Clinton reminds me of my dog when he chases his tail.  He just goes around and around and around.  Obama has already won Pennsylvania by forcing her to spend so much there.  He has 42 million to play with in NC and IN.  She, at best can only compete in one, Indiana.  She can't afford to contest NC.  She also has vendors threatening to go to collection agencies.  How can she run a country when she can't even run a campaign.

How biased of you guys. Why haven't any of you pointed out that both IOWA and NEW HAMPSHIRE violated the rules too? Could that be because it is not favorable to your candidate Obama? Are you not ashamed of what you have turned journalism into -- advocacy?

According to the rules, no primary or caucus was to take place before Jan 14. The Iowa caucus was on Jan 3. According to the rules, New Hampshire was supposed to be third in line, they ended up being second. So the next time you blurb out your advocacy in the name of journalism about how Michigan and Florida delegates should not be seated because of the rules, this should remind you of how intellectually dishonest you bunch at MSNBC are.

I know this will not be posted just as you've deleted  my other posts but I don't mind because this is for you to read not the public. You bunch are a disgrace to journalism.

Wow! This is the first intelligent analysis I've seen on this issue yet. Thanks for saying what others have been ignoring, or were not quite bright enough to get.

I hope Democrats will be smarter than stick with Hillary. Republican will love to have her and bring back all the mud they though during the 90's. I was very undecided but Hillary's playbook showed to be not better than the Republican's. Obama will beat McCain but I have my doubts about Hillary. What upsets me about her is that she does not seem to care to drag the party, she feels entitled to the nomination and cannot get the fact that she is Not the most viable candidate and if she can't be the nominee she would rather let the country stay in Republican hands, never mind that a McCain presidency will drive this country into a third world country status.

Why can't MSNBC reporters understand their bias in favor of Barack is doing them no favors--they look silly and sound silly--first of all, for heaven's sake there are 6+ months left for general election, super delegates are supposedly independent agents; if hillary wants to stay in race as the game sys until June 3 and delegates-super can oly vote in August--who cares---The potential nominee can start planning right now

Do you know how many states Bush won vs Gore 30 over 20--Bush didnot wait 6 week for supreme court to decide before went into motion to plan his presidency

You may not like it, but son a Muslim is Muslim even if he changes his faith afterwords.  Like jesus was a Jew till he died --you call him a christ.  

What are the most important "swing" states in recent elections? Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Clinton will end up winning two of those three, and can make a strong argument that she would have carried Florida had it counted. For the sake of argument, we'll throw out Florida. Clinton still takes Ohio, PA, CA, NY, NJ, and MA. The only surefire big blue state that Obama has won is Illinois (please correct me if I'm wrong about that). So, Clinton has won or will win every major big blue state, except for Illinois. Furthermore, Clinton leads Obama in those crucial swing states (OH, PA, and FL) against John McCain. It seems logical to me that Hillary's road to the White House is much simpler than Obama's, which depends on him basically fighting for every state in the union. Hillary just needs to win the big blue states along with OH, PA, and FL. Am I missing something? It just seems so obvious to me that the media and Democratic strategists are completely dropping the ball on their analysis here.

Michigan looked like a hard sell for Obama, so he took his name off the ballot.  The idea was to have it work against Hillary. She remained on the ballot.  Now the DNC will not allow the primary count and Obama and his supporter did every thing they could to not allow Michigan a re-vote.  He has once again shown how calculation a politician he is.  He felt he had a better chance in Florida, so his name remained on the ballot.  (http://www.wzzm13.com )  If he thinks Michigan will vote for him in November , He better think again.

You are correct.  There are more circular arguments from the campaign of Senator Clinton than the ones you set forth above.

Here is my favorite:  Senator Clinton's campaign says we need to count all of the votes (referring usually to MI and FL) and all votes should count.  But to win this nomination by votes (unless Senator Clinton gets 65% of the vote in all remaining contests) Senator Clinton needs to get 78% of the superdelegates to ignore the votes and make her the nominee.  Even with MI and FL added "as is", Senator Obama has a 119 pledged delegate lead.  To defeat this lead, Senator Clinton would need to win 62% of the vote in all remaining contests which is also highly unlikely.

No worries what Hillary says or does, the story line will change in a matter of minutes. Those senior moments are getting the best of her.

Bill on the other hand... well, I just think he's bitter.

Ron Allen's lean toward Obama comes through in his choice of words in discussing the two candidates.  Why is Sen. Clinton the one who "pushes back" ( a term suggesting desperation) when Obama's position HAS to be the same - that come November the Democratic party and voters will calm down and will support whoever is their nominee?

The "smaller" and more numerous states where Obama won over Hillary are mostly "red states" which are very likely to go to McCain anyway.  So Obama's victories there in the Democratic primaries is a lesser assurance of victory in November than is Clinton's dominance in the large states that Democrats must carry to win.

Sorry, Ron!  Its okay to favor a "brother" in subtle ways, but you are being a little to obvious.  Try to be a good jounalist please!

I have lost all respect for Hillary.
Her "kitchen sink" mentality, meaning whatever it takes to win, leaves me profoundly disgusted.
If Hillary somehow steals the nomination, McCain will get my vote.

"(w)hat difference does it make who wins the big states during the primary season? Clinton seems to believe the nominee will have the full backing of the party."

Uh, yeahh. Did we all just figure this out? THat "big state argument? It's called spin.                                                        

In this last week’s debate, Hillary Clinton said all of her “baggage” has been “rummaged through” for years. But important features of her close relationship with known terrorist sympathizers and Hamas supporters are still opaque to the public view.
Her relationship with terrorists began in the mid-1980s when she served on the board of the New World Foundation, which gave funds to the Palestine Liberation Organization, at a time when the PLO was officially recognized by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
In 1996, the first lady initiated an outreach program to bring Muslim leaders to the White House. But, as terrorism expert Steve Emerson noted in The Wall Street Journal “Curiously, nearly all of the leaders with whom Mrs. Clinton elected to meet came from Islamic fundamentalist organizations.
"A review of the statements, publications, and conferences of the groups Mrs. Clinton embraced shows unambiguously that they have long advocated or justified violence. By meeting with these groups, the first lady lent them legitimacy as ‘mainstream’ and ‘moderate.’”
Among these radical groups was the American Muslim Alliance (AMA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, both groups that support Hamas, who attended a White House reception hosted by Hillary in February, 1996.
Emerson says that its leaders “have sanctioned terrorism, published anti-Semitic statements, and repeatedly hosted conferences that were forums for denunciations of Jews and exhortations to wage jihad.”
The American Muslim Alliance was headed in the '90s by Abdulrahman Alamoudi who met with Clinton and Gore in 1995. Emerson notes that “Mrs. Clinton [allowed] the American Muslim Alliance to draw up the Muslim guest list for the first lady’s . . . White House reception.”
Alamoudi, Emerson says was “the primary defender of Musa Abu Marzug, the Hamas political bureau chief responsible for creating the group’s death squads.” Marzug took “credit” when Hamas brigades sprayed machine gun fire into a crowded Jerusalem mall. But less than three days after Marzug was arrested by the FBI in July of 1995, Alamoudi said that Marzug “had never been involved in terrorism” and called his arrest “an insult to the Muslim community. Emerson reports that he “elicited contributions fro Marzug’s defense fund” and called him a “political prisoner.”
Then, Hillary ran for Senate on her own and suddenly it was payback time. On June 13, 2000, the American Muslim Alliance’s Massachusetts Chapter held a very successful fundraiser for her candidacy. Tahir Ali, the chairman of the chapter, said “we must support all who have [Muslim] interests at heart.”
Perhaps conscious of how controversial the contribution would be, Hillary or someone on her staff, tried to pull a fast one, recording the donation on federal filing forms as being from the “American Museum Alliance.” But alert observers weren’t fooled and Senate candidate Clinton was forced to acknowledge who the real donor was and, four months after getting the money, she returned it.
But by then, a few weeks before the election, she had abjured the use of soft money in her Senate campaign, so the donation was, in practical terms, useless, since it was well over the limits for hard money contributions.
The Palestinian terrorists know that Hillary hears their point of view. WorldNetDaily.com reported on Oct. 7, 2007, that leading terrorists have publicly called for her election. Aaron Klein, WorldNet Daily’s Jerusalem correspondent, wrote, in his wonderful book "Schmoozing with Terrorists," Ala Senakreh, West Bank chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group said “I hope Hillary is elected in order to have the occasion to carry out all the promises she is giving regarding Iraq.”
And what about Hillary’s service on a board that gave money to a terrorist organization? And her hosting of a terror supporting group in the White House? And her acceptance of a $50,000 contribution from that group? And the statements of terrorists that they are hoping for her to win?

Remember throwing jello cubes at the walls and ceilings in high school?  Or maybe it was college, hard to remember that long ago.  You flipped up the cubes and some of them stuck and some of them didn't.  Sometimes they stuck and then dropped down and hit you on the head when you walked under them.

Same thing.

This is called shifting goal posts and raising bar. In this process Clinton hurts herself and her party and American dream stays unrealised. Clintons care only about themselves. She is deviod of graciousness and greatness. An angry politician is an dangerous president.

Ron Allen, congrats to you for upholding the public's trust in media reporting.  My thoughts exactly.  

Go Democrats!  Just please stop tearing each other down so that we may have a chance to win in Nov.

Mantanaro...  Stick to Journalism.

Even if the Dems do come together they will need the help of the middle to win the election and Obama is not the guy to appeal to the middle.  

Obama has been given contributions averaging around 100 bucks so what does that mean?  He has about a million contributors?  Let's say 2 million and double it for fun.  Ok.  That's 4 million votes.  So what?

Determining the number of people that have contributed to a campaign has nothing to do with a majority of the votes one might receive in a general election.  We already know that the Obama supporter is wealthier than the Clinton supporter so why should it amaze anyone that college educated folks have more to contribute financially than lesser educated folks.

"Just words" Hillary. Barack has the nomination. You're a bug in his soup, a fly in the ointment, a schoolyard bully that got ditched.

Obama supporter's donations do not reflect the reasons for his lead. Obama's small States caucus wins are not a true reflection of actual registered Democratic voters. Most of his money is from repeat donors, who actually have set up automated monthly donations for Obama. Outspending Hillary throughout this whole campaign, and still not able to "seal the deal"? Ron, you down play that too much. In the General election, Obama won't be able to spend as much money, so if he's spending 3-1 just to maintain where he is now, how's he going to maintain in November?

Ah, I'll bet he's getting millions at a time from Oprah and the ultra liberal Hollywood crowd, who have tons of money. Us regular folks only have so much money to give to our candidate, Hillary Clinton. The phoney and the rich are giving to Obama.

Thank you for finally bringing up the absuridy of the Clinton arguments. Her campaign claims that Obama is whining about the negative campaign she has waged and tells everyone "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen". Then she and all of her supporters whine that Obama has outspent her 3-4 to 1. That is not a negative or an excuse. She has had the Pennsylvania state democratic machine helping her, the state leans heavily to her core supporters and she had a 25% lead in the state 5 weeks ago. If she only manages a single digit victory today...it is virtually over. Let all the other states vote, but she cannot catch up with the delegate count, the popular vote or number of primaries won. She says everyone should have the right to vote...fine, but she cannont throw all the other states votes away that did not vote for her. Today she said "a win is a win". Well when we get to the end, I hope she is still saying that because Obama will have won the delegates, popular vote and total states. Senator Clinton, " a win is a win".
One other thing I would like to see the press pose to Senator Clinton. If this was turned around and she was sitting where Obama is today and will be by June 3rd, if the nomination was taken away from her would she be good with that. No way, she would be screaming that "a win is a win" and her nomination was stolen from her. Please media, put this shoe on the other foot and let's see what she says.

Everytime either Clinton opens their mouths, I have an overwhelming desire to leave the democratic party.  All I know is that if Hillary gets the nomination with neither the popular vote or elected delegate majority, I WILL leave the party.  And I have been a democrat since 1976.

Well circular logic is at least better than the out and out lies. Maybe she'll get dizzy and decide to lie down ... hopefully for the rest of the presidential primary season.

Clinton's campaign had a cause?

She the top in her spinning class, I'll give her that.  A win is a win, he's not electable, etc. etc.  Give it up already.  Bow out now, step back and let the party unify behind who WE have chosen as the nominee.  Get over it already, Hillary!  Go Obama!  GO!

Hillary has made her case: forget about numbers and tell supedelegates to just 'feel'  that she is the right candidate. In fact why have an election at all if the numbers dont count? Just feel....

I for One will never vote for Obama if he wins the nomination - I'd rather see a third Bush term!

Thank GOD...FINALLY...an article from a major news source that calls the Clintons out on their nonsensical claims.

Woflson and Clinton keep moving the goal posts and the networks keep buying in. I don't blame y'all...after all....a protracted race is good for ratings. But enough is enough.

By the way, you left out the "a win is a win" argument that they make today. Notice how that flies in the face of the "we win BIG states" position? If a win is a win, then the DNC should count all of the states the same and no stat is more important than any other state. After all, a win is a win.

The Clintons love to qualify Obama's wins, but expect you to not qualify their wins.

And for the record, Obama won Texas.

i voted for the war before i was against it.

states that start with the letter "N" count double, except for North Carolina.

i can manage the economy, but not my campaign or my budget.

i am for all the thinks Bill said, except for anything you don't like

circular?  nahhhh

She's done so much spinning, she's lost her equilibrium, and senses.

Let Hillary keep running... Barack has it in the bag already.  Hillary will need a Miracle in order to win.

This is very typical Clinton logic. Heads I win, tails you lose. And lies are truth!

im getting dizzy please stop the spinning .clintons have no shame or morales.after countless  lies and misinterpertations of the facts how can anyone still support her

I disagree with you. Even if the party rallies around the nominee, she still would be a better candidate against McCain than Obama.  He won't answer questions people want the answers to. He's not even speaking to the press now. He's refused to debate in NC now.  He's weak; he can't take it. He's poor in debates because it's not scripted by a great speech writer.

Nope. Clinton wins tonight by 11.

look, let's be realistic. Obama was 25% DOWN in pennsylvenia. clinton had an establishment spanning 15 years, and has support of Gov and mayors. Hillary has support of a former president, Bill. So it was an uphill battle for Obama, If clinton wins by less that 10%, it will be a moral victory for Obama.

Isn't it in her own interest that her voters turn out for Obama if he's the nominee for the good of the Democratic party?

E.X.A.C.T.L.Y....HRC winning would amount to nothing short of disfranchisement. Period.

+1 Ron!!

Very concise and hard to refute.

Clinton "Logic" (so soft...and fuzzy!!), seems to leave out the fact that she would not be in the GE Race!!

I think she actually believes that the voters would actually prefer to go with McWar for another 100 years...

Ron thank you for pointing out yet another Clinton confusing argument.  You could also point out that when she touts her speech in China as part of her politial experience, that she too is all about speeches and not about solutions...especially since Women's Rights in China isn't quite resolved yet...

Hillary is delusional to think that people will actually vote for her with her negative and lying self. i saw her on the faith & politics episode she was looking in the sky for a sign from God to help her explain what encounters she has had with the Holy Spirit and i could see that she has had none she cant remember a specific time. so when i saw that she is fake and a phony. I want to see a change for Good come to america and if Obama is the man the let it be.

It is strange, she stated in the debate that Obama can beat McCain.  I do feel that her staying in the race now is important in the sense that Democrats are registering and this will help in the long run.  But she should run more like Huckabee did.  Push her own credentials and take the loss.  I know this was hard fought but numbers don't lie.  The fact is that she lost.  Someone has to come in second.....

Stop being so biased !!!

I swear MSNBC you really suck big time on your news coverage, I always have to watch FOX to get the truth.

All Media,

What I just don't understand is this spin by Clinton and her spin machine is totally BS and you know it, so why don't you call them on it, or in the least quit running with it and spinning it yourself trying to make what they say seem believeable.

She doesn't need money, which is a big reason why she is still in the race, because she whinned a while back and all of you have now jumped on their bandwagon and now spin for them.

WHY...??

Hillary has crossed the line between stubborn and delusional.

All Media,

What I just don't understand is this spin by Clinton and her spin machine is totally BS and you know it, so why don't you call them on it, or in the least quit running with it and spinning it yourself trying to make what they say seem believeable.

She doesn't need money, which is a big reason why she is still in the race, because she whinned a while back and all of you have now jumped on their bandwagon and now spin for them.

WHY...??

Obama can outspend her because he's raised so much more money, from many more supporters, supporters who are responsible for giving him the lead by every viable measure of the race.

EXACTLY!

And yet again, she proves that only the "big states" matter to her.  The rest of the states, in her mind, suck canal water.  

In watching this Democratic soap opera, I can't help thinking back to 1968. Suppose Hillary wins the nomination by some behind-the-scenes superdelegate deal. Obama's supporters, and especially his Black ones, would very likely see racism and might well take it to the streets. Would Hillary like to see her campaign launched by a chain of coast-to-coast race riots, like Humphrey saw his campaign kicked off by the street violence in Chicago? (And the long-term damage this would do to the traditional Black support of the Democratic Party might be profound). Worse yet, there is a big difference between Hillary's campaign and Barack's. Hers is campaign meant to do little more than slake her personal ambition (and that of Bill's). But a number of reporters who have covered Barack's have used the word "movement" to describe it because of his great appeal to a new generation of voters. Well, okay, it may be a movement with very little actual content, but it's an authentic one anyway. The last such generational movement was in support of Eugene McCarthy in 1968, and when Humphrey got the Democratic nomination very few of McCarthy's supporters dutifully returned to the fold and voted for him. They either voted for McCarthy's third-party effort that November or simply stayed home. And this gives very cold comfort to any theory that this November all of Barack's supporters would happily roll over and let Hillary scratch their tummies. The danger that Democrats would lose Black support is real, but an even greater danger is that they might lose the support of this entire generation of young voters. So Hillary is playing a dangerous game for very high stakes.

it ends up weakening her case because she has no case!  her case is to lie, deceive, spin, and then she circles back to lying!  she is the one who has made this campaign negative, and has looked for every attack and dishonest statement she can find.

obama has taken the high road, and not attacked her character, unless he was defending an attack that she made on him.

this is ridiculous, and needs to stop after today!  and president clinton should be ashamed of himself... but i guess it just goes to show that they care about nothing but themselves.

The main reason she will win tonite is that PA politicians have groomed their electorate in a way that the old politics still work. Despite claims their state is doing well, by Rendell, they are fearful of their economic situations. Clinton's brand is strong enough to weather a repeated falsehood because Obama did not react with old style vitriol, that would have put him over the top there. It is more than just PA's demographics working for her, it's their political culture working against Obama. PA is the antithesis of Obama's message, it will be double digits.

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