NYT: Options Dwindling for Clinton

[DeepModem Mom]

News Analysis
Options Dwindling for Clinton
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: May 7, 2008

In this case, a split was not a draw. Despite narrowly winning Indiana, while losing North Carolina, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not fundamentally improve her chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination. If anything, Mrs. Clinton’s hopes for overtaking Senator Barack Obama dwindled further on Tuesday night....

Beating Mr. Obama in Indiana, a state he had once been confident of winning, was an achievement for Mrs. Clinton. But it was hardly the kind of strong victory she posted in Pennsylvania and Ohio. And when paired with his comfortable victory in North Carolina — which Mr. Obama pointedly described in his victory speech as “a big state, a swing state” — it hardly seemed enough for Mrs. Clinton to convince so-called uncommitted superdelegates to rally around her candidacy.

Her showing in the two states did not permit Mrs. Clinton to cut into Mr. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates or his overall lead in the popular vote. Indeed, Mr. Obama may have widened his delegate lead over Mrs. Clinton, an outcome with mathematic and political resonance.

The result was so tight as to deprive her of the kind of clear-cut victory that would make it easy for her to fend off calls for her to drop out, raise money and campaign on into West Virginia in advance of a primary there next Tuesday where her campaign is confident of doing well.

In the last several weeks, Mrs. Clinton, seizing on the campaign’s new focus on the weakening economy, seemed to find new energy and a more populist voice. She ran hard on a proposal to suspend the federal gasoline tax, an idea that Mr. Obama scorned. As she battled away, Mr. Obama struggled to explain his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and his apparent inability to appeal to blue-collar voters. Polls suggested that Democrats were starting to develop doubts about the strength of his candidacy.

In short, Mrs. Clinton could not have asked for a better second chance to turn this campaign around and to make her central case to superdelegates: that Mr. Obama was a damaged general election candidate who would get swallowed up by the Republican Party. Yet she was unable on Tuesday to build her base of support substantially beyond the white, working-class voters who had sustained her for the last month. That will not be lost on the superdelegates, the elected Democrats and party leaders who will ultimately decide this fight....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/us/politics/07assess.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login

[TwilightGardener]

1. I don't recall Obama being expected to win IN. I don't think I even saw polls there

until the last few weeks--and they mostly showed her ahead. So that's bullshit.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. He was ahead in Indiana some weeks back --

and please, I'm not making a point, I just read a lot of articles. He was ahead in the Indiana polls, I think by a few points, I think mainly because of the Chicago media market playing in Indiana. They were familiar with him. Then, when Wright, etc., hit, that became a negative instead of a positive, because that was an even bigger story in Chicago than nationally.

Obama had said, after Pennsylvania, that Hillary had won Pa., he would win NC, and Indiana would be the tie-breaker.

This was a question in GDP, and I posted these facts, and the response to my post had to do with one of the candidate's ass. Please, I'm an Obama supporter. I'm not making a point -- just posting info.

[Triana]

4. That's what I was thinking upon reading that...

..:wtf:

Never heard that Obama was expected to win IN.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Please see my post 2. nt

[Hardrada]

3. She will abdicate and also relinquish her right to the throne

of Prussia and will board a train to Holland in the early morning.