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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

SuperDay+6: Supers amble in

THE TALLY

MSNBC reports that 16 supers have declared since Pennsylvania, a mere trickle of about 2 per day and 10-6 in favor of Barack Obama.

Obama's shortfall is now only 21, about 8% of the outstanding 280 supers.

THE CAUCUSES

The Clinton push-back against caucuses is at least an argument, even if one doesn't think it is sound. They argue that these people are one removed from the electorate. It's a real hypocrisy, then, to state that Hillary is still in the race and, more importantly, represent to voters that Hillary can win. That position, of course, relies on Clinton's small lead among the supers, and supers in general, who are about as removed from the electorate, in many cases, as you can get.

It gets worse. Governor Rendell admitted to Colbert that he had a laundry list of wants from Clinton, or some such. After that, how Hillary can say anything about caucuses, when she may be trading private promises to just keep people thinking she is viable, still, is a belly laugh.

'MOMENTUM' - NOT A LATE CYCLE WINNER, THIS TIME

The projections used here, designed to give Clinton every reasonable benefit of the doubt in order to be acceptible to ardent Clinton fans, have Obama losing by 2% in Indiana. Even so, the figures continue to show that her margin of defeat is all that is left to decide.

So, the idea of momentum coming out of Indiana is pretty much bogus. Just as it was coming out of Pennsylvania.

Why political analysts - reputable ones - focus on potential "momentum" is just bizarre (to me).