Still just charges and denials, but I suspect we’ll be hearing more of this. It’s now being reported in the Canadian press that Ian Brodie, the Tory Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff was responsible for leaking the memo describing the Obama staffer’s meeting with the Canadian consular officials.
Yesterday Zogby’s daily tracking poll gave Obama his first lead in Ohio in any poll we’ve seen.
Today Zogby brings him back down to earth, showing a dead heat in Ohio.
Zogby has Clinton moving back ahead of Obama in Texas (47%-44%), a six point net move from the day before, and tied in Ohio (44%-44%), a two point move. Bear in mind that Zogby is actually an outlier in having it even close in Ohio and there now seems little doubt that, if the polls are to be credited, the late movement is all in Clinton’s direction.
It’s hard to say just what issues are responsible for the shift in momentum. It’s hard to believe the NAFTA stuff hasn’t played a role. The Farrakhan/Muslim/anti-Semitism stuff, which Clinton has pushed in concert with key press outlets, also probably plays a big role.
But I think the real story is a very effective working of the refs on the part of the Clinton campaign. Going back more than a week the Clinton campaign has made a concerted and aggressive push arguing that they’ve been the victim of systematically negative press coverage while Obama has gotten a free ride. Whether or not you agree with that claim there’s little doubt that the effort has paid off big dividends. The last week’s press coverage has featured a mix of stories on the question of relative scrutiny/fairness itself as well as more probing looks into Obama himself.
If the polls bear out, we seem set for a result that will lead to minor or major crowing from the Clinton camp, with a victory in Ohio seeming very likely and at least a primary popular vote victory in Texas looking like a distinct possibility. The Obama camp will counter, and they’ll be right, that judged by the standards of a few weeks ago, these results only amount to Clinton holding on by the skin of her teeth. But the expectations game isn’t ‘fair’. It’s what it is, they’re expectations. And there’s simply no denying that such an aura of victory has grown up around Obama that losing one or both of these big states (at least the popular vote in Texas, which, remember, also has a caucus that seems likely to bag a lot of delegates for Obama) will be perceived as a very real turnaround.
And yet, look at the delegate counts, or what they seem likely to be. We’ve run the numbers, and even assuming a very big night for Clinton, she seems unlikely to make more than a small dent in Obama’s lead of roughly 150 pledged delegates. Indeed, she could actually do quite well on the popular vote side and end up falling behind a bit further on pledged delegates.
The upshot is that the Clinton campaign may come out of tonight with a major shot in the arm and a round of good press and yet still be in no more realistic a position to win the nomination based on the stubborn tally of delegates.
While we’re on the topic, if John McCain would be the big winner of a result tonight that would insure a continued and hard fought Democratic primary race, you have to figure that a big loser would be the National Journal who would be faced with the possible need to re-re-jigger their congressional voting rankings to make Clinton the most liberal member of the United States Senate.
Politics is a rough biz.
In his ever simplistic way, the President says telecom immunity is just a way for him and Congress to say “thank you for doing your patriotic duty.”
It’s all over but the voting (and caucusing). So in today’s episode of TPMtv, we go over which states are voting, how many delegates each has, what to expect, and just how that weird Texas Caucus/Primary works …
Just to remind everyone, we’re hiring a new reporter-blogger at TPMMuckraker. We’re looking for just the right person. So if it’s you, please let us know. The details are here.
Let’s note that Sen. McCain has decided to hang tough with his embrace of anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic Pastor John Hagee. And the major papers and cable news outlets have decided to give him a pass.