Delegate breakdown, March 31st edition

There have been quite a few changes to the pledged delegate breakdown since my last update on March 13th. Unfortunately for Clinton, most changes have the count move away from her, either in small doses or in bigger ones (in Iowa).

First, there are two changes to results that were already in and analyzed -- and both favor Obama. In Georgia, I had left the total at the initial 59-28 breakdown, but it appears that I had missed the allocation being updated to 60 delegates for Obama and 27 for Clinton. That changes the February 5th total to 848 for Obama and 833 for Clinton.

In Mississippi, meanwhile, the March 11th primary had left Obama just short of the 62.5% threshold (just among voters who went for Clinton or him). Or so we thought until today: The final certification of the results, with all absentees and recounted ballots taken care of, shows Obama barely crossing that threshold and netting an extra-delegate, 20 to 13 now instead of 19 to 14.

The next 3 set of results come from conventions that were held over the past few weeks to ratify the results of caucuses. The Iowa results have changed quite dramatically, and the Texas numbers are also very interesting: I had not included the delegate breakdown from them in my previous delegate breakdowns because only 41% of the caucus vote was reporting and there was no reason to trust that results would hold precisely. We can now say that the breakdown of the Texas caucuses after the county conventions is 37 for Obama to 30 for Clinton (not the 38-29 that had been projected until now). This means that Obama got a total of 3 more delegates out of the Texas process.

Texas caucuses, county conventions: 56% Obama-44% Clinton

• Obama: 37 delegates (Texas total: 98)
  
• Clinton: 30 (Texas total: 95)
  

Iowa, county conventions: 61% Obama-37% Clinton

• Obama: 25 delegates (Previous total based on the Jan. 3rd vote: 16)
  
• Clinton: 14 (Previous total: 15)
  
• Edwards: 6 (Previous total: 14)

Both these states (and all other caucus-holding states) will still hold one more round of conventions to decide the final allocation of delegates to be sent to the Democratic convention, so these numbers could still evolve.

Democrats abroad (previous allocation was 2.5-2):

• Obama: 4.5 delegates
  
• Clinton: 2.5

This brings us to the following total (also accounting for the fact that a check of my spreadsheet showed that I had miscounted my previous breakdown by 2 delegates):

• Obama: 1415.5 delegates
  
• Clinton: 1253.5

That's a differential of 162 pledged delegates. Clinton will need to rely on big numbers in Pennsylvania and the upcoming states to cut into Obama's lead in a meaningful way -- for her superdelegate hopes to be at all realistic requires the pledged delegate count to be much than that.

Monday polls: McCain edges Democrats in 5 out of 6 matchups in blue states

McCain continues his strong streak in Rasmussen's general election polls. He led all four match-ups yesterday in Virginia and Wisconsin. Today, Rasmussen released 3 new general election polls, all from relatively reliable blue states -- and McCain leads in 5 out of 6 of the match-ups.

• In Washington state, always competitive but clearly leaning Democratic, McCain stays very competitive against Obama (he trails 48% to 43%) and leads against Hillary: 46% to 43%.

• In Michigan, also a tight state which Democrats have come to depend on, McCain looks well positioned to score a major pick-up. McCain edges out Obama 43% to 42% and Clinton 45% to 42%. While both match-ups are toss-ups, even that much is dangerous for Democrats in a state they absolutely need. And these numbers are confirmed by other states which also show McCain competitive.
• The favorability ratings also put the Republican on top: McCain is at 55%, Obama at 50% and Clinton at 47%.

• In New Jersey, finally, McCain also edges out both Obama (46% to 45%) and Clinton 45% to 42%. That's a stunning turn-around from last month's Rasmussen numbers, in which Clinton led 50% to 39%; Obama already trailed 45% to 43%.
• The favorability numbers in this blue state are also noteworthy: McCain is at 61%, Obama at 58% (a 6% improvement) and Clinton at 50% (a 6% drop).

It goes without saying that McCain's strength in all three of these states should greatly worry Democrats. It is hard to imagine an electoral map for either Clinton or Obama that does not incorporate New Jersey, Michigan and Washington. While it is certainly mathematically possible to get to 270 without them, this group of state would not be the first to go and would signal that Democrats are too busy defending states that should be reliably blue to be looking into picking up Virginia, Colorado, Ohio and Florida.

As I pointed out yesterday, Rasmussen's polls tend to favor McCain more than other surveys, but that is not reason enough for McCain's chances to be dismissed in these states. The whole point of his general election strength is that his appeal to independents could endanger states like New Jersey and Michigan that have tended to vote Democratic in recent cycles but that have always flirted with the Republican nominee. Add to that the problem of the Michigan delegates and the ill-will that could create in the state against the Democratic nominee.

It's early in the game, but we have enough indications that much more states than we expected could be in play in 2008 with both sides putting in play states that weren't considered that competitive in 2004.

Meanwhile, ARG released its first North Carolina primary poll of the year:

• Obama is leading 51% to 38%. That includes a 78% to 17% lead among black voters, while he trails Clinton among whites 49% to 37%.

Obama seems to have taken back a double-digit lead in North Carolina poll, with this survey actually on the lower-end of the 3 polls we have seen from the state over the past 2 weeks (PPP and Insider Advantage being the two others). As I have explained elsewhere, a large Obama win in North Carolina could be as hurtful to Clinton than if she loses Indiana.

Update: PPP released its new North Carolina poll and shows Obama up 54% to 36% -- pretty much where it was last week when Obama was leading by 18%. He gets 36% of the white vote and 81% of the black vote.

Clinton struggles to counter superdelegate flight

Hillary Clinton has a superdelegate problem. Her only path to win the nomination has long been to convince superdelegates that she is the more electable and the more reliable candidate, in the hopes of riding a last-minute summer scandal about the Illinois Senator to snatch more supers and get the nod. But for this plan to remain at all plausible, Clinton has to find a way to convince superdelegates to give her a chance and wait before joining Obama.

She has been increasingly unable to do that, which is what made the Casey endorsement matter as much as it did last week. And news only worsened today. First, Senator Amy Klochubar of Minnesota is ready to announce she is rallying Obama, which means that the two Democratic candidates each have 14 senatorial endorsements. Given that most uncommitted superdelegates are likely to look at how their state voted, Klochubar's decision is not necessarily a big surprise since Minnesota has been one of the most pro-Obama contests.

But the most stunning superdelegate news is reported today by the Wall Street Journal: North Carolina's entire House Democratic delegation (seven members) has decided to come together and endorse Barack Obama. We had not yet seen such a diverse group get together to endorse en masse before: There are progressives, members of the black caucus and conservatives like Heath Shuler.

The Obama campaign is now telling TPM that they have not locked up all these endorsements, "None of them has told our campaign that they are ready to announce their endorsement of Senator Obama." Not to parse words too closely, but saying that superdelegates are not "ready" to announce their endorsement is not the same as denying that Obama is looking to receive their support soon.

If the move is confirmed, count that many more votes on the convention floor for Obama and that many less available for Clinton to draw to her camp. Furthermore, North Carolina is still very much a contested state and, while Obama is favored, I explained last week why this primary could be crucially important: If Obama manages to win big or if he makes a dent in Clinton's electoral coalition by improving among downscale whites, it would be very hard for Clinton to implement her strategy. The rallying of seven House members would help Barack satisfying both those goals.

Whether or not Obama's denials are sincere, the fact that such stories are running shows that CLinton's worst enemy right now is impatience; she is spending so much time justifying her decision to stay in the race that she hardly has time to do much else. The deluge of stories about her struggles to remain relevant are bringing us back to the run-up to NH and to March 4th. But for all the anxiety Obama supporters are feeling, the primary season started less than three months ago and the convention is five months from now, suggesting that things have really not dragged on for as long as we sometimes think.

Unfortunately for Hillary, that might not matter if superdelegates continue to rush towards Obama -- and if reports of Clinton's troubles persist. Politico reported this week-end that the Clinton campaign was not paying all of its bills, choosing to spend whatever funds it has left on media. The piece explains that Clinton ended February with $11 million in the bank usable in the primary but almost $9 million in unpaid bills she reported as debts. It is important to note that Clinton had improved her fundraising pace after March 4th, but the last thing Clinton wants right now is for her campaign to be painted as that desperate and broke.

Governor rankings: Top four races get more interesting

Presidential years are not the most active in terms of gubernatorial races, and 2008 is no exception, with only 11 states holding elections, only 5 of which are not entirely safe for the incumbent party. But there has been some movement within those 5 races, as many of them have gotten considerably (and unexpectedly) more competitive in the past few months.

The retirement of Gov. Blunt in Missouri, the heated Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, the candidacy of Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, and Dino Rossi's attempts to rouse passions in Washington all guarantee that these 4 states will remain competitive to November and keep things interesting on the gubernatorial front. And since both parties control 2 of these 4 most contested governorships, Republicans can at least be relieved that things look more even-handed here than in the Senate and the House.

The previous gubernatorial ratings, written in December, are available here.

Toss-up (2 R, 1 D)

1. Missouri (Open)

Missouri's gubernatorial race made a lot of news comparatively to other gubernatorial races. The showdown between Republican Gov. Blunt and Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon had started as early as 2004, and the incumbent's growing unpopularity had given the early lead to Nixon. But Blunt unexpectedly announced his retirement in late January.

Republicans hurried to find a nominee and they will now have to decide between two strong candidates, congressman Kenny Hulshof and state Treasurer Sarah Steelman. Either would keep the race competitive but Nixon undoubtedly has a head start given that he has been preparing his campaign for so long -- and that the state's voters have turned sour on their Republican administration.

2. North Carolina (Open; Previous ranking: 4)

Republican at the federal level, North Carolina remains blue at the state level, and Democrats looked favored to keep the governor's mansion next year with two strong candidates -- Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and state Treasurer Richard Moore -- battling for the Democratic nomination. But two factors have made the race more competitive.

(1) The Democratic primary is staying very competitive and now going negative, with Moore needing to shake up the race to contest Perdue's early edge. (2) Republicans got a potentially very competitive candidate in the race with with the entry of Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. Polls show McCrory in toss-ups against both Perdue and Moore, with the Democrats holding the slightest of edges.

The GOP primary is also contested, however, and it remains unclear who will emerge to claim the party's nod. We will now more about the state of play in North Carolina after the May 6th primary.

3. Indiana (Gov. Daniels; Previous ranking: 2)

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels is certainly unpopular and vulnerable, but it is difficult to precisely assess the general election before Democrats settle their nomination race on May 6th. Architect Jim Schellinger has been the establishment's favored candidate and has far outraised his opposition, but former Rep. Jill Long Thompson could emerge the winner due to higher name recognition. The Indianapolis Star reports that Schellinger's campaign has been a disappointment while Thompson has been very active and that his fundraising edge could be drowned amidst the presidential race if Clinton and Obama spend millions in ads here in the next few weeks.

Lean Retention (2 D)

4. Washington (Gov. Gregoire; Previous ranking: 3)

The 2004 campaign never really stopped in Washington, where Republican Dino Rossi lost by 129 votes on the third count after leading the first two ballot counts. Christine Gregoire started off a controversial term and has done her best to overcome the partisan rancor of her first election. Rossi announced his second gubernatorial candidacy in late 2007, and he has been campaigning hard since then, hoping to rouse the passions of 2004, bringing up the recount on the trail to undermine the legitimacy of Gregoire's incumbency. This race will be tight (and bitter) to the end but Gregoire has been able to somewhat regain her footing over the past few years and built some good will which give her a slight edge to start with.

Check the full rankings with all 11 races here.

Down-the-ballot: Filing deadline passes in SD and MO

Early in the cycle, a lot of the discussion around down-the-ballot races surrounds recruitment and retirement. So it is in important occasion whenever the filing deadline passes in a state with important races. Perhaps in no state were we waiting for that day more than in South Dakota.

For months, it was unclear whether Democratic Senator Tim Johnson would run again, and it took him many weeks of repeating he would for people to take him seriously. The wave of sympathy that surrounded him after his sickness at the end of 2006 made it very hard for Republicans to talk about challenging him whereas Johnson was one of their main targets when the cycle started. As it became apparent that Gov. Rounds would not run against Johnson, the question became whether South Dakota Republicans would find any legitimate candidate.

The filing deadline now passed, we can say that South Dakota looks very good for Democrats. The strongest of the 3 Republican candidates who filed is state Rep. Joel Dykstra, at best a second-tier candidate. The surest sign that the GOP sees almost no hope in this race is that the NRSC is now looking elsewhere to claim that a second seat is in play this cycle, most particularly New Jersey, where Republicans are trying to secure the strongest possible recruit to face Senator Lautenberg. We will know more about that race when the filing deadline closes in 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, the gubernatorial race filing deadline closed with two major Republicans in the race: Congressman Kenny Hulshof and State Treasurer Sarah Steelman. Attorney General Jay Nixon, the Democrat, has been running for years and he has to be considered the favorite now that Gov. Blunt unexpectedly retired. A Rasmussen poll released earlier this week confirms the Democrats' early advantage to pick up the governor's mansion:

• Nixon leads Steeleman 46% to 39%, and he is ahead of Hulshof 48% to 37%.
• A month ago, Nixon's leads were a bit bigger, 11% and 18% respectively.
  

Hulshof's departure from her congressional seat (MO-09) makes the district a pick-up opportunity for Democrats, with many candidates vying for their party's nomination. The Republican primary is also very crowded, as the GOP starts favored in this district which leans red. MO-06 (Rep. Graves versus the Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes) will also be contested.

Sunday polls: McCain remains solid in Rasmussen surveys

Rasmussen and Survey USA are probably the two most prolific pollsters, as they have released most of the state general election surveys we have seen in recent months. And it is hard to not notice that SUSA's results are regularly more favorable to Democrats than Rasmussen's, for whom McCain generally comes out stronger. Both institutes have had a solid track record in recent elections, so we will have to leave it at that, unable to decide whose turnout model matches more closely with what we will see in November 2008.

Rasmussen released two very good polls for the Republican nominee today from two of this year's most important states: Virginia and Wisconsin.

• In Wisconsin, McCain is edging Obama 48% to 46% and crushing Clinton 50% to 39%.
• The favorability numbers tell the story: McCain's is a high 61%, Obama's an acceptable 54% while Clinton's is a dramatic 39%.

• In Virginia, McCain crushes Clinton 58% to 36% and beats Obama 52% to 41%. That's a dramatic change from last month, where Rasmussen showed McCain enjoying a 10% and 5% lead against the two Democrats.
  

SUSA's Wisconsin poll two weeks ago showed Obama winning by 4% and Clinton by 1%. In Virginia, SUSA had Clinton tying McCain and Obama edging him by 1%.

Wisconsin was one of the tightest states in both 2000 and 2004, and Democrats can ill-afford letting go of its 10 electoral votes. Virginia, meanwhile, voted solidly for Bush in 2000 and 2004 but it is a state Democrats are confident they can finally pull in their column, drawing upon the successes they met in the state in 2005 and 2006. In fact, the belief that he can turn states like Virginia and Colorado are at the center of Obama's electoral map.

Also, it is worth pointing to today's Gallup national tracking poll. I do not report on its numbers every day, but today's poll shows a strong enough trend to be emphasized. Obama has reached a 10% lead, the first time he has reached a double-digit advantage in a Gallup poll. It seems that Obama's Wright buzz being replaced by Clinton's Bosnia controversy has allowed Obama to regain his footing.

Texas conventions: We will finally do what to do with the Texas caucuses!

Two weeks ago, Iowa held its county conventions, resulting in Obama gaining a net 10 delegates. Today, it is Texas's turn to do the same. The process is simple: Thousands of delegates elected during the March 4th caucuses convene at conventions across the state and vote on the second stage of the attribution of 67 delegates!

You might remember that Texas Democrats reported only the results of 41% of the precincts, and we never got to know the rest of the results. Based on that, many in the media decided to go ahead and allocate 38 delegates to Obama and 29 to Clinton despite the fact that, in a number of districts, the candidates were teetering on the verge of the thresholds that would determine whether they would get an extra delegate with more than half of the ballots counted.

To make matters worse, the whole Texas voting process had bordered on complete chaos, with long lines, hours worth of delay, voting taking place in parking lots... As a result, the Clinton campaign sought to delay today's conventions and considered filing challenges, but ended up renouncing to do so. But this report in the Dallas Morning News should be enough to crush hopes that things would run smoother today. The process looks to be delayed by hours in many places, and challenges to the credentials of many delegates are apparently being filed, resulting in anger, frustration and shouting matches!

Besides the chaos and the shady nature of caucuses, today's voting is significant because we will finally know how to deal with the Texas caucuses, and how to assign their delegates. This second stage of the caucus process is in many ways as important as the first, and as much of a challenge with the two campaigns having to put together full scale turn out operations. And keep in mind that today's conventions will also elect delegates... which will then meet again to choose the final round of Denver delegates!

With 26% of precincts reporting, Obama is ahead 54% to 46%, but different parts of the state are reporting very unequally right now. As expected, Obama is getting some big numbers in hte conventions of Austin, Dallas and Houston (as a commenter points out, that includes a 272-52 in Harris County's 13th district portion). Hillary has her strongholds as well. In Webb County, in which Obama had gotten 21% of the primary vote, he failed to get 15% today at the county convention, which means that Clinton gets all the 51 delegates from there. In Hidalgo County (also on the border), it's 102-11 for Clinton.

Update: With 82% of the delegates now allocated, Obama leads 55.9% (3851 delegates) to 44.05% (2804 delegates). Only 55% of conventions have reported for now, and most of the remaining ones are from small counties that typically favor Clinton so the margin could still slightly tighten. We should know the rest of the results in the coming hours.

A contest for the... Liberatrian presidential nomination

Forget the Obama-Clinton showdown. Things are heating up in the Libertarian Party, whose convention will be held in... Denver (!) on May 22-26.

There has long been speculation that Ron Paul could run as a libertarian again after his first national run in 1988. But it is former Democratic Alaska Senator Mike Gravel who left his party this week to join the Libertarian Party. In a written statement, Gravel wrote, "I’m joining the Libertarian Party because it is a party that combines a commitment to freedom and peace that can’t be found in the two major parties that control the government and politics of America."

Gravel, who had been running for the Democratic nomination and participated in debates up until he was excluded the middle of the fall, was clearly dissatisfied with his party throughout his presidential run, as he vehemently denounced the frontrunners' hawkishness and rightist drift. He once again criticized the Democratic Party in an e-mail he sent out to his supporters this week:

The fact is, the Democratic Party today is no longer the party of FDR. It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism — all of which I find anathema to my views.

Gravel might find it hard to convince libertarians that his support for big governmental programs like universal health care is reconcilable with his new party's principles. But there is some reason for Democrats to be slightly worried: The libertarian candidate can balance the Green candidate in most elections, in that both tend to take more votes from one party than the other. If Gravel ends up on the ballot as a libertarian, he could attract some left-leaning voters and double up the effect with no equivalent on the right.

Democrats would prefer that the libertarian presidential nomination go to another high-profile national figure: former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, a major figure of the impeachment saga. Barr, who left the GOP to join the libertarian party a few months ago, welcomed Gravel into his new party declaring that, "Just as Senator Gravel believes Democrats have lost touch with the American public, I too concluded Republicans had lost their core principles, and could no longer associate myself with the GOP."

Atlanta's Journal-Constitution reports that Barr is taking a very hard look at the possibility of seeking the libertarian nod. He sought to present himself in the continuity of Ron Paul, calling his candidacy the "rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom in this election cycle.” Barr also attacked the "arrogance" of the Iraq War and called Bush's refusal to ban waterboarding ("sophistry of the worst and rankest order.")

It is hard to tell how Barr's candidacy would play out both in the party and in the general election. Could he create anything like the type of movement that drove Ron Paul? There clearly is a large voting base that is not satisfied with the Republican Party's direction, that disapproves of Bush and of his policies. That was also obvious from Ron Paul's high scores in many of the Republican contests. If the libertarian nominee is high-profile enough, it could give these voters a name to rally on in November (and give a headache to the GOP).

Naturally, the impact of a candidacy like Barr's on McCain (just like the impact of Nader on the Democrats) can usually only be measured in the margins and it is by default very unlikely that the basic equilibriums change between the two parties.

Dems battle over impact of lengthy primary

With 6 weeks separating the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primary, it was obvious that Clinton would have as tough a time surviving than she did continuing beyond March 4th. And indeed the Obama campaign has been very successful at upping the pressure for Clinton to withdraw for the good of the party. After Chris Dodd's suggesting that the lengthy primary was "devastating" for the party, Senator Leahy of Vermont (an Obama supporter) explicitly called for Clinton to retire from the race today:

There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that's a decision that only she can make frankly I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate.

I am very concerned... John McCain, who has been making one gaffe after another, is getting a free ride on it because Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have to fight with each other. I think that her criticism is hurting him more than anything John McCain has said. I think that's unfortunate.

Considering that there is speculation that one factor that might push Clinton out of the race is fear that she would damage her Senate career (and her chances, perhaps, of becoming Majority Leader), the reference to a tremendous career in the Senate could even be a veiled threat. In any case, the fact that McCain is now running his first general election ad will likely help Obama supporters make their case.

This talk is, of course, partly an exaggeration to force Clinton out of the race. After all, McCain might be airing ads in New Mexico, but Obama has been airing many in Pennsylvania and just started airing some in Indiana and in North Carolina. All voters will see these ads, not just Democratic voters, and the message in the ads is not necessarily centered on a primary message. One of the ads Obama has been running in Pennsylvania is a biographical ad seeking to introduce himself to voters. If Obama had been the nominee already, he could start airing ads but he would likely not have an excuse to saturate the airwaves without angering and frustrating voters the way he can now.

On the other hands, there is increasing bitterness between supporters of the two camps, and the nominee will have to spend a while mending divisions and unifying the Democratic Party. A central contention of both campaigns is, of course, that the other candidate will not be able to do so.

Whatever the impact of a lengthy primary, Clinton is clearly feeling the heat of the pressure to withdraw and she is responding by... drafting a fundraising plea, making it clear that she is determined to fight on and that calls to get her out of the race are signs that Obama supporters are getting worried about her comeback:

Have you noticed the pattern?

Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination.

Those anxious to force us to the sidelines aren't doing it because they think we're going to lose the upcoming primaries. The fact is, they're reading the same polls we are, and they know we are in a position to win.

We aren't going to simply step aside. You and I are going to keep fighting for what we believe in, and together, we're going to win.

In a race that is showing no sign of heading to an end, the party elders are trying to find a solution to get the race to not go all the way to the convention, even if Clinton is still alive after the end of the last primaries on June 3rd. Howard Dean proposed a solution today. Dean explained, "I think the candidates have got to understand that they have an obligation to our country to unify. Somebody's going to lose this race with 49.8 percent of the vote. And that person has got to pull their supporters in behind the nominee." And he asked superdelegates to make up their mind by July 1st, 7 weeks or so before the convention. That way, one of the candidates will cross the majority threshold and will emerge as the winner early in the summer. That would still require the loser to not try to change superdelegates votes, but in such a scenario the pressure would likely be too overwhelming for the race to continue.

McCain airs first general election ad

McCain is airing his first general election ad today. The ad, presenting McCain as "the American president Americans have been waiting for," is running in New Mexico, a small state probably chosen for an initial run so that McCain could test his message without too much expenditures (not to mention that New Mexico proved to be one of the tightest states in both 2000 and 2004).

Portraying himself as a strong leader who can govern the country in a time of crisis, McCain is presenting himself as a candidate who has gone through hardships in his life that have toughened him and that give strength to his determination to protect America. "Where has he been? Has he walked the walk?" asks the ad, before showing images of McCain's POW captivity. These same images were shown in New Hampshire in late 2007 and are credited for giving McCain a second chance in that state (which he, of course, ended up carrying on January 8th).

The ad never references Obama, but contrasts are clearly being drawn, and McCain will try to drive home the argument that Obama has not "walked the walk" and that his life experience does not give him the strength to lead. This is not exactly a continuation of Clinton's argument: Hillary's goal has always been to focus on issues and substance to show that she is more prepared than Obama; the last thing McCain wants is for the campaign to be issue-based. His goal is to focus on life stories and symbolism to show that he is more prepared than Obama. This is a key difference and one that could have different results. The Dem electorate wanted "change" more than discussion of meaty issues; if that holds to the general, McCain might be on a more favorable terrain.

And then there is another contrast that is potentially being drawn that is very problematic. I am talking about McCain's emphasis on his being "an American president". What does that mean exactly? Is there any confusion about McCain's nationality? The only two reasons I can think of are: (1) McCain is worried voters have heard about his not being born in Panama and wants to dispel any worry they might have about that, or (2) He is trying to draw a very shady contrast to a potential general election opponent whose origins some voters might have doubts about...

The first reason is particularly incoherent. That Panama controversy only lasted a few days and you can be sure no one but die-heart political junkies heard about it. So we better hope that the general election will not be ran on insidious insinuations like the second hypothesis. (Update: I see that TNR's Michael Crowley is asking similar questions about the McCain ad.)

The Pennsylvania battle: Obama scores a major coup

Conventional wisdom has come to expect Clinton to post a strong showing in Pennsylvania, so much so that the real battle between the two Democrats has been displaced to May 6th. But the Pennsylvania primary is not for another 25 days, an eternity in politics. With Clinton facing increasing pressure to drop out of the race, can she really hold on to a convincing lead for that much time? That question is obviously crucial to Clinton's survival beyond April 22nd.

For now, there has been almost no movement in Pennsylvania polls -- and it has been 3 weeks the campaign has moved to this state. ARG just released a poll from Pennsylvania today:

• It shows Hillary Clinton leading 51% to 39%, which is little movement from the 52% to 41% lead she possessed on March 7th.
  
• Clinton's strength are women (61% to 30%) and white voters (60% to 30%).

But it is Obama who scored a major coup today by securing the endorsement (and superdelegate vote) of Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. While Casey was only elected in 2006, defeating incumbent Republican Santorum, he possesses one of the state's most famous last names. His father, a longtime Governor, was very popular among the state's middle-class and downscale white voters, particularly inner suburbs Democrats who are typically vulnerable to Republican appeals on social issues like abortion. Both Caseys are famously pro-life.

Most of the state's establishment is lined up behind Clinton in a way that we did not see in other states. But Bob Casey's endorsement gives Obama cover in a constituency that has become crucial to both campaign's primary argument: Hillary Clinton's hope to reach the nomination is to question Obama's general election ability to win the votes of downscale whites (a group that has been reliably voting for her in the primaries). This is her main argument to superdelegates, and the electability argument she is hoping to drive home all the way to August to give the supers pause.

Casey is the type of politician who should be the most receptive to this type of argument due to his political positioning and the constituencies his family has worked to seduce the hardest. His rallying behind Obama not only suggests that the group of superdelegates Clinton needs the most are not buying her "downscale whites" argument, but it also leaves Hillary with little path to the nomination: If officials like Casey are comfortable moving to Obama, it could give cover to other superdelegates who are remaining uncommitted to move in Barack's direction.

The point here is not that Casey will help Obama win Pennsylvania (he is, after all, a 2-year Senator), but Casey's endorsement is a major coup for Obama in the battle of superdelegates.

None of this guarantees that Obama will have a good April 22nd. But he does not necessarily need to. Rather, he is hoping that the Pennsylvania campaign shows that he is capable of winning over lower-class voters. He has not shown much evidence of that for now, except in Wisconsin. And unless he does in Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign will see little reason of withdrawing from the race. And in the fight for votes, Obama has one more advantage: The NYT reports that he has outspent Hillary Clinton 3:1 in ads in the state.

Why North Carolina is dangerous ground for Clinton, and why Puerto Rico gets trickier for Obama

The only primary survey these past 2 days is Insider Advantage's North Carolina survey, and it comes to confirm PPP's finding on Wednesday. Obama can hope to strike a deathly blow to the Clinton campaign right here on May on 6th:

• Obama is leading 49% to Clinton's 34%.
• The pollster points out that there is a slight movement among white voters away from Hillary and towards the undecided vote.

North Carolina has become almost more crucial to the nomination fight than Pennsylvania at this point. This contest resembles the series of primaries in the second half of February (Virginia, Washington, ...) in that Obama is favored to win; but the way in which he wins could be decisive. Clinton's only path to the nomination is to build such momentum throughout May and early June that she gives the remaining uncommitted superdelegates pause. This requires her:

• not losing any state by a significant margin, as that would automatically undermine any momentum-setting argument; and her
• handily winning the demographics that have been reluctant to support Obama, namely white men and downscale voters.

Obama could put an end to Clinton's comeback in North Carolina by preventing her from satisfying those two requirements. If he wins the state big, Clinton would be hard pressed to portray herself as the candidate voters have come to settle on by the end of the campaign. Also, if he stays close or even wins among North Carolina whites (in other words Southern whites, among which he has come in at disastrous numbers in states like Mississippi and South Carolina), Clinton will find it that much more difficult to agree to superdelegates that Obama cannot be trusted to win the general election.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico made news today as the Governor, Anibal Acevedo Vila, was indicted of 19 counts of campaign finance violations. If the nomination is still in play by June 1st, Puerto Rico is expected to play a major role in deciding how the race proceeds since it has many delegates to offer to the winner. Most of Puerto Rico's establishment is expected to rally behind Hillary Clinton. In fact, Governor Vila, who had endorsed Obama, was the Illinois Senator's main hope to contest the state by helping him with his own political machine and networks.

Besides the fact that Vila is a superdelegate and that Obama would lose a vote if Vila has to resign before the end of August, it is evident that an indicted politician has much less time and ability to move votes and use a machine, and this will make Obama's Puerto Rico climb that much steeper. Puerto Rico is the last major contest to be held (Montana and South Dakota vote on June 3rd, but they do not award many delegates), and Clinton would love to go out on a bang. However, it woud be hard for her to use the results her to convince superdelegates that she is more electable given that Puerto Rico cannot vote in the general election.

Supermania: add-ons and party elders

Contrary to the popular belief that superdelegates are preparing some sort of coup, Hillary Clinton has had much more trouble among supers than among pledged delegates since February 5th. She has only received a few endorsements, while Obama has been increasing his total nearly daily. The ratio is superior to 10:1, and the situation is showing no sign of improving for the New York Senator as some of her own superdelegates (like Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington) are now saying that they will vote for Barack Obama at the convention floor if he keeps his national pledged delegates lead.

I have rarely listed superdelegate endorsements since this blog is not meant to be a full wrap-up on news. But now Hillary Clinton's chances are linked to convincing superdelegates to wait as much as to her showing in the upcoming primaries; any superdelegate that moves towards Obama makes Clinton's climb to the nomination that much steeper.

Yesterday, Obama got the support of Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski, meaning that there is only one superdelegate from the state which has not chosen sides yet, none other than Rep. Rahm Emmanuel. Given Emmanuel's close ties to both candidates, it is unlikely that he will pick sides unless he really has to.

Obama also lost a superdelegate today: Maryland Rep. Wynn (who lost his primary to Donna Edwards back in February) announced that he would resign in June. He had endorsed Obama but will not be able to vote in the convention if he leaves his job. Donna Edwards is also an Obama endorsee, but it is unclear whether she will become a House member by late August: Governor O'Malley will get to decide whether to hold a special election or not; even if there is one there is no guarantee that it will be completed and the winner sworn in by the Democratic convention.

Now, consider that there still are more than 70 superdelegates whose identity has not even been decided! They are the add-on delegates: Each state has one to five (most have 1-2) add-ons that are decided on in meetings of the state party central committee sometime from the end of February to the end of June, and these decisions will tell us as much as any contest about how long the race will drag on. If state parties select Obama supporters in an effort to push the race towards a close, Obama could reach a critically high number sooner than expected.

As of now only 5 states have chosen (Convention watch supplies us this very useful calendar of add-on selections). And today, it was Connecticut's turn to select its add-on and Obama gained a superdelegate, as the add-on is the co-chair of his Connecticut Leadership Council. The end result of this add-on system will likely be to boost whoever has won the state, and perhaps the state's with 2 add-ons will select one from every campaign (yet another example of the curse of contests allocating an even number of delegates!).

Meanwhile, the party elders, understood as those whose support could signify that the party's establishment is really committed to moving the race towards is resolution, are remaining silent: Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and, to some extent John Edwards. But Nancy Pelosi is still creating controversy: It is an open secret that the House Speaker prefers Obama. She let House members who are closest to her endorse the Illinois Senator and she has been publicly repeating a stance on superdelegate votes that is close to that of the Obama campaign.

This angered a group of wealthy Clinton-supporting Democratic donors who fired a threatening letter to Pelosi, arguing that superdelegates should make their own decision, which was the whole reason they were created back in the early 1980s:

During your appearance, you suggested super-delegates have an obligation to support the candidate who leads in the pledged delegate count as of June 3rd , whether that lead be by 500 delegates or 2. This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party’s intent in establishing super-delegates in 1984 as well as your own comments recorded in The Hill ten days earlier... Super-delegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee.

We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August. We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the Party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters.

With that continues the fight for the soul of superdelegates and for the rationale they should use in making decisions. And this is a battle that Barack Obama has been clearly winning since Super Tuesday, both in the minds of key superdelegates and in the battle of public opinion. Despite that, there still is the widespread perception that superdelegates are shadowy creatures conspiring to give the nomination back to über-establishment Clinton. If anything, the uncommitted superdelegates have been looking for ways to push for Obama since he started his victorious march on February 9th.

General election polls: Obama strengthens his hand, Clinton struggles

A week ago, Barack Obama's poll numbers had undoubtedly plunged, as surveys were showing him weakening in primary and general election match-ups with remarkable consistency. But this was in the heat of the Wright controversy. Since then, Obama's speech helped the Senator stop the bleeding. But the question now is whether he has regained some of the lost ground.

Two primary polls released 48 hours ago suggested he was back to his pre-Wright form, jumping to a huge lead in North Carolina and looking up in Pennsylvania. Now, four general election polls released today show him posting the type of numbers he needs. In fact, it is Hillary Clinton who is weakening and looking in difficulty in all four polls. First, a national poll from NBC:

• Barack Obama is leading John McCain by a narrow 44% to 42% while the Republican edges out Clinton 46% to 44%.
• In the primary match-up, Obama and Clinton are tied at 45%.
• In a confirmation of yesterday's Gallup poll, NBC finds that about 20% of Obama and Clinton supporters would vote for McCain if their candidate did not win the nomination.

But the most interesting number from this poll is Hillary Clinton's favorability number: 37%! This is the lowest she has ever been in in an NBC poll since early 2001, two months after she left the White House. This includes a 12% drop among African Americans, who appear to be blaming her for the Wright scandal despite the fact that she did not say anything about it until 2 days ago. Obama's numbers, meanwhile, are slightly in decline but less dramatically so, though it is worth noting that Obama loses some ground among independents and Republicans.

Meanwhile, we also get three state polls this morning -- all from blue states that Kerry and Gore both carried:

• In California, a PPI poll shows that neither Democrats manage a double-digit lead against McCain. Obama leads 49% to 40% and Clinton is up by a much narrower 46% to 43%.

• In Connecticut, Quinnipiac released a survey showing Obama is leading 52% to 35%, including 45% to 38% among independents. Clinton only leads 45% to 42% because of a differential among independents: She trails 48% to 36%.
  

• In Oregon's Rasmussen poll, finally, Obama is also stronger (though this one is less surprising, considering WA and OR have always been two states in which Obama has looked better). He leads McCain 48% to 42% while Clinton trails 46% to 40%.

It is worth noting that it is not coastal blue states that will determine whether Obama has successfully turned the page of the Wright controversy, so these 3 state polls are maybe not the most useful in that direction. But they still suggest that McCain won't have that easy a time contesting a state like Connecticut in which the Republican is placing hopes. Oregon looks tight, but it has not been a reliably blue state in past cycles. This morning's most worrisome numbers for Democrats come from California. A single-digit lead is certainly not enough to keep McCain away from the state, and the last thing Democrats want is to have to play defense in their #1 must-win state.

The recruitement troubles of New York Republicans

It is still to early to know whether Eliot Spitzer's scandal and resignation can offer any boost to New York's dying Republican Party. On the verge of losing the state Senate and relinquishing control of the entirety of the state government since the 1930s, the state GOP collapse has major consequences at the federal level, since only 6 of the state's 29 representatives are now Republicans.

After picking up 3 seats in 2006 (NY-19, NY-20 and NY-24), Democrats are now looking to win in the three districts that they barely lost last time (between 2% to 4%): NY-25, NY-26 and NY-29. It is no coincidence that the incumbents from the first two districts have retired: Their situation looked difficult and they did not trust that the NRCC would do that much to help them. But with their departure, Democrats are in an even more favorable situation to pick up their seats.

To make matters worse, Republicans have some major recruitment trouble in those 2 districts. In NY-25, Peter Cappuccilli Jr., the only Republican to have stepped forward, dropped out on Tuesday, citing health reasons. This leaves the GOP with no candidate in the district, though they still have time to convince someone to jump in. Things are shaping up very well for Democrat Dan Maffei, and NY-25 will be one of the first districts the NRCC will give up in the fall when it will have to choose where to spend its meager resources. And that fact alone is surely enough to dissuade the strongest Republican candidates from jumping in.

In NY-26, the story is similar: a few days after the Republicans' top choice (state Senator Maziarz) announced he would not run, the GOPer most mentioned to take the nod, Assemblyman Jim Hayes, has declared he will stay out of the race. This is an open seat in a district that Bush carried comfortably in 2004, and instead of battling each other to become the nominee, the district's top Republicans are staying out. It says a lot about the pessimism of New York Republicans.

There is a Republican who has jumped in the NY-26 race, however: Iraq war veteran David Bellavia. The likely Democratic nominee right now is fellow Iraq war veteran Jonathan Powers, which would mean that the race finds itself disputed mainly on the war issue, not necessarily the best strategy for Republicans in upstate New York. It is also less likely that the NRCC abandons NY-26 than NY-25. The fundamentals of this district are more favorable to Republicans than those in NY-25, and it would really take a GOP plunge or major money woes for the House GOP to give up on a district that voted Bush with 55%.

And this is not the end of the House troubles of the state party: Their recruitment failures are as dramatic in some of the seats Democrats picked up in 2006. NY-19 is perhaps the most revealing example in the entire country, as Republicans had recruited one of their top and most highly touted recruits before he abruptly dropped out in late November. The GOP has since given up on contesting this race seriously, despite the fact that Rep. Hall was considered one of the weakest Democratic freshmen. In NY-24, one of the hotly contested open seat races of 2006 (you might remember the infamously absurd ad run against Democrat Arcuri), Republicans have only gotten businessman Richard Hanna to start exploring the race, and while Hanna could self-fund he will not be considered top-tier even if he does jump in.

One last recruitment note which has nothing to do with New York: The New Hampshire Republican Party is finding itself without a gubernatorial candidate after Manchester Mayor Guinta unexpectedly announced he would not take on Governor Lynch (who is up for reelection every two years). Republicans have other Republicans considering the race, but Lynch is a very popular governor who will have little trouble winning re-election, which leaves the GOP in a bind. From the Union Leader: "Influential state Republicans, surprised by Guinta's unexpected decision, are now searching for a candidate who can perhaps come within 10 or 12 percentage points of Lynch to bolster the ticket and, theoretically at least, prevent a 2006-style blowout."

Michigan makes news, again

In news that is unlikely to have a profound affect on the presidential race, a federal judge ruled today that Michigan's law that placed the primary on January 15th was unconstitutional. The issue at hand was this 2007 law's stipulation that the Election Day's voting lists containing the party preferences of voters (i.e. whether they chose a Democratic or a Republican ballot) would be sent to the state's Democratic and Republican parties. Smaller parties, helped by the ACLU, protested that this was a violation of their rights, and that if they were not going to be given the records as well the Democratic and Republican parties should not get them either.

This issue had been on the table for quite some time now, and some people had speculated (and Clintonites had hoped) that Judge Edmunds could rule that a re-vote is necessary with a proper law as a remedy for the unconstitutional law that set up the January 15th primary. But Edmunds did no such thing: The fact that the primary law (and thus the January 15th primary) is unconstitutional does not mean that there will be a re-vote. In fact, considering that the Michigan legislature adjourned last week without being able to pass a law setting up a do-over, a re-vote is as unlikely as ever.

Two small consequences, however, out of this decision, beyond the very important fact that the judge did not order a revote (a victory for Obama). First, whatever chance there was that the DNC recognize delegates based on the January 15th vote is now almost inexistent. In finding some sort of resolution to the Michigan delegate crisis, the DNC will now be even less sympathetic to pleas from the Michigan Democratic Party since the contest that was held that the state's Democrats want to see counted has now been pretty much invalidated.

Second, Hillary Clinton can hope to use the ruling to bring up the issue of re-votes again. She failed to make this an important issue last week, despite the fact that there is a coherent argument to be made that the Obama campaign blocked new primaries from taking place. Now, she has another opportunity to try and find a way to push for a new vote to happen somehow, boosted by the argument that Michigan has been found to not have held a valid primary at all at this point. The Clinton campaign already reacted to this news via email: "In the wake of today's court ruling regarding Michigan’s January 15th primary, we urge Senator Obama to join our call for a party-run primary and demonstrate his commitment to counting Michigan's votes."

Genearal election thoughts: The Democratic dilemma

As the primaries drag on, a question that has long been haunting Democratic operatives is how much will the Clinton-Obama showdown damage the party's eventual nominee. Will the candidate have time to repair the animosity within the party? And will the prolonged exposure (one might say monopoly) they have on political coverage right now (especially in a crucial swing state like Pennsylvania) help them build the infrastructure and support they will need in the fall or will it exasperate voters months before they are supposed to paying attention?

Gallup released a poll today that shows some worrisome news for both campaigns: 28% of Clinton supporters say they will vote McCain in November if Obama is the nominee, and 19% of Obama supporters say the same if Clinton is their party's candidate. While many people think that Obama supporters will be more bitter if the election is taken away from them, all the evidence for now confirms Gallup's finding to the contrary. Obama's weakness among Democrats in general election polls has been documented. But keep in mind that if Clinton wins the nomination she will probably have done so despite a pledged delegate lead for Obama -- and that could lead to many of his supporters being more bitter than they are now.

Leaving aside the question of who is better capable of unifying the party, it is clear that both candidates have a problem: 28% and 19% are both too high cross-over rates for either candidate to hope to be strong against McCain. Thankfully for Democrats, primary tensions tend to dissipate once nominations are over, and there is no reason to think that the cross-over numbers will be this high come September; but if the nomination fight continues all the way to August, all bets are off.

Clearly, however, Democratic voters are not ready to let the primaries end. A new Rasmussen poll shows that 22% of Democrats want Clinton to withdraw... the same exact proportion that want Obama to drop out. But Rasmussen's other poll for the day -- a general election poll from Missouri -- confirms that things are not looking up for Democrats right now:

• John McCain comfortably leads both potential opponents, 50% to 41% against Hillary and 53% to 38% against Obama.

Missouri might have been trending red in the past few cycles but 2006 showed that a Democrat can win and many polls taken in the past few months showed Democrats leading or at least very competitive in the state. This type of poll showing McCain jumping ahead in purple state Democrats were looking to put in play is not good news for Democrats.

Meanwhile, today's Rasmussen daily tracking shows McCain up double-digits nationally for the first time, leading Obama 51% to 41%. He is ahead of Clinton 50% to 43%.

So is there no reason to hope that a prolonged primary fight could be good for the party? There certainly is, and here is the evidence. I have long argued that a 6 week battle in Pennsylvania would help the Democratic nominee in the fall, first of all because he/she will build a network and increase the party's visibility. Now comes word that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of registered Democrats which has now reached an all-time record. More than 4 million Pennsylvanians are now Democrats, a 4% increase from last year's election, and this is directly correlated to the primary: The record was reached on the last day to change your party registration and vote in the April 22nd primary.

State of the race: Is support building for... Al Gore?!

Very little has changed in the past few weeks to weaken Barack Obama's firm grasp on the nomination. But the Illinois Senator has been unable to clinch push Clinton out of the race and to win the game-ending contests (New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas and also Pennsylvania if Clinton's large poll lead holds up for the next month).

However confusing the situation, what Hillary Clinton needs to accomplish is fairly clear. Over the next 2 months, she will target superdelegates as much Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Puerto Rico voters. Not only does she need need to post strong victories throughout May and June, she also needs to convince superdelegates that Obama is too risky a proposition heading into the general election. I have been providing updates into these two related but seperate requirements (building momentum is a necessary but not sufficient condition to convince superdelegates) over the past few weeks -- and will do so as long as necessary. Here are the latest news on both fronts.

1. Building momentum

To survive, Hillary Clinton needs to get to the end of primary season (on June 3rd) in a very strong position, posting good result after good result all the way through late April, May and early June. In commenting the latest primary polls this afternoon, I outlined what Clinton needs to accomplish in Pennsylvania (a triumph of larger magnitude than in Ohio) and on May 6th (win Indiana, pretty much tie North Carolina). But what will Clinton do if she does not get what she needs?

Clinton offered a guideline to her plans today:

I think that what we have to wait and see is what happens in the next three months. There’s been a lot of talk about what if, what if, what if. Let’s wait until we get some facts…Over the next months millions of people are going to vote. And we should wait and see the outcome of those votes.

What most people will get out of this statement is that Hillary Clinton appears committed to staying in the race all the way until June 3rd. I do not believe this is the take-home message here: If Clinton loses Pennsylvania or gets a bad May 6th, she will probably exits the race whatever she says today. But what this quote points to is that Clinton is admitting that she will not committed to going all the way to the convention and that what she does depends on the state of the race as of June 3rd. A Clinton withdrawal in early June would not be a particularly bad scenario for Democrats: They will monopolize the attention in months that are traditionally not very covered without the nastiness and chaos that would erupt if the race was not settled after all primaries were over. Until that point, I am still not convinced that a long race hurts the Democratic nominee.

2. Superdelegates

The big challenge Clinton faces is that most remaining uncommitted superdelegates will be very uncomfortable voting for her if Obama has a lead in pledged delegate. Not only that, but some of her own superdelegates are not sure to stick with her if that situation presents herself. Today, Washington Senator Maria Cantwell -- a Clinton supporter who has long been counted as a superdelegate vote for Hillary -- declared that she would vote for whoever ends up with pledged delegate lead. Obama is almost sure now to be in that position (especially if Florida and Michigan are not counted), so Cantwell could soon find herself casting a ballot for Obama in Denver.

But what happens if Obama truly weakens by the end of August, that Wright-type controversies drag themselves out through the summer and that Clinton succeeds in persuading enough superdelegates that Obama should not be trusted with beating Obama? Well, Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney has a solution: Bring in Al Gore! Mahoney outlined possible solutions in an interview with Florida's The Stuart News:

“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.

A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.

If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.

I fail to understand how bringing in someone who hasn't even won a single vote throughout the primary process can resolve the issue of not respecting the will of voters... The logic probably is that since such a chaotic scenario could only emerge if superdelegates really get their doubts about Obama and want someone else, handing it to Clinton would be privileging someone who had actually come second, wheareas Al Gore has stayed above the fray. Naturally, such a scenario remains extremely unlikely, but the mere fact that it is being mentioned confirms how much of a dilemma many superdelegates feel they are in, unable to find a direction or a rationale to drive their decision.

Obama regains ground in two upcoming primaries

Barack Obama had been losing ground to Hillary Clinton in the upcoming primaries for much of the past two weeks: Pennsylvania surveys were showing Clinton up more than 20% lately, and she had pulled almost even with the Illinois Senator in North Carolina. While not enough to seriously endanger Obama's firm grip on the nomination, such results would drag on the race for weeks and months beyond May 6th.

Two new polls from these two states, however, are the first to suggest that Obama might have stopped the bleeding and regained some ground now that the Wright controversy has lost its novelty. The movement among white voters in North Carolina could also suggest that Obama's race speech last week helped him control some of the damage:

• A Rasmussen poll of Pennsylvania shows Clinton leading 49% to 39%. That's a slight improvement for Obama from the previous Rasmussen poll which showed her up 52% to 39%.

Rasmussen has never showed Clinton leading Pennsylvania with the 20%+ leads other institutes have given her, so we have to keep that in mind. But it is still significant that the trendline here is favoring Obama when most other indicators pointed to Clinton expanding her advantage.

• Meanwhile, a North Carolina poll from PPP shows Obama up a massive 55% to 34%. Two weeks ago, Clinton had pulled within 1%, so this is a very significant shift in Obama's favor and the biggest lead he has ever had in any North Carolina poll.
• The main reason for this shift appears to be a move among white voters, who now favor Clinton 47% to 40% only instead of 56% to 30%.
  

The expectations game has more or less attributed Pennsylvania to Clinton and North Carolina to Obama, so neither candidate have that much to gain from these two victories. But an unexpectedly small or large margin could shake up the race. In Pennsylvania, pulling within single digits would be a moral victory for Obama; but if Clinton won by a significant margin (15% or more) it could sent the Obama campaign into its own downward spiral. The same is true in reverse in North Carolina.

The most suspenseful state voting by May 6th is Indiana -- mostly because there is almost no polling and that the demographics don't necessarily favor any candidate -- but that doesn't mean that Clinton's fate isn't also dependent on Pennsylvania and North Carolina. We are once again facing the very same questions we tried to answer in the run-up to March 4th: What does Clinton need to justify her staying in the race after early May? Certainly a win on April 22nd and at least one on May 6th. But is that enough? How triumphant do her victories have to be?

On March 4th, her three victories accompanied by her double-digit edge in Ohio were enough to keep her going, but Clinton is now facing a different challenge. She needs to build such momentum as to give pause to superdelegates and convince them that handing the nod to Obama would be too risky for the general election. Such an effort will require her to get a truly convincing victory in Pennsylvania (much larger than she did in Ohio) and pull so close in North Carolina as to argue that Obama's numbers are collapsing and that his base is deserting him.

These two polls released today show that Obama has what it takes to prevent this scenario; but other polls taken in the past 2 weeks show that Clinton has enough room to rise to get the numbers she needs. Which is what keeps the Democratic race so interesting, however much Hillary's chances have diminished.

House diary: GOP finds candidate for Weller's seat, not Reynolds's

The dominant story of this year's House races has been the GOP's open seat headaches. Not only are Republicans facing a massive exodus of their caucus, with many of the departing members leaving behind very vulnerable districts, but they have had trouble recruiting in many crucial districts.

No race exemplifies these problem better than IL-11, left open by Rep. Weller. It was clear from the beginning that this would be prime pick-up territory, but GOP problems were conpounded by the uneven recruitment of the two parties: Democrats got state Senate President Debbie Halvorson while the GOP's top choice (Christine Radogno) refused to get in. New Lenox Mayor Tim Balderman became the Republican nominee after the February 5th primary, but abruptly decided to withdraw two weeks later. That left the GOP without a candidate, but with party leaders having the right to select the nominee themselves.

Republicans were hoping to attract a few state Senators who had initially refused to run, perhaps attracting them with the fact that they would not have to run for a primary. But they apparently got rebuked one more time because Chicago Businessman Martin Ozinga is now emerging as the choice of party operatives after he declared himself recently. The final decision will not be made until April 30th, but Republicans can at least be relieved that they got a candidate in the race to allow them to play defense and test the district's readiness to become blue.

Meanwhile, in NY-26, Republicans start off slightly favored to keep the seat of former NRCC chairman Reynolds, who announced his retirement last week. The district leans Republican, but with upstate New York trending increasingly Democratic in recent cycles it will not be an easy hold for Republicans. And the GOP just got its first major recuirtement failure in this district, with state Senator George Maziarz announcing he will not run for Reynolds's seat, despite being considered by many as the front-runner for the Republican nod. The Niagara County Republican Chairman also said he would not be running.

The fact that politicians like Maziarz (or Christine Radogno in IL-11) who were basically promised the Republican nod in GOP-held districts are refusing to jump in the race confirms how grim many Republicans thinks their party's chances are in the fall, at least in congressional races. In essence, some of these refusals come down to a belief that it would be harder to win this year in an open seat than in the next few cycles against an incumbent.

• Internal Polls: NY-25 and OH-02
  

We also got two internal polls released by two campaigns of opposing parties yesterday, and like most leaked internals they paint very favorable pictures for those who commissioned them:

• In OH-02, Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt leads challenger Vic Wulsin 51% to 33%. This is a rematch of the 2006 race which Schmitt barely won.

• In NY-25, a GOP-held open seat, Democrat Dan Maffei (who came very close to beating the incumbent in 2006) leads two Republican candidates by double-digits, 41% to 29% against Peter Cappuccilli and 41% to 25% against Randy Wolken.

Take those numbers with many grains of salt, since they are internal polls, but neither survey has particularly surprising results. OH-02 is a very Republican district, and, despite the fact that Schmidt had two extremely close calls in a special election in 2005 and in the 2006 general election, it's also expected that she manages to entrench herself over time. NY-25, meanwhile, is a district that Kerry carried in 2004 and in a state in which Republicans are not going well. It's thus expected that the Democratic nominee (who already ran in 2006, so has a better base) starts off favored in what is essentially a generic ballot test.

Senate diary: The Craig saga is finally over

Craiggate is finally over. Idaho Senator Larry Craig did not file for reelection by his state's deadline last week, putting an end to speculation that he might attempt to complete one more unlikely comeback. Craig had announced months ago that he would retire next year, but it was hard to fully believe him after the stunning turn-around he pulled in September. We all remember the stunning scandal that erupted at the end of August, when news emerged that Craig had plead guilty to lewd behavior in a men's bathroom.

Despite the disregard for due-process and the difference in the treatment Craig received from his caucus compared to that reserved to Sen. Vitter just months before, the situation did not look good for Craig who announced on September 1st he would resign effective September 30th. It took people a few days (until September 4th) to realize that Craig had said he "intended to resign" rather than he would resign, leaving himself room to not honor his word. But that clever trick allowed Craig to survive, as the media was satisfied with having claimed the Senator's head and Craig survived the storm. Three weeks later, he confirmed people's suspicions and announced he would be staying in the race... an unthinkable development a few weeks earlier. In that context, it would have been entirely in character for Craig to attempt to pull one more surprise and jump in the race for his party's nomination...

With Craig's now certain departure, the November race will oppose former Representative LaRocco, a Democrat, to a Republican nominee (most probably Lieutenant Governor Risch), who will start off favored given the state's very strong GOP bent. LaRocco's only path to victory was that Craig's shadow keeps haunting Idaho Republicans and drags whoever his party's nominee is down with him, and the ideal scenario would have naturally been that Craig attempts a comeback in the polls.

Note that Craig is still not done making news, since he is still trying to withdraw his guilty plea, having appealed the decision of a lower court to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Depending on how big a legal push Craig keeps making, Idaho Democrats can hope to keep Risch in difficulty, but the best scenario the DSCC can probably hope from this race is to force the GOP to play defense and spend resources.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Republicans are still working to find a challenger to Senator Frank Lautenberg who they believe is very vulnerable, due (ironically) to his age. They lost their candidate in early March when real estate developer Anne Estabrook withdrew due to health reasons. Despite the fact that a state Senator is already running, Republicans want to recruit someone who can self-fund a campaign: For the past few cycles, the GOP has been wasting a lot of money in this state (both in senatorial and presidential elections) and getting nowhere once votes are counted in November, however promising polls looked earlier in the fall. It is thus understandable that the NRSC does not want to empty its coffers here but would like still to put the DSCC on the defensive thanks to a self-funder.

The result: a new wealthy candidate, Andrew Uranu, is now ready to jump in the race and contest the nomination to be decided in June. Republicans seem excited, and Democrats don't appear particularly worried. For now, therefore, a typical New Jersey election and, thus like most contests in the state, one to watch closely.

Monday polls: Nevada promises to stay tight, North Carolina leans red

A few polls this morning from Rasmussen, who released two state general election surveys to complement its national tracking. Democrats are continuing to look weak nationally, as today's numbers show McCain lading Obama 50% to 41% and Clinton 49% to 42%. This is the first time McCain is reaching 50% against Obama in Rasmussen's tracking, and his continued dominance comes at a time in which most other polls are showing Obama starting to recover from his post-Wright fall. Those include Rasmussen's two state polls:

• In Nevada, McCain very narrowly trails both Democrats, 45% to 41% against Obama and 44% to 43% against Clinton.

The only reason Nevada is not considered one of the core swing states of this election is that it only has 5 electoral votes; but there is every reason to believe that it will be one of the tighest states of the year. It traditionally votes Republican but has become solidly purple in recent cycles. John Kerry got very close to picking up Nevada in 2004.

Democrats know that they have to make inroads out West: The end-of-decade census will lead to Western states to pick up more electoral votes at the expense of the Northeast and the Midwest, and the party would have a very tough time in the presidential election in 2012 and beyond if it cannot count on states like Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.

• In North Carolina, the situation looks better for McCain, who leads Clinton 50% to 34% and Obama 51% to 42%.
  

North Carolina should not be considered a safe Republican state, but it will clearly be an uphill fight for the Democratic nominee. Kerry failed to really move numbers in 2004 despite the presence of John Edwards on his ticket. But the Obama-McCain match-up is within single-digits, after all. It is difficult to imagine North Carolina becoming blue if neighboring Virginia does not do so as well, so if numbers in Virginia start moving away from Republicans (most polls right now show a toss-up) Democrats will be allowed to think of expanding the field to North Carolina and force McCain to play defense there.

In other poll-related news, Robert Novak's latest column in the Washington Post reveals that private polls taken in Pennsylvania showed Clinton expanding her lead way beyond a double-digit edge but that the Obama campaign started telling superdelegates on Friday that their numbers are "coming back" in Pennsylvania and Indiana. No exact numbers are provided but it is clear that a large Clinton victory in PA followed by a solid May 6th would guarantee that Hillary stays in the race and prolongs the nomination fight, no matter whether she still has a chance of tying him in pledged delegates. However likely it is that Obama becomes the nominee, he will have to get some key wins in May to avoid dragging this out to August.

John McCain and the maverick image

With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton still busy campaigning for their party’s nomination, other groups have taken the initiative of crafting the strategy to be used against Republican John McCain. Their first goal will be to undermine the image of McCain as a “maverick;” the Arizona Senator is sure to use his reputation as a moderate to capitalize on his popularity among independents.

To counter this threat, Democrats have come up with two methods. First, convince voters that McCain is no centrist. Second, show that what is perceived as moderation is in fact opportunistic politicking. In short, Democrats want to make McCain into the mirror image of John Kerry: an out-of touch flip-flopper.

The first strategy, then, is to portray John McCain as a fundamentally conservative politician, and Democrats believe their best argument is to denounce McCain for running for George Bush’s third term. The GOP would have been even more vulnerable to this line of attack had they selected another candidate, but Democrats believe that McCain made himself into a target by cozying up to the White House in recent years.

On no issue has McCain has come to be associated with the Bush Administration as much as on the Iraq War. For a few months, prominent Democrats called the surge strategy the “McCain doctrine.” They ceased to do so when public opinion became less critical of the surge, but they are stepping up attacks on other aspects of McCain’s hawkishness. The Senator’s statement that the United States could stay in Iraq for a hundred years has already become one of the Democrats’ favorite lines – and it is sure to haunt the Arizona Senator all the way to November.


Iraq is not the only subject on which McCain's positions are not centrist, and Dem-supporting groups know they must act quickly to highlight those aspect of the candidate's record to show his moderate reputation is illusory. NARAL, the pro-choice advocacy group, has launched an effort to do so about abortion, on which McCain has a strongly pro-life record (especially when compared to some of his former GOP rivals). Worried that too many pro-choice voters believe McCain's abortion position is acceptable, NARAL created a new website, Meet the Real McCain, explicitly seeking to strike down the "maverick" image:

The REAL John McCain is not the "moderate maverick" the pundits like to swoon over. The REAL McCain has spent the last 25 years amassing one of the worst anti-choice voting records in Congress.

The second strategy -- to transform McCain's moderation into opportunism -- is also being put in place, as Democrats must have learned from 2004 that the flip-flop charge needs time (and a lot of repetition) to stick, but once it does it is hard for a politician to shake it off. Obama likes to repeat that the McCain straight talk bus lost its wheels, and McCain's change of position on Bush's tax cuts was one of the main lines of attacks against him during the GOP primaries.

It's clear that if Democrats succeed in painting McCain as an unprincipled opportunist, his strongest advantage (his maverick image) would become his biggest liability. But we are certainly very far from that: McCain is a known politician and voters already have a clear opinion of him, and that makes him that much harder to define. In 2004, John Kerry was mostly unknown nationally (even after the primaries, in which he jumped back to the first-tier only in the days leading to Iowa) and the multi-million Republican spending spree in the spring and early summer introduced him to voters before he had a chance to introduce himself.

If the Democratic nominee had already been chosen, his/her campaign could turn its million against McCain in a repeat of 2004 (and of other elections like 1996 where Clinton destroyed Dole before the latter got to his convention). But that is not the case, so the DNC is doing what it can, starting with a new website, McCain Debates, which features the Arizona Senator debating (and contradicting) himself on a variety of issues. At the end of every "round" a picture of Bush shows up in an effort to link McCain to the President while simultaneously painting him as wavering. It is remarkable how much this "debating yourself" imagery echoes 2004, when very similar websites and ads had popped up against John Kerry. The "Kerry v. Kerry" debates have now been placed by McCain's.

The New York Times is weighing this morning on what key argument in the debate around John McCain: His flirting with Democrats in 2001 about switching parties and his talks with John Kerry in 2004 about joining his ticket. Both of these episodes are already known, but no one really knows with certainty what happened and how serious McCain was on both occasions. The NYT article recognizes this and provides us with detailed accounts of what both sides are saying:

Democrats contend that John McCain approached them about leaving the Republican caucus in 2001, leading to weeks of talk between him and some of the top Democrats, and that John Weaver approached the Kerry campaign about a joint ticket. McCain advisers counter that it was Democrats who were reaching out to McCain in 2001 and that the 2004 episode was Kerry's idea. Note that neither side disputes that Kerry was thrilled about the idea: "Both sides say that Mr. Kerry was so enthusiastic about the notion that he relentlessly pursued Mr. McCain, even to the point of offering him a large part of the president’s national security responsibilities.

Something else neither side denies is that there were talks between McCain and Democrats. Whether the Republican initiated the talks or not, there was an effort to convince McCain to jump ships. In a context in which he already has trouble with his party's base, it is understandable that McCain wants to run away from this story, but how stunning it is that a party's nominee considered switching parties 4 years before he clinched the nomination points to how crucial efforts to define McCain will be:

Will such stories help McCain portray himself as moderate and convince voters that he would not simply be Bush's third term? Or will Democrats succeed in using these episodes as proof that he changes his most fundamental principles easily and that he is an opportunist rather than a crusader? The answer to this question depends on how quickly Democrats open heavy fire on the Republican, and whether they do so early enough that McCain doesn't have enough funds to respond.

Convention confusion and superdelegate dilemmas

Long compared to the Mondale-Hart showdown of 1984, the 2008 primaries are now drawing fascinating parallels to the election of 1980, in which Teddy Kennedy pursued his opposition to incumbent primary Jimmy Carter all the way to the convention. That year, Carter had swept most of the early voting states and assembled a very comfortable delegate lead; but in the spring public opinion started turning against the President because of the Iran hostage crisis and Kennedy pulled together a string of impressive victories in important late-voting states (one of which was... Pennsylvania).

Unfortunately for Kennedy, this momentum came too late to get him near Carter's delegate total -- which led to the Massachusetts Senator's demand that elected delegates be released of their pledge on the convention floor and that they be allowed to vote for whomever they want. Kennedy was hoping to capitalize on the fear that Carter would be a sure loser in the fall, but he failed to snatch the nomination away from Carter and the Democratic Party never fully recovered from the divisions of that summer.

28 years later, and it is Clinton who is in Kennedy's shoes (a slightly ironic turn of events), hoping that unforeseen events weaken Obama so much that he appears unelectable by August. And Clinton has a weapon Kennedy did not have in 1980: superdelegates. Since Obama does not have a path to getting a majority based only on the vote of pledged delegates, Clinton can always hope that superdelegates would be receptive to last-minute arguments... and do so within the rules since they are not pledged to a candidate.

In this context, the dilemma superdelegates are facing never ceases to be fascinating, especially when one considers the number of rationales are being advances to justify superdelegates selection their candidate: They have to respect the majority of pledged delegates, they have to respect the will of voters in their district, in their state... or they can just do what they want. Could Kennedy and Kerry vote for Obama after their state gave a big winning margin to Clinton, for example, and this at a time the Obama campaign was trying to get Clinton supers form district that had gone to Obama to switch?

Now, it is Bill Richardson who is facing similar questions. He had declared a month ago that superdelegates should respect the will of voters. New Mexico voted for Clinton and Richardson endorsed Obama. Note that this is not necessarily all contradictory: Richardson did not say that superdelegates should respect the will of voters they are representing; his statement could also be referring to the will of voters as it is calculated nationally. The trouble with that definition is that Clinton is not entirely out of the running to take some sort of national lead, at least in the popular vote. But like many superdelegates Richardson wants to bring the race to its end -- and that means pushing the frontrunner's train out of the station.

So is a concensus forming among superdelegates that the "will of voters" they have to represent is the national will rather than their state's? Not so fast. Here is Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota who is now declaring that he will vote for Clinton at the convention if the New York Senator wins his state on June 3rd -- despite Johnson's having endorsed Barack Obama. There have been other supers announcing that they will tie their vote to their state's decision (for example the Maine DNC Chairman) but most of them had not endorsed anyone beforehand.

To settle all these disagreements, a new plan is circulating right now for superdelegates to meet before the convention and thus settle on the nominee weeks before Denver. Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen appears to be one of the main proponents of this proposal. From a National Journal interview:

At that point, after the primaries are over on June 3, there is really nothing left but the superdelegates. And what I'm saying is that they need to step up -- I'm one of them -- act our age and make a choice, and let the party get on with it. I think the way to do that and make it happen is to actually call them together -- not in a convention with all the hoopla and the sideshows and so on -- but in a businesslike meeting somewhere they can get to over a weekend, and maybe hear from the candidates and get people on the record.

Talk about back room deals. My first reflex was to think this was a very unlikely scenario. But this plan appears to be gaining traction, with a number of Democratic figures hinting at its feasibility. So don't rule out the possibility that of a mini-convention some time after June 3rd. That it is even being discussed points to the absence of standards by which to judge the legitimacy of the supers' decisions. Both camps have their view of what is proper for a super to do, and each view is largely derived from what suits their interests. Democrats can only hope that the story doesn't end like in 1980.

And meanwhile, John McCain...

For most of the fall, the GOP race looked like the more interesting one from the purely entertainment perspective; in case you have forgotten how confusing Republican calculations looked, just check back my GOP nomination rankings I came out with at the end of December (that was the first post, by the way, in which I gave McCain a slight edge in his party's race). And until January 29th and the Florida primary, Republicans kept up a highly competitive primary that was covered very closely.

Florida, of course, pretty much guaranteed McCain's nomination and the Republican nominee has had to fight for attention since then. With the Democratic campaign the only game in town, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are monopolizing headlines -- including on Campaign Diaries. After devoting equal time to the two parties all the way to Super Tuesday, I have mostly ignored McCain's campaign ever since then. This website, after all, is devoted to electoral analysis and not to news keeping.

But with McCain now rested from the primary campaign and thinking about the general, the way he is spending those months without a clear opponent is obviously crucial in preparing the general election. And in what is the corollary to the question of whether the drawn-out Democratic primary will end up hurting the party's nominee, the decisive question concerning McCain is whether his ceding the spotlight to his opponents helps him or hurts him.

This week, the Arizona Senator conducted a European trip that took him to Jerusalem, London and Paris. He was accompanied in this trip by two of his strongest allies, Senators Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. This is not an unusual move by a presidential candidate. Before he lost Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama had plans to conduct his own European trip, but he can hardly do so (and be as easily received by foreign leaders) before clinching the nomination

McCain does not need to burnish his foreign policy credentials, but he does want to start appearing presidential and get the American people used to thinking of him as the country's representative. He is also hoping to use his foreign tour to start meeting the primary challenge he will face in the general election: Running as a Republican without looking like Bush's heir. In both London and Paris, McCain emphasized the themes of torture and global warming and sought to differentiate himself from the policies of the Bush Administration; for example, he proposed to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol (for those who read French, here is the interview McCain gave to Le Monde, the influential French daily).

It would thus seem that the fact that McCain has trouble getting as much coverage as his competitors right now should hurt him, since his trip was not as covered as it could have been if Obama, Clinton, 1990s First Lady schedules or "typical" white people were not dominating the news cycle. And to some degree that is true, and is a problem McCain will face for a few more weeks.

At the same time, McCain has for now little to complain about. He emerged out of the primaries with little money left; he raised stunningly little in February ($12 million), despite having wrapped up the nomination; despited by much of his own party's elite (and some of the base), he was vulnerable to a concerted Democratic attack. Two months after Florida, and despite a few DNC produced web ads and a few privately produced videos, the onslaught McCain was allowed to fear and to which he would have had difficulty responding to never materialized.

And even if he is not as much in the spotlight as the Democrats, the Arizona Senator can prepare his general election campaign -- try out themes, test narratives -- in more tranquility, while also spending more time courting the base and building an organization. In short, the Republican candidate can build the McCain style and take control of the party far from the spotlight, which is in many ways a great benefit.

If the situation continues, things could start looking very different for McCain. For one, Democrats will start attacking the Republican soon: If Clinton and Obama are too busy to do so, the DNC knows it has to do so. And, more relevantly, 527s are already organizing themselves to take on the Republican. And the AFL-CIO is already preparing its massive offensive against the GOP nominee. McCain will have trouble responding if it does not know who it should hit -- though Obama is certainly emerging as the likely nominee, enough so that if Republicans find the money to go after him now they will certainly do so. (Note that it is unlikely that they can use Obama's still fighting Clinton to not draw a response from him. Obama has more than enough money to fight a two-front war).

Exactly what advantage McCain draws from this will depend on how vicious the Democratic fight gets. If Obama and Clinton keep on running against each other all the way to June but manage to keep the discussion civil the way they have up to now (the Wright controversy was not brought up by Clinton, after all, and would have come out whether or not she had withdrawn), the fact that they keep monopolizing the spotlight will start playing in their favor at a time McCain will want to draw more attention.

If the nomination fight gets more divisive in a way that (I insist on this point) it has not been up to now, i.e. if Clinton is strong enough after June 3rd to not withdraw before the convention and fight Obama on the convention floor, all bets are off. On the one hand, it would could be disastrous for McCain if he spent June to the end of August having to fight for attention; on the other, just leaving the other side blooding itself out could be invaluable. The exact impact of McCain's time-off from the spotlight will not be known until we can assess it in retrospect.