Monday, April 21, 2008

Pre-Pennsylvania Primary Ponderings

Having returned this weekend from campaigning for Obama in a Philadelphia exurb, I'm all fired up and ready to go for tomorrow's election (finally) in Pennsylvania. I don't think that Obama has much of a chance to truly winning the state, but I do hope that he keeps it close enough to be declared the winner in the expectations/momentum game.

Right now, Real Clear Politics poll averages show Clinton ahead of Obama by 6.2%. All things considered, that would be a great finish. Just a few weeks ago, Obama was down by over 20. He said that anything within 10 points would essentially be a victory for him. So 6 is not bad at all. My guess, however, is that the number will balloon on the actual day of the election (as it has in every other battleground state so far). My bold and fearless (and totally unsubstatiated by fact) prediction is that Obama ends up losing the state by 8 - 12 points. Though I would be happy to be wrong.

In other news, Howard Dean is continuing the saga of not really being sure what he's supposed to be doing right now. A few weeks Dean said that he wasn't putting pressure on superdelegates, that he enjoyed the long primary race, and that the long race wasn't going to hurt Democratic chances in November. Apparently something has changed since then. Now he's saying that the superdelegates need to start making their decisions "starting now." Don't get me wrong, I agree. It doesn't make sense to let McCain go all summer being able to take shots at the Democrats while they take shots at each other. It's just sad to see Dean seem so obviously in over his head on this. Clearly he's making it up as he goes along. I don't fault him for doing it (I mean, who has a handy plan for this kind of thing), but I wish it weren't so obvious that it was what he was doing.

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