A few things that have happened today really make me wonder if there's not something going on. Could it be that the internal polls -- for both Obama and Clinton -- are showing this thing a lot tighter than the public polls have it?
Now, I understand why we don't wanna get too excited about Obama's chances in Pennsylvania. I understand that it might be better to keep the expectations at something around a low double-figure win for Clinton. But if even the Obama camp feels comfortable in raising expectations a little, I don't see why we have to keep it to ourselves.
So anyway, I don't have specific links to most of this; it's just stuff I've noticed on TV today while skimming through the cable news channels. Here ya go:
Obama said in an interview this morning: "I'm not predicting a win, but I'm predicting that it's gonna be pretty close and that we're gonna do a lot better than people expect."
Rep. Chaka Fattah, an Obama supporter from Pennsylvania, said earlier today that Obama losing by "anything under 5 points" would be good for Obama.
At least two different Clinton people, incl. Wolfson, made comments like, "Remember how much he's outspent us by. So he should really win the state."
Both Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough said that, although Hillary really needed a win, unless Obama manages to pull off an upset, he could be seen as the "loser" since it proves "he can't close the deal."
A commentator pointed out that in the average household, it's more likely for a woman to answer the phone when it rings. Therefore it's more likely a pollster will talk to a woman, all other things being equal. Hillary has obviously been doing better than Obama among women.
Another commentator pointed out that cell phone users aren't accounted for in polling; that those are more likely to be younger people; younger people are likely to be Obama supporters; and in this election, for a change, young people seem to really be "energized". Chris Matthews mentioned this too.
Obama has spent much of the last day in the Scranton area, which was expected to go pretty heavily for Hillary. But apparently one poll showed it's now about 50/50 there.
All this has occured within the past day or so.
I can understand why the Hillary people would want to lower expectations, but they've now lowered them to a ridiculous level (even to the point that Obama "should win"). Seems they're hedging their bets a lot more in the past couple days. Same might be said for conservative commentators like Buchanan and Scarborough, who obviously hope the Dem nominee is Hillary.
But I really can't see why the Obama people would be OK with saying it's gonna be "pretty close" or "under 5 points." Unless, that is, they're pretty confident it will be that close (or closer).