killias2:

13 points may seem like a lot, but it's not what Clinton needs out of PA. If Obama can keep her to like a 10 point lead, it's a de facto tie. If he can bring her down into the single digits, it's a de facto win. With Bob Casey endorsing him and his campaign only now really beginning... I think he can knock her down to a 5-8 point win by April 22, then counterpunch with a huge North Carolina win.

Why hasn't anyone polled Indiana yet!

Posted on March 28, 2008 11:54 AM

 tokar:

You are dreaming if you think he will pull within 10 points. DREAMING!

I live in PA, and the demographics are so heavily favoring HRC it is not funny. Get 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia and you are talking about people who wont vote for an african american.

ABC news was out in Allentown, which is the most immediate largest city west of Philadelphia (pop. 100k+). It is only 1 hour west of Philadelphia and these people were like "um, me vote for a black man? are you kidding?" well they didnt exactly say that, but they were all strong clinton supporters.

The african american population outside of Philadelphia is soooo low. Pittsburgh probably has a good population, but Pittsburgh has a population of only 300-400k.

Posted on March 28, 2008 1:41 PM

 killias2:

Tokar,

I also live in PA. In fact, I live in Western PA, between Pittsburgh and Erie, and, while this is hardly democrat country, I know almost no Clinton supporters in this area. Also, he hasn't even started campaigning yet, and he just got an endorsement from an enormously popular moderate democrat (Casey) whose family brand is well respected in PA.

I'm not saying I expect Obama to win. I'm saying I think he has a shot at breaking 10 points.

And, as a sidenote, Pittsburgh proper's population is only 300k or so, but the metropolitan area has a population of around 2.2 million.

Posted on March 28, 2008 1:44 PM

 the_real_truth:

tokar -

oops, you just got refuted...big time.

Looks like the tide is turning against billary. Check out the daily rassmuss and the daily gallup below:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105814/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Back-Into-Lead-Democratic-Race.aspx

It is time for her to concede and stop wasting everyone else's money. Looks like the voters are smarter than we thought. The Bosnia thing has really hurt Hillary, more so than the whole wright nonsense. Why? Because the lie came out of HER mouth and the wright bs was not something Obama ever said.

Looks like it is curtains for the Teller of the Tall Tale of Tuzla.

Posted on March 28, 2008 2:38 PM

 Thatcher:

To look at this with some perspective.

In PA's surrounding states where Clinton won and how many points she won by:

NJ 10
NY 17
OH 10

The average is 12.3% - and this latest ARG poll is right in that ball park.

Clinton will win PA. That said I believe (please note, I say "I BELIEVE"):

For Obama to claim a moral victory - he needs to keep Clinton to 10 or under.

For Clinton to claim a moral victory, she'll need to do 15% or better.

Anything between 10% and 15% is a wash - an expected result - a "Clinton was supposed to win big"/"Obama was not expected to do as well here" result.

Posted on March 28, 2008 2:51 PM

 tokar:

@Thatcher:
if you take decimals into account it is more like 12.43% average :).

@The_Real_Truth:
Last time I checked we were talking about PA, not the daily tracking polls, which flop either way. Stay on topic please.

@killias2:
Enormously popular Jr. Senator? Please. Im not saying that 2006 was a fluke, but 2006 was a year for progressive voting and getting rid of the bush stamp in the Senate. Santorum was also guilty of living outside of PA (in VA), which he got KILLED with in the election.

Interestingly, Gov. Bob Casey Sr. endorsed Santorum during the 1994 election.

If you watch some of the shows on TV, a lot of people agree that the democratic voter registration inside of Philadelphia and its outskirts are enough to thwart the republican votes throughout the states. True, Casey did win by the biggest margin for a PA Senator since 1980 (60ish-40ish), but I doubt it was due to the "Casey" name.

Just take a look at Massachusetts. HRC was favored heavily and everyone was all giddy over the Kennedy and Kerry endorsements of Obama saying that they should help Obama in MA because of how popular they are. What happened? HRC by 18 points. Yeah shows how far endorsements go.

The Casey endorsement will do NOTHING. It really doesn't help matters when the Casey family hometown is Scranton, where Hillary has a very strong base because of having one of her "homes" there.

On another note, Im in Montgomery county. Im about 15 minutes outside of Philly. And similar to your situation, I dont know many HRC supporters. My family supports BHO, my uncles support him, my friends, etc. But outside of my immediately contacts I cant make a judgement on my area as a whole, which is what I assume you are doing.
I see HRC signs in places as well as BHO signs.

I am just going by what I know, and what I know is that in my IMMEDIATE area, sure, it might lean Obama, but go 30 minutes west and you might as well forget the Obama vote.
Just ask yourself, if you go 30 minutes east, southeast of you (since you are in Erie), how do you think the vote will be?

On one final note, yes I am aware of media market encompassing more than just the city alone (e.g. 2.2mil for Pittsburgh if your numbers are correct). Philadelphia has upwards of 8 million in the media market (compared to just 1.5 million inside the city limits), but these "media markets" are defined by expansive areas, probably encompassing upwards of 2 hours driving time from the city limits. See here: http://www.pahouse.com/PA_media.asp
The thing is that a larger percent of the population in these media markets live in areas that dont exactly appear as "urban".
I was driving the other day away from the city and I made a wrong turn and ended up heading out towards Lansdale and was surprised to see the existence of Cornfields so close to the city (Lansdale is only about 20mi from city limits). It is really amazing how quickly the lanscape changes once you get out of the immediate outskirts of PA cities (and how the voting landscape changes).
My house rep, PA-06, is republican because the congressional district while encompassing a large number educated upscale democratic voters in the immediate outskirts of Philly encompasses even larger number of lower middle class white voters 20 miles west of us. "Liberal" Lois Murphy lost by less than 1% in both the 2006 and 2004 elections. Just think about that for a moment...

Posted on March 28, 2008 10:50 PM

 kingsbridge77:

The 13% lead will shrink, because the media comes up with bad news about Hillary every day, whether they are legitimate or not. Out of every 1 deserved attack on Hillary, 20 lies show up as "news", such as the one of her campaign trying to make Obama darker in a video for racist purposes, originated in the Daily Kos webiste and later debunked by the independent Factcheck.org.

Posted on March 30, 2008 11:06 AM