Let's play a game of gathering up the tidbits I read all around the net that may give us some clues as to what is going on in NC and IN.
GOOD NEWS
From Brian Hower the David Ypsen of IN:
This morning, Clinton financier Terry McAuliffe and Indiana Democratic Chairman Dan Parker were given the opportunity to predict a Clinton victory in Indiana. The MSNBC crew worked McAuliffe over for about five minutes before he finally said with a grin, "We will win Indiana."
It was not a convincing prediction. (...)
Spread those comments over what we’re seeing on the Hoosier street and you get the feeling there’s something out there that perhaps the statistics are missing. There have been 188,000 absentees, including 146,000 for Democrats. That would seem to favor Obama, whose campaign has long emphasized early voting and began the Indiana sequence with an organizational edge. There have been big early voting turnouts in the college towns of Bloomington, South Bend/Notre Dame, West Lafayette and Indianapolis. There were stories like the one in the Anderson Herald-Bulletin this morning where Obama’s office stood with only one person. The rest of the volunteers were fanning out across the city mining votes. There were huge lines a the Indianapolis City-County Building over the weekend when hundreds of African-American voters lined up to cast a ballot.
BAD NEWS
From local NC bloggerGary Pearce :
A few weeks ago, watching the Obama campaign’s energy, I predicted he would win North Carolina in a blowout, maybe by 20 points.
(...)
Today, Primary Day, looks different. It’s a reminder that – being exercises in human error and folly – campaigns are never predictable.
Public Policy Polling has Obama ahead here by 10. But Clinton’s internal polls show the lead at only five. And they’re holding Bill Clinton in reserve here – just in case she pulls off the upset. Bubba would love to give that speech.
If Obama wins by less than eight points, the story will be that, like King Henry II, he still needs someone to rid him of his meddlesome priest. Eight to 10 points would be a no-decision. Double digits would be an Obama win that – if he wins Indiana – could shut down the Clinton campaign.
Clinton’s campaign has shown more energy and brains here than Obama’s. Her manager, Ace Smith, is a star.
GOOD NEWS
From demconwatch.blogspot.com on the ground in NC
Reports of long lines at polling places, high traffic in Charlotte (urban and heavily African American) and in metro Raleigh. Light traffic in Greenville and the East (heavily rural and African American) and a steady stream of voters in Greensboro, Chapel Hill and Durham. Should be an exciting day. Some voting machine errors early on, but they seem to be addressed and fixed as quickly as they are reported.
UPDATE 11:35 AM Eastern: turnout in the East has spiked considerably, now looking at heavy African American turnout and light to moderate White voter turnout.
Participating continues to be very heavy in Charlotte, though the mayor is running for Governor on the Republican side. Thus this may not necessarily indicate Democratic turnout that is drastically higher than anywhere else, but rather that Republicans are actually turning out in high numbers in this region.
I will continue updating tidbits like this all day long if the diary catches fire :)
UPDATE 1 :
MIXED NEWS
From the Indianapolis Star
Amid heavy turnout, Republicans appeared to be crossing over in droves today in Marion County and suburban counties, where fewer Republican voters might impact down-ticket primary races.
The man-on-the-street interview seem to quote quite a few Obamacans but still some Operation Chaos people thrown in there as well so hard to know who it would help.
Halperin titles on "Operation Chaos" using the same article. Now it could be good news or bad news. The bad news is that it COULD be Operation Chaos. The good news is a close result could be more easily spun as Republican trouble-making and would turn IN into a spin victory for us - if it was close.
UPDATE 2:
What to watch(besides what we know about black numbers and all that)
The Meck Vote, 200K: You'll likely be reading about busy precincts and record turnout in Mecklenburg County today. The more voters that show, the better the news for Obama. Mecklenburg offers his best demographics - young voters, black voters, better-educated voters. If the Democratic primary vote approaches 200,000 here, that's good news for him.
Awesome poblanowon't mind me quoting this other tidbit:
A little birdie who has done a lot of number crunching tells me that, while the early vote in North Carolina has been substantially blacker than anticipated (39-40% African American), it has also been substantially older than anticipated. Almost two-thirds of early voters are aged 50 or above, while 30 percent are 65+.
I don't quite know what to make of this, nor whom it makes good news for. But what I find interesting is that Barack Obama has done quite well in the two polls that have released cross-tabulations of early voting results.
(...)
Older voters tend to be driven by policy rather than substance. Is it possible that Clinton, in her effort to recast herself as working class diva rather than policy wonk, has cost herself a few points among this group?
UPDATE 3:
BAD NEWS ?
From this morning's First Read something that had never occured to me
Meanwhile, in Indiana, don't underestimate the Chicago media market effect in the negative for Obama. Why? Local Chicago TV has been as obsessive -- if not more -- than the national media. No national media outlet, for instance, has asked their news helicopter to hover over Rev. Wright's house. How many Northwest Indiana households saw THAT?
DONT GET TOO EXCITED NEWS
Josh Marshall does not want us to buy Zogby.
According to Zogby, Obama is expanding his lead (51%-37%) in North Carolina and may even be jumping ahead in Indiana. His number for today in Indiana is Obama leading 45%-43%. But he says that Monday night's single total actually had him beating Clinton 47%-41%, which would suggest possible late movement into an actual lead. But he's really still an outlier, even though a couple late polls yesterday had only a five point margin for Hillary. (SurveyUSA had a 12 point margin for Hillary.)
(...)
I fondly remember my own personal Zogby epiphany moment. I don't recall who my interlocutor was. But I told this person that the thing with Zogby was that he relatively frequently nailed final totals right on the nose, even if pretty frequently his numbers were way off. To which my friend very wisely responded, "Josh, that means he sucks." And I thought, "Hmmm, I guess that's right."
Oh and for those who want to see McAuliffe being VERY uncomfortable predicting an IN victory, here a link to video http://thepage.time.com/...
UPDATE 4
Dont know who that guyis but he is quoted by Instapundit (so he is not a gadfly) and he is calling NC for Obama based on early turnout numbers
I just got off the phone with Mike Ash, Director of the Durham County Board of Elections in Durham, NC. He doesn't have any numbers as far as percentages of eligible voters making it to the polls at this point, but said several polling locations have already hit record numbers. That is as of 11:30 AM. It appears that the record turnout in early voting on Sunday is expected to continue through today.
This matters because Durham is something of a bellwether of African-American voter turn-out in North Carolina. A high African-American turnout—and it appears that is indeed occurring—makes a Clinton win impossible.
At this point, the only thing worth discussing is Obama's margin of victory here in the Tarheel State.
UPDATE 5:
Not much going on right now but in the meantime ...
I dont know if it is snark or infuriating stupidity but the Charlotte N&Opredicts the possible outcomes
If Clinton wins Indiana and Obama North Carolina:
Nothing changes. Both candidates were expected to win those states, both will claim victory in their own ways, and the national press moves on to West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon. Clinton is still an outside chance for the nomination.
If Clinton wins Indiana and North Carolina:
A game-changer. Clinton argues she is the only candidate who is electable, while some superdelegates begin to worry that the damage from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, etc., is too great. Obama is red-faced before thousands at Reynolds Coliseum.
If Obama wins Indiana and North Carolina:
Less of a game-changer. Obama argues he has won over the elusive blue-collar vote in a state favored for Clinton while hanging on to college students and black voters. Clinton rebuts that Indiana has not gone for a Democrat since 1964 so it doesn't really count.
Some more news from demconwatch.blogspot.com about turnout and Bill Clinton annoying me some more.
UPDATE 12:00 PM Eastern: Turnout in Greensboro still steady. Bill Clinton on the ground in Charlotte at polling places all morning. Senator Clinton called into a conservative talk radio show in Charlotte (Republicans can't take Democratic ballots here, so not sure how that was effective). My guess is that President Clinton will be down East in Greenville later this afternoon.
Precinct 18-05 in Raleigh has seen 814 votes cast out of a possible 2,193 votes available. That's nearly a 40% turnout with roughly 7 hours left to go...
UPDATE 6
Mark Blumenthal is confused by the Zogby polls although he debunks the idea that the more undecideds a poll has, the more they underestimate Clinton's numbers.
But, still, he does not entirely buy Zogby
In thinking about what to make about the difference between Zogby and the other polls, it may be useful to think about what it means for a respondent to tell a pollster they are "undecided" in the days leading up to the election. There are at least three possibilities:
1. They are going to vote but are still uncertain about which candidate to support
2. They are going to vote, have decided which candidate they support but are not willing to share their preference with the person (or computer) on the other end of the phone line
3. They are not going to vote but were mistakenly identified as a "likely voter" by the pollster
Pollsters understand that many voters hover somewhere between a final decision and being totally undecided. So most consider it good practice to "push" uncertain voters, especially near election day, as the candidate they lean to supporting is almost always the candidate they ultimately support.
So I tend to agree with Pollster readers who have expressed frustration in comments with pollsters reporting a large undecided preference. What is especially puzzling about the Zogby result, however, is the very large percentage that they have reported as favoring "someone else" -- 4% in North Carolina (down from 8% over the weekend) and 5% in Indiana (down from 7%). What does that mean? Are respondents expressing a preference for John Edwards? John McCain? Are those really non-primary voters?
At any rate, given that the demographics of Zogby's samples are not radically different from the other pollsters in the two states, there is certainly a good possibility that a harder "push" would benefit Clinton. We also have seen in exit polls that late deciders have favored Clinton in most of the primaries since Super Tuesday. More on both states -- and particularly the issue of late deciders favoring Clinton -- later today.
Mark Halperin listens to Limbaugh today
Conservative radio host leads Tuesday broadcast with news reports, testimonials he says he’s getting from the field of Republicans participating in crossover voting to keep the Democratic race going.
Btw is anyone still reading the diary ?