A couple of polls were released today for the Democrats in Pennsylvania. There were some very remarkable results in them for Obama. SurveyUSA had Clinton up by 12% - 53% to 41%. Not so remarkable, until you take into account that, two weeks ago, SurveyUSA had Clinton up by a 19% margin. The momentum is with Obama in the state, if this poll is the only thing you go by.
But it’s the second poll that really shakes things up. Rasmussen has their latest numbers out and it has Clinton up by jut 5% - 47% to 42%. This is the closest the state has been in any poll, and a margin that would widely be viewed as a ‘win’ by the Obama campaign. As I said in my previous post, a 10% margin of victory only netts Clinton 10 delegates on Obama. And while a 20% doesn’t do a whole lot better, she needs something between 10% and 20% to even be considered a contender in the race.
Momentum really is on Obama’s side in the state. The Bosnia gaff by Clinton has done her more damage than the Wright issue has to Obama. I suspect it’s the ways they handled the fallout which determined the momentum. Obama gave his great speak. Clinton brushed it off with a line like ‘I guess I was mistaken’. If trends continue, the state will fall into a sub-10% difference, and Obama will be seen as the ‘winner’ of the state. No if’s or but’s. If Obama gets within single-figures of Clinton within Pennsylvania, he will be called the winner by media and voters alike.
There’s also a senate race that I’ll be keeping track of during the electioneering time of the year. Virginia is an important swing-state in the general election coming up, so watching how their state politics are unfolding might be a good indicator as to how the state will go come the presidential election. One of Virginia’s senate seats is hotly contested between Republican Jim Gilmore (former Attorney General and Governor of Virginia) and Democrat Mark Warner (the immediate former Governor of Virginia, former chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, currently on the board of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs).
Now Mark Warner was originally touted as being a possible Democratic primary contender because of his centrist positioning and his popularity in the swing-state of Virginia. This was around the time his governorship came to and end in early 2006, roughly a year and a half after Obama’s keynote address. Through 2006, while some speculated about Obama, others speculated about Warner. Warner eventually said that he didn’t want to interrupt his ‘family life’ and wasn’t going to run for president.
However, he did decide to run for the senate seat of his state that was opening up with the ‘retirement’ of the incumbent Republican John Warner. Congressman Tom Davis, who was Jim Gilmore’s only possible competition in the state, opted out of the race because the state was going to use a nominating convention rather than a primary process to get their Republican candidate for their seat. Davis suspected that this gave Gilmore the better chances, and decided not to run, leaving Gilmore a free pass to the senate election against Mark Warner. Gilmore, too, was thought of as being a possible Republican candidate in the primaries, but decided against.
Mark Warner began the race as favourite, being more popular and more well-known than Gilmore. I think that it will be an uphill battle for Gilmore to overtake Warner as the favourite, or to win the seat, given latest polls. In January, Rasmussen had Warner ahead by 16% - 55% to 38%, 4% undecided. In February, Warner was up by 20% -57% to 37%, 6% undecided. In March, Warner was up by 16% - 55% to 39%, 6% undecided.
What’s interesting to note is the Republican trends that exist in the state, despite Warner’s election as governor. The state has voted in A Republican senator on the past two occasions - and in 1996, Jim Warner, the Republican candidate defeated Mark Warner for the seat. In the past 3 presidential elections, the state has gone Republican - with Bob Dole (which is saying something!) and George Bush twice. But there was something that clicked with the state and Warner when he ran for governor, and he has remained one of the most popular politicians in the state since his retirement.
I’ll be keeping an eye because he was one of the 3 that I wanted to see run in the primary race - Obama, Gore, Warner. I could never chose between them, and I’m glad I never did, because then we wouldn’t be on the verge of an Obama presidency. I’ll be updating on this senate seat mainly for my own interests, but maybe some people out there will be interested in it too. Who knows.
Thomas.
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April 2, 2008 at 5:48 pm
lawalker0854
Leon A. Walker
April 1, 2008
Pensacola, Florida
leonwalker@cox.net
Hillary Clinton: Lies Have Short Legs
Senator Hillary Clinton’s repeated telling of a shocking fabricated and later recanted story of her arrival in a Bosnian combat zone “under sniper fire” is absolutely ghastly. This horrific fabrication is not only a very telling indictment of her credibility and integrity; it reveals a clear vision of a ruthless woman lost in self consumption.
I have no apprehension for having made the aforementioned scalding comments because two decades ago I myself served. At one point in my career I was a crewmember aboard the carrier “United States Ship Independence”. During my service on that vessel we were required to launch aircraft and drop bombs on the nations of Grenada and Lebanon. Tensions were high and in Lebanon our aircraft were engaged and one was shot down. Through it all I never felt particularly threatened. Why? Because I was an Air Traffic Controller and I sat comfortably in my air conditioned work center, dozens of miles off shore, deep within the skin of a well protected ship. That my fellow Americans, is the maximum extent to which I can embellish these events. Oh wait! When “Battle Stations” were announced, I did have to put on my ball cap and tuck my pants into my socks.
Now some years later, the First Lady of the United States, flies into Bosnia with her teenaged daughter. As would be procedurally appropriate they got a routine briefing equivalent in significance to: “Hey Hillary, tuck your pants into your socks” followed by an uneventful landing and an informal reception on the tarmac. From these actual routine events, came a tale so outrageous it was nearly tantamount to she, Chelsea and Sinbad slithering across the tarmac cradling rifles with night vision scopes and with bayonets in their teeth. Thank God it was daylight or she might have claimed it was 3:00 AM.
I can not fully relate to all of the families of those who faced combat, injury or death in Bosnia or the Gulf War or Iraq or any other conflict or police action in recent American History or years prior. Still I know that there have been so many who served under austere and life threatening conditions sacrificed through injury and those who died for this country. So for anyone and in particular a candidate for President of the United States, to manipulate the reality of exposure to, or service in dangerous conflict as she has done is the height of depravity. To attempt to beguile an American public which includes those who are serving, those who have served and those who have sacrificed, all of the families and all fellow citizens is beyond comprehension. What is more, and that which can only be considered the height of gall is, to date I am aware of no apology.
At fifty four years old I have seen many things. I have a fairly good understanding of politics and the tactics that can make politics both enjoyable and disturbing. I am not however a political junkie so perhaps my memory data banks are some what limited. Still, I can scarcely recall anything so calculated and outrageous in my remembrances of prior political contests.
I believe this will be the final element in Senator Clinton’s undoing in this political campaign. She had already begun setting the bridges ablaze with her tactics throughout and more recently, the veiled threats to the Democratic Party Leadership were a mistake. Seemingly she and her campaign never figured out that something was changing. She brought the same old script and played the leading role in the same old dreary production of “Washington Politics As Usual”.
At the end of the day I believe this gifted woman was blinded by dangerous ambition and she lost sight of the real prize. The real prize being the trust and confidence of the American people. Sadly, the American people have a clear vision of that which she never hoped to reveal. The hole in the place where her soul should be.
Leon A. Walker
© Leon A. Walker, April 2008 – Approved for use by any recipients, viewers or holders.
April 13, 2008 at 11:16 am
Jwente
Hillary said:
“I’ll fight for every single job in America – and create millions of new, high paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. President Bush has stood by and watched as we’ve lost 3 million manufacturing jobs. And he’s done nothing about the loopholes in our tax code that actually encourage companies to ship jobs overseas.”
Clinton campaign was supposedly “outraged” by NAFTA… but this wasn’t her story when her husband, during his administration, pushed this calamity through. She praised NAFTA saying it was good for New York and America. http://www.politicswest.com/20681/did_clinton_explicitly_support_nafta
While most think the constant patterns of lying is insignificant, it speaks clearly to the candidate’s credibility or the lack thereof. Of course we are expected to forget… The lies about Bosnia (sniper fire) that husband Bill brought back. She embellished the hospital story in which both mother and infant dies. She distanced herself from Mark Penn who was actively pushing to expand NAFTA into South America, but she state that she is opposed to it. Now he’s demoted, not fired. Clinton is insulting the American’s intellegence. Honest? or Dishonest? You make the call!
How can Hillary tell voters that she can identify with the same struggles they endure when the Clinton’s raised $109 million dollars between 2000 - 2007?