Since the moment it became clear that Sen. Hillary Clinton had beaten Sen. Barack Obama in both the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4, all eyes in the political world have been trained on the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.

Here we have a battleground state essential to Democratic prospects in the fall, a state suffering economically in recent years, and one in which the votes of the white working class are turning out to be increasingly crucial.

But suddenly, the Keystone State isn’t all it was cracked up to be. Hillary Clinton has widened leads in polls there, but her prospects for winning the nomination have dimmed, especially with Florida and Michigan off the table.

Now it seems that North Carolina is the new Pennsylvania.

So why is the Tarheel State ostensibly so important? Of the nine states (and Puerto Rico) still waiting to hold primaries, it’s the only one in which African-Americans make up more than 10 percent of the population.

Therefore, it’s the last real opportunity for Clinton to score a major upset against Obama. If Clinton does win North Carolina — as well as Indiana the same day, May 6, she’ll get a boost of momentum that Pennsylvania can’t offer her.

If she pulls off that trifecta, there’s a slim chance she could run the table the rest of the way, though Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota all favor Obama.

Such a feat would do little to change the math, which makes it impossible or really darn close to impossible for Hillary Clinton to finish the primary season ahead of Barack Obama in either pledged delegates or the popular vote.

But it would surely buttress the argument she is making to superdelegates: that buyer’s remorse is setting in among Democrats as they learn more about her struggling rival, and that she is the better bet against John McCain.

In Indiana, meanwhile, something unusual appears to be developing in the Democratic race: a fair fight that both sides concede is a toss-up.

Wedged between Illinois, Obama’s home state, and Ohio, where Clinton posted her critical win yet on March 4, Indiana may be the one state remaining on the calendar where both candidates begin with a roughly equal chance.

Obama’s bases of operation are likely to revolve around the Hoosier State’s three major universities - Notre Dame in the north and Indiana University and Purdue University farther south - and build out into their respective host cities.

The African-American populations that spill over from Chicago are expected to favor Barack Obama, as is Indianapolis, the state’s largest city.

Clinton, meanwhile, has the backing of the popular Sen. Evan Bayh and may have an edge over her rival on the kind of economic issues likely to dominate the discussion before the state’s Democrats vote on May 6.

While both campaigns admit the race is tight, each seeks to portray the other as the leader in the pursuit of Indiana’s 72 pledged delegates.

“We think he has some advantages starting out,” Bayh said, referring to Obama while campaigning for Clinton. “Twenty percent of Indiana households watch Chicago TV. The city of East Chicago is actually in Indiana.”

As a result, Bayh said, a big swath of Indiana is already very familiar with Barack Obama’s message and the messenger himself.

But demographics and some of the Hoosier State’s similarities to Ohio suggest that it’s Hillary Clinton, the senator from New York, has a leg up.

The Pennsylvania primary is in four and a half weeks, and the conventional wisdom is that the former First Lady has an edge in the Keystone State.

Does this intuition bear out on closer inspection? Real Clear Politics’ Horse Race Blog takes a look inside voting data posted by neighboring states to see if it’s reasonable to favor Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania - and by how much.

Of all the demographic variables that seem to be driving election results, the two that may be the most powerful are 1. The number of African-Americans in a particular state and 2. How “upscale” the state’s white voters are.

A state’s African-American population has a curvilinear relationship with election results. In states with few African-Americans, Barack Obama does very well.

In states with many African-Americans, he also does well.

Clinton does well in states with a middling amount - say 5-15 percent.

The working hypothesis here is that Barack Obama is perceived differently by white voters depending upon the racial demography of the state.

The “upscale” variable, as observed thus far, captures the differences in the socioeconomic status of the whites in each candidate’s coalition.

In a sense, Hillary Clinton is winning “Mondale voters,” and Obama is winning “Hart voters,” according to this theory, measured via median white income.

These variables are not comprehensive explanatory factors.

Other causes are definitely influencing vote returns. However, these two can account for upwards of 60 percent of the vote results we have seen.

Thus, they give us a good starting point to analyze Pennsylvania.

The best approach is to contextualize Pennsylvania within the larger mid-Atlantic region. Comparing Pennsylvania’s to its five neighbors that have already voted in the Democratic race (Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland) can provide us with a sense of which neighbor might best serve as a guide.

Continue reading in the RCP Horse Race Blog …

Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are running such a competitive race for the presidential nomination that many Democrats want them to run in tandem.

Good luck getting either one to agree to take the #2 spot.

Still, one artist’s recent rendering of the “dream ticket” took on a whole new meaning this week - they’ve been morphed into the same person! Nice!

Opposing Obillary, of course, is John McCain, who (at least regarding the Iraq war) is sounding more like George W. Bush each day. McBush it is!

Interestingly, the Obama-Hillary image is actually taken from a real ad for a school in Brussels, Belgium, with the tagline “why choose if you can combine?”

The gist - it’s a college and university in one! Outstanding.

By most counts, Sen. Hillary Clinton trails Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination by more than 100 delegates.

Yet she argues that she’s the nominee by virtue of leading in key states: “I don’t think anyone doubts that a Democrat has to have the big states anchored to put together the electoral votes needed to win,” she said.

This comment and theory are based on Clinton’s showing in the eight biggest U.S. states by population: She’s won six primaries and is leading in Pennsylvania.

But there are several holes in the “big state” theory…

• Texas’ hybrid primary-caucus system made that state a toss-up, in which Obama actually won more Democratic delegates than Clinton.
• The primaries in Florida and Michigan did not count.
• There’s no way Barack Obama wouldn’t take New York (and Massachusetts, another big Clinton primary win) comfortably in a general election.

Essentially, Hillary Clinton holds a delegate lead in just three of the eight big states, and while she is the stronger Democratic candidate in California and Ohio, Obama makes up for this shortcoming with broader national appeal.

Middle-tier states, no matter what the former First Lady says, are crucial as well and Barack Obama has been stronger there. Significantly stronger.

A map of the U.S. Electoral College system, with votes allocated by state. 

There’s also no historical indication that primary results - of either political party - translate into a presidential candidate’s general election viability.

In fact, big states are slightly underrepresented in the Electoral College system because each state starts with three votes, regardless of size.

The 10 biggest states hold 53.4 percent of our country’s residents, but a somewhat lesser amount (48 percent) of the 538 electoral votes.

George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004 despite winning just 81 electoral votes from the eight biggest states, carrying just Texas, Florida and Ohio each time.

But Bush won most of the next 17 biggest states by population, and thus more than 70 percent of the electoral votes, making the biggest 25 states a wash.

In that next tier of states, Clinton has been weak. Among the states ranked 9-30 in population, Hillary is leading in delegates in just four of them (Massachusetts, Tennessee, Arizona and Oklahoma), with four still to be decided.

Because of this, Barack Obama wins a hypothetical electoral vote race over Clinton right now, 196-176, not counting Texas (see above).

Regardless, applying primary results to the November election against the GOP is a bold task wrought with speculation and conjecture.

Only one of the two Dems gets to go up against, and be compared to, John McCain and as-yet-unnamed Vice President - and while Hillary Clinton also argues that she’s better equipped in that regard, the data doesn’t back her up.

Both Clinton and Obama are within one percent of McCain in national polls. Try as she might, Hillary is running out of ways to spin this thing.

With a win in Mississippi Tuesday, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama added a few more delegates to his lead in the race for the Democratic nomination.

But with no elections until Pennsylvania until April 22, his opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, has a powerful ally on her side: time.

The upcoming 5-6 week stretch marks by far the longest pause for Clinton and Obama in this year’s unexpectedly long nomination fight.

That gives Clinton a chance to wage war on Barack Obama without the time pressures that magnify every moment on the trail, allowing her to make a deliberate, methodical case in favor of her candidacy and against his.

Obama has drawn considerable momentum in the race by winning caucuses and primaries - such as Saturday in Wyoming and Tuesday in Mississippi.

But as we saw in the run-up to March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Clinton has proved adept at controlling the race when no one is voting.

Clinton has already stepped up the pressure on Obama, saying he’s not ready to be commander in chief, attacking him over NAFTA and comments by his adviser; and by suggesting publicly that Obama could be her running mate.

The lull in the voting is also likely to include several debates in Pennsylvania, a format in which Barack Obama does well, but Hillary Clinton excels.

It will also allow the Clinton campaign to work to find a way for Florida and Michigan delegates to be seated or have those states’ votes count.

Both states favor Clinton demographically, and any solution that allows the delegations to be seated at the convention is likely to cut Obama’s lead.

Continue reading this article …

If it sounds silly when put this way, that’s because it is.

It’s little wonder, then, that Sen. Barack Obama is criticizing his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton’s repeated hints she would take him for the No. 2 spot on her presidential ticket, accusing her of double-talk and playing political games.

While Clinton is by no means out of it, Obama has won 26 out of 40 contests and leads the hard-fought Democratic race by about 100 delegates.

Obama, who hopes to add a Mississippi win to his total today, raised both of these facts on the campaign trail yesterday, saying he is in this race to take on John McCain in November and to lead America after that.

Barack Obama chats with a pair of supporters in Mississippi.

“I don’t know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to somebody who is in first place,” Obama said.

“I’m not running for vice president. I am running for president of the United States of America. I am running to be commander in chief.”

The former First Lady is playing a political game here, planting the idea of putting her at the top of the ticket even though she trails in the close race, while subtly reaching out with a compliment to millions of Obama supporters.

It’s a shrewd move, but one thing doesn’t add up - if Barack Obama hasn’t passed the commander-in-chief test, as the Clinton camp repeatedly asserts, how can he be so perfect for the role of Vice President at the same time?

The V.P. spot might be a demotion from U.S. Senator or Governor of Texas, as Lone Star State Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson suggested, but its primary job description? Ability to immediately step in and take over the presidency.

That said, more than half of Democratic voters this primary season think Barack Obama should be on the ticket this November - at the top of it.

The Democratic party faces three clear options for settling the quagmire of the narred, potentially disenfranchised Florida and Michigan delegates.

The problem according to Bloomberg News’ Albert R. Hunt, is that these three choices range from cataclysmic to problematic:

1. The Clinton forces muscle the votes on the party’s credentials committee and seat the full slate of Michigan and Florida delegates, 366 in all, based on the results of January’s primaries. Given her wide victories in these contests that did not count, she would pick up a large number of delegates. Many, including Nancy Pelosi, have called it unacceptable that delegations which broke the rules decide the outcome of this historic race. A large number of Barack Obama supporters might be (justifiably) inclined to walk out if a Michigan primary in which “Uncommitted” won 40 percent of the vote factored into the nomination.

2. Michigan and Florida are denied seats at the convention, or the party could pick its own representatives from those states. Even though Florida and Michigan broke the rules and that justifies this move, it would be a disaster. Stiffing crucial states (44 combined electoral votes in November that John McCain will already be in good position to capture) would be political suicide.

3. The party can require new elections in both Michigan and Florida. This is as controversial and complicated. Unfortunately, it also looks inevitable.

The Barack Obama campaign would love Michigan and Florida caucuses, where they would be more successful because they are better organized.

The Hillary Clinton camp wants primaries for Florida and Michigan, which would be costly and for which no one seems willing to foot the bill.

The Democratic National Committee could foot the bill for the re-votes, but in a display many are calling incompetence on the part of chairman Howard Dean, it is lagging in fundraising and doesn’t have the money.

Perhaps the only logical course of action is for convention chairman Pelosi and her party leaders to take this out of the hands of Clinton, Obama and Dean to designate an arbitrator or small committee to resolve the matter. Quickly.

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell would be an ideal choice, as every such panel he’s headed has been lauded as credible and successful.

Other respected figures who aren’t in either camp might include former Vice President Al Gore or former President Jimmy Carter.

Despite our belief that these states broke the rules, therefore should be barred and are simply adding hysteria by demanding a do-ever, this is not going to happen and we all need to come to grips with it. Someone fair must settle it.

The only practical solution is some combination of caucuses and primaries, fewer delegates than slated but a respectable percentage, with the two campaigns sharing the cost with the state parties and private donors.

The clock is ticking. The party leadership needs to get a plan in place quickly, if at all, lest we hand these states over to John McCain early.

No matter where you stand politically, the discussion of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency and the underlying role of gender is fascinating.

She began her 2008 presidential campaign with a man’s voice, that she could be just as tough as the big boys on security, defense, and the terrorists.

But is this what voters want from Hillary? Is it even how she feels inside? Was her vote to authorize the Iraq war made strictly to give off this impression?

Just as she has often positioned herself as both the candidate of experience and of change, Hillary Clinton wanted to have it both ways, to be able to use being a woman when it was convenient and be treated a man when it was needed.

She never was able to “find her voice” - despite claiming this as the reason for her New Hampshire primary win - the voice of a woman being a woman.

While we believe Barack Obama is the superior choice for a variety of reasons, there’s little doubt that Clinton’s own advisers have not served her well.

Were the former First Lady ever able to truly be herself, to find her own voice and not that of her husband or political gurus who overthink every point, the entire complexion of this tumultuous primary season may have been altered.

Continue reading this article on My Left Wing …

Call it ethically questionable or politically brilliant, but the results were obvious. Hillary Clinton’s last-ditch fear-mongering - also known as the “red phone” or “3 a.m” ad - helped deliver huge wins in the Ohio and Texas primaries.

The controversial Clinton commercial featured sleeping children and asked voters to decide who they want protecting them -  implying not so subtly that Obama is an unknown commodity and that only Hillary will keep them safe.

Well, it turns out that footage is nearly a decade old, and one of those darling, sleeping kids - now 17 - is a huge Barack Obama supporter.

Casey Knowles, a Barack Obama volunteer in Washington State, was filmed eight years ago when she was working as a TV extra.

It is not clear what the material featuring Knowles was originally shot for, but Getty Images owns the footage and can do with it as it pleases.

Knowles, who turns 18 in April, told a Seattle TV station that she is for Obama all the way: “It’s really sort of ironic that my image would be used to advocate for Hillary Clinton when I myself do not.”

Hard to argue with that.

In other news, Obama won the Wyoming caucuses Saturday, giving him a modest boost in the historic and tight race for the Democratic nomination.

The win in the nation’s least-populated state is hardly seen as a turning point, but every race counts, and Obama’s delegate lead is still pushing 100.

A Clinton spokesman responded that these results mean nothing, and that she had actually been planning on losing to Barack Obama by a margin of 61-38 percent in Wyoming during each of her amazing 35 years of experience.

Just kidding. Mostly.

The equivalent of a Vermont Republican, a Wyoming Democrat certainly isn’t arriving at his or her political stance because it’s the popular thing to do.

Republicans have a more than 2-1 edge in voter registration — or even 10-1 in some counties — so you can imagine the surprise even among Democrats themselves at the sudden relevance of their caucuses on Saturday.

Wyoming has 18 national Democratic delegates to apportion — 12 of them to be decided, directly or indirectly, by the caucus voting Saturday.

An even dozen. The fewest possible in this convoluted system. Wyoming has approximately 522,000 residents, or fewer than every other U.S. state including Vermont (621,000) and even Washington D.C. (588,000).

But every delegate matters in this race.

As Democrats around the nation digested the results of the March 4 voting, when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton broke a string of victories by her rival for the nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, the fallout remained unclear.

One thing is certain: It’s not over, and therefore, Wyoming is back on the table. Obama’s delegate lead is estimated around 100. The Equality State won’t shift it much in either direction, but momentum is also critical.

Wyoming: Known for breathtaking scenery, not Democratic caucuses that matter.

Barack Obama has done well in the West and particularly well in caucuses, with his energetic grass-roots supporters pushing hard on his behalf. But Clinton’s momentum after her Tuesday victories could tighten things considerably.

Momentum is also a factor in a Democratic race where jockeying for position and the perception of being the frontrunner have become increasingly important.

Both candidates would surely love to claim a modest boost from a Wyoming victory, although Clinton would surely tell you it doesn’t matter the second she lost.

Where the respective Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton messages fit in is fairly hard to say in a state where a conservative — although often more libertarian — point of view is shared across much of the political spectrum.

Either way, it’ll be interesting to watch tomorrow. Record turnout is expected, and hopefully, Obama can point to Wyoming as another supposedly insignificant, red-leaning state that paved his way to the Democratic nomination.