It’s been a loooooong month and, as predicted, not much has changed. Clinton still has a sizable lead in Pennsylvania. The media and Team Clinton have done their best to amp up the drama and dice the data to make the primary seem closer than it is. It ain’t.

Clinton was ahead 20 points four weeks ago and, as expected, according to the latest polls, Obama’s made some gains but is still about 10 points back.

The pundits and blowhards have - just as they have since New Hampshire - blown hard. They claim that a Clinton victory needs to be at least double digits for her to stay in the race. They say a surprise Obama win would send her packing. Nonsense.

It’s not going to happen. Clinton will not quit. As long as she can win, there’s no way she’ll drop out.

Here’s what I expect:

Clinton wins with a margin that’s neither a blowout nor close. It’ll be a margin of victory in that nebulous and meaningless range where it can by spun by all sides like cotton candy - only with more empty calories. She’ll give a defiant, insufferable and cranky victory speech with strained “Rocky” references and restating her case that she can win the big states that matter. Clinton’s victory margin of actual votes will be at most 200,000 and not be enough to close Obama’s sizable popular vote lead - especially with upcoming contests which will likely cancel out any Clinton gains. Obama’s victory in urban areas may even give Barack a delegate victory in the state. Obama will give a great concession speech and raise a bazillion more dollars with a youtube clip of it. Clips of that speech will be turned into a music video by the weekend.

In the six hours of live coverage, the pundits will expel enough methane to accelerate global warming by a month and the only valuable bit will be Chuck Todd’s brief number-crunching segments on MSNBC. Pat Buchanan will embarrass himself. Again. Chris Matthews will provide insight into the voting of his home state with a bizarre cheesesteak reference. Keith Olbermann will make an extended sports metaphor - probably challenging Clinton’s Rocky reference with a more apt yet incredibly obscure boxer from the 20s. Eugene Robinson will go along with it.

The pundits will spend the evening trying to figure out how Obama lost a state he never had a lead in. Reverend Wright, ABC’s debate debacle, bitter clingers, Soccer Moms and Bowling Grandparents, yada yada. The reason is: Clinton is popular in Pennsylvania - it’s not any more complicated than that. The truth is Elvis would beat them both hands down if his name were on the ballot. But you can’t really fill up six hours saying that.

– Steve

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.