Slate's Mickey Kaus asks a good question:
What do the Democrats do when Obama loses Pennsylvania, not by 10 or 15 points but by 20 or 25 points? That seems to be the way things are headed. ...
And, indeed, the polling trend from Pollster.com looks pretty grim (and this is before the Jeremiah Wright controversy fully registers):
Given the demographics of the state and the Jeremiah Wright controversy, there must concern in the Obama camp. Most pundits expect him to lose, but to get annihilated could make some undecided superdelegates very nervous (though, as I've argued, it wouldn't necessarily mean much in terms of the general election).
Update 3/20 1:38 PM: Just to clarify, my point with the graph was that Obama didn't appear to be closing the gap as we might have expected. Indeed, some recent polls suggest a larger gap than the estimated trends and, as I said, these were taken before the Wright controversy fully registers. For instance, the RCP average of recent polls is 51.8 to 34.2 and the last six polls show Hillary leads of 26, 16, 12, 13, 19, and 14.
Strangely, when Hillary loses by 20 or 25 points, it doesn't count at all.
Posted by: Jinchi | March 19, 2008 at 02:35 PM
Er, the gap in the graph is 13.5 points and visibly narrowing. What gives?
Posted by: mark | March 19, 2008 at 05:21 PM
(1) It could make a HUGE difference in the popular vote.
(2) It would put a dent in the delegate lead, and could make it seem as though it's plausible for her to at least come close in the delegate count
(3) Produce huge momentum in her favor that could make (2) possible
Posted by: Dark Heart | March 19, 2008 at 07:03 PM
It could make a HUGE difference in the popular vote.
Would it? Hillary won NY by about 20 points and had a popular vote advantage of 300,000. That's less than half Obama's current national advantage and PA has about a third fewer people than NY.
Posted by: Jinchi | March 20, 2008 at 02:59 PM
Psychology matters.
The real problem for Obama isn't that he is likely to lose big in Penn. Yhe problem is also that he is unlikely to win big in NC after all and will likely lose in Indiana. the combination will look like HRC has a chance after all, that things are shifting her way etc.
Actually what is ahppening is that she is finally getting her act together after camapigning so badly for wseeks that she made a gift to obama of delegates and victories. now everyone is used to him coming from behind and doing beterthan expected so his loses will will look worse in comparison.
I'm an Obama supporter, BTW, but the magic days are over. It's going to be a hard, hard fight from here on out.
Posted by: wonkie | March 22, 2008 at 08:56 PM
if obama was a white man it would have been a land slide. Hillary clinton is a dishonest power hungry woman and McCain will expose her and do circles around her and become president. How can she run the white house when she has to worry about what bill is doing
Posted by: jay | April 22, 2008 at 09:39 PM