Reply #29: It was over

[quaker bill]

When Hillary did not win Ohio, Texas, and PA by 20+ percent each. The margin she needed there was well understood and much discussed.

Jeremiah Wright is irrelevant, to the extent he wasn't for a bit, he went quite a bit out of his way to make his irrelevance happen, and Barack obliged. The most Hillary got out of that episode was the appearance of drawing even with Barack, when his numbers slipped a bit below 50 for about a week. The poll of polls and trend average never put her above 47 percent, and it never has. 47% is her ceiling in nationwide polls on average. In a two person race, this puts you firmly in second place.

There is no conspiracy here. My money was on Hillary ending up second to someone before the first vote was cast. I had no clue who would end up first and personally preferred Edwards and Biden, but I always knew Hillary would end up in second to one of the candidates. It is good to remember that when she looked "inevitable" she was running in the low 30s in a field of 8 candidates. Since then, she has gotten all the way up to 47, a number which I always felt was her ceiling, in both the primaries and the general.

I haven't been hanging around here much this go round, but note from the star and the number of posts that I have spent alot of time here in the past. One particular post back in January 2004, I predicted that John Kerry would lose the general by three percent, before the first primary vote was cast. I hated to be right about that and worked hard for it to come out the other way. I ended up here a long time ago looking for someplace to vent frustration left over from working for Gore in Fla.

My line on this general is that Barack will take it by more than 5 points (and 300+ ev), take it to the bank.

QB