New Rasmussen Polls have Sen. Hillary Clinton with solid leads against Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania as well as in a hypothetical rematch in Florida. She does not do as well in a poll of what a Michigan rematch would result in.
In Pennsylvania, the only race that we know will occur, she has expanded her lead to 52% to 37%. This is expanded from a 46-42 lead on February 28. It would seem that the March 4 victories in Ohio, Texas and RI have indeed helped a little here.
In Florida, still an entirely hypothetical rematch, she has a 55-39 lead. That is pretty solid.
In the equally hypothetical Michigan rematch, however, it is a 41-41 tie at the moment. Not so great for a state Hillary Clinton "won" in the original, not valid (according to the DNC), contest. Here comeback factor has been on the up and up for the last 10 days, however, so this number is unlikely to remain where it is.
It is rather unfortunate that Sen. Clinton's comeback factor appears to have been strongly influenced by the negative tactics that her campaign has felt it necessary to resort to.
Regardless of the tactics used, this race is going to have a rather interesting end when it comes. If Sen. Clinton wins Pennsylvania by the margin indicated by this poll, she will almost certainly be ahead of Sen. Obama in the popular vote whilst Sen. Obama will almost certainly be ahead in the delegate count.
We'll have our own little 2000 election right within the Democratic party! Howard Dean and the superdelgates: Ready your antacid!
Hopefully the tone can be moderated for most of the remainder of the process. If it can't, that will be the biggest threat to the Democratic Party. I honestly think the perpetuation of the process can help the Democrats a lot going forward by keeping them in the forefront.
They would be debating the issues that matter most to the voters. When the campaign swings to one on one, the well informed electorate will look to dear Sen. John McCain and say, "Well, what have you got with health care, the economy, jobs and pulling us out of Iraq?" The contrast will be quite striking and may lead to the most lopsided election results since 1972.
If the tone cannot be moderated, well, then, to paraphrase, "Denver, we have a problem."
Let's hope we can avoid that.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
Thursday Night
6 hours ago
