First Read: The day in politics by NBC News for NBC News
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FIRST THOUGHTS.
*** Contest No. 45: Six weeks, a political eternity given the cycle's front-loaded calendar, have passed since the last Democratic contest -- the Mississippi primary -- which Obama won, 61%-37%. And as we've said before, so much (most of it process) has happened in between: Geraldine Ferraro's comments, the Wright controversy, Obama's speech on race, Bosnia sniper fire, the Clintons' tax records, Mark Penn's ouster, Bittergate, and the debate over the debate. Well, the wait for another Clinton-Obama contest finally ends today as Pennsylvania voters head to the polls, which opened at 7:00 am ET and close 8:00 pm ET. There are 158 pledged delegates at stake.
*** Keys To The Keystone Battle: There seem to be four possible outcomes to tonight's contest, and two of them will need little spin because the media won't need the "help" to interpret their meaning: 1) a double-digit Clinton victory in which she beats Obama by a greater margin than she beat him in Ohio; and 2) an outright Obama victory. But here are outcomes that will force the campaigns to go into spin overdrive: 3) a Clinton victory by less than five points, which would give Obama an opening to declare "victory" of sorts and create renewed pressure on Clinton on the future of her campaign; and 4) a Clinton victory by more than five but less than 10, which is the most likely result if some of the better polls are to be believed. This would be considered a solid victory, but would it be big enough to fundamentally change the dynamics of the race? Could Clinton claim Obama was losing ground if he performed better in Pennsylvania than he did in Ohio? This is why Axelrod and his team and Wolfson and his team will earn their money today. The Clinton campaign is desperately trying to ratchet back expectations. Early on, Rendell and his folks were predicting an easy victory. Those predictions, however, are what created this expectations-game problem for Clinton today. She's now in a position where only a blowout is going to give her the momentum she needs to make folks believe she still has a shot at the nomination.
*** Where We Stand: Obama leads in pledged delegates (1417 to 1251), overall delegates (1655 to 1513), the popular vote (13.4 million to 12.7 million), and total number of contests won (29 to 14). Note: We're not including Texas in this last total, given that Clinton won the primary but Obama won the caucus and netted the most delegates. Here are some other numbers to chew on: the Quinnipiac poll taken around the time of the Mississippi primary had Clinton up by 12 (53%-41%), the RealClear average has Clinton leading by six points (49%-43.1%), the now-famous Obama memo that Bloomberg News received after Feb. 5 projected Clinton to win the state by five (52%-47%), and assuming a turnout of 2 million, a 55%-45% Clinton victory would cut Obama's lead in the popular vote from 700,000 to 500,000.
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