Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

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McCain team accused of playing the race card as tone of campaign darkens

An attempt in recent days by John McCain's campaign to shift the focus of the presidential election away from the economy and towards the past associations of Barack Obama has led to criticisms from some Democrats and sections of the media that Republicans are trying to stir up racial prejudice in an attempt to halt Obama's momentum.

With McCain currently trailing Obama by alarming margins in opinion polls and with Americans both blaming the Republicans for the current economic crisis and trusting Obama more to fix it (see polls in my article last week), it was perhaps no surprise to hear senior McCain adviser Greg Stimple say on Saturday that his campaign team would be "looking for a very aggressive last 30 days. We are looking to turn the page on the financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for America."

The first sign of this new emphasis on portraying Obama as "agressively liberal" and "risky for America" could be seen on Saturday when McCain's running mate Sarah Palin began using her campaign stump speeches to attack Obama's past links to Bill Ayers, a "political radical" or "unrepentant terrorist" (depending on which TV network you watch) who attempted to bomb the Pentagon and US Capitol in the early 1970s.

Ayers, now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago, held an informal gathering for prominent local liberals at his home in 1995 , at which Alice Palmer announced that she be would stepping down from the state senate and nominated Obama as her preferred successor. Between 1995 and 2002 Obama and Ayers also served together on the board of two charities (one concerned with education reform, the other an anti-poverty initiative) . Obama has described Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood” and “somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know" while his his chief strategist David Axelrod has said "they know each other, as anyone (would) whose kids go to school together." An investigation in Saturday's New York Times concluded:

"A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers."

Referring to both the meeting held at Ayers' home and to the New York Times article, Palin made the following comments at events in Colorado and California on Saturday:

"I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago. Turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.’ These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes. This is not a man who sees America as you and I do - as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country. This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change anyone can believe in - not my kids and not your kids. The only man who can take on Washington is John McCain.

Twice this week, at rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania, warm up speakers for McCain and Palin have referred to Obama using his middle name Hussein, actions which were later repudiated as "inapproriate rhetoric" by a McCain spokesperson. However with Palin attempting to resuscitate the Reverend Wright controversy in an interview on Sunday, McCain now asking crowds at events "who is the real Barack Obama?" and his wife Cindy telling a rally on Thursday that Obama's vote against a military funding bill "sent a cold chill" through her body, there is no doubt that the tone and mood at Republic rallies has changed. According to The Washington Post, as Palin criticised the national media during a speech in Clearwater, Florida on Tuesday an African-American TV sound man was racially abused by a member of the crowd and then told to "sit down, boy." Later when Palin described Obama's links to Ayers a shout of "kill him!" was heard from the audience. Fox News' Carl Cameron yesterday described the change:

"In recent days, when Barack Obama's name is mentioned, it has gone from boos and hissing to actual chants and calls of 'traitor', 'criminal' and even 'terrorist'. The McCain campaign say that don't condone it, don't want to see it happen but it's happening more and more every day."

While Obama has dismissed the new Republican attacks as an attempt to distract the electorate from the economic crisis, his running mate Joe Biden has gone further, accusing Republicans of making the "most outrageous inferences" and "injecting fear and loathing into the campaign," and desrcibing their actions as "mildly dangerous."

Gary Meeks and Ed Towns, two black Democratic congressmen from New York, have even explicictly accused the McCain campaign of racism. Referreing to Palin's speech on Saturday, Meeks said, “He’s ‘not one of us'? That’s racial. That’s fear. They know they can’t win on the issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear." Towns concurred : "Racism is alive and well in this country, and McCain and Palin are trying to appeal to that and it’s unfortunate." A strongly worded editorial in Thursday's New York Times echoed this sentiment, accusing McCain and Palin of running "one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember" and claiming that "they have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia."

The introduction of the race question into the campaign is potentially damaging not just for Barack Obama but also for Amercian society itself. There is already a risk that if Obama maintains a sizable lead in the polls but still loses to McCain on November 4th his defeat will be blamed on the Bradley Effect, a theory that black politicians perform better in opinion polls than on election day because some white voters hide their racial prejudices when speaking to pollsters. If a scenario develops where white racism is believed to have determined the outcome of the presidential election, the damage to race realtions in the United States could be profound. Up until this point, the race issue has remained largely hidden beneath the water. History will not be kind to John McCain if it deems him the man responsible for bringing it to the surface.

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Polls suggest Obama could be on course for landslide victory

Largely overshadowed by media coverage of tonight's US Senate vote on the rescue package for America's banking industry, a batch of opinion polls released today show a striking shift of support away from John McCain and towards Barack Obama, which could mark a decisive turning point in this year's presidential campaign.

New polls from InsiderAdvantage/PollPosition, CNN/Time, Suffolk/WSVN and Quinnipiac show Obama leading in the state of Florida by an average of 5%, a notable turnaround considering the widely consulted Realclearpolitics (RCP) average of polls gave McCain a lead of 2% in that state as recently as last Thursday.

Perhaps even more worrying for the McCain campaign, CNN/Time now has Obama leading by 9% in Virginia, a state which no Republican has failed to win since 1964. Other polls published today show Obama ahead in Nevada for the first time in over a month, and up by between 7% and 15% in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota, three states that were until recently considered to be competitive contests.

These new poll numbers will send alarm bell ringing at the McCain campaign headquarters. Needing 270 electoral votes (EVs) to win the presidency, according to RCP Obama now leads by at least 5% in all the states John Kerry won in 2004, with the exception of New Hampshire (where he leads by just 1%). He also leads in Iowa and New Mexico, two states that voted Republican in 2004, by 6% and 8% respectively.

The Kerry states, minus New Hampshire and plus Iowa and New Mexico are worth 260 EVs, leaving Senator Obama just 10 EVs short of the magic total of 270. He could get these by winning some combination of the battleground states of Florida (worth 27 EVs), Ohio (20 EVs), North Carolina (15 EVs), Virginia (13 EVs), Colorado (9 EVs), Nevada (5 EVs) and New Hampshire (4 EVs).

Obama currently leads in all seven of these states (by between 0.5% and 3.5% according to RCP) and is also only !% behind McCain in Missouri (11 EVs) and 2% behind in Indiana (11 EVs), suggesting a landslide electoral vote total of over 350 may be within reach.

What has been the cause of McCain's fall in the polls ? Firstly the 'Palin bounce' appears to be receding. According to the Rasmussen national tracking poll, McCain trailed Obama by 4% on August 29th. By September 12th, following the announcement of Palin as McCain's vice presidential running mate and her subsequent speech at the Republican National Convention, McCain was 3% ahead. This lead has now disappeared completely, with McCain currently 6% behind Obama according to Rasmussen.

Amidst widespread criticism of her performance in interviews with both ABC News (in which she was unable to explain the Bush Doctrine) and CBS News (in which she gave a rambling incoherent answer to a question about the proposed bailout package for financial institutions, defended her assertion that Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy credentials and was unable to name a newspaper or magazine that she consulted to inform herself on world events), Palin was lampooned on popular US comedy show Saturday Night Live as a hick ingenue out of her depth (see clips here and here.)

According to the Diageo/Hotline three day tracking poll, her favourability rating has dropped from 51% favourable, 29% unfavourable (a net favourability of 22%) on Sep 12th to 45% favourable, 41% unfavourable (a net favourability of just 4%) on October 1st. Meanwhile Pew Research Center reported on October 1st that just 37% of respondents to their poll now believed Palin was qualified to be President, down from 52% in early September.

The second reason behind Obama's surge in the polls is the current financial crisis, which appears to be boosting support for the Democrats. A CNN poll released on September 22nd showed that 47% of registered voters blamed the Republicans for the economic turmoil, compared to just 24% who blamed the Democrats. A poll by Pew Research Center a week later (conducted after Obama's strong performance on economic issues in the presidential debate) showed 46% of respondents thought Obama would be better at dealing with the financial crisis compared to 33% who chose McCain.

All of these polling figures will be a cause of great concern for McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis. Media focus over the last week has been concentrated on the financial turmoil on Wall Street, but with just 34 days remaining before the election on November 4th, John McCain's campaign for president appears to be in no less a state of crisis than the US economy.

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Sí Se Puede : Bill Richardson endorses Obama as nomination begins to slip away from Clinton

An endorsement by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, America's most senior Hispanic politician, today gave a a major boost to beleaguered Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Whilst the endorsement would have been infinitely more valuable three weeks ago (before Texas and its sizable Hispanic population went to the polls), Obama will nonetheless be hugely grateful for such a show of support at a time when he is attempting to recover from the fallout from the first major scandal of his political career, caused by the airing on US televsion of racially charged sermons by his pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright.

The language used by Richardson in his endorsement speech was significant :

“My great affection and admiration for Senator Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and prepare for the tough fight we will have against John McCain in the fall.”

Do the remaining uncommitted superdelegates feel, like Richardson, that it is now in the interests of the party to push Obama across the finishing line as soon as possible and avoid a bitter and brokered convention ? The number of endorsements Obama has received since March 4th (18 compared to just seven for Hillary Clinton) would suggest that they do.

This trend is worrying for Senator Clinton who , as explained in my report last week, needs to win support from at least 60% of the remaining superdelegates to have any realistic chance of securing the nomination. Considering the latest developments from Michigan, where state senators this week failed to agree plans for a do-over of that state's primary (thereby denying Clinton an opportunity to reduce Obama's delegate lead), it could be argued that despite the Jeremiah Wright controversy, the last 17 days have actually seen the nomination slip further away from the New York senator.

A report on The Politico website today claiming that an "important Clinton adviser" had privately estimated Senator Clinton's probability of winning the nomination as "no more than a 10 percent chance" reinforces the sense that it is Clinton, and not Obama, whose campaign could be facing a terminal decline.

Senator Obama may ultimately come to remember this month not for all the discomfort caused by the Rev Wright controversy, but rather as the time when superdelegates and Michigan lawmakers all but ended Hillary Clinton's chances of taking the Democratic nomination away from him. Years from now, sitting in his study and pondering what to write about March 2008 in his memoirs, Obama may even be tempted to use Charles Dickens' famous opening line from A Tale of Two Cities : "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

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Obama : from the new JFK to the new Malcolm X in four weeks

Barack Obama may have started his campaign being billed as the new John Kennedy and as America's first post-racial candidate for president, but in recent weeks it it has has been the words Muslim, Hussein, Somali, Farrakhan, black separatist, white oppressor, radical, racially charged and firebrand that have come to dominate media coverage of the Illinois senator. In a country with such racial baggage as the United States, where 22% of people who voted for Hillary Clinton in the recent Ohio primary admitted that race had been an important factor in their decision, this represents a worrying development for Mr Obama.

Support for Obama has fallen significantly in the Gallup and Rasmussen Democratic nomination tracking polls since videos of incendiary and racially charged sermons by his "spiritual advisor", the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, began to be aired on US television on Thursday night. Friday's figures (based on surveying conducted mostly before Thursday night) saw Obama lead Clinton by 6% (according to Gallup) and 8% (according to Rasmussen). Mondays figures now see him trailing by 2% (Gallup) and leading by 2% (Rasmussen) . These figures do little to dispel the suspicion that Obama could risk scaring away white voters if the current tone of his media coverage continues.

The seeds of Obama's current malaise were sown four weeks ago, when his wife Michelle claimed at a rally in Milwaukee that she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life, comments that provoked widespread criticism and debate in the media. Within days political website The Politico had published Mrs Obama's university thesis, written while studying at Princeton in 1985, and which discussed the marginalisation blacks faced in society in general and within the university of Princeton in particular. Contained in the thesis was the following statement :

"It is possible that Black individuals either chose to or felt pressure to come together with other Blacks on campus because of the belief that Blacks must join in solidarity to combat a White oppressor."

This comment attracted much media attention and was widely misrepresented (most notably by Sean Hannity of Fox News ) as suggesting Mrs Obama herself held these views.

The following week saw Obama's Muslim spectre again rear its head. On Monday February 24th Mr Obama received an embarrassing endorsement from the radical and anti-Semitic black separatist leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. The next day Matt Drudge, founder of breaking news website The Drudge Report, claimed a member of the Clinton campaign had sent him a photo (above right) of Obama dressed as a Somali tribal elder (taken during a Senate trip to Africa in 2006 ) and quoted a Clinton staff member as saying "wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton)?". Whilst Mrs Clinton denied knowledge of the photo, her campaign manager Maggie Williams refused to rule out the possibility that the photo had been sent from a member of the campaign staff. Obama's campaign manager Davidf Plouffe responded by accusing the Clinton campaign of "shameful, offensive fear-mongering ".

That day also saw the Tennessee Republican Party release the following press statement, accompanied by the Drudge photo which it claimed showed Obama in "Muslim" dress :

"The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States."

The following "correction" was later posted on its website :

"This release originally referenced a photo of Sen. Obama and incorrectly termed it to be “”Muslim” garb. It is, in fact, Somali tribal garb, hence, we have deleted the photo. Also, in order to diffuse attempts by Democrats and the Left to divert attention from the main point of this release - that Sen. Obama has surrounded himself with advisers and received endorsements from people who are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel - we have deleted the use of Barack Obama’s middle name."

The next day (Wednesday) saw conservative radio show host Bill Cunningham insisting on referring to the Illinois Senator exclusively as "Barack Hussein Obama" while he gave a warm up speech for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in Cincinnati. Senator McCain later repudiated Mr Cunningham's comments and apologised to Mr Obama, claiming he had no foreknowledge of the speech Mr Cunningham would make. That evening's news cycle was dominated by the controversy, and brought further unwelcome attention to Mr Obama's middle name, a common (though not necessarily Muslim) name in the Arab world.

Far worse was to come however when US television news began late last week to broadcast videos of controversial and racially charged sermons given by Obama's pastor and spiritual advisor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright. In the videos, Rev Wright can be seen saying "Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture controlled by rich white people", and claims "the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color" and "the government lied about pearl harbor, they knew the Japanese were going to attack."

In other sermons Wright discusses "white America, US of KKK A", and says "God damn America....for killing innocent people, God damn America for treating us citizens as less than human". Wright also talks of black criminals engaged in black-on-black shootings : "Black men turning on black men, that is fighting the wrong enemy, you both are the primary targets of an oppressive society that sees both of you as a dangerous threat."

Some excerpts from Rev Wright's sermons broadcast on Fox News

For Obama , a candidate who has campaigned largely on a ticket of unity and inclusivity, and whose celebrated speech at the 2004 Democratic convention included the famous line "there's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America", the playing of these videos on national television must make for excruciatingly embarrassing viewing.

Of course, there is no evidence that Obama is a Muslim or that he shares the controversial views held by Mr Farrakhan or Mr Wright. On the contrary, Obama has repeatedly pointed out in public that he is a Christian. He has denounced Mr Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and insisted that he would be a "stalwart" in defending Israel. He has likened Reverend Wright to "an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with", even going on to say "I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements (made by Wright) that have been the subject of this controversy."

However as Mark Twain said, a lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes, and in today's soundbite driven world, Obama's campaign staff will fear that simply hearing Obama's name mentioned frequently in the same sentence as words like black separatist, racially charged, Farrakhan, radical, Muslim and anti-Semitic will be enough to establish a certain guilt by association in the minds of some white voters, even if only on a subliminal level.

Americans may be prepared to elect a black JFK, but they most certainly are not ready to elect a new Malcolm X. Obama's chances of winning the Democratic nomination and the Presidency of the United States may now depend on his ability to reassure voters that he is the former and not the latter. Tomorrow Obama will give a major speech in Philadelphia in which he will speak about "not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign". It could be the most important speech of his career.

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Democrats : popular vote may now be key

Hillary Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas last Tuesday may have done little to reduce Barack Obama's lead in the pledged delegate count (she enjoyed a net gain of just 10 delegates on the night according to the latest figures from Realclearpolitics) but the margin of her victory in the popular vote, which she won by 330,000 votes across the two states , raises an intriguing possibility : that come the end of the primary season in June, Democrats could face a situation where Barack Obama has more pledged delegates yet Hillary Clinton has an overall lead in the popular vote.

According to the rules, the Democratic nomination is awarded to the candidate who amasses most delegates - that is, a sum of both pledged delegates (awarded according to the results of primaries and caucuses) and super delegates (senior party officials who are free to vote whichever way they choose). However so far this primary campaign, the Obama camp, aware from the start that Senator Clinton would likely hold an edge among super delegates, has been making the argument that the winner of the pledged delegate count should receive the nomination, the reasoning being that pledged delegates represent the will of Democrat voters across the country.

So far they seem to have been winning this debate : senior Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (both neutral in the Clinton-Obama race) have publicly stated that super delegates should not overturn the will of the people by voting against the winner of the most pledged delegates. One Democrat, former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, even warned of riots at the party convention in August if Senator Clinton were to win the nomination by relying on support from super delegates after winning less pledged delegates than Obama.

The argument that the pledged delegate count represents the will of the voters would of course lose much of its validity if Mrs Clinton were to win the overall popular vote but win less pledged delegates than Mr Obama, creating a real quandary for the Democrats, a party still bitter about the manner of their loss in the 2000 presidential election when their candidate Al Gore won the popular vote but lost to George W. Bush because of an inferior number of electoral college votes.

With 13 primaries remaining, Obama's lead of 153 in the pledged delegate count represents a formidable margin due to the proportional representation system used by the Democrats, which make it very difficult for a candidate to win anything other than a narrow majority of delegates from any state). His lead of just under 600,000 in the popular vote is far less secure however, and a continuation of Clinton's strong performance in Texas and Ohio across the remaining contests could well see the New York senator achieve a narrow victory in the total popular vote, especially if, as seems increasingly likely, the large states of Florida and Michigan hold do-over primaries.

An analysis of likely results and turnout numbers in the remaning states underlines this fact. To calculate an approximation of expected turnout, we can analyse several factors - the number of Democrat voters in each sate, turnout in the 2004 primary, whether the primary is open to all voters or closed to registered Democrats only, and turnout trends in those states that have already held their primaries and caucuses this year.

To calculate expected results we can look at demographic factors in each state, opinion polling and market expectations (based on bookmaker odds, Intrade percentages and Rasmussen Markets). The figures we arrive at are of course merely rough estimates, yet nonetheless they are useful in determining the broad parameters of the results we are likely to see, highlighting what outcomes may be considered possible (such as Senator Clinton winning the popular vote) and which outcomes may be considered unrealistic or improbable (such as Clinton winning the pledged delegate total).

Below is the list of possible turnouts and results that we can use as guide to likely outcomes in the remaining states. I have assumed Florida and Michigan will hold regular do-overs (and that their 54 super delegates will be reinstated) and in all cases I have been generous to Hillary Clinton, on the basis that only a continuation of her strong polling of last Tuesday will give her any chance whatsoever of securing the nomination. I have excluded the primary in Guam due to its small size (only 1,049 voted in the 2000 primary and only 4 delegates are at stake) and lack of polling data. It is still unclear who John Edwards' 26 pledged delegates will vote for at the convention, and as such I have excluded them from the calculations at this stage.

Date, state, projected turnout and projected result :

11-Mar	Mississippi	370,000	Obama wins by 20%
22-Apr	Pennsylvania	1,675,000	Clinton wins by 14%
06-May	Indiana	785,000	Clinton wins by 4%
06-May	North Carolina	1,236,000	Obama wins by 10%
13-May	West Virginia	300,000	Clinton wins by 14%
20-May	Kentucky	410,000	Clinton wins by 20%
20-May	Oregon	540,000	Obama wins by 10%
01-Jun	Puerto Rico	400,000	Clinton wins by 20%
03-Jun	Montana	140,000	Obama wins by 10%
03-Jun	South Dakota	85,000	Obama wins by 10%
tbd	Florida	1,900,000	Clinton wins by 16%
tbd	Michigan	1,500,000	Clinton wins by 5%

These results would see Obama winning the final pledged delegate count by 103 and Clinton narrowing the gap in the popular vote to the tiny margin of 15,000 (less than 0.05% of the final total, well within margins of error). With Hillary currently leading by 35 amongst super delegates this would leave her needing to successfully court 58% of the 399 remaining uncommitted super delegates to make up this deficit in the overall total, a task which would be made much easier if she were able to present herself as the people's choice due to even a narrow victory in the popular vote.

It should be pointed out at this stage that despite the fact that popular vote totals are being routinely reported and discussed by both politicians and major media outlets, these figures do not include numbers from the caucuses held in Texas, Washington, Iowa, Nevada or Maine, all but one of which (Nevada) were won by wide margins by Obama and none of which have released official popular vote totals. Of these by far the most significant omissions are those of Texas and Washington due to the size of their populations (21 million and 6 million respectively).

If voter turnout in Texas and Washington matched the patterns seen in other open caucuses this season, Obama's margins of victory, 12% (provisional figure) and 37% respectively, would represent a net win in the popular vote in those two contests of approximately 130,000, a potentially decisive number in such a close race as this. Expect to hear a lot more talk from the Obama campaign about the omission of these two caucuses if a situation does unfold where Clinton gains a lead in the popular vote.

If Senator Clinton manages to narrow the gap, it will be the last major primary in Puerto Rico on June 1st that ultimately decides the overall popular vote, the result of which is so critical to both candidates attempts to woo super delegates. The idea that Puerto Rico - which is not a US state and whose residents cannot even vote in the presidential election in November - could effectively decide the Democratic noimination will be controversial to say the least, especially if the Texas and Washington caucuses continue to be ommitted from the popular vote total.

In a campaign where winning the popular vote may now prove crucial, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent and which has been followed by the eyes of the world for months, is it possible that the outcome could finally come down to something as prosaic as whether party officials in Texas and Washington made provisions to record the number of attendees (rather than simply voting percentages) at their caucuses ?

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Clinton set to fight on after March 4th

Her husband may have stated publicly two weeks ago that failure to win both the Ohio and Texas primaries would end her chances of securing the Democratic nomination, but the noises coming out of the Hillary Clinton camp over the last three days suggest that her campaign is set to continue even if she fails to win both states tomorrow.

A memo sent to the press by her campaign staff on Friday attempted to draw attention to Obama's spending power and included the following statements :

If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem. Should Senator Obama fail to score decisive victories with all of the resources and effort he is bringing to bear, the message will be clear: Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date, have their doubts about Senator Obama and are having second thoughts about him as a prospective standard-bearer.

The implication is obvious - rather than having to win both Texas and Ohio to justify a continuation of the campaign, the Clinton team believe that only four heavy defeats tomorrow would force the New York senator to quit.

Comments made today by both Mrs Clinton and her chief strategist Mark Penn gave further evidence that the Clinton camp expects the campaign to go on. Speaking to reporters on her campaign plane today, Senator Clinton was already looking forward to the post-March 4th states saying :

I think I know what's happening and I believe I'm going to do very well tomorrow. I think that's going to be a very significant message to the country, and then we move on to Pennsylvania and the states coming up. I'm just getting warmed up.

Penn meanwhile also spoke of the contests to come after March 4th, saying "there are 16 [sic] remaining contests after Tuesday.There's nothing wrong with letting the people in the remaining jurisdictions have their say." These comments will have done little to assuage the fears of senior Democrats like New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who have both spoken openly about the damage a prolonged nomination race will do to the party.

Opinion polling suggests the contests in Texas and Ohio are too close to call with the Realclearpolitics average of polls giving Clinton a lead of 6.4% in Ohio and 0.3% in Texas. So far this primary season pollsters have struggled to accurately predict results, and a comparison of previous Realclearpolitics averages and actual voting percentages in primaries and caucuses shows polling has tended to be particularly inaccurate in close races, with five of the eleven contests in which the Realclearpolitics average showed a margin of less than 10% going against the candidate leading in the opinion polls.

Two of the biggest turnarounds vis-a-vis polling and actual results have occurred in New Hampshire and California, where larger than expected turnout among female voters (in New Hampshire) and Hispanics (in California) proved decisive, further emphasising the key role that racial and gender demographics have played in this years Democratic nomination contest.

In Texas, Obama has a strong lead among blacks (85% to 8% according to Zogby), Mrs Clinton has a substantial advantage among Hispanic voters (55% to 33%) whilst the two are effectively tied among whites, suggesting the relative turnouts among blacks and Hispanics (respectively 21% and 24% of voters in the 2004 primary) could be crucial in determining the outcome of the statewide popular vote, a vote which both candidates realise has enormous propaganda value despite delegates being awarded based on outcomes in individual senate districts and precincts.

The demographics in Ohio are radically different, where 81% of Democrat voters are white , 14% black and just 3% Hispanic. In both states Mrs Clinton leads among women, seniors, Hispanics and traditional Democrats whilst Obama has the edge among men, younger voters, blacks and independents according to Zogby. Interestingly, Obama will be in Texas tomorrow night as the results come in, Mrs Clinton in Ohio, as good an indication as any as to where each expects to do best.

Where once it seemed likely that Super Tuesday II (as March 4th has been dubbed) would prove decisive, it now seems increasingly likely that, barring two enormous victories tomorrow for Obama, the race for the democratic nomination will continue on past March 4th. With Obama currently leading Clinton by 155 in the pledged delegate count, and with 599 pledged delegates still up for grabs in the post-March 4th states, the Clinton campaign may feel there is still plenty of time to catch up.

Clinton also still has aces up her sleeve in the form of support from superdelegates potentially making up for a loss in pledged delegates (an idea which is becoming increasingly controversial) and the possibility of do-over primaries or caucuses in Michigan and Florida, both of whose "rogue" primaries were won easily by Mrs Clinton.

However, even if Obama loses both Texas and Ohio he is likely to gain victories by wide margins in the next two contests after March 4th (Obama has excelled in caucuses in rural sates like Wyoming, and Mississippi has the largest percentage of black voters of any of the 50 states), and again in North Carolina on May 6th (another southern state with a large black population and the second most important remaining state in terms of delegates), giving credence to the claim made by Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe that it will be "virtually impossible" for Mrs Clinton to catch the Illinois senator in the pledged delegate count.

Given this, it is unclear how long the patience of senior Democrats like Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Al Gore, John Edwards and others will last before Hillary comes under enormous pressure from the Democrat establishment to step aside for the good of the party, and allow Democrats to unite behind one candidate and concentrate on winning the general election in November, as Republicans have already been doing since early February.

Remaining primaries and caucuses and number of delegates at stake

4 Mar	Texas	hybrid	193
4 Mar	Ohio	primary	141
4 Mar	Rhode Island	primary	21
4 Mar	Vermont	primary	15
8 Mar	Wyoming	caucus	12
11 Mar	Mississippi	primary	33
22 Apr	Pennsylvania	primary	158
3 May	Guam	caucus	4
6 May	Indiana	primary	72
6 May	North Carolina	primary	115
13 May	West Virginia	primary	28
20 May	Kentucky	primary	51
20 May	Oregon	primary	52
3 Jun	Montana	primary	16
3 Jun	South Dakota	primary	15
7 Jun	Puerto Rico	caucus	55

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Hillary on the ropes

March 4th, the date of the Texas and Ohio primaries, promises to be another night of high drama in the epic duel for the Democratic nomination. After 11 straight defeats, no one in the Clinton camp is under any illusions as to how important these two contests have now become, with former president Bill Clinton even stating publcly last week that his wife's chances of securing the nomination will end if she does not win both states.

Amid all the media talk of Texas and Ohio representing Mrs Clinton's "firewall", it should not be forgotten that another of the New York senator's fall-back positions, her possible reliance on superdelegates in the event of narrowly losing the pledged delegate count, also appears to be under threat. According to the Associated Press, since February 9th Obama has increaesed his number of superdelegates by 25 (to 181) whilst during the same period Mrs Clinton has actually seen her number reduced by two (to 241), a trend that will have alarmed the Clinton campaign.

Even if she can maintain a lead in this category, the very principle of using superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters is now under attack by many within the Democratic party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the most senior Democrats in the country, has said that “it would be a problem for the party if the verdict would be something different than the public has decided" whilst Doug Wilder, a former governor of Virgnia, has gone further, warning of riots worse than those seen at the 1968 Democratic convention "if superdelegates intervene and get in the way of it".

Given that Pelosi is neutral in this race and Wilder an Obama supporter, it is perhaps more significant to note the words of California superdelegate John Perez and of Congressman Charlie Rangel. Rangel, a superdelegate and one of Senator Clinton's most prominent African-Amercian supporters, said at a conference dinner in New York state last Sunday "it's the people [who are] going to govern who selects our next candidate and not superdelegates". Perez meanwhile has withdrawn his support for Clinton and said in a recent interview :

"Given where the race is at right now, I think it's very important for us to play a role around bringing the party together around the candidate that people have chosen, as opposed to advocating for our own choice"

With so much talk coming from both Clinton and Obama supporters about the possible damage it could do to the party, it is now far from certain that Clinton will be able to rely on the support of superdelegates to push her over the finish line if Obama wins the final pledged delegate count.

All of which further underlines the importance of her winning Texas and Ohio and closing the gap in the pledged delegate race. The current maths make for unpleasant reading for Mrs Clinton. According to RealClearPolitics, Obama currently has 1,193 pledged delgates to Clinton's 1,034, representing a lead of 159. With 981 deleagtes at stake in the remaining 16 contests, this means Clinton needs to win 58% of the remaining delegates if she is to catch Obama in the pledged delegate count.

Despite the Democrats' complex proportional representation system (which is based mostly on congressional districts rather than on the statewide vote), delegates are in fact awarded largely in line with the percentage of votes received statewide. An analysis of voting figures so far confirms this - if delegates had been awarded based solely on statewide voting percentages in the 40 primaries and caucuses held so far, Obama would lead by 173 delegates rather than the current 159, a difference of just 14 or 0.63% of the total number. We can therefore reasonably postulate that in order to win 58% of the remaining delegates Mrs Clinton will need to win approximately 58% of the popular vote in the remaining 16 primaries and caucuses.

To make matters worse for the New York senator, Obama is almost guaranteed victory in two of the remaining states - Mississippi and North Carolina, both of which have large African-American populations (37% and 22% respectively). Even if Obama won both states by just one delegate (and based on voting patterns up to now he is likely to win by a far wider margin), this would incresae the percentage of the popular vote Clinton would need in the other 14 contests to 60%.

Looking at the results in the 40 contests so far, Senator Clinton has only managed to break the 60% threshold once (in Arkansas, where her husband was governor for 12 years). She has only scored 55% or higher in five other states or territories - Michigan (where Obama's name was not on the ballot), New York (where she is a serving senator), American Samoa, Oklahoma and Massachusetts.

As such it is importamt to realsie that not only does Mrs Clinton need to win both Texas and Ohio on March 4th, she needs to do so by huge landslide margins of 20% or more. If she wins both by say 55% to 45%, whilst this would provide a propganda coup and a temporary morale boost, because it is less than the 20% required it would actually increase the percentage of the vote she would need in the remaining states to 63%.

The situation is not without hope for Mrs Clinton however. Firstly there is the question of John Edwards and who he will instruct his 26 pledged delegates to support. Then there is the question of the two rogue primaries held in Michigan and Florida, both of which were won by wide margins by Senator Clinton. Currently all 213 pledged delegates from those states are barred from voting at the convention due to violation of Democratic National Committe rules, however Mrs Clinton has repeatedly called for this decison to be reversed (an action that would substantially boost her delegate tally) and Florida democrats have even threatened legal action to have their delegates' voting rights restored. Attempts at a compromise ("do-over" caucuses) have so far been rejected by both states.

The support of John Edwards, and the fate of the rogue Michigan and Florida primaries, these are the three wildcards that remain in the pack for Mrs Clinton. With the maths currently working against her, Senator Clinton's hopes of beating Obama may now rest on all three wildcards being dealt in her favour - if they are, the dynamics of the contest will change dramatically. In what is fast developing into one of the classic battles in US political history, it could be that the most dramatic twist is yet to come.

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Obama vs Clinton : there will be blood

The extraordinarily close race between Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination may make compelling viewing for neutral observers, but senior Democratic officials are becoming increasingly worried about the consequences for the party if the current deadlock between the two cannot be broken. Hovering above the party, like twin swords of Damocles, are two major controversies surrounding delegates that could well decide the nomination if Clinton and Obama remain neck and neck, and could cause enormous damage to the party if not handled correctly.

The first problem causing Democrat leaders sleepless nights is the issue of superdelegates. At the Democratic convention in Denver this August a total of 4.048 delegates will vote on who should receive the party nomination and contest the presidential election in November. Of the these 4,048 delegates, 3.253 are "pledged deleagtes" who will be chosen according to the results of the primaries and caucuses held by each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and Democrats Abroad. The other 795 (down from 796 after Senator Joe Lieberman was stripped of voting rights) are the so called "superdelegates", senior party members such as state governors, members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and members of Congress. These superdelegates are free to vote for any candidate they choose.

As the more established candidate, it is perhaps no surprsie that Hillary Clinton has held a substantial lead amonsgt the superdelegates from the very start of the campaign. The latest figures on Realclearpolitics.com list 239 superdelegates as having publicly declared their support for her, compared to just 168 for Obama. Amongst the pledged delegates Obama leads by 1,134 to 996, a lead of 138. Because the Democrats award delegates on a proprtional rather than "winner takes all" basis, this lead of 138 is substantial. Indeed Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe has even said that it will now be "next to impossible" for Clinton to catch Obama in the pledged delegate race, claiming that she would need to win the remaining primaries by unrealistic margins of 25 to 30% to do so.

Because of Hllary's advantage amongst the superdelegates however, Obama's lead in the total delegate count is just 67, a far more manageable deficit, especially if she can win in Ohio and Texas next month. Therein lies the crux of the problem - that Hillary could lose the pledged delegate count yet still secure the nomination. Barrack Obama, the first African-American to have a realistic chance of becoming President, could win more votes, more states and more pledged delegates across the nation yet still be denied the nomination because of the actions of the (overwhelmingly white) party elite. The racial implications of such an eventuality are lost on nobody.

Obama has already begun urging superdelegates to vote for the candidate who wins the most pledged delegates, saying in Seattle last week "My strong belief is that if we end up with the most states and the most pledged delegates from the most voters in the country, that it would be problematic for the political insiders to overturn the judgment of the voters". Not surpisingly, Senator Clinton disagrees, arguing that the superdelegates should be allowed to "exercise independent judgment".

As divisive as the issue of superdelegates is proving, it is only the first of the two major controversies afflicting the party. The second concerns the two rogue primaries held in Michigan and Florida in January in defiance of the DNC, which stated that only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina were permitted to hold their contests before February 5th. As punishment the DNC declared that no delegates from Florida and Michigan would be be allowed to vote at the convention in August. All the candiates agreed not to campaign in either state. In Michigan Obama, Bill Richardson and John Edwards even withdrew their name from the ballot, later instructing their supporters to tick the "uncommitted" box should they decide to vote. Senator Clinton went on to win both primaries and is is now calling for the delegates from those states to be reinstated.

The issue is complicated by the fact that both Florida and Michigan are important swing states. Any sanction by the DNC which is perceived as unfair could alienate voters and adversely affect the Democrats chances of carrying these two crucial states in November. DNC Chairman Howard Dean has suggested a compromise, whereby both states would hold fresh caucuses, a proposal that has been initially rejected by officials in both states.

The ideal solution for the DNC now is for one or other of the candidates to build up such a large lead in pledged deleagtes in the remaining primaries that both controversies would become redundant. However, because they are are so closley matched in opinion polling (Obama leads Clinton by just 0.5% nationally according to the latest Realclearpolitics average) and becasue of the proprortional representation system used by the Democrats, it seems almost certain that the two candidates will remain relatively close in the delegate count, meaning the spectres of Michigan, Florida and the superdelegates will continue to haunt the primary campaign.

With the stakes so high, neither side appear willing to back down. Florida Democrats have threatened legal action to get their delegates reinstated and, according to Fox News, senior Clinton advisor Harold Ickes said yesterday that the number of pledged delegates Obama wins will be "irrelevant to the obligations of automatic (super) delegates.” For their part, the Obama campaign are trying to portray Clinton as a Machiavellian figure, whose actions could cause long term damage to the party. In a statement released yesterday Plouffe said :

“The Clinton campaign just said they have two options for trying to win the nomination — attempting to have superdelegates overturn the will of the Democratic voters or change the rules they agreed to at the eleventh hour in order to seat non-existent delegates from Florida and Michigan. The Clinton campaign should focus on winning pledged delegates as a result of elections, not these say-or-do-anything-to-win tactics that could undermine Democrats’ ability to win the general election."

The nightmare scenario for the Democrats now is for this impasse to persist all the way to the convention in August, a prospect described as a "coming train wreck" by one Senator last week. By that time the party should be trying to unite around its nominee and work out how best to beat the Republicans. Instead it seems increasingly likley that we'll be seeing blood on the convention floor in Denver this summer.

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The worst week of Hillary's political career

Three more crushing defeats in Tuesday's Potomac Primary bring an end to what surely must be regarded as the worst week in Hillary Clinton's politcal career.

Defeat to Obama on Super Tuesday was followed the next day by the news that she had loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money and that some senior staffers had temporariliy gone without pay. The weekend brought heavy defeats in Washington state, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska and the US Virgin Islands and Monday saw the New York Times reporting unease amongst her donors and superdelegates that the nomination was slipping away.

Tuesday saw more losses in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland, meaning the former First Lady has now lost all eight contests held since Super Tuesday, hardly a backdrop conducive to raising money and courting superdelegates.

Losing all eight contests will not in itself have surprised the Clinton campaign. The caucus process (used in Maine, Nebraska and Washington state) greatly favours candidates like Obama who have large bodies of energetic and enthusiastic volunteers on the ground, something Mrs Clinton lacked in those states, whilst the five contests that were primaries were held in states, districts and territories with large African-American populations (Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, DC and the US Virgin Islands).

More worrying will be the margin of the defeats (ranging from 51% in DC to 22% in Louisiana) and the exit polling showing Obama eating into her lead amongst key demographic groups. The CNN exit poll for Virginia showed Obama defeating Clinton among white voters 52% to 47% - only the third time time he has managed to win the white vote in a primary outside of his home state Illinois (he has also won amongst white voters in New Mexico and Utah). Obama has previously been competitive amongst white males, and won that demographic in several primaries on Super Tuesday. He now appears to be increasingly competitive amongst white females, previously a bastion of support for Mrs Clinton, with Obama winning 47% of those voters in Virginia, his third best figures for this group in a primary outside Illinois (behind New Mexico and Utah).

Obama has now won more states, more pledged delegates and more votes. He is raising more money and leads the total delegate count. The Clinton camapaign is confident of doing well in Texas and Ohio on March 4th but with two more Obama friendly contests (Wisconsin and Hawaii) taking place next week, Mrs Clinton may find that things are going to get even worse before they have a chance to get better.

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