It's time for a mass intervention.  Hillary has dragged the entire Democratic party into her unstable world of fantasy, drama and compulsion.  We have become her codependents, her enablers.  We ignore her destructive behavior and repeat and react to her bizarre, self serving talking points.  We look on with horror and pretend that someday she will stop voluntarily.

Hillary will not stop.  She is, or has become, incapable of self control.  She doesn't know what she will do next week, or next month, she has a 24 hour time horizon.  She craves one more speech, one more conflict, one last cause for righteous indignation. 

We can't solve Hillary's problem, but we can solve ours.  We should follow the example of Barack Obama, and focus on John Mcain.  We'll hear from Hillary when she reaches step 9, "making amends".

It's clear now.  There will be no unity, Hillary is going to try to poison Obama's candidacy.

Every Clinton surrogate is spewing talking points that are designed to delegitimize Obama's eventual nomination.

Lanny Davis on FOX alleging sexism.  Gerry Ferraro on CNN alleging sexism at the hands of Black journalists.  Hillary in Florida attacking the democratic party as a whole.

These attacks actually make it harder for the super delegates to support Clinton.   

Hillary Clinton is in the Democratic Primary today because in late February she persuaded the media that "electability" was a metric that could trump delegate count, and that the nominee would be determined by the results in a series of future contests, first Ohio/Texas, then Pennsylvania and now North Carolina/Indiana.  The force of Clinton's "the important primaries are yet to come" argument is waning, and she will have to craft a new narrative. 

"Barack Obama can't close the deal" received lots of attention, but it does not seem to have reduced Obama's advantage. 

Although Clinton is pushing stories that the primary process will play out through June 3, she is not targeting any of the remaining contests as a "game changer".

The "nuclear" option of pushing for Michigan and Florida at the rules committee has received less attention that I thought, and I don't think anyone believes it's a winning strategy.

I think that Clinton has two alternatives:  exit gracefully or attack Obama even more aggressively in the hope of stirring up a debilitating controversy.  I think that Clinton will engage in some truly desparate and destructive politics in the next three weeks.  She will use West Virginia and Kentucky as a sounding board for divisive, race based attacks on Obama. 

My guess is that Hillary does not expect to get John Edwards' endorsement.  Somehow this doesn't reconcile with the "son of a millworker" theme:

Clinton on O'Reilly:

"And you know what, rich people -- God bless us -- we deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue for the next generation."

The former Chairman of the DNC has abandoned Hillary Clinton, describes her continuing presence in the primary as a boon to John McCain, calls her out on her Gas Tax Relief policy, and the media, blogs included, are still harping on Rev. Wright.

Andrews' switch to Obama says something very plainly.  This is over.

Anyone that believes that a Democratic Candidate Clinton would not be barraged with attacks regarding:

Travel-Gate, Jim and Susan McDougal, Whitewater, Cattle Futures Windfall, Memo-Gate, Pending FEC Fraud Charges, Vince Foster Suicide, Communist Law Firm Connections, David Rosen, Denials of Knowledge During Depositions, China-Gate, Johnny Chung, The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, Webster Hubbell, Anti-Semitic Slurs, The Lincoln Bedroom, Peter Paul, Sandy Berger, Professional Misconduct During Watergate, Rose Law Firm Billing Records, Five + Convicted Campaign Fundraisers, 2.3 Billion in Earmarks, and more than 35 other greatest hits...

is delusional.  At least she's not associated with Jeremiah Wright...as far as we know.

Barack Obama has managed his campaign like a chess game.  He started out down material and had few viable paths to victory. Now, he's closing in on aa  ironclad checkmate that Hillary and the MSM have not yet seen.  This is illustrated by th following seen from "Searching For Bobby Fisher"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgzDxArND3o

H

HRC has been allowed to declare several states "Must Win", Barack Obama should take a turn at defining the import of a contest.  Proposed press release:

To:  Interested Parties

From: Obama For President Campaign

Re:  May 6 North Carolina Primary

If Hillary Clinton cannot win the support of voters in an important state like North Carolina, the vialbility of her candidacy must be questioned. 

North Carolina could have carried Democrats to victory in 2000 and 2004.  It is the home state of prominent Democrat John Edwards and is an increasingly significant state in the political arena. 

Why have key memebers of the old "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" decided to back HRC in the Democratic primary? 

A theory:

The Question-

HRC cites Barack Obama's inability to win over older working class whites as a general election liability.  She argues to superdelegates that his weakness with this demographic renders him unelectable. 

However, historically this is a less than reliable Democratic demographic.  These Democrats helped elect Reagan and Bush.  Why would Republican operatives support a Democrat that appeals to these voters?

An answer -

To ingratiate herself with older, working class white voters, HRC has employed tactics that increasingly alienate black Democrats.  Black voters are the single most reliable Democratic constituency.  Consider the following:

In 1996, Bill Clinton trailed Bob Dole among whites 46 to 43 percent, but got 84 percent of the African American vote and won the election handily. In 2000, Al Gore won an historic 90 percent of the African American vote, which was critical to his success in the popular vote. Given the increased polarization of the electorate and the disappearing "swing voter" in 2004, African-American voters are more important than ever.

It seems that in earlier big, closely watched, highly polled primaries, at least one polling company nailed the results.  I think that PPP got Ohio or Missouri right, SUSA called Cali on the nose...etc.

Shouldn't we expect at least one of the polls on RCP to be spot on?

If so, it looks like Hillary's ceiling is about 10 points and the likely result will be around six or seven with a slim chance at an Obama buzzerbeater.

Do any polling companies have a good track record with PA races? 

I'll never know how anyone can live in a market dominated by political advertising for multiple weeks, intend to vote, and remain "undecided", but  it happens every election season. 

My frustration with this group is probably going to intensify tonight.  The optimism that I felt yesterday has been replaced with a grim belief that the ultimate allocation of PA's undecided voters will give Hillary a six point bump over her polling average.  I now see her winning by twelve to fourteen percent. 

I don't think that the margin will alter the final outcome of the primaries, but it will certainly extend the process and delay Democratic Party reconcilliation

Political reporters and pundits have used several metaphors, mostly sports related, to summarize the posture of the Democratic Primary.  I hereby throw one more onto the scrap heap of Clinton v. Obama commentary.  Criticism, comment and competing analogies welcome.

Clinton argues that certain primaries are "Canary in a Coal Mine" events, where victory demonstrates that there is still life in her campaign. 

Since the moment that the Democratic Primary became a contest defined by quantitative measurements of success, like the delegate count, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly used high profile contests to refocus the narrative to vague metrics like "momentum" or "electability".  By her argument, she is the winner until she loses one of these "proof-of-life" primaries.  After Tuesday, the last big state's primary will be in the rear view mirror, and the Democratic party will have to decide whether survival really amounts to victory.

Suffering chronic deficits in every objective metric of primary election success, Hillary Clinton cannot win the Democratic nomination without persuading the Party's super delegates that she is a more electable general election candidate than Barack Obama.  In the approaching Pennsylvania primary, evidence supporting this argument is more important to the Clinton campaign than merely winning a majority of the votes.  Clinton needs Pennsylvania's exit polls to highlight Obama's continued weakness with white, less educated, blue-collar democrats to bolster her prediction that in November, Senator Obama will lose Pennsylvania, Ohio and thus the election.  

Senator Obama's difficulty with the "lunch-bucket" demographic is, at least in part, attributable to his race.  There are certainly other factors;  Clinton's campaign has been more focused on concrete economic policy than Obama's, and she is a known political commodity, but fundamentally, polling data and anecdotal evidence reveal a racial discomfort that permeates this demographic and influences their voting.  Every attack upon Obama, from the Jeremiah Wright issue to his tenuous connection with Islam resonates more with these white, working class voters than with democrats as a whole.

Essentially, this renders Hillary Clinton's colorless electability argument ejusdem generis to Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's blunt declaration that some of his state's voters are not ready to vote for an African American.  Rendell's statment is certainly accurate, and the question for the Democratic party is whether to challenge or endorse Clinton's extrapulation of this truism to presidential unviability.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton's pessimistic view of democratic voters is accurate, and if nominated, despite pro-labor policies, Barack Obama would lose white, blue-collar voters to John McCain and thereby lose the election.  Assume this is true and ask what price should the Democratic party pay for the loayalty of these voters, and is no price too high?  Their policy concerns are already promoted, must the party accomodate their intolerance as well?  Democrats should not abandon their principles in pusuit of a single, though important, election.  For what is a man profited, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.