Sorry, but I’m not impressed with Hillary Clinton’s showing, last night. On that point let me stress that it doesn’t change much, in terms of the nomination and who gets it. She’s kept herself afloat, but that’s about it.
Lest there be any doubt on my position, here… I’ll certainly never be a Hillary Clinton backer. I think the woman belongs in a small room staring at vertically striped sunlight. That said, however, I’m far less impressed with Josh Marshall, who clearly allowed wishful thinking to overcome reality in his Talking Points Memo comments last night [1]:
As you may have noticed Drudge has up what he says are 5 PM exit poll numbers showing Clinton 52%, Obama 48%. I suspect they are ‘accurate’ as far as early, un-weighted exits can be. But let me point out that my recollection is that pretty much all the early and unweighted exits we’ve seen this cycle have turned out to be wrong. And often very wrong. So this has to be taken with a real grain of salt. And that’s assuming they’re not made up entirely.
Late Update: Jim Geraghty at NRO has Obama 52%, Clinton 47%.
And to be clear, when I say take them with a grain of salt, I don’t mean that in the garden variety, being responsible, ‘we don’t know for sure yet’ kind of way. I really mean that these early unweighted numbers have routinely been way, way off.
OK, Josh, you made your point. Now, let reality make it’s point, by way of Drudge [2], this morning: (With his own typefaces, yet):
CLINTON 55%
OBAMA 45%
PA Precincts Reporting 99%
CLINTON 1,238,803
OBAMA...1,023,350
Any questions, class?
(Edit for flow: Bit)
Addendum: (David L)
What I don’t know. Was Mrs. Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania impressive? Jim Geraghty National Review, listed several confounding factors. We’ve got Bitter, Tuzila, BO outspending Mrs. Clinton what three to one, Mrs. Clinton invoking Usama bin Laden and Rush’s operation chaos. Geraghty wasn’t able to weigh all those factors, and I certainly can not.
What I do know. Camp BO was talking about a low single digit loss. BO certainly failed to delivery as he promised.
Let us see what happens in Indiana.
Addendum: (Bit)
In fairness, I thought we’d be dealing with a single digit loss, as well, though I was thinking high singels, say, 9% or so, I did’t say as much. Still, that missed, too. the only thing that’s going to save face for Obama now is irregularities in the voting. ANd trust me on this, they’re already looking at that. You will recall, perhaps, that we had sections of Philly in 2000 and 2004 that saw 125% of registered voters turning out to vote Democrat.
Either way, personally, I’m delighted; these two are going to keep slugging at one another for a few more weeks.