Open Thread 2

by publius

I just saw an excellent breakdown by Chuck Todd. He said that practically zero of Ohio's big cities have reported (Cincy, Dayton, Cleveland, and Toledo). That's why they're not calling Ohio - we're seeing the rural areas right now. It still seems unlikely he'll win, but that margin will close.

Texas, Todd says, is different. What we're seeing is mostly early voting, but Houston hasn't come in yet. So expect a big Obama jump shortly. Also, Todd says that the Obama-friendly cities will report earlier, and then Clinton's regions will come in later. So, again, expect Obama bursts with steady Clinton closing (according to Todd).

Of course, in the grand of scheme of things, if these two are close, that's objectively a win for Obama, math-wise (see Hilzoy's earlier post on this). It may not be reported that way though -- winning by 2-3 points after blowing a 30-point win is of course clear evidence that Obama is in freefall.

UPDATE: Ohio called for Clinton. Just a question of delegate allocation now.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

CNN has added their John King county returns maps to their website. Warning: once you start, you can't stop (and you will find yourself obsessing about the fact that Clinton has a slight edge in Cuyahoga County w/ 2% reporting).

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/county/#TXDEMMAPprimary

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/county/#OHDEMMAPprimary

[Elizabeth]

Oops, links got cut off:

Ohio

Texas

[Gerbal]

Free fall is hardly accurate. Hillary turned around her campaign after months of mismanagement. She also managed to convince voters soaring rhetoric is a bad thing.

Ohio was always predicted to be close, It is likely obama will take this moment to reevaluate his campaign and finally directly take on Clinton and disprove her claims of more experience.

[hilzoy]

Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

(Sorry, Ugh.)

[Adam]

It'll be OK, hil. He's gotta be able to fight if he's gonna win, and the "entitlement" and "free ride" memes don't have traction now. This is just an opportunity for Obama to prove his mettle; the guy's not a lightweight and this was never going to be easy.

If you're going to support a candidate, then I think you've gotta also have faith that he can fight and win when it's necessary. Even if Obama gets the nomination, there's gonna be a lot of tough times before November and he's gonna have to suck it up then, too. He's had to reclaim the momentum twice now, after NH and Feb 5th, and he hasn't disappointed yet.

[Adam]

... and really, hilzoy, Clinton's looking at about a 30-delegate pickup right now. That's ... maybe I'm just tired, but I find it hard to be too concerned about that. As you and others have pointed out, the math just doesn't work.

They've been talking about pushing Florida and Michigan for a while now, but actually making that sell is going to be really, really tough. As they say in Texas, that dog don't hunt.

[hilzoy]

Adam: I do have faith that he can fight. One of the things I've been struck by is his almost preternatural unflappability: he just doesn't get knocked off his game.

I'm less worried about his emotional fortitude than about my own.

[hilzoy]

And yes: the math is our friend. Funny thing about basically writing off all the caucus states...

[Adam]

Yeah -- I think Obama's course here is pretty clear, as the reality of fighting to close that delegate gap is going to be much more difficult for the Clinton campaign than just talking about it. Obama's had to play offense for the last two weeks, and now he just has to play defense.

If he keeps cool, the bottom line is that his natural demeanor is pretty well-suited to what he needs to do right now, and the Clinton campaign really hasn't demonstrated that it plays from behind well at all. We'll see.

What's really giving me fits right now is the chaos here in Texas. It really sounds like the state party was got totally flat-footed. This wasn't going to end well even if there was a clean win on either side; the fact that it's such a mess in Texas (and to some extent in Ohio) just gives me a bad feeling.

[AWH]

Adam --

How the hell are you getting +30 for Hillary tonight? My math (and Chuck Todd's) says it's somewhere between +0 and +8.

After Wyoming and Mississippi, Obama will have his biggest lead yet.

[Adam]

CNN's page. I read TPM and a couple of other places (yourself included) coming up with a single-digit number, and I don't know where that's from, but I'll trust y'all over CNN. Regardless, my argument's still the same: +30 or +0, the bottom line is that not much happened tonight.

[Ugh]

Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

(Sorry, Ugh.)

No worries, that's pretty much how I feel this morning. I really don't think I can take another, what, 5 months of this? I think it's pretty clear she's going to take this one to the convention. Use every arm twisting gambit and dirty trick she has to try and seat the MI/FL delegates (w/o a do-over) and swing superdelegates to her side. Gonna be ugly.

[Brett Bellmore]

By the way, for anyone who's interested, Paul beat Peden like a tin drum, got 70% of the vote. So much for the 'conventional wisdom' that Paul was in trouble now that the rubes in his district had gotten a glimpse of what he really was. Like it had been possible to shut him up over the last 20 years...

"Gonna be ugly."

Yup, gonna be entertaining. Especially when Hillary starts digging into Obama's early years. Nobody emerges from THAT sewer clean.

[Ugh]

So when does Mr. Aravosis start dropping his HRC bombs?

[OCSteve]

Adam: If he keeps cool, the bottom line is that his natural demeanor is pretty well-suited to what he needs to do right now, and the Clinton campaign really hasn't demonstrated that it plays from behind well at all. We'll see.

I’d say then that Monday was not a good omen. On what was described (on the right at least) as his first day of being seriously challenged by the press, he didn’t do very well. After some tough questions (8) on Rezko and NAFTA he accused a reporter of having a personal agenda against him and then walked out of the press conference.

Then he spent yesterday complaining to the press that they had bought into Clinton’s arguments that they (the press) were not being hard enough on him.

On the right (HA I think?) that was compared to McCain’s presser after the NYT slimed him. McCain remained calm and literally stood there until the reporters ran out of questions, even asking twice if anyone had any more before wrapping it up. McCain (of the infamous temper) came off looking cool and collected compared to Obama’s presser on Monday.

His negatives are only going to go up from here, while Clinton becomes “Come Back Kid II”. He better get it together fast…

I’ve gone from feeling 100% certain that Republicans had no chance at all this time to wondering if the Democrats are actually going to manage to hand this thing to McCain.

Ugh is right…

[Gary Farber]

"Regardless, my argument's still the same: +30 or +0, the bottom line is that not much happened tonight."

David Plouffe, in one of his many intimate and personal emails that he sends to me, and me alone!, claimed an hour or so ago that "Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183," fwiw.

OCSteve, I agree with some of your concerns over Obama's approach to the press.

Although every approach has its problematic aspects, and today's press environment isn't what it was even a decade ago, let along longer ago, it looks like Obama has to refine his approach to one that works better than his current one does. The importance of this will go up at least proportionally to any delaying in doing it.

There's probably nothing like the candidate spending an ungodly amount of time shmoozing unendingly with the press, and answering every question tirelessly.

It does take a hell of a lot of time and energy, though, particularly in the middle of a campaign.

But the other choices are likely less good.

[Adam]

I’d say then that Monday was not a good omen.

As indicated, I think it's a bit speculative, but my intuition suggests strongly that the two situations are different. It's hard to sit and weather personal attacks, particularly in a high-pressure, no-win situation where you can't specifically respond to your opponent.

Respectfully, I also think it's a bit of a stretch to say that McCain is all that skilled at that, either. He's is often unflappable, that's true (I'm reminded of David Foster Wallace's anecdote in his old "Up, Simba!" piece about McCain, where he described how gracefully McCain was able to brush off a guy who asked him about "mind control rays" at a town hall meeting by saying he'd look into it).

But, on the other hand, I think you could make the argument that McCain's MO in tough situations is to pull a poker face; his responses on the Hagee endorsement and his contradiction on his meeting with Paxson are good examples -- he answered calmly but royally botched the response both times. Given that, whether he's better or worse than Obama strikes me as a question of circumstance.

(Regardless, I've found Hillary to be pretty tone-deaf in that regard; she's really haphazard with her responses. I don't understand why she doesn't just take McCain's approach and stay deadpan rather than dropping lines like "change you can Xerox" at awkward moments. That said, she's not nearly as bad as, say, Lt. John Kerry Reporting For Duty, so it could be worse...)

But. The bottom line is that the two situations we're talking about here are different: holding up under hostile questioning from the press versus playing it cool and acting like the frontrunner. Obama needs to work on the former -- and really should have a much better response on the Rezko issue considering how weak the allegations are right now -- but the latter really isn't that difficult.

[Adam]

As sort of an aside, Marc Ambinder says that Howard Dean is pretty much drawing the line on the FL/MI delegates. That's pretty big news, I think.

[Adam]

... Um, if FL and MI aren't seated, then the magic number can't be 2,025, can it?

[KCinDC]

Not sure what you mean, Adam. The number needed to win is actually 2,024 at the moment, according to DemConWatch, but may go back up depending on the outcome of some special elections that occur between now and the convention.

If Florida and Michigan were being included, then the number would be 2,207.5.

[Adam]

Or 2,024 -- I just didn't know if that number was w/ or w/o FL/MI. Thanks.

[Adam]

As a belated rejoinder to OCSteve's argument about McCain being cool and collected, MSNBC is headlining today with McCain Gets Testy With Press—right on cue.

I think the upshot here is that none of the candidates are cool under fire all the time, and really, Obama's record on this score isn't bad at all. Although I'd argue that he's actually been better at this, I recognize that I'm biased -- at the very least, I'd say that it's a wash and largely circumstantial.