March 4 Predictions

Well, I suppose I should post my predictions for tomorrow night's democratic primaries.

Right now the conventional wisdom seems to think that Ohio & Rhode Island will be won by Clinton,Vermont by Obama and Texas as a toss-up. I suppose I could go with the conventional wisdom. The polls certainly support this view. But, I am going to go out on a limb here - mostly because the polls have been wrong.

So here goes, for posterity sake:

Ohio: Obama win by 1%. Counting will go late into the night. Why? I think Ohio is going to be a combination of Wisconsin and Missouri - remember that the networks called Missouri for Clinton, but then retracted and then Obama finally won. I think thats going to be the case here. Now, most polls show Clinton up by an average of 6%, and the NAFTA/Canada flap probably has hurt Obama. Even the Obama campaign seems to have written off Ohio. But I just have a feeling the pollster's models are not taking everything into account. So I'll stick with my pick: Obama by 1%.

Vermont: Obama by 15%. This is pretty much in line with the conventional wisdom.

Rhode Island: Sometime around 8 PM tomorrow night, the networks will call RI for Clinton, noting that she has finally broken Obama's 11 state winning streak. Clinton by 10%

Texas: Its a dead heat right now. There's all kinds of talk about how Clinton might win the popular vote but Obama will win the caucus. Again, I'm going out on a limb: Obama wins the popular vote and the caucus. Obama by 6% in the popular vote. Don't be surprised if we don't know the result until the next day.

So there it is. I predict Obama will end the Clinton campaign tomorrow night. Come Wednesday, we'll start to see the super delegates flock to Obama.