Decision ‘08

Am I Overestimating Hillary?

While Hillary Clinton is by no means the ‘inevitable’ candidate anymore, I still consider her the favorite for the simple demographic reasons that became so evident in the New Hampshire polling debacle: her support among older people, who vote in a way young people (the lifeblood of the Obama campaign) never will.

However, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of the Politico give 5 reasons for Hillary to be very, very afraid:

1. She lost the delegate derby. Pure and simple, this is a war to win delegates, one that might not be decided until this summer’s Democratic convention.

And when the smoke cleared this morning, it appeared that Barack Obama had ended up with slightly more delegates in the 22 states.

Obama’s campaign says the senator finished ahead by 14 delegates.

With results still coming in, Clinton’s campaign says the candidates finished within five or six delegates of each other. Either way, Super Tuesday was essentially a draw.

Clinton may still hold the edge overall, but Obama is closing in rapidly.

2. She essentially tied Obama in the popular vote. Each won just over 7.3 million votes, a level of parity that was unthinkable as recently as a few weeks ago.

At the time, national polls showed Clinton with a commanding lead — in some cases, by 10 points or more. That dominance is now gone.

One reason is that polls and primary results reveal that the more voters get to know Obama, the more they seem to like him.

This is especially troubling for Clinton since the schedule slows dramatically now and a full month will pass before the next big-state showdown.

All of this allows candidates ample time to introduce themselves to voters in each state — which plays to Obama’s core strengths.

For the other three, click through…

8 Responses to “Am I Overestimating Hillary?”

1 Clint Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I don’t have a link, but I thought I saw on CNN last night that Obama was tied with Hillary among older men, and that her strength was only among women. While that’s a big strength in the 60% female Democratic party, it’s not clear it will outweigh Obama’s strengths.

And the most telling point is still the January fundraising.
2 Ryan Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
The rest of February looks VERY good for Obama. If he starts reeling off wins in the rest of the February states, how long before Hillary’s fundraising completely disappears?
3 Fargus Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Mark, as of right now, Obama’s raised $5,711,551 since last night. Something incredible is going on here.
4 Mark Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Those are phenemonal fundraising numbers, no doubt…
5 Fargus Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
$5,888,867. 40 minutes, $177K.
6 peter Says:
February 7th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I am surprised by how many people have views similar to Hillary’s, but won’t vote for her because they just don’t like her. My wife voted for Howard Dean four years ago but won’t vote for Hillary now. My boss won’t vote for her because she is too “contrived.” Etc., etc. Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but I think there are enough “natural supporters” of Hillary who won’t vote for her that it could tilt the election. That’s why I voted for Obama: I don’t have a clear preference between the two, but I thought he would be more likely to win in November. Also because I don’t think that there is anything which would change the sorry state of the world’s opinion of America more quickly than to have Obama elected President.
7 Sean P Says:
February 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
But here’s Obama’s problem:

So far the delegate count is essentially a tie. What happens if that tie remains essentially unbroken between now and April? The superdelegates will decide. And I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that, regardless of who the party regulars prefer, the insiders are more afraid of crossing Hillary (and Bill) than Obama.

And I don’t think it will be enough for Obama to get a slight lead in the non-super delegates. He needs to build a commanding lead from here on out so he only needs around 25% of the superdelegates to win on the 1st ballot, and I think the odds of him doing that well are still less than 50/50.
8 Neocon News » Daily Quick Hits 2/7/08 Says:
February 8th, 2008 at 12:13 am
[…] Am I Overestimating Hillary? […]