There's been a lot of talk about Obama's winning Texas and Ohio would be a knock out blow. Some polls have shown Obama in the lead, which naturally leads people to expect him to win one or both. And there's talk (mostly from Clinton's camp) about Obama now needing to win all four states tomorrow. And talk about how Clinton winning both Texas and Ohio will give her an argument about continuing her campaign.
Enough.
All that talk obscures a simple fact that has remained true all along. Hillary Clinton must win the delegates from both Texas and Ohio by substantial margins or her campaign is effectively over. And that is the line that needs to be repeated over and over heading into tomorrow.
Let's start with a baseline fact: as little as a few weeks ago, the polls showed Clinton with such substantial margins in both Texas and Ohio. Early February polls had her up as much as 20 points in Ohio, and she was still in the double digits by the time the Wisconsin primary rolled around. In Texas, she enjoyed strong leads throughout February as well, peaking with a 16 point lead in the middle of the month according to a Rasmussen poll.
As many of us know, these are the sort of margins she needs in both states after her losses in 11 straight contests in Febrauary:
Here is where we currently stand: not only must Sen. Clinton win Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania primaries, she must do so in convincing fashion. If the math of NBC's Political Director Chuck Todd is accurate, that convincing fashion must look like a 65-35 margin.
Though not impossible, the hill she must climb is steep and getting steeper with each Obama victory. Her losing 11 straight primaries to Obama would suggest Clinton did not have a post Super Tuesday strategy.
Because of the proportional style of allocating delegates in the Democratic nomination process, winning Ohio and/or Texas by a small margin will not allow her to net the amount of delegates we need.
Mark Ambinder's attempt to map out the best case scenario for Clinton tomorrow -- winning Ohio by 8 points and a close win in Texas -- showed Clinton netting only 14 delegates. Obama scoring about 10 delegate in the next two states (Wyoming and Mississippi) would knock out most of her March 4 gains. After that, even assuming blow out wins for Clinton in her best spots of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, Clinton would still be down by "approximately 100 delegates in total" even "under these most rosy of scenarios" for her. Of course, Pennsylvania is already trending down for her, so the bloom is already off the latest bunch of roses too.
Thus, she needs more than single digit wins tomorrow in these states. Indeed, Texas and Ohio are called "firewalls" for a reason: these delegate rich state presented her best chance of negating whatever lead Obama built up last month. The "firewalls" don't hold if she limps out of March 4th with a tiny delegate gain that will likely be wiped out in the next two contests.
Just to show how far Clinton has fallen, Ambinder was saying this right before Super Tuesday about her "firewall" strategy:
[The] basic point, though, is that regardless of what happens on Feb 5 (unless there is a blow [out],) the rest of February favors Barack Obama, and March favors Hillary Clinton. That means that there's almost no way either candidate will throw in the towel before then, and the pressure on February will be on Hillary Clinton to set expectations correctly and keep a slim delegate lead as Obama racks up victory after victory.
So, what Clinton was supposed to do was keep a lead heading into Texas and Ohio so that she could put Obama away there. Of course, she didn't keep a lead. She didn't even keep Obama to a slim lead. So now, without blowout victories tomorrow, it's Obama that's getting closer to his goal by holding off any substantial delegate gains.
Of course, most of you know this. But it's important to reemphasise the basic truths on election eve. More importantly, it's critical for people to keep these realities on the forefront of everyone's mind throughout the electorate, the party, and the media. Even if Hillary gets on states to declare a victory or two, everyone should instantly think that, without blowouts, her declared "victories" are hollow and meaningless when it comes to winning the nomination.
The phrase that should be repeated again and again this week: Hillary needs to win big in Texas and Ohio.
The media loves a horse race, so they'll certainly be apt to buy any spin that keeps this race alive if she gets her single digit wins these states tomorrow. And the scared superdelegates might vbiew any Clinton vicotry as enough to keep them in her camp or the undecided column. That would be a shame, because the real story would be this: Clinton was up big in Texas and Ohio just a few weeks ago, but Obama's momentum took away her best chance to even things up. Obama keeps his big lead, and Clinton's time has close to run out.