're worth, the other polls released today show little movement in PA. SUSA sees Hillary ahead by 14, which is actually down 4 points from last week. It's one week until the voting. For somebody who is double digits ahead, Hillary has been getting some rough audiences lately, and Obama has been soaring. His momentum was probably blunted by this dust-up, but he was also liberated to attack Hillary more directly. There's the debate coming up, and some high profile TV appearances. It will all come down to this week.

Interestingly, there's a Washington Post article headlined "McCain Echoes Clinton Attacks" with this:

Looking for any possible edge, the Clinton campaign has pressed uncommitted superdelegates to view Obama's remarks as a major debacle that could harm him in November. But as of yesterday evening, there was little evidence that the electability argument is resonating.

Rep. Mike Doyle (D), an undecided superdelegate who represents Pittsburgh and surrounding towns in the Monongahela Valley, said yesterday that he was not particularly troubled by Obama's comments.

"I don't disagree with a lot of what he said. My dad was a mill worker. My grandfather was a steel mill worker, and when the steel industry collapsed, nobody's family was hurt more than mine," Doyle said. "It's not inaccurate to say a lot of politicians have come through these towns, made a lot of promises and failed to deliver. I thought he was spot-on when he said how people feel."

He added that Obama's unexpected endorsement yesterday by Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney "carries a hell of a lot more weight" than the blowup over his comments about small-town residents.

I spoke with my sister in western PA, and ascertained that there are 7 or 8 votes in my family for Obama, none for Clinton.

Though Clinton is apparently trying to keep the controversy alive, TV has finally moved on: the Pope and polygamy are enough.

Monday into Tuesday

On Monday, TV news fulminators kept their focus on the Obama gaffe, though by evening a few commentators were questioning whether they're talking to themselves. While pundits continued to warn of trouble from it, most signs were that it was having little or no effect. USA Today found Still, in more than a dozen interviews here, even conservative Republicans couldn't muster the sort of outrage over Obama's remarks that Clinton backers were expressing Sunday. The AP found PA citizens it interviewed divided--some were bothered, But many more seem to think it was no big deal — and if there's a problem it's with the political slapfest that has followed.

By the end of the day, no less an authority than PA Gov Ed Rendell, Hillary's chief backer in the state, said it might cost Obama a couple of points at the margin in PA, but was no big deal. Opined the Boston Globe blog, But his downplaying of the Obama controversy today would seem to undermine Clinton in a big way, given that her campaign has spent the last four days trying to blow it up as big as possible. But even Hillary might be having second thoughts, since she was hissed when she tried to bring it up to the same Pittsburgh audience --the Alliance for American Manufacturing Forum, an audience of steelworkers and steel execs--that had cheered Obama.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, Obama got the endorsement of the most revered man in the city, Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and not given to political pronouncements. His "letter to Pennsylvanians" began: Based on the experiences that I have had in my seventy-five years and my assessment of what I think our nation needs to make real the change that is so needed, I am proud and now feel compelled to endorse Senator Barack Obama.

A number of western and central PA officeholders have been defending Obama against the Clinton attacks, and on Monday Obama got the formal endorsement of the Dauphin County Commissioner. This blogger identifies him as a former mayor of Steelton and an up and coming young politician, whose influence balances out the endorsement by the mayor of Harrisburg, which is in Dauphin county.

The polls released Monday that were taken over the weekend also showed no discernable effect, either nationally or in PA. (The ARG poll that showed a sudden 20 point jump for Hillary was dismissable; it's not a respected polling outfit.)

However, a really alarming poll is just out Tuesday morning--the very respected SUSA shows Obama doing poorly in Indiana. Though Hillary picked up only 3 points, Obama lost 4, and there were some huge swings in the internals, including an unbelievable swing among young voters, from Obama leading by 19 points to trailing now by 2. This poll was taken Friday through Sunday, precisely the time this dust-up was happening. This is the poll pundits are likely to be talking about today, and it probably will feed this story just as it seemed it could be dying down. Good grief.

Masterpiece Theatre

I've got multiple deadlines to deal with, but I'll point to two events Sunday: here's an account of the forum in PA on faith that Hillary and Obama participated in, with extensive quotes. And here is the YouTube link for part of a speech Obama made to a labor union audience in Steelton, in which he comes back hard--and with humor--at Hillary, and again pivots on the 'bitter' controversy to make his main rationale, and connect more strongly than ever with working voters. Read that and watch this, and know you've seen the master politician of our time.

Well, okay just a couple more things. Multiple instances (here and here) of Bill Clinton saying/writing the same thing that Obama said that Hillary got so exercised about.

And here's an earlier statement by members of the PA Sportmen and Sportswomen for Obama group. The response most often expressed in statements like this, and in comments on various web sites about this story, is that Hillary is playing politics with the truth. And Obama used this at exactly the right time in his comments in Steelton.