Caucus-goers in Maine came out in support of Barack Obama this weekend. Numbers-wise, I guess I’m not the greatest at predicting which Democratic candidate will win. Although in my defense, I knew absolutely nothing about the Virgin Islands. But I did predict Clinton would win in Maine and that has not happened.
Instead, Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by about 59% – 41%. The delegate count ended up something like 16-9. With the updated numbers I had this morning from yesterday’s results, this weekend shaped up like this:
Obama swept Washington, Louisiana, Nebraska, the Virgin Islands and Maine. Probable delegate numbers? Obama 116 – Clinton 67. Not too shabby.
In related news, Hillary Clinton has let go of her campaign manager Patii Solis Doyle and replaced her with Maggie Williams. The Clinton camp is also trying to tamp down expectations of Obama’s predicted performance the remainder of this month. They are trying to build expectations for Clinton’s performance in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.
I think the narrative on the Democratic side is changing. Barack definitely has the momentum right now. Positive results should translate into additional fund-raising and more headlines. His campaign can of course stop itself if he or a staffer does something stupid.
A big question mark is the economy, I think. Does Barack do well with his change meme? Or does Hillary do well because of the perceived good times of the 1990′s? Both of them do well versus McCain or Huckabee, of course. Conservative economics brought us to this point – I can’t imagine too many people outside of the 30% dead-ender crowd are too excited about continuing their failing policies.
