I apologize for the brevity of this diary, but I believe this will be a major story that Obama supporters should know about now, so they are psychologically prepared.
Survey USA has a new poll out on California (data collected Sunday). It has pretty decent news for Obama supporters. Overall, it's Clinton 49% to Obama 38% with Edwards at 9%.
But Clinton supporters should be very pleased to see what the cross-tabs say.
Let's start with the likely-voter model used by Survey USA. Of the 1783 registered voters that they contacted, they project that 888 will actually vote in the Democratic primary. I believe that would be a 2004 general election level of turnout of Democrats and Dem-leaning independents, if not greater.
They go on to say that 23% of that massive turnout has already voted. The results in this subsample are Clinton 56% to Obama 32% with Edwards at 8%.
If Survey USA's wildly optimistic turnout project is correct, then Clinton already has a 5.5 percentage point lead over Obama in the final CA tally. The real advantage is probably much greater.
Californians have been able to vote early, without a special justification, since roughly January 8. During that time, the Clinton campaign was mostly getting good press and had high levels of support in California. Congratulations to the Clinton campaign for getting "out" their mail-in vote.
It's good to see a pollster getting this information out to everybody. So kudos also to Survey USA.
The bottom line is this. Obama did not manage to win NH and did not otherwise turn the tide in CA earlier than this weekend. So even though he won so resoundingly in SC and has momentum for several reasons, he doesn't really stand a chance of winning the popular vote in California. The campaign and its supporters need to prepare themselves and the media for that, though not in a way that depresses turnout on Feb. 5.
I note that the Obama campaign had lots of money, more than any previous non-incumbent, and still it could not handle campaigning simultaneously in both the DNC-approved small states and California. I think theoretically they could have managed resources better, so I'm not crying foul. But what if it had been a different sort of year? What if it had only been Edwards challenging Clinton, and he still had less money? It would have been more difficult for him to compete.
In light of all this, please, Obama supporters, go to this diary and start volunteering in your state tonight!