Like most political geeks, I've been rooting around for information about what's happening in PA today. The Philly.com blog has been pretty good with anecdotal information. The Allentown Morning Call is reporting "above-average voter turnout" in Lehigh County, one of the prime battlegrounds.
From the conversations I've had with people on the ground in Pennsylvania, the Obama ground game is top-notch. SEIU has made a major commitment of resources to knock on door and get out the vote. I understand the response is much better than what they found in Ohio last month.
Markos has made his prediction of 54% - 46% for Clinton. Al Giordano at The Field predicts 52.3% - 47.7% for Clinton. Based on my overly obsessive examination of polls and analysis -- and my gut instinct, I'm coming down in the camp that Clinton doesn't hit 55%. She may pick up some of the undecided vote, but the ground game and new registrants will probably counter that. She'll win by 7-8 points.
While this is fun to speculate, it doesn't matter. We know Clinton will win today. The victory in Pennsylvania has been preordained for months. Clinton can't win the nomination. I predicted last November that Clinton wouldn't be the Democratic nominee (back then, just five months ago, very few people shared that view, believe me). But, I don't think anyone imagined the process would go on so long -- or that Hillary wouldn't accept her defeat. She is going to continue her destructive ways, although, it's going to be tough considering her campaign is in the red. Clinton's campaign is running negative attack ads against Obama while it's running on fumes and not paying its bills. That says a lot about what we're dealing with. Last night, on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked Obama a funny, but actually prescient ,question:
At one point, Stewart asked Obama whether he worried "that you could win the nomination at the Convention and defeat John McCain in the general and, you know, go to the inauguration and Hillary would still be running?"It sure feels that way.
We know the media loves a circus and no one puts on a better political circus than the Clintons. So, I refuse to let Chris Matthews or Mark Halperin or Jim VandeHei or George Stephanopoulos (or even Chuck Todd who I actually respect) tell us this isn't over for Clinton. It is.
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