Election Eve

It looks like the polls may be moving ever so slightly in the direction of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday's pivotal Democratic Party primary elections in Texas and Ohio. Sen. Clinton is fighting for her political life against Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois with the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party hanging in the balance.

Sen. Obama leads in total delegates and has won 11 contests in a row. Sen. Clinton badly needs a win of any kind. As I said earlier, I thought the "red phone" ad--a political advertisement in which a red phone rings at 3 a.m. and a narrator asks which person you want to answer that phone, Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama--had the potential of working.

Tracking polls today on RealClearPolitics.com indicate Sen. Clinton has regained her lead in Ohio and may be squeaking ahead in Texas. In Ohio, the main issue is the economy and here the red phone probably did not make much difference. In particular, the main flash point in Ohio between the two candidates is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Both candidates have been arguing that NAFTA, and by extension free trade itself, has caused jobs to flee states like Ohio and they are discussing measures which critics call "protectionist".

But an issue concerning NAFTA is causing angst for Sen. Obama. It seems one of his senior aides--an economic adviser named Austan Goolsbee--told a member of the Canadidan consulate to ignore Sen. Obama's comments about NAFTA, that they were just "campaign rhetoric." When the story broke in Canada, the Obama campaign denied the meeting even happened, but CTV, which broke the story, stood by its account. The Obama campaign then said CTV "retracted" the story, which it didn't, and for the first time in months, the usually tight and disciplined Obama campaign seems to have gone off the rails a bit on this story.

Since this is a salient issue in Ohio, it could be a reason why Sen. Clinton is gaining traction there. Texas is different with both candidates in a dead heat.

If Sen. Clinton does manage to win both states--even by the skin of her teeth--she can claim to have stopped his momentum even if she does not catch up to the total number of delegates he claims (1392-1279) and she would stay in the race with a political reprieve.

I'll look at tracking polls tomorrow and make a prediction. I've been spectacularly wrong betting against Sen. Obama so I want to see more data before taking the plunge.

On the Republican side, it is possible that Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and the clear presumptive nominee, could "go over the top" and gain enough delegates to mathematically clinch the nomination. That is a huge story, of course, but will be overshadowed by the exciting and media-absorbing Obama-Clinton race in Texas and Ohio.

I will try to post later but as of now, it looks like what the media is calling "Super Tuesday II" is going to be a real nail-biter.