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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

More March 4 Post-Mortems

Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics has a typically lucid analysis of how HRC won Ohio and Texas, and how the results compared with previous primaries. His bottom line is that Obama was showing some momentum in Wisconsin, but it’s now gone for the moment.

It should be clear that Texas and Ohio performed in a manner roughly consistent with the states prior to Wisconsin. From this, we might infer that any momentum that Obama developed after the Potomac Primary was not carried through yesterday. Wisconsin did not help him in Texas and Ohio – as Virginia, Maryland, and DC seemed to help him in Wisconsin. The states voting yesterday seemed to vote “normally.”

In other words, the Democratic contest is still dominated by demographics, though as Cost notes, HRC is currently making a few gains in “Obama categories” of the electorate, partially reversing the gains Obama made in the “Clinton categories” in the Potomac Primary and more clearly in Wisconsin.
On another front, there’s growing speculation that the contest at present creates a lot of momentum for the idea of a “do-over” of Michigan and/or Florida. As J.P. Green suggested earlier on this site, this may be the only way to resolve the “people’s choice” argument. HRC supporters Ted Strickland and Terry McAuliffe seemed to be hinting at that last night, and Obama’s already on record supporting a “do-over” if it’s done right. It may be the only way for HRC to get close to Obama’s totals in pledged delegates, and to get close or take the lead in the total popular vote–a big deal in terms of the moral and psychological case for letting superdelegates decide the whole contest.

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