Sinking Ship

I'm with slate on the numbers. Makes you wonder if Romney has more objectivity than Clinton.

Hillary's Secret Weapon Against Attacks

Hillary need not worry about attacks anymore. She is completely immune from basically any attack from any candidate. Does she have inside information about Obama and McCain? No. Does she have a success she's been keeping hidden? No. What then is her political secret weapon? She is no longer in the race.

"But she still has supper delegates" you may answer. Take a look at the Delegate trend over the past few days:

Obama Clinton Date
215 250 3/28/08
217 251 3/29/08
218 251 3/31/08
220 251 4/2/08
(real clear politics)

It's been almost a week and Hillary has not shown anything close to a pickup in super delegates. Her other firewall was to win Penn by 20 points. This has also crumbled,
as Obama has done again and again, if he campaigns in a state he makes inroads. There is still weeks left in Penn. Clinton is going to be lucky to win it. By next week the media is going to start treating Hillary like Huckabee. The race is over.

Puerto Rico - The Hidden Giant

Puerto Rico is the single biggest wild card in the entire democratic race. They've had no real history of voting trends and they've had no polling. Conventional wisdom is that their ties to NY and being south of the border puts them in Clinton's Pocket. How wrong they are.

Most people in PR are mixed race and will identify with Obama over Clinton. This blows Clinton's overall base. She can only count on women and connections with NY. Beyond that Puerto Rico is an Island Nation. The other island that has voted went in no small margin to Obama. Puerto Rico is more like Hawaii than it is like our southern states.

Beyond this as Penn gets closer the talk will turn more toward PR and questions will start being asked about PR and it's place in American culture. This could bring PR to the national eye and the idea of a 51rst state back into focus for the people of PR.

When will she drop out?

Well I was a week off, this week the headlines are all about Hillary dropping out. This is mainly because they don't have a video of something to plaster on the news. Nothing has changed since Texas and Ohio except the lack of a story to follow. Texas is having it's convention this weekend so we'll know just how much Hillary didn't win Texas so I don't see an end to the news cycle that she should drop out.

Next week I fully expect Obama to pull within single digits of Clinton in Ohio and this will make a little news but more importantly start resetting the bar as it did in Texas and Ohio. Remember a couple weeks before those contests Clinton was supposed to win by 20 points or drop out. After Obama surged in the polls it became he had to win both. This will probably also play a little in Penn, though I think with the end coming closer if Clinton can't win by +10 it'll be over.

So what's my new prediction? This is over the 2nd week of May. She may not quit but I think you'll see something more akin to the republican race when Huckabee kept running. Between Hillary's single digit win/loss in Penn and her loss in NC and Indiana, and the movement of more super delegates to Obama she'll realize she would do more harm to her career by staying in. At this point Obama only has to convince 75 or so Delegates to support him at the national convention. They don't even have to endorse him, just say as Cantwell says "I'll vote for who has the most pledged delegates".

We have 2 1/2 weeks left till the Penn. primary. Between then and now I don't expect too much to change. If Hillary had something new to say she would have said it last week. The republicans are going to hold any real fire till after July. I expect Hillary to stay around 10 points behind in the national polls and ahead by single digits in Penn.

The end of March

You can find 100 different sites that advertise the past but I'm going to look toward the future. So what is up for the next week? Well let me guess:

1. I predict a Clinton scandal.

2. I predict a 50/50 split with super delegates in the next 2 weeks

3. I predict Obama gaining on Hillary in Penn.

A week late

So I predicted that the media would again start looking at the long odds that Hillary has to win the nomination. I was wrong, it took 2 weeks. Even still it's kind of a minority of pundits but it's hit a point that it's back in the news. Some people give her 5% some give her 10%. Which really means 0% as it's basically impossible unless there is a third eye in Obama's skull.

The more I predict the more I have to take into account the fact that news agencies take money. We are now 4 weeks out from the next election. The race it's self is getting old and what can actually win votes is for the media to make Penn. look like a do or die for Hillary. They are starting to do that, this time though, unlike Ohio, Hillary has to win big to make this work at all. So the media will probably over the next 3 weeks figure out what that magic number is. Personally I think it'll be 10%. If Hillary can win by 10% it'll be a win for her, if not I think the race is over.

NYT = annoying blackbox

Think sending a letter to the NYT will result in any meaningful dialog? Think again.

I read a pretty idiotic article from the NYT and wanted to let them know that it was the last straw, I wouldn't be viewing their website till they changed.

Here is what I sent them:

Honestly your lack of foresight in requiring a log in to view articles upset me but Dalia Sussman's recent article made me wish I hadn't gone through the trouble. If you are going to be bias at least be honest about it. I'll not log in again as your site continually requires.

No thank you
Michael Mink

They responded with:

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If your request is to unsubscribe from our free e-mail service(s), please allow three business days
for us to process your request. You may receive some additional e-mail(s) depending on when
your request is received.

We thank you for your patience.

Regards,
NYTimes.com
Customer Service
www.nytimes.com/help

Yeah... So I responded with:

If you are going to send a form letter do so without trying to automagically decide what I said.

-mmink

Which apparently sparked this reply:

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Yeah, so if you want to talk to the NYT and let them know something I recommend coding up an autoreply that can talk to their autoreply.