Wednesday, March 05, 2008

So What Has Changed?

Well, once again Hillary was able to pull off crucial wins and revitalize her campaign. Looking back on the last couple of weeks, I think expectations of Obama's success in Texas and Ohio were considerably inflated--in terms of demographics, they certainly look like Hillary states. Obama's amazing momentum may have changed voters' minds in early polls, but Hillary's formidable campaign structure and effective attack ads brought them back to earth. And the bad weather in Ohio almost certainly lowered the turnout of Republican Obama supporters.

But how will this affect the race overall? Looking at current delegate counts (Obama actually won more Texas primacaucus delegates), the short answer is "not much." According to CNN, Obama is up 1520-1424 in pledged delegates, a lead which is likely to increase after the Wyoming primary this Saturday. Playing with the delegate counter game, it's going to be extremely tough for Hillary to catch up with the pledged delegates; as has been said for a long time, her only hope is with the supers.

And, despite the connections of her husband, that is not going to be easy. Though she can make a case that she is a stronger candidate because of her big-state wins, she is polling worse than Obama in a matchup with McCain. Considering that she is most likely going to have to convince supers to overrule the pledged delegate count, Obama's head-to-head advantage is going to put a major dent in her case. Hillary's performance will give her an excuse to drag on, sure--but change the final result? I doubt it.

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