Has Obama Hit the Iceberg?It's beginning to look like it. He's down
16 points in Pennsylvania.
Clinton of New York leads Obama of Illinois by 16 percentage points -- 51 percent to 35 percent -- according to the Franklin & Marshall Poll conducted for the Tribune-Review, WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and other news outlets. Nearly one in seven likely Democratic voters -- 13 percent -- are undecided.
And an amazing 28 points in
West Virginia.
The first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race shows that Clinton attracts 55% of the Likely Democratic Primary Voters while Obama is supported by 27%. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure.
And in a
national poll, he trails Hillary by seven points.
The March 14-18 national survey of 1,209 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters gave Clinton, a New York senator, a 49 percent to 42 percent edge over Obama, an Illinois senator. The poll has an error margin of 3 percentage points.
And there are signs of desperation as well. His
surrogates are trying to prevent a revote in Florida and Michigan.
The Democratic National Committee said it would accept a proposal for a new round of balloting in Michigan, but the bill has been bottled up in part because Obama's campaign has raised objections to it.
Among those objections is that the legislation says that if an individual voted in the Jan. 15 Republican primary, he or she would be disqualified from voting in the do-over primary in June. Robert F. Bauer, an attorney for the Illinois senator's campaign, raised other potential problems with the latest Michigan proposal for a revote, saying it would be "unprecedented in conception and proposed structure," as no other state has ever "re-run an election in circumstances like these." While all sides had hoped they could avoid the controversy, the nomination standoff has made the results in Michigan and Florida potentially scale-tipping.
Remember, Obama got his start by similar skullduggery, challenging the signatures on his opponents' nominating petitions and getting the other contenders thrown off the ballot. He's no stranger to hardball tactics.
A lot of people have bought
the meme that Hillary can't catch Obama. That's true in terms of the pledged delegates (barring a miracle), but it ignores the obvious; if Obama's sinking the superdelegates won't stay with him.
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton
